Colors of Chaos

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “Yes, ser. That’s the potters and the tanneries and the masons.”

  “Good. You’ll know where to find me if any of the other patrols need me.”

  Zubal’s dark brown eyes dropped to the floor as he bowed. “Yes, ser. He eased out into the corridor to wait by the messenger’s stool.

  Cerryl stepped from behind the table, his eyes taking in the wooden document boxes, the stacks of paper, and the quill holder. Then he headed for the assembly room, passing the silent Zubal, who stood by his stool in the corridor.

  One patrol-the one headed by the wide-mustached Fystl-was already filing out of the assembly room. “Good day, ser,” Fystl said with a nod. “Good day, Fystl.” Cerryl stepped into the assembly room, where the conversations-or briefings-dropped off, and glanced toward the patrol standing by the speaking stones. “Kesal? Might I have a word with you?”

  “Yes, ser.” The wiry patrol leader crossed the room and joined Cerryl in the corridor, his brown eyes meeting Cerryl’s, questioning.

  Cerryl took in the clean and smooth white uniform, the crimson patroller’s belt, the brown hair sprinkled with gray, the carefully trimmed beard, and the rectangular and honest-looking face. “I’ll be accompanying you for a time this morning. Zubal’s the messenger, and he knows that.”

  “Accompanying us, ser?”

  Behind Kesal, the other patrol leaders and their patrols filed out into the dawn.

  Cerryl shrugged. “I can’t learn the section sitting in the building, and the people can’t learn about me, either.”

  “Ah… yes, ser.”

  “Kesal, I’m not here to do your job. I’m not here to look over your shoulder and tell you what to do. I am here to support you, and to let people know that I do.” He nodded toward the assembly room. “Introduce me to your patrol.”

  Kesal nodded, clearly uncertain about a young Patrol mage who wanted to accompany a working patrol, then turned and walked through the open double doors of the assembly room toward the four men who remained in the room.

  “Mage Cerryl will be accompanying us this morning,” Kesal said blandly. “This is Chulk.” The brown-haired and young-faced patroller nodded. Cerryl noted the wide red scar across the back of his large left hand.

  “Bleren.” Bleren was squat and white-skinned, with wispy strawberry blond hair and a gap-toothed smile.

  “Olbel.” The swarthy, olive-skinned patroller nodded, the curly black mustache waxed firmly in place, black eyes sparkling under coarse black hair.

  “Pikek.” The last man in the patrol-short-cut mahogany hair and square sideburns-favored Cerryl with an unvarying smile that did not include his pale gray-green eyes.

  Cerryl didn’t know quite what to say. He’d met all the patrollers in his duty section once, but briefly, and he’d learned the names from the duty rosters, but only a handful of faces fit with names, and none were in Kesal’s patrol. After a moment, he said, “On and off, I’ll be going with every patrol for a time.” Then he nodded to Kesal, deciding against any more explanation.

  “Let’s go.” Kesal stood aside.

  So did Cerryl.

  The four patrollers filed out of the room and the building, followed by Kesal. Then Cerryl walked beside Kesal as the patrol turned eastward, along the south side of the cross street from the avenue-the Way of the Tanners, a street Cerryl had traveled more than a few times as an apprentice to Tellis the scrivener. Although Arkos had been the only tanner Tellis had used, Arkos had competitors-Murkad, Viot, and Sieck-as well as others farther out the street to the east where Cerryl had not gone back then.

  Chulk walked down the north side of the street while Olbel trailed Kesal and Cerryl. Pikek and Bleren were out of sight, checking the alley to the south of the street, mainly to ensure it was clean and clear of rubbish.

  “How did you get to be patroller?” Cerryl asked.

  “I was a lancer, but I got tired of riding all over Candar. That’s a young man’s game. I heard that the Patrol needed men, and I walked in on my home leave and asked. Mage Huroan said I could try, and I’ve been with the Patrol ever since. I know I’ll get fed. Get to sleep in my own bed and sure live longer.”

  “Do all the patrollers come from the lancers?” Cerryl crossed the next side street, glancing southward along the row of still-closed doors as the orange glow of dawn sifted out of the east and over the city. The next block of the Way of the Tanners held various leatherworking shops-that much he recalled, although his memory was prompted by the faint scents of leather and tanning reagents.

