The White Order

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Myral stood slowly. “The mighty Sterol is taking his time. While we wait, we might as well check that tunnel. You can clean some more if it’s too slimy.”

  Cerryl felt like groaning but didn’t. His left shoulder ached where the edge of the shield had struck him, and he felt exhausted.

  They walked slowly over the bodies to where Cerryl had reached in scouring the walkway, trying not to touch either corpse, but the walkway was too narrow to walk around the dead brigands. Myral turned to Cerryl, eyebrows lifting.

  Whhhst!

  Cerryl used as little of the golden lance flame as possible in clearing the fifty cubits of walkway that curved to the rough aperture of the smugglers’ tunnel, a rough archs lightly less than four cubits high.

  Cerryl stepped into the side runnel gingerly, feeling the clay underfoot give slightly. Less than twenty cubits farther on, the tunnel ended in a wall-except in the middle of the wall was an open doorway.

  Myral stepped up and closed the door.

  Cerryl took a deep breath. The back side of the door had been painted to resemble bricks.

  “Someone has been using this again. Clever of them.” Myral turned. “No one is around now, and I’d rather leave this to Sterol. You don’t want to know where that door leads, not until you’re a mage, anyway.” The heavyset older mage puffed slowly back along the secondary until he reached the stairs to the street, where he carefully settled himself on the second step.

  How long they waited, Cerryl wasn’t sure, except that the sound of more armsmen and weapons echoed down the steps even before a handful of guards appeared, followed by the High Wizard.

  Sterol appeared out of the dimness, a glowing presence of chaos, with a squad of guards before him and with Kinowin flanking him. “Your summons was not precisely convenient, Myral.”

  Myral heaved himself to his feet. “Yes, High Wizard.” Myral gestured into the darkness toward the two bodies. “Young Cerryl dispatched these two malefactors. I would request that you examine the bodies for yourself.”

  Sterol nodded. Kinowin’s face was blank.

  “You might also note the side tunnel beyond the bodies. There is a door painted to look like bricks.”

  Sterol stepped past the two, and followed by Kinowin, he marched down the tunnel. Cerryl noted that while Sterol did not blaze chaos energy the way Jeslek did, he definitely radiated chaos-as did the rug-ged Kinowin, if to a lesser degree.

  The High Wizard stopped by the bodies and bent over. After a moment, Sterol straightened. “I see what you mean.” With a gesture, he pointed toward the figures, and the tunnel filled with blinding light.

  Cerryl blinked. When the stars cleared from his eyes, all that remained were white dust, two iron shields, and two blades.

  Wearing heavy white gloves he had pulled from somewhere, Kinowin lifted both shields and handed them to one of the lancers. Then he lifted the blades and carried them toward the steps with the lancers leaving Sterol with Cerryl and Myral.

  “Also,” said Myral, “one of the lancers guarding young Cerryl fled somewhere into the runnels.” The older mage glanced to Cerryl.

  “Ullan,” Cerryl supplied.

  “Ullan is doubtless hiding somewhere in the sewer. You have leave to destroy him.” Sterol’s eyes flashed as he looked at Cerryl. “In fact, you are to destroy him immediately-without mercy. You have the power to do so.” Sterol glanced around the tunnel. “Do you understand?”

  Cerryl nodded.

  “Good.” The High Wizard turned to Myral. “We have some work to do.” Then he turned back to Cerryl. “Continue to seek Ullan and carry out my orders. We will not expect to see you before the evening meal. If you find him, do what else you can here. If you cannot find him-or if you do-see me after you eat.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  “You had only two guards, did you not, young Cerryl? Down here with you?”

  “Yes, honored Sterol. I sent Dientyr to fetch Myral; Ullan disappeared when I was struggling with the… malefactors.”

  “You remained here?”

  “Yes, ser.”

  “Good. Better and better.” Sterol gestured. “Luyar, pick enough guards to watch all the grates on the secondary and the western main tunnel. If they catch Ullan, have them hold him for Cerryl.”

  The lancer leader nodded and walked back up the steps to the street above.

