The Magic of Recluce

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “Ha! Begging your pardon, young wizard, but you can’t.” The older soldier spat again and looked toward Gairloch, who had edged backwards, but otherwise made not a sound.

  “That’s not quite true, friend.” I smiled pleasantly. “I cannot do anything destructive, but what if I were to decide that with each unpleasant act you do, your nose would grow a thumb? Or that you would begin to grow again?”

  “What… ?” asked the one I had disarmed, looking toward me, then toward his companion.

  The older man swallowed. “You’re young to do that.”

  I smiled again. “I don’t know if I’d necessarily do it right, but even a mistake wouldn’t hurt me, so long as I don’t involve chaos.”

  He blanched. “We’re hungry.”

  I nodded.

  “That wizard, he didn’t keep the duke from getting killed. Or the rain from getting the crops.”

  “Why didn’t you stay with the new duke? Dukes always need soldiers.”

  The two looked back and forth.

  I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear the story, but I shifted my grip on the staff.

  Finally, the younger one swallowed again. “Well… it wasn’t our choice. Grenter-he was the squad leader-sent us out to round up some… pilgrims…” I must have raised my eyebrows.

  The older man added quickly, “This was under the old duke, you understand.”

  “They must have heard about us coming. They were all gone from where they were staying.”

  “Where was that?”

  “In Freetown… the Travelers’ Rest, it was called.”

  “Was called?”

  “The wizard burned it. He had a hard time, even with his helper. We didn’t see that. Grenter sent us to find them before they left the city.” The younger ruffian looked around, then back at me, and swallowed.

  A thin cloud drifted across the pale sun and the wind picked up, throwing a few dry leaves onto the roadway.

  “We caught up, Herds here and me and Dorret and Symms, with two of their women. Hard blond woman and a looker, black-haired. I wish we hadn’t found them. Dorret never knew what happened.”

  “What did happen?” I prompted.

  “The blond put a throwing knife through his throat so quick I didn’t see it happen. He’s down gurgling and clutching at his neck, and Symms jerks out his blade and tries to spit her. Except that the looker has a blade, and she makes him look like a recruit.”

  The older man, Herris, coughed and spat.

  I looked at him.

  “Fydor has it right,” he acknowledged.

  “There were still two of you.”

  Herris glared at me. “The nasty blond had two knives left and she wanted to use them both. The other woman’s a born killer. She never raised a sweat, and she smiled when she killed Symms.”

  “So you let them go?”

  They looked back and forth. Finally, the younger one looked at the ground and said. “I yelled for help, and the second squad came from the other side of the market, not all of them, but there were three.”

  “Don’t tell me that two women butchered them, too?” I let my voice get sarcastic, even though I was enjoying hearing how Wrynn and Krystal had mangled some of the duke’s forces.

  “Not all of them. One guy, Gorson, got away with just losing his right hand and a shoulder wound. They killed the other two.”

  “And you two just left them?”

  They both looked down.

  Finally, Herns spat again. “They were witches. They were from Recluce. No way I’d go against devils like that.”

  “Where did they go?”

  Fydor shrugged, his eyes avoiding mine. “I’d guess they went to Kyphros. The autarch likes good women blades. They didn’t take this road, and that leaves the mountain road or the coast.”

  “Ser wizard, you don’t look all that surprised…” Herds still didn’t look at me.

  “I’ve crossed blades with the dark-haired one.”

  “Blades?”

  “Staff against blade.”

  Herris stepped back. “I’m real sorry, ser. Real sorry. Wish I’d never met either one of you.”

  Fydor followed his example and backed away.

  Then both of them were walking quickly, almost running, looking over their shoulders as they headed back in the direction of Weevett.

  I watched them go, my mouth half-open.

  “Very impressive, young Lerris.” Justen sat astride Rose-foot, next to the toppled oak, watching, as I suspected he had been all along.

  That he had left me to fight them alone angered me, even as I was proud that I had managed it. But Justen wouldn’t care one way or the other. “How did you do that without the heat waves?”

