Natural Ordermage

XVIII

For the next several days, Rahl managed to meet with the three magisters without upsetting them or himself by carefully reading The Basis of Order and asking questions that interested him. He answered their questions honestly, although that took the extra effort of forcing himself to consider himself as someone else and replying factually.

The Hamorian classes were disconcerting at first, but then, as he realized that there was nothing at all hidden, he began to enjoy them, even with the children, just letting himself relax and learn what he could.

The printing was neither as taxing as dealing with the magisters nor as enjoyable as learning Hamorian. Each task, just like copying, had to be perfect. Unlike copying, if Rahl made a mistake, and if Sebenet did not catch it, pages and pages of print could be ruined. That only happened once, when Rahl did not check one of the corner fasteners on a pasteboard page-set on fiveday afternoon.

The page-set tore apart, and ink ended up everywhere, and Rahl missed supper and had to work until almost the lamps-out bell to clean up the mess. Sebenet worked with him, but the printmaster said nothing.

He didn’t have to; Rahl could sense his disapproval. But then, after seeing the mess, Rahl couldn’t blame Sebenet-unlike the magisters, whose questions and instruction continued to grate on Rahl whenever he thought about it. He tried not to think much about it.

Sixday went better, and when he arrived in the mess for supper, Rahl felt vaguely relieved to have survived the print shop without any more mistakes. After serving himself, he saw Meryssa sitting by herself.

“Would you mind company?”

“Oh…no. Please…” She gestured vaguely across the table.

“Do you know when you’ll be leaving or what ship you’ll be on?” asked Rahl, after seating himself and taking a small swallow of the ale in his mug.

“They say I’ll be on the Legacy of Westwind. It’s an older steamer that runs between Nylan and different ports in Candar, and once in a while to Hamor.”

“What does a purser do?”

“I’m going to be the assistant purser. Pursers take care of obtaining supplies and provisions, for obtaining passage fees from passengers and ensuring their billeting, and for overseeing the mess, and for maintaining all the accounts for those. On some ships, the chief purser handles all the ship’s accounts. There are other duties as well.” Meryssa offered a faint smile.

“But…why…” Rahl shook his head.

“Why being a purser instead of an exile? According to Magistra Leyla, that’s because I’m not really angry or chaos-driven, but somehow dissatisfied, and I’ll always be dissatisfied until I see how people live elsewhere, but seeing it should be enough, instead of having to live there.”

Was her underlying sadness because of that dissatisfaction? Rahl wondered. He took a bite of the fish fried in egg batter. He didn’t recognize what he was eating, but it was mild and warm and filling.

“How are you finding Nylan?” asked Meryssa.

“I can’t say I’ve seen much of anything except around here. I’ve been so busy.”

“It’s that way for everyone for the first few days. You’ll have sevenday afternoon and eightday off. Then you can walk around and see more.”

“What should I see?”

“Oh…you should go down to the harbor and the market squares there. It doesn’t matter what day it is, there’s always someone selling something. I like taking the west walk, along the cliffs to the west. You can look down at the beaches below and out at the Gulf, and it’s beautiful, especially near sunset. There aren’t many people there, either.”

“Hello there, you two!” Khalyt’s voice jolted Rahl, pleasant as the greeting was.

“Khalyt…I’d thought you’d be here earlier,” said Meryssa.

“I was working late with Kyltyn. I’ve got an idea, and I think it will really work,” Khalyt announced as he slid into the place at the table beside Meryssa.

“What sort of idea?” asked Rahl.

“Steam engines are reciprocating…”

Rahl had no idea what Khalyt meant. Once more, he had understood every single word the young engineer used-and what he said made no sense.

“The way they work, the steam from the boiler forces a piston back and forth and you have to use a crank or a drive wheel to turn that into a circular motion to drive the screw shaft…”

Abruptly, Khalyt stopped and took out several sheets of paper and a grease marker and began to sketch. When he had finished, he had a crude diagram.

This time Rahl understood, at least in general terms.