  “If the lancers find him first… you will be notified, and your task will be to execute the deserter with chaos-fire-right where he stands when you find him.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  Sterol nodded in a peremptory fashion, turned, and started up the sewer steps. Myral puffed up behind the High Wizard.

  Cerryl looked down the tunnel, past the stairs and away from where the bodies had been, then shrugged. Ullan had gone away from where Cerryl had fought the armsmen, and the entrance, and the lancer hadn’t gone up the steps.

  After a moment, Cerryl started down the tunnel slowly, heading back through the area he had scoured earlier, watching his feet nonetheless.

  Behind him followed the pair of lancers. Were they watching him as much as guarding him?

  He passed one set of steps, dappled with light from the grate overhead, then a second, and finally a third. The tunnel was silent except for the muted gurgle of sewer water in the drainage way and the sound of boots on damp brick.

  Close to the fourth access steps, Cerryl paused, listening, looking into the darkness, letting his senses pick up something… someone… hiding in the darkness behind the stairs.

  He turned to the guard with the light, whispering, “I think he’s up ahead. Stay back here a bit. I can’t follow him and worry about you.”

  Surprisingly, the guard nodded.

  Cerryl eased along the edge of the tunnel, knowing that the back and upper sleeve of his tunic were hopelessly stained with slime.

  A set of boots scraped on the bricks… as did a spear.

  Cerryl waited, gathering chaos energy from around him. “Ullan…”

  Only the sewer water in the drainage way burbled.

  “There’s nowhere to go.”

  The indistinct figure of the lancer slid along the side of the steps, lifting the white-bronze spear.

  Cerryl focused the chaos energy-the white-golden lance.

  Whhsttt! The chaos bolt shivered the spear and turned it into flame. Ullan dropped it… his hand and lower arm also a mass of flame.

  The lancer reached for the shortsword at his belt.

  With almost a sigh, Cerryl loosed another targeted firebolt, one that caught Ullan in the midsection. The lancer staggered, seeming to fold before sliding onto the bricks.

  Cerryl stepped forward. “Who set it up?”

  Ullan lay sprawled on the slimed bricks, his midsection blackened, eyes avoiding Cerryl.

  Cerryl focused another chaos bolt on the lancer’s foot, then let it fly. The odor of burning flesh rose over the smells of sewage and mold.

  “Aeeei… no… no .. i”

  “Who told you to keep tapping that spear?”

  “Don’t know, ser… swear I don’t… Someone in white… short never saw his face… soft voice… slim… wore scent.”

  Cerryl let a blaze of fire glimmer from his fingertips.

  “Honest… honest… ser… threatened to kill me if I told…”

  Cerryl could sense the truth, and the despair. For a moment, he hesitated, then let the fire flare across Ullan.

  He swallowed, trying to hold in the nausea-and succeeding, barely.

  After a time, he turned away from the white ash that sifted across the walkway.

  The two lancers waited, their lamp a puddle of light in the darkness. Cerryl walked past them silently, back toward the unfinished cleaning of the secondary tunnel.

  LXXVIII

  Every eye looked at Cerryl as he stepped into the meal hall, then looked away, almost in relief, it seemed to the thin-faced student mage. He was late, later than he should have been because, even with chaos, clea
ning the grime off his tunic had taken longer than he had expected. Surprisingly, he’d even managed to deal with the dark grease that he’d thought had burned the white cloth.

  Bealtur and Kochar kept their eyes down, fixed on the polished white oak of the table. The meal hall was silent, students looking at the entrance archway every so often. Unlike at most meals, no full mages were in the hall.

  Cerryl walked through the silence to the serving table and helped himself to the mint burkha and noodles, to a healthy chunk of bread, and poured a full mug of the light ale, carrying it all over to the table where Faltar and Lyasa sat.

  “You missed everything,” Faltar whispered.

  “I have sewer duty. I miss a lot,” Cerryl said dryly. He sniffed. Did his tunic still carry the faint odor of sewage? “What happened?”

  “You don’t know?” asked Lyasa.

  “I was told specifically to stay in the sewers until mealtime,” said Cerryl. “The orders came from the High Wizard. In person. I wasn’t about to do otherwise.”

  The black-haired Lyasa’s mouth formed an O.

