The White Order (The Saga of Recluce #8)(94)

Whhhssst... A glob of fire half-floated, half-fell onto the third step from the bottom and oozed across the two steps below it. Points of fire sparked as the chaos lit scraps of wood or something. Cerryl could feel the residual heat wash over his legs, despite his boots and heavy white trousers.

Darkness, what a sloppy firebolt...

In a moment, the steps held only powdered white ashes that sifted off the glazed bricks.

Cerryl took another breath and mustered another shield and more chaos-fire.

This time his firebolt was larger and cleared the walkway for perhaps three cubits. Cerryl stepped down onto the walkway, trying not to gag at the stench that enfolded him.

He glanced at the side of the tunnel by the steps, then repressed a sigh. Everything needed fire-scouring. Everything.

As he turned to the wall beside the steps, a gurgling and bubbling came from the drainage way, and he glanced back in time to see a gas bubble pop out of the dark green fuzz on top of the wastewater.

For a moment, he felt he couldn't breathe, and he quickly jumped up two steps and took a gasp of air, glad he hadn't loosed any chaos-fire when the gas bubble had burst.

He shook his head and raised order and chaos-fire again, clearing the tunnel wall. He stepped down to the tunnel and glanced toward the drainage way.

Then he climbed back up the stairs.

“... up and down ... up and down ...”

“Shut up, Ullan... be glad it's him and not you. Some'd have you down there in front of him, and you'd not last so long as clean air down there.”

Cerryl ignored the byplay and, from halfway up the steps, dropped a firebolt onto the green-and-gray scum-fuzz on top of the wastewater.

Crumpt... umpt... ump ...

A line of fire and a series of little explosions ran in both directions from the chaos-fire impact. After a moment, white ash sprayed across the secondary sewage tunnel below, some rising on hot sewer air and gas into the cooler fresh air of the street above.

“...ugh...”

“Ullan,” warned Jyantyl.

Cerryl already felt tired, and he'd barely cleared the area around the tunnel entrance. A gust of cold air swirled around him and mixed with the fetid sewer atmosphere.

He stepped down to the walkway. Bits of white ash covered the thick-looking wastewater, but the green-and-gray scum-fuzz had disappeared. Burned off? Cerryl didn't know. More reading, he sup-Posed.

Another firebolt brought more clear walkway bricks. He glanced at the drainage way. Was the wastewater level slightly lower? Had the scum he'd burned off slowed the flow down?

Slowly he walked another half-dozen paces into the darkness, though he could sense things well enough. Something protruded from the drainage way, not a great deal, perhaps a half cubit above the water level, and he thought the water level was lower on the other side. A rubbish buildup?

With a half-shrug, he lofted another firebolt onto whatever it was that rose out of the drainage way.

A burst of flame flared into the tunnel, then subsided, and the protuberance vanished with a gurgling sound. Then another gurgling sound rose, and the water level in the drainage way began to drop.

“Why here?” Then he looked back toward the stairs and the grate above. Of course some good citizen of Fairhaven had probably disposed of something through the bars-something he hadn't wanted to bring to the refuse wagon.

Cerryl wanted to shake his head. Whatever it had been, he'd just destroyed it.

His eyes went to the drainage way, now down to what he thought was a more normal level, and back along the next dozen cubits of walkway that he had yet to clean.

He mustered another firebolt, scouring half the distance to what he'd cleaned previously, but his head was beginning to ache, like it did in a storm, and skies were clear.

How could he direct enough fire to clean anything? He leaned against the just-cleaned tunnel wall for a moment.

Light... light... Myral kept talking about light. So had Jeslek. That had to be something about it, something he needed to think about... if he ever had time and energy.

“Ullan, you and Dientyr can come down now.” His voice sounded ragged, but he turned toward the darkness and slime ahead.





White Order





LXIV




Cerryl rapped on the door to Myral's tower quarters. Almost immediately, he felt the sense of being watched in a glass.

“Come on in, Cerryl.”

As the sense of being scanned vanished, the student mage opened the door and entered, closing it behind him firmly. “I'm here, as you requested, ser.”

“Yes, you are here. That's good.” Myral stood from the chair by the round table. “It means that you got the lock open and closed. I would have heard if you hadn't gotten that far. Jyantyl also would have reported if you hadn't been able to clean anything.” The round-faced mage pointed to the chair. “Have a seat. You'll be on your feet all day-Would you like some hot cider?”

“Yes, please.” Cerryl waited until Myral poured another mug of the steaming liquid and had reseated himself. He could see the faintest of white chaos residue around Myral, far less than he sensed around Jeslek or Sterol. Do other mages sense that around you?

“You were up in the old tanners' section, along the old warehouses.”

Cerryl nodded, taking a quick sip of the spiced cider, so much better than the water or ale that were the morning choices in the meal hall.