Colors of Chaos

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Cerryl-

  I would like to remind you that you promised to bring me, if possible, a purple hanging from Spidlaria. I am doing my best to look after the one in green silk that I feel you entrusted to me, though I know that was not precisely your intent. As with Myral, age has begun to creep upon me, and I may not be a fit custodian for all that much longer…

  I would like to see the handiwork Myral promised you would bring me before too much longer… The handiwork is important, and though some will quibble over the coins, good workmanship outlasts coins.

  Kinowin

  Cerryl swallowed, set the second scroll down, and hurriedly broke the seal on the third, a seal he suspected had been cut and resealed twice.

  Dearest-

  I know that you have had great duties laid upon you, but I thought you would like to know that Mother is close to the end. Knowing how you have respected her, it might be best that you return to Fairhaven as quickly as you can, if possible. Kinowin can no longer leave his quarters, now, as you suspected might happen. I have no one to assist me now that Father is helping you in rebuilding factoring in Spidlar, and Aliaria and Nierlia are occupied with their children and legacies…

  If this is not possible, I understand. It may be hard to explain to certain relatives, particularly one niece who left a message suggesting that if you respected her judgment, you should has- ten homeward-as if you had ever jumped to her scented wishes.

  As always, we all miss you.

  Leyladin

  Cerryl looked at the words of the scroll again. He frowned. The words were in Leyladin’s hand. The order behind them was Leyladin’s, but she never would have said something like that, especially such nonsense. His regular screeing of her showed her in no danger, and her mother had died long before…

  “You’re stupid, Cerryl.” He nodded grimly. The message was the same as what she had written-get back to Fairhaven-but the other words, the reasons, were there for whoever might have opened and read the scroll, and the niece had to be Anya-she was Muneat’s niece and wore too much scent.

  Cerryl studied the scroll, looking with his senses for the slightest touch of chaos on the inner parchment-and finding it. Lyasa had not been around, and the chaos was too fresh for it to have been anyone other than Kalesin who had opened the scroll.

  He stood and walked into the hall. “I’m going out for a bit of air.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  Instead, once around the corner, Cerryl raised the blur shield and started up the stairs to the third floor.

  As he had suspected, Kalesin was seated at the small desk in his bedchamber on the third floor.

  When Cerryl stepped into the room, closing the door behind him, he let the blur shield drop. “So what are you sending to Anya? Or is it Rystryr?”

  Kalesin rose and turned slowly, bringing the long iron dagger around. “I’ll use this on you, if I have to. You can’t order me around, Cerryl. I’ve been a mage longer. They sent you here to get rid of you. You aren’t going to sneak home and leave me with the mess you’ve made. And you’re not proof against cold iron, no matter what-”

  “Why not? You’d like being in charge-”

  As Kalesin lunged forward, Cerryl didn’t even hesitate but slammed the focused light lance into the blond mage’s chest.

  The sandy-haired mage flew backward, his dead face frozen in surprise.

  Cerryl played chaos over the body carefully, trying to ensure that no trace of the man remained, except for the white ashes that would dissipate and the dagger that had fallen to the floor.

  Then he rearranged the desk back in the order in which Kalesin kept it. He picked up the dagger and set it alongside the third stack of paper, leaving everything neat, except for the half-written scroll, which he read quickly.

  Anya-

  Cerryl has become insufferable… He has received a scroll bidding him return to Fairhaven… from that blonde harlot… and another one from doddering old Kinowin, begging for a hanging before he dies…

  Cerryl wanted to shake his head. Kalesin had been more stupid than Cerryl could have imagined, and that meant that Kalesin hadn’t been any real danger at all, except as Anya’s tool. How many tools has she? He tucked the half-written scroll under the blotter and replaced the quill and inkstand.

  With a deep breath, and ignoring the incipient headache his order and chaos manipulations were bringing on, he cloaked himself in the blur shield and slipped down the steps until he was in the shadows of the main corridor outside the study.

  “Natrey?”

  “Ser? How did you get there?”

