L. Modesitt - Natural Ordermage

“I’ll see what I can do. Thank you.” Rahl smiled and made his way from the building. He didn’t want to talk to Craelyt, and he didn’t like the fact that the captain was nowhere to be found. Yet what could he do?

He couldn’t just report his suspicions, not after the captain had pointedly told him not to investigate anything to do with his past, and yet he didn’t feel that he could just let things happen, not the way he felt.

Finally, he turned toward Swartheld itself and walked southward through the darkness beside the road from the piers. When he neared the pier-guard station, he raised the light shield, keeping well away from Suvynt. The night mage-guard turned and studied the area along the wall from the pier gate, but when Suvynt turned away, Rahl climbed up the low wall, still holding his light shield. That wasn’t hard, since the wall had been designed far more to keep wagons out of the pier area than to stop single individuals from leaving.

Once on the other side, Rahl moved a good hundred cubits away from the piers before dropping the shield. Once he reached the section of the avenue where it divided into two sections, he crossed the pavement and took the walkway that ran down the middle, moving at a fast clip, truncheon in hand. Overhead, the leaves of the giant false acacias rustled in the slight evening breeze that brought a faint scent of cooking from somewhere.

He passed a couple on one bench, and neither more than looked at him. Two young men nodded politely as they passed him, and Rahl only sensed mild apprehension. Then, as he neared another bench closer to the boulevard, someone sprinted away across the far side of the avenue. Rahl did not follow him.

When he neared the Nylan Merchant Association, he could tell that Eneld’s cantina was still open, as much as from the boisterous voices as from the mixed odors of melted cheeses and fried meats.

…sailors are a fearsome lot but never fear,

A sailor’s gone so much he’s never here…

Laughter greeted the last line of the song.

Rahl shook his head. Even from across the boulevard, he could feel the diffuse white chaos, far stronger than the last time he had passed by, but he walked farther to the west before crossing the street, using a passing carriage as partial cover, and then headed back eastward.

From a good fifty cubits away, Rahl could see that the warehouse gates to the Merchant Association were shut. He could also sense two guards, and possibly three, stationed in the courtyard near the gates. While the warehouse doors were also closed, Rahl felt that there were more than a few people inside.

Before reaching the ironwork gates, Rahl raised his light shield, and then began to climb the brick wall, carefully, and as quietly as possible. Just before the top, his left trouser leg caught on a projection or a rough brick, and he almost lost his balance and nearly tumbled backward. Breathing heavily, he hung on and lowered his leg, eventually working it free and creeping upward. At the top, he peered over, but did not see or sense anyone nearby.

Climbing down was almost as difficult, because he did not wish to land hard enough to alert the guards. He finally stood in the shadowed corner between the warehouse and the outer wall, dropping the light shield and using his order-senses to survey the courtyard.

Two guards watched the gates, and three men were harnessing a team before the stables under a single lantern. Across the courtyard, the door to the Association building was open. As Rahl watched, two other men each carried two large buckets inside, then returned almost immediately with their buckets clearly lighter, only to fill them from the barrel set just outside the door. From what Rahl could discern, both men were Jeranyi.

He had to hurry, and he had no time to return to the mage-guard station. Girding his light shield around him, he moved quickly along the front of the first warehouse until he came to the door. He paused for a moment. There had been no light from the quarters above, and he didn’t sense any life there, and there should have been. Yasnela never left the quarters in the evening in the middle of an eightday, and Daelyt never left her. Rahl’s lips tightened.

The warehouse door was latched from the inside, but he could smell vinegar, an odor so powerful that it forced its way out through the narrow crack between the sliding doors. Rahl took another step, and his boot skidded off a rope that ran between the doors on the stone. He staggered but caught his balance.

His truncheon was too wide, but his small belt knife might be thin enough to reach the latch through the crack and lever it up. He eased the knife from his belt and slipped it between the timbered edges of the two doors. The tip just barely reached the metal latch bar, but skittered off the metal.

Could he somehow lengthen the end of the blade with order?

Rahl concentrated on that, but either the order-extension wasn’t long enough or strong enough because the blade tip still skittered off the iron. Then he placed the blade tip against the latch lever or plate, concentrating on linking the two with order, and slowly sliding the blade upward.

The latch unlocked with a muffled clunk.

Rahl froze for a moment, certain that someone must have heard, so loud had the sound appeared to him. But the men harnessing the wagon teams didn’t even look up. After a moment, Rahl slowly eased the doors apart, just wide enough for him to slip into the dark warehouse. He managed to avoid the rope as well. Quiet as he tried to be, his soft footsteps echoed slightly.

Even with his night vision, it was difficult to make out much in the dark space before him, but he used both vision and order-senses to survey the warehouse quickly. He did so a second time because all the racks were empty, and except for a row of barrels near the door, there were no signs of any goods anywhere. Not any goods…not a single barrel, bale, or crate. Not even a single amphora.

Why was it totally empty?

When he turned his attention away from the storage area, he realized there was a figure lying on the stone floor beside the barrels. Rahl stepped closer. The dead man was Chenaryl, and his body lay sprawled on his back. His throat had been cut. Rahl glanced upward. How many had the Jeranyi killed beside Chenaryl, Daelyt, and Yasnela? He paused only for a moment. He didn’t have time to dwell on that, nor did he want to. Not now.

Nine barrels beyond the body stood on their ends, the heads removed. The tenth smelled of vinegar and a long rope led away from it, the one that ran to the doors. Rahl inspected the nine quickly. All were marked as containing Feyn River pickles, but the staves inside were dry. One held a scrap of cloth caught between the edges of two staves.

He nodded. The barrels had held Jeranyi, but why had they wanted such concealment? The tenth held cammabark-the rope was a long fuse. He didn’t have the answers as to why the warehouse was empty or why Jeranyi wanted to fire the Merchant Association compound, and he wouldn’t find them in an empty warehouse.

Rahl slipped out through the narrow opening in the doors and, once more under the concealment of his light shield, made his way toward the rear warehouse. He slowed and flattened himself against the rough stone wall in the alcove between the two warehouses as he sensed Jeranyi carrying wooden buckets with covered tops through the open doors of the second warehouse to the two wagons waiting in front of the stables where the teams were being hitched.

“Move it!” hissed someone. “Think we got all night?”

“You took your time with that woman upstairs…”

Rahl pushed away the sickening feeling.

“Keep the buckets away from the lanterns!” snapped another voice in a sibilant order.