Colors of Chaos

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “It was quiet. I’ve seen farm wagons and even a stone wagon, but not many other kinds. There are more passengers on the coaches, and they look like factors.”

  “That should not surprise you.”

  Cerryl couldn’t say he was surprised, but he also could not have said why he was not surprised.

  “Do you know how the exchanges work?”

  “Not very well. The factors make agreements to buy or sell goods in future seasons, sometimes for things that haven’t even been grown or mined.”

  Kinowin stepped toward the table, then leaned forward and put his hands on the back of the chair. “The exchanges help smooth trade. I’d judge that is as good an explanation as any. The factors use the exchange in hopes of making coins or, when times are lean, to avoid losing too many coins. So… when things are unsettled, long before others realize there may be trouble, the factors are buying and selling those future goods. Will there be a famine in Certis or Southwind? The price of wheat corn two seasons from now goes up. The price of cattle goes down.”

  “Ah… the price of cattle goes down?”

  Kinowin shrugged. “If the fields are brown and bare and grain is dear, the farmers and the holders must sell.”

  Cerryl wanted to shake his head. He’d never even considered such matters.

  Kinowin flashed a sardonic smile. “To the blade’s edge, Cerryl. To the blade’s edge. The exchanges have been most busy lately. The price of future timber is going up. Do you know why?”

  Cerryl looked at the overmage helplessly.

  “Ships-it takes timber to build them, and they require the older, heavier oak and the long pole firs.”

  Cerryl understood.

  “You see? Then tell me what that means.”

  “Well… if someone is building ships, but not so many traders are coming to Fairhaven, then they aren’t building trading ships, but warships…”

  “Both Recluce and Spidlar are building more ships. I’d say for trade. Others… are building ships because they are losing trade.”

  “Are we building ships? In Sligo?”

  “Let me just say that I would be most surprised if the High Wizard had not contracted with the Sligan shipwrights for a few more vessels. That is something I would not mention to anyone.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  “Myral said you worked very hard to master a wide range of skills.” Kinowin looked hard at Cerryl. “In the times we are living in, I would suggest you continue to work hard. Being a gate guard offers some time and opportunities for practice. You might see if you could master the illusion of not appearing where you stand. Although I have some suspicions you know something about that.” Kinowin’s eyes twinkled. “You might see if you could refine your chaos senses even more-see if you can determine by sense alone every item in an incoming wagon. I won’t offer too many suggestions, but any skill you improve will improve others.” The big mage straightened and let go of the chair.

  “Yes, ser.”

  “I will see you tomorrow.” Kinowin turned back to the window and the still-darkening clouds. A rumble of distant thunder muttered over Fairhaven.

  Cerryl closed the door behind him.

  “… heard the door. Like as he won’t be long, lady mage. Your words are kind…”

  “Just remember…” Leyladin straightened from her conversation with the young messenger.

  Gostar was no longer one of the duty guards and had been replaced by a White Guard Cerryl didn’t know, a man with an angular face and a short-trimmed beard.

  “Shall we go?” the blonde healer asked. “I’m hungry.”

  “So am I.”

  Leyladin turned and bestowed a parting smile on the messenger, getting a shy and faint one in return.

  “You’ve made another friend.” Cerryl glanced across the entry foyer of the front Hall as they descended the steps side by side.

  “Most of them are lonely.”

  Cerryl wondered. The children of the mages in the creche had each other. He’d never even really talked to another child near his own age until he’d been apprenticed to Dylert. Erhana had been snobbish, but she’d helped him learn his letters, and without that, he never would have become Tellis’s apprentice-or been accepted into the Guild. Faltar had befriended Cerryl and become his first real friend, when Cerryl had first come to the Halls. That had been before Faltar had been seduced by Anya, but Faltar remained his friend. Friends were too hard to come by.

  “You’re quiet.” Leyladin glanced at him. “Your childhood was lonelier, I know, but they’re still lonely.”

  Cerryl almost stopped as he stepped off the last riser of the staircase and onto the polished stone floor tiles of the foyer floor but managed not to miss the step.

