Colors of Chaos

CXXXII

JESLEK SAT IN the chair Cerryl had taken from Reylerk. From the head of the long table that dominated the narrow dining hall of the largest stone house in Spidlaria the High Wizard surveyed the mages seated on each side. “People from everywhere in this miserable trading land-saving the traders-they all wish to submit and get on with their lives, except for that miserable place to the west.” Jeslek fixed his eyes upon Cerryl.

“Diev?” Cerryl ignored the sweat dribbling down his neck and concentrated on Jeslek.

“That’s where your precious smith is holed up. He won’t escape this time.”

My precious smith? How did he become mine? Because I couldn’t detect what no one else could, either? Cerryl glanced from Jeslek to Anya to Eliasar, then down the table past Fydel, Syandar, and Buar toward Leyladin.

“What do you plan?” asked the scarred arms mage.

“We will march on Diev-all of us except you and a few of the remaining mages. I’ve sent for some more junior ones to help you-Lyasa and Kalesin. You will keep a third of the White Lancers and half the levies and hold Spidlaria…make it into a proper place. The blockade ships will make sure this Dorrin doesn’t flee by sea.” Jeslek turned to Leyladin, seated at the last place at the table. “You, healer, should plan your trip to Lydiar on the vessel leaving on the morrow. Duke Estalin’s son ails once more.”

“It will be days…” began Cerryl.

“It may well be,” snapped Jeslek, “but Estalin is among the few rulers who truly acknowledge Fairhaven, and, unlike some, he asks but little.”

A frown crossed Anya’s face. “What if you need-”

“I am the High Wizard, dear Anya, and I know what I need.” After the briefest of pauses, he added, “And when I will not.”

“Spidlaria may yet harbor those who wish you harm,” Anya pointed out.

Cerryl held a frown at the words, words that seemed false and calculated to irritate the High Wizard. Beside Fydel, Syandar looked from one mage to the other, his eyes darting back and forth with the conversation, his mouth firmly closed.

“There are many who wish me harm. Wishing does not make it so, Anya, as you above all should know.” The sun-gold eyes were flat as Jeslek spoke. “The four of us-you, my dear Anya, Fydel, and our most dutiful Cerryl-will depart tomorrow to reduce Diev to the rubble it should already have been. You, Eliasar, will begin the work of turning Spidlaria into a city of which the Guild will be proud. Syandar and Buar will assist you.”

The arms mage nodded. Beside him, the black-haired Syandar nodded quickly.

Jeslek rose. “There is little else to be said, and the day waxes hot, far too hot for a place that is so chill in the winter. Anya, attend me.”

Cerryl and Leyladin exchanged glances, and Cerryl knew that the healer felt as he did as they rose from the table.

The side door in the wainscoted and paneled wall closed behind Anya and Jeslek, leaving the other mages standing around the table.

“That’s clear enough.” Fydel rolled his eyes, then fingered his beard momentarily. “We’re all here to do the bidding of Anya and the High Wizard.”

“Just the High Wizard, I think,” corrected Eliasar. The arms mage turned to Cerryl. “Too bad you won’t be staying. Your experience in Elparta and with the Patrol would be most helpful.”

Cerryl shrugged. “Jeslek needs someone to…” He never finished the sentence because he really wasn’t sure exactly what Jeslek wanted of him.

“To do the dangerous mage work,” Leyladin filled in.

“All magery is dangerous, Lady Leyladin,” said Eliasar dryly. “Even healing, as you have discovered.”

“Around Jeslek, of course it is.” Fydel shook his head. “I need to talk to the captains.”

“We need to talk first, Fydel.” Eliasar’s voice was cold. “Now.” He glanced at Syandar. “You stay.”

Fydel’s lips tightened, but he merely answered, “We do need to agree on which forces should go and which should stay.”

