Colors of Chaos

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  The blond messenger glanced around the duty room, then leaned forward and murmured, “Ser… you have to be careful.”

  Cerryl frowned. “Careful? I always try to be careful.” His words were low, probably because the messenger’s had been also.

  Weilt whispered, “It’s not in the southwest, ser.” He straightened and said loudly, “Will that be all, ser mage?”

  Cerryl swallowed, then answered. “Ah…” He raised his voice: “That’s all for now, Weilt.”

  “Thank you, ser.” Weilt left quickly.

  “Be careful,” Cerryl murmured. And not in the southwest section… Why? His inquiries about silksheen? Why would that upset people? Yet Isork had suggested care. Where had Weilt heard what he’d heard? Cerryl smiled. Messengers often overheard things, he imagined.

  He frowned.

  As with so many other things in Fairhaven, much more was hidden than revealed. He needed to talk to Leyladin, if he could, since she was the only one beside Myral and Kinowin he trusted. But Myral was failing, and Kinowin was Isork’s superior. That left Leyladin, yet… he worried about bringing her too much into the intrigues.

  XXXIX

  Cerryl stepped out of the foyer and down the stone steps onto the paved sidewalk beside the Avenue, turning north into the cold rain that seemed to get heavier with each step. Not wanting to discuss all the warnings he’d received in the Halls of the Mages, where all too many ought overhear, he’d asked Leyladin the evening before if he could stop by her house after his duty. With a smile, she had agreed.

  You just didn’t realize it would be raining,“ he muttered to himself. Ahead, the colored carts in the Market Square were shrouded in rain and mist rising from the pavement warmed by the vanished sun-light. His eyes flicked through the fall rain, and he forced himself to concentrate despite the headache the storm had brought. He turned westward on the street south of the square. Someone was watching him-not quite as in a screeing glass, but definitely watching. Cerryl could half-feel, half-sense the observation, and he studied the line of walls fronting the house to his right.

  A blurred figure, half-concealed by a tree limb, stood at the corner of the wall less than thirty cubits away. A figure holding something… a bow?

  Abruptly, and as quickly as he could, Cerryl raised a wall of chaos all the way around him-or tried to-and lurched forward and toward the nearer section of the wall, where he hoped the archer could not get a clear shot. He half-tripped, half-dropped to his knees.

  Pain flared through his left shoulder.

  On his knees, still a half-dozen cubits from the wall, he overlooked the burning of the heavy shaft in his arm. His eyes narrowed toward the figure in blue nocking yet another shaft.

  Anger flared through Cerryl, and chaos flowed after the anger.

  Whhhstt! The bowman flared into a pillar of fire, white ashes dropping across the wall with the rain.

  Cerryl forced himself to concentrate, somehow focusing chaos wrapped in order around the iron, using that raw force to expel/destroy the arrow. White stars flashed across his eyes, and he closed them, but for a moment.

  Opening his eyes, ignoring the stabbing in his arm, he staggered upright, then looked down at the redness welling from the wound across the white of his shirt and tunic. He clasped his right hand over the wound, hoping it would help staunch the blood.

  He put one foot in front of the other, then repeated the action until he found himself tottering up the stone walk to Leyladin’s door.

  He had barely let the knocker fall when she appeared.

  “I felt it! What happened?” Her eyes and senses encompassed him. “Darkness! Take my arm.”

  She helped him inside through the foyer and the front hall, leaving drippings of mud and blood, and laid him out on the settee in the front room to the left of the foyer-the pale blue silk-hung room he’d never entered.

  “I’ll get blood on-” he protested.

  “Hush.” She concentrated, and he could feel the order and the warmth from her infusing his upper arm and shoulder, even as she gently cut away the white fabric from around the wound. “It’s not as bad as it could have been.”

  “I blocked some of it-just not quick enough.”

  “I need to clean this and then stitch it up. The muscle is ripped up, but it’s not so deep as I’d thought. You must have done something to hold it off.”

  “Told… you…”

  “Hush…” She pressed a cloth against the wound. “Hold this. I’ll be right back.”

  Cerryl held the cloth, listening to Leyladin as she entered the kitchen.

