The Mongrel Mage

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  As soon as Beltur stepped off the bench and away from the oven, Meldryn looked at the first oven that Beltur had cleaned, then the second one. He was frowning when he turned to Beltur. “You didn’t use order on your scraper, did you?”

  “No, ser. Why?”

  “There’s usually a little chaos residue after scraping, unless you actually scrape off a bit of the bricks, but you didn’t do that.”

  “I just did the best I could.” Beltur wasn’t about to mention his tiny, tiny bits of chaos, especially since he didn’t know why his using them would have left the oven more orderly, rather than more chaotic. It had just felt as though it might work … and it had. But he was surprised that neither black mage had noticed. Was that because his use had been so small compared to the large amount of chaos and order freed by the burning wood and coals? He blotted his forehead again.

  “That was a good morning’s work,” said Meldryn approvingly. “It’s still raining hard, but there’s nothing else I need.”

  “Then we’ll leave you,” replied Athaal.

  Meldryn was already firing up the stove again before Athaal and Beltur left the bakery. Beltur washed up thoroughly and changed into his other smallshirt before meeting with Athaal in the parlor.

  “Did you have a headache this morning?” asked Athaal.

  “A bit of one, but after I ate it went away.”

  “What about now?”

  “My shoulders and hands hurt, but not my head.” Beltur grinned ruefully. “Cleaning those ovens is hard.”

  “You did well. Better than I’d expected. You’re sure your head doesn’t ache?”

  “I’m sure. It doesn’t hurt or ache. Why?”

  “That’s very good. Most white mages get a splitting headache when northeasters strike Elparta. That’s another reason why white mages generally don’t find Spidlar, and particularly Elparta, to their liking.”

  “Another?” asked Beltur. “That’s the first I’ve heard.”

  A momentary frown appeared, then vanished before Athaal replied. “The first is similar to why few blacks remain in Gallos. It appears as though where there are many blacks, the whites feel uncomfortable, and where there are many whites, blacks generally feel less comfortable.”

  Beltur thought about that for a moment. “That seems to be true in Spidlar and in Gallos. What about Westwind, Sarronnyn, Suthya, and other lands?”

  “I can only speak to those lands in Candar. Westwind prefers to do without mages, although blacks and druids are welcome to travel there. Sarronnyn has some blacks, and few whites, although there have been those in the Tyrant’s bloodline who have been both black and white. The Viscount of Certis is much like the Prefect. Both prefer only mages at their beck and call. Montgren is mostly herders and has little need of powerful mages and even less with which to pay them. As for Lydiar,” Athaal shrugged, “who can tell? The dukes’ wishes have changed with each succession, at least since Heldry the Mad, and that was centuries ago.”

  Heldry the Mad? “I’ve never heard of that duke. If he was a duke.”

  “He was. He’s said to have challenged his flatterers to stand in the middle of a storm with him. All the sycophants who insisted he was powerful enough to turn back the storm were struck dead by the lightning.”

  “And he wasn’t?”

  “He survived. It’s a cautionary tale about flattery. Probably greatly exaggerated. It might not even be true, but it’s a good story. Sometimes, the best ones are true, and sometimes they’re not. Anyway, there don’t tend to be many whites here or in Sarronnyn, or many blacks in Gallos, Certis, or Hydlen. There aren’t any whites at all in the Great Forest of Naclos. The druids and the forest see to that.”

  That was no surprise to Beltur, but Athaal’s questions about headaches and rain raised another question. “Heavy rains always made magery difficult for my uncle, but I haven’t had those kinds of problems…” At least, he hadn’t in the bakery.

  “Are you asking if the rain can cause problems for blacks and grays?”

  “I suppose I am.”

  “Water tends to make it harder to do any sort of magery, black or white. Oceans and lakes attract order. Rivers and rain create … well … a tension between chaos and order. For some reason, it usually affects whites more. I don’t know why. Neither does Meldryn.”

  “What would you suggest that I do to improve my ability to handle order?” asked Beltur.

