Colors of Chaos

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  He concentrated on finding order, the solid black order he equated with her. He felt two pulls, amid smaller pulses of order. He settled for the stronger sense of order and let his mind focus on order, solid black order.

  The silver mists filling the glass before him parted, more easily than he recalled, showing a red-haired man with a hammer in his hands, working an anvil. Order seemed to well from the glass.

  Was this the smith Jeslek had mentioned? Was he the same one Anya had talked to Fydel about? The one tied up with a woman trader? Cerryl doubted there could be any other embodying such order, yet the red-haired smith didn’t seem either much younger or older than Cerryl himself.

  If possible, the smith embodied order as much as Jeslek did chaos.

  Cerryl watched the even rhythm of the hammer for a time, then released the image, realizing belatedly that sweat poured down his face.

  After a time, he tried the glass again and was rewarded with an image of a blonde healer sitting across a table from a brown-haired boy with a face too thin for his age and eyes sunken too deep below fine eyebrows.

  Leyladin looked healthy, but Cerryl worried about her charge and what that could mean for Fairhaven-and Leyladin and him.

  Slowly, he let the image slip away. He sat at the desk for a time, a long time.

  XLVIII

  Cerryl studied the screeing glass, knowing he should practice more He didn’t want to try to look at Leyladin too often. He knew that would upset her because she could probably sense his efforts. After all, she had sensed his first attempt when he was a youth, and Cerryl himself could tell when someone was using a glass to capture his image.

  He frowned. Did the young Black smith know he was being observed? How could he not? That brought up another question. Jeslek had insisted there were three Blacks in Spidlar, but Cerryl had only been able to use the glass to find the smith. That meant the other two didn’t marshal nearly the order that either the smith or Leyladin did. So why was Jeslek so concerned? Were they better arms commanders than those of Certis or Fairhaven? Cerryl had no way of determining that and enough more immediate worries-such as Leyladin and Patrol duty. His duty hadn’t been quite so bad for the past two days, perhaps because he’d been spending more time on the streets again. How long could he do that? It made it more difficult for all the area patrols he didn’t accompany to find him, and it wasn’t fair to them for him to be out of the building too long. Yet his being on the street definitely reduced even the minor peacebreaking.

  He took a deep breath and looked toward the window, where the afternoon light and a warm breeze poured into the room. Then he looked down at the glass again.

  Thrap.

  For practice, Cerryl concentrated on the glass, attempting to see who stood on the other side of the white oak door. As the mists parted, the image of a messenger in red appeared, a round-faced girl who was new, at least to Cerryl.

  He let the image lapse and stood, quickly walking to the door and opening it. “Yes?”

  “Mage Cerryl, ser?”

  “That’s me.”

  “The overmage Kinowin bids you come immediately. He wants you to hurry. He will meet you at the mage Myral’s quarters as soon as you can get there.”

  Cerryl swallowed, then stepped out of the room and closed the door. “Thank you!” he called over his shoulder as he began to hurry toward the stairs, not quite at a run.

  He dodged around Kiella entering the fountain court and almost ran down another apprentice in the front foyer. Cerryl slowed his pace as he neared the steps to the tower. It wouldn’t do any good for him to race up to Myral’s and arrive so out of breath that all he could do would be to stand and pant.

  He was still slightly breathless when Kinowin opened Myral’s door.

  “I’m glad you hurried,” the overmage whispered. “Cerryl’s here,” he added in a louder voice as he closed the door.

  Myral lay on his bed, wearing a white robe, one so heavy that Cerryl would have sweated to death, yet the older mage had a blanket over him and shivered as Cerryl neared the bed.

  “Glad… you came.” The words were barely audible.

  Cerryl knelt on the floor by the bed, letting his fingers touch Myral’s all too pale forehead. Cerryl kept his face composed and concerned, with a superficial calmness he hung onto as necessary for the moment. Cerryl struggled to try to raise order, as he did chaos, outside himself, and to impose that flickering black fragment on the flux that was ravaging Myral.

