Natural Ordermage

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “He was pretty direct.“ Rahl paused. ”What are the undercaptains like?”

  “Craelyt’s our undercaptain,” replied the duty mage-guard, “and he doesn’t say much, except what needs to be said. Knows being a mage-guard, been one longer than even the captain. Likes to handle things quiet-like. Always pointing out that mage-guards aren’t supposed to be seen, just supposed to keep things orderly.”

  Caersyn didn’t seem inclined to say much more, and Rahl went back to reading the manual. He’d gotten through several more pages when Mage-Captain Gheryk appeared again.

  “Anything I should know, Caersyn?”

  “It’s been quiet this morning, set, but it’s early. If - there’s trouble, it’ll be tonight.”

  Gheryk laughed softly. “Sevenday nights.” His eyes turned on Rahl. “Let’s see your truncheon.”

  Rahl stood and handed it over. He’d oiled and polished it, but it showed the abuse it had taken at Luba.

  “That’s a sorry-looking truncheon you’ve got there. I thought that might be the case.”

  “It was the heaviest ironbound one they had at Luba, ser.”

  Gheryk glanced to the duty mage-guard. “Caersyn… would you check with the armory and see if we have any of those iron-banded black truncheons for Rahl? He’d take forever to get one because he’d have to explain, and then you’d have to go anyway. I’ll wait here.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  Once Caersyn was well out of sight and earshot, Gheryk looked evenly at Rahl. Then he shook his head. “Jyrolt told me the rest of your story. I don’t know whether I owe Taryl, or he owes me. Something is going on, and I don’t like things }like that. Until I learn more, you are not to tell anyone more than that you were a mage-clerk in Luba, and that you only have vague memories of Swartheld. That includes the undercaptains and duty supervisors. You are not to seek out anything of your past now, but if you discover more, and in time you may, you are to find a way to talk to me that is not obvious. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, ser.” Rahl could sense a certain anger deep within himself, and he immediately blocked it, although the effort limited his order-sensing, if not so much as letting it surface might have done.

  “Good.

  “Since you recall something of commerce, you will be assigned to work with Mage-Guard Myala. She is a solid chaos-mage, and I strongly urge you to listen to her. She’s on leave until sixday, or I’d have you meet her now.”

  “Yes, ser”

  “After your eightday assisting the duty mage-guard, you two will have daylight duty from eightday through sixday, with sevenday off. Later, you’ll get the night shift…” Gheryk broke off as Caersyn returned, carrying two black-oak truncheons.

  “This one’s standard, and this one’s heavier.”

  “I’d prefer the heavier,” Rahl said.

  “For you, that would be best,” said the captain. “Later today, take the old truncheon and turn it in to the armorer and introduce yourself.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  Gheryk smiled. “I’m going to take a tour of pier two.

  There’s a Jeranyi vessel there, iron-hulled and almost big enough to be a warship.“

  “Yes, ser.”

  After the captain had gone, Rahl said, “He’s concerned about a Jeranyi ship?”

  “Iron-hulled and big… sounds like a pirate coming in here as a. trader. Not that we care about that so long as the crew behaves and they stay orderly, but pirate crews don’t always do that.”

  “And sevenday nights? Why does that make a. difference to the crews?”

  Caersyn laughed. “It’s not the crews. It’s the locals. More of them are out on sevenday evenings, and they don’t care much for outland sailors with lots of silvers. We shift more patrols to the eateries and taverns after dusk. So does the city station.”

  That also made sense to Rahl, although he wouldn’t have thought of it.

  “You a weaponsmaster with truncheon?” Caersyn asked, indicating a touch more than idle curiosity.

  “Jyrolt said my skills were more than adequate.”

  The other laughed. “From him, that’s praise. You get all those nicks in the old one working against blades?”

  “Against Khaill and Jyrolt.”

  “With a truncheon? They’re both armsmasters.”

  “Sometimes with a staff,” Rahl admitted.

  “Wondered why they’d send a new ordermage here. That explains it.”

  “The captain said I’d be working the piers, places where it’s so crowded that sometimes chaos-bolts are hard to use.”

