“No, ser.” After another pause, the blond mage asked, “By your leave?”
“You may go.”
“Thank you, ser.” Kalesin turned and opened the door. Cerryl followed him into the hallway.
As Kalesin stepped away from the study door and walked toward the main entry of the building, the blond mage’s fingers tightened around the hilt of the long dagger in his belt, a long iron dagger, with a heavily wrapped tang and a thick scabbard.
Cerryl concealed a frown before he turned to the guard. “I will be riding to the large barracks with the mage Lyasa and the lancers from one of Captain Teras’s companies.”
“Yes, ser.”
The arms mage walked quickly out to the courtyard, trying to make up for the delay caused by Kalesin’s interruption.
Lyasa stood by her mount, holding the mare’s reins and those of Cerryl’s gelding. “You don’t have to come with me, you know?”
“If I don’t show up occasionally when you inspect the barracks and the lancers, they won’t remember who I am.” Cerryl took the leathers and mounted the gelding.
Lyasa gestured toward the gate. “Kalesin just rode out of here. He was angry.”
“He’s angry most of the time, these days. He wants to do great and challenging things when what we need is painstaking and tedious chores. I try to keep a close watch on him.”
Lyasa urged her mare toward the open courtyard gate, and the cold wind ruffled her jet-black hair, blowing it back off her ears. “I hate to say this… You’d be better off if he were in Fairhaven.”
Cerryl flicked the gelding’s reins to catch up with her. “I can’t send him back. They’d probably send someone else and then call me up before the Council. They’d claim I sent him away because I was taking the coins. Like I thought Shyren had. Those are the coins we have yet to collect. So I give him things to do that need to be done, things that he can’t foul up without my knowing immediately.”
“He knows that, and it just makes him angrier.”
“Do you have any suggestions about Kalesin?”
“Oh, Cerryl… all you can do is watch him.”
For now. “I know.”
The hoofs of the horses clicked on the hard and cold stones of the street that led to the main barracks.
CLXI
Cerryl watched from the study window as Kalesin once again rode angrily through the courtyard and out through the front gate, a half-score of lancers at his back. The cold wind flicked intermittent flakes of snow past Cerryl’s face, reminding him of how much earlier winter came in Spidlar-and of how much colder it would be. His eyes drifted to the harbor, where one of Layel’s ships remained moored. The other had left for Sarronnyn, in hopes of picking up dried fruits and surplus grain and returning before the winter storms struck the Northern Ocean and it began to ice over. Then both would leave on a long voyage somewhere over the winter, for Layel noted there was little point in maintaining an idle ship.
How long… how long before you can get Spidlaria somewhere close to being a normal city again?
He laughed softly. That wasn’t the problem. His problem was that he wanted Spidlaria to be more like his image of Fairhaven and what it could be. That will be hard, since all the Council wants is repayment of the golds spent to conquer it.
Once he was sure Kalesin was safely on his way, Cerryl stepped out of the study past the guards and toward the stairs that led up to his bedchamber-and the ones on the third floor used by Kalesin and Lyasa.
Before touching the door lever, Cerryl studied the door with his senses and his sight, but there were no traps or chaos concentrations in the locks or elsewhere. After a moment, he pulled the new leather gloves from his belt and slipped them on. They would keep any sense of order or chaos from him from remaining on whatever he might touch, a trick Kalesin had yet to learn from all the chaos residue Kalesin had left on all the scrolls he had intercepted and scanned.
Cerryl pressed the door lever and stepped inside the corner room. Without moving anything, he looked over the small desk and the three stacks of papers, each held down by a fired clay weight in the shape of a shield. The inkstand needed refilling, which surprised Cerryl not at all, and the quill could have been sharper. The lamp mantle, was coated with soot.
