The White Order

XLVI

CERRYL WAS ONLY halfway through the workroom door when Tellis barked, “Cerryl, the letters on this sheet are too wide. It’s near worthless. Nivor won’t pay for such sloppy work. I’ll have to redo this page and the one before it.” Tellis lifted the sheets of vellum. “All these are good for is palimpsests-for low-coin copy work.”

“Yes, ser. If you like, I can copy them over with narrower letters.” Cerryl kept his voice even, standing just inside the doorway.

“Why didn’t you do it that way to begin with?” Tellis’s voice took on a tone that almost verged on whining. “I’ve showed you time and time again.”

“I thought I was doing it the way you wanted, ser.” Cerryl struggled to keep his voice even and subservient.

“It is not the way I taught you. Can’t you get anything right?” Tellis waved the vellum.

Cerryl did not answer.

“Can’t you? I have spent seasons instructing you, and you still make your letters too wide.” The scrivener’s eyes flicked to Cerryl and then toward the doorway to the front room. “I never had white mages in the shop, except to purchase books. Now. . we are watched and questioned. What do you say to that?”

“Ser, I have done nothing wrong.” Clearly, any answer would be useless, but not answering would be worse.

“The only thing you do right is run errands and scrub the floor. Even your ink will fade before its time.”

“Yes, ser.” Cerryl understood. For some reason, Tellis did not want to throw Cerryl out on the street, but he was going to make life impossible for his apprentice. . so impossible that Cerryl would not stay. Yet, at the moment, he dared not leave, not if his feelings were accurate, and they were all he had to guide him.

“All your wages-what I owe you-would not pay for the vellum you have ruined.”

“You may have my wages, ser. I would not displease you.”

“You have displeased me.” Tellis sniffed. “Go empty the chamber pots.”

“Yes, ser.”

“And wash them.”

“Yes, ser.”

“Wash them well.”

Cerryl bowed and turned.

“Then you can go to the renderer’s for hoofs. I need to make binding glue.”

“Yes, ser.”

As he stepped out of the workroom, the apprentice could still hear Tellis muttering.

“A favor for Dylert. . and where does it get me? Because he helped my son. . and still, where, light forbid, is the justice in it? This may right the balance, if I can but survive.”

Cerryl stepped into the kitchen, wondering what he could do, and how he could stay, at least until the white mages lost interest in him.

“Where you be going?” asked Beryal.

“Tellis told me to empty the chamber pots and wash them.”

Beryal smiled. “You cannot be doing that. Your own is clean, for I saw you do that, and so is mine, and my daughter would have your head faster than would Tellis were you to wake her so early.”

“What can I do?” Cerryl glanced back toward the workroom.

“The courtyard could use a sweeping, and Tellis could use some time by himself, and I will tell him that I told you to do that after you cleaned the two chamber pots.” Beryal looked at Cerryl. “He is fearful. He has seen what the mages do to those who displease them. He has seen such too many times.”

“But he has done nothing, and surely the mages know that.” Cerryl glanced over his shoulder again.

“His son. .” whispered Beryal, looking toward the front room. “We all carry black angels, and fear is Tellis’s. Later. .” Her voice resumed its normal timbre. “Go sweep the courtyard.”

Cerryl picked up the broom and walked through the common room and into the courtyard, wondering if Tellis would complain about his sweeping as well. Beryal had started to say something about Tellis’s son. Had that been the Verial that Benthann had mentioned?

Cerryl wanted to scream and cry all at the same time. No one said anything, and he was in no position to ask, and yet the answers affected him somehow. Would life always be like that?

With a silent sigh, he started sweeping in the corner by the door, making sure that the broom straws flicked each join in the stone tiles clean. He supposed he could scrub the tiles once more after he finished sweeping.

“Cerryl!”

He looked up from the broom. Tellis stood in the doorway, paler than the white granite of the avenue. “Yes, ser.”

“The mages want you.”

Cerryl forced his eyes away from the rear gate, the only possible escape, except that escape was a trap. Perhaps all life was a trap. He turned toward Tellis, still holding the broom. “Me, ser?”

Tellis gestured.

Cerryl walked toward the door, only slowing to lean the broom against the wall.

“In the front,” rasped Tellis, pushing his apprentice in front of him and toward the front room with the bookcases and copied volumes.

Cerryl walked through the common room and kitchen, knowing that Beryal was there, yet not really seeing her. He also ignored the murmured words of the scrivener, who followed.

