L. Modesitt - Natural Ordermage

As the afternoon was coming to a close, and the sun hung just over the low mountains to the west of Land’s End, there was a knock on the workroom door.

“Rahl…”

“I’ll get it.” Rahl got up and headed on to the door.

Magister Puvort stood there.

“Magister,” Rahl inclined his head, “how might we help you?”

“Is your father here?”

“Yes, ser.”

“Good. I need to talk to both of you.”

Rahl stepped back, and Puvort moved into the workroom, a stolid presence of order, embodying a blackness even deeper than the black of his tunic and trousers, or the polished black boots he wore.

Kian started to rise.

“You can keep your seat, Kian. I won’t be long.” The magister offered a smile, an expression of courtesy, carrying little warmth. “You may have heard that the Council has been forced to act against those who would bring chaos into Recluce. We have acted, and we will continue to act, as we must.” He looked to Kian. “Although you have no abilities in handling order, scrivener, you have always acted in accord with order, and for that the Council is pleased.” His eyes went to Rahl. “For those who may have ability with order, there is always a choice-order or chaos. That is not as simple as it sounds, because failing to make a choice is also a decision, and that apparent lack of decision often leads to chaos.”

The magister offered another smile and moved toward Kian. “Your work on the notices was excellent.” He extended a small pouch. “Here is your payment, and it includes an additional token for timeliness and craftsmanship.”

“Thank you, magister. We do appreciate it.”

“As does the Council.” Puvort glanced at Rahl. “And Rahl, I trust you’ll come to me with your decision on oneday. I’ll be…traveling…until late on eightday.” With a slight inclination of his head, Puvort turned and departed.

Not until the magister was well out of earshot did Kian speak. “What did he mean by saying you had to decide, Rahl?”

“Well…ser…on fourday, when you sent me for the pen nibs…” Rahl explained what Puvort had said about his small order abilities and the possibility of training by the magisters and magistras.

“And you don’t want to do it? Rahl…are your brains all in your trousers? Do you see the garments the ordermasters wear, and how respected they are? No scrivener is ever that well-off and respected.”

“I could end up in Nylan or exiled,” Rahl pointed out. “Puvort said that was always possible.”

“So you could,” admitted Kian. “And if you have those abilities, and they are not properly trained, do you think you’d end up anywhere else?”

For a moment, Rahl just stood there, thinking. He didn’t like to admit it, and in fact, he hated the idea, but his father had a point. He took a deep breath. “Best I go and see Magister Puvort first thing on oneday.”

“Why not now?”

Rahl gestured at the window, which showed a sun already touching the rugged horizon. “They close the Black Holding just before sunset, and Magister Puvort said he wouldn’t be there until oneday and to see him then.”

“Sometimes…”

Rahl knew what Kian would have said, that at times Rahl put off doing things when he shouldn’t. Still, there was little enough he could do at the moment.

“I’ll go see Shahyla on end-day and Magister Puvort early on oneday.” He thought the mention of Shahyla might divert his father’s attention from himself.

“Do you like her?”

“She’s pleasant, and pretty enough, and she’s brighter than I recalled,” Rahl said.

His father laughed.

Rahl forced himself to laugh as well, little as he felt like it.

Sevenday dawned hazy and warm, but at least Kian hadn’t insisted Rahl join him in a sparring session, and there had even been a piece of leftover green-apple-cracker pie for breakfast. Midday dinner had been even better, with breaded cutlets and brown gravy with roasted potatoes.

That had taken Rahl’s mind off all the things that were nagging at him. He still worried about Fahla, and Jienela, and especially about having to go to the magisters for instruction in using order. To be a scrivener, he didn’t need instruction, but after he’d seen Balmor carted off, he couldn’t afford not to take the magisters’ instruction and teaching. But that didn’t make him any happier about it, especially not after what he’d seen and heard during the past eightday.

With all those thoughts on his mind, the afternoon dragged, and he had trouble concentrating on Philosophies of Candar. Each stroke of the pen took special effort.

“Rahl…Rahl…are you listening?”

Rahl jerked himself to attention. “Yes, ser?”

“I said I’m going down to see if Clyndal has gotten in any iron-brimstone. Or if he knows who might have backing clips.” Kian shook his head. “You get a good factor, and he’s never satisfied. They’re either sloppy and could care less, like old Hostalyn, or they’re doing what they shouldn’t, like that Kehlyrt fellow. I don’t know how long I’ll be. You did a good job on Tales of the Founders and on the Natural Arithmetics, but you’ll need to be even neater on this one.”

After his father had left, Rahl looked out the windows at the corner closest to the garden, where a traitor bird had landed on the low stone wall, calling out to anyone who would listen that a cat-or something-lurked in the parsley and brinn patches. His mother had harvested some more of the early brinn and had taken some sprigs to Elantria, the old healer who lived in a neat but modest cottage beyond Sevien’s dwelling.

Finally, Rahl forced himself back to the copying at hand. The philosophy book was easier…and harder than the mathematics book had been. It was easier because he could read it as he copied, but harder because the words seemed to twist back and around on themselves. He read the paragraph again.

…there is no school of thought or of mental debate developed within or upon Candar that cannot cite or claim in its defense at least one obscure principle from the fragments remaining from the Code of Cyador…yet presented within this tome will be a unified and concrete cosmological system of thought, developed in complete synchrony with its own categoreal notions and implications, which can stand any test raised by the philosophy of organism, since all relatedness has its foundation in the relatedness of actualities, relatedness being established as that which is dominated by quality and subordinate only to quality as defined in Cyadoran sense of sensibility…

He’d read that part at least three times, and while he thought he understood the meaning of almost every single word, he still did not have the faintest idea what all the words together meant.

Thwump!

Rahl looked up with a start.

A stocky young man with truncheon in hand stood just inside the workroom. It was Jaired-Jienela’s brother. The grower stepped toward Rahl, who hastily cleaned his pen and set it aside.

“Jaired…what can I do for you?” The question sounded inane, even to Rahl, but he had to say something.

“You’ll take her for your consort,” announced Jaired. While he was not so tall as Rahl, Jaired was older and stockier, and he did have his truncheon in hand.

Rahl’s was still in his small sleeping chamber. He’d never thought he’d need it while he was copying.

“Take who for what?” Rahl attempted to show surprise. “What are you talking about?”

“You know well enough what I’m saying.”

“You’re wrong,” Rahl persisted. “I have no idea what you’re talking about or where you got this idea.” He rose from behind the copying table and closed the Philosophies of Candar.