The White Order

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “Mmmm.” Myral sipped his cider, glanced at the door behind Cerryl, then coughed. “What happened to your chaos-fire?”

  “I lowered my shields and didn’t think much, and there was plenty But the colored shafts bothered me. Chaos-fire arcs and falls eventually but these didn’t, and…” Cerryl stopped. Had he heard footsteps on the stairs? Leyladin?

  Despite what Lyasa had said, he still wondered about the healer Why couldn’t blacks and whites be lovers-without danger? And was Leyladin really a black? Was she Myral’s lover?

  The faintest scraping penetrated the room, and Cerryl could sense someone standing outside on the landing.

  “Ah…” Myral glanced toward the heavy white oak door. “That is something you will have to work out yourself, young Cerryl. Each mage must, you know. Chaos handling is not like mathematicks, where each number always has the same value.”

  The younger mage suppressed a frown. Force was force… Somehow Myral’s words seemed wrong, but Cerryl could not say why.

  “Think about the light. You might reread Colors of White-even more carefully.”

  Cerryl nodded, suppressing his immediate need to protest that he had already done so, many more times than anyone suspected.

  “You may go,” Myral said, with another glance at the door.

  “Yes, ser.” Cerryl stood.

  “Tomorrow.”

  After a nod of acknowledgment, the younger man turned and walked to the door, opening it and stepping outside onto the landing, a landing occupied by another.

  “Good day, Leyladin.” Cerryl offered a smile, broader than he’d intended as his eyes took in the oval face, the blonde hair that was faintly red and tumbled not quite to her shoulders, the green eyes that sparkled even in the dimness of the landing, and the lips that were full, but not too full.

  “Good day, Cerryl.” She returned his smile with one that was friendly but not inviting. “Be careful in the depths.”

  “Thank you.” Now what? He wondered, but got no further, as she opened Myral’s door and stepped inside, closing it, and leaving him standing on the landing.

  With a shrug he really didn’t feel, Cerryl started down the stone steps to the foyer, passing the guards at the lowest level and then hurrying down the steps to the foyer. He had managed a few more words, a very few, but he still felt tongue-tied around her. She was truly beautiful.

  He crossed the foyer, pausing when he turn,ed toward the rear of the hall as a redheaded figure approached. He bowed. “Greetings, honored Anya.”

  “I’m not that much your elder, Cerryl.” A warm and white-toothed smile flashed across Anya’s face, a smile Cerryl distrusted even as he admired its effectiveness. “If you keep working, you’ll be up before the Council within the next few years… and then we’ll be working together for a long time.”

  The scent of sandalwood, mixed with roses or another heavy floral essence, enfolded him, almost cloying.

  “I am yet in the sewers,” he pointed out, “but you are kind.”

  “You are cautious, an admirable attribute.” Her smile turned even more perfunctory. “Do your best in the sewers.”

  As Anya gave a parting nod and walked across the high-ceilinged foyer toward the steps to the tower, Cerryl turned toward the courtyard and the lancers’ barracks beyond, where he would again meet Jyantyl and the other lancers assigned to his charge, although he was certain Jyantyl was reporting on him as well as supervising the disciplinary detail.

  The sun seemed slightly warmer on his face as he entered the courtyard. Was winter really coming to an end? Had he been in the Halls of the Mages nearly a year? By spring, it would be a year.

  So much had happened… and so little. So many hidden tests-and pitfalls. After nearly a year, he still had no idea whether the poisoned cider had been a test or an attempt to kill him, though he suspected more and more it had been a crude attempt at murder by Kesrik or Bealtur. But that was something he couldn’t prove and dared not mention… because… if it had been a test… He shook his head. His logic was weak, but his feelings were strong. Mentioning the cider would do no good, especially since Myral was the only one who drank cider all the time, and he doubted strongly that Myral would stoop to poison. And Kesrik didn’t seem smart enough to think or try something like that on his own.

  So had someone been trying to get rid of two people? More feelings you can’t prove?

  Like mathematicks, and chaos-fire… he just didn’t know enough.