Cerryl finally lifted a paperweight. The first two stacks of papers held nothing but rough copies of the lists and reports he had requested of Kalesin. The third stack was shorter and dated back to before Cerryl’s return. Several sheets held columns of numbers. Cerryl studied the numbers and the names opposite them. From what he could tell, the sheet held a listing of merchants and tariffs they had paid. Most of the names were unfamiliar, except for a handful like Tyldar, whom he knew as smaller merchants.
He leafed through the rest of the stack, but none of the sheets held the names of the more important-and largely dead-factors. Cerryl pursed his lips. “Interesting.”
He surveyed the room, then found, in a box in the bottom of the wardrobe, another stack of parchment and paper, and those seemed to be personal scrolls to Kalesin, largely in a feminine hand. Cerryl studied them and sniffed them, but neither the hand nor the scent was Anya’s. Skeptical you are. The signature on those read: “Zylariae.”
He frowned. He was wrong. There was a faint scent of trilia and sandalwood in the wardrobe. He tried to follow his nose, but all he could determine was that the scent lingered around the lighter wool cloak hanging on one of the side pegs. But there was no sign of a scroll, and none of those in the box carried that scent.
Cerryl shook his head and scanned the letter scrolls, as quickly as he could, looking for some hints-of anything. Phrases from some letters struck him as he hurried through them:
… must be patient, dearest… No mage reaches high position quickly…
… he is from a coinless hearth and will not understand the true power of coins… For that deficiency you cannot blame him, but you must be wary…
… trust not the redhead, for all she promises…
Cerryl nodded. That opinion was widely held.
… many think highly of him, and he is most powerful but tries not to show that power…
… a mage loved by a healer cannot be totally stupid nor without intelligence. You MUST be careful…
That was the last scroll, and he replaced the sheets in the box carefully, hoping Kalesin was as careless with his memory as he had been with everything else.
Cerryl could discover nothing else save several sets of whites, and personal toiletries, including scented soap, and a white-bronze razor.
After he slipped out of the room and closed the door, Cerryl frowned as he walked down the steps to his own bedchamber. Eliasar had not collected much more than a few hundred golds, if that, and most of those had come from the smaller merchants and traders.
That follows. Did Eliasar start after the old large traders then? Was that why they sought help from Rystryr or whoever?
Either that or Kalesin had disposed of the papers that had held the tariff collections from the larger traders, just as he had received something from Anya recently-and had destroyed it or hidden it somewhere.
Cerryl took a deep breath.
Once more, he did not know as much as he should, except that his instinct not to trust the blond mage had been sound and that he had to exercise even more care. And again, he was reminded that where power and traders were concerned, evidence of anything was hard to come by. You have to trust your senses.
That was hard, too, at times.
CLXII
Thrap!
Cerryl concentrated on the glass before him, letting Leyladin’s image fade and focusing on the outside of the door. The silver mists swirled and revealed a stolid-faced, stocky blond mage. “Come in, Kalesin.”
“Ser, here are the scrolls from the courier for you.” Kalesin extended three scrolls.
“Thank you.” Cerryl rose and took them.
“We only mean to please, honored Cerryl.”
Even without looking closely, Cerryl could tell that someone had sliced the seal on at least one of the scrolls and then reheated it. Cerryl studied the other mage impassively. “I appreciate it, Kalesin.”
Kalesin inclined his head, then turned and left.
Once the door shut, Cerryl studied the scrolls more closely. One was sealed with a purple wax, the second with red, and the third with green. All had been opened and resealed.
“Let’s read the worst first.” He broke the seal on the one from Sterol or Anya and skimmed through it, centering on the key phrases:
… wish to remind you that the turn of winter approaches and that the Council expects at least several hundred golds in tariff revenues, with the balance to follow by the turn of the year at midwinter…
That missive had been signed and sealed by Anya at the direction of “His Supreme Mightiness, the High Wizard Sterol.” There was more, but all in the vein of reminding Cerryl of the urgency of tariff collections. He set the first scroll on the desk and opened the second. As he had suspected from the purple wax, it was from Kinowin.
