Natural Ordermage

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “It was my pleasure.”

  Neither Deybri nor Rahl spoke until they were out on the street. “Which way?” Rahl asked.

  She laughed. “You don’t have to speak Hamorian any longer.”

  “Oh…I’m sorry.” ‘

  “Uncle said” you had a gift for languages. You certainly do.“ Deybri gestured. ”Up the main road. We’ll turn east a little less than a kay along.“

  “Did he teach you Hamorian?”

  “He tried. I spent a little time, just a few eightdays, in Atla years ago.”

  “I can’t imagine you were exiled.”

  “No, but the magisters felt I needed to see what happened when only strength of some sort ordered a land. So I was sent as a healer to work with a trading company. I was ready to come back to Nylan after a few days… and very grateful to be allowed to.”

  Rahl couldn’t help but shiver at the implications of her words. He remained silent for a time as they walked uphill.

  “You have great promise, Rahl…”

  “But?”

  She did not respond immediately, as if thinking what exactly to say in reply. Then she pointed. “Along this lane.”

  “How far?”

  “Three or four hundred cubits. It’s not that far from Kadara’s dwelling. The original Kadara, that is.”

  “What were you going to say?” he asked.

  “You have great promise,” she repeated, “but you need to think and feel beyond yourself without prompting. Especially to feel.”

  The dwelling before which she stopped was small, no more-than fifteen cubits in width, with a door in the middle. “It was once a small barn, but I don’t need much space, and it’s very quaint.”

  “I’m sure it’s lovely inside.”

  “I think so, but we’ll forgo your finding out tonight. You’re sweet at heart, and someday you’ll understand the difference between thinking you know what you feel and knowing with all your being what you feel.”

  “Is that a promise?” Rahl replied lightly, although her words had somehow burned in a way that he could not have explained.

  “No. I can’t make promises for you.” Deybri smiled, opening the door. “Good night, Rahl. Thank you for walking me home.”

  “I enjoyed it.” He offered a smile, then stepped back and let her close the door.

  Despite their age difference, Deybri was interested in him, but she wasn’t going to let him get closer to her, or herself to him. Was it just because he was being exiled? No… there was something else he was missing, something beyond the words about feeling.

  But why couldn’t people just say what they meant?

  He turned and began to walk back toward the training center and his own bed.

  XXX

  For almost an eightday, Zastryl had drilled Rahl with various blades, forcing him to learn the basic moves. Holding the blades had been uncomfortable, and more tiring than using a staff or truncheon, even though the ironbound staff was heavier than all but the big two-handed broadsword. But Rahl didn’t have any difficulty handling the discomfort. He did wonder why Zastryl insisted he spend so much time practicing by himself. When Rahl had asked why, the answer had sobered him.

  “So long as you just practice moves, it’ll be slightly painful to most of you black types. Once I make you spar, it’s going to hurt a lot. There’s no point in hurting you while you’re learning the basics. That would just slow things down, and you don’t need that.”

  Then, on threeday, Zastryl appeared with another weapon and handed the scabbard and sheath to Rahl. “This is a falchiona. It’s the most common blade in Hamor. It’s a cross between a sabre and a falchione, with a few nasty touches.” The armsmaster smiled. “The naval marines call it a bitch blade. It has a few peculiarities you won’t find anywhere except Hamor. For most of the length of the blade, like a sabre, it only has one edge. But from the tip back for the first hand, both sides are edged. The means you can slash from either direction at the tip, but you don’t sacrifice the strength of the body of the blade. It’s harder to handle well. That’s why we didn’t start with it.” He nodded, “Draw it.”

  Rahl suppressed a wince as he did. The shimmering Hamorian steel felt evil, far more so than the other blades he’d handled.

  “You can sheathe it. I’m going to give you a practice blade like it. There aren’t any edges, and you’ll need to wear some padded armor while you spar with Aleasya. Even without the edges, a blow can break an arm or fingers just like that.”

