The Mongrel Mage

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “No girls here are that foolish, ser.”

  “Do they take women?”

  “No raider is that stupid. If you would excuse me, ser, I need to join my father in our field.”

  The youth practically ran from Beltur.

  A half block farther north, Beltur thought he heard voices from behind the rear wall of a small house. He angled toward the house, and when he was in a position where he hoped no one would see him, he raised a concealment and then slowly made his way to the wall to listen.

  “… good day for laundry, don’t you think little one?”

  Beltur heard no response.

  The woman continued to speak cheerfully. “The sun is out. There are no clouds, and your father will bring us a fine melon…”

  After several moments more, Beltur realized that the woman was speaking to an infant or small child as she did her chores. He moved on.

  Three glasses later, he dropped the concealment after walking what seemed to be every street of Desanyt and trudged back to the inn. He’d seen no younger women, but more than a score of men, all of whom were less talkative than the youth he’d confronted. He’d also listened at more than a score of rear walls, invariably to women and children, and heard very little of interest, although he would certainly convey those few tidbits to Kaerylt.

  As he entered the front of the inn and glanced through the archway into the public room, he could see only a handful of men, all older, at the tables. He kept walking toward the room, but passed it without stopping when he sensed that no one was there. He raised a concealment before leaving the inn and walking across to the stable, where he hoped to find the troopers, possibly talking.

  There were only three, standing in a corner. Beltur moved close enough to overhear and began to listen.

  “… glad I’m not riding out with the undercaptain…”

  “… cooler watching the gear…”

  “… be out there tomorrow…”

  “… won’t get any answers traveling from small towns to smaller towns…”

  “Undercaptain thinks they want to go to Wulkyn.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “It’s where the raiders’ clan leaders gather. Another day southwest of here.”

  “Ride into a raider village? Sowshit … rather take a mount to the Westhorns and beg mercy from the black bitches.”

  “Either way your stud days’d be done, Vaergas.” A raucous laugh followed.

  “What’s so friggin’ important about raiders looking for women?”

  “What’s important is that the friggin’ Prefect thinks it’s friggin’ important.”

  “No … what’s friggin’ important is that we don’t lose our asses to what the friggin’ Prefect thinks is friggin’ important…”

  All three troopers laughed.

  “You got the bones?” asked one.

  “Here?”

  “Why not? We can hear anyone coming. Undercaptain doesn’t care so long as we’re watching the gear…”

  As the three settled into their game, Beltur left and made his way out of the stable and around to the rear looking for somewhere he could practice, releasing his concealment once he was behind the stable and where no one was near. Beyond a rubble heap consisting mainly of broken chunks of mud bricks he spied a tumbled-down set of sod walls perhaps three yards on a side, the tallest part of which was only shoulder-high. There was no sign of a roof, but with so few trees near or around Kasiera, someone had likely long since made off with any usable wood.

  He nodded to himself. Sod wouldn’t catch fire.

  His first effort was to gather free chaos using what felt like an order-lattice shaped into a cone. He was surprised that it seemed so easy, but when he tried to focus that chaos into something like an arrow, it just seemed to dribble out of the cone and land in a sizzling heap on the ground … well short of the sagging sod wall.

  He tried again … with exactly the same result.

  He didn’t want to use his own personal chaos to throw the gathered free chaos, nor did he think that bringing the gathered free chaos into his own aura was what Jessyla had described, yet the free order didn’t seem to provide any power, just structure, and the free chaos just flowed, almost like water.

  Like water? Abruptly, Beltur smiled. He gathered, or regathered, the free chaos, and used the order to lift it higher and channel it. That worked, in a way, but the chaos struck the sod without much force.

  His next attempt was to visualize a bow made of order, and an arrow of order holding the chaos, but with the “point” almost open. That worked somewhat better.