Cerryl-
I would like to remind you that you promised to bring me, if possible, a purple hanging from Spidlaria. I am doing my best to look after the one in green silk that I feel you entrusted to me, though I know that was not precisely your intent. As with Myral, age has begun to creep upon me, and I may not be a fit custodian for all that much longer…
I would like to see the handiwork Myral promised you would bring me before too much longer… The handiwork is important, and though some will quibble over the coins, good workmanship outlasts coins.
Kinowin
Cerryl swallowed, set the second scroll down, and hurriedly broke the seal on the third, a seal he suspected had been cut and resealed twice.
Dearest-
I know that you have had great duties laid upon you, but I thought you would like to know that Mother is close to the end. Knowing how you have respected her, it might be best that you return to Fairhaven as quickly as you can, if possible. Kinowin can no longer leave his quarters, now, as you suspected might happen. I have no one to assist me now that Father is helping you in rebuilding factoring in Spidlar, and Aliaria and Nierlia are occupied with their children and legacies…
If this is not possible, I understand. It may be hard to explain to certain relatives, particularly one niece who left a message suggesting that if you respected her judgment, you should has- ten homeward-as if you had ever jumped to her scented wishes.
As always, we all miss you.
Leyladin
Cerryl looked at the words of the scroll again. He frowned. The words were in Leyladin’s hand. The order behind them was Leyladin’s, but she never would have said something like that, especially such nonsense. His regular screeing of her showed her in no danger, and her mother had died long before…
“You’re stupid, Cerryl.” He nodded grimly. The message was the same as what she had written-get back to Fairhaven-but the other words, the reasons, were there for whoever might have opened and read the scroll, and the niece had to be Anya-she was Muneat’s niece and wore too much scent.
Cerryl studied the scroll, looking with his senses for the slightest touch of chaos on the inner parchment-and finding it. Lyasa had not been around, and the chaos was too fresh for it to have been anyone other than Kalesin who had opened the scroll.
He stood and walked into the hall. “I’m going out for a bit of air.”
“Yes, ser.”
Instead, once around the corner, Cerryl raised the blur shield and started up the stairs to the third floor.
As he had suspected, Kalesin was seated at the small desk in his bedchamber on the third floor.
When Cerryl stepped into the room, closing the door behind him, he let the blur shield drop. “So what are you sending to Anya? Or is it Rystryr?”
Kalesin rose and turned slowly, bringing the long iron dagger around. “I’ll use this on you, if I have to. You can’t order me around, Cerryl. I’ve been a mage longer. They sent you here to get rid of you. You aren’t going to sneak home and leave me with the mess you’ve made. And you’re not proof against cold iron, no matter what-”
“Why not? You’d like being in charge-”
As Kalesin lunged forward, Cerryl didn’t even hesitate but slammed the focused light lance into the blond mage’s chest.
The sandy-haired mage flew backward, his dead face frozen in surprise.
Cerryl played chaos over the body carefully, trying to ensure that no trace of the man remained, except for the white ashes that would dissipate and the dagger that had fallen to the floor.
Then he rearranged the desk back in the order in which Kalesin kept it. He picked up the dagger and set it alongside the third stack of paper, leaving everything neat, except for the half-written scroll, which he read quickly.
Anya-
Cerryl has become insufferable… He has received a scroll bidding him return to Fairhaven… from that blonde harlot… and another one from doddering old Kinowin, begging for a hanging before he dies…
Cerryl wanted to shake his head. Kalesin had been more stupid than Cerryl could have imagined, and that meant that Kalesin hadn’t been any real danger at all, except as Anya’s tool. How many tools has she? He tucked the half-written scroll under the blotter and replaced the quill and inkstand.
With a deep breath, and ignoring the incipient headache his order and chaos manipulations were bringing on, he cloaked himself in the blur shield and slipped down the steps until he was in the shadows of the main corridor outside the study.
