Colors of Chaos by L. E. Modesitt Read Free Book Online Page A

but I’ll try the red wine.” Cerryl felt too hungry and tired to ask about other possibilities, but he’d drunk so much ale lately, or so it seemed, that he thought he’d try the wine.
    “Two cutlets-they come with the roasted potatoes and bread-and an ale and a red. That be it?”
    Both mages nodded, and the server bustled off.
    “I didn’t know you drank wine. Or is that the healer’s influence?”
    Cerryl found himself flushing.
    “Oh… she’ll change you yet.”
    “She probably already has,” conceded Cerryl. “I don’t see her much, what with her healing stuff and my gate duty.”
    Thump! Thump! Two mugs appeared on the table. “That’ll be four, gents.”
    Cerryl fished out two coppers, as did Faltar. Both vanished, and so did the server.
    “Gate duty is boring,” said Faltar. “Sometimes you see odd things, though. This afternoon, I saw some Blacks-three of them. I think they were the ones that get exiled from Recluce.”
    “You let them in and didn’t tell anyone?”
    “Even I’m not that stupid.” Faltar took a healthy swallow of the ale. “They were leaving, but I still told Kinowin when I got off duty. They didn’t do anything wrong.”
    “What did he say?”
    “He thanked me and sent an apprentice to tell Jeslek. What’s her name, the new redhead?”
    “Kiella? Oh… that’s what she was doing.”
    “And I thought you slept through it all.”
    “I wasn’t that sleepy.”
    “I could have roasted you with chaos, and you wouldn’t have known it.” Faltar grinned. “Anyway, two of them were blades, and one was a healer, it looked like.”
    “I imagine you looked very closely.”
    “It’s not what you’re thinking. One of the blades was a woman. Redheaded and good-looking from what I could tell, but she was big, taller than you, and had that look, like Eliasar does when he’s slapping you around in weapons training. One was like Kinowin, big and blond, except he was even bigger. The healer was smaller, a young fellow, redheaded, almost shy.”
    “Here’s the cutlets. That’s another six.” The serving woman in the blue vest set two heavy brown platters on the table, then glanced from Faltar to Cerryl.
    Cerryl dug out another four coppers. Faltar did the same.
    “And I’d be thanking you both.” She slipped the coppers into her wallet and gave a broad smile, pausing for a moment before nodding and slipping away.
    Cerryl frowned, then took a bite of the cutlet, chewing hard because it was tough, if tasty. He had his own ideas about the travelers from Recluce, but Kinowin had told him not to guess outside the Halls.
    “What do you think?” asked Faltar.
    “I just don’t know. They make some of their Blacks, the ones that don’t fit in, travel through Candar. That’s what Myral told me once.”
    “That’s the Blacks for you. You don’t fit in, and they throw you out. I guess you can do that if you live on an island.”
    “Every place has rules,” Cerryl pointed out, using his own dagger to cut the meat and then spear a chunk of the roasted potato. “That’s why we have the city patrol.”
    “One of the mages who had been helping Eliasar when I became a student went with the Patrol. Klyat. He’d been an arms mage with the lancers.”
    “What does he do?”
    Faltar shrugged. “I don’t know. I haven’t talked to him in a while, and he wouldn’t say when I was a student. Keep the peace, I guess.”
    Cerryl nodded but wondered. He’d seldom seen the patrols, for all the talk about them when he’d been an apprentice.
    “Recluce has always been trouble, from the time of Creslin on.” Faltar chewed for a moment. “Now they’re even shipping stuff from Austra and Nordla, and some of it’s cheaper than what we can grow and make in Candar. Derka and Myral were always insisting we’re going to have trouble with Recluce. Then these Blacks show up. Of course, it could be coincidence. These things happen.” Faltar swallowed the last of his ale and lifted the