“Pushing those heavy shafts back and forth takes a great amount of chaos-energy. To contain that requires masses of black iron. That’s heavy. So the more powerful the steam engine, the more weight the ship has to carry, and the more chaos-energy it takes to move it. I’ve been thinking about how we could use the steam from the boilers directly….”

Once more Khalyt began to sketch, but the diagram looked more like a pole with vanes extending from it. “Now this would fit inside a housing, and if we get the stream pressure high enough and run it through the vanes here, they’ll turn the shaft directly, and we won’t lose as much power with all the conversion machinery. This turbine, even all made out of black iron, weighs much less…”

Rahl frowned.

Khalyt stopped. “You look doubtful.”

“Ah…no. Not…well, I don’t know anything about engines, and I don’t know much about machines, except what Magister Sebenet has taught me about the printing press. Yesterday, I made a mistake. It was a little mistake. One of the fasteners that holds the pasteboard page-set on the press wasn’t set just quite right, and the press only turned a few times before everything ripped apart.” Rahl laughed ruefully. “I was cleaning up the mess until close to lamps-out. Now, if I understand what you’re saying”-he pointed to the sketch of what Khalyt had called a turbine-“this is going to be turning very fast, far faster than the press. How are you going to make sure everything stays tight and in place and balanced?”

Khalyt looked at Rahl, then laughed. “My friend, you should be an engineer! That is the biggest problem. Every one of the turbine vanes will have to be precisely the same as every other one, but I have calculated a way to do that, using order-forging and black iron. Anything that must be strong and thin and deals with great forces must be made out of black iron. Regular iron or steel will break. That is why the inside of the turbine will be made of black iron.”

“Will this make the black ships faster?” asked Meryssa.

“So much faster…you cannot imagine how much faster. That is necessary because the Hamorian warships are getting to be almost as fast as the black ships.”

“Where are the black ships?” Rahl had heard of them all his life, but he’d never seen one. They didn’t port in Land’s End. That he knew.

“In the harbor. When they are in port, they are moored at the western pier. You can’t get on the pier unless you’re crew or an engineer. The main engineering hall is just above there. You can see it from just below the bell tower.”

“And this idea will work?” asked Meryssa.

Khalyt shrugged. “The idea is the simple part.” He turned to Rahl. “Making all the parts so that they fit together is what is hardest.”

Meryssa laughed, and the laugh held sadness as well. “Making anything work is the hardest part. It is so easy to talk and think.”

Rahl held his frown within himself. He’d always found doing things easier than thinking or learning. Copying was far easier than thinking about what he had just copied. Sometimes, like when he’d had to learn truncheon handling, discovering how to use what he’d learned was hard for a while, but just doing things was simply physical work.

“You have a funny look on your face, Rahl,” Meryssa said.

“I was just thinking about what you said.”

Meryssa turned, half rose from the table, and gestured. “Aleasya!”

The woman who turned and moved toward Meryssa was broad-shouldered and muscular, possibly a few years older than Rahl, with a squarish chin, green eyes, and neck-length brown hair. Her summer tunic and trousers were a darker gray. “Meryssa.”

“If you wouldn’t mind joining us?” Meryssa inclined her head. “Have you met Rahl?”

“I have not.” Aleasya set her platter and mug on the table next to Rahl, then slipped gracefully onto the bench.

“Aleasya’s an arms instructor, but she’s best with blades,” Meryssa said.

“I’m not nearly so good as Zastryl or Fhiera. They’re true armsmasters.”

“You’re good enough to have done a tour as a ship’s champion.”

“Anyone who’s trained here and made arms level can do that,” demurred Aleasya. “They don’t really take arms that seriously in any of the port cities, especially in Candar or Austra. In Hamor, if there’s real trouble, they bring in mages. We’re the only sea traders who need armsmen on every vessel.”

Rahl just listened.

“She started as a trading marine,” explained Meryssa.

“It’s better to be a staff arms trainer here. Easier to keep in shape and condition, too.”