  “I walked.” Cerryl smiled. “Have you seen Kalesin?”

  “No, ser. He left your study a bit ago…”

  Cerryl frowned. “He was supposed to bring me something, but I haven’t seen him.”

  “You want me to send some of the boys to find him?” Natrey grinned.

  Cerryl forced an amused smile. “Perhaps you should. Perhaps you should.” He let himself back into the study and forced himself to wait, rereading the three scrolls until he had them committed to memory.

  Kinowin was clearly telling him that the overmage had been able to shield Leyladin, but that wouldn’t last forever, and Leyladin was practically ordering him to return as quickly as he could get there.

  Cerryl continued to wait.

  Finally, there was a knock on the door.

  “Yes?”

  Foyst peered in: “Ser? We can’t find the mage nowhere. His mount be in the stable, his dagger be on his table, but he be nowhere.”

  “Are you sure?” Cerryl put a shade of annoyance into his voice. “He was supposed to bring me a report on the golds taken by the older traders before they fled or were executed. He had those records.”

  “Ser, beggin‘ your pardon…”

  “It’s not your doing, Foyst. I’m not angry at you.” Cerryl pursed his lips. “Have you seen the mage Lyasa?”

  “Yes, ser. She was riding in.”

  “Good. If you would tell her I’d like to see her…”

  “Yes, ser.”

  Cerryl offered a quick smile and a nod. The door closed.

  He waited, but not nearly so long, before Lyasa, still in her white cold-weather jacket, stepped into the study.

  “You were asking for me?”

  Cerryl looked at her, then shook his head. “Kalesin has vanished. None of the lancers saw him go. I’d like you to come up to his room with me.”

  “You’re worried?”

  “Yes.”

  “You should be. I warned you, you know.”

  As he stood, Cerryl shrugged. “I know. I did what I could.” That is true enough.

  The two walked hurriedly up the two flights of steps, with Foyst following. Both mages kept scanning the staircase and landings.

  Once on the third floor, Cerryl looked around the room, as if he had not seen it earlier. “He left in a hurry, and he left everything behind.” He stepped toward the desk. “There’s something here.” Cerryl pulled out the half-written scroll from beneath the blotter and began to read it. He shook his head and handed it to Lyasa.

  “Read this.” Cerryl wandered to the wardrobe, looking through it cursorily. “Everything seems to be here.”

  “This looks like his writing.” Lyasa’s eyes widened as she read. After a moment, she looked at Cerryl. “I told you… What are you going to do?” She paused. “You suspected he would leave, didn’t you?”

  “He was nervous when he gave me the scrolls.” Ceryl laughed ruefully. “I forgot to tell you. I got a message from Anya demanding more golds and one from Kinowin suggesting I get back to Fairhaven, however I could. Both scrolls had been opened-most recently-and resealed with chaos. I sent the lancers after Kalesin…”

  “He must have known you’d find out.”

  “You’ll have to be most careful,” Cerryl told her.

  “I’ll have to be… You’re leaving?”

  “If I can, I’m returning to Fairhaven, before it�
�s too late. If it’s not already.”

  “Sterol will try to kill you.”

  Cerryl nodded. “But if I stay here, I’ll be even deader, because he’ll take Leyladin and Kinowin, too.”

  “I could go.”

  He shook his head. “If matters don’t go well, I may need a friend outside Fairhaven.” Cerryl didn’t like deceiving Lyasa, but she’d be safer not knowing how Kalesin had disappeared. The scroll Kalesin had written was enough to warn her, and she could say, truthfully, if anything happened to Cerryl, that she had known nothing about Kalesin’s disappearance.

  “How?”

  “I’m going to ask Layel for a trip on one of his ships. He might just agree.”

  “When it’s his daughter you’re trying to save?” Lyasa laughed. “You shouldn’t have any worries on that course.”

  “Not until I get to Fairhaven.” Then my real troubles begin.

  CLXIII

  Cerryl glanced past Layel, past the polished wooden railing of the Western Sun, toward the dark gray waters of the harbor and beyond, toward the Northern Ocean.