  Kesal rubbed his nose before answering. “No. They have to have had some duty, though. Infantry, gate guard, that sort of thing. We’ve even got a couple of meres. The hard thing is learning the city. That’s always hard, ser, at first, for the younger patrollers.” Kesal smiled. “After ten years, now, doesn’t matter where I patrol, I know people. Not all of them, but enough know me. That’s good because when they rotate patrol leaders people with problems can still come to me.”

  Cerryl wasn’t sure that Kesal’s familiarity was necessarily that good. Then, how could any patrol system be perfect? If the patrollers became too attached to a patrol area, then they’d probably excuse too much because they liked people and wanted to be liked. If they weren’t familiar enough with an area, then while little would happen in view of the patrollers, they’d also never find out the worst of the peacebreaking that happened in alleys and behind blank stone walls. “You can’t be too friendly, and you can’t be too distant?”

  Kesal nodded. “When they get to know you, folks’ll tell you things that they don’t want happening around their dwellings. That’s if you don’t try to be their friend. Don’t want the Patrol knowing too much, you, know.”

  Cerryl could understand that. Yes, he could. He’d certainly avoided the patrols even as an apprentice. Then, as a chaos wielder who was the son of a renegade killed by the Guild, he’d had good reason. He suppressed a smile, one of rue and pain. It almost makes no sense, that you are a White mage, when they killed your father… except those who did had no choice… except that you never knew him… except that he wanted to be a White mage… except that the only way to survive was to become a mage. And now you understand why what you feared must be. After a moment, he added to himself, Mostly.

  “Morning, Beykr.” Kesal nodded to the stooped white-haired man who had propped open the door to a small shop graced with a wooden boot above the doorway. The walls beside the door were windowless.

  “A good morning it is, Patroller Kesal.” Beykr paused, then added, “And to you, too, ser mage.”

  “Thank you,” Cerryl answered. “I hope it brings coins to you as well.”

  Beykr nodded politely before reentering the apparently dark shop.

  “Makes good boots, I hear tell, but too rich for me.” Kesal gestured eastward. “Miern-he’s in the next block-makes mine. Sturdy, with heavy heels and thick soles. Fits me, too. One thing you don’t go too cheap on is boots. Tell all the new men to set aside a few coppers every payday, more if they can, for boots.”

  After another block of closed doors, including Miern’s, they paused as Pikek and Bleren approached from the south side street.

  “Yes?” Kesal’s voice was neutral.

  “Ah… ser, there’s a cart, and a dead horse.” Bleren’s voice was raspy. “Don’t know why it was left there, not the cart anyway.”

  Kesal grinned. “Lucky we are that the section mage be with us, then.”

  Cerryl nodded wryly. He’d probably have to destroy the dead animal. There was no telling what sort of chaos it harbored.

  “Chulk, Olbel… wait here.”

  Chulk crossed the empty street to wait at the corner with the dark-skinned Olbel while Cerryl and Kesal followed the other two patrollers.

  Halfway up the alleyway, a horse lay tangled in the leather harness and across the left cart lead, just as the gap-toothed and squat Bleren had said. Cerryl frowned, letting his senses range over the horse. No real sense of chao
s beyond that of a dead animal, but there was a residual sense of chaos on the cart seat. He stepped closer to the cart, its sides painted bright purple, with yellow trim. Dark reddish stains covered the wooden seat. Cerryl glanced at Kesal.

  “Doesn’t belong to anyone here. Brigands left it. Happens sometimes.” Kesal glanced into the cart bed. “It’s clean. Peddler.”

  Cerryl walked to the other side of the cart, where he found a blackened patch just below the seat and a gouge in the wood. The two brass rivets had been ripped out of the wood.

  “They use a long iron bar, ser,” Kesal said. “Rip off the medallion. That way we can’t tell who it belonged to, not unless someone comes to us, and if it’s a trader who travels around… could be a season or more.”

  “There’s no flux or chaos in the horse. Looks like they just flogged it until it foundered and died.”

  “A waste… had to be city brigands,” suggested Kesal.