  “That bothered you. Why?”

  After a moment, he answered, “I just hadn’t thought of it quite that way.”

  “I suppose I’ve had the luxury of being able to look at things without struggling for coins and food.” The blonde shivered as they went down the steps to the walk beside the Avenue. “It’s gotten colder.”

  “It has. Faltar said spring was coming.”

  In the early evening, darker than usual with the overhanging clouds, the Avenue was near-empty, with a sole rider plodding northward and away from the Wizards’ Square. Cerryl fastened his white leather jacket halfway up as snowflakes drifted past them. He glanced over at Leyladin, wrapped in a dark green woolen cloak. Snowflakes-Cerryl didn’t expect such in spring. Then, it was early spring, and the new leaves had barely budded, while the old leaves had barely begun to turn from gray to green. He could feel the slight headache that came with storms, not so severe as with a driving rainstorm, more like the twinge of a light rain.

  “Storms affect you, don’t they?”

  “How did you know?”

  “You told me, remember?”

  Had he? He wasn’t certain he had, but his life had changed so much, and so quickly, he sometimes felt he was just struggling to take in everything-like Kinowin’s continuing lectures on trade and now more insistence on improving his skills.

  The two walked quietly through the scattered flakes until they were less than a block from the south side of the Market Square.

  “This way.” Leyladin inclined her head to the left.

  Another block found them turning north again.

  “Here we are.” She gestured.

  Leyladin’s house was not on the front row of homes on the Avenue below the Market Square, but in the slightly smaller dwellings one block behind those of Muneat and the more affluent factors. Instead of a dozen real glass windows across the front of the dwelling, there were merely four large arched windows on each side of the ornately carved red oak double doors, but each of the windows held several dozen small diamond-shaped glass panes set in lead. Each window sparkled from the lamps within the house.

  The front of the house extended a good fifty cubits from side to side, and deeper than that, Cerryl suspected as Leyladin led him up the granite walk, a walk flanked just by winter-browned grass.

  “The gardens are in the back,” Leyladin answered his unspoken question. “Father said they were for us, not to display to passersby.” The blonde mage opened the front door. “Soaris! Father! We’re here.”

  She stepped into a bare foyer barely four cubits wide and twice that in length, with smooth stone walls on either side. Cerryl followed and closed the door. On the left wall was mounted a polished wooden beam, with pegs for jackets and cloaks. Against the right wall was a backless golden oak bench. Beside it was a boot scraper. A boot brush leaned against the wall stones.

  Cerryl offered the brush to Leyladin, then took it after she finished and brushed his own boots. Then he took off his white jacket and hung it on one of the pegs.

  A huge, heavy man wearing a blue overtunic appeared at the back of the narrow foyer. “Lady Leyladin, your father awaits you and your companion in the study.”

  “We will be right there, Soaris.”

  “Ve
ry good, lady.” Soaris bowed again and departed.

  Cerryl turned to her. “Lady Leyladin?”

  The blonde mage blushed. “Some hold Father… in high regard, since Mother died when I was young and my sisters are gone, I help father by acting as lady of the household, since he has no consort.”

  Cerryl shook his head slowly. “I knew that you were well off…”

  “Oh?” Leyladin arched her eyebrows. “From your peeking through the glass? I’ll wager you didn’t tell Sterol about that.”

  “I did,” Cerryl confessed. “Except I didn’t tell him who I looked at. You felt me. You told me that, remember? You were so strong that I stopped looking. I never dared try again.”

  “You were saying…” she said gently.

  “Oh…” He shrugged. “I saw the silks and hangings. I thought you were the daughter of a wealthy merchant-but not so high as a lady.” He grinned. “A lady and a mage and a healer. Far above this lowly junior mage.”

  “Stop it.” The healer grimaced. “You’re already more powerful than I am or will ever be. Let’s see Father.”