  He had been practicing for more than a glass, finally coming up with what amounted to an order-catapult that delivered chaos with fair force—at least over a distance of twenty yards, which wasn’t nearly so far as his uncle and Sydon could throw chaos-bolts, but which allowed him to deliver such bolts one after the other, for up to five or six, before having to rest, which was far, far more than he had been able to do before. At that moment, he heard horses. He immediately turned and walked toward the stable yard, where he saw Kaerylt and Sydon, along with Pacek and seven troopers. The two mages were beginning to dismount. Since no one had yet looked in his direction, Beltur quickly raised a concealment and ducked back against the stable wall, moving away from the yard and around the stable itself. Sydon can do a little grooming for once.

  He quickly made his roundabout way back to the inn, still under a concealment, and then into the public room, discovering that another handful of men had swelled the numbers there since he had last looked. Finding a place against the wall where he could hear what was being said at two of the tables, if barely, he began to listen. For a time, he only heard complaints about the heat, the low stream level, the fact that it was looking to be a less profitable harvest, and that the Prefect had insisted on a tariff for the town.

  “… never paid a tariff … never will … Prefect doesn’t do sowshit for us…”

  “… might have to … mages and troopers…”

  He tariffs towns? Beltur was thinking that over when he heard something else.

  “… Scaryll sent word … two of those mages … out riding with troopers…”

  “… not good…”

  “… wouldn’t dare attack the town … no point…”

  “… probably not … don’t like it, though…”

  “… about the other one?”

  “… saw him walking around town … talked to a few people … couple of glasses ago, though.”

  “Don’t like that, either.”

  “You going to do anything about it?” The man laughed. “Best thing to do is be polite and avoid them. They keep going out in the grasslands, and the herders might take care of them.”

  “Scaryll might think so, but they might be the ones dealing with the herders…”

  “Better the first way … but it’s between them … not us…”

  From there the conversation turned back to comments about one of the servers and the melon crop and certain comparisons.

  Beltur decided enough time had passed, and he quietly left the public room and headed for their sleeping chamber, where he sensed Kaerylt was alone. As he opened the door, he dropped the concealment.

  “Where have you been?”

  “Walking every street of Kasiera, talking to men who would talk, listening to women talk, eavesdropping on the three troopers the undercaptain left, and then hearing what I could at the public room.” Suddenly, Beltur realized that his legs were wobbly, and that he was light-headed. He sat down quickly on the end of the pallet bed.

  Kaerylt frowned. “You’re looking pale.”

  “I’ve been holding a lot of concealments.”

  “Have you eaten anything?”

  “No. I hadn’t thought about that.”

  The older mage shook his head. “We might as well go to the public room before you collapse. I told Sydon to find you and meet me there.”

  Beltur had no doubt tha
t his uncle had said for Sydon to find Beltur if he could.

  Less than a quarter glass later, the three were seated around a corner table in the public room and Beltur had already drunk half a mug of the grass ale, and his light-headedness had slowly receded.

  “Now that you look like you can think, Beltur, tell us what you found out.”

  “Well … no one around here really wants to talk to white mages, even young ones. But…” Beltur summarized what he had observed and heard in his initial meetings with the men.

  “That’s all?”

  “I did overhear two women talking about the raiders and how there seemed to be fewer of them in the past several years, and that they didn’t buy as much as they used to. When I came back and listened to the three troopers one of them said he’d rather desert than ride to Wulkyn. And a man in the public room said that you and Sydon were riding the grasslands, and that was bound to get the herders stirred up, maybe enough that they’d attack us if we kept doing it. The others thought that it was our problem, not theirs.”

  Kaerylt’s low-voiced questions forced Beltur to go back over what he had said for another third of a glass before the older mage finally said, “Did they say more about that Scaryll?”

  “No, ser. Just what I told you.”

  “That’s not a lot.”

  “I know, ser, but it still took a long time.” Beltur paused, then asked, “How was your day?”

