Natural Ordermage

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “I don’t know, ser. Except with the valuations, no one could make coins on pickles.”

  “So the head of the Association was part of a Jeranyi smuggling operation. Not all that smart of him. He’s taking all the risks, and that leaves them in the clear. No wonder you ended up in Luba.”

  “Yes, ser.” Rahl wanted to say that he knew, there was more, but he couldn’t even guess what that might be.

  “We’ll watch for that, and I’ll ask the enumerators to let me know if any Jeranyi ships off-load pickles or anything in small quantities.” Gheryk smiled almost paternally. “You’ve got a good head for this sort of thing, but you need more experience. You’ve told me, and that’s fine… but don’t do any more snooping. Just watch the ships and the piers and tell me. You understand?”

  “Yes, ser.”

  “Good. Now… get back on your patrol with Myala, and if she asks, and she will, tell her I was giving you another standard talk about not seeing smugglers tied to every bollard.”

  “Yes, ser.” Rahl nodded politely. He could sense that the captain, while mollified to some extent, was still worried and irritated.

  Myala was watching as another Hydlenese ship was maneuvering into the south inshore berth on pier three when Rahl caught up with her.

  “What was that all about?”

  “The captain was giving me a talk about not seeing smugglers tying up at every bollard. He also said to listen to you and not to say much until I know more.” That was mostly true, and Rahl had the feeling that, for all of her other strengths, Myala was not that good at reading feelings.

  “Good advice.” She laughed, a harsh bark, and gestured toward the sleek modified schooner. “See that rig? They can put on enough sail to run down anything—or outrun most anything. It’s probably one of those pirate-smugglers that the captain told you not to look too hard for. We can’t do anything unless they break the Codex, but the crews are usually more trouble.”

  She started toward the end of the pier, skirting past a vendor, when Rahl sensed pain and fear. He turned, sensing a man wrenching something from a girl behind the tent.

  He sprinted toward the base of the pier, at an angle, pulling his truncheon out. The two teamsters beside a wagon jumped out of his way, as did several others.

  “Thief! Thief!”

  “That way!”

  The man dashed toward the side of the pier, then saw Rahl. For an instant, his face froze, until he saw the truncheon, and out came two long knives. He rushed Rahl in a headlong attack.

  Rahl barely had to move, stepping to his left, and striking hard enough to snap the bone above the wrist on the arm nearest him. The pain froze the man for an instant, and that was enough for Rahl to use the truncheon a second time. The second knife clanked on the stone.

  Even so, the man staggered and tried to lurch away.

  Rahl clipped him on the skull, pulling the blow slightly, but with enough force that the combination of order and impact was enough to leave the thief sprawled on the stone.

  Rahl rolled him over and pried the purse from his limp fingers, then stood. At that point, Myala arrived.

  She looked at the two teamsters. “You two! Carry him to the gaol. Rahl, here, will show you the way. Rahl, you can write up the report there. Then go to the pier gate and wait with Hegyr, and I’ll pick you up there. It won’t hurt to have two mages there. If there’s anyone else, you might be able to sense it.”

  Rahl nodded, then handed her the purse. “He took this from a girl in the tent by the vendor we were passing.”

  “I’ll get it back to her.”

  Rahl turned to the teamsters and gestured. They lifted the limp figure and followed him. As he led them across the base of the pier, he realized that no one on the pier had said anything, and that all the locals had scattered out of his way. That suggested that the mage-guards weren’t that averse to using chaos-flame with bystanders nearby.

  Once they reached the gaol, Rahl held the door for the teamsters, who lowered the thief onto the tiles and departed the building as quickly as they could.

  The duty gaoler looked at the limp figure laid on the floor of the entry to the gaol, and the crooked arm, then at Rahl, who still held his truncheon. “Another idiot. Lucky he ran into you, rather than one of the chaos types.” After a pause, he added, “You need to fill out the report.”

  “You’ll have to help me. I can write it, but I don’t know the form. This is my first eightday.”

