Colors of Chaos (Saga of Recluce)

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “I see that,” Cerryl grudged. “But frightening the people?”

  “After all the dead and wounded, and all the nasty devices the blues used…whatever happened in Elparta would not have been good. You cannot control soldiers who have been ambushed and attacked for seasons. Not without killing a number, and then they won’t fight well for you in the next effort. So you make sure that most of those who would fear you leave.” Jeslek shrugged. “I even told them that I offered honorable terms, especially given the depredations committed upon all Candar, the unfairness in trading, and the slaughter of defenseless traders.” The High Wizard laughed, then coughed, once, twice, before clearing his throat. “That’s also why I didn’t want you around.”

  “Oh.” Cerryl could feel his guts tightening.

  “You get to put the city back together. You are the mage in charge of Elparta, the one to restore it and to ensure keeping the peace. You wanted to bend the Patrol’s rules to benefit people. Here you can make or break the rules any way you want…so long as you get the city back together by late spring.”

  After this…? Cerryl did swallow.

  Jeslek ignored Cerryl’s almost inaudible gulp. “Fydel will deal with the Spidlarians, should it be necessary. You are to work together, if required.”

  “I see.”

  Thrap. After the brief knock on the door, Anya stepped inside. “I have what you asked for.” She walked over to the table and extended a single sheet of parchment to the High Wizard.

  Jeslek motioned to the vacant chair to his left and began to read silently. Anya sat and waited, her face expressionless.

  “Yes, this will do.” His sun-gold eyes glittered as he handed the parchment to Cerryl.

  The youngest mage took the document and began to read.

  …and know ye all that the commander of the city and all that be within it shall be the honorable mage Cerryl…

  A long, long winter…

  From where she sat between Jeslek and Cerryl, not looking at either man, Anya’s eyes glittered.

  CV

  IF HE HAD to take over as city commander or council chief or whatever, like it or not, Cerryl needed some building that could serve as his quarters and as a place where lancers and others could meet with him—one separate from Jeslek’s building and where he wouldn’t freeze once the ice and snow came. He needed such a place soon, since Jeslek was already readying his departure—with a goodly portion of the White Lancers who had taken Elparta.

  Cerryl had found Hiser and given him the task of locating possible dwellings, ones where adjoining or attached dwellings could be used to house Hiser’s and Ferek’s companies—and ones close to Jeslek’s putative headquarters, even if Jeslek would not be in Elparta.

  Now, as the fall rain misted down around him, Cerryl leaned forward in the saddle and looked down a wide avenue—for Elparta—just on the north side of the slope that held the High Wizard’s quarters toward a large, but comparatively more modest, dwelling set behind a low wall.

  “This one…well, it be the best Ferek or me could find.” Hiser coughed. “Better than those leaking inns by the river. Smells, though. Everything does.”

  Cerryl rode slowly the last hundred cubits, stopping short of the wall. The house was sturdy enough, despite the red roof tiles that had cracked in the upheavals that had tumbled the city walls. The front stone wall rose nearly six cubits. On one side the carriage gate had ripped off the iron brackets, although the smaller wrought-iron foot access gate remained locked in place. Behind the carriage gate was a stable separated from the main house by a courtyard.

  After easing the gelding through the carriage gate, Cerryl tied his mount to a hitching post under the overhanging front eaves of the stable and dismounted. Hiser and two lancers quickly did the same and then led the way through the light rain to the front door.

  One of the lancers turned the bronze door lever and pushed the door open. The odor welling out immediately turned Cerryl’s guts, and he stepped back for a moment to see if the light breeze would help clear the stench. While the worst did dissipate, Cerryl found himself breathing through his mouth as he stepped into the green-tiled and walnut-paneled front foyer of the dwelling. The four drawers of the oak chest set against the right wall hung out, except for the third, which rested on the floor, various colored linens strewn around it.

  The single floor chest in the sitting room had also been ransacked, with shards of pottery sprayed across the green tiles and the braided gold rug in the center of the floor.

