Cerryl massaged his neck. So far the headache was but faint.
“You bring a message?” asked Klybel.
“I am bid to tell you that the way of the road is yours, o mages, but only the way of the road.”
Jeslek glanced from the messenger to the mass of armsmen on the rolling hill to the north. A crooked smile crossed his thin lips, and the misting rain swirled away from him. “You may bid your captain that the way of the road is indeed ours, and all that it takes to protect the rights of trade upon the road. And the rights of Fairhaven, long established in Candar, and respected by those of wisdom and power.”
The messenger frowned. “I will so relay your message.”
“You may also tell your captain that it would be to his advantage to proceed eastward with great care and reflect upon what he will find there.” Jeslek’s eyes flashed.
The messenger’s face was like stone, stone damp with the mist that coated all the riders. “He will hear your words, o mage.”
“He had best think upon them long and hard,” said Jeslek. “Most long and hard. You may go.”
The messenger nodded, his jaw tight as he turned his mount and rode northward up the gentle slope to the waiting Gallosian force.
“Your words will not please them,” offered Klybel.
“I do not intend to please them. How many tens of years have we labored and poured gold into the Great White Highway to ensure that Candar will be strong and united?” Jeslek’s eyes blazed. “Now that the road has reached the Westhorns, this. . puppy of a prefect would seize it for his own use.”
“They outnumber our lancers greatly.” Klybel’s eyes remained on the Gallosian host.
“Numbers. .” A broad smile revealing yellowing teeth crossed Jeslek’s face. “You will not have to concern yourself with numbers, Captain Klybel.”
“As you say, ser.”
“I do say.” Jeslek watched as the Gallosian force began to move northward, almost paralleling the line of white lancers but riding eastward, rather than westward.
Once the purple-clad lancers had vanished behind them, Jeslek began to probe the ground again with what felt to Cerryl like tenuous darts of chaos. “Indeed, they will find much to reflect upon, and even more should they return. Even more.” He lifted his eyes and glanced at Anya, Fydel, and the three students. “This afternoon will we raise yet another set of hills to join the first.” The sun-gold eyes fixed on the square-bearded wizard. “Fydel, you are charged with following the Gallosians through your glass. I wish to know if that group of armsmen-or any other-nears us.”
“As you command, overmage.” Fydel inclined his head.
“I trust all this will meet the approval of the High Wizard,” Anya said mildly.
“I was sent to use my discretion as overmage,” Jeslek returned pleasantly, although chaos boiled unseen around him.
Unseen but not unsensed, and Cerryl shivered in the rain, and not from the cold. . or the weather.
XCIII
When the winds warmed and the rains and snow fell less heavily upon the Westhorns, fewer needed the protection of Westwind, and the summer heat prostrated those of the chill heights, and their crops and their flocks.
Lacking the dark talismans of order borne off to Recluce by Creslin, the Marshal of Westwind attempted to persuade the folk of Sarronnyn and Southwind to stand behind her and to offer more coins to her.
As they feared the double-edged twin blades of the Westwind guards, those of the lands beyond the Westhorns pledged their allegiance yet again to the Marshal.
Yet even as they pledged, they gathered together in the darkness they had brought to the once-fair lands of the west, and they plotted as how they would bring down the Marshal and split the plunder laid up over the generations upon the Roof of the World.
For honor had they none, even after all the years that Westwind had protected their dishonor from the efforts of the Guild to redress the ancient wrongs.
Following their custom of dishonor, they invited the Marshal to Southwind, where she might receive gold and tribute and grain. The Marshal traveled from her black tower to the great banquet, and flower petals rained upon her, and then arrows from behind the screens of flowers.
The Marshal had not been without forethought, and had left upon the Roof of the World her daughter the Marshalle and the mighty arms master of the guard. And the Marshalle gathered together all the guards of Westwind and vowed that those responsible for the devastation would pay.
As the Marshalle prepared her retribution, there came a traveling minstrel to Westwind, a minstrel known of old as of trust and worth-save the minstrel, for all that his face was of old and his voice as well, was not as he had been, but enslaved to the tyrant of Sarronnyn.
As he sang, the minstrel lit a candle, a marvelous candle wrought as a model of Westwind-and then the candle exploded with the ancient fires of the West, and claimed the Marshalle and the arms master, and the senior guards of Westwind.
Yet this treachery did not repay the tyrant, for the remaining guards, they packed the treasures of Westwind, and they took their blades and cut a trail of blood to the sea.
There they seized a ship and forced it to Recluce, where they laid all the coins of centuries at the feet of Creslin and swore their blades to his service. .
XCIV
THE RAIN, A cold drizzle earlier in the day, had become a hot, afternoon, chaos-heated mist that cloaked all the mages-and their mounts. The white lancers walked their mounts and those of the mages through the hot mist and along the road to the east of where the three mages and students struggled with the chaos deep below the high plains of Gallos. The horses skittered sideways intermittently, demanding attention and reassurance as the ground rumbled, as irregular screaming bursts of steam perforated the rising hills less than two kays to the north.
“Keep the chaos below the upper rocks!” snapped Jeslek-the first time Cerryl had heard any sense of urgency in the overmage’s voice. “Keep it down!”
The wavering wall of order darkness that spread to the north of the road flexed under the rising and expanding globule of reddened-white chaos.
“More. . all of you,” grunted Anya. “You don’t. . give more. . Fydel, and I’ll let you fry first.”
The darkness thickened.
Cerryl glanced down the road, where Jeslek stood alone, a point of white amid the chaos that shimmered like light reflected from a still sea at twilight, except more brightly. As he watched, the light around Jeslek brightened even more.
The ground rumbled with a thundering from below, shuddering so much that Cerryl could feel it through his boots.
One of the mounts held by lancers somewhere behind them screamed.
“Hold, you ball-less beast! Hold!”
Cerryl took a quick step forward, trying to keep his balance and his concentration on the interworking of order and chaos.
“Demon damn him. .” muttered Anya, half under her breath. “Demon damn him. .”
“Quiet. .” grunted Fydel.
Sweat, the leftover moisture from the rain, and the hot mist combined in streams of water that poured down the mages’ faces, even down the creamy chiseled features of the red-headed Anya, plastering her hair down across her forehead.
The smell of brimstone raised with the steam that escaped the shifting and rising ground drifted from the north and the west across the mages and toward the lancers.
Cerryl swallowed, trying not to gag at the odor.
Behind him, Kochar retched.
“You. . haven’t time to retch. . Keep holding the. . barrier,” demanded Anya.
Kochar retched again, but then an additional sense of order joined that of the others.