Natural Ordermage (21 page)

Sunlight like water? With weight… and flowing through the air?

After several pages more, he closed his eyes, leaned back against the stone wall behind the bench, and let himself doze.

In the darkness of eightday, not long before lamps-out, Rahl walked along the path in the garden. The afternoon nap had helped, but he still felt a little tired. As he walked, he kept his eyes closed, confirming that he navigated more in deep darkness by his order-senses than by his sight. Still, he was trying to sense more than just the general position of things, but where exactly they were and how solid they might be.

Still without using his vision, he followed the stones through the patch of brinn, trying to put his boots down in the exact center of each hexagonal stone. When he had crossed the brinn, he stopped on the narrow walk that separated it from the sage on his left and the mint on his right. The sage bed was elevated a good span and a half above the brinn and grew in drier and sandier soil.

He opened his eyes and checked his location. He was on the edge of the stones, but that wasn’t too bad. The first time, he’d almost tripped on the raised border of the sage bed.

As he stood in the cool of the evening, he also tried to recall the difference between seeing and sensing. After a moment, he closed his eyes and began to move forward.

Then he sensed someone approaching on the main walk, but not who.

He opened his eyes.

It was an older man, dressed in the same grays as Rahl wore. He looked at Rahl, then inclined his head. “Good evening.”

“Good evening.”

Rahl waited until the other was out of sight before he resumed his exercises in the garden. He couldn’t say why, but he felt that he needed to learn something about order before long.

He’d discovered more than a few aspects of order by trying things, but what he had not discovered was how he did what he did. Once he considered the possibility of doing something, it was almost as though he could either do it, or he could not—even when he knew that other mages had been able to accomplish what he tried.

As the time neared for the lamps-out bell, Rahl made one last order-sensed navigation through the garden, this time between the mint and the parsley, before opening his eyes and making his way back to his quarters.

There he lit the lamp and reclaimed his towel before heading to the washstones to wash up before climbing into bed. He finished quickly and returned to his chamber.

Absently, he put out the wall lamp by tightening a miniature order shield around the wick. He could do that, but he could not erect a shield such as that around anything living—even to protect it. He’d tried to shield a tree-rat from a terrier, and that hadn’t worked. He hadn’t even been able to put shields around insects.

Then he laughed. He hadn’t even thought of it, but he hadn’t really needed to light the lamp at all.

Was that part of his problem, that he still was doing too many things by habit rather than asking if he should be, or whether he could handle them in a different fashion?

He began to disrobe, stifling a yawn. The end-days had been long.

On oneday, Leyla met Rahl outside the small study. “We’ve decided to change what you’re doing. You won’t be working with Magister Sebenet any longer.”

What had he done wrong there?

“It’s not your work. In fact, Sebenet’s not at all happy about it. He thinks you have the makings of a good typesetter and printer, but that’s not going to help you. From here on, you’ll be spending all morning in Hamorian classes. Magister Thorl says you have a great ability with languages, and your experience there and with the printing indicates that you learn better by doing than by reading.”

Rahl had only been trying to tell the magisters that for an eightday, but he just nodded.

Leyla glanced at his arm. “You’ll be doing arms training in the afternoon. There’s plenty you can do with that while you’re healing. Deybri says it’s not that deep.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me. It was Kadara’s suggestion—:after your difficulties over the end-days. She said you’re one of those who has to learn everything the hard way. Learning arms will be very hard for you. Probably not the truncheon or the staff, but everything else.”

“What about studying order?”

“That’s up to you. You have your copy of
The Basis of Order
. We’ll answer any questions you have.” Leyla’s eyes met his. “Frankly, if you don’t figure out better control, you won’t be able to stay in Nylan, but you’re spending as much time and effort fighting us as trying to learn. We think that your only hope is to learn on your own—at least for the next few eightdays. Then we’ll see.”

Rahl found himself bristling inside once more. They hadn’t wanted to tell him all that much, and now they were saying that it was because he was fighting them. Of course he was fighting them. He was trying to get them to tell him something useful. The only one who’d really been all that helpful hadn’t been a mage, at all, but a healer. Rahl wasn’t certain that Kadara would have said nearly so much as she had if Deybri hadn’t been there.

“Oh, Rahl,” Leyla said tiredly, “please do stop it. You want us to give you easy and simple answers on how to , handle a set of complex skills you haven’t investigated,-haven’t tried to figure out, and don’t seem to want to. You have natural order-talents, but they’ll never be more than that until you look into yourself and see what you’re doing and how; and that’s not something we can do for you.”

“You could tell me how things are supposed to work.”

“Such as?”

Rahl found his thoughts going in all directions. He hated being put on the spot, trying to come up with a quick reply, as if it were all his fault if he didn’t. “How do you put order into things?”

“Unwisely, if you look at it that way.” Leyla sighed. “Let me try to explain this in very simple terms. You have both order and chaos in your body. If you use the order in your body and put it elsewhere, you’re going to unbalance your body, and you’ll get sick or die, because the remaining chaos will overpower the order and break down parts of your body. Now… there is a certain amount of free chaos and order around us all, but it’s spread out thinner than the air we breathe. A strong mage can gather either and use that. If he gathers too much, it’s likely to result in attracting an equal amount of chaos—or draw someone who holds that much free chaos within them. If there are reasons why that does not happen, then a focus of the opposite force will appear somewhere in the world, more likely nearer than more distant. You have the ability to draw some of that free order from around you, but you’re not really aware of it, or how you do it. I suspect that’s why the thief had to attack you, although he wasn’t aware of it, because his chaos was drawn to your order. That’s why we maintain strong defenses against chaos here in Nylan, because the black iron of our machines represents concentrated order. That’s also why we discourage order-magery in Nylan, except-for healing, because” it makes matters worse.“

“You’re saying I caused the thief to attack me? I caused it?” Rahl couldn’t believe that.