  Layel clapped Cerryl on the back. “Best I stay here, but Wandrel will get you there.” The balding trader grinned. “Better quarters here, and the crew is safer, too. The Western Sun’s a good ship.”

  “I’m sure she is:”

  “Besides, this way Wertel can send back more of that dried fruit and those tools and blades I agreed to get for the sawmill fellow. Still think he can make the kind of planks that the Sligan yards need, and that will mean more golds in tariffs.”

  Cerryl gave a half-smile. “I’m glad you came here.”

  “Except for the cold… I am, too. Don’t have to worry about what Muneat’s doing or whether I can get haulers or wagons…” Layel laughed. “Could talk your ear off, and you best be going.” The balding trader frowned and looked directly at Cerryl. “You sure you don’t want some guards once you get to Lydiar?”

  “No. Just a pair of mounts. No one will remember I was there.”

  “Mage stuff?”

  “Magery,” Cerryl confirmed.

  “You coming back soon?”

  “Probably not.” // you’re successful you’ll stay, and if you’re not… you’ll be dead-or mind-blind and working on the road crew.

  “Feared of that. Well… you know how I feel. Try to keep that daughter of mine in line.”

  “More likely, she’ll keep me in line.”

  Layel nodded a last time, then climbed slowly over the railing and scrambled down the gangway to the wharf. “She’s yours, Master Wandrel.”

  “Single up the lines!”

  Cerryl stepped back and watched as the crew began the effort to take the Western Sun out of the harbor and back to Lydiar.

  Toward what? Cerryl had kept checking the glass, watching Kinowin and Leyladin, but both seemed to continue their daily routines, from what Cerryl could tell, and he dared not use the glass on those he distrusted the most, fearing that alone would tell them too much.

  His eyes went to the north and the colder waters of the Northern Ocean beyond the breakwater.

  CLXIV

  Cerryl sat in the chair in Leyladin’s bedchamber, half-nodding off. He really needed to sleep, but he didn’t dare, not until he knew she was back in the house. Both horses were groomed and stabled, more quickly than he’d anticipated, because he’d been too tired to refuse Soaris’s help. Cerryl had washed and changed, since he hadn’t liked the way he’d smelled and he could do that while he waited.

  Outside the bedchamber window, the fall wind whispered through the late afternoon, not nearly so cold as in Spidlaria, though the trees had shed the leaves they would shed and the winter leaves had all grayed, giving the forests along the White highway between Lydiar and Fairhaven a depressing gray look, since no snow had yet fallen.

  He jerked awake and glanced toward the door. The mansion remained silent, except for the muted clanking from the kitchen where Meridis labored over something. He dozed off slightly, until he heard a door through his stupor and immediately awakened, glancing around.

  The bedchamber door opened, and Leyladin, still wearing a dark green woolen cloak over her healer greens, burst into the room. “You’re here! How did you do it? No one knows where you are.” The dark green eyes contained both love and wonder.

  Cerryl smiled, feeling not nearly so tired. “A little magery. You remember I showed you?” He didn’t feel like explaining in detail how the blur shield didn’t alert chaos wielders and made those who used screeing slide over his image.

  “That was a long time ago… and you still amaze me.”

  “I’m here, and glad no one knows. Very glad.” For more than a few reasons.

  Her arms went around him. “It’s good to hold you.”

  “It’s good to be held-and to hold you.”

  After some moments, she stepped back. “Father?”

  “He’s fine. He’s already set up and bringing in golds, mumbling the whole time about how he’s too old to do it and how Spidlaria is too cold. Then he figures out some other business to set up and someone else to run it for him. He thinks he can sell timber to Spidlar.”

  Leyladin laughed. “Father.”

  “He’s safer there, I think. He’s a trader, and they’d rather have a trader, even one from Fairhaven, than armsmen and lancers and mages.”

  “Fairhaven… you don’t think it will be safe here?”

