The White Order

LXIII

CERRYL TOOK THE large brass key that Myral had entrusted to him, and placed it in the lock, letting the black order rise and gently restrain the chaos-fire that would have burst forth if without the restraint-or order shield.

Order-just to use chaos. The strangeness of it still struck him, almost with a shiver, a shiver compounded by the distinctly foul odor rising from the tunnel below the grate.

“Bad one down there. .” murmured one of the guards.

“They’re all bad when they need to be cleaned,” answered Jyantyl, the head guard of the detachment.

Once Cerryl had lifted the grate and relocked both the bronze lock and its chaos force, he turned to the senior guard.

“Jyantyl, I don’t know how long this will take.” Is that a true statement!

“Me and Shelkar will stand by here.” A smile followed. “Usually, a season or so. Most give the guards a midday break, and they need it as well.”

Cerryl nodded, thankful for the combined reminder and hint.

The other two guards, Ullan and Dientyr, followed Cerryl down the narrow steps to the secondary sewer tunnel. Cerryl almost slipped on the bottom step.

“Hold it.”

“Yes, ser.” As Ullan stopped, his lance scraped the fired and glazed brick of the wall.

Cerryl looked down at the green slime on the bottom two steps, then at the tunnel. The gray-and-black mass in the drainage way bobbed up and down gently, within a half-span of the walkway. The tunnel walls were coated with slime up to a good three cubits above the water level.

Something was partly blocking the sewer-somewhere.

First things first. He turned. “Ullan. . back up a little. I need to clean these steps.”

The dark-haired lancer guard nodded, the ends of his twig-thin mustache fluttering as he did. He and the sandy-haired Dientyr stepped back up to street level.

Cerryl backed up three steps and looked down. He took a deep breath and concentrated, first on raising the black shield mist and then on pushing forth the chaos-fire.

Whhhssst. . A glob of fire half-floated, half-fell onto the third step from the bottom and oozed across the two steps below it. Points of fire sparked as the chaos lit scraps of wood or something. Cerryl could feel the residual heat wash over his legs, despite his boots and heavy white trousers.

Darkness, what a sloppy firebolt. .

In a moment, the steps held only powdered white ashes that sifted off the glazed bricks.

Cerryl took another breath and mustered another shield and more chaos-fire.

This time his firebolt was larger and cleared the walkway for perhaps three cubits. Cerryl stepped down onto the walkway, trying not to gag at the stench that enfolded him.

He glanced at the side of the tunnel by the steps, then repressed a sigh. Everything needed fire-scouring. Everything.

As he turned to the wall beside the steps, a gurgling and bubbling came from the drainage way, and he glanced back in time to see a gas bubble pop out of the dark green fuzz on top of the wastewater.

For a moment, he felt he couldn’t breathe, and he quickly jumped up two steps and took a gasp of air, glad he hadn’t loosed any chaos-fire when the gas bubble had burst.

He shook his head and raised order and chaos-fire again, clearing the tunnel wall. He stepped down to the tunnel and glanced toward the drainage way.

Then he climbed back up the stairs.

“. . up and down. . up and down. .”

“Shut up, Ullan. . be glad it’s him and not you. Some’d have you down there in front of him, and you’d not last so long as clean air down there.”

Cerryl ignored the byplay and, from halfway up the steps, dropped a firebolt onto the green-and-gray scum-fuzz on top of the wastewater.

Crumpt. . umpt. . ump. .

A line of fire and a series of little explosions ran in both directions from the chaos-fire impact. After a moment, white ash sprayed across the secondary sewage tunnel below, some rising on hot sewer air and gas into the cooler fresh air of the street above.

“. . ugh. .”

“Ullan,” warned Jyantyl.

Cerryl already felt tired, and he’d barely cleared the area around the tunnel entrance. A gust of cold air swirled around him and mixed with the fetid sewer atmosphere.

He stepped down to the walkway. Bits of white ash covered the thick-looking wastewater, but the green-and-gray scum-fuzz had disappeared. Burned off? Cerryl didn’t know. More reading, he supposed.

Another firebolt brought more clear walkway bricks. He glanced at the drainage way. Was the wastewater level slightly lower? Had the scum he’d burned off slowed the flow down?

Slowly he walked another half-dozen paces into the darkness, though he could sense things well enough. Something protruded from the drainage way, not a great deal, perhaps a half cubit above the water level, and he thought the water level was lower on the other side. A rubbish buildup?

With a half-shrug, he lofted another firebolt onto whatever it was that rose out of the drainage way.

A burst of flame flared into the tunnel, then subsided, and the protuberance vanished with a gurgling sound. Then another gurgling sound rose, and the water level in the drainage way began to drop.

“Why here?” Then he looked back toward the stairs and the grate above. Of course some good citizen of Fairhaven had probably disposed of something through the bars-something he hadn’t wanted to bring to the refuse wagon.

Cerryl wanted to shake his head. Whatever it had been, he’d just destroyed it.

His eyes went to the drainage way, now down to what he thought was a more normal level, and back along the next dozen cubits of walkway that he had yet to clean.

He mustered another firebolt, scouring half the distance to what he’d cleaned previously, but his head was beginning to ache, like it did in a storm, and skies were clear.

How could he direct enough fire to clean anything? He leaned against the just-cleaned tunnel wall for a moment.

Light. . light. . Myral kept talking about light. So had Jeslek. That had to be something about it, something he needed to think about. . if he ever had time and energy.

“Ullan, you and Dientyr can come down now.” His voice sounded ragged, but he turned toward the darkness and slime ahead.