The Mongrel Mage

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  After Beltur closed and locked the outer door to the small storeroom, replacing the chaos, Scanlon looked to Beltur, with a trace of a grin. “Do I get my coppers, now?”

  “When we get to your house. Not until. The same as always.”

  “Mother will take them.” Scanlon offered a mournful expression. “She always does.”

  “We’ll see.” Beltur hid a smile.

  The two made their way from the building that was both dwelling and workplace back out onto Nothing Lane, crossing Middle Street, and hurrying slightly to avoid a dray being driven too fast by a young-looking teamster, before entering the fourth door on the east side of the lane, over which was a signboard of sorts that displayed two baskets, rather the halves of two baskets, because displaying a complete basket would have been an invitation to theft as soon as it was completely dark.

  In the small room behind the door stood a sturdy dark-haired woman with a worried face, concentrating on weaving osier shoots into a small basket. She looked up.

  “We’re back, Therala.”

  Therala looked to her son. “Were you good?”

  “He was quite good.” Beltur nodded, then extracted the three coppers from his wallet and handed two of them to Scanlon, keeping the third hidden.

  In turn, Therala held out her hand.

  With a grimace and a sigh, Scanlon handed the coins to his mother.

  “Your father needs help with the osier shoots.”

  “I’ll go with him,” said Beltur. “I need to ask Zandyl about a basket-weave belt.”

  “He doesn’t like to make those.” Therala shrugged. “Talk to him if you want.”

  “It can’t hurt.” Beltur managed a rueful smile, then turned to follow Scanlon, who trudged toward the rear workroom. Just before they reached the archway into the workroom, Beltur slipped the last copper into Scanlon’s hand, murmuring, “Not a word.”

  The boy managed not to grin, then said to the man at the workbench, “Ma said you needed me.”

  “About—” Zandyl broke off his words as he looked up and saw Beltur. “Didn’t know you were here, Mage.”

  “Therala said you weren’t too keen on doing woven belts.”

  “Basket-weave anything for the right price.”

  “I thought a woven belt might last longer than a leather one.”

  “It true that you mages are hard on garments?”

  “Some are harder than others. How much might a belt cost?”

  “Half a silver.”

  Beltur nodded. “I’ll have to think about it.”

  “Think too long, and it might cost more.”

  Beltur grinned. “Can’t say that surprises me.” He looked to Scanlon. “Thank you, again.”

  Then he turned and headed back toward the front room. Therala barely looked up as he let himself out and began to walk back home.

  He still couldn’t help but wonder why a powerful white mage had been holding a concealment in the Great Square … and why the man had followed him and Scanlon for two blocks from the square before turning away.

  Did he think you were someone else?

  Why else would anyone follow a third-rate white mage?

  Beltur certainly couldn’t think of any other reason.

  In the meantime, he intended to clean up the main workroom, something that Sydon and Kaerylt felt was beneath them.

  II

  After cleaning up the workroom, Beltur went to the study, simply because it was the coolest chamber in the house. He couldn’t help but pick up the thin volume bound in faded green leather—The Book of Ayrlyn. Kaerylt had inherited the book from Beltur’s father, unlike the books on magery that had come from Goeryn, the old mage who had mentored his uncle, but his father had never disclosed how he had obtained the druid volume. That was what Kaerylt claimed, anyway.

  Beltur settled down in the corner chair and began to leaf through the pages until one section struck him in a way he had not noticed before.

  … Yet Saryn struck the gates with order and chaos, and the gates yielded, and the walls holding them crumbled, and all within perished or were scattered to the winds. Upon the plains outside of Duevek, the city that became Sarron, Saryn met and destroyed all the white mages sent from Suthya to best her …

  She struck the gates with order and chaos … Beltur frowned. Despite the fact that the book was a product of druid scriveners, and doubtless not accurate when it came to the depiction of the powers of women, even Kaerylt had acknowledged that the description of Gallosian history, and the treachery of Prefect Arthanos, was in fact largely as described in The Book of Ayrlyn. Yet Kaerylt had always stressed that a white mage or any user of chaos needed to keep the use of order to an absolute minimum to avoid weakening the chaos.