  Rahl handed the falchiona back to Zastryl;

  In turn, Zastryl extended another blade, less menacing, but just as heavy and more lifeless. “Just practice your basic moves with it, while I get Aleasya and the gear you’ll need.”

  Rahl took a stance on the stone floor and began to practice with the substitute blade. It was better balanced than he’d thought, yet he felt somehow off-balance using it, even though he could tell that, physically, he was not.

  After some time, Zastryl returned with Aleasya. He carried what looked like a padded coverall over one arm. She wore formfitting black, although Rahl thought he sensed some sort of light armor under the shirt-tunic, and held a practice blade.

  “Have y6u met Aleasya?” asked the armsmaster.

  “We’ve met a few times.” Rahl inclined his head to her.

  “Let’s get you into the coverall,” Zastryl said.

  Rahl was feeling more than a little warm in the coverall but suspected he might well need it. As broad-shouldered and muscular as Aleasya was, and as a former ship’s champion, whatever that was, Rahl knew he’d be fortunate to escape with only a few bruises.

  “Aleasya will begin with some of the standard openings,” Zastryl offered. “Do your best to stop them, but don’t worry. Right now, she won’t carry through.”

  “Yes, ser.” Facing the weapons trainer, Rahl felt chaos, almost as if it were trying to climb up from the blade through the hilt into his hand and arm. Every time he lifted the blade, a twinge of fire streaked up his arm. He could feel the sweat beading on his forehead, but the heat was coming from the blade and his struggles with it, not from the warmth of the partly armored coverall. .

  Aleasya began with a quick“ exploratory thrust, one that. Rahl managed to deflect.

  From there, it got harder, as much because Rahl had to fight the chaos-pain of handling the weapon as much as he had to fight Aleasya. At a pause, he blotted his forehead.

  “Are you all-right?” asked Zastryl.

  “So far. Just let me have a moment.” Could he use his shields to block the chaos from striking back up the blade at him? If he could just concentrate on Aleasya…

  He thought—and abruptly, the pain of the chaos vanished. He could sense it, just below his hand,, but now he was free to concentrate fully on learning and using the falchiona. With each pass, he began to sense more and understand more about the blade and what lay behind the moves.

  Zastryl began to offer quick comments in between the short encounters where Aleasya demonstrated various attacks and maneuvers before using them.

  “Most of the time,” the armsmaster called from the-side, “a lead from the edge side is a feint. But not always, especially if the aim is to disable or disarm you.”

  “That’s a setup for an arm slash…”

  “Don’t drop the blade tip!”

  When Zastryl called a halt, sweat was pouring from Rahl’s forehead, and he felt light-headed, almost unsteady. He’d certainly worked harder and longer with the staff before without such effort tiring him so much, but he could have been getting overheated in the heavy coverall.

  He began to unfasten the padded and sweaty coverall.

  “I’ve never seen a mage type handle a blade that well, or learn it so quickly.” Aleasya glanced to Zastryl. “Have you?”

  “No. He’s done something.” Zastryl began to walk toward the pair.

  As if a giant wave had risen from a shore where he stood, Rahl could feel his shields crumpling under that
unseen wave and redness rising around him. He could feel himself falling… forward into reddish blackness.

  When he could see again, he was on his back looking up at the beamed ceiling of the arms-training building.

  Hovering over him was someone, but for several moments, the image was a swirl of indistinct color. Then he could make out the face of Kelyssa, the younger healer. “Kelyssa?”

  With that single word, Rahl’s head felt as though it were being hit with a heavy mallet and splitting apart, and his eyes burned.

  “What did… you can tell us later. How do you feel? Can you see me?”

  “Yes. My eyes burn, but I can see you.”

  “And you can hear?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you feel your fingers and toes?”

  “They hurt, but I can feel them.”

  “Wiggle them.”

  Rahl did.

  “Now move your arms and legs, just a little, and gently.”

  Rahl could sense, a reassuring aura of black .order from the healer as she probed his body. Then she straightened. “I think he’ll be all right, but we ought to watch him at the infirmary for a while.”

