L. Modesitt - Natural Ordermage

“No…please do.” He was getting more than a little tired of being ignored by the other checkers.

“I’m Masayd. I used to be a clerk in Swartheld. Did you work there? Hasyn said that you had a clerk’s hand and that you wrote like a merchanting clerk.”

Blacktop shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t remember anything much before Luba. Someone told me I’d been given a potion so that I wouldn’t remember.” He paused. “What kind of clerk were you?”

“I was the junior clerk with Chalyndyr Brothers. They said I burned the ledgers to hide the coins I’d stolen.” Masayd shook his head. “The whole three years I was there, I maybe managed to slip a silver out of the excess that wasn’t covered. I never burned anything, but that lying Ventaryl swore I did, and he was a mage-guard. That was after the other one vanished. Mage-guards were questioning everyone who wasn’t bonded in gold. No outlanders, of course. They still need the trade from places like Nylan and Brysta and Valmurl.” He looked at Blacktop speculatively. “You don’t remember anything?”

Blacktop considered. “I had a dream…the other night. Maybe it was a memory, about a white wizard who followed a bravo into a building. I drove off the bravo, and the wizard said that he’d have to handle me differently.”

Masayd stiffened. “Do you remember how the wizard spoke?”

Blacktop managed to offer an indifferent smile, eager as he was to hear what the former clerk might be able to tell him. “He spoke slowly, but it was lazy-like, and he called me ‘dear boy.’ That was in the dream anyway.”

The clerk paled, and his jaw tightened. “That…that sounds like Asmyd. He was the one who disappeared. He always called all the clerks ‘dear boy.’ He was a slut sow’s ass.” After a moment, he asked, “Don’t you remember anything more?”

“There was a flash of white, and then I woke up.” Blacktop wasn’t about to say that he’d killed the wizard, even in his dreams.

“They…they framed you, too, then.” Masayd shook his head more violently. “They said I had something to do with his disappearing, but I didn’t. I didn’t. That lying bastard Ventaryl…” For a time, Masayd just looked down at the table.

Blacktop forced himself to eat slowly. Had Masayd been sent to Luba because of what Blacktop had done? Or had something more happened? There had to have been more…But what if there hadn’t been? What if he had just killed the mage, and Masayd had been sent to Luba for it?

“Blacktop?”

“Yes?” He paused. “It might only have been a dream. I just don’t remember more.”

Masayd shivered and shook his head. “We’ve been framed. They wouldn’t have blanked you if something hadn’t been all wrong. I just wish you could remember more.”

“So do I.” That was more than true, yet Blacktop had to wonder if he really wanted to know all that he’d done.

Suddenly, Masayd stood. “Thank you. That helped. It really did.”

“I wish I could remember more,” Blacktop said.

“Maybe you will.” With that and a faint smile, Masayd headed for the rinse racks.

Blacktop had to hurry to finish his breakfast and get out front to catch his wagon. Even though the sun was still a low glow behind the perpetual gray haze of the valley, he found he was beginning to sweat just standing and waiting. Once the wagon arrived, he sat beside Hasyn, although neither spoke on the trip to the loading dock.

He had just finished helping the steam mech load the boiler and returned to the checker’s kiosk when another wagon-one of the smaller ones-rolled down the lane and came to a stop at the south end of the dock. The angular and thin-faced older mage-guard-Taryl-hurried up the low steps and made his way toward Blacktop. Blacktop hadn’t seen him since the first day that Taryl had brought him to the plate-loading dock.

Moryn moved forward, then just inclined his head and stepped back.

“I won’t be that long,” Taryl said in passing to the chief supervisor.

“Ser?” asked Blacktop.

“Blacktop…I’ve heard that you’ve been reading during your free time.”

“Yes, ser.”

“What have you read?”

“ A World Geography and History …that’s all.”

“A good choice for a man who has no history or memory.” Taryl paused. “Do you remember anything more?”

“I remember a building with a barred door, and I was on the inside. It was a building, not a dwelling, and it was dark.”

“Hmmmm…” The mage-guard frowned. “Turn this way. Close your eyes.”

Much as he did not wish to, Blacktop did. He felt something , the faintest tingling.

“Open them. Did you feel anything?”

“My head tingled…just a little.”

Taryl nodded. “I’m not surprised.”

Blacktop didn’t like that, either.

“Do you recall ever wearing a copper bracelet on your wrist?”

“No, ser. I don’t remember anything that I wore.”

“If you remember that, or anything that you think is important, tell one of the guards that you need to have me see you. Do you understand? Don’t wait.”

“Yes, ser.” Blacktop understood. He also understood he might be in even more trouble if he did remember who he had been and what he had done.

Moryn waited until the mage-guard and the wagon were well away from the loading dock before he approached Blacktop. “What was that all about?”

“I don’t know, ser. He asked me if I had been reading, and if I remembered any more. I told him I’d had dreams, but I didn’t know what they were. He said he’d check with me every so often.”

Moryn frowned. “They want you to remember something. I hope for your sake that it’s good.”

So did Blacktop, but with the dreams he’d had of killing two men, and maybe more, he was less and less certain that he wanted to remember-or that it was to his advantage.

“Here comes the first wagon.” Moryn turned. “Hasyn! Get that hoist ready!”

Blacktop laid out the forms and the pen and inkwell, then blotted his forehead. It was going to be a hot day, and full summer was still eightdays away.

On fourday night, after dinner, as he did almost every night, Blacktop retired to the reading room. It was a space seldom frequented by any other than Hasyn and himself-at least not while he was there. At that moment, Blacktop had the small chamber to himself, and he extracted the World Geography and History from its place on the shelf and opened it to where he had left off reading the night before.

He had only read a few pages when the words seemed to leap off the page at him, as if they were tiny arrows aimed at his eyes.

Recluce is ruled by a Council of Magisters, all of whom are black mages, and generally at least half are women, as a result of the heritage forced on the isle by its founders, Creslin and Megaera…

Well over a century ago, after a series of naval engagements between Recluce and the Hegemony of Fairhaven in which the so-called black engineers unveiled a new class of steam-powered vessel that was extremely effective in decimating the Hegemony fleet, the “black engineers” created an engineering enclave and built the then-new city of Nylan at Southpoint on the southern tip of Recluce. To this day, a black wall divides the majority of Recluce from the enclave, even though virtually all trade now passes through Nylan. Nominally, however, the capital city remains Land’s End at the northernmost point of Recluce, a matter of history and pride by the ruling magisters…

“The ruling magisters…the ruling magisters…” He mouthed the words, and they echoed through his thoughts, battering at him.

Magister … magister …it was just a word, but it was more than a word, and he did not know why.