L. Modesitt - Natural Ordermage

“Rahl…powerful mages start showing traces of ability young, but they keep getting stronger long after those with less ability-if they work at it properly.”

Rahl was silent. Did he actually have a chance of regaining his abilities?

“We will have to send to see if they have any records remaining in Swartheld.”

“With my luck, ser, those will have vanished as I did.”

“That may be, but we will see.”

“Ah, ser. What do I do now? Keep on as a checker at the loading dock?”

“That would not be wise for anyone, but particularly for you. The mage-guards can always use clerks, especially here in Luba, and being around mages might help you regain your abilities. Besides, that’s where all mage-guards start in any case.” Taryl paused. “You didn’t say exactly, except about order-skills, but you were considered a black mage?”

“Of sorts. The magisters in Nylan said that I was a natural ordermage, and that I’d amount to little because, while I had skills, I was unable to learn others. I could either do things or not, but I never seemed able to learn what I couldn’t do.”

“There is a place for every level and type of mage in Hamor.” Taryl’s voice turned wry. “It may not be what one expected, but mages are not wasted or turned away here.”

Rahl could hear the irony in the older man’s voice, and couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. Taryl had certainly not planned to be a mage in Luba.

The mage-guard turned and walked down the dock to the checker’s kiosk and Chylor.

Rahl followed, hoping he hadn’t upset Taryl.

“I’ll be taking…him…with me,” announced the mage-guard.

“Yes, ser. Ah…did he do something wrong?”

“No. Something wrong was done to him, we think.”

To Rahl’s eyes, the supervisor looked almost disappointed, but Rahl was more than glad to follow the mage-guard to the wagon.

On fiveday evening, Rahl sat at the junior’s table in the mage-guard’s mess, with two others-Rhiobyn and Talanyr. He’d been issued two sets of khaki garments, similar to those worn by the mage-guards, except without any insignia, and a pair of heavy black boots that matched his new belt. His hair had been cut short, and the mages’ barber had shaved him. He’d been given a kit with a razor as well, and was sharing an actual room with Talanyr, not a bunk room. He’d even been given a truncheon, although it was of oak, rather than lorken. It had been provided with the caution that weapons were not worn inside the station, but always outside.

While Rahl still could not order-sense whether mage-guards were ordermages or chaos-mages, he realized that all he had to do was look at their belts. Those who wore clips for a falchiona scabbard were chaos-mages, and those who wore the short retaining harness for a truncheon were ordermages.

Before him was a meal on a crockery platter-biastras, with pan-fried flat bread on the side. The beverage was not leshak, but a heavier ale. In the mage-guards’ mess, in addition to the juniors’ table, were two long tables for the mage-guards. One held seven women, and the other eleven men, although Rahl could hear comments back and forth between the tables.

He wrapped the bread around the biastra and took a modest bite. Spicy as the marinated meat was, it was not as hot as what he had tasted in Nylan. Either that, or he had gotten better used to the more highly seasoned Hamorian fare.

“How did you get here?” asked Rhiobyn, a youth who looked younger than Rahl and was more than a head shorter. “You sound like you come from Atla, except you speak better.” His black eyes darted from Rahl to Talanyr.

“Good recovery, Rhiobyn,” said Talanyr dryly.

The younger mage-clerk flushed under his olive skin.

“Someone drugged me with nemysa,” Rahl said. “Mage-Guard Taryl discovered I could write when I started to get back some of my memories…” He continued with a brief explanation of what had happened after that.

“Taryl’s a good sort,” offered Talanyr quietly. “He’s a lifer here, though.”

“Why is that?” asked Rahl.

Even Rhiobyn leaned forward.

“I don’t know exactly, but he did something to upset the Emperor’s brother’s mistress. That was when Halmyt was Emperor.”

“Is Mythalt the Emperor now?”

“Where have you been?” asked Rhiobyn.

“I lost my memory, remember? He was the Emperor before that happened. I haven’t heard any news in something like two seasons.”

“He still is,” Talanyr said. “He’ll be Emperor for a long time. He’s less than half a score older than I am.”

“What’s he like?”

Talanyr shrugged. “He’s the Emperor. Who knows what an Emperor’s like? I’d imagine he likes women and good food and being in charge. Who wouldn’t?”

“Have there ever been mages who were Emperors?” Rahl ate another biastra, enjoying the taste of what he was thinking of as real food.

“The histories say that Sanacur the Great was, but that was a long time ago. Not recently, unless they’ve kept it hidden.”

“How do you know all that?” Rhiobyn slurped his beer slightly. “I’m sorry.”

“My father was the local scholar. He ran the school,” replied Talanyr. “He insisted I know more than any of the other students.”

“Where are you from?” Rahl asked.

“Jabuti-it’s a little town in Afrit that’s almost on the border with Merowey, in the western highlands.”

“How did you get here?”

“How does anyone end up as a mage-trainee?” Talanyr laughed, softly. “I was ten, I think, when I decided to strengthen with order a basket I’d broken because I didn’t want anyone to find out. I got away with it and a few other things for nearly five years, until a friend of my father visited us. He was an ordermage. Well, he wasn’t that good a mage, and he’d been the historian of the mage-guards, but he could sense order and chaos. Since the Codex forbids isolated mages, except healers, before I knew it, I was in the juniors’ school in Cigoerne, and, after four years, on my way here.”

The Hamorian Codex forbid isolated mages? Magister Thorl had never mentioned that, Rahl realized.

“Who did you piss off?” asked Rhiobyn.

“Everyone, I think. The school head said that I concealed enormous arrogance behind a facade of politeness and humility.” Talanyr finished his ale and picked up the pitcher in the center of the table, half-refilling the mug.

Rahl wondered if the school head had confused self-confidence and poise with arrogance, or if Talanyr had just been punished for being too able for someone from an out-of-the-way place. “How did you do in your studies?”

“Well enough. What about you?”

Rahl accepted that Talanyr didn’t wish to talk about himself more. “I left school early. My father tutored me, and I read a lot. I was a clerk in Swartheld when a mage-guard…” Rahl shook his head. He’d only get in trouble by misleading them. “I’m from Recluce, and I upset a magister in the north. So they sent me to Nylan, and I didn’t fit in there, either, because I couldn’t learn order-skills the way the others could. That was why they sent me to Swartheld as a clerk.”

Rhiobyn’s mouth hung open.

“You can stop gaping, Rhiobyn,” suggested Talanyr. “Hamor gets more than a few mage-guards from Recluce. Sometimes, Recluce even gets an ordermage or two from Hamor, no matter what they say.”

Rhiobyn shut his mouth, if only for a moment. “But…”

“It takes time to recover from nemysa poisoning,” Rahl replied, “and I need to learn more about the mage-guards.” After a pause, he added, “The mage-guards could always use another clerk, Taryl said.”