Colors of Chaos

CLII

IN THE LATE-AFTERNOON light, Cerryl stood just inside the study door and studied the pile of scrolls and lists. He knew it hadn’t grown, but he hadn’t decreased it much, either. Finally, he settled behind the desk. After four days, he’d barely finished his initial round of publicly “discovering” goods, and his legs ached. So did his head, and from what he could tell, no goods had appeared on any shelves.

So…do you start executing people? He took a deep breath.

Before long, he needed to meet with Lyasa and talk over what he could do next without destroying whole cities the way Jeslek had. You’re beginning to understand why he did, though. Destroying things is a lot easier than getting cooperation. But destruction didn’t raise tariff coins, at least not after what you grubbed from the ruins. He took another deep breath and let it out as someone knocked on the door. “Yes?”

The door opened, and the sandy-haired Kalesin peered in. “This arrived from the High Wizard, ser.” Kalesin bowed slightly as he extended the scroll.

“Thank you.” Cerryl paused. “How are you coming on that compendium of shops and traders?”

“Ah…another day or so, ser, I would say. It’s hard to find out about some of the shops that are closed.”

“Keep working.”

The door closed, and Cerryl studied the scroll, opened and resealed, from what he could tell, probably by his good and faithful assistant Kalesin. With a twist of his lips, he broke the chaos-mended seal and began to read:

While you have been in Spidlar but a few eight-days, we must reemphasize the need for coins with which to repay the costs of the campaign so unwisely undertaken by our predecessor. We direct you to consider some form of local tariff or surtax, as you see necessary…

In short, send coins-lots of coins-and Sterol isn’t that particular how you obtain them.

Cerryl wanted to snort. Bleeding the beaten land to death wouldn’t solve the problems Fairhaven faced, as if Sterol or any of those in the Halls really cared. Except Leyladin…or Kinowin. He looked at the words and set the scroll on the desk, closing his eyes for a moment.

Lyasa burst into the study, breathing hard. “Five of them-Menertal, Zyleral, Tillum, Sirle, and Helak-are meeting in the back room of that public house off the main square.”

“Now?” Cerryl stood, almost losing his balance before turning and glancing toward the courtyard. “I’d better get there.”

“You-you’re the arms mage.”

“Who else can do it? Besides, I have no intention of letting them see me.”

“At least, let Hiser bring a troop somewhere close.”

Cerryl had to admit that made sense. “Can you find him? Or some lancer subofficer you trust? Have him waiting in the corner of the square closest to the public house.”

“I can get Suzdyal’s company there first.”

“Fine.” Cerryl opened the study door and brushed past his guards and out into the courtyard.

As Lyasa headed toward her mount, Cerryl walked along the narrow passage from the courtyard to the lower street, lifting the shield that caused people’s eyes to shift away from him. Once on the lower street, he forced himself to move quickly, but deliberately, so that he’d not be winded when he reached the square and the public house. What do you hope from this?

“An improvement,” he answered in a murmur, suspecting that was unlikely. But you have to try.

The weathered signboard outside the public house bore the image of a brown boar with oversized yellow tusks and smaller letters beneath in Temple tongue-“The Brown Boar.”

The White mage took another deep breath and stepped through the open door. A few eyes glanced toward the door but slid away from the eye-blurring shield. Cerryl tried not to swallow as he caught a glimpse of mail beneath a stained shirt and several daggers almost lengthy enough to be shortswords. The near half-score of men in leathers who sat around the tables in the main room were anything but indulgers.

This isn’t sensible…Then life wasn’t sensible. The blur shield around him, Cerryl edged across the floor toward the two doors in the rear. A few men glanced in his direction, and one burly man frowned, then blinked.

A serving girl walked around Cerryl without realizing she had.

“…don’t like this. Whites got lancers everywhere…”

“They don’t want to fight.” The speaker laughed. “Figure they fought enough already…”

The front room was filled with the odor of smoke, cooked fat, spilled ale, and unwashed bodies. Cerryl began to muster chaos as he moved slowly but deliberately toward the back-keeping away from the tables that held the disguised armsmen.

The door to the back room was closed. Cerryl raised a full light shield and settled into the darkness, letting his senses tell him about the room beyond the door. Five men sat at the table in the rear room of the inn, and a single guard stood on the other side of the door.