  Justen smiled. “That takes practice. You could do it right now with the distortion lines, but you have to equalize the temperature on both sides of the mirror to avoid what you call heat waves.”

  “You didn’t answer the question.”

  “I’ll explain some of it while we ride. The rest is in your book. Rosefoot had a drink while you were dispatching that pair.” Justen did not move the reins, but Rosefoot turned and carried him from the clearing in the wayside grove and back onto the main roadway.

  “My book?”

  “Lerris, it doesn’t take a mind reader to see your thoughts. You’re clearly from Recluce. You have the talents to be a first-class order-master, and you were surprised-not curious, but surprised-to see my copy of The Basis of Order” The gray wizard looked ahead, toward the southwest.

  I ignored him and went to get Gairloch, not that I had far to go. He waited just at the top of the incline. I almost fell off him, scrambling into place and trying to catch up with Justen and Rosefoot.

  More smoke plumes rose into the pale blue sky, angling toward the northwest. Behind the wind, I could see clouds building again, over the hills in the distance to the southeast. With the warmth of the sun and the southern air might come rain, or worse, sleet.

  “How far to Jellico?” I asked as we came abreast of him.

  “More than another day.”

  “How many other towns are there along the way?”

  The gray wizard smiled faintly. “A scattering, though few with inns, and fewer still even the size of Weevett or How-lett.”

  We rode a time further before I asked another question. “How can you hide in plain sight so that I cannot see you or the heat waves?”

  “That is the same question.” The gray wizard coughed and cleared his throat before continuing. “What is sight?”

  I tried not to sigh. I asked a simple question, and, instead of an answer got another question. “Sight is when you see someone or something.”

  Justen sighed. “What is the physical process of sight? Did not anyone teach you that?” I looked as puzzled as I felt, not understanding what he had in mind.

  “Light comes from the sun, chaotic white light. It strikes an object and reflects from that object. The act of reflection partially orders the light. Those reflected rays enter your eyes. What you see is not the object at all, but the light reflected from that object. That is why you cannot see when there is no light. Now it really is not that simple, but those are the basics. Do you understand what I mean?”

  I wasn’t that dense. “Of course, my eyes see a reflection of reality, not reality itself. That means that when I feel things, that feeling may be truer than sight?”

  Justen nodded, without taking his eyes from the road or looking at me. “Remember that some real things cannot be felt, and many chaos-touched objects are not real but can hurt nonetheless. But you are right.” He cleared his throat again. “There are many ways not to be seen, but they all involve two ideas. The first is touching someone’s thoughts so that they do not know they have seen something. That is the chaos-way because it destroys a link between perception and reality.”

  “The way of order?” I prompted.

  “That is much more complicated…”

  I nodded at that. Anyth
ing involving order was more complicated.

  “Light is not straight like an arrow, not exactly, but like a wave upon the ocean. Light can be woven with the mind, although it takes practice, and you weave the light around you so that it never quite touches you. Actually, it is not difficult as an exercise, but using it can be very dangerous unless your nonvisual perceptions are well-developed.”

  “Nonvisual perceptions?” Just when I got the idea, he added something else.

  “What you call feeling out things…”

  “Oh… but why?”

  Justen shook his head, muttering something about basic physiology and wave theory.

  Finally, after we had ridden up a gentle slope that overlooked a park-like setting, unlike the kays and kays of peasant fields, hogs, and huts we had passed, I asked again.

  “Lerris, why don’t you use your brain? It is meant for thinking, you know.”

  I waited.

  “If you cut yourself off from light, then your eyes don’t work either. No more easy answers. You ask rather than work things out, and then you won’t remember.”

  So we rode on, and I ignored the continual growling in my stomach.

  XXXIV

  JELLICO? How DID it differ from Freetown or Hrisbarg or Hewlett or all the other hamlets and towns masquerading as places of importance?

