Colors of Chaos

CXLIII

CERRYL STUDIED THE empty Avenue, his eyes flicking around the square. Despite the infrequent street lamps, the whitened granite of the Avenue held and reflected enough light, even at midnight, that Cerryl’s borrowed mount had no difficulty in making her way from the Artisans’ Square up the narrower Way of the Lesser Artisans. The shops of the first crafters were as he had recalled, including the old potter’s, but the one that had held the weaver’s shop-where he had first seen Pattera-that now held yet another potter, if the emblem over the door were true.

He guided the mare down the alleyway-past all the sewer catches-toward the rear gate to Tellis’s house. Outside the courtyard, Cerryl sat in the saddle, then fingered the leather pouch-a small handful of golds, but a few golds were all he had. Not all by any means, but you have other debts to pay, and now is not when you should be poor again, either. Self-deception? Probably.

He smiled in the darkness, not quite sardonically, as he swung down from his mount, which he tied to the gate. He looked in all directions, but all the nearby windows were dark. Then, letting the light-blurring shield rise around him, he opened the gate from the alley and eased across the rear courtyard. Rather than open the common room door, Cerryl tied the pouch to the door latch and cloaked it in a faint illusion, one that would break the moment a hand touched the latch and one that would not hold past midmorning.

He wondered if Tellis and Beryal or Benthann would guess who had left the pouch. One way or another, it didn’t matter. Another debt paid…as best you can for now.

He retreated to the gate, which he closed, and then untied the mare and remounted. The faint clop of hoofs echoed down the alley and then along the Way of the Lesser Artisans as he retraced his path back to the small stable behind Layel’s small mansion. The air remained warm and still, the Avenue empty, except for one White mage and his mount.

Once back at the stable, he dismounted and led the mare to her stall. He brushed her quickly in the darkness, then closed her stall and the stable door, making his way through the gloom back to the door on the south side of the house. He unlocked it with Leyladin’s key, then relocked it behind himself. His steps were not quite noiseless on the marble floor, but no one roused-or called out-as he opened Leyladin’s bedchamber door, then closed it behind him.

“You weren’t that long. How did it go?” asked Leyladin sleepily as he undressed and then slipped under the single sheet, more than enough for the warm night.

“It was too little and too late, but…”

“Better than not at all.” She touched his lips with her finger. “Tellis? The weaver girl?”

“Tellis. The weaver has moved.”

“I’ll ask Soaris to see if he can find her. No one should know you’re the one who’s looking. Especially Anya.”

Especially Anya. “Thank you.”

“I’m glad you are who you are.” Two warm arms slipped around him, and their lips met.

So am I…after all these years.