Natural Ordermage

XVII

As he rolled out of bed, Rahl froze. He’d been so tired the night before that he’d forgotten to read the pages of The Basis of Order. He scrambled to the writing table and picked up the book, opening it to the first page, eyes scanning the words.

Order is life; chaos is death. This is fact, not belief. Each living creature consists of ordered parts that must function together. When chaos intrudes beyond its limits, its energies disrupt all, and too great a disruption can only lead to death.

Order extends down to the smallest fragments of the world…

Rahl read to the bottom of the page, then set the book on the table and put on his new gray garments. Then he sat on the stool and pulled on his boots.

He picked up the book once more. The words on the second page seemed to leap out at him, although there was no sense of power embodied in the book itself.

Learning without understanding can but increase the frustration of the impatient, for knowledge is like the hammer of a smith, useless in the hands of the unskilled and able to do nothing but injure the user who has not both knowledge and understanding. Learning is like unto chaos, a power useful only for destruction without the order imposed by understanding…

Rahl frowned. The book seemed to be suggesting that there were uses of chaos that were not all evil, and that some use of order might be evil. Was that why the magisters did not wish the book anywhere outside of Nylan?

A wry smile crossed his lips. He could certainly tell of some uses of order by the magisters of the Council that were anything but good. Perhaps he would, when the time was right. He read another page, then slipped the book inside his tunic and hurried to the mess.

All of the tables were occupied, but he found a corner of one where he could sit a bit away from two women, both older than he was, he judged, but not by more than a few years.

As he ate, he tried to read another page, but he couldn’t help but overhear some of the conversation between the two, low as their voices were.

“…say that I’ll never understand…going to send me to Suthya…position with a trader there in Armat…”

“…not bad…least you got somewhere to go and coins coming in…”

“…didn’t want to go…”

“…magisters decide, dearie. They sent Durolyt to Southport.”

“…he hates the Legend…”

“…why they sent him, if you ask me…”

Rahl felt cold all over. Was that what he had to face? Promises that could only lead to exile in a place he hated?

He still hadn’t finished eating, and his appetite had almost vanished, but he forced himself to swallow the last mouthfuls. He knew he’d be hungry before midday. Then he read the last half page of the five pages he’d been told he should read every day before tucking away The Basis of Order and heading for the rinse buckets.

Yet another magister met him outside the study where Leyla had instructed him the previous day. He was slender and wiry, more than a head shorter than Rahl, and his hair was whitish silver, yet not the color of an old man’s, and his face was unlined. Rahl had recalled the stories saying that Creslin had possessed such hair, but he’d never seen anyone with it.

The magister laughed. “Yes, it’s the silver hair like Creslin’s, and no, I’m not a direct descendant of his, not that I know of, anyway. I’m Tamryn.” He gestured toward the study. “We might as well get started.”

Rahl walked in, then waited to seat himself until Tamryn did.

“Have you read any of The Basis of Order?” asked the magister.

“Yes, ser.”

“Do you have any questions before I start asking you about what you read?”

“Ah…” Rahl wondered whether he should ask, but suspected it would come out one way or another. “There’s a part that seems to suggest that chaos is not all evil, that if it’s used somehow within order…” He didn’t know quite what else to ask.

Tamryn nodded. “Not many exiles pick that up quickly. Have you done any studies with the magisters in the north?”

“No, ser. I was going to see them when…everything happened.”

“Ah, yes, Leyla and Kadara both wrote up their reports on you.” Tamryn nodded. “Well, in answer to your question, our…brethren…north of the wall wish to think of the world in simpler terms than is realistic.” Tamryn frowned, then paused for a moment. “While few speak of it, all living creatures, and that includes me and you, contain both order and chaos. It’s more complicated than what I’m about to say, but you can think of it this way. Chaos is like the coal or the wood in a stove. It provides the energy or the warmth that keeps us alive. Order is like the stove itself. Without the structure of the stove, the fire would consume all around it or burn out uselessly. Without chaos, there would be no life, just a dead body.”

Rahl nodded. “Are there good uses of chaos and bad uses of order, then?”

