“Honest. . honest. . ser. . threatened to kill me if I told. .”
Cerryl could sense the truth, and the despair. For a moment, he hesitated, then let the fire flare across Ullan.
He swallowed, trying to hold in the nausea-and succeeding, barely.
After a time, he turned away from the white ash that sifted across the walkway.
The two lancers waited, their lamp a puddle of light in the darkness. Cerryl walked past them silently, back toward the unfinished cleaning of the secondary tunnel.
LXXVIII
EVERY EYE LOOKED at Cerryl as he stepped into the meal hall, then looked away, almost in relief, it seemed to the thinfaced student mage. He was late, later than he should have been because, even with chaos, cleaning the grime off his tunic had taken longer than he had expected. Surprisingly, he’d even managed to deal with the dark grease that he’d thought had burned the white cloth.
Bealtur and Kochar kept their eyes down, fixed on the polished white oak of the table. The meal hall was silent, students looking at the entrance archway every so often. Unlike at most meals, no full mages were in the hall.
Cerryl walked through the silence to the serving table and helped himself to the mint burkha and noodles, to a healthy chunk of bread, and poured a full mug of the light ale, carrying it all over to the table where Faltar and Lyasa sat.
“You missed everything,” Faltar whispered.
“I have sewer duty. I miss a lot,” Cerryl said dryly. He sniffed. Did his tunic still carry the faint odor of sewage? “What happened?”
“You don’t know?” asked Lyasa.
“I was told specifically to stay in the sewers until mealtime,” said Cerryl. “The orders came from the High Wizard. In person. I wasn’t about to do otherwise.”
The black-haired Lyasa’s mouth formed an O.
“Sterol came into the common with some guards.” Faltar lowered his voice to almost a whisper. “They had iron shields. You know that’s trouble. Iron deflects chaos, you know?”
“I have learned that.”
“Sterol had Kinowin and Fydel with him, and even Myral.”
Cerryl took a bite of the bread, trying to quiet his empty stomach. “For what?”
“You should have seen Kesrik.” Faltar glanced toward the table where Kochar and Bealtur sat. “Sterol threw an iron shield-he had to wear heavy leather gloves, but he did throw it-right at Kesrik, and he asked him something about recognizing it. . about maker’s marks and authorized traders with Gallos.”
Lyasa nodded.
“Maker’s marks? Why would Kesrik have anything to do with traders?” Cerryl paused. “You think that this has to do with Kesrik’s family?”
“It makes sense,” Lyasa murmured. “Kesrik doesn’t like you. His family has access to golds and armsmen, and weapons.”
“Jeslek wasn’t around either,” added Faltar.
Nor Anya, thought Cerryl, glancing at the blond Faltar.
“Kesrik-he turned white, and then it looked like he tried to throw chaos at Sterol.” Lyasa glanced at the silent Kochar and Bealtur.
“That wasn’t smart,” said Faltar.
“He tried to throw chaos? With those three standing there?” Cerryl took a mouthful of the spicy, brown-sauced burkha and noodles.
“Well. . there was chaos-fire everywhere. Kinowin raised his shields first,” said Lyasa, “and then someone threw chaos-fire at him, and he fried Kesrik. I think he was the one. It happened so fast.”
“And then?” Cerryl chewed on a piece of bread to relieve the heat of the spiced burkha.
“Sterol looked around and he said something like, ‘Scheming is not appropriate in the Halls of the Mages.’ ”
“Then they all marched off, and a couple of the lancers picked up the iron shields,” Faltar concluded.
“So. .” Lyasa’s eyes fixed on Cerryl. “What was Kesrik doing? Why were you in the sewers so late?”
“A pair of men with iron shields and blades attacked me,” Cerryl admitted.
“How did you stop them?” pressed Faltar. “Myral and Derka have both been telling me how dangerous it is to cast chaos against iron, especially polished iron.”
Cerryl forced a laugh. “Steam. . mostly. I turned the water in the drainage way into steam.”
Lyasa smiled. “You thought quickly. How did you manage that?”
“I don’t know.” Cerryl had to shrug. “I knew I couldn’t use chaos against iron. I had to do something.” He took another mouthful of burkha, feeling slightly deceptive and taking refuge in eating.
“How did they get down there? All the grates are locked and sealed with chaos,” Faltar pointed out.
“They used an old smugglers’ tunnel. Myral knew about it, but it had been bricked up years ago. They unblocked part of it.”
“How did they know. .?” Faltar’s forehead furrowed.
“That’s easy,” said Lyasa. “Cerryl walks down the streets every day. There are sewer grates every few hundred cubits. Anyone could figure that out.”
Cerryl wondered. That was true enough. . but why had he been assigned the secondary tunnel that already had an old smugglers’ tunnel? Someone wasn’t telling the truth, but who? Myral had said he could lie convincingly, and that meant other mages could as well. Despite the maker’s marks on the shields, Kesrik or his family paying to have armsmen attack Cerryl didn’t make sense, especially after Ullan’s words about a slender mage. But Anya wasn’t from a trader’s family, not that Cerryl recalled. And why would Sterol have turned Kesrik to ash, if the apprentice mage hadn’t been guilty? All that meant there was even more that Cerryl didn’t know.
LXXIX
THE TWO GUARDS nodded as Cerryl passed them and started up the tower steps. The nod from Hertyl was more deferential, Cerryl thought. Myral’s door was closed, and his room felt empty to Cerryl as the younger man passed the landing. Before he had reached the third level, his steps lagged, and he was breathing heavily when he stopped at the open landing of the uppermost level of the tower.
“Come in, Cerryl,” called Sterol through the white oak door that was not quite closed.
Cerryl took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, took another deep breath, and opened the brass-bound white oak door. He stepped into Sterol’s apartment, turning and closing the door to the position in which he had found it.
“You can close it all the way.” Sterol sat behind the desk, centered between the white oak bookcases filled with leather-bound volumes. The High Wizard gestured to the straight-backed chair before the desk.
Cerryl closed the door, then walked across the room and around the table that held the circular screeing glass to take the proffered seat.
“You found the missing guard.” The High Wizard’s hair glinted a reddish iron gray in the light of sunset that streamed through the open tower window at his back.
“Yes, ser. He hadn’t gone that far. He was hiding to the south, where the next secondary joined the main tunnel, behind a set of steps.”
Sterol nodded. “There was no one else with him?”
“No. He was alone. At least, I didn’t hear or see anyone else.” Cerryl added carefully.
“Did the guards see you flame him?” The High Wizard shifted his weight in his chair, but his eyes remained on Cerryl.
“I don’t know how much they saw, honored Sterol. They saw me use flame. They had to have heard Ullan scream.”
“He screamed? Good. . excellent. That will suffice. No white guard or lancer must ever be allowed to desert his post or duty.” Sterol frowned. “Why did he scream?”
“He had a lance, and I struck his arm and the lance with the first firebolt.”
“You went in front of the guards?”
“I wasn’t supposed to be, ser?”
“Ah, young Cerryl. . the bravery of youth. That story will indeed serve you-and the Guild-serve us well.” Sterol laughed, but the laugh faded as the High Wizard studied the younger man. “I had hoped. . but you retain enough force. . more than enough. . and you are bright. .” A quick nod followed as though Sterol had reached a conclusion about something.