L. Modesitt - Natural Ordermage

“Yes, ser.”

“We’ll also see about your sparring with Jyrolt when he comes through at the end of summer.”

Rahl wasn’t sure he liked that possibility, even though Taryl hadn’t said exactly who Jyrolt was.

After Taryl had gone…Rahl thought about the registry. The mage-guard hadn’t asked where he had been from, yet Taryl clearly thought that he should have.

Abruptly, Rahl smiled. He’d sensed that feeling from Taryl.

He also sensed another presence, if vaguely, one he did not see, and that had to be Thelsyn, checking up on them behind some sort of sight shield. Without hurrying, he picked up the next report and set to work, concealing a frown as he did. Why didn’t Talanyr sense the mage-guard, or was the kind of shield Thelsyn was using designed to be more effective against someone trained in Hamor?

As he copied and rewrote the report before him, he tried to get a better sense of what order or chaos concentrations might be around, but as he tried to focus on that, his sense of where Thelsyn was, standing just outside the door, vanished totally.

Rahl tried to keep a pleasant expression on his face, despite the frustration he felt and the slight headache that had appeared with his efforts. With a slow and deep breath, he put his full attention into working on the report before him.

In midafternoon, Taryl reappeared, walking briskly into the copying room. He extended a thin volume bound in faded red leather. “It’s my copy of the Manual of the Mage-Guards. I’ve ordered you a copy, but it’s likely to be an eightday or so before it gets here. Most mage-clerks and beginning mage-guards get them before they’re at a station.”

“I’ll take care of it, ser.” Rahl took the volume.

“I’m sure you will. Besides taking care of it, read it carefully.”

“Yes, ser.”

“Once you get caught up on the reports, we’ll start on evaluating your arms skills and work on training you in techniques and procedures. Part of those procedures, especially the reasons for them, are in the manual, and you’ll be examined on them as well. As I said earlier, the next evaluation will be near the end of summer. If you’re not ready, then the next one will be at the turn of winter.”

“What am I supposed to know, ser?”

“Adequate skills in either blade or truncheon or both, techniques for handling trouble without using force, some basic skills in using order or chaos in support of your duties as a mage-guard, a complete understanding of the role and the duties of a mage-guard in Hamor…as well as the provisions of the Codex that you’ll be enforcing.”

“Is there a copy of that somewhere?”

“The Codex is rather lengthy. I’ll get you a copy of the mage-guard summary. It’s mostly common sense.”

“Thank you, ser.”

Taryl nodded brusquely, then turned and left.

Rahl looked after him. He still wondered why Taryl wanted Rahl as a mage-guard, so much so that Taryl had never actually asked Rahl if that was what Rahl wanted. Was that any different from the magisters of Recluce?

Somehow…Rahl thought it was, even if he couldn’t say why.

He turned and looked at Talanyr. “Will you be evaluated at summer’s end?”

“I’m supposed to be, according to Khaill.”

“He’s the station armsmaster?”

“As close to it as we have.”

“Is it hard?”

Talanyr offered a wry smile. “It’s not easy. Taryl said I wasn’t ready in the spring.”

“What happens if…you don’t do well?”

“Oh…there’s a place for everyone…but some of the places are worse than Luba. Some are better located, but the tasks are terrible. You might end up as a clerk in the Highpoint station.”

Rahl had no idea what that might be.

“It’s the mage-guard station that’s on the highest point of the Great Highway…well…as much of it that’s finished. It’s so high that it snows until the turn of summer, and starts snowing again in early harvest. They don’t send real clerks there, because it’s hard duty, so mage-guards who have minimal skills are rotated in and out to handle the station chores, from copying to standing night watch duty. Up there, you just look for distress fires or trouble and stare out into the darkness…”

Rahl couldn’t help but shudder. If he didn’t recover his order-skills…would that be where he was headed? It was better than being a loader-or slogger-but it certainly wasn’t what he wanted to spend the rest of his life doing.

For the next three days, Rahl, Talanyr, and Rhiobyn copied reports, slowly reducing the backlog piled on the copying table until, when Rahl arrived on fourday morning, there were only thirteen reports on the table-just those of the previous day.

In the evenings-those when he did not have desk duty keeping the logs and records for the duty mage-guard-he read both the manual and the short version of the Hamorian Codex. The abbreviated Codex, as Taryl had said, was mostly common sense. Mostly. There were several provisions that concerned him more than a little, particularly the one that restricted mages. He had read it several times, enough that he almost knew the words by heart.

…no Hamorian mage of any persuasion may engage in any venture involving commerce in goods, in coins, or in any other instrument of commerce….

Did the Hamorians really believe that mages could be that corrupt? Or was it just a way to assure that mages were all under the control of the Emperor? Or was it something else, as indicated in another section in the Manual, which gave commerce short shrift?

…the principal duty of a mage-guard is to maintain order and contain chaos, not to protect commerce or to side with one individual against another or one group against another. All will cite order as their cause, but order is not a cause, nor is chaos, and one must be maintained and the other contained against all those who would misuse them…

Then there was the section dealing with the military.

…any unregistered source or concentration of free chaos is forbidden within a quarter kay of any imperial military station, port, or vessel. If such a source cannot be immediately removed, its immediate destruction is required and authorized…

While that made sense, given what free chaos could do around various explosives, the idea that immediate destruction was authorized and required left Rahl with a cold feeling.

But…there were reports to copy, and he could not change the Codex. He reached for the first report on the stack.

“Did you actually read the Codex?” asked Rhiobyn, from his place at the middle of the copying table.

“Of course he did,” returned Talanyr humorously. “He didn’t have it read to him by tutors as a child. Some of us actually had to learn to do our own reading. By ourselves.”

“Sometimes, one wishes you had enjoyed a tutor, Talanyr. Then you wouldn’t sound like one, and you’d recognize how annoying it is.”

Rahl suppressed a smile and began to read the first report he had to copy.

He had finished four reports by early midmorning, when Thelsyn inspected what had been done. Shortly thereafter, Taryl stepped into the copying room. His eyes went from one clerk to the next. “Now that you clerks are generally caught up with the reports, we need to get on with your training. Talanyr, report to the duty desk for now. Rhiobyn, Mage-Guard Jaharyk will work with you. You know where to find him. Rahl…you come with me.”

Rahl cleaned his pen and replaced it in the open-topped box, then capped the inkwell. He was the last to rise, if not by much.

Taryl did not speak until the other two mage-clerks had left. “We’re going to see Khaill. He wants to test your weapons skills to see what sort of training you’ll need. He has to report on the ability of all mage-guards each season, just as I do for their order-skills.”