  The warmth of the sun was countered by the chill of the spray from the fountain, and he continued through the rear hall into the next courtyard and toward the barracks.

  “We be ready, ser.” Jyantyl straightened as Cerryl neared.

  “Good.” Cerryl turned toward the avenue, Jyantyl walking beside him, the other four lancers two abreast behind them.

  The secondary sewage collector tunnel Cerryl had been assigned was more than two kays from the mages’ square, two kays very slightly uphill along the main avenue.

  Cerryl’s thoughts seemed a jumbled mess as he marched along the avenue. Why did chaos-fire arc and fall? Light followed a straight path But chaos-fire burned, and light didn’t. Cerryl’s lips tightened, and then he licked them. The colored light beams had burned-just not so much as chaotic white light. And sunlight didn’t burn, unless it was concentrated with a glass or one stayed in it all day at midsummer. So it wasn’t the color of the light, but the chaos of the light.

  How could one separate color from chaos? Cerryl frowned as he kept walking quickly northward on the avenue.

  “He’s in a hurry this morning,” muttered Ullan.

  “Most mages are,” answered Dientyr.

  “Quiet,” snapped Jyantyl.

  The five continued along the avenue, passing the market square, the jeweler’s row, and the artisans’ square, until they were within easy sight of the northern gates, before turning left.

  Once beside the warehouse wall, Cerryl unlocked, lifted, and re-locked the bronze grate in place, then started down the brick steps to the walkway. Even after the eight-days he’d spent chaos-scouring the secondary, the slime had not reappeared where he’d begun.

  Behind him, Dientyr lit the sewer lamp, and he and Ullan followed Cerryl into the depths.

  Cerryl stood for a time at the edge of the bricks he had already chaos-scoured, staring into the slime-filled darkness that stretched toward the main sewer tunnel west of the avenue, his thoughts still swirling. Find his own way? How? Could he somehow let chaos flow without restricting it, but use order to separate and guide it?

  Somehow… that was the way. How… that was another question.

  Finally, he took a deep breath and just let the chaos flow, barely shielded, observing as much as controlling.

  Whhhsttt! Red-tinged white flared everywhere, then faded, followed by minute white ashes swirling up in the dim light of the lamp held by Dientyr, standing perhaps four paces behind Cerryl.

  After gathering himself together and taking a full breath, Cerryl stepped forward another several paces to the edge of what he had just scoured. After a moment, Dientyr followed with the lamp, and the muted thump of Ullan’s lance told Cerryl that the lancer had restationed himself.

  Standing in the noisome depths, Cerryl tried to form the idea of a glass hanging before him in the air, the kind that would split the light the way a wedge of clear glass did, into colored streams. Slowly, he let the chaos summoned from somewhere-exactly from where he still wasn’t certain-he let it flow through the chaos lens.

  The three streams of light played across the slime of the walkway-Steam rose, and the slime blackened but did not burn.

  Cerryl took a deep breath. Splitting the light shouldn’t necessarily weaken it-should it?

  He tried again. Again he got colored light lances that steamed and blackened the slime but did not clean.

  He had the feeling that he was missing something, but he didn’t know what, and that meant another long day beneath the streets of Fairhave
n-perhaps many more, too many more, long eight-days.

  LXIX

  Outside the mages’ tower, the cold early spring rain beat on the stones and shutters, and occasional chill gusts sifted past the closed shutters. Inside, the heaped coals imparted a welcome warmth to Myral’s room.

  Cerryl sat on the hard chair.

  “You look troubled.” Myral lifted his steaming cider. “Have some.”

  “Thank you.” The younger man poured a half a mug from the pitcher, half-scanning it for chaos, then took a sip of the warming liquid, hoping it might lessen his headache.

  “What is the difficulty?”

  “Sometimes, I seem to be able to clean large sections of the bricks easily, as if… as if I had been doing it for years. But at other times, or at almost any time I try to focus the chaos-fire on anything, it sort of just… dribbles out. Or it’s like a ray of light that warms the bricks but doesn’t scour. Sometimes, I can get it to blacken the slime-”

  “The fire like a light ray?” asked Myral.