“Natrey?”
“Ser? How did you get there?”
“I walked.” Cerryl smiled. “Have you seen Kalesin?”
“No, ser. He left your study a bit ago…”
Cerryl frowned. “He was supposed to bring me something, but I haven’t seen him.”
“You want me to send some of the boys to find him?” Natrey grinned.
Cerryl forced an amused smile. “Perhaps you should. Perhaps you should.” He let himself back into the study and forced himself to wait, rereading the three scrolls until he had them committed to memory.
Kinowin was clearly telling him that the overmage had been able to shield Leyladin, but that wouldn’t last forever, and Leyladin was practically ordering him to return as quickly as he could get there.
Cerryl continued to wait.
Finally, there was a knock on the door.
“Yes?”
Foyst peered in: “Ser? We can’t find the mage nowhere. His mount be in the stable, his dagger be on his table, but he be nowhere.”
“Are you sure?” Cerryl put a shade of annoyance into his voice. “He was supposed to bring me a report on the golds taken by the older traders before they fled or were executed. He had those records.”
“Ser, beggin‘ your pardon…”
“It’s not your doing, Foyst. I’m not angry at you.” Cerryl pursed his lips. “Have you seen the mage Lyasa?”
“Yes, ser. She was riding in.”
“Good. If you would tell her I’d like to see her…”
“Yes, ser.”
Cerryl offered a quick smile and a nod. The door closed.
He waited, but not nearly so long, before Lyasa, still in her white cold-weather jacket, stepped into the study.
“You were asking for me?”
Cerryl looked at her, then shook his head. “Kalesin has vanished. None of the lancers saw him go. I’d like you to come up to his room with me.”
“You’re worried?”
“Yes.”
“You should be. I warned you, you know.”
As he stood, Cerryl shrugged. “I know. I did what I could.” That is true enough.
The two walked hurriedly up the two flights of steps, with Foyst following. Both mages kept scanning the staircase and landings.
Once on the third floor, Cerryl looked around the room, as if he had not seen it earlier. “He left in a hurry, and he left everything behind.” He stepped toward the desk. “There’s something here.” Cerryl pulled out the half-written scroll from beneath the blotter and began to read it. He shook his head and handed it to Lyasa.
“Read this.” Cerryl wandered to the wardrobe, looking through it cursorily. “Everything seems to be here.”
“This looks like his writing.” Lyasa’s eyes widened as she read. After a moment, she looked at Cerryl. “I told you… What are you going to do?” She paused. “You suspected he would leave, didn’t you?”
“He was nervous when he gave me the scrolls.” Ceryl laughed ruefully. “I forgot to tell you. I got a message from Anya demanding more golds and one from Kinowin suggesting I get back to Fairhaven, however I could. Both scrolls had been opened-most recently-and resealed with chaos. I sent the lancers after Kalesin…”
“He must have known you’d find out.”
“You’ll have to be most careful,” Cerryl told her.
“I’ll have to be… You’re leaving?”
“If I can, I’m returning to Fairhaven, before it’s too late. If it’s not already.”
“Sterol will try to kill you.”
Cerryl nodded. “But if I stay here, I’ll be even deader, because he’ll take Leyladin and Kinowin, too.”
“I could go.”
He shook his head. “If matters don’t go well, I may need a friend outside Fairhaven.” Cerryl didn’t like deceiving Lyasa, but she’d be safer not knowing how Kalesin had disappeared. The scroll Kalesin had written was enough to warn her, and she could say, truthfully, if anything happened to Cerryl, that she had known nothing about Kalesin’s disappearance.
“How?”
“I’m going to ask Layel for a trip on one of his ships. He might just agree.”
“When it’s his daughter you’re trying to save?” Lyasa laughed. “You shouldn’t have any worries on that course.”
“Not until I get to Fairhaven.” Then my real troubles begin.
