The White Order (The Saga of Recluce #8)(114)

He swallowed, trying to hold in the nausea-and succeeding, barely.

After a time, he turned away from the white ash that sifted across the walkway.

The two lancers waited, their lamp a puddle of light in the darkness. Cerryl walked past them silently, back toward the unfinished cleaning of the secondary tunnel.





White Order





LXXVIII




Every eye looked at Cerryl as he stepped into the meal hall, then looked away, almost in relief, it seemed to the thin-faced student mage. He was late, later than he should have been because, even with chaos, cleaning the grime off his tunic had taken longer than he had expected. Surprisingly, he'd even managed to deal with the dark grease that he'd thought had burned the white cloth.

Bealtur and Kochar kept their eyes down, fixed on the polished white oak of the table. The meal hall was silent, students looking at the entrance archway every so often. Unlike at most meals, no full mages were in the hall.

Cerryl walked through the silence to the serving table and helped himself to the mint burkha and noodles, to a healthy chunk of bread, and poured a full mug of the light ale, carrying it all over to the table where Faltar and Lyasa sat.

“You missed everything,” Faltar whispered.

“I have sewer duty. I miss a lot,” Cerryl said dryly. He sniffed. Did his tunic still carry the faint odor of sewage? “What happened?”

“You don't know?” asked Lyasa.

“I was told specifically to stay in the sewers until mealtime,” said Cerryl. “The orders came from the High Wizard. In person. I wasn't about to do otherwise.”

The black-haired Lyasa's mouth formed an O.

“Sterol came into the common with some guards.” Faltar lowered his voice to almost a whisper. “They had iron shields. You know that's trouble. Iron deflects chaos, you know?”

“I have learned that.”

“Sterol had Kinowin and Fydel with him, and even Myral.”

Cerryl took a bite of the bread, trying to quiet his empty stomach. “For what?”

“You should have seen Kesrik.” Faltar glanced toward the table where Kochar and Bealtur sat. “Sterol threw an iron shield-he had to wear heavy leather gloves, but he did throw it-right at Kesrik, and he asked him something about recognizing it... about maker's marks and authorized traders with Gallos.”

Lyasa nodded.

“Marker's marks? Why would Kesrik have anything to do with traders?” Cerryl paused. “You think that this has to do with Kesrik's family?”

“It makes sense,” Lyasa murmured. “Kesrik doesn't like you. His family has access to golds and armsmen, and weapons.”

“Jeslek wasn't around either,” added Faltar.

Nor Anya, thought Cerryl, glancing at the blond Faltar.

“Kesrik-he turned white, and then it looked like he tried to throw chaos at Sterol.” Lyasa glanced at the silent Kochar and Bealtur.

“That wasn't smart,” said Faltar.

“He tried to throw chaos? With those three standing there?” Cerryl took a mouthful of the spicy, brown-sauced burkha and noodles.

“Well... there was chaos-fire everywhere. Kinowin raised his shields first,” said Lyasa, “and then someone threw chaos-fire at him, and he fried Kesrik. I think he was the one. It happened so fast.”

“And then?” Cerryl chewed on a piece of bread to relieve the heat of the spiced burkha.

“Sterol looked around and he said something like, 'Scheming is not appropriate in the Halls of the Mages.' ”

“Then they all marched off, and a couple of the lancers picked up the iron shields,” Faltar concluded.

“So...” Lyasa's eyes fixed on Cerryl. “What was Kesrik doing? Why were you in the sewers so late?”

“A pair of men with iron shields and blades attacked me,” Cerryl admitted.

“How did you stop them?” pressed Faltar. “Myral and Derka have both been telling me how dangerous it is to cast chaos against iron, especially polished iron.”

Cerryl forced a laugh. “Steam.. . mostly. I turned the water in the drainage way into steam.”

Lyasa smiled. “You thought quickly. How did you manage that?”

“I don't know.” Cerryl had to shrug. “I knew I couldn't use chaos against iron. I had to do something.” He took another mouthful of burkha, feeling slightly deceptive and taking refuge in eating.

“How did they get down there? All the grates are locked and sealed with chaos,” Faltar pointed out.

“They used an old smugglers' tunnel. Myral knew about it, but it had been bricked up years ago. They unblocked part of it.”

“How did they know ... ?” Faltar's forehead furrowed.

“That's easy,” said Lyasa. “Cerryl walks down the streets every day. There are sewer grates every few hundred cubits. Anyone could figure that out.”

Cerryl wondered. That was true enough... but why had he been assigned the secondary tunnel that already had an old smugglers' tunnel? Someone wasn't telling the truth, but who? Myral had said he could lie convincingly, and that meant other mages could as well. Despite the maker's marks on the shields, Kesrik or his family paying to have arms-men attack Cerryl didn't make sense, especially after Ullan's words about a slender mage. But Anya wasn't from a trader's family, not that Cerryl recalled. And why would Sterol have turned Kesrik to ash, if the apprentice mage hadn't been guilty? All that meant there was even more that Cerryl didn't know.