The Magic of Recluce - L. E. Modesitt [103]
Justen ignored us both, uncharacteristically, and unfastened his saddlebags with quick deft motions.
By the time I helped the young ostler settle both ponies in clean, adjacent stalls in the airy stable, Justen had disappeared. Assuming he had gone to the inn, I followed and found him talking to a man—presumably, the innkeeper.
“This is Lerris, my assistant this time.”
The innkeeper nodded politely, the pointed ends of his bushy mustache hardly moving at all. “The room next to yours is his.”
That stopped me. No questions, no problems—just mine.
The innkeeper glanced briefly at me as I stood there holding my saddlebags and pack; then turned back to Justen. “I thought you might bring help.”
Justen nodded in return, his thoughts clearly elsewhere.
“Would you like some dinner?”
“As soon as we…”
“Ah, yes…follow me.”
Up the clean and well-varnished white-oak stairs we went, and down a wide hallway. We had the two corner rooms. Or rather, I had a nice room with a real bed, dresser, mirror, and wash table, and Justen had a suite, or at least a bedroom and sitting room.
Since the gray wizard wanted to be left alone, I went to my own room, washed up, and then headed downstairs to fill my quite-empty stomach.
The only problem with the inn was that although it was clean, somehow it still smelled faintly of sheep and wool. Did all of Weevett echo the animals?
The innkeeper led me to a corner table, warmed by a low fire and set with actual utensils and glass goblets.
By the time Justen arrived, I was drinking redberry and working my way through cheese and a mutton pie, brought by a pleasant-faced if heavyset girl who resembled the innkeeper too much for coincidence.
Justen said nothing of a conversational nature until after he had sipped a golden wine I did not recognize and munched through a slice of black bread and a hard and pungent white cheese. Between bites he gazed into a space I could not see.
“You’ll earn that room tomorrow.”
“Is that when we start work?”
He nodded.
I had questions, but the gray wizard wasn’t exactly encouraging them and I was still hungry. So I ate, and Justen nibbled at his bread and cheese.
But there was one question that kept nagging me; so I asked. “You said that the magicians built the new town center of Fvren, as if that explained something.”
Justen smiled faintly. “That’s not properly a question, but I understand the import.” He took a sip of the golden wine. “The older wizards of Fairhaven understood that chaos cannot build structures which last—”
“What about the roads?”
“The roads are not quite the same thing. Chaos is quite efficient at removing rock and stone. So long as it does not touch what remains, the roadbed is as solid as the stone which is left. And the few black wizards used order-mastery, after the stonemasons built the retaining walls and drains, but that was before…” He shook his head. “Sometimes I wander too much. You asked about building. Stonecutters build better than chaos-masters. The old town center at Fairhaven proves that.”
I still didn’t have the answer I wanted, but Justen was staring into space, as if I had called him back into the past. So instead, I finished my mutton pie and let him stare.
“Your meal is paid for,” the gray wizard said some time later as I finished a redberry pastry. He stood up, pushing back the spoke-armed chair, and nodded. “I’ll see you here at dawn.”
I nodded with a full mouth, but he was gone before I could swallow.
There wasn’t much else to do except finish stuffing myself. Then I rose and walked out into the late afternoon, wrapping my brown cloak around me.
Fewer souls were visible in the square, but that might have been because of the thickening gray clouds and the few wispy flakes of snow that drifted across the stones with the gray winds.
In time, I retreated back to my room and lit the oil lamp.
With a sigh, I recovered The Basis of Order and opened it again. It was still boring, or I was tired, or both, and I turned out the lamp and climbed onto the bed for a nap.
When I awoke again it was pitch-dark,