  Cerryl followed her through the foyer arch into the main entry hall. The floors were blue-green marble squares, polished so smooth that the four bronze wall lamps and their sconces shed light from both the wall and the floor. The air smelled of trilia and roses-together with another scent, a lighter one. The walls, even the inside walls, were smoothed granite block to waist-level and white plaster above.

  Green silks hung from the archway through which Leyladin led Cerryl into a long sitting room, one with two settees upholstered in green velvet and two matching and upholstered wooden armchairs. All were arranged around a long and low table of polished and inlaid woods. The table inlays had been designed to portray the image of a ship under full sail.

  Cerryl paused as he studied the table and then the pair of matched cabinets against the wall, cabinets that almost framed the single picture in a silvered frame on the middle of the inside wall. The image was that of a smiling, narrow-faced woman with generous lips and long wavy blonde tresses. She wore a green vest embroidered in gold thread over a loose white silk shirt. The blue eyes seemed to follow Cerryl. He looked at Leyladin. “Your mother?”

  She nodded. “That was her favorite outfit, and it’s how I remember her.”

  The end of the sitting room held a hearth, with a brass screen before it. In the wall to the left of the hearth was an archway. Leyladin led Cerryl through the arch and then through a door to the right, ignoring the archway on the left. The study was but ten cubits on a side, perhaps five long paces, and three of the walls were paneled in dark-stained red oak. The forth and inside wall contained only shelves, though, but a third held scattered displays of books, the remainder holding decorative items-malachite vases, a curved silver pitcher, a narrow and ancient blade.

  A heavy man rose from the desk in the corner, angled so that the heat from coals in the hearth bathed him where he had been sitting. The top of his head was bald and shining, and on each side of his head blond hair half-covered his ears. A wide smile burst from his clean-shaven face, and green eyes, lighter than those of his daughter, smiled with his mouth.

  “Father, this is Cerryl. Cerryl, this is my father, Layel.”

  “So… you’re one of the young mages?” Layel stepped around the polished dark wood of the desk and offered a polite head bow.

  “A very junior mage among many.” Cerryl bowed in return.

  “He’s got a sense of place, Daughter! Maybe too modest for the Halls, from all I’ve seen.”

  “He is modest.”

  “We should be eating. Meridis will be letting me know for days that I let the food suffer.” Layel gestured and then let Leyladin lead the way out of the study and through the archway she and Cerryl had not taken on the way to the study.

  “What are we having?” asked the blonde as they entered a small dining hall.

  The dining hall was small only comparatively, thought Cerryl. While three places were set at one end, the long white golden table could have easily seated twenty. Each chair around the table was of the white golden oak, and each was upholstered in the dark green velvet. The pale white china sat upon place mats of light green linen, and matching linen napkins were set in holders beside the silver utensils flanking the china. Fluted crystal goblets were set by each plate.

  “Your favorite,” answered Layel, “the orange beef with the pearapple noodles.”

  Orange beef? Pearapple noodles? Pearapples had been scarce enough in Cerryl’s childhood, and to be savored on those few occasions when Uncle Syodor or Aunt Nail had produced one. Now Cerryl was about to have noodles made from them-as if they were as common as flour!

  “I broke out some of the white wine from Linspros.” Layel glanced at his daughter. “I needed some excuse for something that good. Couldn’t very well drink it by myself.”

  The trader sat at the head, with Cerryl and Leyladin at each side, facing each other across the end of the table. No sooner had the three seated themselves than a gray-haired woman in the same type of blue overtunic that Soaris was wearing appeared with two large platters of the same fine white china, then scurried out and returned with two more.

  Cerryl glanced across the offerings-thin cuts of beef interspersed with thinly sliced oranges and green leaves and covered with an orange glaze; fine white noodles; long green beans with nuts and butter; and dark bread.

  Layel served himself the beef and noodles. After he had finished, Leyladin nodded at Cerryl. “Please.”

  “Can’t say that, outside of the white, I’d be taking you for a mage.” Layel took the big glass bottle and poured the clear wine into the three crystal goblets one after another.