  Cerryl repressed a retching gag as he stepped past the settee and through the squared archway into the small study adjoining the sitting room. Three bodies, already putrefying, lay on the pale green ceramic tiles between the corner table-desk and the circular table.

  One had been—he thought—a young woman. The others might have been her parents. He tried not to swallow as he gathered chaos.

  “Darkness,” whispered Hiser.

  One of the young lancers ran for the front door, and Cerryl could hear retching outside.

  Whhtsttt! The firebolt removed the putrefying corpses and the worst of the odor.

  “Open the shutters, and the windows.” Cerryl walked to the nearest window, opening the shutters and then the glass. Unlike most dwellings in Elparta, the house did have blown-glass windows, with shutters both inside and outside the sliding glass.

  For a time he stood before the open shutters, letting the cold and damp air flow around him and into the rear study. The study would serve as a conference room—it had a circular table and even a corner desk.

  He turned and crossed the sitting room, going past the carved balustrade of the narrow staircase to the second floor. The dining area was to the right of the kitchen and partly to the rear.

  “Who do we have that can cook?” Cerryl shook his head, his thoughts going back to the three bodies. Had the young woman/girl been raped and killed? Or had the three killed themselves? The doors did not appear to have been forced, and the limited looting could have come later, but Cerryl wasn’t sure that meant anything.

  Maybe they thought their wealth would protect them?

  Cerryl frowned as he stepped through the kitchen with its neat worktables and peered into the pantry—also undisturbed. Whoever had lived in the house had been well-off, wealthy even. And innocent of everything but ignorance. Despite Jeslek’s cruel “terms,” they had chosen to stay. How many others had, preferring near-certain death to exile?

  The more he saw, Cerryl was convinced, the less certain he was about the wisdom of anything.

  The dining area was untouched, as were the three bedchambers upstairs, with the exception of a single small chest, less than a cubit square, that lay smashed on the landing upstairs. A single silver that had rolled against the top of the balustrade indicated what the chest had once held.

  Yet clothes had not been taken, nor any of the silver dishes in the sideboard in the dining area. Was that because there were so many empty houses and so comparatively few lancers and levies? Or because coins were easier to carry and hide?

  Cerryl turned and studied the largest bedchamber from the small upper hall landing—four-poster bed, with solid dark wood posts at each corner, a silk-covered chair in one corner, two matching wardrobes with a full-length wall mirror between them, two windows, each shuttered and framed with maroon silks, and a door to a bathing chamber.

  And three bodies…

  Cerryl walked down into the front foyer. Hiser followed him. Both lancers waited by the still-open front door. A faint green tinge suffused the face of the younger blonde lancer.

  “This looks good. We need to keep airing it out for a while. What about the houses on each side?” Cerryl looked at the blonde subofficer.

  “The dwellings on each side be not quite so good,” confessed Hiser. “Better than those below, mayhap.”

  Cerryl smiled grimly. The work required might keep the lancers’ thoughts off other matters. Maybe.

  His eyes drifted in the direc
tion of the study, and he hoped that the odor would fade before too long. He tried not to think about how many more bodies there had been—or might be.

  CVI

  THE HIGH WIZARD is expecting you.” The lancer subofficer opened the door as Cerryl walked toward the guards stationed at the end of the short hallway. The candles in the smudged wall sconces were unlit, leaving the corridor dim and smelling faintly of burned wax.

  Cerryl stepped through the door into the private library of the mansion that Jeslek had appropriated and eased into the chair across the circular table from the High Wizard, glad for the warmth from the hearth. The books remaining on the shelves behind Jeslek had been rearranged and no longer appeared randomly piled on their sides.

  Anya and Fydel were already seated, Anya to Cerryl’s left, Fydel to his right. A decanter of wine sat on a silver tray, with a single empty goblet beside it. Anya, Fydel, and Jeslek all had partly filled goblets before them.

  Fydel’s fingers tapped the polished wood of the conference table, once, before Anya raised her eyebrows.