“This is what I get for doing a favor for Dylert. . the white guards at my shop door.” Tellis sniffed self-sympathetically.

In the showroom stood a single mage in white, a tall and rugged blond man with a purple blotch on one cheek, a mage whom Cerryl had never seen. “You are the scrivener’s apprentice?”

Cerryl bowed. “Yes, ser.”

“Your name is Cerryl?”

“Yes, ser.”

“You are to come with me. Now. You need nothing. You bring nothing.”

“Yes, ser.”

The mage turned to Tellis. “You owe him nothing, and you are free to find another apprentice. Good day, scrivener.” The gray eyes, overlaid with a sheen of gold, fixed on Cerryl. “Outside.”

“Yes, ser.” Cerryl understood he had no chance if he ran. His only hope was to stand firm and admit nothing more than the mages already knew about him, and to be unfailingly polite. He bowed and turned, opening the door.

Outside the shop were six guards in white, and before them two others in white tunics and trousers like the mage, except that their tunics bore a thin red stripe across each sleeve.

Already the day was hot, and white dust sifted through the air on the lightest of breezes. Cerryl wanted to rub his nose but didn’t, wrinkling it slightly to try to stop the itching.

“Walk beside me.” The mage smiled, an expression without warmth, and absently brushed something darkish from the white tunic.

The mage nodded to the guards and the two others in white.

All the shutters flanking the way of the lesser artisans between the scrivener’s and the artisans’ square were shut. So were the doors, despite the bright sunlight and the warmth of the morning.

Once on the main avenue, walking briskly toward the mages’ square and the white tower that loomed over it, Cerryl took more notice of his surroundings.

They passed the last of the artisans’ shops and left the square behind. An ostler led a saddled chestnut out of the stable toward a tall man dressed in blue, standing before the small inn. The saddlebags on the horse bulged, indicating a traveler. Past the ostlery was the long grain exchange building. No carriages stood by the vacant mounting blocks, though the windows and the shutters of the exchange were open, and two men in maroon tunics talked in the arched doorway.

At the grinding of ironbound wagon wheels, Cerryl could feel the white guards move closer. Did they think he would try to jump on a wagon-or under the wheels? The ubiquitous fine white dust rose from the avenue as the brown-stained wagon, behind two horses, rolled past. In the wagon bed were a half-dozen huge barrels, each nearly man-high, roped together. Who needed barrels that large?

Feeling the dampness on his forehead, Cerryl stepped across the narrow side way and back onto the stone walk of the jewelers’ block. Perhaps half the iron-banded doors were open, and the air held the acrid odor of oil, hot metal, and other burned substances. Cerryl glanced sideways at the white mage, but the man’s oval face remained impassive.

Beyond the goldsmiths’ and silversmiths’ shops was the long stretch of large houses, each behind low white-granite walls. In one garden, in the house beyond Muneat’s, two small children gamboled, a slender young woman watching from the shade of a tree trimmed into the shape of a sphere. In the next, two gardeners worked on pruning and shaping vines around an arbor.

Yet the only sounds Cerryl heard were the delighted cries of the children, and he wondered how long children in Fairhaven showed such joy. As their cries died away, the murmur of voices from around the colored carts that filled the market square rose. The muted hubbub from the peddlers and the buyers gently drowned out the sound of the guards’ boots on the hard granite.

Yet not a head turned as Cerryl and his small procession passed the market square and continued down the avenue, past another section of large houses with well-kept walls and gardens.

Cerryl began to squint in the warm morning sun as he neared the wizards’ square. The wizards’ tower itself reared perhaps sixty cubits over the other lower buildings in the square, a blot of white stone that cast a shadow along the avenue.

The glare from the tower, and from the lower white stone buildings around the square, seemed to pulse, as if each stone cast arrows of brilliance at him so that the shadow from the tower offered little relief from a sun that had gotten hotter with every step from Tellis’s shop.

Cerryl could sense the unseen whiteness of chaos, curling around the tower itself like invisible smoke. With the glare and the chaos, he found it harder to make out the structures around the circular square, save all were of a granite even whiter than that which paved the avenue, and none except the tower exceeded two levels.

The square itself held a pedestal, with a statue, surrounded by an expanse of grass, grass so dark green that it appeared almost black in the late morning sun. Rather than being in the center of a building or standing alone, the wizard’s tower rose from the south side of a building that otherwise appeared to contain two stories. There was no entrance to the tower from the avenue.

