Natural Ordermage

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Blacktop jerked awake, more sweat streaming down his face.

  Had it been just a dream… or had he killed a white wizard?

  For a long time, he sat on the edge of the bunk, trying not to think or remember, hoping he could go back to sleep without dreaming.

  In time, he did sleep, and if he dreamed, at least, he did not remember those dreams when he dragged himself up at the morning bells. A cool shower helped… a little, but he couldn’t help but wonder if the reason he was in Luba was because he’d killed a mage. He didn’t know if he had, but he wasn’t about to ask anyone.

  At breakfast, as he made his way to a table, he nodded to Hasyn, then to Zhulyn.

  He’d no more than taken a sip of his beer when someone approached. “Blacktop… do you mind if I sit down?”

  Blacktop had seen the checker, one of the few who looked close to his own age, looking at him closely, more than a few times.

  “No… please do.” He was getting more than a little tired of being ignored by the other checkers.

  “I’m Masayd. I used to be a clerk in Swartheld. Did you work there? Hasyn said that you had a clerk’s hand and that you wrote like a merchanting clerk.”

  Blacktop shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t remember anything much before Luba. Someone told me I’d been given a potion so that I wouldn’t remember.” He paused. “What kind of clerk were you?”

  “I was the junior clerk with Chalyndyr Brothers. They said I burned the ledgers to hide the coins I’d stolen.” Masayd shook his head. “The whole three years I was there, I maybe managed to slip a silver out of the excess that wasn’t covered. I never burned anything, but that lying Ventaryl swore I did, and he was a mage-guard. That was after the other one vanished. Mage-guards were questioning everyone who wasn’t bonded in gold. No outlanders, of course. They still need the trade from places like Nylan and Brysta and Valmurl.” He looked at Blacktop speculatively. “You don’t remember anything?”

  Blacktop considered. “I had a dream… the other night. Maybe it was a memory, about a white wizard who followed a bravo into a building. I drove off the bravo, and the wizard said that he’d have to handle me differently”

  Masayd stiffened. “Do you remember how the wizard spoke?”

  Blacktop managed to offer an indifferent smile, eager as he was to hear what the former clerk might be able to tell him. “He spoke slowly, but it was lazy-like, and he called me ‘dear boy.’ That was in the dream anyway.”

  The clerk paled, and his jaw tightened. “That… that sounds like Asmyd. He was the one who disappeared. He always called all the clerks ‘dear boy.’ He was a slut sow’s ass.” After a moment, he asked, “Don’t you remember anything more?”

  “There was a flash of white, and then I woke up.” Blacktop wasn’t about to say that he’d killed the wizard, even in his dreams.

  “They… they framed you, too, then.” Masayd shook his head more violently. “They said I had something to do with his disappearing, but I didn’t. I didn’t. That lying bastard Ventaryl…” For a time, .Masayd just looked down at the table.

  Blacktop forced himself to eat slowly. Had Masayd been sent to Luba because of what Blacktop had done? Or had something more happened? There had to have been more… But what if there hadn’t been? What if he had just killed the mage, and Masayd had been sent to Luba for it?

  “Blacktop?”

  “Yes?” He paused. “It might only have been a dream. I just don’t remember more.”

  Masayd shivered and shook his head. “We’ve been framed. They wouldn’t have blanked” you if something hadn’t been all wrong. I just wish you could remember more.“

  “So do I.” That was more than true, yet Blacktop had to wonder if he really wanted to know all that he’d done.

  Suddenly, Masayd stood. “Thank you. That helped. It really did.”

  “I wish I could remember more,” Blacktop said.

  “Maybe you will.” With that and a faint smile, Masayd headed for the rinse racks.

  Blacktop had to hurry to finish his breakfast arid get out. front to catch his wagon. Even though the sun was still a low glow behind the perpetual gray haze of the valley, he found he was beginning to sweat just standing and waiting. Once the wagon arrived, he sat beside Hasyn, although neither spoke on the trip to the loading dock.