  “…a bottle of the brandy, Meridis! I don’t care what Father says…It works.”

  Even before the words died out, the healer was back with a small case, a bottle, and a clean white cloth. “First, we need to clean off the blood and everything else.”

  The cork came from the bottle, and Cerryl wanted to scream as the liquid sloshed across the wound.

  “Sorry… dear one… but it helps. No one’s quite sure why, but with both brandy and order most wounds heal cleanly.”

  Cerryl didn’t like the word “most.”

  “Don’t squirm. There’s still cloth in the wound, and I need to get it out… chaos behind it… not much, but it will grow if I don’t…”

  Cerryl kept his teeth clamped together, hoping he wasn’t biting his tongue, feeling the sweat bead on his forehead and the salt run into the corners of his eyes.

  “There-that’s the worst of it. Now… more brandy and some order…”

  Cerryl winced again, in spite of himself. “That hurt more than the arrow.”

  “You will recover.” Leyladin forced a laugh. “Now… just rest for a moment. You need it and so do I.” She sat down on the floor beside the settee. “Should I send a messenger to Isork?”

  “Not yet…” Cerryl didn’t know when would be a good time, if ever. “Kinowin… later.”

  “Lady Leyladin. You be white.” Meridis scurried into the sitting room, carrying a tray of bread and cheese and a bottle of wine and two goblets. “Ser Cerryl… you look like some nourishment might not hurt.”

  The tray went on the floor beside Leyladin, who took a small knife and began to cut wedges off the block of white cheese.

  Cerryl smiled as Leyladin handed him a small wedge of cheese, then chewed it slowly, realizing just how tired and hungry he felt. He glanced at the healer-as pale as Meridis had said.

  “Healing is hard work, I see.”

  “Harder than most reckon,” she said after swallowing. “Much harder, sometimes.” She passed a chunk of bread.

  “Thank you,” he said quietly. “I was lucky you were here.”

  “Fortunate, not lucky, that you’d asked me to be here.” After pass-ing him a glass of wine and taking it back after he had swallowed some, she asked, “Do you know who did it?”

  “I was so angry that I lashed out. A bowman in blue, I think, but he’s ashes. He was nocking another shaft. Didn’t wait to find out.”

  “Blue…that’s the color of a half-score of houses.”

  “Not the blue Meridis wears, or Soaris. A brighter, deeper blue.” Leyladin’s eyes narrowed briefly, but she did not speak.

  “I think I’d better get back to the Halls,” Cerryl said.

  “You can stay here…” Leyladin insisted. “You should stay here.”

  Cerryl shook his head. “No… I’ll be fine in my own quarters.”

  “You weren’t fine walking here.”

  “It happened on the street, not in the Halls. I don’t think it would be good for me to stay here.”

  “Then I’ll tell Myral and have him look after you somehow. He can tell Kinowin.” The healer cocked her head to the side, then nodded. “You shouldn’t be going back, but you surely should not be walking. I’ll send Meridis to summon the carriage.”

  Cerryl didn’t argue that point, taking another swallow of wine as Leyladin scurried out to the kitchen. He was no longer dizzy, but the aching in his arm an
d his head had grown even stronger, more throbbing.

  “The carriage will be ready shortly.” Leyladin looked at the tray on the floor. “Can you eat more?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you should.” She handed him another slice of the white cheese.

  When Meridis announced the coach was ready, Cerryl had finished most of the bread and cheese, as well as a full goblet of wine. As he walked slowly through the front hallway, Meridis looked at him. “I can’t believe anyone would try to attack a mage. I can’t believe it. What is the world coming to?”

  “What it has always been,” said Leyladin crossly.

  Cerryl continued walking out to the coach, through the rain that had subsided to a drizzle, feeling slightly light-headed. Because of his use of chaos? The wound? The treatment? All three? He wasn’t sure, and it didn’t matter.

  Soaris sat in the driver’s seat, studying both Cerryl and Leyladin as they walked toward him. A footman armed with a shortsword watched impassively as Cerryl climbed into the coach. Leyladin slipped inside, closed the door, and sat beside him.