  The gaoler shook his head and took a sheet from the small file case on the table. “You have to learn, but the older ones always do this. Most of the spaces tell you what to fill in…”

  After Rahl finished writing out the gaol report, including the details on the theft and his own actions, he signed the form, and two more guards carted the still-unconscious thief through an archway and to a cell. Then Rahl left the gaol and made his way back toward the pier station, where Hegyr was monitoring wagons and pedestrians.

  As he neared the pier mage-guard, Rahl observed the undercaptain talking to Hegyr. Before Rahl could do more than smile, Craelyt turned and left Hegyr, drawing Rahl well away from the street. “Young Rahl, it’s good to see you out here on the piers. Where have you been? I don’t see Myala.”

  “I just took a thief to the gaol, ser.”

  “Still alive?”

  “I saw him first and took him down with a truncheon.” Rahl smiled wryly. “I did break one arm and knocked him out.”

  “That’s what you’re supposed to do. You filled out the report?”

  “Yes, ser.”

  “I understand you were over at the tariff enumerators’ on sevenday.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  “I had another question for you. Isn’t it rather ambitious to think you can detect smuggling after just a week at the duty desk?”

  “I wasn’t trying to detect smuggling, ser, but I wanted to see what sorts of cargoes the Jeranyi were declaring. Everyone has been saying how dangerous they are, and… I just thought…” Rahl offered a hopeless shrug. “Anyway, ser, the captain already set me straight, ser.”

  Craelyt laughed, a soft sound that was somehow warm, yet without humor. “Just remember, Rahl, we do see more than what might appear, even with outland trading houses.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  Craelyt clapped Rahl on the back. “Good work with the thief. Just keep to the piers, and you’ll do fine.” The undercaptain smiled again, then walked briskly away, in the direction of the mage-guard station.

  As he stood there for a moment, Rahl felt the slightest chill, warm as the fall sunlight was. There was something about the undercaptain… more than the shields that hid everything personal about him. But what could Rahl do?

  He shook his head and walked to join Hegyr.

  “What did the undercaptain want, if I might ask?” murmured the other mage-guard from where he sat on the raised chair, his eyes on the wagon approaching the piers.‘

  “He wanted to know what I was doing away from Myala. I took a thief to the gaol. So he decided to encourage me to keep paying attention to what I learned on the piers.”

  “Sounds like the undercaptain. Always wants us to stick to the job at hand. ‘You’ve got enough to do handling your own duties. Don’t try to do anyone else’s.’”

  Rahl had to work to keep from laughing at Hegyr’s imitation of the undercaptain’s false-hearty tone.

  XCV

  Rahl woke before dawn on twoday. For a time, he just lay on the narrow bed, enjoying the comfort of the thickest and most comfortable mattress he’d ever had, but his thoughts began to drift to the uneasy feelings he had about the Jeranyi and Shyret. Even though he’d promised he wouldn’t attempt to snoop around the Nylan Merchant

  Association, he couldn’t help but feel how much easier something like that might be if no one could see him. He knew that was possible for both ordermages and chaos-mages, and he recalled vaguely something about light being made to flow around things. Had it been something s
omeone had said, or had it been in the Basis of Order? For a moment, he wished he still had his copy. Then he recalled what Taryl had said about his need to “feel” rather than think when he learned a new skill.

  But how could he feel light passing around him?

  He sat up and put his bare feet on the floor. The smooth stone tiles felt cool, especially in the warm confines of his chamber. While he had left the small window open, there had been no breeze the night before.

  Could he think of… no, feel light as if it were a breeze? The only source was the window, just like the breeze—when there was one. ‘

  Rahl closed his eyes, trying to feel the light rather than see it.

  Something happened, and he opened his eyes. He was in total darkness. How… what? Had he gone blind?

  Just as suddenly the light reappeared.

  What had occurred? Why hadn’t he been able to see?

  He knew he had to feel to use his order-skills, but he still had to understand what had happened. He’d been feeling the gossamer-like flow of light—and he had sensed the flow, but when he had opened his eyes, he hadn’t been able to see. Why couldn’t he see? He could see now.