  He had just finished helping the steam mech load the boiler and returned to the checker’s kiosk when another wagon—one of the smaller ones—rolled down the lane and came to a stop at the south end of the dock. The angular and thin-faced older mage-guard—Taryl—hurried up the low steps’ and made his way toward Blacktop. Blacktop hadn’t seen him since the first day that Taryl had brought him to the plate-loading dock.

  Moryn moved forward, then just inclined his head, and stepped back.

  “I won’t be that long,” Taryl said in passing to the chief supervisor. ‘ -

  “Ser?” asked Blacktop. ‘ !

  “Blacktop… I’ve heard that you’ve been reading during your free time.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  “What have you read?”

  “A World Geography and History… that’s all.”

  “A good choice for a man who has no history or memory.” Taryl paused. “Do you remember anything more?”

  “I remember a building with a barred door, and I was on the inside. It was a building, not a dwelling, and it was dark.”

  “Hmmmm…” The mage-guard frowned. “Turn this way. Close your eyes.”

  Much as he did not wish to, Blacktop did. He felt something, the faintest tingling.

  “Open them. Did you feel anything?”

  “My head tingled… just a little.”

  Taryl nodded. “I’m not surprised.”

  Blacktop didn’t like that, either.

  “Do you recall ever wearing a copper bracelet on your wrist?”

  “No, ser. I don’t remember anything that I wore.”

  “If you remember that, or anything that you think is important, tell one of the guards that you need to have me see you. Do you understand? Don’t wait.”

  “Yes, ser.” Blacktop understood. He also understood he might be in even more trouble if he did remember who he had been and what he had done.

  Moryn waited until the mage-guard and the wagon were well away from the loading dock before he approached Blacktop. “What was that all about?”

  “I don’t know, ser. He asked me if I had been reading, and if I remembered any more. I told him I’d had dreams, but I didn’t know what they were. He said he’d check with me every so often.”

  Moryn frowned. “They want you to remember something. I hope for your sake that it’s good.”

  So did Blacktop, but with the dreams he’d had of killing two men, and maybe more, he was less and less certain that he wanted to remember—or that it was to his advantage.

  “Here comes the first wagon.” Moryn turned. “Hasyn! Get that hoist ready!”

  Blacktop laid out the forms and the pen and inkwell, then blotted his forehead. It was going to be a hot day, and full summer was still eightdays away.

  LXVII

  On fourday night, after dinner, as he did almost every night, Blacktop retired to the reading room. It was a space seldom frequented by any other than Hasyn and himself—at least not while he was there. At that moment, Blacktop had the small chamber to himself, and he extracted the World Geography and History from its place on the shelf and opened it to where he had left off reading the night before.

  He had only read a few pages when the words seemed to leap off the page at him, as if they were tiny arrows-aimed at his eyes.

  Reduce is ruled by a Council of Magisters, all of whom are black mages, and generally at least half are women, as a result of the heritage forced on the isle by‘“ its founders, Creslin and Megaera…

  Well over a century ago, after a series of naval engagements between Reduce and the Hegemony of Fairhaven in which the so-called black engineers unveiled a new class of stea
m-powered vessel that was extremely effective in decimating the Hegemony fleet, the “black engineers” created an engineering enclave and built the then-new city of Nylan at Southpoint on the southern tip of Reduce. To this day, a black wall divides the majority of Reduce from the enclave, even though virtually all trade now passes through Nylan. Nominally, however, the capital city remains Land’s End at the ‘ northernmost point of Reduce, a matter of history and pride by the ruling magisters…

  “The ruling magisters… the ruling magisters…” He mouthed the words, and they echoed through his thoughts, battering at him.

  Magister… magister… it was just a word, but it was more than a word, and he did not know why.

  Still holding the book, he stood and began to pace… moving in circles, as if the walking might help him discover what he was so close to remembering. But… close as it seemed, he could not quite grasp whatever it might be.

  Almost in desperation, he stopped pacing and opened the book again, trying to continue reading the book before him. His eyes dropped farther down the page.