  “Helps… a little… for a few moments… know… there’s too much chaos in my body. Before long…” Myral gasped. “For a White mage, it has been a good life.”

  “Just relax,” Cerryl said quietly.

  “I hoped for you… did not tell… the truth…” Another series of gasps followed. “None… none… since Cyador… hold chaos light like you could have… did not want… tell you…”

  “I know… I found out.”

  “So… sorry… sad to see you lose… that…”

  Cerryl touched Myral’s shoulder. “Everything has worked out. Please don’t worry.”

  “… still worry.”

  Cerryl glanced toward the door, then bent toward Myral’s ear, whispering low. “Chaos light can be shielded. Don’t worry, old friend and mentor.”

  “Yes.” A smile crossed the older mage’s face as Cerryl eased his lips from Myral’s ear, a smile that faded under another attack of coughing.

  Cerryl could sense that Myral’s entire body pulsed with the unseen deep and angry red of a chaos flux, and but a few dark threads of order bound that chaos, threads that he had strengthened momentarily, yet they had frayed almost immediately.

  Myral coughed another time, then seemed to convulse, then slumped back onto the bed.

  Even as Cerryl watched, wide-eyed, sparkles of chaos flared, and the body of the older mage collapsed into dust, and even the dust seemed to sift into nothingness.

  “From chaos and unto chaos,” murmured Kinowin, “that is from whence we come and where we go, for unto none is given the ever-lasting light of the eternal sun of chaos.” His voice broke on the last words, and he turned toward the closed and shuttered window.

  Cerryl stood slowly.

  In time, Kinowin turned.

  “Even for him, there was too much chaos at the end,” Cerryl said “I couldn’t do any more. I don’t know how.”

  “You know more than you admit,” said Kinowin quietly. “The healer?”

  “I’ve watched her. I have to do it outside myself. It’s harder that way, and I couldn’t do enough. If she’d been here… if she had just been here…”

  The overmage shook his head. “Perhaps a few days more, if she had been here. No more than that. Even the best of the Blacks can but retard death. Perhaps someday… perhaps… but not now.”

  “I tried,” Cerryl added. “I did.”

  “I know. What did you tell him at the end? That you were more than you seemed?” asked Kinowin.

  His eyes burning, Cerryl nodded. “He deserved to know that… he did.”

  “No one else will know,” Kinowin said. “I’m glad you told him.” The older mage covered the vanishing white dust that had been Myral with the heavy white blanket. “You can’t do more here; best you go for now. Do not seem to grieve for Myral though you do. Leave the Halls until you are calm. Jeslek and Anya would use that against you, and Myral would not wish that.”

  “What of you?”

  “I am older, and all know I grieve. Let them sense my grief.”

  Cerryl could see the wetness on the older mage’s cheeks. Finally, he turned. “Only because he would wish it.”

  “I know.”

  Cerryl blotted his face and somehow managed to keep his expression blank through the entry Hall and until he was on the Avenue, marching northward through the early twilight.

  You should have spent more time with him. He knew so much, and no one else cared-except Kinowin and Leyladin, and she couldn’t even be there. You should have loo
ked in on him more. You promised Leyladin… but it happened so suddenly…

  He kept walking up the Avenue, eyes not quite seeing, but his senses instinctively extended, looking for chaos or danger-the habit a result of the attempt on his life the year before and the skills he’d had to develop as a Patrol mage.

  Myral was gone… not even a body, nothing but sparkling dust that had sifted into nothingness before his eyes. Nothingness. Was that what happened to all White mages?

  He stepped aside for a woman and a child, not really seeing either, and kept walking.

  [XLIX missing]

  All living things are composed of order and chaos; this has been since the beginning and will be until the end.

  Likewise, every single thing under the sun which has form must partake in some degree of order, for without order there is no form.

  In similar measure, every object which lives, or which has lived, or which gives heat or sustenance, must embody some element of chaos, for without chaos there is not heat, nor light, nor life.