  No expert yet at judging people or towns (as I was becoming ever more painfully aware), I did observe that, unlike Hrisbarg or Hewlett or Weevett, Jellico had walls. Those walls rose more than thirty cubits in near-perfect condition, and the massive iron fittings of the eastern gates were oiled and clean. The grooves for anchoring those gates and the stones in which they had been chiseled were swept clean.

  A full squad of men-twelve or more, in gray leathers-patrolled the gate, inspecting each traveler entering, each occupant or citizen departing.-

  “Master Wizard, you’ve traveled our way once again?” The serjeant’s voice was firm, respectful, but not subservient, matching the trim gray leathers of his vest and trousers and his well-kept heavy boots.

  Of the other soldiers, two were moving bales and baskets in a produce wagon pulled by a single donkey, while a third held the harness. Another was watching as a peddler emptied the contents of his pack onto a battered pine table set by the edge of the gate.

  On the wall overhead, barely visible behind the parapet crenelations, a pair of crossbowmen surveyed the stone-paved expanse outside the walls where the inspections occurred.

  “Wizards do travel,” replied Justen.

  “And this young fellow?” asked the Certan serjeant, inclining his head toward me.

  “Serving as my apprentice-for now, at least.”

  “That wouldn’t be an apprenticeship of convenience, Mas-ter Wizard?”

  Justen turned his face directly upon the serjeant, his eyes weary with age, conveying experiences best left unrepeated. That was what I saw.

  The serjeant stepped back, then nodded. “Sorry to bother you, gentlemen.” His face was pale.

  When I lifted the reins, my hand brushed my unseen staff in its lance cup. Briefly marveling at my newfound ability to) cloak small objects by wrapping the light around them, swished the reins and Gairloch carried me up to the farm wagon.

  One soldier had ripped off the wagon seat and was lifting small bags from the narrow space underneath. The blond-bearded young driver trembled in the grasp of the other inspecting soldier.

  I glanced back at Justen.

  “Hempweed.” Flat, unconcerned.

  “No!” screamed the man.

  One of the guards looked at me and I swished the reins again, letting Gairloch carry me past the granite walls and into Jellico, then slowing to let Justen and Rosefoot draw abreast.

  “Will they execute him?” I asked.

  Justen eased Rosefoot along a narrow side street bearing left from the main gate highway. “No.”

  Even less than fifty rods into Jellico, the viscount’s control was evident. No street peddlers, no beggars, no litter, no refuse. While the streets were brick, they were level, even on the side street down which we proceeded, even in the narrower alleyways we passed.

  “What will happen to him? That farmer?”

  “He’s no farmer, just a young idiot hired to drive the wagon. They’ll brand his forehead with an ‘X1. The guards turn back all branded people. If ever he is found within Jellico again, he will be executed in the main square.”

  “Just for smuggling?”

  Justen shook his head slowly. “The inn is just ahead.”

  “But why?”

  “For disobeying the viscount. Except for beer and wine, drugs are forbidden. So is the practice of magic without the viscount’s seal of personal approval. So are begging and prostitution, or selling goods without a seller’s seal.”

  I looked at the space, where, with effort, I could see the staff that no one but me or another good magician could see. I shivered.

  “We’ll stable Rosefoot and Gairloch first.”

  The Inn at Jellico-scarcely an original name, but Jellico didn’t seem a town for originality.

  “What sort of magic gets the viscount’s seal?”

  “As little as possible. Healers, mainly of the orderly kind.”

  “There are white healers? Chaos-healers? How could they?”

  Justen shook his head, and even Rosefoot tossed hers. “Healing takes two forms, Lerris. One is helping restructure and re-order the body, knitting wounds and bones, using order to create natural splints and heals, or strengthening the body’s resistance to infections. All that is order-based. That’s basically what we did with the sheep. It’s more complicated, but pretty much the same process with people. Some infections can be treated by destroying the minute creatures that create the infection. That’s chaos-based and can be very chancy if you don’t know how to fine-tune your destruction. Read your book. The theory is all there, and I shouldn’t be telling you any of this.