  “Just keep doing what you’re doing. No one even here would think you were ever a white. I’m honestly not sure you ever were. Meldryn thinks that there aren’t any mages that are naturally black or white. He believes that some people have an ability to sense order and chaos. A smaller group of those people can manipulate those forces. Whether someone is white or black depends on how they learn to do it. That’s what he thinks.”

  “You think that people have an attraction to one or the other, don’t you?”

  Athaal paused before replying. “That’s the way it seems to me. I think you weren’t a very good white because you are more attracted to order.”

  “Couldn’t you both be right?”

  Athaal laughed good-naturedly. “We could. We could also both be wrong.” He stood and took a deep breath. “Enjoy having a little time to yourself. I’m going to see if there’s anything I can do for Meldryn. After that, if the rain lets up, I may visit Lhadoraak and Taelya.”

  “You haven’t mentioned them,” said Beltur cautiously.

  “Lhadoraak’s a black about ten years older than you. Taelya’s his daughter. She does call me ‘Uncle Athaal,’ and she’s likely the closest to a niece that I’ll ever have.” He smiled.

  After Athaal left, Beltur walked to the window and looked out. The heavy raindrops continued to pelt down so quickly that he could barely see across the small courtyard garden to the rear wall. Athaal had mentioned a tension between order and chaos in rain. Beltur had sensed something like that when he’d created a lightning bolt … or something close enough to it that his uncle had thought it might have been one—or something created by an ordermage. And Uncle wouldn’t have said it that way if he hadn’t known something.

  Standing behind the glass panes of the window, he just tried to gain a feeling for the flow of either order or chaos in the rain and the low-hanging and dark clouds from which the heavy droplets fell, although he had the impression that the storm hurled them, rather than just let them fall. The more he concentrated on the rain, the more he got the impression, not of falling raindrops, but of falling bits composed of order and chaos, and that the larger droplets tended to have either more order or more chaos, and that there were continual flows of order and chaos.

  After a time, his head began to ache, and he turned from the window, thinking. Why would those patterns create a headache for a chaos-mage but not an ordermage?

  Abruptly, another thought came to him—because the flows are chaotic and that chaos disrupts the white mage’s ability to deal with chaos. That made a strange sort of sense because ordermages used order, and when they did deal with chaos, it was usually with order as a buffer. Even so, if he were correct, the chaotic nature of the order and chaos flows in the rain would reduce the effectiveness of any attempt to use magery. And that certainly agreed with what Athaal had said.

  Beltur smiled, if ruefully. While he was pleased with what he had learned, or thought he had learned, he hadn’t the faintest idea of what use that knowledge or understanding might be.

  XXVIII

  The heavy rain of the northeaster continued well into eightday, but on oneday morning, the skies were bright, and the air clear. Beltur had just finished cleaning up the kitchen when Athaal and Meldryn returned, both looking somber. Athaal held several sheets of paper.

  “We just received this at the bakery a few moments ago,” announced Athaal. “Margrena and her daughter won’t be here for at least another eightday.”

  “They won’t? What’s happened?” asked Beltur.

  “Margrena got some sort of fl
ux. She’s on the mend, but she didn’t want to travel until she feels better.”

  “Likely because she overdid it in healing,” added the older black mage.

  “She’s always had a hard time not helping people,” said Athaal with a smile that quickly vanished.

  “For which I am very grateful,” admitted Beltur, knowing full well that Athaal likely wouldn’t have considered helping him if Margrena hadn’t put in a good word.

  “There’s more. They had to leave Fenard quickly. All the healers in the city and nearby are being required to serve as healers to the Prefect’s armsmen. She wrote that they would be on their way before we received the letter. She didn’t say where they were, just in case the letter was intercepted and read…”

  Intercepted and read? That bothered Beltur.

  “… that’s why she said that her acquaintance from the vineyards had left hurriedly—that’s Waensyn, you might recall,” Athaal said to Meldryn. “The Prefect is marshaling an army, but no one seems to know why.” Athaal paused. “I’ll need to tell Jhaldrak about that immediately. He might know, but…”

  Meldryn nodded.

