L. Modesitt - Natural Ordermage

Dymat gestured, then bent his head so that he was effectively shouting into Rahl’s right ear. “The pigs come in hot, but not hot enough for milling. They go through what they call a regenerative furnace, then a hammer forge and a cogging mill. That’s where they get cut and shaped into the slabs that go into the plate mill here. The slabs are about a hundred stones, and they get rolled by the big flywheel engines. The wheels are more than seven thousand stones, and they flatten the iron to whatever the thickness necessary. Most are quarter span, but for warship armament, they sometimes produce plate that’s a full span in thickness. Just follow me.” The mage-guard turned and began to walk down the open space on the left side of the towering furnace, from which waves of heat welled. The furnace looked more like a huge oblong box, but Dymat spent little time inspecting it, looking at it almost cursorily as he passed. At the end of the furnace was a set of massive rollers, each as large as Rahl’s own body, set in an even more massive frame that extended from the slot in the back of the furnace to the next assembly, presumably the hammer forge, Rahl thought.

The hammer forge was even higher than the regenerative furnace. Through the structure of iron beams and supports, Rahl could make out what looked more like an enormous oblong that rose…slowly, and then came down with great force. With each impact on the red iron, iron sparks flew; the stone floor shook; and hot air gusted around him, air that was metallically acrid.

Dymat took a few steps, paused, studied, then took a few more, slowly making his way toward the western end of the giant forging apparatus. There he stopped well short of it and studied it for a long time.

Rahl had no idea whether the ordermage found any chaos or not, because not only were his normal senses battered and numbed, but he had no feeling at all in the way of order-senses. But because Dymat did not seem disturbed, Rahl had the feeling that nothing was amiss.

At the west end, while Dymat continued to study the forge, Rahl watched as a section of reddish iron moved slowly over another set of the massive rollers toward the next assembly. Two men stood by a set of enormous levers. One looked briefly at the mage-guard, but his eyes went back to the slab emerging from the hammer forge and rollers that held and carried it forward.

The heat from the forge and the mill was far more intense than anything Rahl had felt as a loader.

Dymat paused and motioned for Rahl to join him.

Rahl nodded and stepped forward.

“Plate mill!” announced Dymat, gesturing toward the next assembly. “Slabs from the hammer forge come in here to the first set of pinions, then to the roughing rolls, and finally the smoothing rolls. Any chaos in the pinions or the rolls, and we’d have iron and steel exploding all over the mill. That’s because they’re turning, and there’s already chaos being structure-trapped into the iron. You can see the chaos-red of the slabs. The iron can hold great chaos, even when heated to melting, but chaos in the mill…that’s something else.”

Again, Rahl followed as Dymat slowly inspected the plate mill. Once more, Rahl could sense nothing.

As he followed and watched the order mage-guard, Rahl was more than certain that, if there were any way he could avoid it, he wanted no part of being a mage-guard at the ironworks.

By the time Rahl had finished his day with Dymat and climbed aboard the wagon back to the mage-guard station, his eyes and lungs burned. His ears rang, and all he could smell was hot metal.

“Isn’t it a grand place?” demanded Dymat.

Grand? That was one word for it, Rahl supposed. He nodded, then added, “Yes, ser.”

There was just enough time before dinner for him to wash up and get the grime off his face and hands and out of the corners of his eyes. Even so, he was the last at the juniors’ table in the station mess.

He could barely wait for the servers to place the pitcher of lager on the table, but he still allowed Talanyr and Rhiobyn to fill their mugs first. Then he filled his mug and immediately took a long swallow to ease his throat. After the fumes of the mill and having to shout to make himself heard to Dymat, his throat felt raw.

He immediately refilled the mug.

“Where did you go today?” asked Rhiobyn.

“The mill…with Dymat.”

“Are you hoarse?” asked Talanyr with a grin, keeping his voice low.

Rahl nodded.

“It’s not my favorite duty,” Talanyr added.

Rhiobyn smiled broadly. “They won’t even let us near the mills or the blast furnaces, except to light off a cold furnace. It’s another benefit of being on the chaos side.” He stopped as a server set a platter of burhka and noodles in the middle of the table and a basket of bread on the side.

“How can you even sense chaos in all that?” asked Rahl.

Talanyr shrugged. “I can’t. It might be that being partly deaf helps.” He frowned. “But Taryl can, and so can Dymetrost. It could just take higher-level order-skills.”

Rahl nodded. That might be possible, and he was far from having any real control over whether his order-senses were present or not. Being able to sense chaos in the mills might be a true test of sorts, not that he was looking forward to anything along those lines. He filled his platter with the burhka and noodles, then took a small mouthful and a bite of bread.

“How is the arms training coming?” asked Talanyr.

Rahl swallowed before answering. “Much better. Khaill seems pleased, and I don’t get many bruises anymore. I still sweat a lot. He makes you work hard.”

Rhiobyn and Talanyr exchanged glances. Finally, Talanyr spoke. “If you’re really good with weapons, you might get assigned to a city patrol station.”

“From here?”

“It does happen, more than you think,” Rhiobyn said. “That’s for clerks and junior mage-guards. Most of the seniors will stay here.”

“Is that because…?” Rahl decided not to say more.

“It depends,” replied Talanyr. “Some of the mage-guards actually want to stay here. Dymat likes his duties here. So does Dymetrost. Others prefer it to Highpoint or coastal duty in the north.”

“If you could choose,” asked Rahl, “where would you like to be stationed?”

“Someplace smaller near Atla. Really, I’d like Rymtukbo, but that’s too close to Jabuti, and you never get stationed near your hometown. It’s too hard to be fair if you know people. Sometimes, they’ll move a mage-guard who’s gotten too friendly, too. They do it more than once, and he’s likely to end up here.”

Rahl could see why the Triad would follow that policy, but was it necessary for all mage-guards?

He stifled a yawn and then took another mouthful of dinner. It had been a long and tiring day.

On fourday and fiveday, Rahl spent most of his time back in the copying room, because, whenever he was gone, the reports tended to pile up. At the end of each day, Taryl sent him off to spar with whoever was working out in the weapons exercise room, but more often than not, he ended up against Khaill or Taryl himself.

Right after midday on sixday, Taryl entered the copying room, carrying his satchel. “Finish up whatever reports you’re working on and meet me in the training chamber.”

“Yes, ser.”

Taryl nodded and was gone.

“When he does that, I get worried,” offered Talanyr from the other end of the table.

“You two have it easy,” suggested Rhiobyn. “They don’t throw chaos-bolts at you.”

“Not yet,” Talanyr replied, “but wait until an ordermage drops a shield around you, and you can’t draw chaos from anywhere, and then he starts in on you with a staff or a truncheon reinforced with order.”