  The carriage eased forward, gently, for which Cerryl was most grateful, and the rain began to splat more loudly on the roof.

  After the coach pulled up at the front entrance to the Halls of the Mages and they stepped out, Soaris announced, “We will wait here for you, Lady Leyladin.”

  “Thank you, Soaris.” She nodded before stepping up beside Cerryl’s injured left arm and shoulder, almost as if to shield the wound from casual view.

  Cerryl walked deliberately up the stairs and through the entryway to the front Hall, then through the foyer, Leyladin at his elbow. The two reached the fountain courtyard before encountering anyone.

  Lyasa, standing by the fountain, as if waiting for someone, turned.

  Her eyes widened, and she hurried toward Cerryl. “What happened to you?” she whispered, her eyes going to the dressing and the blood splattered across Cerryl’s tunic.

  “Later,” said Leyladin.

  Lyasa swung around and walked on Cerryl’s right. He was glad of both women’s help on the stairs up to the floor that held his quarters, and he sank gratefully onto his bed, where Leyladin arranged the pillow to prop him up slightly.

  “You stay with him,” Leyladin said to Lyasa. “I’m going to tell Myral.”

  As the door closed, the black-haired Lyasa pulled the chair over to the bed and sat down. “What happened?”

  “An archer shot me,” Cerryl said dryly from the bed. “He’s ash, but it took a little effort for me to get to Leyladin.”

  “An arrow-with an iron head-and you’re walking?”

  “Leyladin’s a good healer.”

  “Not that good.” She frowned. “An archer attacking a mage-in Fairhaven? That’s not good.”

  “It isn’t the first time,” Cerryl recalled the armed men who had attacked him when he had been an apprentice mage cleaning out sewer tunnels.

  “Cerryl, for someone so quiet, you upset too many people.”

  “I wasn’t trying.” Cerryl closed his eyes, but his head seemed to spin, and he quickly opened them.

  The door latch clicked, and both Lyasa and Cerryl turned their heads.

  Kinowin stepped into the room and glanced at Lyasa. The dark-haired mage rose from the chair, nodded, and stepped outside, closing the door.

  “How do you feel?” asked Kinowin.

  “I’ve felt better,” Cerryl admitted. “I was lucky Leyladin wasn’t that far away.”

  “It was more than luck.” Kinowin settled into the chair that Lyasa had vacated. “I’ve put a guard outside your door with instructions to admit only the healer, Myral, me, and of course,” he added sardonically, “the High Wizard. A guard wouldn’t stop any talented mage, but then Jeslek and I could quiz every member of the Guild, and that thought will stop anyone with any such thoughts.”

  Cerryl hoped so. He needed some rest, some sleep without worry. “Do you have any idea why this happened?” asked the overmage, “I talked to Isork, and he didn’t think it was related to your Patrol duties in the southeast section.”

  “Did he say it that way?” asked Cerryl.

  “Yes. I noted that. Do you want to explain?”

  Cerryl let his breath out with a slow sigh, ignoring both the throbbing headache and the dull soreness in his arm.

  “I think you’d best explain,” Kinowin suggested with a chuckle.

  “It all started with the purple cart,” Cerryl began, launching into a retelling of the chaos traces, the blood, and the fragment of silksheen. “When the messenger warned me, then I began to watch everyone. I just didn’t watch closely enough.”

  “Not many mages survive shafts with large iron heads,” said Kinowin. “Wasn’t that what struck you?”

  “I know it was iron. It hurt, and it burned. But he was nocking another shaft. So I ashed him first.”

  “This was during the rain, wasn’t it?”

  “That does seem odd.” Cerryl recalled the archers when he’d gone to Gallos with Jeslek. They’d never strung their bows in the rain. Then, they hadn’t been attacked in the rain.

  “Someone was out for you, and they knew about mages. We don’t handle chaos as well in the rain, and iron shafts often can kill some mages outright.” Kinowin raised his eyebrows. “I would let your inquiries about silksheen die away. For now, at least.”

  “I already told Isork that,” Cerryl said, fearing he sounded like he was whining. He hated whining.

