The White Order

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “You have read that part. What about this? ‘Order is limited, and chaos without bounds. Yet the use of chaos is bounded by order.’” Jeslek offered another hard smile.

  Cerryl swallowed. While he recognized the words, he’d never thought about exactly what they meant. Still, he had to try. “Chaos has no bounds, but for a mage to make use of its power requires that it be bent to the mage’s will. Will is a form of order.”

  Jeslek’s sun-gold eyes glittered. “Are you saying that a white mage must soil himself with black order?”

  “No, ser. As I understand it, a mage uses his will to harness the power of chaos. If his will is attuned to chaos, then order serves chaos.”

  Cerryl could sense disappointment in Kesrik and a glittering sort of Nation in Jeslek, an elation that bothered him.

  “‘Although chaos itself is all-powerful and knows neither rules no bounds, the world obeys rules that do not change.’ How does Colors explain that?”

  Cerryl couldn’t stop his puzzled expression. “Ser… I must have missed something. I am sorry. I do not recall any words like that.”

  “I am glad you do not. Those words are not in the Colors of White.” Jeslek nodded. “Until tomorrow. You may go. I will expect you to know the entire book in another pair of eight-days.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  “Then we will begin your practical training.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  “You won’t like it. None of the students do. I didn’t. Go.”

  Cerryl bowed, then turned, catching a few words before the guard shut the door behind him.

  “Kesrik… where did young Cerryl make things too simple?”

  Too simple? Where had he made things too simple? Cerryl walked down the corridor to the steps and down toward the meal hall, where he hoped he might find some leftover bread-or something.

  Jeslek had not changed expression when he had spoken the last phrase. Where had that come from? Some forbidden book? Or had Jeslek just invented the words? Either way, it had been some sort of trap.

  The student mage forced a long and slow breath. How many other traps lay before him? Had the poison been a trap? He still didn’t know. The bottle and mug had vanished, but whether one of the skulls or cleaners had merely taken it or someone else, he couldn’t have said.

  Then there was the continued reference to light. Even in the scary dream he had had at Tellis’s where Anya, the red-haired mage, had been invisible, she had mentioned the power of light. But what was the power of light? How could he find out? So far, Colors of White hadn’t said much directly, and he was almost through the second half-the first time.

  He thought about Jeslek’s questions. No… he definitely wasn’t through studying the book-not if he wanted to survive. His stomach gurgled and growled, probably because he’d not been able to eat that much in the morning, knowing that he was to be examined by Jeslek, and also because he’d had a headache from the heavy rain.

  He decided to go by the meal hall. There might be something left.

  “You look famished, young mage,” called one of the serving boys, looking up from a broom and dust holder. The blond youth in the red tunic of the creche flashed a smile. “There’s still some bread there, and I’ll just have to throw it out.”

  “Thank you.” With a grateful smile, Cerryl took the crusty end section left in the basket, letting his senses check it quickly before picking it up. It held no chaos he could detect, and he broke off a piece and chewed carefully, his thoughts still on light. He couldn’t do anything with chaos, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t think about it.

  After finishing the bread and quieting the growling in his stomach, Cerryl walked down the corridor to his cell, where he paused to reclaim Colors of White. He paused a moment longer, certain that someone else had been in the room, although none of his meager possessions-or his books-were missing.

  He smiled. Nothing would be missing, not that he would miss the loss of most of what he had-except for the difficulty it would cause. With his abrupt removal from Tellis’s house, he had lost the only possession he really missed having-the old amulet that Syodor had said was his father’s.

  Theft wasn’t tolerated in the Halls of the Mages, and the higher mages could tell when someone lied. So if Cerryl said something had been stolen, and told the truth, someone else would be in great difficulty. Cerryl didn’t even want to consider the situation he’d be in if he lied.

  He tucked the ancient tome under his arm and continued on down the corridor to the study.

