The White Order

XCI

IN THE DIMNESS, away from the cookfire, Cerryl pulled off his white leather boots, coated in chaos dust but free from mud, and stretched out on his bedroll, his eyes on the white silk tent where Jeslek reclined on a cot. “Ohhhh. . darkness. .”

To the east, a faint glow lighted the horizon, the red-limned light from the scattered lines of molten rock that had burst from the ground with the hills Jeslek had raised into small mountains.

Cerryl took another long breath.

“Even the ground feels better than a saddle,” Lyasa said wryly.

“It’s hard,” complained Kochar, sitting disconsolately on his bedroll, his boots still on. “Too hard to sleep on.”

“Try it,” suggested Lyasa.

“I’m going back to the fire. I’m cold.” Kochar stood and ambled back in the direction of the silk tent, its white sides an orange from the light of the slowly dying cookfire.

The rustling murmur of lancers preparing their bedrolls and the muted talking they did conveyed a sense of the summer that had already passed in Gallos, a sense of summer dispersed by the chill breeze out of the northwest, a breeze bringing the odor of damp and decaying grass.

Lyasa eased her bedroll closer to Cerryl’s, then removed her boots and pulled her blanket up to her shoulders. “This way we can talk, and no one will think anything.”

I’m sure they’ll think something. “I doubt that.” Cerryl shivered, despite his double blankets. Feeling guilty, he eased the edge of the top blanket over Lyasa.

“That’s even better. And warmer.” The black-haired woman laughed softly. With her lips less than a span from Cerryl’s face, the laugh tickled his left ear. “They will think but of two apprentices taking comfort where they may. Jeslek and Anya both are used to such, as both couple like hares, given the chance.”

“You know this?”

“I have been spared, saved only that I am beneath him. None are beneath Anya, not if it will serve her.”

“I know.” Cerryl thought of poor Faltar, who saw nothing but Anya’s beauty and wonderful and false smile. “I know.” After a moment, he added, “Why are you telling me this?”

“Who else dare I tell? I am a student mage also, and any full mage who wishes me. . I cannot leave. .”

Cerryl’s throat tightened. “I’m sorry. I didn’t. . I thought I was the only one. . like that.”

Lyasa offered another soft laugh, half-sweet, half-bitter. “I know that as well. We are alike, you because you have no family, and I because I am a woman with a talent for chaos. As for you. .” Lyasa’s voice held a regretful shrug. “I was wrong. I would be your friend. I would always be your friend, and I will give you my body, if you wish it.”

“I do not understand. I have not asked. .” Cerryl swallowed.

“No. Nor will you, and you and I both know the reason.”

Cerryl was afraid he did. Leyladin. Yet he had never done more than speak with the green-eyed gray mage. “You said. .”

“I did, and I was wrong, and that is why I am your friend, and your ally. If you can survive Sterol, and Jeslek, and Anya, you will save us all.”

Cerryl shook his head. “I’m still a student, and every time I look, Jeslek is trying to test me in some other way.”

“He is not testing you. He is trying to get you to make a mistake that will kill you. He dares not kill you outright, and you must be strong enough to withstand him when he succeeds Sterol as High Wizard.”

Jeslek as High Wizard? How could he not become High Wizard with the power he already commanded? And how could Cerryl withstand that kind of power?

Lyasa reached out and gave him a one-armed hug. “You don’t have to do it alone.”

Her words echoed in his ears even as he drifted off to sleep, savoring the comfort of her closeness, and only her closeness. “You don’t have to do it alone. You don’t have to do it alone.”

Even so, a blond mage with red highlights in her hair filled his dreams, and as he seemed to watch her walk through endless corridors, corridors he could never quite enter, he half-dreamed, half-wondered if he would ever see Leyladin again. And what he could do about it, if ever he did.