Natural Ordermage

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Rahl had to wonder why Kadara was deliberately trying to anger him. She couldn’t be that inflexible, or that stupid. Yet… he couldn’t really ask that.

  “By saying that,” Kadara went on, “you’re basically excusing yourself from learning. You’re saying that you can’t learn because you have to be taught, and no one’s teaching you. The Basis of Order provides the limits. It’s up to you to figure out how to work within them—if you want to stay in Nylan. Life doesn’t provide you with private tutors, Rahl.”

  That wasn’t much help, thought Rahl. He knew all that, but outside of a few things like sensing how people felt and making girls feel better, he didn’t really know anything about order, and he scarcely knew where to start. “I understand that, magistra, but I have no idea where to start.”

  That did surprise Kadara. After a moment of silence, she said, “You know what most people feel, don’t you? How long have you known that?”

  “I always had a little feel for it, but I’ve been able to sense more in the past few years.”

  “That’s an order-ability. Don’t tell me you didn’t know that?”

  “I knew that, but I don’t know of other order-abilities or how to discover them or what they might be. There are hints in the book, but I can’t sense when it might rain, and I can’t feel what’s under the ground. I can feel a bit when things aren’t put together right, like ink, and I can sometimes sense where things are in the dark.”

  Kadara laughed, harshly. “You have more order-abilities than some who call themselves mages, and you’ve done less with them. Don’t expect anyone to feel sorry for you.”

  Rahl wasn’t asking that. “I’m not. I’m asking how I can learn to improve and expand what I know.”

  “Have you thought about looking at everything in the way you sense it through order? From the food you eat to the way the printing press is put together? Or looking at the rain that way? Or a building? You can’t do anything until you understand how order and chaos work within it.”

  Rahl had to admit that made sense, but he hated admitting it.

  “You have to ask questions about how things work before you ask why people do what they do,” Kadara went on. “You’re too wrapped up in Rahl and why everyone’s against poor Rahl. You left a girl in Land’s End with a child. You left your parents behind. You broke two men’s arms. And you’re feeling sorry for yourself.”

  Inside himself, Rahl bristled. He wouldn’t have had to break Jeason’s and Jaired’s arms if Puvort hadn’t made them attack, and he wouldn’t have had to leave Land’s End if Puvort hadn’t been so intent on driving Rahl out, even to the point of lying to the Council. But he’d already told the magisters that, and no one paid any attention.

  “There are reasons behind what happened. You’ve told us,” Kadara continued. “It doesn’t make any difference. The arms are broken, and the child will be born fatherless, and all that is because you didn’t think far enough ahead. You waited until it was too late to go to the magisters. You decided you knew enough that you didn’t need instruction. You avoided your responsibilities, and when your failure to think ahead created a problem you couldn’t escape, you blamed people who only saw the results of your failures and acted on what they saw.”

  All that might be, Rahl fumed, but magisters were supposed to help, not stand aside and watch things go wrong, then blame and condemn.

  “Now… the choice is yours. You can start thinking ahead and trying to explore your talents, or you can keep blaming us. I don’t see much point in discussing order and chaos any further at the moment. It won’t do any good until you start thinking for yourself instead of blaming everyone else for your problems.” Kadara stood. “You can talk it over with Leyla on oneday.” With that, she turned and left the study.

  Rahl just sat there for a moment, furious, his fists clenching, his jaw tightening, thoughts careening through his mind. Don’t offer any real guidance except to look ahead and develop skills you don’t know about and that no one will tell you about except what not to do. Don’t get angry, and just accept everything we say. And don’t bother us until you admit everything is all your fault.

  Finally, he rose and headed for the Hamorian class. It wouldn’t matter if he arrived there early, and he might as well do something from which he could learn—unlike the largely useless sessions with the magisters.

  When he walked into the large room, one of the younger girls ran toward him. “Rahl, escara amia?”

  He couldn’t help but smile. “Escio amia, Coraza.”