  “Isork wasn’t ever the problem.” Kinowin rose. “Rest. I’d like you at the meeting the day after tomorrow.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  “It won’t be that bad.”

  No. It will be worse.

  Kinowin rose, giving Cerryl a knowing nod, and left. The door latch clicked shut.

  After a time, Cerryl closed his eyes.

  XL

  At the knock on the door and the click of the latch, Cerryl sat up straighter from where he was stretched out on the bed and set down On Peacekeeping. “Yes?”

  Leyladin stepped into the room, and a cool breeze flowed from the open high window until she closed the door. “You look like you’re feeling better.”

  “I am. You’re a good healer.”

  “You helped.” She smiled.

  For a moment Cerryl just looked at her, amazed that she was the same woman he’d seen by chance in a screeing glass when he’d been but a child.

  “Let me see the arm.” Leyladin bent over Cerryl and examined his right shoulder, both with her eyes and with her senses.

  He could feel the dark shafts of order, slightly uncomfortable, but not painful.

  “There’s some leftover chaos there. Just hold still.”

  “I am holding still.”

  “There. I don’t think it will recur, but I’ll check tomorrow before you leave for the Guild meeting.” Leyladin took a slow, deep breath.

  “How-”

  “Because Myral told me to.” The blonde healer smiled.

  “Sit down for a moment. I know healing is work.”

  “Just for a moment. I still have to see Myral.” The blonde healer eased into the straight-backed chair.

  “How is he?”

  Leyladin shook her head. “Not as well as I would like. Each day, the cough gets stronger, and he gets weaker, but there’s no illness. The chaos has taken its toll on him.” She shrugged. “He’s been more careful than most, at least in the recent years, but White mages don’t live that long.” Her eyes studied Cerryl.

  “I’m trying. I’ve followed his advice.”

  “You and Kinowin are about the only ones.”

  “Jeslek almost flaunts his power. He doesn’t have to; everyone knows he’s the strongest.”

  “Everyone does,” Leyladin said blandly, raising one eyebrow as she looked at Cerryl.

  “You-” Cerryl paused, wondering how she knew he was avoiding displaying his own abilities.

  “It’s hard to keep things from a healer.”r />
  “I’m discovering that.” Along with many other things.

  “You know,” she said quietly, “you’re not really a White mage.”

  Cerryl frowned.

  “You look White to most, but you’re not. There’s no core of chaos within you. That’s why that heavy iron arrowhead didn’t kill you.” Leyladin smiled. “You can handle chaos, but you can also handle order. You’re a gray mage.”

  Cerryl winced. “Don’t tell anyone. You know what Jeslek and Sterol would do to me if that came out. I’ve enough difficulties anyway.”

  “Myral and Kinowin already know. They won’t say anything. They’re like you. Why do you think they look out for you?”

  “Because I’m not always trying to prove I’m the master of chaos,”

  Cerryl suggested.

  “That doesn’t hurt.” Leyladin stretched, then stood. “I feel better, and I need to see Myral.” She walked to the bed, bent down, and brushed his cheek with her lips. “Just be careful.”

  “I will.”

  Once the door closed, Cerryl leaned back against the pillows. An iron arrowhead, a large one, and an attack against a mage. He nodded slowly to himself. If the attack succeeded, no one would trace the killer, because no one would be able to find the archer. If it failed, as it had, there wasn’t enough of the archer left to determine who had hired him. That meant some mage who knew Cerryl all too well, and Cerryl was fairly sure which one it was. But he still didn’t understand why.

  After a deep breath, he picked up On Peacekeeping. So far, he hadn’t found even veiled references to smuggling and stolen goods. Since it was his third time through the book, he doubted he would, but learning more about peacekeeping couldn’t hurt. Besides, he felt guilty about someone else having to take his duty, but Leyladin and Kinowin had insisted that a few days’ recuperation would be better for everyone.

  XLI

  The first order of this meeting is to affirm Jeslek as High Wizard,“ announced Kinowin, standing alone on the polished gold-shot marble dais of the Council Chamber. ”Is there any member of the Guild who wishes to propose another member as High Wizard?“