  He was still pondering that when he heard the front door opening.

  Quickly, he stood and replaced the green-bound volume on the shelf and hurried out of the study and toward the small entry hall to greet his uncle and Sydon.

  Kaerylt was tall, broad-shouldered, with blond hair already silvering and deep-set black eyes that seemed to look right through Beltur when he frowned at his nephew, but he smiled pleasantly as Beltur approached. “Did you get the burnet?”

  “All that remained. Half a bag.”

  “That’s all?”

  “Arylla said she wasn’t going to destroy her plants to give me an extra half bag.”

  “She always says something like that,” added Sydon, who turned from sliding the lock bolt on the front door.

  “She was telling the truth,” replied Beltur.

  “As she saw it,” said Kaerylt dryly. “That’s what is.”

  “There was something I wanted to talk over,” began Beltur.

  “That can wait. I need to prepare to leave first thing in the morning.”

  “For where? Why?”

  “Prefect Denardre wants me to do something about the trouble in Analeria, and he’s paying well, which is unlike him. It will also bring in some silvers and get us out of Fenard for a while.”

  “What trouble?” asked Beltur. “I haven’t heard about anything to the south. Well, except for the nomad raiders in the southern grasslands. They’re always causing trouble. But that’s nothing new.”

  “No … it’s not exactly new, but this time it’s the result of a recurrence of an old problem. The arms-commander in Kyphrien tried to enforce the law against women leaving their families to flee to Westwind.”

  “Kyphrien’s not … Oh … and he’s in charge of Analeria as well?”

  “Brilliant deduction.”

  “If the women don’t want to stay, why force them to? They’d only make their families miserable—and whatever poor fellow has to consort them.”

  “Women should listen to their men,” replied Kaerylt. “If a lot of them leave, then that makes the men angry, and it’s harder to keep the peace. Besides, you know how I feel about the bitches of Westwind. One way or another, they and their Legend are always stirring things up.”

  “There’s always some belief somewhere causing trouble,” said Beltur, wondering why believers in the Legend were any different from the Chaordists or the few remaining believers of the black temple.

  Kaerylt looked condescendingly at Beltur. “You really don’t understand, do you?”

  What is there to understand? Beltur wasn’t about to say that. “I probably don’t.”

  The older mage offered a sound between a sigh and a snort. “Then let me make it very simple. If the young women and the girls who are about to become women leave, then there are more men than women. The men raid other towns or hamlets for women. The others fight back. Soon everyone is fighting. This requires the Prefect to send armsmen to keep the peace. Lots of them, and that costs golds…”

  More than hiring poor white mages, thought Beltur.

  “… In the meantime, because the men are fighting, more women flee to Westwind. Because the Analerian men have even fewer women, they fight more. The Prefect’s armsmen have to kill
the Analerian men to stop the fighting. Dead men can’t be conscripted, and everyone loses horses, and that costs the Prefect more golds.” Kaerylt looked hard at Beltur. “Now … do you understand?”

  Beltur had understood that much before the explanation. “Why does he need more men for the army? He’s not fighting anyone.”

  “There are rumors that the Viscount of Certis is going to increase tariffs on goods passing through Certis. Those rumors are likely to become fact because the Viscount is short of golds.”

  “What about just sending goods down the River Gallos to Spidlaria?”

  “The Spidlarian Council is also thinking about raising their tariffs. Just not as much.” Kaerylt glared at Beltur. “Don’t ask about using the Phroan River. Even getting to the river is not only hundreds of kays by wagon, but the river’s not navigable except for the last hundred kays or so.”

  “Oh.” What he still didn’t see was what a white mage could accomplish. “What does the Prefect expect you to do?”

  “The impossible. As usual. That’s why Sydon is coming with me, and so are you.”

