Mage-Guard of Hamor (9 page)

Then he settled into one of the comfortable armchairs best placed to catch the light from the long and narrow windows and began to read.

He read almost thirty pages, learning little more than what Taryl and Jyrolt had already told him, except for names and accomplishments that meant little to him and the fact that the Triad was actually composed of a senior mage picked by the senior mages of the mage-guards, one chosen by the High Command, and one picked by the Emperor.

His stomach was beginning to growl, when the faintest sound of steps…and the aura of another mage-guard, definitely female, neared. She carried a larger volume than Rahl's and eased into the chair beside him. Although she did not look at Rahl at all, he could sense that she had order-skills and was employing them. He left his order shields as they had been, low enough to protect him from casual probing and intrusion, and continued with the book. He turned the pages, slowly, not so much reading as looking for facts that would help him better understand the mage-guards.

She finally coughed, and Rahl looked up.

The blond mage-guard pointed to his volume and shook her head.

He raised his eyebrows.

She stood, still carrying the large tome, then motioned for Rahl to follow her.

Rahl rose and walked after her, out into the foyer of the library. The history was not that intriguing, and he wanted to know why she was spying on him. He couldn't believe it was just casual interest.

“I'm Edelya,” she said. “I noticed that you were reading a mage-guard history. Everyone picks that one up because it looks short, but it's not very good, and it's harder to read than almost any of the others.”

“Rahl,” he replied. “The language is…stiff, I guess I'd call it. How did you know that?” He looked at her closely. While she was small and wiry, petite, her face was smooth, almost chiseled, and her eyes were like gray granite, and looked about as hard. Behind the pleasant smile, she felt cool, almost shallow, compared to Deybri, or even Kadara or Leyla. With a shock, he realized that her bearing and attitude were more like Fahla, the factor's daughter that Puvort had sentenced to indentured slavery because she had refused to betray her father.

For a moment, Rahl's anger flared, but he caught himself. The faintest hint of puzzlement escaped Edelya's shields. Rahl decided it was better to explain than let her think the anger was directed at her.

“I'm sorry,” Rahl said. “You reminded me of someone to whom a great wrong was done, and it kindled anger at those who did it.”

“Someone you cared for?” Her eyebrows lifted.

He laughed softly. “She was never more than a friend, but it was still a wrong.” After a moment, he added, “Which history would you suggest?”

“Aliazyr's—it's the one in the brown-and-black binding.”

“How do you know so much about the histories?”

“We all have to read them sooner or later. The training mages force them upon mage-clerks here, and those of you who are trained elsewhere…usually someone ‘suggests' you read them when you come here.”

Rahl nodded. “Where are you from?”

“Cigoerne.” Edelya paused. “Chalamer, actually. It's about ten kays from here, but I always have to explain.”

“What are your duties here?”

“My…you are formal, Rahl.”

“More like curious.” Rahl offered a grin. “I haven't really figured out why the Emperor and the mage-guards need so many mages here.”

“There really aren't that many.” She frowned. “There might be twoscore, not counting the trainee mage-clerks. There are about twoscore and a half of those right now, but you won't see most of them. Only the senior mage-clerks get to eat in the mess with the mage-guards. The senior clerks are the ones within a year of their evaluation.”

“And you? Are you one of those who helps train them?”

“Sometimes I help with the exercises for those who are ordermages, but I'm actually an assistant to the weather mage. Before long, I'll probably be sent south.” She shook her head. “Knowing what the weather might be is something people overlook, but it can determine when to fight and when not to.”

Rahl hadn't thought about that. “Can you affect the weather?”

“I'm not that good, not yet, anyway. If the air's really damp, sometimes I can make it rain, and at times in the mountains, I can make fog. What about you?”

Rahl shook his head. “I'm just a patrol mage.”

“You wouldn't be here if you were just a patrol mage.”

“I'm just following orders.” Rahl smiled, politely. “I'll take your advice about the histories…but I do need to get back to reading one of them, or I'll be in trouble.”

“I hope I'll see you around.” Edelya smiled warmly, although the feelings beneath the expression were cooler and more calculating. “Some nights, some of the regular mage-guards go over to the Staff and Blade. It's just half a kay west.”

“Thank you. Some of that depends on my duties and when I'm ordered off somewhere else.”

“It always does. Do you know where?”

“No, I don't, and I've learned there's not much point in asking until someone's ready to tell me.”

She laughed. “There is that. Good day, Rahl.”

“Good day, Edelya.”

Rahl nodded and stepped back, moving back into the library, where he followed her suggestion and exchanged the history he'd been reading for the one bound in brown and black. After reading twenty pages in a fraction of the time it had taken him to read the same amount in the first book, Rahl had to admit that Edelya had been right. Aliazyr's history was far better—not to mention more readable—than the one he'd been reading before.

He had read through another forty pages by the time Taryl arrived and motioned for him to leave the library. He also noted the veiled surprise from the two older mage-guards—both ordermages—who were reading.

Taryl did not speak until they were out in the corridor beyond the library foyer. “We'll be here for several more days, if not longer, while Marshal Byrna gathers his forces. We will be going to the High Command for a briefing tomorrow afternoon. I was invited, but you're coming as well.”

“Yes, ser.”

“How was your day?”

“I sparred with Khedren and learned some of the techniques. He said I was better than tolerable with the staff and truncheon, and he had some of the older mage-clerks go against me. He said I'd be doing him a favor if I disarmed them quickly without damaging them permanently.”

“I assume you did.”

“Yes, ser.”

“Good. Did anything else of interest happen?” Taryl raised his eyebrows.

“Just what you warned me about. A pretty mage-guard named Edelya approached me. We talked for a while, but I did my best to play dumb and dutiful.”