  “He say who you’ll be working with?”

  “Mage-Guard Myala.”

  Caersyn winced. “Better you than me. You make a mistake, and you’ll know it.”

  That didn’t surprise Rahl either. He looked down at the station manual. “I guess I’d better learn this.”

  “That you had.”

  The day was quiet until just past midday, and, after a while Rahl turned in his old truncheon. He’d only been back at the duty desk for a short time when an older mage-guard appeared.

  “Caersyn, we’ve got something to be logged.”

  Rahl set aside the manual and reached for the duty book.

  “Oh, Niasl, this is Rahl,” Caersyn said. “Started today. What’s up?”

  “Good to meet you.” Niasl offered a quick smile, then went on, “Hydlenese ship on pier two—the Pyrdyan Pride… has a chaos-mage on board. Man ran down the gangway, trying to leave. Mage flamed him. He’s dead. The captain claimed he was a stowaway. He was too well dressed for that, but the mage never left the ship so we can’t do much about him. We’re keeping watch on the ship.”

  Caersyn looked to Rahl. “Enter that.”

  “Yes, ser.” Rahl was already writing what the pier . mage-guard had said, if adding a few words to make the report clearer.

  “We’ll add watch reports for the undercaptain and the captain,” added Caersyn.

  After Niasl had left, Rahl wrote up the two watch reports, under Caersyn’s direction, and carried them to the two mage-guards’ message boxes. When Gheryk returned, he read the report, but only nodded on his way past the duty desk, clearly preoccupied with something else.

  Rahl wondered if it had to do with him and what Shyret represented, but he doubted it. While Shyret might well remain a problem for Rahl, Gheryk doubtless had far larger concerns than the shady trading of a Recluce factor.

  At the end of the day shift, when another mage-guard appeared, Caersyn stood and stretched. “Ready to eat?”

  Rahl was more than ready, since all he’d had since breakfast was the midday duty ration of bread and cheese, and he followed the older mage-guard.

  As at Luba station, there were three tables in the mage-guard mess. One for men, one for women, and one for juniors, although Rahl noted that a female mage-clerk was seated at the lower end of the women’s table. The junior table was empty.

  Rahl took a seat at the lower end of the men’s table.

  “We’re not real formal here,” Caersyn said, “except for the places at the head. Those are in case the captain or undercaptain need to join us.” He glanced around the table, where there were but five others. “It’s a light night, because some of those without consorts go out on their own on sevenday.” Caersyn raised his voice slightly. “For those of you who haven’t met Rahl, he got sent here after a stint, as a mage-clerk at Luba station.” -

  “Good training for here, they say,” offered a graying and long-faced mage-guard. “I’m Hewart.”

  “Vosyn…”

  The introductions went around the table as an attendant appeared and set several platters and pitchers down.

  Caersyn served himself three chunks of the grilled fish and a heaping stack of hot. rice cakes, and then covered them with fish sauce. “The mess meals here aren’t bad, and you can’t beat the price.”

  Rahl went easy on the spicy sauce, barely drizzling it -on his fish and rice, but took a large chunk of the
dark bread, the first fresh dark bread he could recall in a long time, perhaps since he’d left Reduce. As he ate, he listened.

  “… glad I’m not on tonight… Jeranyi bunch could be trouble…”

  “… worry about the Hydlenese… keep your shields up on that pier…”

  “The portmaster should have put a Reduce ship beside em…

  “… not one in port…”

  “More’s the pity.”

  “You hear about the new eatery opened down from Hakkyl’s. Ventaryl says it’s good.” Rahl recognized Hakkyl’s, where he’d once had a good meal he probably shouldn’t have splurged on, but the name Ventaryl also sounded familiar, but Rahl couldn’t place it, even though he knew he’d heard-it somewhere.

  “He would… got nothing to spend his coins on but food.”

  Rahl continued to listen, and only answered politely on the few occasions when a question was directed at him.

  When the meal ended, several of the guards, perhaps five or ten years older than Rahl, hurried out. Caersyn was talking with Hewart, and Rahl stood and turned. The woman mage-guard who was the last to rise from the other table looked familiar. Had she been one of those he’d encountered? He smiled faintly and looked away before she was aware of his scrutiny. He wasn’t about to ask.