  Beltur managed not to wince.

  “We’ll have a squad of troopers escorting us, and the Prefect is lending us mounts. So we won’t have to worry about dealing with brigands or supplies.”

  “But why you and not Wyath? He’s the Prefect’s arms-mage.”

  Kaerylt sighed again. Loudly. He turned to Sydon and said, “Go start packing your gear.” Then he looked back at Beltur. “Must I explain everything? As arms-mage, Wyath’s duties are to protect the Prefect. If the Prefect isn’t going to Analeria, then Wyath isn’t. He’s also more interested in persuading the Prefect to have more white mages at the palace.” Kaerylt snorted. “Even if we don’t have as many silvers, I’m not all that interested in bowing to Wyath each and every day. As for the Analerians, the task isn’t to incinerate them. It’s to use magery to persuade the women to stay and the men not to fight.”

  “I’d probably do you more good staying here,” offered Beltur. The idea of bouncing all those kays to Analeria on horseback scarcely appealed to him, nor did he relish dealing with herders or nomads.

  “No, you wouldn’t. You’re good with delicate uses of chaos … and even a bit of order. You also are very organized.”

  Beltur knew what that meant. He’d end up cleaning up and keeping track of everything.

  “Now … I know you don’t think all that highly of Sydon—and don’t tell me that you don’t—but he’s loyal. He works hard, and there isn’t anyone better with chaos-bolts than him.”

  Strong with chaos and not all that bright. Beltur kept that thought to himself. “How long will this take?”

  “As long as necessary,” replied Kaerylt. “It could be some time. You can use one of the small duffels.”

  “What about the burnet?”

  “Healer Margrena’s daughter Jessyla will be here later this afternoon to collect it. Margrena already paid me for it, and the Prefect will pay her for the balm. We don’t make anything that way, but we also don’t lose, and Margrena will owe me a favor. Just the eight bags of burnet. Nothing else.”

  “Yes, ser.” Beltur paused, then said, “I thought healers didn’t like to make balm for wound healing.”

  “They don’t … as a rule. This is an exception. That’s all you need to know.”

  Beltur wondered how Kaerylt had persuaded the healer. “I didn’t know she had a daughter.”

  “She does.” Kaerylt turned as if to step around Beltur. “I need to consider what we’ll need to take.”

  “There’s one other thing, ser.”

  “What?” A momentary expression of annoyance crossed Kaerylt’s face.

  “On the way back from Arylla’s there was a powerful white mage who followed us through the Great Square until we were two blocks north of the square. He was under a concealment.”

  “You couldn’t tell who it was, could you?”

  “No, ser. He wasn’t you or Sydon, or anywhere like you, and there was a lot of power, but the feel was different from any mage I’ve met.”

  “Did he see you enter the house?”

  “I don’t think so. He turned back after two blocks, and I couldn’t sense him by the time we reached the door.”

  “Would you be able to tell if you encountered him again?”

  “If I did sometime soon. Feelings … they’re hard to recall.”

  Kaerylt frowned slightly. “You’d get better at it if you met more other mages and healers.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  “Well … you’d better get yourself packed. You’ll have to be here when young Jessyla comes. Sydon and I will be running other errands to get ready for tomorrow.”

  Beltur nodded. He wouldn’t have expected anything else. He stepped back and let his uncle pass before following and then heading up the narrow rear steps to the second floor, where his room was at the back corner.

  He could feel the heat even before he opened the door. Once he entered, he left the door open and walked to the single window, which he immediately opened. It couldn’t be any hotter outside than it was inside, not in his room, anyway. He wished that his room had windows on two walls the way his uncle’s did, because that meant there was a chance for a breeze without opening the door.

  What should you take? His eyes went to the small chest that held all of his clothes, except for a set of trousers and a tunic hung on the wall pegs.