  Faltar and Lyasa were the only students there. Lyasa was buried in a huge volume Cerryl had never seen, though he couldn’t make out the title. He slid onto the stool at one of the empty tables and opened Colors of White. The study wasn’t that warm, perhaps because of the earlier rain, and the late summer sky was still cloudy. But the study chamber was close, almost warmly clammy, and Cerryl could feel the dampness gathered in his tunic.

  “Cerryl?” Faltar had moved to the stool opposite him. “How did it go?”

  “He asked me a lot of questions. The worst was the one about chaos being all-powerful, yet being limited by order.” Cerryl opened Colors but did not look down, his eyes still on the slender Faltar.

  “He asked you that?” Faltar shook his head. “I’ve been studying Colors for over half a year, and Derka hasn’t been that hard on me. The High Wizard must want you to suffer.”

  Did Sterol? Or was he after something else?

  “I don’t know.” Cerryl smiled faintly. “It doesn’t matter. I still have to know what he wants me to learn. There’s no choice, is there, really?”

  “Sometimes… sometimes, Cerryl, you’re scarier than the High Wizard.”

  “Me?”

  “The way you accept things. I’d have trouble.”

  “No. You wouldn’t. Because you wouldn’t, they don’t try.” That was clear enough to Cerryl. He was being tested in more ways than one, and he had no choices. None at all.

  LII

  As the door opened, Cerryl and Kesrik stepped back to the wall out of deference and habit.

  The ruddy-faced and rugged-looking mage with the purple blotch on his cheek smiled at Jeslek. “Greetings.” His eyes fixed on Jeslek, who seemed slender by comparison, and ignored the two student mages.

  “How might I be of service?” Jeslek’s low voice was smooth, almost resonant, as he glanced at the taller mage who had just entered his chambers.

  Kinowin bowed to Jeslek. His white collar bore the same golden sunburst as did Jeslek’s. Cerryl didn’t remember it from when Kinowin had brought him to the tower. Had it been granted at the last meeting of the white mages?

  “With the road tariffs and the trade problems with the accursed isle, the High Wizard has asked how far the Great White Road can be used.”

  “It’s somewhere beyond Tellura,” answered Jeslek. “If you will wait but a moment, I will offer a more precise reply. Not that such precision will be of great use to His Mightiness.”

  “As you see fit.”

  Cerryl could sense the tension between the two but didn’t fully understand it, since, according to student gossip, both shared a dislike of Sterol. Then, he’d come to understand early that people always made their lives more difficult than necessary.

  “I do,” answered Jeslek. “One should be as precise as possible when serving the High Wizard, even when precision is meaningless.”

  Cerryl watched, with both eyes and senses, as Jeslek stood before the table and concentrated on his screeing. Standing beside Cerryl, Kesrik looked-and felt-totally bored, as though he’d seen the process over and over.

  Cerryl still watched, trying to sense how Jeslek marshaled the white of chaos and the darkness of order and focused both upon the glass-Even though he could not see the shimmering surface clearly, he could sense the image forming-the image of a stone-paved highway.

  Abruptly, the image shifted, to one where swarming figures milled in a shallow gully that ended suddenly just beyond them
. Then the glass blanked. Cerryl moistened his lips, trying to assimilate how the mage had gathered the images so quickly.

  Jeslek lifted his eyes from the glass with a satisfied smile. “The Great White Road is well past Tellura, two days, perhaps, and the preliminary ditching is complete to a point northwest of Quessa.”

  A ghost of a frown passed across Kesrik’s face.

  Jeslek’s eyes flicked to Kesrik and then to Cerryl before returning to Kinowin. “Will that suffice?”

  “I will tell the High Wizard.”

  “Perhaps you could speed the construction,” suggested Jeslek, “with your carefully protected use of chaos.”

  “Perhaps, but not so well as you,” countered Kinowin. “You are master of the earth forces.”

  A faint breeze drifted through the window, bearing the faintly acrid scent of graying leaves and of fall, then vanished before cooling the room at all.

  Cerryl felt sweaty within the red-tipped whites of a student mage but stood as impassively as he could.

  “We go where we are called,” said Jeslek.