  Even after less than an eightday, he’d learned more than a few words and phrases of Hamorian, and it seemed as though each day he learned more. More important, Magister Thorl was only concerned about his learning language and customs.

  Coraza’s cheerfulness and enthusiasm helped Rahl to put aside Kadara’s stinging and unfair comments for the time while he was learning Hamorian.

  After leaving Magister Thorl’s session, Rahl made his way to the mess, where he took a heaping platter of lace potatoes and baked sea bass, along with a mug of ale. He actually took a swig of ale, then refilled the mug before he left the serving area.

  “Rahl!”

  He looked around and saw Aleasya sitting with another woman. She was motioning for him to join them. Rahl could sense the darkness that signified a magister around the other woman, although she wore dark green, and he hesitated. How could he avoid them? The last person he wanted to meet was another magister.

  “Come on!” Aleasya called cheerfully.

  With an inner shrug and sigh, Rahl headed for the two. He slid onto the bench beside the weapons instructor.

  “Rahl… I’d like you to meet someone. This is Deybri. She’s one of the healers here.”

  Deybri was almost as broad-shouldered as Aleasya, but her hair was light brown and curly, barely neck length, and her eyes were brown with gold flecks. She was clearly older, perhaps as much as ten years older than Rahl, but beautiful in a quiet way.

  “Oh… I’m glad to meet you,” Rahl managed.

  “You were worried that I was a magistra, weren’t you?” asked Deybri. “Don’t fret. I’m not. I don’t judge, lecture, order, or teach anything but how to heal.” She smiled warmly and reassuringly.

  Rahl could sense the warmth she radiated, and that warmth felt real. He just returned the smile. “I’m still learning my way around Nylan. In fact, I feel like I’m still just beginning.”

  “It takes time, and you haven’t been here long, Aleasya tells me.”

  “Less than an eightday.”

  “I was just leaving.” Aleasya stood and lifted her platter and mug.

  While she was doubtless finished with her meal, Rahl had no doubts that the meeting with Deybri had been at least partly planned. “I hope I’ll see you later.”

  “I’m sure you will.” Aleasya nodded and hurried toward the rinse buckets with her platter and mug.

  There was a brief moment of silence before Deybri spoke.

  “Aleasya says that you’re a possible mage.”

  “That’s what she told me. The magisters haven’t bothered.”

  ‘They probably think you know that.“

  Rahl shook his head. “I don’t even know what a mage can do. Not really.”

  “You know what you can do right now. That’s what a mage can do. Some can do more, and some can do less.”

  “What’s the difference between a mage and a healer?” asked Rahl.

  “I think it’s not so much ability as inclination. Mages tend to want to move and manipulate things and to understand how they work ”only so far as such understanding is useful. Healers want to see everything as knit together in some form of harmony. So far as I know, Dorrin was the only great mage who was also a healer and an engineer. All three take order-ability, but how that ability is used is very different.“

  “How does a healer use order?”

  Deybri smiled. “You’re asking that like a mage.”

  “How would a heale
r ask?”

  “That’s a problem. Most healers don’t ask. They feel the lack of order, or the wound chaos and try to do something about it. The hardest part for the healers who are just beginning is knowing what not to do.”

  Rahl almost shook his head. Again… they were talking about what not to do, rather than how to do it. “Ah… how can you start by not doing?”

  “I suppose I didn’t say that right. Let’s say that someone comes in with a broken bone. If I had enough order strength, I could align the bones and tie them together with order. But they wouldn’t heal right because that order isn’t as strong as the order that the body creates when it heals. So the best thing a healer can do is align the bones, splint the arm to hold it in place while it heals, and remove any wound chaos that would stop proper healing. Most young healers want to do more, because that will reduce the pain… but it slows proper healing. Mostly. If there’s too much pain, that also slows healing, and you have to work out the best balance for the injured person.”

  “Thank you.” Rahl felt that he’d gotten the first really informative reply from anyone. “Why can’t the magisters explain things that simply?”