  “Sterol came into the common with some guards.” Faltar lowered his voice to almost a whisper. “They had iron shields. You know that’s trouble. Iron deflects chaos, you know?”

  “I have learned that.”

  “Sterol had Kinowin and Fydel with him, and even Myral.”

  Cerryl took a bite of the bread, trying to quiet his empty stomach. “For what?”

  “You should have seen Kesrik.” Faltar glanced toward the table where Kochar and Bealtur sat. “Sterol threw an iron shield-he had to wear heavy leather gloves, but he did throw it-right at Kesrik, and he asked him something about recognizing it… about maker’s marks and authorized traders with Gallos.”

  Lyasa nodded.

  “Marker’s marks? Why would Kesrik have anything to do with traders?” Cerryl paused. “You think that this has to do with Kesrik’s family?”

  “It makes sense,” Lyasa murmured. “Kesrik doesn’t like you. His family has access to golds and armsmen, and weapons.”

  “Jeslek wasn’t around either,” added Faltar.

  Nor Anya, thought Cerryl, glancing at the blond Faltar.

  “Kesrik-he turned white, and then it looked like he tried to throw chaos at Sterol.” Lyasa glanced at the silent Kochar and Bealtur.

  “That wasn’t smart,” said Faltar.

  “He tried to throw chaos? With those three standing there?” Cerryl took a mouthful of the spicy, brown-sauced burkha and noodles.

  “Well… there was chaos-fire everywhere. Kinowin raised his shields first,” said Lyasa, “and then someone threw chaos-fire at him, and he fried Kesrik. I think he was the one. It happened so fast.”

  “And then?” Cerryl chewed on a piece of bread to relieve the heat of the spiced burkha.

  “Sterol looked around and he said something like, ‘Scheming is not appropriate in the Halls of the Mages.’ ”

  “Then they all marched off, and a couple of the lancers picked up the iron shields,” Faltar concluded.

  “So…” Lyasa’s eyes fixed on Cerryl. “What was Kesrik doing? Why were you in the sewers so late?”

  “A pair of men with iron shields and blades attacked me,” Cerryl admitted.

  “How did you stop them?” pressed Faltar. “Myral and Derka have both been telling me how dangerous it is to cast chaos against iron, especially polished iron.”

  Cerryl forced a laugh. “Steam… mostly. I turned the water in the drainage way into steam.”

  Lyasa smiled. “You thought quickly. How did you manage that?”

  “I don’t know.” Cerryl had to shrug. “I knew I couldn’t use chaos against iron. I had to do something.” He took another mouthful of burkha, feeling slightly deceptive and taking refuge in eating.

  “How did they get down there? All the grates are locked and sealed with chaos,” Faltar pointed out.

  “They used an old smugglers’ tunnel. Myral knew about it, but it had been bricked up years ago. They unblocked part of it.”

  “How did they know… ?” Faltar’s forehead furrowed.

  “That’s easy,” said Lyasa. “Cerryl walks down the streets every day. There are sewer grates every few hundred cubits. Anyone could figure that out.”

  Cerryl wondered. That was true enough… but why had he been assigned the secondary tunnel that already had an old smugglers’ tunnel? Someone wasn’t telling the truth, but who? Myral had said he could lie convincingly, and that meant other mages could as well. Despite the maker’s marks on the shields, Kesrik or his family paying to have arms-men attack Cerryl didn’t make sense, especially after Ullan’s words about a slender mage. But Anya wasn’t from a trader’s family, not that Cerryl recalled. And why would Sterol have turned Kesrik to ash, if the apprentice mage hadn’t been guilty? All that meant there was even more that Cerryl didn’t know.

  LXXIX

  The two guards nodded as Cerryl passed them and started up the tower steps. The nod from Hertyl was more deferential, Cerryl thought. Myral’s door was closed, and his room felt empty to Cerryl as the younger man passed the landing. Before he had reached the third level, his steps lagged, and he was breathing heavily when he stopped at the open landing of the uppermost level of the tower.

  “Come in, Cerryl,” called Sterol through the white oak door that was not quite closed.