  “True.” Kinowin bowed and departed.

  As the door closed, Jeslek turned to his students, his eyes going to Kesrik. “You don’t know anything about Quessa, do you?”

  “No, ser,” admitted the stocky blond.

  “You have my leave to use a screeing glass and the library. The day after tomorrow, you will know everything there is to be found about Quessa.” Without pausing, the white wizard turned to Cerryl. “You don’t know where either Tellura or Quessa are, do you?”

  “No, ser.”

  “You were a scrivener’s apprentice?”

  “Yes, ser.”

  Jeslek nodded. “Good. We could use another map of Candar-a good map. You have two eight-days to draw a detailed map of eastern Candar. It will show the location of Tellura, Quessa, and all the main cities east of the Westhorns. You may obtain vellum from wherever you choose.” He fumbled at his purse and then tossed two golds at Cerryl. “If you need more, see me. If you have spare coins, return them. You might as well leave and start now. A white mage who does not know geography is useless.”

  Cerryl quickly placed the golds in his purse.

  “Go.” Jeslek paused. “You do not have leave to use a glass. Nor to ask any full mage.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  “Two eight-days, and do not stint your other studies.” His sun gold eyes glittered.

  Cerryl bowed, ignoring the glint in Kesrik’s eyes, leaving quickly He nodded to the guard outside. “Good day.”

  “Good day, young ser.”

  Cerryl found his feet carrying him down the stairs and toward the library, where all the books and maps were stored, though he knew already no map would show Quessa. Jeslek wouldn’t have asked for such a map were it available.

  Jeslek hadn’t really had to task Cerryl with a more onerous task than Kesrik, had he? Why had he insisted on a full map? Was it another test? Was it just to get Cerryl out of the way?

  That didn’t feel right, although Cerryl didn’t know why, as with so many things. He clamped his lips together and kept walking. It didn’t matter. He had a map to draw.

  LIII

  The hazy fall afternoon light gave the workroom an almost misty appearance. Cerryl blotted his forehead with the back of his forearm, just below the rolled-up sleeves, and took a deep breath. He looked at the map on the table and then at his hand. It was shaking.

  Carefully, he set the quill in the holder and shook his hand, then rubbed it with his left, studying his work.

  The outlines of the land were there, and the boundaries of each land, and the Easthorns and the Westhorns and the rivers and the coastlines. A few tiny dots marked some of the towns and cities, but most remained to be placed, and he had less than an eight-day remaining.

  “Still working on that map?” Faltar stood in the doorway of the small room adjoining the library, a room Cerryl hadn’t even known existed until he had to search for a worktable on which to create his map. “Derka made me do one of Lydiar and Hydlen.”

  Cerryl looked up. “Is it somewhere that I could study it?”

  “It’s on the racks.”

  “The new one, with the purple ink?”

  Faltar nodded.

  “It’s a good map.”

  “Derka said so.”

  Cerryl grinned. “I’ve already copied that part. Mostly, anyway. Except for naming the towns.” He corked the ink bottle and straightened and stretched, trying to loosen muscles in his back that he hadn’t even realized were stiff.

  “You’re using black ink?” Faltar peered at Cerryl’s vellum.

  “It’s what I know how to make.”

  “I wish I’d known that. I used an old formula in the alchemical scrolls. Black would have looked better.” Faltar’s eyes went to the doorway, then to Cerryl.

  “If you have to make more for something, I’ll show you.” Cerryl kept massaging his hand.

  “Have you managed to locate those towns?” Faltar looked back down at the map.

  “I’m fairly sure about Tellura. I don’t know where Quessa is. No one I could ask knows, and I wouldn’t ask Kesrik.”

  “I cannot imagine why.” Faltar offered a grim smile. “Nor could you trust his reply.”

  The younger student mage gave a short nod, then looked at the map. “There is so much left undone on this, and I’m supposed to do some anatomic drawings for Broka, too, and tomorrow I have to meet Esaak, and I know I haven’t read enough of that book he left for me.”