  “Remember, Lerris, you don’t have the viscount’s seal. Whatever happens, try to remember that. Being my apprentice wouldn’t help. Reading your book would.”

  At that point I was ready to take my invisible staff and crack the gray wizard. Exactly when had I had time to read anything? But what good would arguing have done? Juste would have asked how long I had had the book, and then I have to admit I had had the time, until recently. Of course it wasn’t until recently that anyone had given me enough knowledge and information for the book to make sense.

  In the meantime, as Gairloch picked his way across the brick-paved courtyard of the inn, his hoofs clicking ever so lightly, I wondered why Rosefoot’s steps were virtually silent.

  “Why would some healers be licensed and not others?”

  “Money. A licensed healer pays a percentage to the vis-count.”

  Once in the stable, Justen and I were left to brush our mounts. Why was it that in the larger towns, the ones with walls, the reputation of the mountain ponies was so fierce that no stableboy seemed willing to handle them?

  With considerably more practice, Justen was finished long before I was, and suggested that I join him in the inn when I had settled Gairloch and left my staff appropriately concealed.

  Whheee… eeee…

  “Yes, I know. There’s only hay and no oats, but I’ll see in a while, after I figure out how to untangle this mess.”

  “Does he listen?” asked the black-haired apprentice ostler from two stalls away, where he was grooming a tall chestnut.

  “He listens, but doesn’t think much of what I say.” I didn’t bother to gauge his reaction as I returned the brush to the shelf over the stall and slung my gear over my shoulder.

  The wind had dropped off, the sun had reappeared, and the courtyard was almost pleasant as I walked the distance to the inn.

  No sooner had I walked inside than Justen took my arm and guided me to a corner table in the public room. Most of the tables-all red oak, if battered-were occupied, and the air was stuffy, the warmth aug
mented by the flames of a large stone fireplace.

  The dark paneled walls and low ceiling added to the oppressiveness.

  “A gold wine,” Justen told the girl.

  “Redberry,” I added. “What do you have to eat?”

  “Mutton pie, mutton chops, mixed stew.”

  “Try the stew,” suggested the gray wizard.

  I didn’t need much encouragement, not after the days in Montgren. Mutton was fine, but not every day, and not when everything smelled like it.

  “Recluce is trying something,” said Justen flatly.

  “What?” I sipped the redberry, which helped ease a slight hoarseness, a leftover from breathing too much sheep.

  “I don’t know, but you’re part of it.”

  I just looked at the gray wizard.

  “Oh, not consciously. I suspect you’ve been used. That pas an extraordinarily talented group of dangergelders that the black masters dropped on Candar, talented enough to confuse any actions the masters might otherwise have had in Bind.”

  I took another sip and waited.

  “You alone radiate order wherever you travel, yet it’s hard 0 pin it to one person. That black-haired blade-she has everyone talking, almost enough to make them forget the assassin who preceded her. And the preacher…”

  “What about the others?”

  Justen shrugged. “You heard about the blond with the olives, and you could probably tell me more about the others.”

  I decided against it. If Tamra, Myrten, and Dorthae hadn’t been brought to the attention of the powers-that-were, there was no reason for me to be the one to do it.

  “Why do you think it was deliberate?” I asked instead.

  “I don’t know, but you’re really too young to be here. That bothers me.” Justen looked into his glass and said nothing more, even after the two bowls of stew arrived.

  In the end, I went upstairs early, discovering that my legs were still not quite used to riding.

  The single candle in the tiny room Justen had procured, with two narrow beds not much more than pallets, seemed adequate enough for some reading, and I pulled the black-covered book from my pack.

  The introduction was as boring as I remembered. I sighed then began to leaf through the pages, nodding as I saw that] the last half of the book actually dealt with specific topics-aligning metals (whatever that meant), detecting material stresses, weather dynamics and cautions, healing processes, order and heat-based machinery, order and energy generation.