  “For your sisters… it’s safe. For your father or you or me?” Cerryl shook his head slowly, then drew her close again, holding on tightly.

  After a time, she disengaged herself. “How are you going to take on Sterol? Even Kinowin says you have to.”

  “Meet with Anya tomorrow and go straight to his quarters.”

  “That’s dangerous, trusting her.”

  “I won’t tell her I’m here. You send a messenger asking her to meet you in the fountain courtyard, but I’ll be there.” Cerryl shrugged. “I can defeat Sterol. That’s not the problem. I don’t want anyone to know I can do it. If anyone realizes I have that kind of power, they’ll turn on me because I’m so young-and so inexperienced.”

  “You’re scarcely inexperienced.”

  “That’s what they think, and I don’t want to take on all the older members of the Guild. Anya needs someone to run the Guild for her. It might as well be me.”

  “You’re playing a dangerous role, dear one. Trusting Anya for anything is like playing with a serpent.”

  “Tell me.” He rubbed his eyes. “Except Sterol is getting worse.”

  “Both Kinowin and Anya warned me about Sterol. Kinowin even suggested I stay away from the White Tower these days. I’m glad you’re back.”

  “Did he… Sterol… ?”

  “No… nothing like that.” Yet. Cerryl swallowed.

  “Sterol is controlled by Anya.” Leyladin smiled sadly. “He doesn’t even know it. She says things so that he’ll do the opposite of what she says and not realize that’s what she wants.”

  “That’s the problem with her. Do you oppose her or support her? How do you ever know quite what she intends?” Cerryl glanced toward the growing darkness outside the bedchamber windows, stifling a yawn.

  “Have you eaten?”

  “Not enough.”

  “Not nearly enough.” Her eyes danced. “Not for tonight.”

  Cerryl couldn’t help grinning.

  CLXV

  Cerryl waited in the shadows of the pillars beside the entrance to the Council Chamber, on the way to the fountain courtyard, where he could see the courtyard, but not where Leyladin had told Anya she would be. Because heavy dark clouds swirled over the city and no lamps had been lit in the Halls that morning, the entry foyer was dark, gloomy.

  Most fitting in some ways. Cerryl glanced down the rear corridor of the foyer but could see no one nearing or in the front part of the fountain courtyard. He maintained a slight version of his blurring shield, not wanting to be seen nor to draw attention.

 
Two messengers in red scurried past.

  “Redark… couldn’t decide if he wants… water or wine… then changes his mind.”

  “Better than the High Wizard… claims wine spoils before he can drink it… blames us for bringing it.” The second creche-raised messenger glanced over her shoulder, his eyes skipping past Cerryl as if she had not even seen the mage.

  “Quiet…”

  Coming the other way was a student mage, one of those Cerryl didn’t know, a dark-haired young man with a wispy goatee, of the type that poor dead Bealtur had tried to cultivate. The apprentice also passed without noticing Cerryl.

  A red-haired figure descended the steps from the tower, then moved silently down the center of the foyer toward the rear archway into the fountain courtyard.

  Cerryl let Anya pass before stepping out of the shadows and dropping the shield. “Leyladin’s not coming. I prevailed upon her to request your presence.”

  Anya turned and flashed her bright smile. “Why… Cerryl… you have grown even more cautious.”

  “Coming to Fairhaven was not cautious, Anya. Best I be cautious when I can.”

  “You also have skills some know little about. I sensed no one nearby.”

  “That was because you sought Leyladin and not me.”

  “There’s always more to you than meets the eye.”

  “Thank you. I would hope so, since not that much meets the eye. When one is not physically imposing and does not swirl vast amounts of chaos around…” Cerryl shrugged, then drew her back next to the pillars, not into the shadows, for that would have alerted the suspicious, but along the side of the thoroughfare, as though their meeting were merely a conversation begun in passing. “You wish something of me?”

  “I received a message.” Cerryl raised his eyebrows.

  “Ah… yes. Perhaps I was precipitous. Or just wished to see if you would keep your word.” Anya’s smile faded.