  Cerryl nodded.

  “That’s what you should work on… if you can.”

  “If I can? Can’t all mages-”

  “No.” The older mage shook his head. “The ancients of Cyador all could, if one can believe the old writings, but few can today. Very few. It would be good if you could.”

  “I don’t know. There’s a lot of order use it takes… I think.” Cerryl Pondered at Myral’s diffidence, at a subtle wrongness, and yet Myral was clearly concerned for Cerryl. Again… what was being withheld?

  “Cerryl,” said Myral mildly, “you can use chaos without being of chaos.”

  That was a clear, direct, and truthful statement, and the younger mage swallowed as Myral continued.

  “The world is filled with order and chaos. Some floats free; some is mixed with the elements of the world. There is chaos in the molten rock of the fire mountains, and chaos feeds the waters of hot springs. Order is bound into iron. Chaos is not bound into you-or me, or Jeslek. We direct the chaos-that is, gathering it from the world around us. I have told you this before. It is written in Colors of White. But you need to understand this. When you marshal chaos fire in the sewers it does not come from within you but from the world. You do not have to make it part of you. Some do.” Myral smiled sadly. “They die young.”

  “But… why?”

  “It is easier at first to let the chaos flow through you and be part of you.” Myral offered an ironic smile. “Most of the time, in whatever trade one engages in, true skill takes greater effort and time to develop. You are struggling between trying to channel chaos outside yourself and letting it flow through you. You get better results now, if it goes through you. Is this not true?”

  “Yes,” Cerryl admitted.

  “The choice is yours.” Myral stood. “I have no special tricks to offer you, no easy steps to control, just observations.” He gestured toward the door. “And you need to keep working at it in the sewers, for so long as it takes until you can handle chaos consistently and with control.”

  Cerryl hurriedly swallowed the last of the cider, wincing as the hot liquid seared his throat, then eased back the straight-backed chair and stood.

  “I am not hiding a secret from you,” Myral added. “I can tell you what is, but you have to find out how to make it work for you.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  “Cerryl.” Myral’s voice hardened. “You can honestly try to understand, or you can pretend you do and fail or die young. You choose.” He nodded to the door once more.

  As Cerryl left and started down the stone steps, the sound of the white oak door’s closing still echoing in his ears, his throat still burning, he felt like screaming. If he didn’t have the ability to muster strong chaos force, he would be at the mercy of the Kesriks of Candar. If he didn’t get control of the chaos force outside himself, he’d die young. If he didn’t keep some ability to handle chaos, he’d fail and die.

  But… Myral was suggesting that the ways that Cerryl knew would work were wrong, and that the ways he couldn’t even see how to master were right, and then Myral had the coldness… the something… not even to offer a single practical piece of advice.

  The young would-be mage shook his head as he walked down the steps, thinking of another long day in the sewers, fumbling and scrambling with his uncertain control of chaos-fire… and his all-too-uncertain life in Fairhaven.

  LXX

  Behind Cerryl, back up the runnel toward the steps to the street and the bronze sewer grate, Lilian’s lance tapped nervously, then stopped, as if Dientyr had jammed an elbow-or something-into the other lancer.

  Cerryl could sense that the day was getting late. He was sweating, and his tunic probably reeked from sweat and fear and sewage, so much so that he smelled nothing.

  He had tried everything he could think of, but still the only way he could seem to manifest a decent amount of chaos-fire was to let it flow through him-half-instinctively. Yet Myral had been quite clear that such was far from the best way.

  Cerryl wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, looking almost blankly into the darkness. His eyes were tired, and the darkness seemed to flash at him in waves.

  For a moment, he closed his eyes, trying to think. What was he overlooking? He had to be missing something. Maybe there wasn’t enough chaos close enough to him to channel. Did one have to gather chaos? How?

  There had to be a way. Myral’s words still rang in his ears. “… use chaos without being of chaos… gathering chaos from the world around us…”

  What drew in chaos? Sunlight?