  Chaos itself, were one able to apply the lost and Great Mathematicks of vanished Cyador, could be described in symbols as precisely as those used in calculating the forces a building or a bridge must endure; yet even with such precise calculations, chaos would never appear the same in any situation, no matter how minutely all the objects it entered were shaped, weighed, and measured.

  That is the nature of chaos, that it can be described, precisely, yet never predicted.

  Order, contrariwise, can never be precisely described, for order creates a form dependent upon the objects wherein it is found and the amount of chaos present; yet the result of more and more order being introduced into an object remains always the same, for if of unliving material, the object will cease to change while that order remains, and if living, the excess of order will lead to death.

  Thus, order can be predicted but not described.

  In living creatures, excessive order will result in death, yet because a creature cannot live without embodying chaos, once it dies, for lack of adequate chaos, the body will collapse into small segments of ordered objects.

  If the creature embodied great chaos, suddenly lost, this collapse will occur so speedily that the body will seem to vanish into dust. If great order exists, the same will occur, as a gathering of great order into small compass cannot be maintained without the influence of chaos…

  Colors of White

  (Manual of the Guild at Fairhaven)

  Part Two

  L

  Cerryl stood, wearily, as Gyskas stepped into the duty room. “You look tired,” said the older mage. “It’s been a long day. I’m spending more time on the streets. It’s the only way to keep the small theft down.” Cerryl eased from behind the table-desk.

  “So am I, in the early part of the shift. People almost look the other way when it’s a loaf of bread or a few pieces of fruit.”

  “Except for the baker,” said Cerryl, “and people don’t lift things when the merchant’s looking.”

  “Coins are getting scarcer, and they’re hungry. Between the problems in Hydlen and the Spidlar and Recluce business, it could be a long winter.”

  Cerryl nodded.

  “I heard old Myral died. You know, the sewer mage?”

  “I know. I learned much from him.” Cerryl managed to keep his voice even. “I hadn’t seen him much lately.” And you should have, and now it’s too late. “He was sicker than anyone thought.”

  “I guess so. He was around forever. It seemed that way.” Gyskas offered a brief smile. “Good fellow-even taught me a trick or two.”

  Good fellow… taught me a trick or two, and before long no one will remember except in a vague way. “He was good.” Cerryl forced a shrug. “It’s all yours. I’ll wander through the section on my way back to the Halls.”

  “Suit yourself.” Gyskas smiled. “Make my duty easier. Thank you.” Out in the street, the air was hot-and still-more like late summer than early fall. Cerryl turned southward. “… the mage… the little one.”

  “… the tough one.”

  Cerryl smiled at the two youths on the porch but kept walking. Was he thought tough because he was often out on the streets? He didn’t feel tough, not at all.

  The street was hot, and the sweat began to ooze even more down his neck and back.

  Why did Myral’s death upset you so much? He shook his head as he turned westward along the Way of the Masons-anything to avoid going back to the Halls too early. Because his is the first death of anyone who believed in you when you’ve been there? He wondered. He’d loved his uncle and aunt, but they had died in a fire, kays and kays away, and he hadn’t even found out for half a season. He’d never seen their bodies, and there wasn’t even a place he could call theirs. Dylert, the sawmill master, he’d died sometime two years back, but while Cerryl had respected Dylert, he hadn’t loved him. He’d seen enough death. He’d dealt death. Death always happened to others… but it doesn’t, does it?

  A figure in brown dashed from the side street, followed by a man in blue, who grasped the youth practically in front of Cerryl.

  “No!” The youth saw Cerryl’s white and the red belt, and the color drained from his face.

  “Ser mage, this one-he stole a half-basket of potatoes right from the kitchen door.” The gray-haired man glared at the boy, then turned to Cerryl, not loosening his grip on the dirty brown-haired figure- scarcely ten years old, Cerryl guessed.

  The Patrol mage repressed a sigh and looked at the trembling but defiant boy.

  “I don’t care. You mages don’t be doing anything for us. My sis, she’s wasting, and Ma, she scrubs all day and can’t get coppers for bread, not enough.”

