The White Order

CI

CERRYL GLANCED AT the still-steaming heights ahead-the hills that Jeslek had raised into mountains. He patted the chestnut on the neck and glanced along the empty Great White Highway.

After more than five long days, he was back on the Great Highway, and back in the whites of a student mage. He hadn’t changed out of his “bravo” disguise until he’d finally been on the Great White Highway for more than a day, but he kept the darker cloak strapped on top of his pack-just in case he ran into some Gallosian armsmen.

The clouds that moved slowly out of the northeast were thickening, and darkening. He looked up, judging that rain would not fall until midafternoon, and hoping it would not be heavy.

His hands still hadn’t healed totally, and his headache, while it had faded, had not disappeared, and a rainstorm would just make that worse. His thighs threatened to cramp, but hadn’t, perhaps because he was getting more used to riding. His neck was stiff-probably from looking over his shoulder to see who might be pursuing him.

Better think some about what’s ahead. .

His stomach growled, reminding him that he needed to stop and eat something, not that he had all that much to eat. He’d spent most of the remaining coins on travel food at a small town just short of the Great Highway-hoping that the hard cheese and road biscuits would last until he returned to Fairhaven.

On the road to Tellura, he’d encountered some travelers, but the highway had been vacant, totally vacant. Was that because traders loyal to Fairhaven couldn’t sell their goods at a low enough price to compete in Gallos? And because the disloyal ones hadn’t paid road tariffs and feared using the roads after Jeslek’s destruction of the Gallosian lancers? Or did they fear the prefect’s wrath?

Cerryl held the reins loosely-very loosely. His hands remained tender, especially across the palms, where he’d gripped the gate bars tightly.

Touching iron didn’t usually burn him. Was that because he’d been using chaos energies? Would that bar him from Leyladin? He winced at that thought. Something else you really don’t know. . He sighed. There was so much he didn’t know, and he wondered if he would ever learn all that he needed.

His eyes went to the empty road ahead, stretching like a white ribbon into the ugly darkness raised by Jeslek.

Some things just didn’t seem to make sense. How had he been able to kill Lyam so easily? Why hadn’t anyone even looked for him? The sometime wavering of the light shield was a giveaway. If anyone knew what it meant. .

He nodded. Was that why the Guild sought out all those with chaos or order talent? To keep the rest of Candar from knowing exactly what the white mages could do? Or had the secrecy just happened and been discovered to be beneficial?

About the only thing most people knew was that mages could use the screeing glasses to see things and that they could throw chaos-fire-and that black mages could sometimes heal.

Cerryl laughed. Now they knew that mages could raise mountains. But that was so rare and improbable that in generations to come no one would remember. Cerryl couldn’t imagine that the world produced many Jesleks, or very often.

Again. . the rules of the Guild made sense, although he didn’t have to like the way some, like Jeslek, used them to their personal advantage.

Could you do better?

Cerryl laughed at the thought. He’d like to try, but the chances of an orphaned scrivener’s apprentice becoming an overmage, or especially High Wizard, weren’t exactly overwhelming.

The chestnut whuffed, and Cerryl patted his neck again. “We’ll stop for water before long. You can have the last of the grain.”

The gelding didn’t look that thin, but Cerryl wondered. He’d managed to stop where there had been some lush grass, but he doubted that grazing was enough, and he’d not been able to afford as much grain as he’d have liked. He’d tried not to push the pace, letting the gelding carry him easily, knowing that he didn’t really know enough about horses, either.

He held in a sigh, then took a deep breath.

Jeslek had wanted him to fail. Why? Had Myral been right? That Cerryl was a threat? But Cerryl didn’t really want to be High Wizard. He just wanted people to stop trying to get rid of him or push him around. Is that so much to ask?

For some people, apparently it was.

Cerryl frowned. What had saved him was what Jeslek had not known-like Cerryl’s awareness of the light shield or his own mastery of targeted fire lances. Jeslek was far more powerful. . but he didn’t know everything. Knowledge was a form of power. Not the only kind of power, as witness the mountains that the overmage had raised, but the kind of power Cerryl could master. Would have to master-for many reasons, one of them who wore green and whose green eyes danced in his thoughts and memories.