  Cerryl nodded, imagining himself as a huge flower, drawing in chaos as a blossom drew in sunlight, turning that sunlight into flame, and directing it toward the slime on the bricks…

  Whhhssstttt… A line of golden white flame-a line of flame flashed from the air before Cerryl down the tunnel… not touching the green-coated bricks until-who knew how far away?

  Cerryl stood motionless, unable to believe what he had seen. Had he really seen it?

  Again, after another deep breath, he tried to replicate the sense of gathering chaos as the flowers gathered sunlight, and to let it flow around him-not through him-but around him and slightly down.

  Whhsttt!

  The golden white flame lance seared a line across the bricks.

  A wide grin spread across Cerryl’s face, and he felt like jumping Up and down in joy. Instead… he tried to replicate the feeling, the actions again.

  Whhhsstt!

  For the third time, the flame lance flared down the tunnel, at a flatter angle that seared away even more of the scum and slime.

  The young mage, unable to keep the grin off his face, kept looking into the darkness as he took another long breath. He was winded, and tired, but he had something, something he wasn’t sure he’d seen elsewhere. But would Jeslek or Sterol have showed all they had?

  He shook his head.

  Behind him, Ullan’s lance tapped nervously, once, twice.

  “Not now,” hissed Dientyr.

  Cerryl turned, wiping the grin off his face. “Ullan… I know it’s uncomfortable down here, and I know you don’t like it, but when you keep tapping that lance, it distracts me, and that means whatever I’m doing will take longer.” He paused. “I’d appreciate it if you’d make a bigger effort not to tap it on the bricks.”

  “Yes, ser.” Ullan’s voice squeaked on the “ser,” and the thin dark mustache bobbed, and sweat streamed down his forehead.

  “Good.” Cerryl turned back to the tunnel, wanting to see how much more progress he could make while refining his new technique.

  “Lucky… Ullan… real lucky,” whispered Dientyr.

  Cerryl forced himself to concentrate, to ignore the rising sense of elation that had begun to fill him.

  LXXI

  As he stepped through the squared archway into the foyer of the front Hall of the Mages, Cerryl wiped the dampness from his forehead, part sweat from the rapid walk down the avenu
e until he had parted from Jyantyl and the lancers at the edge of the square and part dampness from the spring drizzle that cloaked Fairhaven, so fine that his head almost didn’t ache. His eyes blinked to readjust to the dimness inside the building. After a moment, he started toward the back of the hall and the courtyard. The evening bells had not rung, and that meant he had time to get washed up before eating and not be one of the late arrivals.

  A motion caught Cerryl’s eyes, and he stopped just inside the foyer. Eliasar marched quickly from the tower steps through the foyer. The arms mage wore a huge white-bronze broadsword in a shoulder harness, and a shortsword from a belt. A lazy smile flickered across Eliasar’s face as his fingers touched the hilt of the shorter blade.

  Cerryl frowned but followed Eliasar toward the courtyard. When Cerryl had reached the fountain, though, the arms mage was out of sight. With a shrug, Cerryl circled the fountain, avoiding the wet stones near the basin, and entered the rear hall, then turned toward the washrooms.

  For once, even after cleaning up, Cerryl got to the meal hall before most of the other students or the handful of mages who ate there. Esaak sat alone in one corner, perusing a book of some sort, and another apprentice-Kochar-sat at one of the larger circular tables. Kochar’s eyes went to the table’s surface as Cerryl glanced toward the younger redhead.

  “Young Cerryl!” called Esaak.

  “Yes, ser.” Cerryl turned and started toward the older mage.

  “You can eat. You young men are always starving. I was once. Remember, I want the best you can do on those cross-section and flow problems tomorrow.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  “Good.” Esaak waved. “Go eat.”

  Cerryl headed back toward the serving table, getting there just as Bealtur came through the archway. Cerryl filled his platter with lemon creamed mutton chunks over hard bread, grabbed two pearapples to balance the heavy meat and thick sauce, and added the mug of ale. He made his way to one of the empty circular polished white oak tables.

  Bealtur stood back, fingering his dark and wispy goatee, until Cerryl left the serving table.