L. Modesitt - Natural Ordermage

“The boiler in a Spidlarian merchanter exploded, and that filled the engine spaces with steam. Some is high temperature and high pressure, and they breathed it. If they breathed more than a little, slowly they lose the ability to breathe. It’s as if they breathed pure chaos. The ones who were closest have already died, but there’s one who might make it, except that…” She shook her head.

“What?”

“You’ll see. I don’t want to say more yet.” She walked several more paces before adding, “What you’ll see won’t be pleasant. Can you handle that?”

“I’ll handle it.”

Deybri laughed mirthlessly. “Just don’t look appalled.”

Rahl thought he could manage that.

Once they reached the infirmary, Deybri led Rahl past several empty beds. In looking at them, he could sense an aura of…something. Past the vacant beds was an area that was curtained off.

“Here.” She drew back the curtain slightly and held it so that Rahl could step through.

A man lay on the bed, his upper body propped up. The sailor’s eyes were closed. His forearms were swathed in dressings, and his face was swollen, a mass of blistered skin. With each labored breath, his chest shuddered with a gasping sound.

“He’s unconscious. Can you sense something within his chest?”

Rahl tried just to feel. Then he nodded. Within the man’s chest was a mass of whitish redness. It reminded him of both of the men who had attacked him. It wasn’t quite the same, but it was similar.

“He’s just on the borderline. If…if there were just a little less chaos there.” Deybri shook her head. “I just can’t do any more.”

Rahl looked at her, realizing that she was somehow…frailer. Not in body, but in something. Then he recalled what Leyla had told him about order. Deybri didn’t have any more to give as a healer.

He moved closer to the sailor until he stood almost next to the man. What could he do?

After a moment, he bent over and extended his hands, so that his fingers were almost touching the man’s chest, one set on each side. Then he tried to touch the man with gentle strokes of order across and within his chest.

How long that took he didn’t know, but when he began to feel light-headed, he stopped, then stepped back.

“That’s better,” Deybri said softly. “Can you hear the difference?”

Rahl wasn’t sure that he could. Was the sailor gasping less, breathing more easily? He looked at the man again, trying to sense the chaos. He thought there was less, but he really could not tell.

Deybri stepped back and lifted the curtain. “You’ve done all you can.”

Rahl stepped back beyond the curtain, and she let it fall.

“Thank you.”

“I hope it helped.”

“It did. We’ll just have to see how much.” She paused. “You’d better tell Magister Zastryl that you were helping me heal. You won’t have as much strength for a while.”

“I will.”

After they walked toward the front of the infirmary, away from the injured sailor, Rahl turned to the healer. “Is there a difference between wound chaos and chaos? They don’t seem quite the same to me.”

“They’re not. To me, wound chaos is a little darker and redder.”

“It’s uglier.”

Deybri nodded. “I think that’s because it’s part chaos and part sickness.”

“Couldn’t a white mage help healing by using the chaos to destroy the sickness?” asked Rahl.

“That would take very good control. Pure chaos destroys things. If you’d used chaos on him, you would have destroyed his lungs.”

“Oh…” Rahl shook his head. “Of course.”

“I’ve been told that there have been chaos healers, but they almost have to be gray mages.”

Rahl had never heard of gray mages. “There are gray mages? Who can do both black and white magery?”

“It’s more like some of each,” replied Deybri. “Some say that Cerryl the Great had to have been a gray mage because he built too much that lasted for it to have been accomplished by a white wizard.”

Rahl really didn’t want to leave, but he was already late for arms practice.

“You need to go, but tell Zastryl what you were doing. He won’t mind.”

Rahl hoped Deybri was right. He smiled at her. “I hope I’ll see you later.”

She only smiled in return, enigmatically.

Rahl struggled to get up on both sevenday and eightday morning, but it was harder on eightday. Was that because he didn’t have that much to do, except read The Basis of Order and think?

He took a shower, and the sun-heated water was almost lukewarm, probably because it was getting into late summer, when the days and nights were warmer, and on an eightday when not so many people got up early to bathe and wash up. He dressed and made his way to the mess, where he was sitting alone, slowly eating, when Kadara walked into the hall and sat down across from him.

“It was good of you to help Deybri the other day.”

“She needed it. How could I say no?” He paused. “I suppose I should have asked how he is doing.”

“He died last night.”

Rahl winced. Should he have gone back and offered more help?

“You couldn’t have done any more. He didn’t die from the lungs. He was older, and his heart gave out. Healing doesn’t always work, even when you do everything right. I’m not here to blame you. You did what any good mage would have done.”

“You’re telling me so that I don’t remind Deybri about him?”

Kadara shook her head, but Rahl sensed no negative feelings. “Sometimes, you understand so much…and other times…” She rose. “I just wanted you to know.”

“Thank you, magistra.”

After Kadara left, Rahl pondered what she had said…and what she had not.

He also couldn’t help but worry about his own lack of progress in understanding what he was doing with order. It seemed as though he could either do something, or not do it, and when he could do things, he couldn’t figure out how he had done them. He just did them. When he couldn’t do things, he didn’t seem to be able to figure out how, and sometimes he didn’t have the faintest idea how to accomplish tasks that the book suggested were simple.

Rahl dawdled over his breakfast, but finally finished the last mug of cider, and was about to roust himself to rinse his dishes when he saw Meryssa hurrying into the mess. She glanced around, then walked toward Rahl. “Have you seen Khalyt? I thought he might be here.”

“No. I haven’t seen him this morning.” Rahl looked at her, then asked, “Is everything all right?”

“Yes.” Her smile was rueful. “I should say that everything is going as it’s supposed to. I just wanted to say good-bye to Khalyt,” Meryssa said. “I’m leaving this afternoon. Well…I won’t be leaving Nylan yet, but I have to report to the ship.”

“The ship is that Legacy one?”

“The Legacy of Westwind. ”

Rahl offered an encouraging smile. “You’ll do well.”

“I might, but you’re just humoring me.”

“I’m wishing you well by saying that you will do well.”

“I like that better, Rahl.” Meryssa glanced around the mess. “You take care of yourself.”

“Thank you.”

Rahl waited until she had left the mess before standing and taking his dishes to the rinse buckets. Then he stepped out of the hall into the bright summer sun and hot early morning that promised a sweltering day.

He walked slowly to the infirmary, where he opened the door, stepping inside cautiously.

Within moments, Kelyssa appeared. Rahl had only met the younger healer once before.

“Rahl, isn’t it?”

“Yes. I was looking for Deybri.”