L. Modesitt - Mage-Guard of Hamor

By the time oneday was over, his back, shoulders, head, eyes, and fingers all ached. Still, he did scan the skies and try to determine the weather ahead. He even managed some more exercises with the iron blocks and water.

Twoday wasn't much better. After breakfast, Taryl quizzed him briefly on the tactics manual, then handed him a list of questions on tactics and told him to come up with written answers before the evening meal. The overcommander also handed him more dispatches, asking Rahl to sort out those he thought important and to be prepared to tell Taryl why. He was also asked to write out a report on what he thought the weather would be for the next three days heading upriver.

Rahl finished the weather report just before the evening meal and handed it to Taryl in the library that was little more than a quarters chamber stuffed with shelves, books, a few ancient wooden armchairs, and two battered table desks.

Taryl looked at it and nodded. Then he skimmed over Rahl's responses to the tactics questions and nodded at those. But… on every dispatch Rahl pulled out, he asked variations on the same question: "What isn't in this dispatch, and what does that mean?"

By threeday, Rahl was more than ready to carry his gear onto the Fyrador. Following Taryl's orders, he boarded slightly after midday and found himself assigned to a cabin that held two bunks and little more. He put his gear in the net above the upper bunk and went out to the upper deck to wait for Taryl. Upper deck was a misnomer, because it was actually the third deck, above both the main deck and the middeck. There was a half deck above the upper deck, but that was reserved for the crew.

Rahl stood at the railing under the hazy winter sun that created a warmth more like the spring in Land's End, but the air held the acrid odor of burning coal. He eased his visored cap back slightly, his eyes drifting from the stone piers back aft to the massive paddle wheel. As he had noted earlier when he'd inspected the docks, the river steamers were most unlike the seagoing trading vessels or warships like the Ascadya. They were far broader in the beam, and except for the bow, almost oblong in shape. The Fyrador and the Syadtar were more than a hundred and fifty cubits in length, while the other three were a good thirty cubits shorter. They all had neither the screws of the iron-hulled military vessels nor the side-wheel paddles of the trading ships, but a single rear paddle wheel more than fifteen cubits in diameter. Rahl didn't know exactly how much water they drew, but their draft was far shallower than the sea-going vessels, certainly less than ten cubits.

So far as Rahl could tell, he was the only mage-guard on the Fyrador. The upper deck was limited to squad leaders and officers, but Rahl only saw a handful of either.

The overcommander arrived just before the Fyrador blew its departure whistle. Rahl watched as Taryl hurried up the gangway carrying two gear bags that bulged in all directions. Behind him came a trooper carrying two more bags. Before long, Taryl appeared on the upper deck and walked to join Rahl. The older mage-guard had deep circles under his red-rimmed eyes, and while his steps were firm, Rahl could sense his exhaustion.

For a time, Taryl just leaned on the railing and watched as the gangway was swung aboard and the lines singled up, then untied and reeled in. Another series of long blasts issued from whistle, and the paddle wheel began to turn, slowly thumping as it churned the water aft of the Fyrador. Slowly, the river steamer pulled away from the pier and out into the channel, heading upstream.

The departure whistles of the second river steamer, the Syadtar, echoed through the afternoon.

Slowly, Taryl straightened. "I'm going to take a nap. Keep an eye on things, and wake me if you sense anything strange. Otherwise, I'll see you later."

"Should I be looking for anything in particular?"

"If I knew that-" Taryl broke off his words. "I'm sorry. No, I can't tell you what to look for, just anything that feels chaotic or disordered… or makes you uneasy, particularly any boxes or bundles that no one is around."

"Yes, ser."

After Taryl left for his cabin, Rahl checked the truncheon at his belt, then walked slowly along the upper deck, pausing every few cubits to let his order-senses range over the troopers on the middeck and main deck. For the first twenty cubits or so, he sensed nothing unusual. Then he could feel a touch of chaos, but he had trouble locating it. Finally, he realized that it was not chaos properly at all, but some sort of vent that carried hot air-probably from the engine or boiler room.

He passed several officers, generally captains, and nodded politely to each. The only one he knew by sight and name was Bleun, but Bleun just nodded and stepped back as Rahl neared him.

Rahl paid special attention to boxes set on the narrow, uncovered, outboard section of the main deck, but troopers were still carrying a number of them toward the forward hold. With the steamer's shallow draft, Rahl could imagine that not all that much cargo could be stored belowdecks, not with the need for the boilers and engines-and the coal that powered them.

With Taryl's concerns and cautions in mind, Rahl took his time in making a complete circuit of the upper deck and probing below with his order-senses. He had found a number of "chaotic" points, but so far as he could tell, all had to do with the actual operation of the Fyrador in some fashion or another.

Before making another circuit, he stopped and took a long and deep breath.

He glanced aft. The massive rear paddle wheel left a white froth behind on the dark water, yet that foam vanished by the time the Fyrador had traveled twice its own length, and certainly long before the Syadtar reached where the foam had been.

Even hundreds of kays upstream from Swartheld, the Swarth River was far wider than the Feyn-the only river worthy of the name in Recluce-still close to half a kay in width although not so deep as it was near Swartheld. Orchards still lined both sides of the river, planted in neat rows on the slopes above the marshy area at the river's edge.

Rahl spied several wild gray geese in calmer water near a stubby pier on the west side of the river. He thought they might take flight as the ripples from the steamer reached them, but they only bobbed slightly in the water. For some reason, their apparent grace and calm reminded him of Deybri, and the thought that he was traveling toward a rebellion seemed almost impossible.

One of the geese tipped sideways, and Rahl realized that it was only a decoy. He smiled wryly and began another circuit of the upper deck.

Taryl slept most of threeday afternoon, and Rahl saw him only briefly at the evening meal, if overspiced burhka and soggy noodles qualified as a meal. Taryl said little beyond pleasantries, and his thoughts were clearly somewhere else. Because Rahl had learned that trying to get Taryl to say something he did not want to discuss was clearly unproductive, he did not press. Irritated as he was, he kept that irritation behind his personal shields. At least, that was a form of practice at strengthening those shields.

Breakfast was overdone egg toast and dry mutton slapped on a platter with warm ale. Rahl sat at a corner table in the small mess that served both squad leaders and officers. No one asked to sit with him.

Finally, well past midmorning on fourday, Taryl joined Rahl under the awning at the rear of the upper deck. Given the cloudy nature of the day, the awning was unnecessary either as respite from the sun or from rain, because the clouds were high enough-and contained little enough moisture, Rahl had ascertained-that rain was most unlikely. The river had narrowed somewhat, and the current seemed stronger. Rahl could sense that the engines were working harder, and their upstream progress seemed slower.