“Stupid woman…mage tried to give her a chance.”
“Don’t buck ’em…not if you want to live…”
Cerryl leaned against the rampart stones, faintly nauseated. He straightened. “Unhitch the donkey and put it in the stable. Unload the baskets. They might be useful somewhere.”
When the cart stood alone below the guardhouse, Cerryl loosed a last fireball, and, once more, only ashes remained, ashes and a few iron fittings that prisoner details carried away. The highway was empty again in the hot afternoon, and Cerryl sank onto the stool in the shade.
He wanted to shake his head. Even when you tried to explain the rules or help people, some of them just didn’t believe. The taxes weren’t new. They’d been there since the time of Creslin, something like three centuries or more, and there were still people who disputed them, who refused to accept the laws unless you used overwhelming force on them. Or, like the old woman, people who turned the words to what they wanted them to mean and then attacked when their interpretation was denied.
He hadn’t had any choice at the end. Even for him, the rules were absolute. Anyone who attacked a gate guard died. Had he made it worse by trying to warn her? Or telling her she needed to pay for a medallion? Would it have been the same either way?
He wiped his forehead again, then glanced obliquely toward the sun, blazing in the green-blue sky. A long time until sunset-too long.
XII
KINOWIN HAD A new wall hanging-one with blue and purple diamonds pierced by black arrows, more like crossbow quarrels. The gently flickering light from the pair of wall lamps and the table lamp cast shadows from Kinowin and Cerryl across the hanging.
Are we as insubstantial as those shadows? Cerryl wondered.
The overmage followed Cerryl’s eyes. “Do you like it?”
“The colors are…brilliant, I guess.”
“It’s Analerian. Jeslek sent it to me with his last dispatch to the Council. He knows I like hangings-and that I dislike being indebted to him.” The big blonde mage took a long pull from the overlarge mug on the edge of the screeing table. “Ah…getting hot too soon this year.”
“Is he going to be High Wizard someday?” Cerryl had no doubts but wanted Kinowin’s reaction and felt he could only seek it while he was still considered inexperienced.
Kinowin snorted. “The entire Guild decides that.”
Cerryl had the feeling that the Guild agreed to support the strongest candidate.
“You don’t think so, young Cerryl?”
“I do not know enough to agree or disagree, ser.”
“Carefully said.” The overmage pulled at his clean-shaven chin. “The Guild often recognizes the strongest mage as the most suitable.”
Cerryl had understood early that the Guild wasn’t about to deny any mage who was strong enough. Since Jeslek was strong enough to create small mountains, sooner or later he would be High Wizard.
Kinowin lifted the mug again, then looked at the younger mage. “Cerryl, you’ve been on gate duty for nearly two seasons. You’re going to have morning duty at the north gate before long. It’s a little earlier than I would like, but Bealtur, Heralt, and Myredin will be made full mages at the next Council meeting-that’s but an eight-day from now.”
Cerryl knew Heralt and Bealtur but not Myredin-except by sight and a few casual conversations in the eight-days.
“Heralt will take afternoon duty. He’s the most dependable.” The overmage studied Cerryl. “You know them. What do you think?”
“I don’t know Myredin. I know that Heralt is solid and trustworthy.”
“Carefully said…once more.” Kinowin laughed. “I’d like it if you didn’t tell anyone. Most know, but I’d still like your silence.”
“Yes, ser.” Silence was usually a good idea, at least when an overmage requested it. When Kinowin requested it, Cerryl corrected himself mentally.
“Are you still upset about the old farm woman?”
“Yes.” Cerryl thought and added, “I know that we have to hold to the laws. I wanted to warn her that she needed a medallion.” He paused and cleared his throat. “What upset me was that she wouldn’t listen. It’s not as though the laws are new. But she wouldn’t listen to anyone, and she drew a blade on a guard, and I had to turn her into ash.”
“Everywhere there are laws,” Kinowin said slowly. “We have laws. Hamor has laws. Even Recluce has laws. No land can long last without laws, and without the people obeying them. Not without thievery and killing and wastes in the streets. Yet, in every land, there are those who feel that they do not have to obey the laws. Some have so many coins that they attempt to buy their way around the laws. Some have armsmen, and some are like the old woman.” The big overmage stood abruptly and walked to the window without speaking, as if he were debating what to say next.
Outside, the air was clear, and Cerryl could see the deep purple of the early-night sky past Kinowin’s profile.
“The Guild has laws, too. We are the White Order, and yet…some here also find it difficult to abide by those laws.” Kinowin turned. “Sterol told you how difficult it was for an outsider to become a White mage, and yet, in some ways, you-and I-for the same reasons, understand better than those raised in the crèche the need for order. Yet order, because of the Blacks of Recluce, has a bad name in Fairhaven.”
Cerryl tried not to hold his breath, knowing Kinowin might have more to say and afraid that if he spoke the older mage would stop. He still couldn’t help but think about the old woman, though he knew he could have done nothing else, not as a junior mage and gate guard.
“The ways to corrupt order are many. The allure of sex, or power, or the desperate desire to be respected-they can all corrupt. Who of us does not wish to be loved and wanted and respected and powerful?” The overmage laughed. “If anyone tells you any of those are not appealing to him-or her-watch that mage most carefully.”
“Ah…yes, ser.”
Kinowin turned. “Elsinot will stand your duty on the day the Council meets to confirm the new mages. I will summon you to the dais to tell the story of the old woman. Do not linger over it. Tell it briefly, but tell it with truth. Do you understand?”
“I will be there, ser. I cannot say I understand why.”
A sardonic smile crossed Kinowin’s face. “Let us just say that I see the need to let some of the brethren know that we are not universally loved and that our laws-fair as they are-do not seem fair to all.” He gestured to the door. “I have kept you long enough.”
Cerryl rose from the chair.
XIII
The dark ships fitted by Creslin began to ply the Gulf of Candar, seizing all that they could and repaying none, yet all of the plunder laid up upon the stone piers of Land’s End was not enough to feed and clothe and shelter all those who flocked to the once-desert isle.
The former dark guards of Westwind craved iron for their blades and blood to be shed upon those blades, and the wretched refuse from Renklaar and far Swartheld and Brysta and even those from Valmurl demanded that the Black mages feed and clothe them as befitted the wealthy.
To draw yet more coins from storm-battered and valiant Candar, Creslin sought greater enchantments and turned foul juice into a green brandy that so bewitched the mind and senses of all that betook of it that they would pay any number of coins to achieve yet another taste.
With those coins and those minted from the jewelry taken from captives, Creslin sent forth his vessels once more and had them pay whatever the grain factors of the ports of Candar asked, save that those who refused to trade found their warehouses torched by mysterious fires and flames that appeared from nowhere.
Yet even those coins were not enough, and the black-hearted Megaera mixed both the White and Black and swirled the oceans and had them cast forth all the coins and metals and previous goods that had sunk with the Hamorian fleet…disregarding the lost souls that wailed with the use of each silver, each copper…