L. Modesitt - Natural Ordermage

Rahl carefully wiped one blade clean and sheathed it, and then did the same for the second.

“Natural ordermages work better by feel, and you have to get the feeling for something. If you lock in the right feeling, it’s almost effortless. Otherwise…” Taryl shook his head.

“What should I do now? After the exercises, that is?”

“Don’t try to do anything with your order-sense. You may get flashes of it now, and you may not. If you do, just try to absorb the feeling. The more you can feel and identify that feeling, the sooner you’ll recover order-handling ability.” Taryl smiled. “You might want to get cleaned up before dinner.”

As Rahl walked toward the small cramped shower room, he wanted to shake his head. A mage-guard in the ironworks of Hamor knew more about how to help him than all the magisters in Recluce. How could that be, when Recluce was the bastion of order?

Over the next few days, little changed-except at odd times, Rahl would experience a return of his order-senses. The first few occasions were brief, but thereafter each time the feeling lasted a little longer-so long as Rahl did not attempt to do anything with what he felt. On eightday, he was the clerk-recorder for the duty mage-guard, and that kept him from joining Talanyr in going to Guasyra.

On threeday morning, he found himself once more assigned to follow a mage-guard. Dymat was not a chaos-mage, but an ordermage, one of the oldest mage-guards Rahl had seen, with silver hair and a long horselike face.

As they stood near the duty desk, Dymat studied Rahl, then shook his head.

“Ser?”

“I’ll tell you later, young Rahl. Do you know what I do?”

“No, ser. Only that you’re involved with the mills and forges.”

“I’ll explain on the ride to the rolling mill. We might as well get started. Besides, Klemyl is waiting.”

Rahl only knew that Klemyl was one of the younger mage-guards at Luba station, slightly shorter than Rahl himself, with curly dark red hair and a high-pitched voice.

Dymat turned and walked quickly across the entry hall where the duty desk was located and out through the door to the wagon area. Three wagons remained, and Dymat hurried toward the second one. Klemyl was already in the forward bench right behind the driver. Dymat swung up into the second bench, and Rahl followed.

Klemyl smiled politely, nodded, then turned to face forward, addressing the driver. “We’re all here. You can leave.”

Rahl had the impression that, for all his politeness, Klemyl was less than pleased. Was that because of Rahl…or for some other reason? Rahl certainly hadn’t had anything other than passing contact with Klemyl.

For several moments, as the wagon picked up speed under a gray summer sky, Dymat was silent. Despite the high clouds, the air was warm and would be stifling by midday. Rahl’s nostrils burned slightly from the acridity in the air, and his eyes watered.

“What I do is simple, tedious, and vital to all of Hamor. In fact, this is true of what almost all the mage-guards do,” began Dymat, his voice overly loud, at least to Rahl. “The production of iron plate, beams, and rods is most important for all of Hamor. The mills turn the pig iron into plate and other materials. They operate at high pressures and temperatures and contain many steam engines that provide power for the mills. If chaos should gain a foothold anywhere, production could be slowed or even halted for days, if not eightdays.” Dymat smiled and looked at Rahl, as if expecting a response.

“I can understand that, ser.”

“Speak up, Rahl.”

“Yes, ser,” Rahl replied, more loudly.

“You will see steam engines and steam tugs the like of which exist nowhere else. Do you know why?” Dymat looked intently at Rahl.

Rahl tried to think of a possible reason. If keeping out chaos was so important…“Ser, is that because-”

Dymat didn’t seem to hear.

Rahl raised his voice. “Is that because those engines require the constant inspection of mage-guards to keep chaos away so that they will continue to work?”

“I see you can think. Not so quickly as one might wish,” bellowed Dymat, “but one cannot have everything in Luba. No, one cannot.”

Rahl merely nodded.

“We must keep chaos at bay all the time, and I will show you how.” Dymat turned and looked ahead.

The wagon followed the road to the north, in the direction of the loading docks, but then took the fork that continued farther west. Before long, they passed south of the southernmost of the coking furnaces, and then south of the lowest of the blast furnaces built on the inclined slope that stretched to the north.

As Rahl studied the west side of the furnaces, he realized that the slope had to have been built-possibly by magery-because the slope was far too regular and the west side had been cut away, so that each furnace was exactly the same distance above the one below. He also noted that great stone causeways ran from the west side of the furnaces to the mills.

The driver turned northward, following another paved road toward what looked to be the southernmost mill. Then the wagon reached one of the stone causeways. It jolted once, then again, as its iron tires crossed something. Rahl looked down. The wagon had passed over a pair of iron-lined grooves in the stone, set almost three cubits apart.

The driver turned westward on the center of the causeway, and Rahl noted that another set of iron grooves bordered the north side of the stone pavement. Ahead was the mill, so large that it stretched at least four hundred cubits from north to south, and even farther westward. Shortly, the wagon halted some fifty cubits short of the east end of the mill. A huge arched portal gaped before them, an opening fifty some cubits across, Rahl judged.

“We get off here,” announced Dymat, easing off the wagon.

Rahl joined him and walked beside the mage-guard toward the portal. He glanced back, but the wagon was on its way to take Klemyl to whatever his duty was. Rahl moistened his lips and took two hurried steps to catch up with Dymat.

From within the mill issued a thunderous rumbling, combined with dull and heavy impacts so powerful that the stone beneath Rahl’s feet vibrated. Occasional shrieks, as if iron itself were being torn apart, punctuated the rumbling thunder.

Then, from the right side of the portal, an enormous flat wagon rolled forward, pushed by what could only have been the steam tug mentioned by Dymat. Both the wagon and the steam tug had iron wheels almost as tall as Rahl, and both were constructed entirely of iron. The steam tug had long drivers attached to its wheels. It took him a moment to realize that the massive wheels fitted in the iron-lined grooves. The steam tug measured a solid thirty cubits in length, and a plume of gray smoke issued from a squat stack near the front of the tug.

“Nothing like that anywhere else!” shouted Dymat. “Did I not tell you?”

“You did,” Rahl called back, wondering how much pig iron or iron ingots the flatbed wagon could carry. He also couldn’t help but wonder why there were no massive steam engines elsewhere in Hamor and nothing like the giant steam tugs. Then he nearly shook his head. How could there be? If such machines required constant attention by ordermages, if there were many at all, they would require all the mages in Hamor.

Dymat walked toward the open portal of the mill, and Rahl followed. They stopped some thirty cubits inside the portal. Under the high roof, supported by wide stone columns, the mill stretched almost a kay from where Rahl stood, and the noise from the welter of machinery battered at him. The air above the far end of the mill was so hazy that the details of the brick columns there were blurred.