  “Why should they?” Deybri’s tone was not quite mocking. “You’re assuming that they have an interest in making order-magery widely available. Their main concern is engineering and in minimizing chaos and the misuse of order-magery. Too many ordermages is as bad as too many chaos-mages. They’re the same thing, really.”

  Rahl had to think about that. How could too many ordermages be the same as too many chaos-mages? “The Balance?”

  Deybri nodded. “Having more ordermages leads to more concentrated free order, and that requires more concentrations of chaos.” She rose. “I’m sure I’ll see you around.” She smiled… warmly.

  Rahl sat at the table, thinking. What Deybri was implying was that the magisters were more interested in weeding out those would-be mages who couldn’t find their own way than in helping those who didn’t understand.

  That meant, like it or not, he had to figure things out. He also needed to get away from the training center.

  He finished the last of his meal with a final swallow of ale, and then rose and made his way to the rinsing buckets. From the mess he headed outside, where a brisk but warm wind was blowing out of the south and up from the harbor. At the side of the main road, he paused and glanced back.

  With a shake of his head, he turned and started downhill, toward the harbor. The dark gray paving stones of the road, as well as those that formed the sidewalks flanking the road, were so closely fitted together that almost no mortar was needed to provide a smooth surface. He glanced down toward the western piers, where the black ships were supposedly moored. He could barely make out the western, piers, because there was a haze around them, yet the other piers were clear. Some sort of order shield? He’d have to see when he got closer to the harbor.

  Each dwelling was orderly, not that he would have expected otherwise, but Nylan was even more so than Land’s End. Not only was there no garbage or trash in the road or side lanes, but there were no loose shutters, no peeling paint, not even cracked slate roof tiles. Seeing such profound order made him even more uneasy.

  Despite the breeze and the light summer tunic he wore, he was sweating after he’d walked little more than a few hundred cubits. Before long, he entered an area where shops fronted dwellings, and where he could see an occasional eating place. He saw more and more folk on the streets, most moving briskly toward whatever their, destinations might be. The side streets became slightly narrower, but only slightly, and the house-shops were side by side, their walls touching, although he could sense courtyards farther back. The smell of the harbor wafted toward him, but it held only the odors of the sea itself— salt and seaweed, and a faint fishlike scent—fresh fish, rather than spoiled or rotten.

  As he neared the harbor and was able to catch a glimpse of the ship masts and the water, the sidewalks became more crowded, not uncomfortably so, but with far more bodies close together than he’d ever seen in Land’s End. People hurried along the sidewalks, swiftly, but pleasantly enough, avoiding each other. Those who stopped and talked stepped back almost against the stone-walled buildings.

  Rahl stopped at the glass display window of a cabinetmaker, as much for the shade of the awning as to look at the furniture. In the center was a square table with inlay work that displayed a large ryall in the center, a black bloom done in lorken, outlined in golden oak. A smaller and more delicate bloom adorned each corner. While Rahl marveled at the crafting skill, for what would such a table be practically used? Playing plaques? But only the wealthiest factors and merchants could afford such crafting. Then, perhaps it was on display for the traders from the ships in the harbor.

  He made his way to the waterfront and the wide stone avenue that ran along the edge of the water. The seaward side of the avenue was marked by a waist-high stone wall that dropped straight into the waters of the harbor;—except where the piers extended from the avenue out into the harbor. On the shoreward side were factorages specializing in specific types of goods, chandleries, and other commercial enterprises, interspersed with taverns and an inn or two. At the foot of each stone pier was a guard stand, and each had a pair of patrollers. The patrollers faced the harbor. Moored at one of the piers was a two-masted, red-hulled steamer with paddle wheels on both sides. Behind it was a long schooner. The wagons on the pier suggested that both were loading or unloading cargo.

  Rahl turned westward, in the direction of where Khalyt had said the black ships were moored. Just ahead was an open square off the avenue on the shore side past the foot of the closer pier. As he neared the square, he could see vendors and buyers, and tents whose sides billowed in the strong breeze off the water. The sounds of voices haggling and talking mixed with orders and epithets from the teamsters and stevedores on the piers. He could also smell food being cooked, roast fowl and sausages and other items he could not identify.