  “That’s what they all say,” snapped the man.

  Cerryl could sense the truth of what the boy said and his fear. What could he do? If he took him in, it was surely the road crew… a warning?

  Almost without thinking, Cerryl concentrated, forming chaos, focusing it into a tight circle, then extended it toward the wide-eyed youth, who tried to move.

  “Hold still, or I’ll blind you!” snapped Cerryl.

  The youth swallowed but stopped squirming.

  There was a faint sizzle as the chaos touched the boy’s forehead.

  “NO!” The youth slipped into a dead faint.

  The man’s face blanked as he looked at the circular brand on the boy’s forehead.

  “Did you get your potatoes back?” Cerryl asked tiredly.

  “Ah, yes, ser.”

  “I’ll take care of the peacebreaker.” Cerryl bent and lifted the thin figure.

  “Ah, yes, ser.”

  Behind the blankness of the other’s face Cerryl could sense the fear, close to terror, as the man backed away.

  What have you done? You can’t let him go, not without all of them risking a mere brand for food. Idiot! What were you thinking?

  He started walking, carrying his burden, until he reached the corner, Now what? With a sigh Cerryl turned northward, in the direction of the section Patrol building. Already the thin figure was weighing him down.

  The boy stirred, moaned.

  Even after four blocks, Cerryl could feel his eyes burning and his stomach churning as he carried the half-conscious figure into the section building.

  Gyskas stepped out of the duty room. “What have you there?”

  “A peacebreaker. Child tried to steal potatoes because his family was starving.”

  “You truth-read that.”

  “Yes. Unhappily.”

  “That burn is chaos fire.”

  “Yes,” Cerryl admitted. “A bad idea of mine. I thought about letting him go with the burn to mark him. Now… I don’t know.”

  “We’ll have to send him to south prison.”

  “I don’t like it.”

  “We don’t have much choice,” pointed out the older mage.

  “I suppose not.” Cerryl took a deep breath.

  “I can handle it from here,” Gy
skas said.

  “Maybe you’d better. I’m not thinking very well.” Is that the truth!

  “It’s not…” Gyskas broke off his words.

  “I know. We can’t afford not to think. Thank you. I’ll see you tomorrow.” I hope.

  Cerryl walked slowly out of the building and turned westward, toward the Avenue, toward the Halls of the Mages, his stomach still churning, his heart feeling pressed by lead on all sides, each step an effort.

  How could you have been so stupid?

  Because you were upset.

  That’s not good enough.

  He kept walking, walking until he reached his room and sank into the chair before his desk. After a time, he looked up, then down at the screeing glass on his desk, reflecting only the ceiling. How had he made such a mess of the day? Just because you were upset… because Myral died? There had to be more. Thrap. Out of a blind need to practice, to do something, he focused on the glass. Lyasa waited outside.

  “Come in, Lyasa.” He stood by the table, waiting.

  She opened the door. “You know, Cerryl, I hate that.”

  “People screeing to see who’s there? I’m sorry. I’ve just been trying to practice using the glass. I don’t do that much in Patrol work. Not that I’ll be doing that much longer, I suspect.”

  “What?”

  He shrugged tiredly. “I made a mistake. I was too hard on a child caught stealing. I mean, I was trying not to be, but it didn’t work out that way, and he’s going to end up on the road crew, and it’s my fault, and there didn’t seem to be anything else I could do.”

  “They won’t get rid of you for that.”

  “I don’t know. I touched him with chaos, meant to warn him, but I burned him, and I shouldn’t have tried it.”

  Lyasa winced. “You didn’t mean to.”

  “No. Not exactly. But rules are rules, and I didn’t do what I was supposed to, and I’ll have to pay for that.”

  “Outside of the… burn, was anyone hurt? Did you do… ?”

  “Anything else stupid? No. I should have thought about things, should have taken him to the section building, but I was thinking about Myral, and I was upset, and then I thought about this… child… on the road crew.” He lifted his hands helplessly. “I just didn’t think, and I’ve tried to be so careful.”