Natural Ordermage

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  After he ate and left his platter, cup, and cutlery in the rinse tanks, Blacktop walked back outside and along the stone walk to the dormitory. Once inside the main door, and past the guard station, he stopped. There was a room to the left, one lit with high lamps affixed to the ochre-brick walls. There were five wooden benches, and against the outer wall, there was a single bookcase with books filling the six shelves.

  Books…

  He moved deliberately into the room and to the bookcase.

  An older man with a trimmed gray beard who sat on one of the benches reading looked up. “They’re for reading.”

  Blacktop smiled politely. “I know.”

  “You can read any one of them, but you can only take one to your bunk, and if you damage it, you’ll have to work extra hours to replace it.” The older checker looked back down at his book, pointedly ignoring Blacktop.

  Blacktop stepped forward until he stood directly in front of the shelves. Some of the books had titles on their spines, but most did not. The older books had clearly been handbound, but there was a sameness about the newer ones that suggested… what? He just stood in front of the shelves for a time, realizing that he knew how to bind a book, how the signatures had to be sewn together, and how the backboards of the covers had to be just exactly so much smaller before the leather was stretched and sewed and glued.

  He must have been a scrivener. He had to have been. How else would he know that? Except… how did he know that was what a scrivener knew? How did he know anything?.

  He closed his eyes for a moment.

  When thoughts and questions stopped swirling through his mind, he picked out a book without a title on the spine and took it gently from the shelf, opening the cover. The title page read: A World Geography and History.

  He opened the book and began to .read, his eyes going down the page. !

  For age upon age, scholars taught that all true history began with Cyad and the ancient mages who carved a land of miracles out of the Accursed Forest of Naclos, and that Cyador lasted in prosperity and plenty until the black demons landed on the Roof of the World and sent forth the demon smith Nylan, who forged even greater weapons and toppled an empire in the course of an afternoon. This is, of course, a tale for children, if not nonsense. There were kingdoms east of the Westhorns long before Cyad rose, and many endured long after Cyad fell…

  Blacktop kept reading. While the words made sense, he could feel that he should know more than what the words told him.

  “You can read that, young checker?”

  Blacktop lowered the book to look at the older man. “Yes. It talks about the stories that have been handed down as history… the first page does. I haven’t read farther yet.”

  “Balderdash… if you ask me. Anyone who writes about the past is creating their own vision of what they think was. That’s because they have to rely on the words of those who lived then, and no man tells his own story truthfully.” He snorted and returned to reading his own book.

  Blacktop took the history to the bench farthest from the other man, where he sat down and continued reading until the warning bells rang—the ones before the curfew bells. He reshelved the book quickly and started for his bunk room.

  Abruptly, he turned and walked back to the guard station. The guard watched as he neared.

  “Ser… I was told that I could ask for scissors to trim my beard.”

  “That you can. It might be a good idea. You won’t look so much like a loader or breaker.” The guard reached down and held up a pair. “Don’t be long. The curfew bells will be ringing soon. The guard chief gets unhappy if you’re not in your bunk room by then.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  “You can have the barber trim everything on sevenday afternoons or on eightday.”

  Blacktop hadn’t even known about a barber. He also realized he had no idea what day it was. “Oh… thank you.”

  He hurried toward the bathing facilities at the end of the corridor.

  The wall mirror in the shower room was old and wavey, but Blacktop managed to trim his long beard and enough of his hair so that he looked more presentable. Then he returned the scissors to the duty guard. He even got to his bunk before the bells chimed.

  Later, in the darkness, he lay on the bunk mattress, his eyes open, ignoring the snoring coming from somewhere to his left.

  In one day, everything had changed—and all because the guards had discovered he could write and do sums? Yet, somehow he had changed. He had learned more… or relearned some .of what he had forgotten, and that had happened so gradually that he had not fully been aware of that change until just before the Overseer had found him writing words in the table dust.

  Now… he was in a far better place, and the guarding was so lax that he could easily have walked away. After a moment, he smiled wryly. And then what? The valley was desolate. There was nothing edible and no water, except in the guarded buildings in the valley, and everywhere else away from the ironworks, the dry rock and scrub bushes stretched for kays. The aqueduct that ran to the mountains must have been ten kays long. A guard on a horse could track anyone and run a prisoner down with little difficulty. And even if he did reach the mountains, what would he do? He had no real name, no real idea of what his skills might be, and no understanding of how he had come to Luba—or why.

  LXIV

  Cling… cling.

  Blacktop groaned. He had not slept well, and his dreams had been disturbing. He’d killed a man. At least, he had in his dreams, and then people had begun to chase him. He could even remember some of the words from his dreams, from a shadowy figure who had attacked him with a truncheon. “We’ll get you, we will. You’re a white demon… the magisters will take care of you.” Blacktop knew the word magister. It meant a kind of ruler, but why would the magisters be after him? There weren’t any magisters in Hamor. Had he lived somewhere else?

  And someone else had been saying words to him, warmer and sadder words, but the only phrase he recalled was something like “you won’t be back… the past has no hold on you” Back where? And how could the past have had a hold on him, when he couldn’t remember it?