  “The elder wasn’t much more forthcoming than the men you encountered. The herders do trade here, usually at season-turn. People almost never see them except near those times. No one here has ever been to Wulkyn. The raiders have a habit of killing people who get too close.”

  “So what do we do?” asked Sydon.

  “The next best thing. Talk to the herders or raiders who visit Kasiera. There’s a sort of agreement, like a truce, when the raiders come to trade. A band leader or someone who speaks for him comes first.” Kaerylt shrugged. “If they’re here, one way or another, I’ll talk to him and see what I can find out. In the meantime, we’ll do some more riding in places outside of town to see what we can discover. It doesn’t seem likely we’ll learn much more except from the herders or raiders.”

  Was there a hint of discouragement in his uncle’s voice? Beltur thought so, but he wasn’t entirely certain.

  X

  On fourday, immediately after breakfast, Beltur and Sydon, accompanied by five troopers, rode north out of Kasiera along a road that was barely more than a dirt path, under instructions from Kaerylt to look for any trace of raiders and herders, and anything else they could see, while Kaerylt headed southward with Undercaptain Pacek and the other five troopers.

  “You, Beltur,” Kaerylt had said firmly, “are to keep your senses alert for signs of excessive order. Sydon, you are to use chaos to protect the others, only as necessary. Do not use chaos against anyone unless they attack first.”

  Once they were well outside of Kasiera, Sydon looked to Beltur. “Do you sense any untoward order?”

  Beltur ignored the belittling edge in Sydon’s words. “He sensed extra order around the thunderstorm that hit us on the way to Kasiera. He thinks that it’s possible that the druids from the Great Forest may be helping Westwind entice women away from the raiders. That’s why he wants me to be alert to any unnatural concentrations of order.”

  “Why would the druids do that? What would it gain them?”

  “Westwind would gain more women and greater strength to oppose the Prefect.” That was a judgment on Beltur’s part, because Kaerylt had never said anything to that effect.

  “Do you really believe those old legends about the power of Westwind? They’re just women.”

  “I don’t notice the Prefect doing things to anger them, and the Tyrant of Sarronnyn seems to be doing quite well. She’s a woman, also, you might recall.”

  “That’s because there’s no real power west of the Westhorns. Not since Cyador fell, anyway.”

  “What about the druids?”

  “They don’t count. So long as you leave them alone, they leave you alone.”

  Beltur had the feeling Sydon was missing something … or that what Kaerylt had said about the druids had omitted something … or a few somethings. What else is new?

  Some three kays north of Kasiera, the path split, one branch heading northeast, the other northwest. Sydon immediately gestured. “We’ll head to the northwest.”

  Beltur didn’t disagree, since they were looking for herders, and it seemed as though they’d more likely be to the west than to the east, although that was definitely not a certainty.

  By midmorning the day was as hot as all the others on the grasslands had been, and he was sweating profusely. The only moving thing that he had seen was a long-legged antelope that had immediately fled upon seeing the riders. In moments, it had vanished over one of the low rises, and by the time the riders had reached the rise, Beltur could neither see nor sense the antelope. Given the grazer’s speckled light brown coat, it could have been less than two kays away, just out of Beltur’s range in sensing living order, but blending in with the tall tannish brown grass.

  After another glass passed, one of the troopers called out, “There are vulcrows circling ahead.” He pointed west of where the seven rode, although there was another low rise between them and the spot where the birds circled and the path-like road angled away from the vulcrows.

  Sydon looked puzzled for a moment.

  Beltur replied before the older mage could say anything, “That means there’s carrion, there, doesn’t it?”

  “More than likely, ser,” replied the trooper. “Could be a grass cat feeding, too. Maybe on that antelope we spooked, or another one. Vulcrows would be on the carcass already otherwise.”

  “What about herders or raiders?”

  “We haven’t seen any tracks, ser.”

  That wasn’t exactly reassuring, given that the grass, shoulder high on the horses in places, seemed able to conceal anything that wasn’t on the path that passed for a road, although Beltur had sensed nothing large except the antelope and the men and horses in his own party.