  Toward him walked a pair of patrollers in black, with the uniforms trimmed in white. One of the patrollers glanced at Rahl, took in the grays, and nodded politely, before turning his eyes back to the peddlers.

  As he stepped into the market square, with the neat lines of carts, small tents, and tables with wares upon them, Rahl sensed something ahead—a fainter reddish whiteness. He glanced around, but could not see anything obviously amiss. He passed a table displaying knives, from some of which emanated a dull reddish whiteness, but he could still feel a stronger sense of the reddish white elsewhere.

  Then, just ahead of him, he saw a smallish man wearing faded blue trousers and shirt, who ambled along the line of vendors’ tables, then slowed. Rahl could almost sense the man getting ready to dart toward an older woman at a small table piled with dried fruits. She was engaged with a bearded man well dressed in a maroon tunic and dark blue trousers, who was gesturing vociferously.

  “… not more than three coppers for the whole tenth!”

  “… I could not part with them for less than a half-silver…”

  Rahl stepped forward, about to speak, when the man in blue darted toward the older woman and grabbed her cashbox.

  The woman lunged for him, but got tangled with the would-be buyer. “Thief! Thief!”

  Rahl stuck out his foot, and the thief sprawled forward, then curled into a ball, still holding on to the wooden box, and straightened. Rahl pivoted and slammed his booted foot into the side of the man’s knee.

  As the fellow toppled, Rahl grabbed the box and stepped back, looking for the woman. The man in maroon had his arms around her. Seeing Rahl, he let go of her and turned, vaulting over another table.

  Rahl handed the cashbox to the vendor. “I think everything’s there.” He glanced around, but the thief in blue had vanished, and so had his accomplice.

  Several of the nearby vendors were offering comments.

  “… went that way…”

  “… patrollers’ll catch them…”

  “…
won’t either…”

  “Oh… thank you… young man.” The fruit-seller drew herself up. “They were a pair. I should have known better. No one haggles that much over dried fruit, but I so seldom get to bargain.”

  Rahl couldn’t help smiling.

  “Would you like to-buy some, young man?”

  Rahl laughed. “I can’t. I don’t have a copper to my name. I don’t get paid until the end of the eightday.”

  Clutching the cashbox, she smiled at him. “Well, take one morsel anyway. I’d offer more, but it’s been a hard year.”

  “Just a little one,” Rahl replied, taking a slender sliver of dried pearapple. “Thank you.”

  “My thanks to you, young man.”

  “I just did what I could.” Rahl felt a little embarrassed.

  “Would that more did,” murmured someone.

  After slowly eating the dried pearapple, Rahl eased away, looking at the variety of wares spread on the tables. He saw carved wooden boxes; brass lamps of various sizes and styles; lacework; hand tools, including chisels, hammers, mallets, planes, augers, and others; platters out of hammered brass; and even bright shimmersilk scarves, guarded by two large armsmen.

  Rahl still sensed the reddish whiteness, now in the corner of the market square to his right. Had the two thieves hidden there? He moved away back toward the left, stopping briefly to admire a fine vest of black linen, trimmed in crimson.

  Then, he turned and began to move down a line of collapsible booths that seemed to hold more artistic goods—small carved stone figures, decorative breadboards meant to be hung rather than used, pewter tankards—and several stalls with glassware. Ahead were what looked to be decorative woodworks and ivory.

  Rahl could hear voices, if barely, from somewhere behind one of the vendor’s tents to his left, about where he sensed the reddish white.

  “Burned my leg, he did… he’s the one.”

  “… leave him alone…”

  “… no mage… put a knife in him…”

  Rahl slipped behind an angular man in soiled blue, probably a foreign sailor, then past a heavier man in richer brown, who stood before a table bearing figures carved from bone or ivory.