  Were those dreams memories? How could they be?

  Despite the pounding in his skull, he knew he had to get up. The last thing he wanted was to go back to being a loader… or, even worse, a slogger… and that could happen if he didn’t do his new job as a checker. He sat up on the edge of the bunk, and swung his feet onto the worn reddish floor tiles. He could feel grit under his toes, grit that had not been there the night before. His clothes were on the rack at the foot of the bed, and the spare set was in the foot chest below it. He didn’t feel like a shower, not with the cool breeze that blew through the bunk room, but it might help wake him.

  After his shower, he pulled on his new garments and made his way back toward the eating area, where he filed into the line. Despite being among close to fifty checkers, not one looked in his direction or talked to him as he waited, then held out his tin plate for a large helping of an egg and quinoa hash. He also got a full loaf of bread along with his beer. It took him a moment to remember that half the bread—or all of it, he supposed—was his midday meal.

  When he left the servers, he began to look for an empty space at one of the tables, carrying his platter, cup, and bread, easing his way between the checkers on the benches.

  He saw Zhulyn, but the balding man did not meet his eyes.

  Faryn did look up. “You look more civilized this morning.”

  Beside him, Zhulyn nodded, reluctantly, but did not speak.

  “Thank you for the suggestion yesterday,” Blacktop replied politely. Something about Faryn bothered him, but he couldn’t have said what.

  “I’m glad we could help.” Faryn’s smile was warm enough, but Blacktop felt it was false.

  “Thank you.” Blacktop moved on, slowly, listening.

  “Why… encourage him… ?”

  “… a dangerous man once, young as he is… may be again…”


  Him? A dangerous man? He almost shook his head, but sat down quickly when he saw an empty corner of one of the tables. The checker nearest him looked over, then looked away quickly.

  What was it? The only thing that Blacktop could see about himself that looked different was that his skin was tanned darker and more bronzelike, as opposed to the light olive color of the other checkers—and he was taller and more muscular. But why would those things make a difference in the way the other checkers looked at him… or didn’t want to talk to him?

  He ate all the hash and drank all the beer, but decided to save the entire loaf of bread for later. After eating, he once more followed the lead of several checkers, and, before long, he stood outside the building with the others, waiting for the wagons and hoping he was in the right place.

  Several more checkers hurried toward the group as Blacktop caught sight of three wagons coming toward the group. Which wagon was he supposed to take? Finally, he caught sight of Moryn and Chylor, who were heading toward the second wagon. He was one of the last aboard, seating himself next to the same gray-haired man who had been in the reading room the evening before.

  “Good morning,” Blacktop offered, as the wagon began to move.

  “It is morning,” replied the other, “and it is not that adverse. How did you find the History!”

  “It’s interesting,” Blacktop admitted. “There’s a lot I don know.”

  “That’s true for all of us, including those who write the histories. The only question is whether we realize it.” The man looked away.

  Blacktop did not say more.

  Once the wagon stopped at the plate-loading dock, Blacktop hurried after Chylor toward the checker’s kiosk. For a moment, when he saw the stacks of plate and heard a clanking around the steam engine, he wondered why nothing was guarded or locked. Then, he realized that there was no need for it. Without a wagon and a team and the steam hoist, how could anyone steal the iron plate? But why had he considered the need for locks?

  “Blacktop!” called Moryn. “Before we start loading, we. need to get the steam lift up and working. You’ll help Hasyn. Shovel coal into the wheelbarrow and bring several loads over to the boiler on the lower level. The coal pile is over there.”

  Shoveling coal again? Maybe he was still part loader.

  He went to the kiosk, where he stripped off the khaki shirt and set the bread under the counter. He wasn’t going to shovel coal in a clean shirt. Then he headed off to find the shovel and wheelbarrow.

  Both were beside the coal pile, and he quickly filled the wheelbarrow, then jammed the shovel into the coal and began to trundle his load in the direction of the steam hoist. As he neared the dock, he could see the boiler was on the lower level and Hasyn—the older man he’d been sitting beside on the wagon.

  Hasyn was coaxing a fire from the banked coals remaining from the night before when Blacktop pushed the squeaky wheelbarrow up and stopped short of the open firebox door.

  Hasyn looked up, then offered a wry smile. “Guess I’m stuck with you. I’m Hasyn.”

  “Blacktop.”

  “Can you lay down a shovelful of the coal just short of the reddish ones, spread out so they’re not all clumped together.”

  Blacktop nodded. He eased the shovel into the coal and wiggled it so that there was a thinner layer of coal spread across the metal, then lifted it and eased the coal into place.

  “Good. Styun never did figure that out.”

  “Another shovel?”

  “Against the back.”

  Following Hasyn’s instructions, Blacktop loaded the firebox under the boiler, emptying the wheelbarrow, then took the wheelbarrow back for another two loads of coal. One he added to the fire, the other he left, with the shovel.

  “Obliged,” said the steam mech. After a moment, he added, “There’s a wash-water barrel over there. It’s the one with the red slash. The blue one is for drinking.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Just don’t take the histories too serious. The scriveners who wrote them never worked a loading dock or much of anything.”