  As they followed the dirt path toward the top of the rise, Beltur kept watching the circling vulcrows, noting that the path was taking them somewhat farther north of the spot the birds continued to circle. He had the feeling that might be for the best, although he still couldn’t sense the vulcrows or what might lie beneath them.

  When they reached the rise, he scanned the grasslands beneath the birds, a good kay away from him, immediately sensing the mix of order and chaos that indicated people, although he could not see them at first, given the variation in the height of the grass between the path and the vulcrows’ target. Then he saw two, and then three more riders. “There are herders there! They must have brought down an antelope or something.”

  “Where?” asked Sydon.

  “Under where the vulcrows are circling. They almost look like taller patches of grass.” Beltur realized that two of the horses were without riders, possibly because the herders were gutting or skinning the animal. He also could make out more riders farther to the south, and they were moving toward the two mages and their escorts. As they neared, he counted ten riders, two of whom were clearly smaller. They’re women … or girls. But weren’t the herder women so badly treated that they were fleeing to the Westhorns?

  “We should rein up,” Beltur suggested, “and see what they do.”

  Sydon kept riding.

  “Rein up!” said Beltur sharply.

  Sydon did so, as did the other troopers, but the older mage scowled.

  “They think the grasslands are theirs. Kaerylt said not to make trouble.”

  “Easy enough for him to say,” muttered Sydon, barely loud enough for Beltur to hear.

  The approaching party of herders slowed to a walk, the stopped, and a single rider moved ahead.

  Beltur sensed chaos gathering around Sydon and called out, “Sydon! Don’t throw any chaos-bolts!”
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  The older mage ignored Beltur and released a bolt that arched toward the lead herder.

  Beltur immediately formed a small order-linked shield in front of the bolt, which flared in the air well short of the advancing herder, who immediately turned his mount and swiftly retreated.

  “Why did you do that?” snapped Sydon.

  “Because Kaerylt said we weren’t to use chaos unless we were attacked. One man riding toward us isn’t an attack. Didn’t you see that he had nothing in his hands?”

  “He was riding like he wanted to attack.”

  “If he wanted to attack, he would have waited for all the others, and they would have had their bows out, the way that other group did. Besides, some of the riders were women.”

  “I couldn’t tell that. They all looked the same. Anyway, Kaerylt said I was to protect us. I did what I thought best.”

  And you’re an idiot if you thought attacking them first was best. Beltur didn’t speak what he thought, knowing that it would do little good. Abruptly, he worried about whether his order-linked shield had stopped the chaos from Sydon’s bolt from dropping into the dry grass and starting a fire, and he immediately tried to sense where the free chaos had gone. He couldn’t find any concentration. Nor was there any sign of the natural chaos that a fire would create.

  For a time, he just watched as the herders rode away into the distance. Then he said, “It might not be the wisest course to follow them.”

  “They won’t come after us,” declared Sydon.

  “They might not, but what if they gather more riders? Why don’t we see if there’s another path that leads more south that might circle back toward Kasiera?”

  “That’s not all that likely,” muttered Sydon.

  Beltur thought it was highly likely, and, although they rode more than a kay before they encountered what he was looking for, he did find it. He didn’t quite breathe a sigh of relief as they turned southward, not until another glass passed, and it was clear no herders were trailing them.

  The rest of the afternoon was uneventful, and Beltur quietly spent a considerable amount of time working on creating larger and stronger shields. With all the drying grass around him, he wasn’t about to try to replicate a lightning bolt. He’d been fortunate enough that his small order-shield had blocked any fire from Sydon’s chaos. By the time they turned back toward Kasiera, Beltur had seen more than enough of the grasslands, and he couldn’t help worrying about how the herders might take Sydon’s firebolt. He just hoped that his blocking it short of the rider had been taken as a warning, rather than the hostile gesture that Sydon had clearly meant.