  “We can begin.” Jeslek smiled.

  “I am at your command.” Cerryl returned the smile, then reached for the decanter and half-filled the remaining goblet. While he did not need the wine, the gesture was important, and he took a sip of the wine, an amber vintage, unlike that he had been offered when he had first arrived, but one also verging on turning to vinegar. Too much chaos around Jeslek.

  The slightest hint of a smile touched the corners of Anya’s mouth, while Fydel tapped the table once more.

  “You will do your own commanding soon.” Jeslek glanced from Fydel to Cerryl, then back at Fydel.

  Anya kept her eyes averted from both Cerryl and the square-bearded mage.

  “I’ve written it down and sent it to Kinowin and Redark,” Jeslek said with a smile. “Fydel, you are to defend Elparta and to take the fight to the Spidlarians, as necessary. Cerryl, you are to work at rebuilding Elparta, and you are to keep the peace. You may conscript locals as necessary for building and rebuilding.”

  Cerryl nodded. That was an option he didn’t like, but he also doubted that he would find all that many carpenters and masons in the lancers—and fewer still who would admit to such skills.

  “If it appears that the renegade Black commander—this Brede—is preparing for a massive attack, Fydel, you will summon me immediately.” Jeslek’s eyes flashed. “Is that clear?”

  “Yes, High Wizard.” The timbre of Fydel’s voice verged on that of boredom.

  “In like terms, Cerryl, you are to rebuild Elparta so that it can serve as our staging base for next year’s attack. The river piers must be rebuilt, and enough housing for fifty-score lancers and 250-score levies.”

  Cerryl nodded. Two hundred fifty score? “What about supplies? And coins?”

  “You will have one thousand golds, as will Fydel. You will have to raise provisions and supplies locally. The Guild will continue to pay the lancers, but their pay will be held, as normal, until they return to Fairhaven.”

  Cerryl held in a wince. The held pay was not going to go over well with the lancers, and that would mean trouble with peacekeeping and the locals.

  “The men need some coins,” Fydel finally said in a low voice.

  “Use your golds as you wish.” Jeslek shrugged. “I am releasing all the levies except the levied lancers from Hydlen. I will be taking ten score with me. That leaves you with twenty-five score.” His eyes fixed on Fydel and hardened.

  They lost fifteen score lancers in taking Elparta? Cerryl pursed his lips. Fifteen score? This Brede is better than anyone will admit.

  “As you command, High Wizard,” Fydel responded politely.

  “I am going to raise the coins and the armsmen necessary to take the rest of Spidlar in the spring. Personally.” Jeslek’s sun-gold eyes did not glitter but seemed cold and flat, like a serpent’s. “Anya will be assisting me in this winter’s preparations.”

  Anya still refrained from looking directly at either Fydel or Cerryl.

  “You may all go.” With a lazy smile, Jeslek stood. “You each have much to accomplish in the days before Anya and I depart.”

  Cerryl took a last small swallow of the wine he had barely tasted, then stood quickly, before the other two.

  Jeslek remained standing by the table. The lancer subofficer closed the door after the three left the library.

  Outside, Anya stepped up beside Cerryl as he walked along the hall and into the foyer. The scent of trilia and sandalwood accompanied her, as always. “You’re no longer ‘young Cerryl.’”

  Were you ever? “Why do you say that?” Cerryl took his stained white jacket from the peg on the coat holder and slipped it on.

  “The bit with the wine goblet. You didn’t even hesitate. Or the blunt question about supplies.” Anya smiled. “You intrigue me more than ever, Cerryl.”

  Cerryl returned Anya’s smile with one equally bright and false. “You flatter me. You are the intriguing one.”

  “Oh, stop flattering each other.” Fydel snorted. “You’re both false as tin trinkets. And as useful.”

  “Cerryl will be very useful to you, Fydel,” Anya answered with a softer smile. “You’ll be free to pursue any blues you can find while he’s worried about masons, and bricks, and planks—and piers and peacekeeping.”