  Cerryl looked at the dead horse. Was that salt and sweat on its coat? Why would anyone push a horse that hard? Especially given what horses were worth? And how… within the confines of Fairhaven? After a moment, as the early-morning sunlight spilled into the alleyway, he let his senses range over the cart, trying to see if he could feel anything.

  Something? The faintest sliver of order? Under the rear of the cart seat was a small fragment of cloth, not even so large as his thumbnail, that he eased from where it had lodged in a small split in the wood. Or had it been placed there? He studied the fragment, not just cloth- silksheen from Naclos. He’d only seen scarves of silksheen once, but they cost as much as a blade or a mount, some did.

  “Silksheen,” he murmured, letting Kesal see the fragment before slipping it into his belt wallet.

  Kesal nodded sadly. “If that was what the cart carried, a duke’s ransom or more, we’ll be finding the body in the last sewer pond drained. They know which one will be last.”

  “They?”

  “Whoever killed him.”

  Cerryl wanted to frown. That sort of peacebreaking wasn’t supposed to happen in peaceful Fairhaven. Not at all, and Kesal acted as if it were common-or, at least, not uncommon. He tried to think. “Who would buy silksheen? Who could afford it?”

  “No one in the southeast section.” Kesal laughed ironically.

  “How many bodies will there be in the settling ponds?”

  “Hard to say, ser. Might not be any. Usually they find one or two, though.”

  Myral hadn’t mentioned bodies in the ponds when Cerryl had learned all about the sewers from the older mage… just that Cerryl should look into any that he found in the sewers. Was that because entering the sewers meant breaking through chaos locks? “No owner’s marks on the horse, ser,” Bleren announced.

  “Unhitch the cart.” Kesal turned to Pikek. “Once it’s clear, you go to the main Patrol building and tell them to collect the cart. Then come back and find us.” The lead patroller looked at Cerryl. “Someone will buy it at the auction.”

  Cerryl waited until the two patrollers had wrestled the cart and harness away from the dead horse. Pikek glanced at Kesal, getting a nod, and then turned and walked quickly westward and toward the Avenue.

  “What be going on?” A man in brown peered out a door looking into the alley.

  “Is this your cart?” asked Kesal.

  “No, ser. Never saw it before.” The man’s eyes darted from Kesal to Cerryl and then to the cart before going back to Cerryl.

  “Good. It was stolen.”

  “Ser, I never saw a purple cart like that-except ones in the Market Square.” The man in brown closed the door with a thud.

  “Ser, if you wouldn’t mind…” Kesal glanced toward the dead horse.

  “There’s nothing else we can find out from the horse?”

  “A ten-year-old chestnut, I’d guess. No markings, no ear notches-could be scores around Fairhaven. Unless someone reports the theft, we’ll never find out.”

  Cerryl nodded, then studied the dead animal. After a moment, he gathered chaos around him, then released it.

  Whhsttt! The dead horse vanished with the burst of chaos fire, and white ashes sifted across the worn paving stones of the alley.

  “Bleren, you wait for the collectors,” ordered Kesal.

  “Yes, ser.” The patroller brushed back his wispy strawberry blond hair and offered another gap-toothed smile.

  “We’ll be going east on the Tanners’ Way then coming back on the Way of the Masons.”

  Bleren nodded.

  As Cerryl and Kesal walked out of the alley and back to the street, Cerryl asked, “How often does this happen?”

  “With the body missing? A couple of times a year. Usually, we find the body with the cart.” Kesal laughed harshly. “Most times we still don’t know who it is.”

  “Might not have even been silksheen in the cart,” Cerryl hazarded.

  “It probably was, or something just as costly. The cart bed was clean.”

  The two paused before crossing to the next block as a narrow wagon creaked by. The white-haired driver barely looked at the four patrollers. After the wagon turned westward on the Way of the Tanners, toward the Avenue, Chulk crossed back to the north side of the street.

  Kesal took a deep breath, then shook his head, squinting into the low eastern sun. “Tannery row… could do without the smell.”