The mage gestured to the squared archway above three steps nearly twenty cubits side to side. “There.”

Although the last and smallest of the successive joined square stone arches that framed the entry to the building was more than eight cubits high, there were no carvings on the smooth stone, and no windows flanking the entry. Cerryl found the featureless white stone unsettling. Even more of the fine white dust swirled up from his boots as he stepped through the entryway into a high-ceilinged foyer. Another framed entryway was to his right, and a hallway continued straight ahead.

“The stairs.” The mage pointed to the stone-railed staircase to the left.

Cerryl followed directions and started up the steps, realizing as he did that the white guards and the other two mages had remained in the foyer and that he and the mage climbed the stairs alone. At the top was another stone doorway-without a door-and a pair of guards.

The guards nodded at the mage, who gestured for Cerryl to keep going. Cerryl stepped through the entryway to find another set of steps to his right.

“Up the stairs,” ordered the mage. “To the third level.”

Although the apprentice found himself panting halfway up the second set of stairs, the mage climbed silently, without straining. Cerryl noted that, despite the size of the building and the polished flat granite and fitted joins, there was no ornamentation anywhere-only smooth and featureless walls that seemed to go on and on. The fine white dust also seemed to catch in his throat and lungs and to make breathing even more difficult.

When the mage stopped at a landing outside a blank white oak door, with a single guard, Cerryl tried to catch his breath, and the mage stood silently beside him.

“Come on in, Kinowin,” grated a voice from the other side of the door, “and bring in the young man as well.”

The stone-faced Kinowin opened the door and gestured for Cerryl to enter first, then followed him inside the tower apartment. Kinowin turned to the single mage in the room. “This is the scrivener’s apprentice, as you wished, honored Sterol.”

“Good.” The white-clad mage who stood in the tower room was broad-shouldered, a head taller than Cerryl, but not so tall as the big mage who had escorted Cerryl. His hair was iron gray, and his neatly trimmed beard matched his thick and short-cut iron hair. His face was ruddy, almost as if sunburned. A golden amulet hung around his neck, and on his collar was a pin that resembled a golden starburst. “You may go, Kinowin. Wait outside until I summon you.”

Kinowin bowed. The heavy white oak door clunked shut.

Brown eyes that appeared red-flecked studied Cerryl for a time.

Cerryl stood, waiting, conscious that the mage had not mustered any power to concentrate chaos-not that Cerryl could sense, in any case. The room was a personal chamber-a large personal chamber that contained a desk and matching chair, several white wooden bookcases filled with leather-bound volumes, a table in the center of which was a circular screeing glass, and four chairs around the table. At the far end of the chamber, behind the mage, was an alcove, bigger than Cerryl’s room at Tellis’s, which contained a double-width bed and a washstand. Against the stone wall at the mage’s left hand was another small table holding but a large bronze handbell.

“You will answer my questions.”

“Yes, ser.”

“Where were you bom?”

“I don’t know, ser.” That was true. Cerryl had no idea where he had been bom.

“Didn’t your parents tell you?” The mage glared at Cerryl as if the young man were an idiot.

“They died when I was very young. My aunt and uncle said I was bom while my parents were traveling back to Hrisbarg.”

“Do you have any idea of your birthplace?”

“It had to be within several days’ journey of Hrisbarg or Lydiar, and my uncle and aunt were from Montgren.”

The mage sighed. “Kinowin says you can work the stuff of chaos. Is that true?”

“I don’t know, ser. I once looked in a glass, and someone in white broke it.” That was almost true, close enough.

The gray-haired man’s forehead furrowed, and the fingers of his right hand strayed to the amulet around his neck. “You expect me to believe that?”

“It felt like the glass broke,” Cerryl corrected, “but it didn’t. My head hurt for a long time afterward.” That was true.

“You see. . don’t bother to lie. It’s not worth the effort for either of us.”

“Yes, ser.”

“You know your letters, I suppose?”

“Yes, ser,” Cerryl repeated.

“Temple better than old tongue?”

“No, ser. I know the old tongue better.”

“It’s good you admit to something, though I would expect that of Tellis’s apprentice,” snorted the white mage. “You know that none but the white brethren may mold the white fires?”

“Yes, ser. That was why I didn’t want to try the glass again.”

“You didn’t know that was using chaos?” The mage’s tone was unbelieving, scornful.

“I wasn’t sure until after I did that one time,” Cerryl admitted. “I thought it might have been, but I was afraid to ask anyone. How could I?”