  Cerryl wished it were going to be that simple, but he had his doubts, strong ones.

  Fydel snorted a second time. “The winter will be long, even with what must be done.”

  “You two will manage.” Anya offered a last smile.

  Cerryl inclined his head to the redhead, then to Fydel, before leading the way out into the clear and cold afternoon. Despite the brisk wind, the miasma of death still hung over the city.

  Cerryl swung into the gelding’s saddle, wondering how he could accomplish all that Jeslek had laid upon him. Does he want you to fail? Again? The brown-haired mage nodded, his eyes somewhere beyond the street as he rode back toward his quarters.

  CVII

  CERRYL LOOKED AT the blank scroll on the corner desk, then at the darkness that lay beyond the shuttered windows. The house he had taken was quiet, and even in the adjoining dwellings he suspected most lancers were sleeping, except for those on guard duty.

  SSsss…The oil lamp hissed momentarily, then sputtered and hissed again. He glanced at it, wondering if the reservoir were empty, but the hissing died, and the yellow glow from the mantel continued to fall across the empty dun expanse of the parchment.

  The White mage suppressed a yawn. It seemed like he ran from dawn until after dusk…dealing with so many things he’d never thought of, not only supplies and fodder, but tools, smithies for weapons, and even nails or bolts. How did you replace planks without some fasteners, especially when the only substitute was treenails, and they didn’t work that well for barely skilled lancers and peasants?

  He rubbed his forehead and looked down again.

  For only the second time in almost three seasons, he could send Leyladin a message that would reach her, if he finished it before morning, when a messenger and lancer guards left for Fairhaven. Yet he hadn’t the faintest idea where to begin. Or rather, he had so much to say.

  Finally, he began to write, smiling as he scripted the first line.

  My dearest Leyladin…

  After that, the words got easier, enough so that before long he was reaching for a second sheet. Then the words got slower, and he had to turn and trim the lamp wick twice before he signed the bottom of the second sheet and laid it aside to dry.

  After rubbing his forehead, sitting in the quiet of the study, ignoring the changing of the two lancer guards outside the front door, he picked up the first sheet, and his eyes skipped over the lines as he reread what he had written:

  …have good quarters here, although I am troubled by how I came by them. It was not my doing, not exactly…so long since we have had a true roof overhead…yet I always thought of you…as you must know from my earlier mess
age and from my glimpses through the glass…tried not to intrude…but I have missed you…more than I ever would have known…

  He shook his head. That wasn’t quite true. Even before he had really met her, she had been important to him. What drew you to her…and her to you? Order and chaos? The need for some sort of balance?

  After a moment, he continued to reread his words:

  …Elparta lies in our hands, and I am supposed to return it to a semblance of prosperity, but there are few masons and few woodworkers among the lancers and almost no crafters at all among the wretched souls who survived the place’s fall…I found one mason’s apprentice with a crushed hand and an old fellow who’d been a carpenter once…little enough that I know, but it is more than many of the men I must direct…

  …already we have had some light snow, and the winter promises to be cold indeed. I shudder to think what it must be like along the shores of the Northern Ocean…

  …I have no idea when we will be returning to Fairhaven. It could be well into next year, if not longer…

  Longer? Momentarily he wanted to pound the desk—or something. Yet nothing had happened exactly as he wished. Even getting to know Leyladin had taken far longer than he had ever thought possible.

  …however long that may be, you know what I feel and how strongly, and no words will convey what you have felt, and I would not try to reduce such to letters upon parchment…

  Besides, unlike Leyladin, you don’t know who will be reading what you write. She—or Layel—had effectively owned the guard who had delivered her scroll to him, a scroll he still kept with his possessions, a scroll whose green-inked sentences he still read and reread.

  After another yawn, he rolled the scroll and, after heating the sealing wax over the top of the oil lamp, sealed it and laid it on the desk to be sent with the next dispatches to Jeslek in Fairhaven. Then he blew out the lamp and turned toward the stairs. Tomorrow would come—cold and all too soon.