Tamryn pursed his lips. “Yes…but with a condition. Those who use chaos frequently may indeed use it for purposes that are worthy. I understand that the junior mages of Fairhaven often are employed to clean their sewers with chaos-fire. Chaos-mages at times accompany patrollers in both Fairhaven and Hamor and help keep order. However”-Tamryn paused-“the continued use of chaos predisposes a mage toward destruction, rather than building, and very, very few powerful chaos-mages have ever been known whose good works outweighed their evil ones.”

“Do you know of any, magister?”

“It is said that Cerryl the Great of Fairhaven was one of those. Certainly, in his rule, all was peaceful, and few fled to Recluce, and few indeed had harsh words for him, but we do not know what evil he did because he was so powerful that few to whom he might have done evil would have survived.”

“About the evil use of order, magister?”

Tamryn looked at Rahl. “I trust you are not playing at some game, or that you will not long continue it, Rahl.”

“It is not a game, ser. I have feelings about this, but I would say nothing until I understand more.” Rahl wanted to make sure all the mages in Nylan understood how things really were in Land’s End, and questions were always a better way to get older people interested.

“Very well. The evil that can be accomplished with the misuse of order is most different. It is more akin to building a very tight and well-constructed prison. Everything must be so ordered, and follow such rigid rules that nothing is allowed to change.”

That sounded like Land’s End. Puvort certainly hadn’t wanted anything to change, even the way books were produced, not that the prohibition had been bad for Rahl’s father. “I was a scrivener, ser, and I did not know that a machine existed to print books until yesterday. That was when Magister Sebenet showed me the printing press.”

“We’re aware of that, Rahl. Let’s leave it at that for now.”

Rahl could sense Tamryn’s irritation, and he nodded. “Thank you, ser.” He tried to remain calm himself, but he didn’t like being treated like a child or having his questions brushed away when the mage had asked if he had those questions. The engineers and the mages of Nylan had the power to change the north. Why didn’t they?

“Now…for today, Rahl, I’d like you to consider why Creslin was forced to found Recluce.”

How could he talk about that? Rahl paused, then began slowly. “I know some of the legends, and I have read Tales of the Founders. I had to copy it, but I read it as well.”

“You don’t think he was forced to found Recluce, then?”

Rahl hated being put into corners the way Tamryn was doing to him, and he detested the fact that the mage could sense what Rahl was feeling, and yet didn’t understand what was behind those feelings. Nor did he or the others seem to care. “There’s a lot missing from the book. I don’t understand why he fled from Westwind, then ended up consorting the woman he didn’t want to consort.”

“Did you fit in Land’s End?”

“I was doing fine. I mean, I was until those two attacked me, and I never used any order at all.”

“Let’s see. You got a girl with child, and you broke the arms of two men…and you were doing fine?”

“They wouldn’t have attacked if Magister Puvort hadn’t used order on one of them to make him charge me.” Rahl wished he hadn’t said anything the moment the words were out.

Tamryn’s head snapped up. “You didn’t mention that before.”

“I couldn’t say anything before the Council. They were already charging me with misusing order. If they knew I could feel that, they would have exiled me right there.”

“Why didn’t you tell Kadara or Leyla?”

“It would have sounded like I was…well, like I was making something up.”

Tamryn sighed. “Don’t you think we can tell that?”

“The Council knew that I hadn’t done anything really wrong, but that didn’t stop them,” Rahl pointed out.

“Actually, they did you a favor. If you’d have stayed in Land’s End, even if you had taken instruction from the magisters, exactly how long do you think it would have been before you were in real trouble?”

“I made a mistake with Jienela,” Rahl said. “I didn’t mean to…”

Tamryn laughed. “It always happens.”

“What?” Rahl was confused.

“If you use order to make a girl feel better, there’s nothing wrong with that, if it’s just a touch, but more than that, and there’s a Balance there, too. If you use order that way, and you sleep with her, she’s far more likely to end with a child.”

Rahl could sense the absolute truth of what the magister said.

“That’s just another reason why you need instruction and training. You have ability, but you’re going to get yourself in real trouble someday if you don’t stop feeling angry and sorry for yourself and start learning what order is all about.”

Tamryn might be right, Rahl thought, but in his own way, he was as arrogant as Puvort and all the Council. Were all the magisters in Recluce like that?

Still…it wouldn’t hurt to learn what he could.