“Not directly. Not in the way you’re saying. Let me give you an analogy. Let us say you have a coal stove, and you need to add more coal, but when you open the door to-the fire chamber to shovel in the coal, there’s a hidden string from your coal scoop to a pitcher of lamp oil in the rafters overhead, and the oil runs down the string all at once into the stove. What will happen?”

“You’ll get a flare-up in fire, I suppose.”

“Well… that’s sort of the way you’re going about things right now. You have a hidden order string that attracts chaos because you aren’t aware of that tie, and every time you use your order-skills you’re risking some sort of fire. Now… you’re potentially a powerful mage, and your shields are strong enough that most of us can’t sense what you’re about to do until you do. Frankly, we’d rather not get burned in your fires. Do you think you’d want to if you were in my position?”

“So what am I supposed to do?

“Learn Hamorian, read
The Basis of Order
, and learn more about arms and how they’re used. Every time you use order-skills, try to feel how you’re doing things. You might even try to figure out other ways to do things, even if they’re not as easy, because that will help you understand.”

Rahl understood that Leyla was trying to help him, but what she said didn’t seem all that useful or practical. Besides, he’d already been trying some of that, and while it helped some, he hadn’t had any great insights from what he’d tried.

“Now… you can join Magister Thorl. I’ll meet you at the weapons center after you see the healers. It’s the square building about two hundred cubits west of the infirmary.”

Rahl left the study half-understanding and half-angry. Why couldn’t anyone explain anything clearly? Leyla had explained why he was a problem, but she hadn’t given him any solid advice or suggestions except to consider what he was doing. People had been doing that for years, and Rahl hadn’t found such advice to be particularly helpful. It was just an easy way of making sure it was his fault whenever anything went wrong.

Magister Thorl did offer a smile when Rahl appeared, and both Coraza and Yanyla ran to greet him.

“Mes amias!”
Rahl declared.

“Ista tuo de ceriolo…”

Rahl caught most of what Coraza was saying and smiled.

He felt far more cheerful when he left Thorl for dinner in the mess. He wasn’t even upset when Anitra joined him at his table.

“Sokol said you - killed a thief in the market on sevenday. That true?”

“He tried to knife me because I stopped him from stealing a vendor’s cashbox.”

“He was Hydlenese. They’re all thieves. Even their traders are thieves.”

Rahl nodded and kept eating, listening and occasionally making a remark or two.

After he finished and rinsed his platter and mug, he made his way to the infirmary. He had to sit and wait a while before Deybri appeared.

“Good afternoon, Rahl,” said Deybri. She hadn’t been the duty healer on eightday. That had been an older man— Natran. “How’s the arm?”

“Sore, but not quite as stiff.”

“Let’s take a look.” She didn’t actually remove the dressing but merely let her fingers rest on his skin above and below the cloth. “Another few days, and you won’t need the dressing. We’ll give you some ointment to put on it. That will keep it from itching and keep the scarring from being too bad.”

“Is that all?”

“For today. You’re fine. I have some others who aren’t.” She smiled, then turned, heading toward the long wards to the rear of the building.

Rahl felt vaguely let down as he left the infirmary and followed the walk westward toward the squarish building where Leyla had said she would meet him.

She stood just outside. “How’s the arm?”

“Deybri says the dressing will come off in a few days.” He paused. “Can I get another summer tunic… or do I have to wait until I have enough coppers to pay for a replacement?“

Leyla laughed. “Just stop by the wardrobing building and tell them I said it was all right. You probably saved us more coins than the tunic cost.”

“Ah…?”

“If the thief had escaped, people would have lost coins. If he’d been captured, he would have had to appear before a justicer, and he would have had to be fed for a day or two. All of that costs. Even quick justice isn’t free.”

Rahl understood. He just hadn’t thought of it in that way.

The weapons hall was a long building, and most of it was just open space between walls with areas for practicing. In some places, there were mats on the floor. In other areas, the stone was covered loosely with sand. In one section was what looked to be part of a ship’s deck.

Leyla led him into one of the few separate rooms, in which there were long rows of plain wooden tables. There, the man who bowed to Leyla wore black, but trousers and a shirt that were neither tight nor loose-fitting, but somewhere in between. He also held a slight aura of order.

“Rahl, this is Magister Zastryl.”

“Magister.” Rahl bowed slightly.

“If you would, Rahl,” said Zastryl, “I’d like you to walk up and down the tables and pick the weapon that feels the most comfortable. Not the one you think would be best, but the one that feels that way.” He gestured toward the tables. “It doesn’t matter whether you know how to use it… you’ll learn.”

Rahl could sense that every weapon had somehow been infused with something. To him, some even held the reddish white that had to be a form of chaos. He slowly walked along the nearest table. He could have played games with Zastryl, and picked up one of the blades or a long knife, but Leyla, standing on one side, would have caught that. He suspected that was one reason she was there. He looked up and smiled at her.

She did not return the smile.

In the end he was honest. There was no reason not to be. He brought both a truncheon and a staff to the armsmaster. “I can’t decide. I might be favoring the truncheon because I’ve used it, but I don’t think so.”

Zastryl looked to Leyla.

She nodded. “There’s no discernible difference.”