Recluce - Colors Of Chaos Part 3

Cerryl took a chunk of the warm bread and glanced toward the older factor.

Layel smiled, as if waiting for Cerryl to speak.

"All of this ... it's different from the Halls," Cerryl said slowly. "We don't see that much outside ... I haven't anyway, even before I came to Fairhaven." He paused.

"There's so much I've read about, but... Leyladin has told me you're a trader, and I don't know much about trading. What do you trade in?"

"Anything that sells, young mage. Anything that sells. You trade in grain, and if the harvest is bad, you lose everything. You trade in copper, and when someone opens or closes a mine, you lose. I trade in what I can buy cheap and sell dear."

Layel refilled the crystal goblet before him and then Leyladin's. He glanced at Cerryl's goblet, still three-quarters full. "You haven't drunk much."

"With me, a little wine goes a long way, but it's very good. Very good."

"Father is not telling you everything. He h.o.a.rds goods," Leyladin interjected with a smile, pa.s.sing the pitcher with the orange glaze in it. "He buys them cheaply this season and sells them dearly the next. He has two large warehouses here and one in Lydiar."

"You'll be giving away all my secrets, Daughter."

"Just the two of you here?" Cerryl asked.

"Now. My brother Wertel has a house in Lydiar. He runs the business for Father there, and my sisters live with their consorts here in Fairhaven. I'm the youngest." Leyladin grinned. "And the most trouble."

"How could you say that, Daughter?" Layel shook his head in mock discouragement. "Trouble? You never brought in every stray dog in Fairhaven to heal it? You never had your head nearly split open because you would heal the fractious carriage horse? You never-"

"Father.. ."

"No ... you couldn't find a nice fellow and give me grandchildren." The factor turned to Cerryl. "She had to become a healer. She was trying to heal everything- the dogs, the warehouse cat that got kicked by the mule, the watchman's daughter ...".

Leyladin's face clouded ever so slightly at the last, but the expression pa.s.sed so quickly Cerryl wasn't sure he'd seen it.

"Healers are far more scarce than White mages," Cerryl said brightly, taking a small mouthful of the beans and nuts with the fork that felt unfamiliar, copying Leyladin's usage. They were so tender he barely had to chew them, and they hadn't been cooked into mush in a stew pot.

"Would that it were like trade, where what is scarce is dear," mumbled Layel.

"Father ... finish eating ..." Leyladin grinned.

"Always on me, you and your mother. Best to enjoy good food."

"Talking with his mouth full is about his only bad habit," Leyladin said.

"And you've never let me forget it." Layel turned to Cerryl. "She'll find any of your ill ways and try to heal you of them. Fair warning I'm providing."

"Father ..." Leyladin blushed.

"Turning the gla.s.s is fair for both."

Cerryl took another sip of the wine, amazed at how good it tasted, uncertain of what he should say.

Layel glanced at Cerryl. "I've embarra.s.sed my daughter enough. She may know how you became a mage, but I do not. Perhaps you could shed a word or two about how you came to Fairhaven."

"I'm afraid that my life is quite common, compared to yours," Cerryl protested.

"Best we should judge that. A man's no judge of himself."

"Well... as Leyladin might have told you, I'm an orphan. Both my parents died when I was so young I remember neither. I was raised by my aunt and uncle ..."

Cerryl went on to detail his years at the mines, his apprentices.h.i.+p at Dylert's mill, and then his work as an apprentice scrivener for Tellis. "... and then, one day, one of the overmages arrived at the shop and summoned me to meet with the High Wizard. He examined me and decided I was suitable to be a student mage. That took two years, and last harvest the Council made me a full mage ... a very junior mage. Now I'm one of those who guard the gates to Fairhaven."

"Good thing, too." Layel shook his head. "I don't mind as paying the tariffs and taxes for the roads, but I'd mind more than a hogshead full of manure if the smugglers got off with using the roads and then coming into the city and selling for less than I could."

"Father ... no one sells for less."

