Natural Ordermage

XXI

Rahl didn’t really want to get up early on eightday. His arm ached, and he felt even more exhausted than he had when he’d gone to bed the night before, but he knew he wouldn’t feel better unless he ate, and, if he wanted to eat, he had to get up while the mess was still serving.

He washed up and forced himself to shave, but didn’t shower, not with the dressing on his upper arm. Then he walked to the mess. There were perhaps fifteen people in the hall, and he knew none of them. Tired as he was, he found himself eating two complete helpings of cheesed eggs and sausage and almost half a loaf of bread, with two mugs of ale. He didn’t feel nearly as tired after he’d eaten, but he also didn’t feel all that energetic as he walked back to his quarters.

While it was too nice a day to sit inside, he didn’t have that much energy. Still, he forced himself to go to the washing area and wash out his dirty garments and undergarments-except for the one ruined summer tunic-and hang them out to dry. On oneday, he’d need to see if he could get a replacement tunic. He just hoped he didn’t have to pay to replace it…because he couldn’t.

At that moment, he realized that Kadara had to have paid for his meal in the canteen the afternoon before. He hadn’t even noticed that.

Her words about his being able to do things with order without thinking about it also came back to him. Was that why the Council had pushed him out of Land’s End and sent him to Nylan? Kadara had clearly thought so. But why?

Rahl thought about the magisters and magistras he’d met in Nylan. Almost all of them seemed more powerful than those on the Council. Had Puvort set up Rahl to be sent to Nylan because he could have been as powerful as the northern mages? Or because they feared that he would become powerful? Kadara had said that Rahl could be a danger to himself and others, and those words had felt true.

But…how…and why?

He shook his head. He was still tired, and he needed to know more.

Finally, he decided that he might as well read The Basis of Order. If he tried to relate what he read to what he knew or had done, maybe that would help. After a little wandering around, he found a secluded stone bench near the garden and settled there, opening the book and letting the morning sunlight warm him.

He had read several pages when his eyes slowed in reading one passage. He went over it carefully, and then reread it.

…all that is, everything that exists, is little more than the twisting of chaos within a shell of order, and the greater the complexity of those twistings, the more solid the object appears. A thumb of lead or gold may appear more solid than a flower, and may indeed overbalance the scales, yet there is no difference in the fashion in which they are constructed, only that the chaos is twisted more lightly and that the shell of order is stronger. Hard coal is heavier than wood, and, as such, when it burns it releases more chaos-fire…

Rahl frowned. Was that why black iron was heavier, because it contained more order and chaos than simple iron? That would also explain why Khalyt had been so excited about his ideas for building a steam turbine to propel ships, because it would use less black iron and provide greater power.

He read another page, and then another, before coming to another section that struck him as interesting.

In substance, there is no difference between chaos and order, for neither has substance in and of itself, but as a result of how they are structured. Likewise, that structure determines how much order and chaos can be encompassed and how it will be released, if it can be, should the structure fail or be caused to fail…

Be caused to fail? The book didn’t mention how that might happen, just like it didn’t go into details about how much was accomplished.

He read through several more pages until he came to another section.

If one studies the light from the sun, it is like chaos, and yet it is not. It has a power not unlike chaos, yet its structure is more like unto water, and it flows through the air like a breeze, yet it weighs so little that it might be as nothing…

Sunlight like water? With weight…and flowing through the air?

After several pages more, he closed his eyes, leaned back against the stone wall behind the bench, and let himself doze.