“All right.” Cerryl replaced the ink in the cubby that Derka had granted him, along with the quills and the holder and the inkwell. He could clean the inkwell later. The vellum went onto one of the library’s drying racks.
“You’ll feel better.”
“I’m sure.” Cerryl washed his hands quickly, glad he wasn’t the one who had to clean the basins anymore, and joined Faltar in the corridor.
They nodded to Lyasa as she passed, and the black-haired student nodded back, but her olive brown eyes were focused elsewhere.
The courtyard was empty, and the light wind threw spray from the fountain across the two. The dampness felt good on Cerryl’s forehead. He touched his brow, but it didn’t feel warm, or any warmer than usual.
The main corridor of the front building was empty, until they reached the foyer, where Cerryl’s eyes were drawn to a slender redheaded figure in white, who hurried up the steps from the foyer proper toward the tower entrance. Behind her remained a faint fragrance, one similar to sandalwood but more floral.
“You know Anya?” asked Faltar.
“Not exactly. She stopped me once on the street and then came to Tellis’s shop once.”
“She probably sensed you had the power. That’s one of the things Sterol uses her for. I’d prefer some of the others.” Faltar grinned. “One especially.”
Cerryl repressed a shiver. “Isn’t that dangerous? For her, I mean? A child of two whites?”
“I’m certain Anya’s powers are enough to ensure she has no child. Of course, I wouldn’t mind trying.”
“You have a one-rut mind.”
“I wouldn’t mind having her in that rut.”
“Enough. .” Cerryl shook his head as he stepped through the front archway and down the steps to the avenue.
“I really wouldn’t. You should see-”
“Enough!” Cerryl’s exclamation was half-gruff, half-laughing.
“What about Lyasa?”
Cerryl rolled his eyes.
“I told you I’d get your thoughts off that darkness-filled map.”
“You have. You have. I promise you that you have.”
Cerryl glanced back at the tower and the Halls of the Mages that adjoined it. Just a set of white stone buildings, with no ornamentation, with more buildings stretching out behind them-kitchens, stables, an armory, barracks for some of the white guards and lancers, and, nearly a half kay north, the creche where the children of white mages were raised.
Almost two seasons, and he still couldn’t believe that he was in the Halls of the Mages.
On the far side of the avenue, a team of four black horses drew a high-sided maroon wagon away from the square.
“Sarronnese carpet merchants. They don’t like Fairhaven much, just our coins.” Faltar laughed.
“How do you know?”
“I’ve seen their wagons before. Derka told me. I think most of his family were traders.”
“Do you know about yours?”
Faltar shrugged. “No. My father was a mage. I wonder if Derka. . but I don’t know. That’s something they never say.”
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”
“You were a scrivener’s apprentice. .” Faltar said gently.
“I told you, didn’t I?” Cerryl wasn’t sure what he’d told to whom anymore, but he thought he’d told Faltar.
“Yes. When you first came to the halls.” The blond student mage glanced up the avenue, toward the line of clouds to the east. “We’d better hurry. That looks like rain.”
“It won’t get here for a while, and the wind feels good.” Cerryl walked faster, enjoying stretching his legs.
“Sometimes. . I wonder what it would have been like. To have a trade, I mean.”
“It’s different. I don’t miss the sawmill.”
“Sawmill?”
“Oh, I was a mill boy before I was apprenticed to Tellis. The winters were cold, and I never seemed to get warm. Dylert was fair, but the work only got harder as I got bigger.”
Faltar’s steps slowed as he looked sideways. “No one would ever guess. You’re not that big. You look more like a scrivener.”
“Thin and scrawny?”
Faltar flushed.
Cerryl laughed softly. “I do. I know it.”
Two girls, probably not much older than Pattera, saw the white tunics and slipped down the side way in the middle of the row of the grand houses with their now-gray trees and gardens.
“They weren’t that pretty,” said Faltar.
“Who?”
“The girls. Don’t you like girls?”
“I like girls. I wasn’t looking.”
“Ever had a girl? You could, any time, if you wanted.”
“No. I could have, but. .” Cerryl wondered how Benthann might be doing. Somehow, he’d felt it would have been wrong to go back to Tellis’s, even if he couldn’t quite say why.
“And you didn’t?” Faltar’s voice rose slightly.
“It could have caused a lot of trouble.”
“Well. . it’s different here. If you find a girl who’s willing, and most will give you a tumble.”
“Why? Because they’ll get a dowry settlement from the Guild?” Cerryl struggled to keep the edge from his voice.
“Well. . it’s better that way.”
“I suppose.”
“Oh.” After a moment, Faltar asked, “You’ve been through a lot of hard times, haven’t you?”
“Why do you say that?”
“I don’t know. Except you don’t see things the same way. And you’re so quiet. Sometimes, when you’re in a place, it’s as though you’re almost invisible.”
“Sometimes, I wish I could be. Especially now.”
“Derka says that some of them can do that. They bend light around themselves. There’s another way to do it, but he won’t tell me what it is. He says it’s not a good thing to do.”
Light again-always light. Cerryl nodded.
“Why do you want to be invisible?”
“I am already. Kesrik, Bealtur, they wish I didn’t exist. I’m not a mage’s son, and I don’t come from coins.”
“Kinowin didn’t, either.”
“And he looks like he had to beat them into accepting him. He’s a head taller than even Jeslek.”
“They say that Creslin was small.”
“But he was a black mage.”
“Power is power,” said Faltar.
Was it? Cerryl glanced past the last house on the left-Muneat’s, the only one he knew, with the bird fountain-and to the square, where only a handful of shoppers still remained around the colored carts. “They say coins are power, too.”
“It’s not the same. Coins aren’t. Kesrik comes from coins, and Sterol doesn’t give a copper.”
“Maybe that’s why Sterol is High Wizard.”
“It’s not just chaos power. Jeslek can hold more chaos than anyone.” Faltar glanced around nervously.
“It’s what you can do with it. I know that. And Sterol and Jeslek aren’t the best of friends. They wouldn’t have quarters as far apart as they do if they were.”
“That’s true. None of the mages talk about it, though.”
“What good would it do?” Cerryl stepped off the curb and started across the empty avenue to the square. “They’d risk making either Sterol or Jeslek angry.”
A wisp of thin smoke, bearing the smell of roast fowl, drifted by the two students.
“Smells better than anything in the halls.”
Cerryl had to admit that it did.
“Split a half fowl?”
“How much, do you think?” asked Cerryl.
“Two coppers, maybe, for a half. One for you and one for me.”
“Since it’s not often. .” The younger student grinned, trying not to think how many days’ pay that would have been once.
Faltar walked over to the blue wagon and the hefty woman in gray at the spit over the charcoal in the metal firepit. “How much for a half?”
“Three coppers, ser.”
“Two,” insisted Faltar. “I’m hungry enough that I don’t want to haggle.”
The woman shrugged. “Two, I can live with. It’s late.” She pulled the spit off its holder and deftly lifted a thick black knife-more like a cleaver.
Cerryl found his mouth watering as Faltar handed him the browned and dripping quarter fowl, and he bent forward so that none of the drippings would touch his tunic.