Natural Ordermage

LXIX

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.”

“That’d be the truth,” said Talanyr. “We’re more than an eightday behind on reports as it is.”

“Do you write quickly?” asked Rhiobyn.

“Fairly quickly. I was a scrivener for a while.”

“People still copy books by hand?”

“In most places except Nylan and Hamor, I expect,” ventured Talanyr.

“But why? Printing is so much easier and less costly.”

Rahl and Talanyr exchanged a quick glance before Rahl nodded to Talanyr.

“Printing presses don’t work very well without order-magery, not the high-speed ones, because chaos breaks them down too quickly,” Talanyr began, “and Nordla and Austra don’t care that much for mages. Fairhaven has made it difficult for ordermages to remain in Candar anywhere east of the Westhorns.”

“Austra and Nordla don’t speak Hamorian,” Rahl pointed out. “That means that the books would have to be translated first if they were printed here, and books are heavy. It would cost a lot to ship them.”

“Who would want to do that when so few people would buy them?” continued Talanyr. “After all, Rhiobyn, how many books have you read lately?”

The slighter mage-clerk looked to Rahl. “How many have you read?”

“I was reading the World Geography and History…”

“That’s good, but it’s dated,” said Talanyr.

“There weren’t that many choices in the reading room for the checkers. I wasn’t interested in reading about steam engines and hoists.” Just how much had Talanyr read? Rahl wondered.

“Better than the reports you’ll be copying tomorrow,” predicted Rhiobyn.