  Wine from glass bottles-another luxury Cerryl had heard about but never seen. “I know. I look more like a scrivener. I was once, an apprentice scrivener.”

  “Now that’s something I don’t know much about.” Layel laughed. “Books, you can’t buy ‘em cheap. So I don’t. Means I don’t sell them, either. Don’t have time to read them.” He lifted his goblet. “To friends, daughters, and companions.”

  Cerryl followed their example but took only the smallest sip of the wine. Even with that sip, with the hint of bubbliness and the lemon-nut freshness, he could feel that it was far stronger than anything he’d ever tasted and far, far better.

  “Ah… better than I remembered,” said Layel.

  “It is good.” Leyladin lifted the porcelain platter that held the still-steaming dark bread and offered it to her father. Layel broke off a chunk, and the blonde offered the platter to Cerryl.

  Cerryl took a chunk of the warm bread and glanced toward the older factor.

  Layel smiled, as if waiting for Cerryl to speak.

  “All of this… it’s different from the Halls,” Cerryl said slowly. “We don’t see that much outside… I haven’t anyway, even before I came to Fairhaven.” He paused. “There’s so much I’ve read about, but… Leyladin has told me you’re a trader, and I don’t know much about trading. What do you trade in?”

  “Anything that sells, young mage. Anything that sells. You trade in grain, and if the harvest is bad, you lose everything. You trade in copper, and when someone opens or closes a mine, you lose. I trade in what I can buy cheap and sell dear.” Layel refilled the crystal goblet before him and then Leyladin’s. He glanced at Cerryl’s goblet, still three-quarters full. “You haven’t drunk much.”

  “With me, a little wine goes a long way, but it’s very good. Very good.”

  “Father is not telling you everything. He hoards goods,” Leyladin interjected with a smile, passing the pitcher with the orange glaze in it. “He buys them cheaply this season and sells them dearly the next. He has two large warehouses here and one in Lydiar.”

  “You’ll be giving away all my secrets, Daughter.”

  “Just the two of you here?” Cerryl asked.

  “Now. My brother Wertel has a house in Lydiar. He runs the business for Father t
here, and my sisters live with their consorts here in Fairhaven. I’m the youngest.” Leyladin grinned. “And the most trouble.”

  “How could you say that, Daughter?” Layel shook his head in mock discouragement. “Trouble? You never brought in every stray dog in Fairhaven to heal it? You never had your head nearly split open because you would heal the fractious carriage horse? You never-”

  “Father…”

  “No… you couldn’t find a nice fellow and give me grandchildren.” The factor turned to Cerryl. “She had to become a healer. She was trying to heal everything-the dogs, the warehouse cat that got kicked by the mule, the watchman’s daughter…”

  Leyladin’s face clouded ever so slightly at the last, but the expression passed so quickly Cerryl wasn’t sure he’d seen it.

  “Healers are far more scarce than White mages,” Cerryl said brightly, taking a small mouthful of the beans and nuts with the fork that felt unfamiliar, copying Leyladin’s usage. They were so tender he barely had to chew them, and they hadn’t been cooked into mush in a stew pot.

  “Would that it were like trade, where what is scarce is dear,” mumbled Layel.

  “Father… finish eating…” Leyladin grinned.

  “Always on me, you and your mother. Best to enjoy good food.”

  “Talking with his mouth full is about his only bad habit,” Leyladin said.

  “And you’ve never let me forget it.” Layel turned to Cerryl. “She’ll find any of your ill ways and try to heal you of them. Fair warning I’m providing.”

  “Father…” Leyladin blushed.

  “Turning the glass is fair for both.”

  Cerryl took another sip of the wine, amazed at how good it tasted, uncertain of what he should say.

  Layel glanced at Cerryl. “I’ve embarrassed my daughter enough. She may know how you became a mage, but I do not. Perhaps you could shed a word or two about how you came to Fairhaven.”

  “I’m afraid that my life is quite common, compared to yours,” Cerryl protested.

  “Best we should judge that. A man’s no judge of himself.”