  Recluce is known for its practice of immediate exile of anyone who might be a chaos-mage or who attempts “improper” use of order-magery. While the black engineers allow a greater range of order-magery in the. city of Nylan, exile from Recluce is immediate for any emerging white mages or wizards, and no one with such traits is even allowed to visit the isle…

  Had he been exiled? Had they taken his memory as well? Exile…

  An image appeared in his mind. He was standing in a chamber not that much larger than the reading room. At one end was a long black table, with four black chairs behind it. Four people in black sat in the chairs, two men and two women. The oldest—a gray-haired man—was speaking in a stern voice.

  “… you had no idea how you accomplished such destruction. You are in fact the perfect natural ordermage. Consequently, given our responsibilities, and particularly given the limited area of Nylan, we feel that there is little alternative to some form of exile.”

  Blacktop knew he had been in that room, and that the four had been speaking to him. They had exiled him. They had been in black, and they were magisters.

  “Are you all right, Blacktop?” Hasyn stood in the archway of the reading room a concerned expression on his face.

  Blacktop? That wasn’t his name. What was it?

  Another image/memory appeared.

  He sat at a corner table under a brass lamp suspended from the beamed ceiling by a large brass chain. Across from him were an older man and a beautiful woman. Her hair was light brown and curly, barely neck length, and her eyes were brown with gold flecks. He could not take his eyes off her.

  The older man poured a clear liquid from the pitcher, half-filling each goblet. “Rahl, you must taste the leshak—it’s a wine from greenberries and white grapes. Drink it in moderation. It’s more powerful than it tastes.”

  He lifted the goblet, filled with a wine that had the slightest of green tinges, and took a small sip. The wine was smooth and cool…

  Rahl… he was Rahl. He was the one who had been exiled.

  Lights—whitish and reddish—flared across his eyes, and he staggered. “Blacktop…”

  Blacktop… No, he was Rahl. He was Rahl.

  The entire reading room began to revolve around him, and he barely managed to put the book- down on the nearest bench, before sinking onto it and holding his head in his hands.

  More flashes of light flew across his eyes, and yet he knew that the lamplight in the room had not changed.

  Rahl… he was Rahl, but how had he gotten to Luba? How had it happened?

  Fragments of images, swirled through his thoughts…

  … listening to a mage-guard saying, “You don have to wear the bracelet, not as an outlander, but you do have to have it with you if you leave Swartheld for any other part of Hamor,” and taking the bracelet and putting it on his left wrist…

  … dodging as a tall man in worn tans and a long knife darted in at him, then smashing the man’s wrist with his truncheon and then his jaw, before pivoting barely in time to deflect the short staff of a second attacker, jamming the truncheon just below the center of the man’s ribs—and watching the man die… and then seeing a mage-guard appear and throw two quick chaos-bolts to destroy both bodies…

  … sitting at a long desk in the Merchanting Association and worrying about Shyret’s dishonest maneuverings…

  … standing at a doorway, looking a last time at Deybri before the door closed in his face…

  … trying to walk back to the Merchanting Association, feeling sleepier, and sleepier, and then being rolled up in something—the carpet that Shyret had had waiting… “Nooo!!!!”

  “Blacktop! You’ll have the guards on us!” Hasyn remonstrated. “Keep it to yourself.”

  Keep it to himself… to himself. Wasn’t that what everyone wanted? Don’t bother us with your problems and questions.-Don’t ask about things we don’t want to. hear. Don’t complain when what we tell you doesn’t make sense.

  Even so, he closed his mouth, and found himself shivering in rage and anger, the tears streaming down his face.

  He was in the ironworks in Luba, the ironworks of Hamor.

  Slowly, he stood.

  Hasyn looked at him, then stepped back. “Are you all right? You’re not going to do anything stupid, now, are you?”

  Rahl would have laughed, but he knew it would have become hysterical bitterness, a torrent he could not have stopped once he started. “No. I can’t afford stupidity.”