  He took a low and slow deep breath and tried to relax, again closing his eyes. This time, when he felt something he couldn’t quite describe happening, he did not open his eyes, but just tried to experience the feeling. As though he were in darkness, he could in fact order-sense what was around him. Still holding on to that feeling, he opened his eyes into darkness, yet he could sense everything around him.

  After several moments more, he released the sense of diverting light, and his vision returned.

  It wasn’t his eyes, but why couldn’t he see when he had the light flow around him? It was like he was in his own private cave. Suddenly, he felt stupid. In a cave, or in a windowless room at night, there was no light to see by. If he flowed the light around himself, his eyes had no light to see with, either.

  Getting the same feeling was far harder with his eyes open. After a time, he did manage it, but he had to stop the exercise because he was feeling light-headed. At that point, he washed and shaved and dressed and headed for the mess.

  Only Hegyr, Vosyn, and Carlyse were seated when he walked in and sat down across from Vosyn and Hegyr. “Good morning.”

  “It is’ morning,” conceded Vosyn. “Whether it’s good remains to be seen.”

  “Any morning that you’re healthy and alive is a good morning,” replied Hegyr.

  “So you say.” Vosyn took a bite of egg toast, chewing it slowly, before saying, “We’ve had worse egg toast. I don’t remember when, though.”

  Rahl started in on his platter the moment the server set it before him, arid the egg toast didn’t seem all that tough to him. He hadn’t realized just how hungry he was until he’d finished off two stacks of egg toast, four tough strips of ham, and a greenish sour fruit that was too squishy for his liking—not to mention more than a mug of ale.

  Carlyse glanced over from the women’s table to Rahl. “Bringing down that thief yesterday must have taken all your strength.”

  “It just happened. He was stupid.” Except, Rahl realized, the thief had been hidden behind the canvas of the vendor’s tent and probably hadn’t even seen the two mage-guards and doubtless thought he was unseen.

  “… Myala was pissed, you know,” Carlyse bantered. “She really likes to flame thieves. Hear you smashed his arm. Wager you never thought that mangling a thief’s arm was going easy on him.”

  “Real easy,” added Hegyr.

  Rahl had his doubts, recalling his days as a loader in Luba.

  “Hear about south Merowey?” asked Vosyn. “No one’s saying much, but the administrator’s declared independence.”

  “Independence from what?” asked Carlyse. “The world?”

  “I’m serious. So is he. You know he’s Prince Golyat, and he’s the older brother of the Emperor. They say that he’s getting help from Fairhaven. Under the table, of course. That’s why there aren’t many warships at their berths across the harbor.”

  Rahl managed not to frown. The older brother wasn’t the Emperor? Yet he was an administrator who served the Emperor.

  “That won’t last long,” opined Hegyr.

  “You’d better hope not,” countered Vosyn. “The last revolt, the Emperor drafted a good fifty mage-guards to help the army.”

  “That was more than a century ago.”

  Rahl ate and listened.

  “As good as their chatter is, Rahl, you’d better get moving,” suggested Carlyse, “unless you want to give Myala good cause for writing you up for being late. She goes by the manual and then some.”

  That was the last thing Rahl wanted, and he left the mess quickly. He was at the duty desk just behind the waspy mage-guard.

  “Let’s go,” was all Myala said.

  Rahl checked his truncheon, adjusted his visor cap, and followed her.

  Myala’s and Rahl’s first sweep of the piers confirmed that the Jeranyi vessel, with its guards, was still tied at pier two.

  By midmorning, when Myala and Rahl were making another tour of pier three, Rahl could see another iron-hulled vessel doubling up at the end berth and the gangway coming down onto the pier. “There’s that other Jeranyi ship.”

  “We’ll take a closer look.” Myala’s voice was almost an order.

  Rahl found himself bridling at her tone, but he said nothing, just matched his pace to hers as they walked toward the just-docked ship.