Cerryl and Leyladin nodded to the other three and slipped from the dining hall. Once into the main foyer, they headed for the door to the courtyard and then walked through the small rear gate from the grand mansion overlooking the harbor and down the paved lane. Cerryl glanced back, and the dark slate roof tiles glittered above the wall almost like shining water in the rays of the summer sun. “It’s more than twice as big as your father’s house.”

“Most traders’ houses elsewhere are. Those of the powerful factors, anyway.”

A faint and cooler breeze, bearing the scent of sea and harbor refuse, greeted them as they reached the back side of the harbor seawall.

Cerryl blotted his forehead on his sleeve. “Cooler here.”

“Let’s walk out that way.” Leyladin pointed toward the breakwater that angled out into the harbor perhaps a kay northward.

Cerryl took her hand as they turned. “Why is it that nothing turns out quite the way you thought it would, even when it does?” He scanned the area, but the seawall was empty, except for the lancers on guard near the piers.

She laughed, gently, humorously. “Because you know more than when you first hoped for something.”

“I suppose so. I always thought that being a White mage would solve all my problems.”

“Now you have more problems?”

“It’s not that,” mused Cerryl, fingering his chin with his free hand. “Viental and Rinfur and I-back when I was a mill boy-we worried about whether we’d have warm clothes for the winter and enough to eat and, sometimes, whether we might get hurt, but we didn’t want to think much about that. Now, I have more than enough to eat, clothes I couldn’t have dreamed of, and a beautiful woman I wouldn’t have dared to look at-and I still worry. I probably worry more.”

“That’s because you can do more about your life.”

“Can I? Or do we just think we can?” Cerryl cleared his throat, then squeezed Leyladin’s hand. “I used to think so, but what can even the High Wizard do? If he didn’t fight this war, or something like it, no one would pay tariffs in a year or so, and the Guild would have a bigger war or problem.”

“You really think so?”

“Jeslek created mountains upon mountains-and I still had to kill the old prefect of Gallos. He-we-took down two Towers of Hydolar and killed one, maybe two dukes, and the Hydlenese are still grudging their obligations.”

“You’re just saying that everyone is bound by the world and the bounds are less obvious but just as real when you have wealth or power?”

“Something like that.” Cerryl stopped under the shadow of some kind of oak, almost more a tall bush than a tree, that had grown out of the jumble of rocks at the inshore end of the breakwater.

“There’s one good thing about when we talk,” offered Leyladin, looking toward him.

“There are several good things.” Cerryl grinned.

Her green eyes danced for a moment. “No one thinks we’re talking seriously.”

“Who says we are? Or that we have to keep talking that way?”

“I do,” she answered firmly.

Cerryl gave a long and dramatic sigh. “About what?”

“You have that tone, ser mage. The one that asks if we can get through with your philosophizing and my trivial questions and get on with lust.” Leyladin’s red-blonde eyebrows arched.

Cerryl choked, then coughed his throat clear.

“Jeslek’s not the same,” she offered, pursing her lips for a moment.

“I know, but I don’t know how, except there’s more chaos around him all the time.”

“So long as Anya’s there,” suggested the healer.

“Besides Anya. And he was definitely but politely ordering Anya around, more than he used to do.”

“He doesn’t trust her. I wouldn’t. She used to sleep with Sterol, and maybe she still does when she can.”

“Is he still in the White Tower? Sterol, I mean?”

“He’s biding his time,” Leyladin said. “He hasn’t given up hope of reclaiming the amulet, no matter what he says.”

“About Jeslek…. I won’t be able to ask you once you go. So what should I do?”

“Do what he asks, so long as it’s not dangerous to you, and wait. And never be alone with Anya. Not without lancers or someone around.”

“I already learned that.”

“See that it stays learned.”

“I will.” He paused, then took both her hands in his. “Now…can we enjoy a little tiny bit of lust?” he asked plaintively.

Leyladin laughed. “A tiny bit.”

“That’s all I ask.”

“That’s all you ask to begin with,” she corrected, but her face turned to him, and their lips met under the shifting shadows of the young oak.