"They could. Aye, they could. Take stuff in Spidlaria and sneak through Axalt or take the old back roads from Tyrhavven, and afore you know it they'd be in the Market Square."

"Doesn't everyone pay the taxes?" Cerryl asked.

"No. Even all the mages in the Halls couldn't find every ferret who turns a good.

That's not the task of the city patrol, either. They keep the peace, not the trade laws. Thank the light, don't need armsmen to make trade and tariffs work, not in the city, anyway. See... there's coins in Fairhaven, and the best roads are the White highways, the ones that can take the big wagons." Layel shrugged. "So traders and exchanges are here. Smaller traders can take carts over the back roads, but most times they can't carry that much, and the Traders' Guild makes sure the road gauges are kept."

"The road gauges?" asked Leyladin.

Cerryl had the feeling she had asked the question for him, but he was grateful.

He'd never heard of the road gauges.

"You should remember, Daughter. If a road is more than four cubits wide, it's a highway, and the ruler must collect tariffs, and only those with the medallions may use it. See, that way, the pony traders have to go on the slow and muddy tracks that wind out of the way. And most times, a trader with fast teams and wagons is a prosperous trader, and the great highways are fast."

Cerryl nodded. Another fact he'd not known.

"Meridis! What have we for sweets?"

The serving woman reappeared. "Be you ready for sweets, ser?"

"Why'd you think I called?" Layel's stern expression dissolved into a chuckle.

"Father ... you don't have to put on the stern front for company."

"Can't even be master in my own dwelling, not even over sweets." The trader glanced at Cerryl. "You'll see ... leastwise, much as a mage can that way."

"Father..."

"Fellow ought to know." Layel turned to Meridis. "Sweets?"

"I baked a fresh nut and custard pie."

"Wonderful! It takes company for me to get my favorite."

"It does not," suggested Leyladin. "You always tell poor Meridis not to bother because you'd look like a shoat if she fixed it just for you."

"You see?" asked Layel. "An answer for everything."

Cerryl nodded, feeling somewhat overwhelmed by the banter and byplay.

"Then let's have it."

The empty dishes vanished into the next room, a kitchen, Cerryl thought, but he was far from certain about anything, and Meridis returned with three smaller china plates, each filled with a golden-crusted pie.

"Try it," urged the trader.

"It is good," added Leyladin. "Rich, but good."

Everything felt rich to Cerryl, but he took a small bite and then a larger one.

Before he fully realized it, his plate was empty.

"See? Your mage friend agrees with me."

"It was ... I've never tasted a sweet that good," Cerryl confessed. "In fact, I've never had a dinner so good."

Layel and Leyladin exchanged glances, and Leyladin added, "I'm so glad you enjoyed it. The Meal Hall isn't known for good food. Most of the full mages don't eat there unless they have to for some reason or another."

"I have noticed that," Cerryl said dryly. "I'm beginning to see why." He found himself yawning, perhaps because of the fullness in his stomach, or the warmth of the dining room, or the length of the day. "I'm sorry. It has been a long day."

"You have to be at the gates when they open for trade?" asked Layel.

"Yes. Otherwise they have to hold wagons until a mage arrives. I'd not want to face Kinowin if I caused that."

"Neither would I," said Leyladin with a laugh. "Perhaps ... it may be getting late for you."

"Don't shoo him out."

"He has to rise early, Father."

Cerryl held up a hand. "Your daughter is doubtless correct. I've enjoyed the meal and the company... but I do have to be up before the sun."

Leyladin rose, and Cerryl followed her example, following her back through the house, lamps still burning in unused rooms, throwing shadows on polished and glistening floors.

In the foyer, he eased on his jacket, thinking about the short, but certainly chill, walk back to his cold room, a room that had seemed so luxurious-until he had seen Leyladin's house.

"What do you think?" asked Leyladin as she stood by the door.

"About what? Your father? He cares a great deal for you."

"Cerryl. You are as dense as that mule my father mentioned." A smile followed the words, but one that held concern, and her green eyes, dark in the dim light of the polished bronze lamps, fixed his.

