Natural Ordermage (57 page)

“In a way, you’re protecting the workers, then.”

“Who else do they have?” asked Grawyl.

For a moment, the only sounds were those of the creaking of the wagon and the rumbling crunching of the iron tires on the grit on the paving stones of the road.

“I try to avoid following a routine when I’m doing the inspections. That way, no one knows exactly when I’ll be in any one spot. It’s better that way. We’ll be starting close to the middle of the coking furnaces. The overseer supervisor says that the loader crew on coking furnace three needs looking at.”

The wagon began to climb the lower section of the road along the top of the short ridge to the east of the line of coking furnaces. Rahl glanced westward at the first furnace, a squat structure whose metal and once-yellow bricks had merged into a dark and dingy gray. A crew of loaders stood waiting by the dock as a team of sloggers pulled a coal wagon into place.

Farther westward, he could see the dark figures of breakers working on the slag outside the blast furnaces and more loaders at the base of the slag piles shoveling broken slag into wagons. The clinking of shovels barely rose over the distance-muted roaring cacophony of furnaces and mills.

When the wagon pulled off into a turnout short of the loading dock above the third coking furnace, Rahl followed Grawyl up the slope to a point just above the dock and coal wagon. From there, Rahl just looked at a loader crew—six bearded and sinewy men with shovels in ragged heavy trousers and armless canvas semitunics, their skin darkened and weathered by seasons of exposure to sun and heat. Their bodies and arms moved in rough unison as they scooped, turned, and shoveled the chunks of coal from the wagon into the chute that led down to the coking furnace. Even from fifteen cubits away, Rahl didn’t recognize any of the loaders.

The second man in line paused, just slightly, but enough to throw off the rhythm of the loaders, and the third man growled under his breath. The overseer’s lash flicked out—twice.

The second man didn’t move, just took the lash, and struggled to fit his shoveling into the pattern of the others.

The third growled more loudly, muttering something to the second man.

Rahl thought he sensed something about the second man, but the feeling vanished even as he tried to identify it.

“Hold!” snapped Grawyl.

The overseer raised his whip but did not actually use it. “Stand and rest!”

Rahl could see the relief in the second man—that and a thin line of blood across his upper right arm. The third loader bore no obvious mark of the lash, but the stiffness of his body betrayed anger and rage.

Had that been what Grawyl had meant about him?

Grawyl stepped toward the line of loaders, and Rahl followed, but kept a half pace back of the mage-guard.

Once more, Rahl caught a flash of something like chaos, but not exactly, from the second loader in line. What was it? Then he almost shook his head. It was wound chaos of some sort, and it was strong, but his order-skills were still so unreliable that he hadn’t been able to recognize it from farther away.

“Ser…” he said quietly, “the second loader is ill. I can’t tell how, but he is.”

“Thank you. I had that feeling from the way he moved.” Grawyl turned toward the overseer. “Send the second man there to the sick barracks. He’s not well enough to handle a shovel, and it’s slowing the crew.”

“Yes, ser.” The overseer’s tone was flat, not quite contemptuous.

Grawyl turned toward the man. “If you don’t watch out more for your crews, I’ll have you take his place as a loader.”

The overseer blanched beneath his olive skin. “Yes, ser. I will, ser.”

Grawyl said nothing, just stepped away and headed back toward the smaller wagon. Rahl followed.

It is always best when people do what they should because they choose to do so. Out of every score, one man or woman knows and understands his or her duty without being told or coerced. Out of the same score, one or two will not do their duty, except under the greatest duress. Of the remaining seventeen, some require but the slightest reminder to do their duty, and the rest require constant reminders of varying force and intensity.

Yet no ruler has ever had nor will ever have enough administrators and patrollers to stand over those nineteen day in and day out to assure that they obey the laws of the land, support their families or their parents, and wreak no wrongs upon others. How then does a ruler assure that all in his land functions as it should? While the forms of each are many, he has but two tools. One tool is praise and reward. The other is respect and fear.

Although a ruler must be both loved and feared, it is best that the ruler be loved directly. For that reason, all , praise and rewards must be seen by his people as coming directly from him, while the methods that inspire respect and fear should be seen as coming from his faithful subordinates.

The requirement to inspire both respect and fear underlies all that a mage-guard is and all that a mage-guard does. For that reason, a mage-guard must always be courteous to all, but unyielding. A mage-guard should also always act so as to preclude any public disrespect of one citizen by another. He or she should be tolerant of all personal differences among the peoples of Hamor, but never allow such differences to result in physical violence between peoples. Nor should a mage-guard permit himself or herself any manifestation of intolerance of the Emperor and those who serve him. Where the Emperor is concerned, in person, deed, or reputation, a mage-guard must always act in a way that is both dignified and that brooks not the slightest hint of physical disrespect or civil disobedience, in matters large or small, for even the smallest signs of such disrespect, if not corrected, can lead to greater disrespect…

Manual of the Mage-Guards

Cigoerne, Hamor

1551 A.F.

In the darkness of the small room he shared, Rahl lay on his bunk, his eyes closed, thinking, as Talanyr snored softly. Almost an eightday had passed since Rahl had first sensed a hint of what Taryl felt, but his ability to sense other’s feelings remained uncertain and weak, and those with any sort of shields were blocked to him. His practices with Khaill and some of the other mage-guards had sharpened his weapons skills, but he felt he had been forced to rely on physical cues where once he had sensed intent.

Why? Why had everything ended up as it had?