  That was probably true enough, reflected Blacktop as he headed for the wash barrel to get the coal dust off his hands and arms. Then again, the mage-guard had said that he’d once been a scrivener.

  For some reason, that thought created a tightness in his guts, and his fists had clenched without his even thinking about it. He forced himself to take a deep breath. Things were better than they had been. Getting angry wouldn’t help. It wouldn’t.

  Except that he knew the anger and rage was still there, deep within.

  LXV

  For the next eightday, Blacktop continued his careful routine, following all instructions, and not intruding on anyone. The other checkers no longer stared at him—the shorter haircut by the barber on sevenday had doubtless helped with that—but none did more than address him civilly. While Hasyn, whom Blacktop often saw in the reading room, occasionally passed a few words with the younger man, mostly the steam mech remained pleasantly aloof.

  On a sixday evening, with little else to do, Blacktop sat on one of the benches in the reading room, a heavy book in his hands. He glanced up at the sound of footsteps, then dropped his eyes to the text when he saw that the man entering the chamber was Hasyn.

  “Still reading that balderdash?”

  In fact, Blacktop had continued to read A World Geography and History. He knew that he would find something in it that would help him remember more of his past. He just didn’t know how or what.

  “It’s interesting.”

  “Ought to read something that’ll teach you.”

  “After I finish this, you can suggest something.”

  “By then, it’ll be high summer.”

  “I don’t think I’ll be going anywhere, Hasyn.”

  The mech laughed, eased a book from its place on the shelves, then took the bench farthest from the one occupied by Blacktop.

  The checker reread the paragraph he had begun earlier.

  … so-called founders of Recluce were anything but poor souls seeking a land for those oppressed by the hegemony of Fairhaven. Recluce was created by the machinations of the two most ambitious women in the history of Candar. The Tyrant of Sarronnyn colluded with the Marshal of Westwind in the consorting of the Tyrant’s younger sister to the son of the Marshal. The purported “exile” of the couple to Recluce was in fact a well-planned and well-financed effort designed to create another rival to Fairhaven and to reduce the ability of the High Wizard to circumscribe the depredations of both… The greatest irony of this effort was that their ploy resulted in the destruction of Westwind and the overshadowing of Sarronnyn by Recluce…

  Blacktop paused, lowering the book slightly. He could not recall having read anything about Recluce, yet he did not think the words before him were right. Again… how could he know?

  LXVI

  Blacktop found his hands on cold iron—on a set of iron bars. He looked around. Someone was hurrying away’t from him, down the stone hallway outside the cell. How had he ended up in a cell? Was he still in Luba?

  “So…” The voice was that of a guard who wore black, except for thin and bright blue piping on his tunic sleeves and cuffs. “How is our would-be mage tonight?” Blacktop said nothing. II ‘Too bad Kacet can’t help you now. No one can.“ The guard laughed. ”Maybe the engineers can, but I wouldn’t count on it. No, I wouldn’t.“ Then he turned and walked away.

  Blacktop’s fingers tightened around the bars, as darkness—hot darkness—rose around him.

  Abruptly, he was somewhere else, lying on his back, breathing rapidly. His body was damp with sweat, and heat radiated from him. An involuntary groan escaped him.

  “Quiet!” hissed someone.

  He closed his mouth. He .was in the bunk room. He’d been dreaming, but the guard in the dream had called him a would-be mage, and said that someone couldn’t help him. The name should have been familiar, but it hadn’t been, and it had slipped awa
y as he had awakened.

  Had he once been a mage? Or had he tried to be one?

  How could that have been?

  He lay there for a long time. He’d had more dreams in the eightdays since he’d become a checker, but the one he’d just experienced had been the most vivid—and disturbing. He’d been in a cell. Had he really done something so terrible that he couldn’t remember it? So terrible that his memories and past had been taken away?

  He shivered, suddenly cold, although the late-spring night was anything but cool.

  After a time, his eyes closed. Then, something awakened him, and he got out of his bunk, except it was a pallet in a small cubicle, and his feet carried him through the dark toward the front of a building that felt familiar, yet he could not remember ever being there. When he reached the front door, his eyes fixed on the bar that held the door closed. Something whitish was seeping through the thin gap between the door and frame. As it thickened, it tugged, then shoved the bar out of its brackets so that one end clunked to the floor, and the door swung open, and a man stepped inside, falchiona extended.

  The man turned and whipped up his blade, but Blacktop was faster, and his truncheon cracked the man’s wrist and the bravo reeled back, out of sight, the falchiona clattering on the floor tiles.

  Whhstt! A bolt of whiteness flew toward Blacktop, but it only splattered around him.

  “We will have to handle you differently, dear boy,” came the languid words from the chaos-wizard who stepped inside the front door.

  The words chilled Blacktop, but he forced himself toward the white-shadowed figure.

  The wizard lifted a falchiona of whitish bronze, flicking it toward the truncheon that Blacktop carried, but Blacktop managed a parry and evaded the blade enough so that the truncheon touched the wizard’s forearm- Then Blacktop stepped inside and rammed the truncheon into the wizard’s throat. The wizard shuddered, and light flared, and the wizard began to collapse in upon himself.