With a wry smile, the mage opened the door and stepped inside-unseen even as all eyes turned to the door-and then around the guard.

“What…?”

“Probably blew open. There’s no one there.”

“Make sure it’s latched, Dignyr.”

Clunk! The guard shut the door, and Cerryl slipped into the corner, deciding to remain in darkness and to listen for a bit.

“This latest thing of his-telling them to sell or lose everything-some folk won’t hold with us, Menertal. You can’t ask them to.”

“We can ask what’s necessary. If the Whites can’t get coins, they’ll lose.”

“Not before destroying Spidlar.”

“Why don’t your…‘friends’ kill this one like the last? There aren’t that many mages outside of Fairhaven?”

“This one is harder to get to than the old one. His lancers respect him. And he never tells anyone when he’ll be going somewhere.”

“Anyone can be killed…”

Cerryl continued to listen.

“We have to do some of this ourselves.”

“The hard part.”

Cerryl took a deep breath and began to muster as much chaos as he could draw around his shields.

“Look in the corner!”

Whst! Whst! Whst!…Chaos flared across the room, in six quick flashes that centered on the guard first, then the traders around the table. The chaos flashed so quickly that there was not a single scream or exclamation.

Cerryl felt the world twist around him, and for a time he just leaned against the wall gasping. When he looked up, his shields down, in the center of the room remained a drifting pile of white ash.

He walked heavily to the door and gently unlatched it, raising his blur screen as he stepped aside and let the door swing open. The pounding in his head bit through his skull like a disintegrating sawmill blade. He gritted his teeth and waited.

“What happened?” One of the armsmen in the main room bolted to the open door. “Everything’s gone!”

After the first rush to the door, Cerryl waited and eventually slipped through an opening, ignoring the exclamations from the disguised armsmen. Trying to hold his guts and the blur shield together, he walked slowly back along the main street and around the corner to where Lyasa and the lancers waited. He dropped the shield with relief, ignoring the few gasps.

The lancer subofficer reined up beside Lyasa was a dark-haired and hard-faced woman-one of the few women subofficers in the lancers, Cerryl suspected. Beside Lyasa was Cerryl’s mount.

“You’re all right?” asked the black-haired mage.

“I’m fine.” Sort of…He swung up heavily into the saddle, trying to ignore the weakness in his legs, the pounding in his head, and the faint queasiness in his guts.

“This is Subofficer Suzdyal. Mage Cerryl.” Lyasa raised her eyebrows. “Now what?”

“They ought to have arms ready,” Cerryl said.

“What did you do?”

“Arms ready!” snapped Suzdyal. Blades and white-bronze lances glittered in the late-afternoon sun of the fading summer.

“Let’s just say that the plotters all vanished.”

“All five?”

Cerryl offered a twisted smile. “That’s my one skill-removing people who are difficulties. I have to use it too much.”

“I wish more leaders did,” said Suzdyal dryly. “You expecting a riot or something?”

“No. Let’s ride down the side street to the public house.”

As the formed-up lancers approached the public house, several of the disguised armsmen stopped on the street.

“Armsmen, all right,” said Suzdyal. “Locals’d run and get cut down from behind. What’d you want us to do with them?”

Cerryl looked at Lyasa, then looked at the five men standing before the sign of The Brown Boar. He raised his voice. “Let them go, unless they cause trouble. If they do, kill them.”

One of the leather-clad armsmen started to open his mouth. The man next to him elbowed him in the gut and spoke. “He meant nothing, ser mage. We’ll be going peaceably.”

“Good. Spidlar is going to stay peaceful, and people are going to start trading again-out in the open. Those who think otherwise won’t be around long.” Cerryl offered an icy smile but kept his eyes fixed on the men until they slowly began to walk down the street away from the lancers.

Every so often one or another would glance back over a shoulder.

Cerryl kept scanning the area, for anything that might cause problems, with both senses and sight, but could find nothing.

When the shadowed street stood empty, silent, Suzdyal gave Cerryl a quick look. “They’ll tell the others.”

“And?” Cerryl finally wiped the dampness off his forehead.

“There won’t be so many eager the next time some fop flashes silvers before them.”

Cerryl hoped not. “I think we can head back.”

Suzdyal and Lyasa nodded.