The Magic of Recluce - L. E. Modesitt [16]
Outside of all the black, it looked pleasant enough, almost like an oasis of sorts. But the black was hard to ignore. It wasn’t depressing. It was just there.
Finally I flexed my shoulders, grasped the staff, and walked down the black stone road. Why the woman had even bothered to say that the building had a green triangle by the door was a wonder. The narrow road ended at right angles to a much wider road heading westward. The only building there was the one with the triangle. I supposed that the colored shapes were used as some sort of identification. How else would you give directions when all the buildings, homes, and shops were the same color and construction? It seemed rather dull, almost boring. If you were as powerful as the masters were, why build everything the same?
The black-oak door was open, and I walked in. The door itself was well made, almost as good as anything that Uncle Sardit had done. So was the rest of the woodwork, although I could see I would be bored stiff if all the masters used were black oak and black stone.
“Another one…”
I looked up from my study of moldings to realize that I stood in an upper foyer. At the bottom of three room-wide stone steps sat five people, three women and two men, on two long benches.
I nodded and stepped down, realizing as I drew closer that, with the possible exception of one of the women, a muscular blond, I was easily the youngest, and the only one with a staff. Everyone else had a pack by their feet.
“Lerris,” I announced myself.
An older man, perhaps in his late thirties from his looks, stood. “Sammel.” He was balding and brown-haired, with deep-set circled eyes.
“Krystal.” She was black-haired, black-eyed, white-skinned, and thin, with fine hair that spun down to her waist.
“Wrynn.” Blond, wide-eyed, with wide shoulders and callused hands, she dismissed me instantly.
“Dorthae.” Flat-voiced, olive-skinned, with strawberry ringlets of hair, she flashed a gold ring from every finger.
“Myrten.” Sharp-nosed, with the eyes of a ferret, and hair like a shaggy bison, he spoke with a voice both high and cutting.
I nodded to all five of them and came down the steps, unslinging my pack and laying it carefully in the corner next to the empty spot at the far left end of the left-hand bench. I stood my staff in the corner as well.
“There is one more on the way, or so we have been told,” added Sammel in a quiet and deep voice. He reseated himself and sat down.
I did not sit down. My feet were sore but sitting down was boring, and besides, I hadn’t had a chance to look around.
The foyer, waiting room, whatever it was, was maybe ten cubits wide and not quite that deep. There were three doors besides the entry, one in the center of each wall. The benches were backed up against the wall opposite the front doorway and the stairs, separated by a closed door. All the doors were hung to open away from the foyer. All were black-stained black oak, bound in black steel, and all were closed.
The walls looked to be timbered and covered with rectangular dark oak-veneered panels, each panel edged with a finger-width molding. The three interior walls were topped with a triangular crown molding. The gray-plastered ceiling seemed almost bluish against all the black.
A portrait hung above each bench—a woman on the right, a man on the left. Naturally, they both wore black. Black was getting boring.
Nobody wanted to say anything; that was clear. I looked at Krystal, with her dusty-blue smock and trousers. She looked through me. But she was too thin and distracted-looking anyway.
Wrynn wouldn’t look at me at all, just kept looking at the floor. She had nice legs. Even the fringed leathers she wore couldn’t hide that.
Dorthae kept looking at Myrten, the thin-faced man, who returned the look.
Sammel just sat there, sadly looking nowhere.
And I wandered around trying to figure out what kind of