“I should go,” she said to Myral, stepping away from the table. “Before they-”
“No. This will take but a moment.” Myral smiled and turned to Cerryl. “Pay attention to me, if you will, not the young lady.”
Cerryl flushed.
“I’m not nearly so gentle to look upon, young Cerryl, but we have work to prepare for.”
“Yes, ser.”
“Fairhaven has its name for a reason.” Myral’s voice was high, almost squeaky, and he steepled his fingers, then gestured vaguely in the direction of the door-or the square. “If you travel to most places, they dump their night soil and everything else in the streets, and they stink.” The mage wrinkled his nose. “Fairhaven is fair, and one of the tasks before us is to keep it fair. .”
Myral half-turned toward the books, and Cerryl’s eyes strayed again to Leyladin.
Her eyes were so green, like a deep ocean. She pointed to Myral, as if to suggest that Cerryl had best listen.
“. . and we have to work to keep Fairhaven clean. You probably don’t know how much work that is. Everyone who has lived here knows some things about keeping a city clean-sewer catches and clean walks-jakes here in the halls and in the greater homes. No rubbish in the streets. The big waste wagons, but much more goes on unseen.”
Suddenly, the rotund mage turned and walked over to the bookshelves, pulling out one book, then another and another. He walked back to the table and set five of them down.
“Jeslek says that you read quickly. Can you read these in the next eight-day?”
Cerryl looked at the stack of books, then at the mage. “I think so. If there’s not something strange about them.”
“Only the subject matter. . I even wrote one of them.” A brief grin followed. “If you can’t, come and see me. If you can, study them, and come back here an eight-day from now, immediately after breakfast.” Myral paused again. “Study them as if I were Jeslek.”
“Yes, ser.” Cerryl bowed.
“One other thing.” Myral bustled toward the corner of the room, almost behind the white oak door, where he rummaged through a chest of some sort, one with thin drawers that he slid out, one after the other. “Ah. . this will help.”
The white mage rolled a section of vellum into a tube as he headed toward Cerryl. He thrust the tube at Cerryl. Cerryl stepped back as he took it. What was it?
“That? Oh, that’s the best map of all the sewers. You need to study that, too. Learn where every sewer runs. You shouldn’t have any trouble. Jeslek said you were good with maps. It might help if you took a few walks with it and tried to locate where the main sewers are.”
Cerryl felt like he’d been frozen in a different way. First, running into Leyladin, and then being assaulted with a pile of books and a sewer map. A sewer map, for darkness’s sake!
“An eight-day from now,” Myral said cheerfully as he piled the books into Cerryl’s arms. “Best get on with it.”
His arms full, Cerryl nodded toward Leyladin. “It was good to meet you.”
“I was glad to see you.” She smiled an enigmatic and faint smile. “More closely.” The green eyes sparkled.
Suppressing a wince at the gentle reminder, Cerryl nodded to her again and to Myral. “An eight-day from now, ser.”
The door closed behind him with a thunk.
He walked slowly down the stairs, his arms already beginning to ache with the weight of the books and the rolled map, his thoughts spinning. What was Leyladin doing with Myral? It wasn’t conclusive, but the pudgy mage had but a single bed, and there had been an open tome on the table.
You hope she’s just studying. . but what can you do if it’s more?
And why had she wanted to leave when he’d come in? Or said that she was glad to meet him-more closely? Had that just been a jab, or had she meant it?
He tried to shift his grip on the books and staggered against the wall in an effort to keep his hold on the map.
A sewer map? What was he going to be doing with Myral? What did books have to do with sewers? Or sewers with becoming a white mage?
Another form of test?
LIX
IN THE LATE afternoon, with gray light falling through the library windows, Cerryl rubbed his forehead, forcing himself to concentrate on the words on the vellum.
. . the heavy greases, be they cooking tallow or renderer’s leavings or. . reform in a weak order upon exposure to heat or chaos or heat created by the chaos within chaos-rich wastes. . such scattered blocks of order combine with detritus of a less solid nature to impede the flow of fluids necessary for evacuation. .
He’d thought the histories and the philosophizing of Colors of White had been boring and difficult to follow, but they were transparently clear compared to Myral’s The Management of Offal. The book wasn’t even that long, less than a hundred pages. He continued reading and turned the page.
. . odoriferous as they may appear, night soil and animal droppings retain but a weak order and will dissolve in the presence of water into a liquid which can be purified through the application of simple techniques. .”
“Cerryl?”
He looked up. Faltar and Lyasa stood by the library table.
“Didn’t you hear the bells?”
“The bells?” Even as he asked, he felt stupid. He knew he sounded stupid.
“Those are Myral’s books, aren’t they?” Lyasa pointed to the volumes by his elbow. “The ones on wastes and offal?”
Cerryl nodded.
“How long have you had them?” she asked.
“Since yesterday.” Cerryl massaged his forehead again, this time with his left hand, then the back of his neck, trying to work out the tension.
“How many years did it take Myral to write them?” Lyasa demanded.
Faltar offered an ironic smile.
“He only wrote one. This one.” Cerryl glanced from Faltar to the dark-haired student.
“It’s the same thing.” Lyasa’s voice bore a tinge of exasperation. “It took him years to figure it out enough to write it, and you’re trying to learn it all in a day.”
“I only have an eight-day.”
“You have an eight-day to read it-not learn it word by word.”
“Cerryl has to know it better than anyone. . even Myral,” said Faltar.
“Says who?”
“Cerryl,” answered the blond student mage.
“You two.” Lyasa glared at Faltar, then at Cerryl. “Let’s go eat.”
Cerryl stood, feeling his muscles twinge. How long had he been reading?
“Too long,” answered Faltar.
Lyasa had already left the common by the time Cerryl scooped up the books from the table and started down the corridor toward the meal hall. He stopped by his cell and quickly set the books on the desk.
“Why do you have to learn everything as quickly as you do?” asked Faltar as Cerryl stepped back into the corridor.
“This is the first place where I’ve ever been supposed to learn, and. . I don’t know.” Cerryl looked down at the polished stone floor tiles, glad he didn’t have to scrub floors any longer.
“Why did the scrivener take you on? I mean. .”
“I was a mill boy without any learning?” Cerryl nodded. “I got the millmaster’s daughter to teach me my letters and help me. She gave me books, both in the old tongue and in Temple. They’re really not that different.”
“You taught yourself to read?” Faltar shook his head.
“There wasn’t anyone else.” Cerryl glanced around the meal hall, only half-occupied because the full mages ate there intermittently. Kesrik was at a corner table, apparently being lectured by Fydel about something, because his face was more sullen than usual. Lyasa was at the serving table. “And I didn’t do it alone. I did have help.”
“Darkness,” hissed Faltar. “It’s the lemon lamb.”
The lemon lamb was fine with Cerryl, but he nodded. “It could be worse.”