  “You sound different.” Hasyn continued to frown. At that moment, Rahl realized something else. He couldn’t sense what Hasyn felt. Nor could he sense what surrounded him. He could only see… and hear.

  He had lost all his order-skills. . What had Shyret done to him?

  He was a low-level clerk and checker in a prison ironworks in a land far from his birth, and he had been stripped of almost everything—his name, his memories, his order-abilities, what few coins he had possessed, and whatever future he might have had.

  The utter unfairness of what had happened surged up within him. Every time he had needed help or assistance or wanted an explanation, someone had told him that they couldn’t explain, or that it was his fault, or his problem, or that they were terribly sorry, but they really couldn’t help him—and then all of them had turned their backs and left matters up to him, only to reproach him, or exile him, when they hadn’t liked what he had done.

  All of them except Deybri.

  His whole body shuddered.

  After a moment, he took a long and deep breath. He had to get control of himself. He had to. He looked up to see that Hasyn continued to back away from him. The older man kept glancing over his shoulder as he distanced himself from Rahl.

  Rahl shook his head. “I’ll be fine, Hasyn.”

  That didn’t seem to reassure the steam mech, who turned and hurried out of sight down the corridor.

  Rahl stood alone in the reading room. That seemed somehow apt.

  Now… he had no choices, and no allegiances—except to those few who had honestly tried to help him. He could only do what he could, whatever that might be, in whatever fashion he could.

  If he could do anything at all.

  LXVIII

  For much of the night, Rahl did not sleep. First, he tried to call up each one of the order-skills he recalled, but he had no use or even awareness of any of them, no matter what he tried. Then, exhausted, when he tried to close his eyes and summon sleep, one memory after another emerged, each jolting him back into wakefulness.

  Beyond all the memories was a single question. If Shyret had been so worried that Rahl might reveal something, why hadn’t he just killed Rahl? There had to have been a reason. Was murder too risky? Because he’d registered with the mage-guards, and if he turned up dead, someone would be unhappy? Except Shyret wasn’t supposed to know that Rahl had order-skills, and he didn’t know that Rahl had registered. Or did he? Or was it tha
t if anyone from Nylan looked into his death, the investigation might reveal too much? Or that the magisters in Nylan might send an ordermage to inquire?

  The latter was the most likely, and that irritated Rahl. His death might get someone to look into things, but his life and his questions wouldn’t. He could feel the rage seething, and not that far beneath, but he blocked it away. Rage was not something he could afford. Not in Luba, and not if he wanted to get any sleep.

  In the end, he dozed, fitfully, if that, trying to ignore yet another concern, that of how he could find a way out of Luba, a way that would get him out with both mind and body intact—even if he no longer could call on his order-skills.

  He was ‘awake with the first chime of the morning bells, a chime that splintered like miniature knives in his ears.

  As he washed and dressed quickly, another thought re-occurred to him. Taryl had already discerned something because he had asked if Rahl had remembered wearing a bracelet on his wrist. And if Rahl didn’t tell the mage-guard…

  Once again, he was in an impossible position. He hadn’t done anything really wrong, certainly not since ending up in Luba, but sooner or later Taryl would ask again, and if Rahl waited, that could do him no good at all. Rahl didn’t want to tell Taryl, not in the slightest, but like it or not, he did remember the problems waiting had caused him with Puvort, and in Swartheld, and Taryl was likely to be even harder on him.

  Apprehensive as he was, he made his way to the guard station.

  “What do you want, Blacktop?” asked a guard that he did not know.

  “The mage-guard Taryl, he said to leave a message with you, or whoever was on duty, if I remembered anything that he was asking me about.”

  “Yes?”

  “I have,” Rahl replied. “I’m just following his orders. That’s why I’m telling you.”

  “I’ll pass it on.”

  “Thank you, ser.” Rahl inclined his head politely, and then made his way to the dining area. As he filed toward the servers, tin plate and cup in hand, several of the checkers looked in his direction, and then looked away even more quickly. By the time he had been served, no one would meet his eyes.