  “Jhaldrak is the councilor for Elparta. He can get word to Kleth and Spidlaria,” explained Athaal. “He can also alert the river guards and others.”

  “You might as well get that over,” suggested Meldryn.

  “I’ll take care of that immediately. It shouldn’t take long.”

  Beltur was still thinking over what Athaal had related when the black-bearded mage said, “You’re looking worried, Beltur.”

  “I just wondered if she said anything about Jessyla.”

  Athaal grinned. “You like her, don’t you?”

  “I probably wouldn’t be alive without her.”

  Athaal frowned. “Oh?”

  “I thought I told you that she was the one who said I wasn’t really a white and that the strongest mages used order to handle chaos. I wouldn’t have known how to change my shields without her saying that, and they wouldn’t have been strong enough to escape Wyath’s mages.”

  “And, most likely,” added Meldryn, “the order in your shields helped conceal you when you escaped.”

  Beltur hadn’t thought of that, but only nodded.

  “I’m sure Jessyla is fine. Margrena wrote that they would be here as soon as they could be, and I can’t imagine she’d be coming without Jessyla.” Athaal cleared his throat. “I shouldn’t be too long. When I get back, we’ll head out. Today, I thought we’d inspect the piers.” With a nod, Athaal folded the letter, then turned and hurried toward the front door.

  Meldryn headed back toward the bakery, and Beltur once more stood alone in the kitchen, thinking about what he had just learned … and that it all pointed to a Gallosian attack of some sort on Spidlar.

  He’d washed up and was sitting in the parlor reading a small old leather-bound volume entitled On Healing when Athaal returned. Beltur immediately closed the book and stood, replacing it in the small bookcase.

  “Leantor’s a good place to start,” said Athaal. “Especially about anatomy. He relies too much on order for healing, though.”

  “Did you ever think about being a healer?”

  Athaal shook his head. “It doesn’t suit me. I’ve had to do some, enough that I’d prefer to leave it to true healers. We should be going.”

  Beltur had the definite impression Athaal didn’t want to talk about why healing didn’t suit him, and he didn’t want to press the older mage.

  In moments the two were walking south along Bakers Lane. Although the lanes and streets in Elparta had seemed clean to Beltur, perhaps because of the sewers, the lane seemed especially clean at that moment, and the air was cooler almost without the myriad of odors that usually filled the air, both possibly the result of the heavy rains of the previous two days.

  After the two had walked a block or so, Beltur spoke. “Margrena’s letter means Denardre is planning to attack Spidlar, doesn’t it? Or at least Elparta.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  Athaal’s voice had an amused tone that disturbed Beltur, but he replied, “No other attack makes sense. He’d have to go through Westwind and cross the Westhorns to get to Sarronnyn or Suthya. He’d have to cross the Easthorns to attack Certis, and even if he conquered Certis, trading goods would still have to go through Sligo to be shipped from Tyrhavven. If he controls the River Gallos from beginning to end…” It seemed obvious to Beltur.

  “Your reasoning is correct, but attempting something doesn’t mean he’ll succeed.”

  “Even if he has close to a score of white mages?”

  “You think he has that many?” The amused tone vanished from Athaal’s voice.

  “Well…” Beltur paused. “When Wyath attacked us in the palace, there were two in the audience chamber. There were five others, and that didn’t include the older white Uncle knew…” Beltur struggled to recall the name. “Naeron, that was his name. And Sydon. I don’t know if any of the other whites I knew would be with Wyath, but there are three others who were friendly with Uncle, and they didn’t worry as much about Wyath as Uncle did.”

  “That’s just thirteen.”

  “I don’t claim to know all the white mages in Gallos.” After Athaal’s faintly superior tone, Beltur didn’t feel like mentioning that his uncle had likely killed two of his attackers.

  The two walked along Bakers Lane for several moments more before Athaal spoke again. “I hadn’t realized there were so many.” Another pause followed. “Your uncle must have been very powerful.”