  Cerryl took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, took another deep breath, and opened the brass-bound white oak door. He stepped into Sterol’s apartment, turning and closing the door to the position in which he had found it.

  “You can close it all the way.” Sterol sat behind the desk, centered between the white oak bookcases filled with leather-bound volumes. The High Wizard gestured to the straight-backed chair before the desk.

  Cerryl closed the door, then walked across the room and around the table that held the circular screeing glass to take the proffered seat.

  “You found the missing guard.” The High Wizard’s hair glinted a reddish iron gray in the light of sunset that streamed through the open tower window at his back.

  “Yes, ser. He hadn’t gone that far. He was hiding to the south, where the next secondary joined the main tunnel, behind a set of steps.”

  Sterol nodded. “There was no one else with him?”

  “No. He was alone. At least, I didn’t hear or see anyone else.” Cerryl added carefully.

  “Did the guards see you flame him?” The High Wizard shifted his weight in his chair, but his eyes remained on Cerryl.

  “I don’t know how much they saw, honored Sterol. They saw me use flame. They had to have heard Ullan scream.”

  “He screamed? Good… excellent. That will suffice. No white guard or lancer must ever be allowed to desert his post or duty.” Sterol frowned. “Why did he scream?”

  “He had a lance, and I struck his arm and the lance with the first firebolt.”

  “You went in front of the guards?”

  “I wasn’t supposed to be, ser?”

  “Ah, young Cerryl… the bravery of youth. That story will indeed serve you-and the Guild-serve us well.” Sterol laughed, but the laugh faded as the High Wizard studied the younger man. “I had hoped… but you retain enough force… more than enough… and you are bright…” A quick nod followed as though Sterol had reached a conclusion about something.

  Cerryl waited.

  “I take it this… Ullan said nothing?” Sterol’s voice sharpened.

  “He begged for mercy.”

  “Anything else?”

  Cerryl frowned. “He mumbled something about being afraid… that someone had approached him. That might have been Kesrik… but he said he didn’t know, only that whoever it was happened to be short.” Cerryl smiled apologetically. “I hope you don’t mind, ser, but since someone was trying to injure me, I wanted to know if he knew anything. I did flame him, as you ordered.”

  “Short… hmmmm…” Sterol smiled broadly. “I will pass that along to Jeslek�
� another confirmation that Kesrik was involved. His family has been asked to leave Fairhaven, you know. They had to have supplied the coins paid to the two men you killed.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  “Now… do you remember what I told you when you first came to the tower?”

  “Yes, ser. That I was to watch and to say nothing and to tell none but you… and not until you asked.”

  “Good.” Sterol’s face hardened. “Do you honestly think that Kesrik could have set up the attempt on you?”

  “Ser… I do not know Fairhaven or everything about the Guild. I had some doubts, but when one knows so little…”

  Sterol laughed, a short bark. “You know far more than you let any know, even me, and that is wise, so long as you remember who is High Wizard.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  “What do you know about Recluce?”

  “Nothing except what is in the histories and the old stories, ser. I have overheard that Recluce is trying to trade with Gallos through Spidlar and that such will not help Fairhaven.”

  Sterol leaned back in his chair slightly, but his face remained stern. “Men are weak, Cerryl. They will seek coins and personal gain, even if it will ruin their children and their children’s children. Even white mages can do the same, and that can be even more dangerous, for they do not have to worry about their children. Chaos provides great power, and great power can create great corruption. That is why Kesrik died.”

  Cerryl didn’t conceal the puzzlement he felt.

  “No,” Sterol answered the unspoken question. “Kesrik was not powerful. He was weak, too weak to resist the corruption of chaos. He saw the great power wielded by Jeslek and would do anything if he could have possessed like power.” The High Wizard straightened and the red-flecked brown eyes bored through Cerryl. “Do you understand that?”

  “I understand that he wanted power, ser. He tried to control the other students.”

  Sterol nodded. “That is one reason why you found brigands in the sewer, seeking your death. Where chaos can be manifested, so can corruption and evil. The same is true of great order, and that is why Recluce is corrupt. Far too much order has been concentrated on that isle. Now… why do you suppose so many mages are not in Fair-haven?”