“That was wise of you.” Sterol nodded. “And what else have you not revealed?”

Cerryl flushed.

The gray-haired mage waited.

“I think. . think. . I can sometimes see something white, except that it’s not seeing, that might be chaos force.” Cerryl looked down.

“Why think you that it is chaos force?”

“I don’t know, except the glass was coated with it that one time, and the mage who brought me here had some of it around him for a moment.”

Sterol gave a short barking laugh.

Cerryl waited once more.

“You are lucky, young fellow. It pleases me to allow you the opportunity to learn.” Sterol laughed. “Besides, having an orphaned scrivener’s apprentice will teach them that they are not so mighty as they think.” The penetrating eyes fixed on Cerryl. “You will watch and remember everything and tell no one?”

“Yes, your mightiness.”

“Honored Sterol will do. One day I may ask you. . about how you find the halls. Until then, keep your observations to yourself, all to yourself. Is that clear?”

“Yes, honored Sterol.”

“I would have you remember one maxim, young fellow.”

“Yes, honored Sterol.”

“There are old white mages, and there are bold white mages, but none will you find who are old and bold.” Sterol laughed again and reached for the bronze bell on the small wall table, ringing it twice.

The door opened, and Kinowin reentered, bowing, looking toward Sterol.

“Our young friend here has remained well enough within the rules that he is suitable to be considered for instruction.” Sterol smiled, showing white teeth. “You may take him to Jeslek for instruction, and tell the mighty Jeslek that he may not administer more than minor discipline. Minor discipline.”

“Yes, Sterol.” Kinowin bowed.

Sterol glanced at Cerryl. “You may go.”

“Yes, honored Sterol.” Cerryl bowed again, waiting for a nod or a sign.

“Go.”

Cerryl turned and stepped through the door that Kinowin had opened.

“You are very lucky, young Cerryl,” said Kinowin as they headed down the steps.

“Yes, ser. I know, ser.”

“What did you say to Sterol?” A note of curiosity entered Kinowin’s rough voice.

“I told him the truth, ser.” As much as I dared.

Kinowin laughed, an almost jolly note that echoed up and down the stone enclosed steps, incongruous between the stark white walls. “You might grow up to be dangerous, Cerryl. The truth! Ha!” He laughed again.

Cerryl shivered within his tunic but continued down the steps to where the two armsmen in white guarded the entrance to the tower. Beside them, on a stool, sat a boy in a red tunic. Neither the guards nor the boy seemed to pay that much attention to Cerryl or the mage.

“Jeslek could have quarters within the tower but prefers to live in the older building behind the main hall.” Kinowin walked quickly down the wide steps from the tower entrance into the foyer, turning left and down the hallway they had not taken when they had first entered the building. “He is very knowledgeable and very powerful.”

Cerryl got the hint behind the words-Jeslek was dangerous and a rival of Sterol’s. “All mages seem powerful to me.”

“Some are far more powerful than others.”

From the end of the hallway, Kinowin led Cerryl through another squared series of arches and then crossed an open courtyard with a fountain. The fountain was a simple jet of water spraying from an oval-shaped stone in the middle of a circular pool.

Jeslek’s quarters were on the second level at the rear of the older building-also of stone, even whiter than that of the tower itself, and about as far as possible from those of Sterol, Cerryl calculated.

A single guard in white stood by the door. “The honorable Jeslek has requested he not be disturbed.”

“I am here from the High Wizard,” said Kinowin. “We will wait.” He motioned to the bench across the hall from the white oak doorway, then sat.

After a moment, so did Cerryl.

“Do you have any questions?” asked Kinowin, in a gentler tone seemingly at odds with his rugged appearance.

“This has been sudden. .” Cerryl shook his head. “It’s hard to believe I’m here.”

“That’s what happens to most students,” said the mage, a warmer tone in his voice. “The talent often comes suddenly, about your age, and we try to find it before it turns dangerous.” After a moment of silence, he added, “If you don’t learn how to use it properly, it can destroy you and everyone around you. Some people think that we’re too harsh.” He faced Cerryl, and the purple blotch was more pronounced. “Have you ever seen a renegade white?”

“Once. He threw firebolts. Another white mage was chasing him.”

Kinowin nodded. “That’s what many people see. Others see us destroy some young man who was their neighbor. What they do not see is the twisted destruction within the man-or the deaths that follow uncontrolled use of the power.” He gave a quick dismissive headshake.

