Natural Ordermage

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “Ah… ser…” Rahl wasn’t quite sure how to ask what was to become of him, and he was even less certain he wanted to know.

  “You’re worried about what might happen to you?” The former Triad mage nodded. “That’s understandable for a junior mage-guard who created one of the largest fires in years in Swartheld, even to prevent a worse conflagration, not to mention killing a superior and disobeying direct orders.”

  Rahl tried not to swallow. “I remembered your words, ser… the ones about not taking matters into my own hands, but…if I didn’t…”

  “It happens that way, but I’m glad you did think about it first.” Then, surprisingly, Taryl grinned. “You still need some reminders that you have much to learn. It has been decided that your talents are not being used to their fullest here in Swartheld. Also, there will be speculation about how you survived the explosion and who killed Craelyt, not to mention the captain’s disappearance.”

  “That had to be Craelyt,” Rahl interjected.

  “Without a doubt, but… how could anyone really prove it?” continued Taryl. “Then, too, it would be difficult for any captain, even Jyrolt, to concentrate fully on what he must do to rebuild the port station when he knows that one of his junior mage-guards is as… capable as you are, as well as inexperienced in understanding all that the mage-guards are and must be.”

  Was he being sent to Highpoint or worse? Or merely some small village in the middle of nowhere? That might be a relief.

  “Several of the mage-guards here were at the least inadvertent accomplices of the undercaptain. Caersyn, Suvynt, and Saelyt have already been sent to new postings. Caersyn is on his way to Highpoint. Now… Jyrolt and Chaslyk will have to interrogate Ventaryl as well, if he’s still around.”

  Rahl shook his head. “Accomplices?” He’d suspected Craelyt of something, but what had he been doing?

  “Oh, you wouldn’t have known that. Craelyt was an occasional guest of Shyret’s. The director’s house staff confirmed it. We’ll never know everything, but Craelyt was passed over for captain when Gheryk was appointed. We did find a set of instructions for dealing with a large fire in Swartheld in Craelyt’s desk.”

  “So he could show skill in handling it and become captain after Gheryk perished in the fires?”

  “That’s most likely, but we won’t ever know. Not for certain.”

  Taryl still hadn’t said what Rahl would be doing or where he would be posted next Or even exactly why Taryl was in Swartheld.

  “Now… about you. You definitely need more training, but you won’t get what you need here in Swartheld, even if you could stay, and the same would be true of other cities, especially Ada or Cigoerne or even Sylpa. You also are an ordermage from Reduce, and that makes you especially useful for your next posting. The Emperor and the Triad have decided that I will act as their emissary to Reduce and that you will assist me in explaining to the magisters exactly what happened in Swartheld. This is necessary to assure that Reduce does not use its black ships against our shipping or traders and will accomplish several other ends, which we can discuss at length on the voyage.”

  “The magisters at Land’s End will not even—”

  “We are emissaries not to the magisters at Land’s End but to those at Nylan. They already are the true powers of the isle.” Taryl offered a friendly smile. “Now, we need to get you some new uniforms, including full-dress. We leave on threeday on a fast naval frigate. You also look like you could use a decent meal.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  For a moment, Rahl just sat upright in the infirmary bed.

  He was heading back to Nylan—aboard a Hamorian warship—as the aide to an emissary from the Emperor. Back to Nylan…

  “Get yourself cleaned up and dressed, and we’ll find somewhere decent to eat,” Taryl said, breaking into Rahl’s reverie.

  Rahl smiled and swung his feet over the side of the bed and onto the cool tiles of the floor. He was still lightheaded, but that would pass.

  What wouldn’t pass was the thought that he would have to face the magisters again… and Deybri, especially Deybri.

  Sometimes, he did look back.

  CI

  In the late afternoon of twoday, under clouds that promised, but had not delivered rain, Rahl stood on the avenue in Swartheld, looking at the burned-out walls of the Nylan Merchant Association and the heaps of masonry, ashes, and rubble within them that had been warehouses, stables, and the main building.

  Behind him, Eneld’s cantina was open, if with broken and battered shutters, and stacks of rubble in the side alleyway waiting to be carted away. The odor of Seorya’s heavy cooking mixed with that of ashes and death.

  He stood there silently, in his mage-guard uniform. In less than a day, he would be boarding a warship on a mission back to Nylan. His eyes went to the still-smoking rabble that had been the first warehouse—with the rooms above that had housed Daelyt and Yasnela. Both were dead, although Rahl had no way of knowing exactly how they had died, only that they had. For what it was worth, he wished that Yasnela had not‘ been alone; but he knew that she had been, trapped by her crippled leg when the Jeranyi pirates had emerged from their concealment.