“You probably did well with dutiful, but I doubt you deceived her about your intelligence. You can't play dumb well, Rahl.” Taryl turned. “We have some time. I'm going to try another set of exercises on you, and then we'll visit the stables. This way.” He walked from the foyer back along the corridor to a narrow door.

When Taryl opened the door, Rahl saw an equally narrow staircase leading downward to a landing, then doubling back.

“Close the door behind you.”

“Yes, ser.”

There were no lamps in the corridor below—roughly half the width of the main-floor hallway—but it was still dimly lit with faint greenish lights set in the ceiling at regular intervals. Rahl glanced up at the nearest, slowing and trying to make out where the light came from that emerged from the hexagonal glass faces. He'd seen them before…

Taryl stopped and looked over his shoulder. “It's an elongated prism set in the corridor floor above. It catches the light and diffuses it down here. That's enough for most mages, and that means we don't have to worry about lamps and lamp oil. They use them on ships, too. Come on.”

The concept was simple enough, Rahl realized, and he should have realized that the green hexagons in the floor above were for more than decoration. Still, he didn't recall seeing anything like them being used anywhere else.

Taryl stopped before a closed door and turned to Rahl. “I want you to wait outside in the corridor until I call you. Then I want you to close your eyes, and use your order-senses to enter. You won't be attacked. This is something else.” The senior mage-guard's voice was dry.

Rahl waited, then closed his eyes and pressed the door lever after he heard his name.

“Close the door firmly. Then you can open your eyes.”

When Rahl opened his eyes, he could see nothing. The room was pitch-black. Not more of Taryl's exercises in the dark!

“There's a table in front of you,” Taryl said. “Pick up the block on it that feels most orderly. Don't feel around for it. Pick it up on a single attempt.”

Rahl could sense Taryl standing behind the table.

“Go ahead. Don't waste time.”

Rahl concentrated, but each of the three blocks felt so small that he had a hard time determining which had the most order. Finally, he picked the one farthest from him. It was iron, but tiny enough that two of them could have rested on his thumbnail.

“Now, without letting any of the blocks touch, take the one you have and set it as close as you can to the one with the least order.”

Rahl managed that, although he actually set it slightly farther away, then nudged it nearer to the least orderly block.

“Line them up as close as possible, with the least orderly to your right and the most orderly to your left…”

The exercises went on for a time before Taryl said, “Now, use your order-senses to make a triangle of the blocks with the most orderly at the point facing me. Don't move them with your hands, and don't let them touch.”

Rahl was sweating by the time he moved the tiny blocks without using his hands, but he did manage the task.

Taryl set another block on the table. “Make a square with all four.”

That seemed easier.

Two more tiny blocks went onto the table.

“A hexagon, now.”

Even with six blocks, Rahl arranged them more easily than he had at first with only three.

“Just stand there and relax for a moment while I set up the next exercise. Don't ask any questions.”

Rahl took a slow deep breath in the darkness and blotted his forehead with the back of his hand. He couldn't help wondering what was in the bucket Taryl lifted and tilted. Something poured out with a rustling sound. Sand?

Taryl lifted another bucket, but this time Rahl could sense that it held water. The second bucket was only partly full, and Taryl set it on the table.

“Use just enough water to moisten the sand. I want you to make a small square wall with the wet sand. Use your hands and fingers for the first side.”

Rahl had an idea what was coming, but he separated the sand into two piles, moistening one, and saving the other in case he used too much water inadvertently. When it felt damp enough to hold together, he formed a crude wall the length of his hand.

“Support the inside of the next wall with order, but use your fingers on the outside…”

When Rahl finished following Taryl's instructions—completing the last wall strictly with order—he was not only sweating again, but his shoulders ached.

“Now…” continued Taryl. “I assume you've seen what happens when sand castles dry in the sun.”

“Yes, ser. They hold their shape in a way, but if there's any wind…”

“Good. I want you to use order to move the water, just the water, out of the sand in the walls you built on the table. Don't ask why or how. You can do it. Just do it.”

Rahl didn't even know where to start, but he thought of the water as if it were made of little tiny boxes, and he concentrated on moving it a “box” at a time. Surprisingly, to him, it seemed to work, but it was a tedious process. Finally, he straightened. “I think…I think I did it.”

“Good.” Taryl sounded pleased, for the first time. “That's all you should do here today.”

Rahl had to agree. He felt as though he'd walked kays and kays carrying half a score of his father's heaviest tomes.

Taryl walked around the table past Rahl and opened the door. “We're not done.”

Rahl didn't ask who would clean up the mess, but turned to follow Taryl.

At the door, Taryl extended his hand. “Here are the blocks. You'll need to practice every night for a while.”

“Yes, ser.”

“Do you understand what you've done?” Taryl asked as he walked toward the narrow staircase.

“I've used order to move things around.”

“Exactly. You know how, now, but you'll have to practice to gain strength. Not many mage-guards can do what you just did. Do you know what was important about the water and the sand?”

“Besides moving it? No, ser.”

“You proved you can sense and handle water. That means you have some ability with the weather.”

Rahl frowned. What did water have to do with weather?

Taryl stopped. “I can see that we'll have to work on certain parts of your education. For the moment, I'll just say that all weather is created by just two things—the heat and light of the sun and the water in the oceans and the air. You've seen a kettle boil, haven't you?”

“Yes, ser.”

“Well, that's what the sun does to the ocean except it's slower, and we can't see it. If you put a piece of cold, cold iron over a kettle spout, do you know what happens?”

“Water appears.”

“That's what happens when warm air from the oceans meets the high mountain peaks or cold air coming from somewhere else. That's the basis of weather.”