CLXIII
Cerryl glanced past Layel, past the polished wooden railing of the Western Sun, toward the dark gray waters of the harbor and beyond, toward the Northern Ocean.
Layel clapped Cerryl on the back. “Best I stay here, but Wandrel will get you there.” The balding trader grinned. “Better quarters here, and the crew is safer, too. The Western Sun’s a good ship.”
“I’m sure she is:”
“Besides, this way Wertel can send back more of that dried fruit and those tools and blades I agreed to get for the sawmill fellow. Still think he can make the kind of planks that the Sligan yards need, and that will mean more golds in tariffs.”
Cerryl gave a half-smile. “I’m glad you came here.”
“Except for the cold… I am, too. Don’t have to worry about what Muneat’s doing or whether I can get haulers or wagons…” Layel laughed. “Could talk your ear off, and you best be going.” The balding trader frowned and looked directly at Cerryl. “You sure you don’t want some guards once you get to Lydiar?”
“No. Just a pair of mounts. No one will remember I was there.”
“Mage stuff?”
“Magery,” Cerryl confirmed.
“You coming back soon?”
“Probably not.” // you’re successful you’ll stay, and if you’re not… you’ll be dead-or mind-blind and working on the road crew.
“Feared of that. Well… you know how I feel. Try to keep that daughter of mine in line.”
“More likely, she’ll keep me in line.”
Layel nodded a last time, then climbed slowly over the railing and scrambled down the gangway to the wharf. “She’s yours, Master Wandrel.”
“Single up the lines!”
Cerryl stepped back and watched as the crew began the effort to take the Western Sun out of the harbor and back to Lydiar.
Toward what? Cerryl had kept checking the glass, watching Kinowin and Leyladin, but both seemed to continue their daily routines, from what Cerryl could tell, and he dared not use the glass on those he distrusted the most, fearing that alone would tell them too much.
His eyes went to the north and the colder waters of the Northern Ocean beyond the breakwater.
CLXIV
Cerryl sat in the chair in Leyladin’s bedchamber, half-nodding off. He really needed to sleep, but he didn’t dare, not until he knew she was back in the house. Both horses were groomed and stabled, more quickly than he’d anticipated, because he’d been too tired to refuse Soaris’s help. Cerryl had washed and changed, since he hadn’t liked the way he’d smelled and he could do that while he waited.
Outside the bedchamber window, the fall wind whispered through the late afternoon, not nearly so cold as in Spidlaria, though the trees had shed the leaves they would shed and the winter leaves had all grayed, giving the forests along the White highway between Lydiar and Fairhaven a depressing gray look, since no snow had yet fallen.
He jerked awake and glanced toward the door. The mansion remained silent, except for the muted clanking from the kitchen where Meridis labored over something. He dozed off slightly, until he heard a door through his stupor and immediately awakened, glancing around.
The bedchamber door opened, and Leyladin, still wearing a dark green woolen cloak over her healer greens, burst into the room. “You’re here! How did you do it? No one knows where you are.” The dark green eyes contained both love and wonder.
Cerryl smiled, feeling not nearly so tired. “A little magery. You remember I showed you?” He didn’t feel like explaining in detail how the blur shield didn’t alert chaos wielders and made those who used screeing slide over his image.
“That was a long time ago… and you still amaze me.”
“I’m here, and glad no one knows. Very glad.” For more than a few reasons.
Her arms went around him. “It’s good to hold you.”
“It’s good to be held-and to hold you.”
After some moments, she stepped back. “Father?”
“He’s fine. He’s already set up and bringing in golds, mumbling the whole time about how he’s too old to do it and how Spidlaria is too cold. Then he figures out some other business to set up and someone else to run it for him. He thinks he can sell timber to Spidlar.”
Leyladin laughed. “Father.”
“He’s safer there, I think. He’s a trader, and they’d rather have a trader, even one from Fairhaven, than armsmen and lancers and mages.”
“Fairhaven… you don’t think it will be safe here?”