  Once they neared the Jeranyi vessel’s stem, Rahl began to count the crew. Those he saw numbered more than twice what he’d known on the Diev, and he had the feeling that there were far more crew members belowdecks than he saw topside.

  “Too large a crew for a merchanter,” Rahl observed quietly.

  “Obviously.” Myala’s tone was dryly condescending.

  Rahl could make out the same concealed gun ports as on the other Jeranyi vessel, and roughly the same level of concealed chaos as he’d noted there as well; but, after Myala’s last comment, he kept his observations to himself. He also didn’t see any signs of the deck crew preparing to off-load cargo, and that was normally one of the first things a merchanter did once she was secured to the pier.

  On the way back down the pier, on the far side, Rahl smiled pleasantly at an attractive brunette girl, clearly using her obvious charms to help her father sell an array of brightly colored shirts and tunics. Then, as they passed the cart and half tent that shielded the father and daughter from the sun, Rahl waited until Myala looked in the other direction. Then he concentrated on feeling the light flow around him, although he kept walking a pace behind her and to her left.

  He could sense her turning, then looking. “Rahl?”

  He waited only until she turned her head in the other direction before releasing his hold on the light flow. “I’m right here. I had to adjust my boot.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Adjust your boot, both my left elbows. You were ogling that vendor girl.”

  Rahl shrugged as expansively as he could. “What can I say?”

  “Not on duty.”

  “I won’t.”

  “You just did.” Myala snorted.

  “I won’t do it again… at least for a while.” He offered a grin. “Don’t be so obvious.”

  That confirmed for Rahl that Myala, and possibly many of the chaos-type mage-guards, had limited order-senses. Certainly, Khaill and Jyrolt—and Craelyt and the . captain—possessed a fuller range of senses, but then, since the mage-guards co-opted all the mages in Hamor, one way or another, it made sense that many, especially the patrol mages, were not so talented.

  While the day had already been long and was far from over, he’d learned more than-a few things, but he was far more worried about what he hadn’t learned—such as the connection between the Jeranyi ships and Shyret and the Nylan Merchant Association. He tried to tell himself that it wasn’t his duty.

  That didn’t seem to help much. He still wor
ried.

  XCVI

  Twoday evening, in deserted areas around the quarters, Rahl worked more on using the light flow and on sensing his way around when using it. He had to give up early because it was exhausting, even though he didn’t feel worn-out at the time. He just felt drained and lightheaded afterward. He had to drag himself back to his quarters, pausing to banter some to Vosyn in the corridor, before escaping to his chamber and his bed, where he soon collapsed into a deep sleep. That lasted until sometime before dawn, when a series of nightmares tormented him.

  When he awoke he was sweating, but he remembered little of the dreams, save a short fragment where he and Deybri were on separate ships passing in the afternoon, and all he could do was watch while she was carried farther away. Something about that bothered him even more than the idea of. separation, but he couldn’t put a finger on it.

  He cleaned up, shaved, dressed, and hurried through breakfast to get to the duty desk before Myala. As he waited, he had to wonder why Taryl had been so insistent on his being stationed in Swartheld. Even to him, it was clear that the chaos-mages had a clear advantage over him in dealing with problems. Rahl’s sole edge was that he seemed to be able, to sense some trouble earlier than they could.

  Myala said little once she arrived, just nodded and headed out, clearly expecting him to follow her. Once again, Rahl had to take several quick steps to catch up with her.

  By the time Rahl and Myala had reached the end of pier two on their first patrol, a third Jeranyi ship was tied up at the seaward end, almost directly opposite the first Jeranyi ship. Like the other two, the new arrival was overcrewed, guarded, and not preparing to off-load cargo immediately.

  “Have to admit that I can’t ever remember seeing three of those big Jeranyi ships in port at the same time.” Myala turned. “Best that you go and report that to the duty desk, and the captain and undercaptain if they’re in the station. Otherwise, leave a watch report, but make sure that the duty mage gets it to them. Then I’ll meet you at the main pier guards’ station.”

  “I’ll take care of it.” Before Myala could add some caustic remark or observation, Rahl was on his way.