He took a deep breath. "I don't know what to think. I could say pleasant things, and I would, to anyone but you. Right now ... I'm ... overwhelmed. I grew up an orphan in a two-room house. It was clean, but my pallet was on the stone floor, and my uncle felt lucky if he could grub a good piece of malachite and sell it for a silver once every few eight-days. I went to work in a mill not much past my tenth year, and I was lucky to have a pearapple to eat once or twice a year. Those noodles tonight-they were wonderful, but they probably used more pearapples than I've eaten in my whole life. I've never had good wine from bottles."

"Cerryl... I know that. I've known that from the beginning, but I couldn't keep pretending that I wasn't different." She reached out and touched his cheek. "With you ... I don't want to pretend."

"That means more than you know." He offered a smile.

"I think I know that." She bent forward and brushed his cheek with her lips.

"Good night. I'll see you soon."

As he walked through the night, through the light gusts of cold wind, through the intermittent snowflakes with the slight headache he'd almost forgotten, his thoughts swirled like the snow. What happened next? Could anything happen?

Jeslek, Sterol, and Anya had all cautioned him again consorting with a Black. Yet Leyladin was a healer who was mostly Black, and he was a White mage-perhaps at best a White mage fringing toward gray. He repressed a slight s.h.i.+ver at that.

No one liked gray mages, neither the White mages of Fairhaven nor the Black Order mages of Recluce.

He and Leyladin could hold hands... but how much more? Was she worried about that? Was that why she kept a certain distance?

He frowned as he kept walking. Her kiss had been warm, but not order-chaos conflict warm.

V.

Cerryl stretched, standing in the sun of the small guardhouse porch, glad that spring had returned. Even the hills in the distance were showing signs of full greening.

He sat down on the backed stool provided for him, just high enough to be able to see over the granite rampart. He kept his eyes open but concentrated on focusing the chaos energy of the sun into an ever-tighter line of pure chaos- something like a light lance, but no thicker than his index finger.

Whst! The barely audible hiss followed as the narrow line of golden fire cut into the granite at the bottom of the rampart, drilling into the hard stone. White dust oozed out onto the walkway.

Cerryl released the light dagger-or whatever it might be-and sat there quietly, sweating, although the day was not that warm, trying to cool off from his silent effort. The area under the rampart ledge wasn't that visible, and if anyone did look, he'd only a.s.sume that the stonecutters had made an error and perhaps filled in with powdered stone that had leached away over time.

Kinowin had suggested he use his time to improve his skills ... but how? And where? He couldn't very well have said that he'd mostly mastered the light cloak that left him invisible, certainly not in the Tower, where the walls had both eyes and ears. Nor did he wish to make known his light lances, and if he used those on guard duty, everyone in the Halls of the Mages-including Jeslek-would know in days.

Cerryl had wondered what other skills might be useful... that he could work on quietly. Somehow, focusing chaos into a tighter focus might help. At some time he wanted to try the light dagger against cold iron, but he dared not experiment with that where anyone could see or scree him. Chaos against iron would alert any mage nearby.

The sound of wagon wheels on the stones of the highway broke into his reverie, and he sat up straight, looking at the afternoon coach from Lydiar. The four pa.s.sengers all filed out and stood by the guardhouse while Cerryl studied with his senses the boxes and bags roped to the top. Outside of one black case that held a set of iron knives, the bags were all filled with what seemed to be fabric or leather-things with a "soft" feel.

"Ser?" called the duty officer.

"The black bag has knives, but there's no rule against personal weapons."

The swarthy black-bearded trader in purple looked up at the thin mage, standing at the guardhouse upper rampart, back to the duty guard, then shook his head.

"... see why you'd best not be smuggling?" asked the rotund Sligan in his embroidered jacket.

"... demon-d.a.m.ned mages know what you eat for breakfast..."

"It makes your efforts more profitable," suggested the third man, a blond man in a gray tunic and trousers with high black boots, an outfit Cerryl didn't recognize.

"Smugglers don't take the White highways."

"If they don't, they'll not be carrying much."

"Let's go!" called the coach's driver.