  “He was. I didn’t want to leave him. He insisted. He said my mother would never forgive him.”

  “He must have cared for her a lot.”

  “He never said, but I think he did.” For a time, Beltur hadn’t realized it, perhaps because his father’s grief had been far more obvious.

  “I know you don’t know all the white mages, but did your uncle ever mention any others you haven’t counted?”

  “He might have, in passing, but he was very private. Outside of Mhortan, Kassyl, and Zeonyt—those were the three he was close to—he seldom saw any others, and there weren’t any others that ever came to the house. Except Sydon, of course.”

  “You don’t think Sydon was killed?”

  Beltur shook his head. “I can’t say why, but I don’t think so.”

  “Were you close to him?”

  “No. He was condescending, and he always left the dirty work to me.”

  “Your uncle let him do that?”

  “He never did it when Uncle was around. Also, he was a terrible cook, and when he tried to clean there was more chaos around than before he did.”

  “It sounds more and more like you never really were a white.” Athaal turned onto the winding street that, as Beltur recalled, led down to the square where they’d entered Elparta through the trade gate. “We’ll inspect the piers there first, and then come back through the gate and walk the riverfront and check those inside the city.”

  “Can the flatboats move to other piers after they’re inspected and tariffed?”

  “Most do.”

  “How do the tower guards know…”

  “The boats are given an ensign to fly. The patterns are coded. Flying a false ensign means the entire cargo is confiscated.”

  “Most traders wouldn’t want to risk losing everything.”

  “There are one or two a year. They’re probably the ones who have helped persuade the Prefect that Elparta is a rich and willful city whose streets are paved with gold, instead of cobblestones. Sometimes, very rough cobblestones.”

  Before long, Beltur and Athaal were crossing the small square toward the trade gate. One of the gate guards nodded to Athaal, but said nothing as the mages passed through the walled gate. Once outside the tall and massive stone wall, Beltur only saw three boats tied up, one at each pier. Two of them were flatboats. The third was a small sail galley.

  Athaal strode to the southernmost pier and turned to Beltu
r. “We’ll walk out to the end, and then back. Slowly. See if you can sense any chaos or breaks in the timbers.”

  Beltur started on the north side of the pier, the one closest to the wall, and tried to follow Athaal’s instructions. When he passed the flatboat, he stopped and studied it, but it appeared largely empty except for a score of barrels and two men with blades standing beside the barrels, which contained wine, Beltur suspected.

  He nodded to the guards and continued on. There were certainly tiny bits of chaos everywhere, especially on the outside of the massive iron bolts that anchored the timbers of the piers to the round posts sunk deep into the riverbed, but when Beltur looked at several with his eyes, it was clear that those were merely superficial patches of rust. Still …

  “You don’t mean little patches of rust, I take it?”

  “No. Not unless it’s gone deep into the iron.”

  Beltur was almost to the river end of the pier before he sensed anything other than the tiny bits of chaos. The lower bolt on the post that was the next to last one had more than just a touch of chaos on the iron just inboard of the huge turnbuckle, although the surface rust wasn’t all that obvious—no more than a thumbnail across. But beneath that surface patch, the chaos ran more than halfway through the iron. Beltur straightened. “This bolt … the chaos goes deeper than it looks.” When Athaal arrived, he pointed. “Right there.”

  Athaal knelt, clearly concentrating before he finally stood. He took out a folded sheet of paper and jotted down “Pier 1” and some numbers. “They’ll need to replace that before long.”

  The two found no other signs of potential failure on the first pier, or on any of the other two. Beltur studied the sail galley as he passed it, noting the blue-uniformed armsmen, and deciding the vessel likely belonged to the Spidlarian Council.

  Before they headed back through the gate, Athaal stopped and entered the small building at the foot of the third pier, returning shortly. “I left word with the portmaster about that weakened anchor bolt. He wasn’t pleased about it, but he’d be even less happy if it actually failed.”