Abruptly, Khalyt and Meryssa stood.

“We need to go,” explained Meryssa.

“You need more practice,” Aleasya said. “Pursers can’t just handle coins and supplies, especially around Jerans.”

“On oneday?” acceded Meryssa.

“In the morning, I can work you in somewhere.”

“I’ll be there.”

Aleasya took a swallow of ale, then turned to Rahl. “She could be a good blade if she’d work out more.”

Rahl didn’t want to get into that. He wouldn’t have known what made a good blade and what didn’t. “Why do you and Khalyt eat here in the mess? You don’t have to, do you?”

She laughed. “It’s all about coins. The staff doesn’t pay to eat here. I’m not consorted, and I’m not interested in anyone. So I save my coins and buy shares in one of the trading companies. Someday, I’ll be able to sell them and have the coins to build a place of my own. I already have a piece of ground out east, just south of the wall…”

“Are you from Nylan?”

“Oh, yes. I wouldn’t live anywhere else. My mother is one of the port pilots, and my father is an assistant harbormaster.”

“But you eat here?”

“You wouldn’t want to eat what either of them cooks, when they cook…if they cook.” Aleasya shook her head. “I love them dearly, but their idea of food is cheese and black bread, with some sort of sausage or meat and whatever green or fruit is handy.”

“You train people in arms. Will you be training me?”

“I’ll probably see you when you start arms training, but I won’t work with you.”

“Why not?” asked Rahl. She seemed friendly enough and open, and that was more than some of those he had met in Nylan.

“You’re listed as a probable black mage, and that means you won’t get more than a basic fam with edged weapons.”

A probable black mage? Was that what Tamryn and Leyla had meant by order-skills? Why hadn’t they just said that? “They said I might have some ability with order.”

That brought another laugh. “They never tell you. They’re afraid that things won’t work out, and then you’ll be angry or disappointed.”

“But why…it seems…cruel not to let people know…”

“Rahl…it is Rahl, isn’t it? I’m not that good with names. Black mages and black engineers are the ones who run Nylan. They’re the important ones. Everyone looks up to them. For all the young people who show some order-ability, only a few get to be mages. It’s not just talent, and it’s not just work, but it’s also a way of looking at the world. Some can handle it, like Khalyt. He’ll never have more than a slight bit of order-skills, but he understands engines, and he’ll do something special someday.”

Rahl nodded. “This way…of looking at the world. What way is that?”

Another laugh followed his question. “I wouldn’t know. I’m a good blade trying to get better and close to being an armsmaster, if I can. It’s just what I’ve heard.”

“What have you heard about that way of looking at the world?”

Aleasya looked sideways at Rahl, almost sharply. Then she shrugged. “It’s only what I’ve heard. To be an effective black mage, you have to be able to look at the world as if you did not matter.”

Rahl almost snorted. He found it hard to believe that mages like Puvort or Kadara didn’t put themselves first. Puvort certainly hadn’t gone out of his way to steer Rahl in a less dangerous path, and Kadara had had her mind made up about Rahl from the time she’d first seen him. “Do you really think they all do that?”

Aleasya offered a broad smile. “No. But most of those I know try hard, and sometimes I’d wager that they get to that point.” Her smile vanished. “If you want to stay here in Nylan, you’d better concentrate on doing your best and stop worrying about everyone else.”

Rahl smiled politely. “I’ll have to keep that in mind, but it’s hard when they’re the ones who will decide your future.”

Aleasya shook her head. “You decide your future. They judge you on what actions you take to make that future possible. Look, Rahl, it’s like using a blade or any weapon. How you handle the weapon decides whether you survive, not what people think about how you handle it.” She stood. “I need to be going. Best of fortune, Rahl.”

“Thank you.” Rahl watched her go. She seemed the most honest and open, and yet she sounded like everyone else. Do your best, and everything will be fine. Be honest, and things will work out. He’d done his best, and he’d been honest. So why was he in Nylan, and why were people telling him he might not be able to stay?