He knew he was fortunate that Taryl had sensed something—extremely fortunate, or he would have died young as a loader, probably killed by a mage-guard when he could no longer contain his anger and frustration. But why had he ended up in Luba? He’d hadn’t done that much wrong—and so much less than most. He’d not understood what using order on Jienela had done, even if he had meant no harm, and from that one small mistake—and Puvort’s nastiness—it seemed as though everything had followed, no matter what he had tried to do to avoid it. He hadn’t had any choice in defending himself against her brothers, not the way they had been prompted by Puvort, and he had delayed no more than two days in deciding to seek mage training. One small mistake and two days delay, and his entire life had spiraled downward and out of his control… and the harder he had tried to find ways to stop it, it seemed, such as trying to understand how order linked to order, the worse matters had become, because all the magisters were continually pressing for him to gain greater understanding of order—if he didn’t want to be exiled.

Another memory came back to him, of the night when he had enjoyed his first—and still the best—Hamorian dinner with Thorl and Deybri. She had deflected his attempt to enter her house with words about his need to know what he felt with his whole being. He could still see her standing there, her eyes warm and welcoming, yet. sad, saying, “I can’t make promises for you.”

Deybri… why did she continue to haunt him? There was no way he ever could return to Nylan, and it would be eightdays yet before he could accumulate enough coins even to send a single letter.

He closed his eyes even more tightly, not that it was necessary in the darkness. After a moment, he forced a long and slow deep breath, trying to relax, and yet to sense each item in the room separately.

When he had finished the exercise, he was less than satisfied. He could make out the beds easily, and the wardrobes, and the foot chests, but the smaller things were blurs, and once they had not been.

For all of his recent efforts, all that he had regained of his previous skills was the ability to feel the presence of strong order- or chaos-skills and the ability to sense what surrounded him without using his eyes. He could not even find the order-chaos links that he had twisted to explode the black wall, nor could he create even the weakest of order shields. He could not find the slightest bit of free order or concentrate it or move it.

And all of that… he had once done so easily, so effortlessly.

All that he had known was lost to him, and he was struggling just to master enough order to qualify as the lowest of mage-guards in one of the least desirable stations in Hamor.

He could feel the tears of rage and frustration seeping out of the corners of his closed eyes.

Why had it come to this? Why?

For Rahl, the next eightday was filled with more of what had gone before—copying reports, accompanying mage-guards on their rounds and duties, studying the Codex and his own copy of the Manual and answering Taryl’s questions, and sparring with Khaill and, occasionally, other mage-guards. Upon occasion, Taryl would watch the sparring. More often he did not.

Late on sevenday afternoon, as Rahl left the exercise room after a series of sparring bouts with Khaill, Davyl, and Chynl, he found Taryl outside in the corridor, clearly waiting for him. The mage-guard carried a small satchel.

“Ser?”

“You’re the best with a truncheon in Luba. Even Khaill admits it,” Taryl said mildly. “You’re better than most with a falchiona for a time.”

‘Thank you, ser, but… that is hard for me to accept.“ Rahl wiped the sweat from his forehead, wondering what Taryl wanted.

“Why is that so hard? You’ve obviously practiced for years.”

“There must be others…”

Taryl laughed. “There are. Some of the blades at Cigoerne would cut you up if you used a falchiona against them, but you’re close to holding your own with the truncheon against anyone.” He paused. “You realize that you’re using your order-senses in the sparring…”

“Not at first…” Rahl paused. “I mean, they’re not there when I begin… and they’re really still not there. I can’t think about it at all, or they’re gone.”

“How are you coming in regaining your control of your order-senses otherwise?”

“I can sense order and chaos now and again, and sometimes I can find my way without seeing. It comes and goes.”

The thin-faced mage nodded. “I’m not surprised. You’ve got order-energies wound in and around you so tightly that I’m surprised you can walk. Most mages would die for the amount of order that clusters around you.”

“Then why can’t I use them?” Rahl barely managed to keep from snapping.

“Let’s take a walk… outside, where no one else is around.” Taryl turned and headed toward the door at the end of the corridor.

For a moment, Rahl stood there. Was this going to be another meaningless and useless lecture, like so many he’d listened to over the past year? Would Taryl be just like the magisters after all? He hoped not as he hurried to follow the mage-guard.

Once on the flat ground south of the building, Taryl stopped. The sun was low in the western sky, just above the rugged mountains. He turned to face Rahl. “No…

I’m not going to lecture you. You’re the type for whom lectures are worse than useless. I have another sort of exercise I want you to work on.“

Rahl nodded, grateful that Taryl would not lecture him but questioning silently exactly what the other had in mind.

Taryl withdrew two knives, still in their leather sheaths. “Catch.” He tossed one, then the other, to Rahl. “What am I supposed to do?”

‘Turn with your back to the sun. Leave them sheathed, but juggle them. Toss one in the air, then flip the other into the hand that tossed the first, and keep doing that. I want you to do this without trying to sense or control the knives with your order-skills. Use only your eyes and your hands. Eyes and hands. Don’t ask why. Don’t question. Just do it.“ Taryl’s voice was calm, but firm.

Rahl turned so that the sun beat gently on his back and took a knife in each hand, still in their sheaths. He tossed the first one up, then tried to flip the other to his free hand, where he caught it awkwardly.

“Keep them moving. Don’t stop.”

Rahl managed two more tosses before he dropped one of the knives into the dirt.

“Pick it up and keep going.”

For the next several attempts, Rahl could only keep the knives in motion five or six times, but then he settled into a routine.

“Faster!” snapped Taryl.

Rahl dropped a knife.

“You need to pick up speed. Don’t ask why. Just do it.” After a time, Rahl managed to keep the knives moving faster.

“Now… without stopping, turn and face the sun, but don’t look at it. Concentrate on the knives.”