  He had what he thought he’d need laid out on his narrow pallet bed in less than half a glass. By that time, Kaerylt and Sydon had left again, and Beltur made his way downstairs to the main storeroom, where he found a small duffel, which he took upstairs. Packing took almost no time, and after that, he returned to the study, where he retrieved The Book of Ayrlyn and began to read again.

  He hadn’t gotten all that far when someone rapped on the door. So he set the book aside carefully and made his way to the entry hall. Even from there he could sense the depth of order outside. He opened the door, expecting a stocky blond girl.

  “Mage Kaerylt?”

  “No … I’m Beltur. I’m Kaerylt’s nephew. You’re Jessyla?” Beltur tried to conceal his surprise as he looked at the redhead who wore the pale greens of an apprentice healer. She was almost as tall as he was, with eyes almost the same color as her greens. And she definitely didn’t look anything like her stocky blond mother, although she was wearing the same kind of scuffed brown boots. But then, from what few healers Beltur had encountered, they all seemed to wear brown boots.

  “We don’t look much alike. I take after my father, she says.” Jessyla’s voice was firm, neither high nor gravelly like her mother’s.

  “That can happen. I don’t look much like anyone else in the family, and certainly not much like Uncle Kaerylt. Come on in.” Beltur opened the door wider and stepped back.

  “Thank you.” The smile that followed her words was pleasant and cheerful.

  “The burnet’s in the small storeroom. I’ll open it for you and tell you where it is.” He closed the front door.

  “Tell me?”

  “You’ll see.” Beltur didn’t want to explain until she saw the storeroom. “This way.” He started off down the hall.

  After a moment of hesitation, Jessyla followed.

  When Beltur reached the outer door of the storeroom, he used his limited abilities to force the small chaos-mass protecting the outer door back into the cupridium box, then unlocked the door and opened it.

  “I wondered about the iron,” said Jessyla.

  “You could sense it before I opened the door?”

  “It is rather obvious … in terms of order.”

  “And that’s one of the things healers do.”

  “More likely that we’re looking for wound chaos or the absence of order.”

  Beltur stepped back, careful not to touch the iron backing of the door. For him, it would only sting, but if Kaerylt or Sydon touched it, they’d get a burn. “You can open the inner door. You’l
l see all the bags of burnet on the second shelf on the right.” He smiled. “If you’re going to take them all, you’ll have an armful.”

  “Mother’s man Bardek will be here shortly with a handcart.” Jessyla opened the inner door and stepped into the small storeroom, surveying the bags of burnet. “You do have a lot here. Not just herbs.” She frowned, as if wondering why a chaos-mage would hoard herbs useful only to an ordermage or healer.

  Beltur wondered if she’d say anything. She didn’t. So he did. “I’d give you a hand, but that wouldn’t help the burnet any. I can open doors, though.”

  “I’ll carry it to the entry hall, and then wait there until Bardek shows up.”

  “How long will that be?”

  “Less than a glass. It might be sooner. Bardek has his own sense of time.”

  Then why does Margrena even hire a man? Again, as with so many thoughts, Beltur didn’t voice the first thought that came to mind. He’d learned, painfully, first from his father’s switches and then from his uncle’s biting words, that saying the first thing that came to mind wasn’t a good idea.

  “Mother said there were eight bags. It looks more like seven and a half.”

  “The last one is more than a half, but less than full. It was all that the herbalist had left.”

  The hint of a smile crossed Jessyla’s lips, vanishing almost before it appeared. “You’re being relatively honest.”

  “For a white, you mean?” Beltur grinned.

  “You’re not really a white. You could almost as easily be a black.”

  “Iron hurts when I touch it. That wouldn’t work very well for a black.” Besides which, Uncle Kaerylt would throw me out.

  “That’s the chaos talking. It doesn’t like the iron. If you used order completely to manipulate chaos, touching iron wouldn’t hurt at all.”

  You know this from your vast experience with chaos? “That sounds rather … unlikely.”

  “That’s how all good blacks handle chaos. Athaal says it’s worked for chaos-mages in the past. The really powerful ones. They lived longer, too.”