L. Modesitt - Natural Ordermage

For all their drab coloration, the quality of the grays was far better than what he’d been wearing, and they seemed to fit better.

“Let’s see, young fellow,” growled Elina.

Rahl bristled inside at her tone, but pulled back the curtain and stepped forward.

Both women studied him.

Leyla nodded. So did Elina.

“They’ll do,” added the magistra.

“Now…for some boots. This way,” ordered the wardrobe mistress.

Rahl followed her to another series of bins, from which she extracted three pairs of brownish boots. He tried on five pairs before he and Elina were satisfied.

Then she handed him another set of grays and extra drawers. “That’ll do you.”

Leyla looked at him. “Just leave the old ones. They’ll wash them and use them for rags in the engineering halls.”

“Washrags?” he blurted.

“There’s no sense in wasting them, and they’re pretty worn. You’re expected to wear relatively clean clothes every day, and you’re responsible for washing them. You get two complete sets of garments, and four sets of underdrawers. You can put the second set in your room on the way back.”

Washing his own garments? Rahl didn’t mind chores, but washing was for women. Again, he bottled away the irritation.

Rahl was definitely feeling unsettled by the time he had unloaded his new garments and was walking into the building Leyla called the academy. The wardrobe mistress had measured him without touching him, and he’d seen more clothes, casually stored, than he’d ever seen anywhere in his life. He had the kind of boots merchants or Council Guards only wore, and his old perfectly serviceable clothes would be washed and then turned into rags. He’d met another exile whom he couldn’t sense, discovered he’d have to do wash and who knew what else, and found out about skills he’d never heard of. And it was still early in the day.

“We’ll go to the duty study. This is where you’ll meet the duty mage-or whoever’s working with you-every morning after breakfast. If someone’s not here, wait.” Leyla stepped through the entry arch, narrower than the others Rahl had seen, and opened the door.

“Yes, magistra.” To Rahl, the black stones of the building felt older than either the quarters building or the eating hall.

She led him into a small study with a square table and four chairs. At one side was a writing table, set under the window. “Sit down.” She closed the door and seated herself at the table.

Rahl took the indicated chair, across from the magistra.

“Before we start, do you have any questions? About anything.”

“The Council Guards said that there weren’t that many exiles sent to Nylan,” Rahl began, “but I saw a lot of people in the eating hall. The mess.”

Leyla nodded. “There aren’t that many from any one town in Recluce north of the wall, but there are scores of towns, and it takes anywhere from two seasons to a year, sometimes two, to train them to fit into Nylan or prepare them for exile. Unlike the Council, we just don’t throw people on ships or indenture them to merchants or slavers in other lands.”

Rahl still had his doubts about that, but merely nodded.

“Anything else?”

He had more than a few questions, but he really didn’t know how to ask them or whether he should. “I might later, when I’ve seen more.” He paused. “There is one. Can I write letters to my family to let them know where I am?”

“You can write all you want. The post fee is two coppers a page, roughly, for it to be carried to Land’s End.”

“I don’t have two coppers.”

“Right now, you get three coppers an eightday if your studies and your work are satisfactory. After four eightdays, if you’re still in good standing, it goes to five. You don’t get paid the first eightday, but after that you’ll get paid at the counter in the corner of the mess on sevenday after the midday meal.”

Three coppers wasn’t that much, but he didn’t have any real alternatives, and he was coming to like that less and less.

Leyla looked at Rahl. “What do you know about order? Tell me.”

“All the world is a mixture of order and chaos. Order is the structure of the world, and chaos is the destructive energy of the world….” Rahl went on to repeat what he’d learned from the magisters in Land’s End.

When he finished, Leyla nodded. “That’s what most magisters in the north teach. It’s mostly correct, but you need to know more. I’m going to tell you the basics, then I’m going to give you a book to read while you’re learning. You are to read at least five pages every day.” From somewhere she produced a black-covered book and handed it to Rahl. There was no title on the spine or the outside cover.

He opened it to the title page- The Basis of Order. He managed not to swallow as he realized it was the book that Magister Puvort had said was banned.

“For right now, you are not to discuss this book with anyone except a magister. Later, things will change.”

“Ah…could you tell me why?” Rahl still couldn’t believe what he held, and he wasn’t sure whether to be glad or worried.

“Because you don’t know what you think you know, and what you think you know is not what is, and both will conflict with what you will be reading. Talking with anyone who has not read and studied the book will just confuse you more at first. Later, we’ll encourage you to discuss it with others who have studied it.” She cleared her throat. “Why do you think we’re having you read this?”

“Because I might have some small ability with order?”

“Rahl…we wouldn’t bother with someone who had small abilities. Nor would that magister have sent you here. He’d either have ignored you or exiled you directly from all of Recluce. You can sense something about how most people feel, can’t you?”

“Sometimes,” he said cautiously.

“That’s how you got into trouble with the girl, wasn’t it?”

Rahl could feel himself flushing. He could feel some anger. What right did she have to accuse him?

“Wasn’t it?”

“Yes.” He tried not to sound sullen.

“Rahl!”

The power and the force in his name snapped him upright.

“You have abilities with order. Everything you do will affect someone. Either you learn what those abilities are and how to control them, or you will end up in someplace like Cigoerne-or the ironworks at Luba. You have great potential. Great power demands great responsibility. That is what you must learn if you expect to remain in Nylan.”

Magistra Leyla might well have been correct, Rahl thought, but he hated being lectured. That was one reason why he’d left lessons in Land’s End as soon as he could. Not only were lectures boring, but the people who lectured assumed that they knew better than he did what was good for him. Just like Puvort, who’d thought exiling Rahl was better than helping him. Or that Fahla should have been enslaved for not betraying her father.

Rahl forced a smile.

Leyla sighed. “You don’t really believe a word I’ve said. I just hope you read the book carefully. If I can’t get through to you, maybe it will.” She stood. “Right now, there’s little point in saying more. Let’s get you over to the Hamorian class.”

She opened the door and waited for Rahl to join her in the corridor. He glanced down at the wear-polished stone floor tiles. For all the cleanliness of the building, there was also a sense of great age, from the depressions worn in the stones to the slight rounding of the corner stones.

“We use immersion language studies. You’ll step into a setting where people are doing simple tasks, and all of them will be speaking Hamorian. You are not to say anything, except in Hamorian.”