The White Order

LXXXIX

CERRYL WRAPPED THE heavy white leather jacket around him, and stood in the stirrups to try to warm up his legs. In the early morning, his breath puffed out like a cloud. Although the sky was clear and it was well past dawn, the sun had yet to clear the eastern edge of the gorge through which the Great Highway ran.

The sound of hoofs echoed through the stillness, stillness broken abruptly by the shrill ye-aah! of a vulcrow that flapped off a dead pine limb and into the middle of the artificial canyon that contained the highway.

“Amazing,” murmured Kochar, a smile upon his face, as if the cold bothered him not in the slightest.

Cerryl ignored the redhead’s comment and settled back into the saddle, rubbing one thigh, then switching the reins to his left hand and rubbing the other. The chestnut whuffed once.

In places, the gray stone of the cliffs seemed to have been peeled away as if by a mighty knife. Cerryl nodded to himself. Even he could sense the residual chaos of that effort of centuries past.

To the left of and below the wall separating the highway from the lower section of the gorge was a stream of cold and tumbling water, violent enough even in harvest season that light spray occasionally cloaked Cerryl and the chestnut, spray that felt like ice. Small patches of ice had formed during the night on the stones next to the wall, where the late afternoon sun had cast shadows the day before.

“Amazing. .” mumbled Kochar once more.

“The cold or the highway?” Lyasa’s voice was sharp.

“The highway. It is made of order, yet formed by chaos. .”

Even Cerryl understood that whatever was built lasted longer with greater order. Chaos had great power, but it was the power of destruction. The great whites of the past had cut the granite with chaos, but the masons had joined the stones with skill and order. While the slope of the pavement was gradual, it was continuous, and the ancient stones still held flush.

Cerryl could sense some areas of greater residual chaos, places where he suspected the highway had been repaired-or rocks that had fallen from the cliffs had been removed.

“The Guild maintains it by chaos,” said Lyasa. “Fine, but I’m still cold. I’m from Worrak. It’s not this cold in midwinter even in the Lower Easthorns.”

“Gallos will be colder than Certis,” said Fydel, turning in his saddle. “It is past the peak of harvest there-in the north where Fenard is. That’s because it’s between the Easthorns and the Westhorns.”

“Even young Cerryl knows that,” said Anya. “He created a most accurate map.”

“He doubtless needed to,” said Fydel.

“Fydel.” Anya’s voice was as cold as the ice beside the stone highway wall.

Fydel turned abruptly, his eyes on Jeslek’s back.

Lyasa coughed.

Cerryl glanced at her, catching her mouthed words: “Watch out. .”

He nodded, understanding all too well. If Anya happened to be too interested in him, he needed to be careful-most careful. “It should get warmer once the sun hits the road.”

“I hope so,” answered Lyasa.

“Amazing,” whispered Kochar to himself.

Cerryl shook his head, trying to ignore the chill in his thighs and his frozen ears, hoping Anya would confine her overt attentions to others.