  Cerryl nodded, his eyes going to the familiar sign in the block ahead: ARKOS-TANNER. The iron grate was swung back from the ancient oak door, and the door stood ajar. Flanking the door were two iron-grated windows. The Patrol mage sniffed at the acrid odors drifting into the street from the vats concealed behind the recently white washed plaster walls, an acrid scent that mixed with the smell of greasy meat being fried somewhere nearby. How many times had he run from Tellis’s shop down to Arkos’s to fetch parchment or vellum for some book or another? It almost seemed like another life. Then… it had been.

  “You know the place?” asked Kesal.

  “Yes. I used to fetch vellum for Master Tellis. Scriveners’ apprentices get to know tanners.”

  “Maybe we should say ‘good day’ to him,” suggested Kesal.

  “He probably won’t recognize me.” Cerryl glanced at Kesal. “You think he’s doing something to break the peace?”

  “I don’t know. He is from Spidlar, and too many strangers visit here. That’s what Fystl told me, and I’ve seen a few myself over the past eight-day.”

  Was the patroller reflecting the Guild’s growing dislike of Spidlar? Or was it just the bad reputation of Spidlarians? Or was Arkos indeed involved in some hidden form of peacebreaking? “Could he be smuggling?”

  “He gets a lot of hides in wagons,” reflected Kesal. “I don’t worry about the hides, but you can put oils and things in leather containers, and most gate mages can’t sense them. Unless the stuff is metal,” he added.

  “He’s one of the better tanners,” said Cerryl. “Why would he risk smuggling?”

  “Why does anyone risk breaking the peace?” asked the wiry and bearded patrol leader, his voice dry.

  “So you think it wouldn’t hurt for Arkos to know that the Patrol is interested?”

  “It never hurts to show interest. Specially before someone draws bare steel or bronze.”

  “And especially when you have a Patrol mage with you?”

  Kesal grinned, then shrugged. “Well… ser.” He turned to the swarthy Olbel. “We’re going into the tanner’s.”

  “I’ll be out here.” Olbel grinned, teeth white against his dusky skin.

  The hatchet-faced Arkos seemed to shiver behind the worktable as Kesal and Cerryl entered the small front room. His eyes widened as they flicked from the patroller to the mage, and he bowed quickly. He did not look at Cerryl, but at Kesal.

  The odor of frying meat was heavy, almost rancid, within the tanner’s room, and Cerryl swallowed quietly.

  “Ser Arkos,” said the lead patroller jovially, “I just thought you’d like to meet one of the se
ction Patrol mages. Mage Cerryl here is new to the southeast section.”

  “I am pleased to meet you, ser mage,” Arkos said carefully, his luminous brown eyes meeting Cerryl’s pale gray ones for but a moment.

  “There have been a number of visitors here over the past eight-days,” Kesal observed.

  “My family-my cousins and their consorts-they have come from Kleth.”

  “From Kleth?” asked Kesal. “All that way to visit? Tanning must have become far more prosperous.”

  “Spidlar is not so good a place to be.” Arkos shrugged. “And it will get less good. So they come to work for me. I do not need so many helpers, but…” He looked helplessly at Cerryl and then at Kesal. “Family is family.”

  “Have you seen any silksheen lately, Arkos?” Cerryl asked idly.

  “Me, honored ser? How could I find the coins for such?”

  Cerryl could sense the honesty behind that response, as he had with the tanner’s response to Kesal’s questions.

  “Is Tellis still asking for your best vellum?”

  Arkos’s eyes narrowed momentarily. “Ah… yes, ser. Does he not always?”

  “Always,” Cerryl agreed. “Good day, ser Arkos.”

  “Good day, ser mage.”

  Back outside on the stone walk flanking the street, Kesal chuckled. “You worried him with the comment about vellum.”

  “He was telling the truth about his family. And about the silksheen.”

  “Good. One less problem to worry about.”

  One less problem for the Patrol, but not necessarily for the Guild, not if people are already fleeing Spidlar.

  “We turn here-that’s the next patrol area to the east.”

  The four walked down the north-south side street past three narrow plaster-fronted two-story houses that, while clean, bore the stamp of years. At the corner, Kesal glanced eastward along the Way of the Masons, where a heavy woman carried a basket on her head and dragged a blond child with one free hand. To the west, the street was empty, but two boys sat on a stone stoop three doorways to the west.

  At the sight of the white and crimson, both youths eased inside, leaving a blank door.