Cerryl found himself surprised at the concern in the man’s voice and the momentary bleakness in Kinowin’s eyes.

“To survive your talent, Cerryl, you must be absolutely obedient until you fully understand both your powers and your limits. Otherwise. .” Kinowin coughed and cleared his throat. “Otherwise, you will destroy yourself, if the Guild does not destroy you first.”

Cerryl was the one to shiver.

Abruptly, the door opened, and a white-haired mage stood there, gazing past the guard toward the two on the bench. “You might as well come in, Kinowin. How can I concentrate with you smoldering outside my chambers? Come on in.” He turned and walked into the single room.

Kinowin stood, and Cerryl scrambled erect as quickly as he could, following the blond mage. The guard closed the door behind them.

“Your guard said you did not wish to be disturbed, yet Sterol insisted that I come and await your pleasure to deliver my charge.” Kinowin bowed and gestured to Cerryl.

Jeslek’s white tunic and trousers and boots shimmered. Cerryl swallowed, then quickly closed his mouth. The mage bore the face of a young man, but his hair was white and glistened. Like Sterol, Jeslek wore a golden sunburst on his collar. Unlike Sterol, he wore no amulet. Sun-gold eyes turned from Kinowin to Cerryl and then back to the rugged blond mage. “You come from the honorable Sterol today?”

Another figure in white, with the red slash across the tunic sleeves, stood silently by the table bearing the screeing glass.

Kinowin bowed yet again. “Honored Jeslek, the High Wizard bade me to convey young Cerryl here to you. You are to instruct him.” Kinowin smiled blandly.

“And. . what else? You have more to say, Kinowin?” asked Jeslek. “You act as dutiful aide only when it suits you.”

“I was bidden to inform you that you are limited to minor discipline.” The words were flat and bland.

A broad and false smile crossed Jeslek’s face. Cerryl wanted to climb under the stone floor tiles on which he stood. “Ah. . I see. The honored Sterol is too engrossed to instruct his own apprentices.” After a pause, another smile followed. “You may tell the High Wizard, when his onerous and laborious duties permit him to receive you again, that I will give his apprentice every advantage that I allow my own students, and that I will treat this young man as any other.”

“I will tell him, honored Jeslek.” Kinowin bowed once more before he turned and walked quickly from the chamber.

Jeslek waited until the door opened and closed. Then the sun-gold eyes fixed on the former scrivener’s apprentice. “Cerryl. Is that your name?”

“Yes, ser.”

“What did you do before you were brought to the tower?”

“I was an apprentice to Tellis the scrivener.”

“Then you know your letters?”

“Yes, ser.

“And the old tongue?”

“Yes, ser.”

“Do you have any other skills?”

“I know something about woods, ser. I once worked for a sawmill master.”

“Good. You have worked with your hands.” A fainter smile crossed Jeslek’s face. “Now you are a student mage, an apprentice mage, if you will. No matter what you may have done, or not done, you are not to attempt to work with chaos, or order, unless you are instructed to do so. If you disobey-and are caught-your mind will be bound, and you will work until you die on the white road. Do you understand?”

“Yes, ser.”

“By the way, I can tell if you have used chaos within the last eight-day, and longer. You have been careful, I can see, but the traces are there.” All hints of a smile vanished.

“Ser?” Cerryl swallowed.

“Yes?” Jeslek’s voice was cold.

“Sometimes I can see when chaos has been used. Does trying to see that count as using it?”

“No. Merely looking does not leave traces, either. I do encourage all my students to watch and study. But only watch and study, except when I tell you otherwise.”

“Yes, ser.” Cerryl bowed, waiting.

“No other questions?”

“Ser. . outside of what I asked. . I don’t know enough to ask more,” Cerryl admitted, knowing he was running a slight risk but feeling it was necessary.

“Ha! I see one reason why Sterol accepted you.” Jeslek turned to the youth who stood by the table, wearing the white tunic with the red-slashed sleeves. “Kesrik, you make sure Cerryl here gets quarters with the other students, a set of the proper tunics and trousers and white boots. His look sturdy; see if you can change them. Just once. And make sure he gets his own copy of Colors in the next eight-day.”

Kesrik bowed, his square face impassive, his blue eyes cold.

“Go with Kesrik.” Jeslek’s sun-gold eyes glittered cold.

“Follow me.” Kesrik turned and left. Cerryl found himself scrambling to follow.