  In his own way, Daelyt had been trapped as surely as Rahl himself had been constrained, all because Daelyt had loved Yasnela. With what Rahl had been paid, he certainly could not have maintained a consort, and especially not one who was crippled. Even had Daelyt made three or four times what Rahl had—and that was doubtful—Daelyt could not have supported and quartered a consort in Swartheld. So, because he had loved his consort, Daelyt had helped Shyret in his scheme to divert golds from the Association, not knowing or understanding where that would lead. What would Rahl have done if he had been faced with a similar situation—and his consort had been Deybri? Would he have been able to walk away? Especially if he were not a mage?

  Chenaryl, too, was dead. He had been more-guilty, in a way, because he’d pocketed golds from the “spoiled” goods. Tyboran the warehouse guard and Guylmor—the first driver—had been killed just because they had been inconvenient to either Shyret or the Jeranyi. Shyret had wanted more golds than his ability could honestly provide. So had Chenaryl. Daelyt had wanted to have the love of a beautiful—if crippled—woman. The innocent had died as well—Captain Gheryk, Yasnela, and the merchant clerk before Rahl.

  Yet, reflected Rahl, regardless of their relative guilt, they’d all been slaughtered by the Jeranyi or their agents. For what? So that the pirates could amass more golds after they had burned the merchant quarter of Swartheld to the ground? And so that an undeserving undercaptain could become a captain?

  But the causes went deeper than that. The Jeranyi had acted because the revolt in Merowey offered them an opportunity. Craelyt had acted because he believed himself better than he was, and because the mage-guards had not seen his corruption of spirit—or not wanted to. Even the Nylan Merchant Association was far from free from blame. They had taken Rahl, either because he was inexpensive help or because they were beholden to the magisters, and die directors of the Association had never truly looked at what was happening in Swartheld. With what he had known after two eightdays, Rahl had discovered something was wrong—and he had had no experience at all. Surely, an experienced trader could have discovered the problems. So why hadn’t anyone? Or had they not wanted to look too deeply?

  None of them had wanted to see what they had found unpleasant. Was he any different? He hadn’t wanted to deal with Jienela… or with the strain he had surely placed on his parents. Or with… he could name more than that.

  His eyes went back to the tumbled rubble that had been the Merchant Association building. As he stood there, another question came to mind, an old question, one that he had asked himself more than once. Why exactly had he been exiled? It had not been just because he had avoided real responsibility. Or that he had been self-centered. Or even because he was a natural ordermage.

  After all he had been through, he could see that, at least
in the case of the magisters of Nylan, his exile had not been a personal thing for the magisters—except maybe for Kadara. They’d honestly worried about what he might do. But why? Hamor allowed both kinds of mages, and the land didn’t seem any poorer. If anything, more folk were better off. And Fairhaven…

  He moistened his lips.

  Perhaps that was part of the answer to both questions.

  In Reduce, and especially in Nylan, commerce and trade had to serve order. So did the view that the magisters of Nylan had of order and what sort of magery was accepted. The Nylan Merchant Association had to follow those unspoken yet ironclad rules. Nothing could be allowed that conflicted. In Nylan, the rules were frozen in the words of The Basis of Order, in Land’s End, nothing that suggested any change was allowed. Beyond that, did that many really care? Deybri did… and some others, like Khalyt the engineer, or Thorl, but most wanted life to go on peacefully and without unpleasantness, and if a director of the Merchant Association pocketed a few hundred more golds, so long as it wasn’t obvious, no one cared, or cared that much.

  They only cared if their view of order happened to be challenged, as Rahl had done, if totally inadvertently.

  Yet, was Hamor any different? It, too, had its rules. In Hamor, magery was governed by rules, as it .was in Reduce, but almost all forms of magery were allowed. In reality, the rules and practices of magery served commerce and trade, something Rahl had not understood because everyone insisted vigorously that the mage-guards did not protect commerce.

  Yet, in practice, as: Rahl realized, looking at the ruins before him, the greatest protection of commerce was the maintenance of order and the“ separation of magery and commerce. If mage-guards were required actually to serve commerce, in time they would come to control it. That was why mages could not be engaged in commerce in Hamor. In that way, at least, Hamor was more honest.

  When Rahl thought of it in that fashion, the difference between Hamor and Reduce was both profound and so obvious, yet nowhere had he actually read or heard those differences spelled out that clearly. And those differences told him that there never would be a place for him in Reduce, a realization doubly ironic as he prepared to return there on a mission he had not asked for or sought.

  He smiled, sadly and wryly, as he turned from the ruins, the ruins of his own past, in a way, and began to walk back toward the harbor. He glanced up at the sky, but the clouds had thickened, and he didn’t expect sunlight, not for a ; but the sun would shine, in time, not on a scrivener or a clerk, but on a mage-guard of Hamor.

  And he would see Deybri… but would it be in an entirely new light?