  “He’s a crusty sort,” said Faltar. “Just listen as much as you can. He’ll eventually get around to telling you what he wants-after he’s told you how worthless all of us are, and how we appreciate little or nothing about mathematicks.”

  Cerryl sighed.

  “I came to ask if you wanted to take a walk up to the market square.” Faltar offered a smile. “It sounds like you need a walk or something.”

  “With this hanging on me?”

  “A trip to the market will do you good,” insisted the older student. “Besides, you can scarcely hold that quill. You need some air. You can struggle over your map this evening, with a fresh head, after the peddlers have gone.”

  Cerryl flexed his hand. “I’ll walk with you. You can do the buying.”

  “Don’t you have any coppers?”

  “A few. Now and then, Sterol sends a small purse,” Cerryl grudged, not wanting to admit that Sterol had been more than moderately generous, at least not where Kesrik or his friends might overhear.

  “Ah…” Faltar nodded, eyes traveling back to the door. “Well, he should, High Wizard or not. You’re his responsibility.”

  Was he? Cerryl felt more like an orphan than ever. He got the coin but never saw Sterol. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. It doesn’t help. “Just for a short walk, that’s all.”

  “We have to be back for the evening meal,” Faltar pointed out “Even if I find something more tasty in the square.”

  “All right.” Cerryl replaced the ink in the cubby that Derka had granted him, along with the quills and the holder and the inkwell. He could clean the inkwell later. The vellum went onto one of the library’s drying racks.

  “You’ll feel better.”

  “I’m sure.” Cerryl washed his hands quickly, glad he wasn’t the one who had to clean the basins anymore, and joined Faltar in the corridor.

  They nodded to Lyasa as she passed, and the black-haired student nodded back, but her olive brown eyes were focused elsewhere.

  The courtyard was empty, and the light wind threw spray from the fountain across the two. The dampness felt good on Cerryl’s forehead. He touched his brow, but it didn’t feel warm, or any warmer than usual.

  The main corridor of the front building was empty, until they reached the foyer, where Cerryl’s eyes were drawn to a slender redheaded figure in white, who hurried up the steps from the foyer proper toward the tower entrance. Behind her remained a faint fragrance, one simila
r to sandalwood but more floral.

  “You know Anya?” asked Faltar.

  “Not exactly. She stopped me once on the street and then came to Tellis’s shop once.”

  “She probably sensed you had the power. That’s one of the things Sterol uses her for. I’d prefer some of the others.” Faltar grinned. “One especially.”

  Cerryl repressed a shiver. “Isn’t that dangerous? For her, I mean? A child of two whites?”

  “I’m certain Anya’s powers are enough to ensure she has no child. Of course, I wouldn’t mind trying.”

  “You have a one-rut mind.”

  “I wouldn’t mind having her in that rut.”

  “Enough…” Cerryl shook his head as he stepped through the front archway and down the steps to the avenue.

  “I really wouldn’t. You should see-”

  “Enough!” Cerryl’s exclamation was half-gruff, half-laughing.

  “What about Lyasa?”

  Cerryl rolled his eyes.

  “I told you I’d get your thoughts off that darkness-filled map.”

  “You have. You have. I promise you that you have.”

  Cerryl glanced back at the tower and the Halls of the Mages that adjoined it. Just a set of white stone buildings, with no ornamentation, with more buildings stretching out behind them-kitchens, stables, an armory, barracks for some of the white guards and lancers, and, nearly half kay north, the creche where the children of white mages were raised.

  Almost two seasons, and he still couldn’t believe that he was in the Halls of the Mages.

  On the far side of the avenue, a team of four black horses drew a high-sided maroon wagon away from the square.

  “Sarronnese carpet merchants. They don’t like Fairhaven much, just our coins.” Faltar laughed.

  “How do you know?”

  “I’ve seen their wagons before. Derka told me. I think most of his family were traders.”

  “Do you know about yours?”

  Faltar shrugged. “No. My father was a mage. I wonder if Derka… but I don’t know. That’s something they never say.”