L. Modesitt - Natural Ordermage

Blacktop nodded. He eased the shovel into the coal and wiggled it so that there was a thinner layer of coal spread across the metal, then lifted it and eased the coal into place.

“Good. Styun never did figure that out.”

“Another shovel?”

“Against the back.”

Following Hasyn’s instructions, Blacktop loaded the firebox under the boiler, emptying the wheelbarrow, then took the wheelbarrow back for another two loads of coal. One he added to the fire, the other he left, with the shovel.

“Obliged,” said the steam mech. After a moment, he added, “There’s a wash-water barrel over there. It’s the one with the red slash. The blue one is for drinking.”

“Thank you.”

“Just don’t take the histories too serious. The scriveners who wrote them never worked a loading dock or much of anything.”

That was probably true enough, reflected Blacktop as he headed for the wash barrel to get the coal dust off his hands and arms. Then again, the mage-guard had said that he’d once been a scrivener.

For some reason, that thought created a tightness in his guts, and his fists had clenched without his even thinking about it. He forced himself to take a deep breath. Things were better than they had been. Getting angry wouldn’t help. It wouldn’t.

Except that he knew the anger and rage was still there, deep within.

For the next eightday, Blacktop continued his careful routine, following all instructions, and not intruding on anyone. The other checkers no longer stared at him-the shorter haircut by the barber on sevenday had doubtless helped with that-but none did more than address him civilly. While Hasyn, whom Blacktop often saw in the reading room, occasionally passed a few words with the younger man, mostly the steam mech remained pleasantly aloof.

On a sixday evening, with little else to do, Blacktop sat on one of the benches in the reading room, a heavy book in his hands. He glanced up at the sound of footsteps, then dropped his eyes to the text when he saw that the man entering the chamber was Hasyn.

“Still reading that balderdash?”

In fact, Blacktop had continued to read A World Geography and History. He knew that he would find something in it that would help him remember more of his past. He just didn’t know how or what.

“It’s interesting.”

“Ought to read something that’ll teach you.”

“After I finish this, you can suggest something.”

“By then, it’ll be high summer.”

“I don’t think I’ll be going anywhere, Hasyn.”

The mech laughed, eased a book from its place on the shelves, then took the bench farthest from the one occupied by Blacktop.

The checker reread the paragraph he had begun earlier.

…so-called founders of Recluce were anything but poor souls seeking a land for those oppressed by the hegemony of Fairhaven. Recluce was created by the machinations of the two most ambitious women in the history of Candar. The Tyrant of Sarronnyn colluded with the Marshal of Westwind in the consorting of the Tyrant’s younger sister to the son of the Marshal. The purported “exile” of the couple to Recluce was in fact a well-planned and well-financed effort designed to create another rival to Fairhaven and to reduce the ability of the High Wizard to circumscribe the depredations of both…The greatest irony of this effort was that their ploy resulted in the destruction of Westwind and the overshadowing of Sarronnyn by Recluce…

Blacktop paused, lowering the book slightly. He could not recall having read anything about Recluce, yet he did not think the words before him were right. Again…how could he know ?

Blacktop found his hands on cold iron-on a set of iron bars. He looked around. Someone was hurrying away from him, down the stone hallway outside the cell. How had he ended up in a cell? Was he still in Luba?

“So…” The voice was that of a guard who wore black, except for thin and bright blue piping on his tunic sleeves and cuffs. “How is our would-be mage tonight?”

Blacktop said nothing.

“Too bad Kacet can’t help you now. No one can.” The guard laughed. “Maybe the engineers can, but I wouldn’t count on it. No, I wouldn’t.” Then he turned and walked away.

Blacktop’s fingers tightened around the bars, as darkness-hot darkness-rose around him.

Abruptly, he was somewhere else, lying on his back, breathing rapidly. His body was damp with sweat, and heat radiated from him. An involuntary groan escaped him.

“Quiet!” hissed someone.

He closed his mouth. He was in the bunk room. He’d been dreaming, but the guard in the dream had called him a would-be mage, and said that someone couldn’t help him. The name should have been familiar, but it hadn’t been, and it had slipped away as he had awakened.

Had he once been a mage? Or had he tried to be one?

How could that have been?

He lay there for a long time. He’d had more dreams in the eightdays since he’d become a checker, but the one he’d just experienced had been the most vivid-and disturbing. He’d been in a cell. Had he really done something so terrible that he couldn’t remember it? So terrible that his memories and past had been taken away?

He shivered, suddenly cold, although the late-spring night was anything but cool.

After a time, his eyes closed.

Then, something awakened him, and he got out of his bunk, except it was a pallet in a small cubicle, and his feet carried him through the dark toward the front of a building that felt familiar, yet he could not remember ever being there. When he reached the front door, his eyes fixed on the bar that held the door closed. Something whitish was seeping through the thin gap between the door and frame. As it thickened, it tugged, then shoved the bar out of its brackets so that one end clunked to the floor, and the door swung open, and a man stepped inside, falchiona extended.

The man turned and whipped up his blade, but Blacktop was faster, and his truncheon cracked the man’s wrist and the bravo reeled back, out of sight, the falchiona clattering on the floor tiles.

Whhstt! A bolt of whiteness flew toward Blacktop, but it only splattered around him.

“We will have to handle you differently, dear boy,” came the languid words from the chaos-wizard who stepped inside the front door.

The words chilled Blacktop, but he forced himself toward the white-shadowed figure.

The wizard lifted a falchiona of whitish bronze, flicking it toward the truncheon that Blacktop carried, but Blacktop managed a parry and evaded the blade enough so that the truncheon touched the wizard’s forearm. Then Blacktop stepped inside and rammed the truncheon into the wizard’s throat. The wizard shuddered, and light flared, and the wizard began to collapse in upon himself.

Blacktop jerked awake, more sweat streaming down his face.

Had it been just a dream…or had he killed a white wizard?

For a long time, he sat on the edge of the bunk, trying not to think or remember, hoping he could go back to sleep without dreaming.

In time, he did sleep, and if he dreamed, at least, he did not remember those dreams when he dragged himself up at the morning bells. A cool shower helped…a little, but he couldn’t help but wonder if the reason he was in Luba was because he’d killed a mage. He didn’t know if he had, but he wasn’t about to ask anyone.

At breakfast, as he made his way to a table, he nodded to Hasyn, then to Zhulyn.

He’d no more than taken a sip of his beer when someone approached. “Blacktop…do you mind if I sit down?”

Blacktop had seen the checker, one of the few who looked close to his own age, looking at him closely, more than a few times.