  “Do we need to get a cart for him?” asked Zastryl.

  “Just let him rest for a while, and I’ll be able to walk him over there. I think he should be fine in a day or so, but I’ll have Deybri look at him to make sure.” Kelyssa turned back to Rahl. “I’m going to help you sit up.”

  Gingerly, Rahl rolled to one side, then sat up on the hard stone. At that point, he realized that the coverall had been stripped from him. He glanced around and saw the padded armor lying in a heap several cubits away.

  “They thought you’d had a heat bout,” said the healer.

  After a short while, Rahl finally got to his feet. Kelyssa insisted that he take her arm as they walked from the weapons-training building toward the infirmary. Each step hurt, and Rahl felt as though he’d been beaten with a staff. Yet he hadn’t taken a single blow from Aleasya.

  Once he was in the infirmary, Kelyssa had him sit in a padded chair and sip ale. The ale helped with the lightheadedness, but not with soreness. While the throbbing in - his head subsided, it did not vanish so much as retreat into a muted dull pounding.

  He had just about finished the beaker of ale when Deybri appeared.

  She glared at him. “That was even stupider than taking on the black wall. You could have killed yourself, you know?”

  Rahl just looked at her. From shielding himself from chaos?

  “I went and talked to Zastryl and Aleasya first. You have to have blocked yourself.”

  “I just shielded myself from the chaos in the falchiona,” Rahl protested.

  “Weren’t you told not to use active order?”

  “But shields aren’t active…”

  She shook her head. “Didn’t Kadara and Leyla keep warning you about the dangers of trying things when you don’t have an understanding of how it works and why? You couldn’t block chaos from the blade. There wasn’t any actual chaos in the blade. That’s the way your mind interprets the potential chaos of using a blade and the disorder that use causes. Your shield was actually fighting yourself, as well as whoever you were sparring against.”

  “Aleasya,” Rahl admitted.

  “Why did you do it?”

  “Because it hurt to use the blade and fight the chaos— or what I thought was chaos—and I wasn’t learning and being very good at it.”

  The healer snorted. “You’re an ordermage. You’re not supposed to be that good. They just want you to be able to put up enough of a front with a blade so that you can buy time to use order. You’re supposed to learn how to handle it with the pain. Didn’t they tell you that?”

  “Not exactly. Magister Zastryl said that it would be painful and that I might have to use them…” His words trailed off.

  “For what?”

  “To keep people off me for a short time,” Rahl admitted. Still, Zastryl hadn’t been anywhere near as clear as Deybri had been. He hadn’t told Rahl that one of the points of the exercise was to deal with the pain. Why couldn’t people be clear? He was having a hard enough time learning what he had to learn without trying to figure out what they really meant. He was more than a little tired of guessing.

  Deybri shook her head. “You’ll be all right. Go over to the mess and eat—as much as you can without getting sick. Then take it easy and get a good night’s sleep. No sparring against anyone for two days. When you resume, don’t do what you just did—even if it hurts like the demon’s whiteness. You might not recover a second time.”

  That, worried Rahl more than anything she’d said. But, even with the worry, he was also getting angry again because he wouldn’t have gotten so close to killing himself if he hadn’t been getting incomplete answers or nonexistent answers to his questions. The magisters and magistras acted as if everything were spelled out in The Basis of Order, and whenever he tried to get an answer, he was either chastised or told to find it out himself… and then, when he had attempted to discover something on his own, they’d declared him a danger to all Nylan.

  “Rahl… that’s life.”

  “What?” .

  “You’re getting angry again because things haven’t been explained to your satisfaction. Do you think that people are going to explain everything that seems evident to them just to make you comfortable? You have the ability to think. Your problem is that, because certain skills come to you easily, you just use them without thinking about them or what they might do to you or to others.”

  “Wait a moment,” he replied. “Let me put it a different way. You and all the others here are perfectly willing to explain things endlessly to those who have few abilities and take a long time to learn things. Yet you’re not willing to make a similar effort in explaining the implications of what I can do. Just because I’m able to do things, everyone seems to think that I should know what happens next.”

