Colors of Chaos

XLVIII

CERRYL STUDIED THE screeing glass, knowing he should practice more. He didn’t want to try to look at Leyladin too often. He knew that would upset her because she could probably sense his efforts. After all, she had sensed his first attempt when he was a youth, and Cerryl himself could tell when someone was using a glass to capture his image.

He frowned. Did the young Black smith know he was being observed? How could he not? That brought up another question. Jeslek had insisted there were three Blacks in Spidlar, but Cerryl had only been able to use the glass to find the smith. That meant the other two didn’t marshal nearly the order that either the smith or Leyladin did. So why was Jeslek so concerned? Were they better arms commanders than those of Certis or Fairhaven? Cerryl had no way of determining that and enough more immediate worries-such as Leyladin and Patrol duty. His duty hadn’t been quite so bad for the past two days, perhaps because he’d been spending more time on the streets again. How long could he do that? It made it more difficult for all the area patrols he didn’t accompany to find him, and it wasn’t fair to them for him to be out of the building too long. Yet his being on the street definitely reduced even the minor peacebreaking.

He took a deep breath and looked toward the window, where the afternoon light and a warm breeze poured into the room. Then he looked down at the glass again.

Thrap.

For practice, Cerryl concentrated on the glass, attempting to see who stood on the other side of the white oak door. As the mists parted, the image of a messenger in red appeared, a round-faced girl who was new, at least to Cerryl.

He let the image lapse and stood, quickly walking to the door and opening it. “Yes?”

“Mage Cerryl, ser?”

“That’s me.”

“The overmage Kinowin bids you come immediately. He wants you to hurry. He will meet you at the mage Myral’s quarters as soon as you can get there.”

Cerryl swallowed, then stepped out of the room and closed the door. “Thank you!” he called over his shoulder as he began to hurry toward the stairs, not quite at a run.

He dodged around Kiella entering the fountain court and almost ran down another apprentice in the front foyer. Cerryl slowed his pace as he neared the steps to the Tower. It wouldn’t do any good for him to race up to Myral’s and arrive so out of breath that all he could do would be to stand and pant.

He was still slightly breathless when Kinowin opened Myral’s door.

“I’m glad you hurried,” the overmage whispered. “Cerryl’s here,” he added in a louder voice as he closed the door.

Myral lay on his bed, wearing a white robe, one so heavy that Cerryl would have sweated to death, yet the older mage had a blanket over him and shivered as Cerryl neared the bed.

“Glad…you came.” The words were barely audible.

Cerryl knelt on the floor by the bed, letting his fingers touch Myral’s all too pale forehead. Cerryl kept his face composed and concerned, with a superficial calmness he hung onto as necessary for the moment. Cerryl struggled to try to raise order, as he did chaos, outside himself, and to impose that flickering black fragment on the flux that was ravaging Myral.

“Helps…a little…for a few moments…know…there’s too much chaos in my body. Before long…” Myral gasped. “For a White mage, it has been a good life.”

“Just relax,” Cerryl said quietly.

“I hoped for you…did not tell…the truth…” Another series of gasps followed. “None…none…since Cyador…hold chaos light like you could have…did not want…tell you…”

“I know…I found out.”

“So…sorry…sad to see you lose…that…”

Cerryl touched Myral’s shoulder. “Everything has worked out. Please don’t worry.”

“…still worry.”

Cerryl glanced toward the door, then bent toward Myral’s ear, whispering low. “Chaos light can be shielded. Don’t worry, old friend and mentor.”

“Yes.” A smile crossed the older mage’s face as Cerryl eased his lips from Myral’s ear, a smile that faded under another attack of coughing.

Cerryl could sense that Myral’s entire body pulsed with the unseen deep and angry red of a chaos flux, and but a few dark threads of order bound that chaos, threads that he had strengthened momentarily, yet they had frayed almost immediately.

Myral coughed another time, then seemed to convulse, then slumped back onto the bed.

Even as Cerryl watched, wide-eyed, sparkles of chaos flared, and the body of the older mage collapsed into dust, and even the dust seemed to sift into nothingness.

“From chaos and unto chaos,” murmured Kinowin, “that is from whence we come and where we go, for unto none is given the everlasting light of the eternal sun of chaos.” His voice broke on the last words, and he turned toward the closed and shuttered window.

Cerryl stood slowly.

In time, Kinowin turned.

“Even for him, there was too much chaos at the end,” Cerryl said. “I couldn’t do any more. I don’t know how.”

“You know more than you admit,” said Kinowin quietly. “The healer?”

“I’ve watched her. I have to do it outside myself. It’s harder that way, and I couldn’t do enough. If she’d been here…if she had just been here…”

The overmage shook his head. “Perhaps a few days more, if she had been here. No more than that. Even the best of the Blacks can but retard death. Perhaps someday…perhaps…but not now.”

“I tried,” Cerryl added. “I did.”

“I know. What did you tell him at the end? That you were more than you seemed?” asked Kinowin.

His eyes burning, Cerryl nodded. “He deserved to know that…he did.”

“No one else will know,” Kinowin said. “I’m glad you told him.” The older mage covered the vanishing white dust that had been Myral with the heavy white blanket. “You can’t do more here; best you go for now. Do not seem to grieve for Myral though you do. Leave the Halls until you are calm. Jeslek and Anya would use that against you, and Myral would not wish that.”

“What of you?”

“I am older, and all know I grieve. Let them sense my grief.”

Cerryl could see the wetness on the older mage’s cheeks. Finally, he turned. “Only because he would wish it.”

“I know.”

Cerryl blotted his face and somehow managed to keep his expression blank through the entry Hall and until he was on the Avenue, marching northward through the early twilight.

You should have spent more time with him. He knew so much, and no one else cared-except Kinowin and Leyladin, and she couldn’t even be there. You should have looked in on him more. You promised Leyladin…but it happened so suddenly…

He kept walking up the Avenue, eyes not quite seeing, but his senses instinctively extended, looking for chaos or danger-the habit a result of the attempt on his life the year before and the skills he’d had to develop as a Patrol mage.

Myral was gone…not even a body, nothing but sparkling dust that had sifted into nothingness before his eyes. Nothingness. Was that what happened to all White mages?

He stepped aside for a woman and a child, not really seeing either, and kept walking.