  Instead, he headed for his small room. He might take a walk later, but at the moment, he just wanted to be alone, and to think. Behind his cheerfulness, Gheryk had been concerned about what he’d learned about Rahl from Jyrolt, and his concern had raised even more questions about what Shyret had really been doing. At the same time, what could Rahl do except learn his job and save coins?

  At his new pay rate of three silvers an eightday, he could certainly send another letter to Deybri before long, but it would still be several eightdays before he had enough coins to pay for both the letter, the draft, and the assurance charge.

  LXXXIX

  Rahl hadn’t slept all that well on sevenday night, although he’d been so tired that he’d had to stop reading the Manual because his eyes had stopped focusing on the words on the page. His thoughts kept going back to the points that Jyrolt had raised and Gheryk’s concerns about them. Eventually, he did sleep, if fitfully.

  There were even fewer mage-guards at breakfast, .and Caersyn was not among them, although two of the three mage-clerks assigned to the station—Fhasyl and Zachyl—were already there at the juniors’ table and eating heartily.

  Vosyn called out cheerfully, “Morning, Rahl. You’ll be standing desk duty with me today.”

  “Caersyn has eightday off?”

  “This one, and he’s headed to see his sister.”

  “More like her consort’s younger sister. Hear she’s . really a beauty,” said Hegyr, who nodded to Rahl. “They say some of the girls in Guasyra are beauties. You ever have any time to see them?”

  Rahl offered a laugh. “See them? Yes.‘ Do anything about it? Not exactly. Taryl kept us busy.”

  “They say he got on the Emperor’s bad side. You hear anything about it?”

  “I heard the talk, but I don’t think it’s true.”

  “Why not?” asked Hegyr, not challengingly, but with what seemed to be real curiosity.

  “He’s a strong mage,” replied Rahl. “I’ve heard from senior mage-guards who should know that he’s one of the strongest. If he’d gotten in trouble with the Emperor, then I think we’d either have had a new emperor or a dead ordermage.”

  Vosyn nodded, then gave a short laugh. “That’s probably true, but your thoughtful answer takes all the pleasure out of. all the rumors.”

  Rahl wasn’t quite sure what he could answer. He just shrugged helplessly.

  Hegyr laughed raucously. So did the two mage-guards at the women’s table.

  “Maybe he’ll keep you fellows from gossiping the way you’re always accusing women of,” added one.

  “Watch out for Carlyse,” advised Vosyn. “When she says she likes what you say, she’s most dangerous.”

  “Watch out for Vosyn. He’s worse,” replied Carlyse dryly.

  Rahl couldn’t help smiling at the banter.

  He finished his breakfast—overdone egg toast and dry mutton, with a chunk of day-old bread and a healthy mug of ale—and then made his way to the duty desk. He hadn’t been seated there long enough to more than check the duty log when Vosyn elbowed him.

  “Undercaptain’s coming,” murmured the older mage-guard.

  Rahl looked up, then stood as the undercaptain moved toward him. “Ser.”

  Craelyt was a slender man, and a good half head shorter than Rahl, but he carried himself with assurance, and muted chaos flowed around his shields. His brown eyes were alert and his face inquisitive as he studied Rahl, who could sense the chaos-probes against the light shields he’d come to maintain all the time. “You’re Rahl?”

  “Yes, ser.”

  “Order type, but highly skilled with weapons, is that right?”

  “Jyrolt made the evaluation, ser. I just did my best.”

  “If he said so, none of us would dispute it. Just truncheon?”

  “Truncheon and staff, ser.” Rahl decided against mentioning his modest skills with a blade.

  “Good.” Craelyt smiled, an expression both warm and professional. “We’re glad to get another good mage-guard.” He glanced to Vosyn. “It’s quiet today, and it will be till later. Tell him anything you think will help.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  With a nod to both mage-guards, the. undercaptain moved away, almost silently, Rahl noted.