  “That attitude is exactly why you’re being exiled,” Deybri said calmly, almost sadly. “You have enough order-talent that most ordermages would give an arm or a leg for that ability. They’ve worked for years to master and understand what they do. You can do things easily and with minimal effort, and then you complain and get angry when the magisters expect you to spend some time and effort thinking before you act. And this is another time when you got into trouble doing what you were told not to do. No… I won’t say much about it, and I will say, if asked,” that you honestly didn’t understand that shields were active order-magery. It’s also the last time I’ll help you if you use one single bit of active ordermagery.“ A faint, almost rueful smile appeared. ”Now… go get something to eat.“

  Rahl set the not-quite-finished beaker of ale on the side table and rose from the chair. “Thank you.” As he left, he was still angry, if not at Deybri. At least she offered some explanations.

  XXXI

  On fiveday morning, Rahl found himself in the small study again, wondering if he was being sent off as a result of his problems with the falchiona, or if he’d made some other mistake. Tamryn sat across the table from Rahl.

  “Yes, ser?” asked Rahl politely.

  “I understand you had a little trouble the other day. This isn’t about that. This is about your assignment in Swartheld…”

  Exile merely an assignment? Rahl had his doubts about that.

  “You’ll be leaving in about an eightday,” Tamryn went on. “Until then, you’ll be working every afternoon at the Merchant Association building down in the harbor. You’ll wear the standard clerk’s attire. We’ll take a moment for you to pick that up‘ at the wardrobing building—and a pack for your clothing and gear. From now on, you’ll wear the clerk’s garb from breakfast until you’re dismissed by Ser Varselt. He’s the managing director in Nylan.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  “And Aleasya and Magister Zastryl have agreed to spend a session with you every evening after meals. They did mention something about not cheating
on pain.” Tamryn smiled. ‘There’s a price for everything, Rahl, and it’s either paid fairly when due or with interest and penalties later.“

  Tamryn made it sound like order-skills were trade goods subject to usury.

  “Now… head over to wardrobing. Elina’s already got your garb ready for you. Wear it while you’re with Magister Thorl as well. The association of Hamorian with the garb will help when you get to Swartheld.”

  How that might be, Rahl couldn’t imagine, but he didn’t doubt Tamryn on that. “Yes, ser. Is there anything else I should know?”

  “Not right now.” Tamryn stood.

  So did Rahl, bowing politely to the silver-haired magister.

  Tamryn left, and Rahl followed him out, then headed for the wardrobing shop.

  After he picked up the garments, he hurried back to his chamber and changed, leaving the empty canvas pack on the bed. The clerk’s garb consisted of light brown trousers,, darker than the khaki worn by Kysant and his staff at the eatery, a light tunic of a darker brown, with three-quarter-length sleeves, and an even lighter undertunic.

  Magister Thorl only nodded in acknowledgment when Rahl slipped into his session.

  Tamryn appeared, as the magisters often did, just as Rahl had finished rinsing his dishes at the mess. “We’ll take a cart down today, but you’ll have to eat more quickly—if you’re walking down there and if you expect to be there in a timely fashion.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  Rahl followed Tamryn to the cart that waited outside.

  The magister drove, and Rahl sat on the narrow seat beside Tamryn as the cart moved downhill behind a dun mare.

  “The more you can learn at the Merchant Association, the better you’ll do in Swartheld,” Tamryn observed. “It’s very different from either Land’s End or Nylan. As I’m certain Magister Thorl has indicated, the laws are far more stringent. If you break a minor law, you might get off with a flogging. If you break a major law, you’ll end up in the quarries, the ironworks, or dead. Oh… one of the major laws is a restriction on use of order- or chaos-skills unless you are registered with the mage-guards. As an outlander, you can have the talent. That’s not forbidden. Using it is unless you’re registered. Citizens of Hamor with any magely talents must register. Minor uses in one’s own dwelling don’t count. Almost all active uses in public do.”