“You know this?”
“I have been spared, saved only that I am beneath him. None are beneath Anya, not if it will serve her.”
“I know.” Cerryl thought of poor Faltar, who saw nothing but Anya’s beauty and wonderful and false smile. “I know.” After a moment, he added, “Why are you telling me this?”
“Who else dare I tell? I am a student mage also, and any full mage who wishes me . . . I cannot leave . . .”
Cerryl’s throat tightened. “I’m sorry. I didn’t . . . I thought I was the only one . . . like that.”
Lyasa offered another soft laugh, half-sweet, half-bitter. “I know that as well. We are alike, you because you have no family, and I because I am a woman with a talent for chaos. As for you . . .” Lyasa’s voice held a regretful shrug. “I was wrong. I would be your friend. I would always be your friend, and I will give you my body, if you wish it.”
“I do not understand. I have not asked . . .” Cerryl swallowed.
“No. Nor will you, and you and I both know the reason.”
Cerryl was afraid he did. Leyladin. Yet he had never done more than speak with the green-eyed gray mage. “You said . . .”
“I did, and I was wrong, and that is why I am your friend, and your ally. If you can survive Sterol, and Jeslek, and Anya, you will save us all.”
Cerryl shook his head. “I’m still a student, and every time I look, Jeslek is trying to test me in some other way.”
“He is not testing you. He is trying to get you to make a mistake that will kill you. He dares not kill you outright, and you must be strong enough to withstand him when he succeeds Sterol as High Wizard.”
Jeslek as High Wizard? How could he not become High Wizard with the power he already commanded? And how could Cerryl withstand that kind of power?
Lyasa reached out and gave him a one-armed hug. “You don’t have to do it alone.”
Her words echoed in his ears even as he drifted off to sleep, savoring the comfort of her closeness, and only her closeness. “You don’t have to do it alone. You don’t have to do it alone.”
Even so, a blond mage with red highlights in her hair filled his dreams, and as he seemed to watch her walk through endless corridors, corridors he could never quite enter, he half-dreamed, half-wondered if he would ever see Leyladin again. And what he could do about it, if ever he did.
XCII
CERRYL REFASTENED THE white leather jacket against the damp wind out of the north. His eyes went back along the column of lancers stretched eastward on the Great White Highway, reined up and waiting.
Ahead, Jeslek gathered chaos around him, so much that his jacket and trousers seemed to glitter silvered white under the midmorning gray. A light misting rain swept from the low clouds.
A trumpet sounded, faintly at first, then more loudly. A row of armsmen in purple appeared on the hill to the north of the Great Highway.
“So . . . the Gallosians have decided upon a show of force.” Jeslek laughed, and his laugh carried easily to Cerryl. “Much good it will do them.”
Beside the overmage, Klybel remained silent as the armsman in dark purple rode down the hill and toward the mages. He bore a polished iron oval shield, the blue-trimmed messenger’s pennant drooping from the staff rising out of the lance holder. Scattered raindrops slid across the cold metal as he reined up a good thirty cubits from Jeslek.
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.