The White Order (The Saga of Recluce #8)(21)

Cerryl could sense the absolute certainty of her words, and, swallowing hard, he had to fight to keep his own eyes from watering. “I know you did. Always be thankful... always.” He swallowed again and hugged her back, realizing how thin and frail she had become.

As suddenly as she had hugged him, Nail backed away in two swift steps, sniffed, and blotted her eyes. “Had to come with Syodor. Wouldn't ha' been right, otherwise.”

Syodor grasped Cerryl's forearm with both hands and squeezed, and gnarled and bent as the one-eyed miner was, Cerryl could still feel the strength. “You be not a burly man, young Cerryl, but strong you be in ways not of the eye. If you be careful, you be doing well for yourself.” Syodor released the grip and stepped back quickly. “We be light proud of you.” After a moment, he added, “Best we be going, now. A long trip tomorrow.”

“Take care ... please ...” Cerryl stammered, feeling somehow numb, as though he should say more, do more, but not knowing what else he could say or do.

“Best as we can, lad,” said Syodor, “and you the same.”

Nail sniffed again and nodded. The two turned and began to walk down the lane.

Cerryl wanted to run after them. Instead, still holding the canvas pack, in which he had carefully replaced the mirror and the knife, Cerryl watched as his aunt and uncle walked slowly down the lane, back to the main road, and the mines-and Vergren.

“Cerryl? What you doing-” Dylert stopped talking as he saw the two figures walking quickly toward the main road. “That Syodor?”

“They came to say good-bye,” Cerryl said slowly. “The duke canceled his patent, and they have to leave the mines. After all those years...”

“Where are they going?” Dylert's voice was softer.

“Uncle has a cousin in Vergren. He's going to tend sheep, he said.”

“Sad thing it be,” offered Dylert. “The masterminer of Lydiar, and a shepherd he must end his days.”

“I offered to help them.” Cerryl looked down at the causeway. “Uncle Syodor-he insisted I stay here.” He looked at the millmaster. “That's all right?”

Dylert laughed sadly and shook his head. “Cerryl, you be worth more than I pay you. Would that I could pay more, but stay you can, young fellow.” His gaze went to the distant figures. “Darkness if I can figure the ways of the world. Older I get, the stranger it seems. Master-miner, best there ever was, and a shepherd he must be.” The millmaster shook his head again.

Cerryl swallowed and continued to watch, long after Dylert had left, until Syodor and Nail vanished on the dusty road, amid the fast-moving shadows of the clouds.





White Order





XVI




Unto the generations stood the black tower on the heights of the Westhorns, and from it issued forth the demon warriors and their blades, controlling trade and using the very blood of those who displeased them to create the mortar that bound their stone roads.

Nor did they suffer any man grown to survive upon their heights, discarding him like an empty husk of maize once they had wrested his seed from him ...

For all this wickedness, Westwind survived and prospered, until the day when the Guild at Fairhaven sent a hero to Westwind, a stranger who beguiled the Marshal of the heights with song. Yet once she had borne son and daughter, the Marshal laughed and sent away that hero. In her evilness, she had her guards slay him in the depths of the Westhorns.

That son, who was called Creslin, grew strong, and cunning as his mother the Marshal, and before he was grown to the age of death or exile, he sneaked away from the heights, taking the talismans of darkness that had held the forces of white and right at bay for long generations.

In time, he came to Fairhaven, pretending to be but a poor soldier, but the brethren were not deceived, and they discovered his deception and captured him and bound him to be a stoneworker on the great highway, far from Fairhaven.

The powers of darkness, in their sinuous way, corrupted a young woman and a white mage from the far west, deceiving her into thinking that she was but escaping from the captivity of darkness, and enticed this mage Megaera into freeing the black demon that Creslin had become . . .

Colors of White

(Manual of the Guild at Fairhaven)

Preface





White Order





XVII




In the continuing diffuse light of the summer evening, Cerryl glanced around his room, scarcely bigger than a closet. He glanced at the door, then took the small silver-rimmed mirror from its hiding place behind the wall board under his cubby. His own reflection glimmered back at him-dark brown hair, a face almost triangular with a broad forehead, wide-spaced gray eyes, and a narrow not-quite-pointed chin.

He felt his chin-still no signs of a beard, and near-on fourteen years. Finally, he set the mirror on the seat of the stool. After that came the miniature knife and sheath.

He slipped the knife from the sheath and studied it, with eyes and senses. Too small even for an eating knife, the blade was not iron or anything like it, but a whitish gold or white bronze that shimmered like polished silver or almost like a mirror. The metal held an inner light, a white radiance with the faintest touch of red, but a radiance Cerryl knew that only he-or the mages of Candar-could sense.

He wasn't a mage, not yet, perhaps not ever. Yet he could sense some things that he thought only mages could sense. Was that the way his father had felt?