  Craelyt had been quick and professional, and he’d offered a smile almost as warm as Gheryk’s, but all his personal feelings were locked behind personal shields, and his were among the strongest Rahl had sensed in a long time.

  “Good man, the undercaptain,” offered Vosyn.

  “How long has he been undercaptain here?”

  “Six-seven years, I’d say. Gheryk was the undercaptain on the city side, and Craelyt was undercaptain here before the Triad made Gheryk the captain, and that was five years ago, just after I got here.”

  Rahl nodded.

  “If you haven’t already, write down in the duty log that I’ve taken the duty, and add that you’re assisting under training.”

  Rahl had already written that Vosyn had taken the duty, but he added that he was assisting under training.

  After that, for the entire day, there was only one report Rahl had to write up, and that was about a peddler unlicensed to solicit on the piers. He’d drawn a miniature crossbow—and been flamed down. The mage-guards had discovered he’d actually been a Jeranyi crew member. That explained how he’d even gotten past the outer pier guards.

  Dinner on eightday was even quieter, and afterward, Rahl decided to take a walk on the piers to stretch his legs. He wasn’t ready to wander around Swartheld—not yet.

  When he left the quarters, it wasn’t dark enough even to be considered twilight, despite the thickening clouds and the warm damp air rolling in from the northwest, both suggesting that more rain was on the way.

  Pier one had only three vessels tied up, one without an ensign, but with the name seadog on a weathered plaque under and just aft of the bowsprit, and the others bearing the limp flags of Austra and Nordla. The Seadog was an ancient sea schooner without engines or paddles, and the other two were newer side-wheel steamers, with oak hulls, and both bore the signs of great care, with varnished railings and gleaming brasswork.

  Rahl smiled as he made his way to the foot of the pier and past the port-master’s guard, who nodded and said, “Good evening, ser.”

  For a moment, Rahl was taken aback, almost looking around for a senior mage-guard before he realized that the pier guard was speaking to him. “Good evening.”

  Behind the guard was a raised stone stand with a vacant chair—the same one occupied by the first mage-guard Rahl had met in Swartheld, the one who had told him to register.

  On the northern side of pier two, near the end, he could make
out the bulk of a large iron-hulled vessel, probably the Jeranyi ship. He continued to walk toward it, although he did see another mage-guard ahead, walking in the same direction.

  She paused short of the Jeranyi vessel, studying it, but turned as Rahl neared, waiting for him.

  Rahl stopped short and nodded. “Good evening.”

  “You’re not on duty.” Her voice was firm, and almost as weathered as her face.

  “No. I’m new.” Rahl looked at her, sensing the chaos-energies behind her shields, realizing that she was only moderately strong in chaos-forces, certainly not able to overcome his shields, even though he was not sure they were yet what they had once been. “I just got here late on sixday.”

  “Oh… you’re the one on desk duty. I’m Dalya.” She smiled, then frowned. “I don’t think we’ve met, but… you look familiar. Were you at Dibolti station?”

  Rahl smiled in return, realizing where they had met. “No. I was an outlander. You were the one who told me to register when I first came to Swartheld. One thing led to another, and I ended up a mage-clerk at Luba station, and I was sent here.”

  “Did you register?” There was a hint of laughter behind the hard voice.

  “You scared me so much I went and registered right after I did what I was supposed to do.”

  A laugh followed his words. “Would that I had that effect on more.”

  Rahl glanced past Dalya at the Jeranyi ship. Even the steel plates of the Wavecrest felt as though they carried a low-level form of chaos.

  She turned and followed his gaze. “You’re an order type. What do you think?”

  “Even the plates reek of chaos. I’m new, but I’d not want to encounter them at sea.”

  “There’s not much we can do so long as they behave.”

  “One of the Hydlenese didn’t yesterday.”

  “Saelyt told me that, but I didn’t have any trouble with them or the Jeranyi.”

  “What do they carry on a vessel that large?”

  “Whatever they want… Yesterday, they were unloading when I came on duty. They had a couple score barrels of pickles. At least, you could smell the vinegar, and they had writing on the barrels that I thought said ‘Feyn pickles.’”