Natural Ordermage

XXII

In the darkness of eightday, not long before lamps-out, Rahl walked along the path in the garden. The afternoon nap had helped, but he still felt a little tired. As he walked, he kept his eyes closed, confirming that he navigated more in deep darkness by his order-senses than by his sight. Still, he was trying to sense more than just the general position of things, but where exactly they were and how solid they might be.

Still without using his vision, he followed the stones through the patch of brinn, trying to put his boots down in the exact center of each hexagonal stone. When he had crossed the brinn, he stopped on the narrow walk that separated it from the sage on his left and the mint on his right. The sage bed was elevated a good span and a half above the mint and grew in drier and sandier soil.

He opened his eyes and checked his location. He was on the edge of the stones, but that wasn’t too bad. The first time, he’d almost tripped on the raised border of the sage bed.

As he stood in the cool of the evening, he also tried to recall the difference between seeing and sensing. After a moment, he closed his eyes and began to move forward.

Then he sensed someone approaching on the main walk, but not who.

He opened his eyes.

It was an older man, dressed in the same grays as Rahl wore. He looked at Rahl, then inclined his head. “Good evening.”

“Good evening.”

Rahl waited until the other was out of sight before he resumed his exercises in the garden. He couldn’t say why, but he felt that he needed to learn something about order before long.

He’d discovered more than a few aspects of order by trying things, but what he had not discovered was how he did what he did. Once he considered the possibility of doing something, it was almost as though he could either do it, or he could not-even when he knew that other mages had been able to accomplish what he tried.

As the time neared for the lamps-out bell, Rahl made one last order-sensed navigation through the garden, this time between the mint and the parsley, before opening his eyes and making his way back to his quarters.

There he lit the lamp and reclaimed his towel before heading to the washstones to wash up before climbing into bed. He finished quickly and returned to his chamber.

Absently, he put out the wall lamp by tightening a miniature order shield around the wick. He could do that, but he could not erect a shield such as that around anything living-even to protect it. He’d tried to shield a tree-rat from a terrier, and that hadn’t worked. He hadn’t even been able to put shields around insects.

Then he laughed. He hadn’t even thought of it, but he hadn’t really needed to light the lamp at all.

Was that part of his problem, that he still was doing too many things by habit rather than asking if he should be, or whether he could handle them in a different fashion?

He began to disrobe, stifling a yawn. The end-days had been long.