Natural Ordermage

XXIV

Surprisingly, the entire eightday and more passed smoothly for Rahl. Part of that was because he did not meet with any of the magisters or magistras. He did keep reading The Basis of Order, and he found it helped a little to keep in mind what Leyla had said. He tried to understand the book more as just a statement about the world and how order and chaos fit into it, rather than seeking direct answers about how to do something. He also decided to avoid the harbor for a while.

He enjoyed the additional time spent in learning Hamorian, perhaps because he was beginning to be able to talk in complete sentences, if short ones, and because he could instantly tell whether he was saying things correctly.

On sixday, close to two eightdays after his encounter with the Hydlenese thief, he stepped out of Magister Thorl’s Hamorian class and headed to get something to eat. Despite the breeze and the light summer tunic, even walking from the one building to the mess left him perspiring. As he stepped into the slightly cooler mess, he blotted his forehead. Then he made his way to the serving table.

Fried fish again. As well as it was prepared, he was getting tired of the fish, and the boiled early potatoes weren’t exactly a favorite, either, but with only three coppers to his name, he couldn’t exactly afford to be choosy. He filled his platter and mug and stepped away from the serving tables.

“Rahl!”

At the sound of Deybri’s voice, Rahl turned. The healer was sitting alone at one end of a table that had three others at the far end. She motioned for him to join her. With a smile, he carried his platter and mug over and sat down opposite her.

“I haven’t seen you in a while.” He saw the circles under her eyes and sensed her tiredness. “You look like you’ve been working hard.”

“We’ve been busy. A Spidlarian ship had a boiler explosion.”

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“It’s not, but I’d rather not talk about it now. How is your training with the staff coming?”

“Well enough. I hadn’t realized how effective it can be against someone with a blade.”

At that moment, an attractive young woman, a good ten years younger than Deybri, passed the table. She made an effort not to look in Rahl’s direction.

Deybri laughed. “A little obvious.”

“About what?”

“Looking at you while trying not to.”

Rahl couldn’t help but be somewhat flattered but didn’t want to say so. He just shrugged.

“Don’t pretend that you don’t know you’re good-looking.”

“I hadn’t thought about that.”

She smiled. “That means you know it. People who are handsome and know it never have to question whether they are.”

Because her words were so good-natured and the feeling behind them so open, Rahl didn’t bother to hide the wince. He even laughed. “That might be, but I still hadn’t thought about it.”

“You’re too much of a pretty boy,” Deybri added. “Especially now that you’re putting on more muscle from your arms training.”

“Did you mean that as an insult?” Rahl had not sensed any hostility, but more a feeling of amusement from the woman.

“No. If it weren’t for the complications-and that I’m exhausted at the moment-I’d be interested in taking you into my bed, but I’m a forever person. Besides that, I don’t want a child right now, and I don’t have the order-skills to keep from having one, not with you, and you don’t know enough yet to do it either.”

“But…” Rahl was confounded by the warmth and honesty of her words, and the sudden confusion within Deybri. He finally said, “I barely know anything.”

“That’s the problem. You have great order strength, but not much discipline.”

Rahl sighed. “Deybri…how do I get that discipline? The magisters don’t tell me much except to read The Basis of Order and think about what I do before I do it. I don’t even know how I can do what little I can do. And I’ve been trying to puzzle that out.”

Deybri nodded. “That’s a problem. I can only suggest a few things. You can probably see well at night, can’t you? Well, try finding your way around with your eyes closed or with a blindfold, then think about the difference between seeing and feeling your way. You also might try sensing how everything around you is put together.” She paused. “You have a little time before you have to go to arms training, don’t you?”

“A little.”

“Come with me to the infirmary. I think you’ll be able to learn something there, too. You might be able to help me as well.”

Rahl hurriedly finished his fish and potatoes, then swallowed the last of the ale. After rinsing off his platter, he walked with Deybri toward the infirmary.

“The boiler in a Spidlarian merchanter exploded, and that filled the engine spaces with steam. Some is high temperature and high pressure, and they breathed it. If they breathed more than a little, slowly they lose the ability to breathe. It’s as if they breathed pure chaos. The ones who were closest have already died, but there’s one who might make it, except that…” She shook her head.

“What?”

“You’ll see. I don’t want to say more yet.” She walked several more paces before adding, “What you’ll see won’t be pleasant. Can you handle that?”

“I’ll handle it.”

Deybri laughed mirthlessly. “Just don’t look appalled.”

Rahl thought he could manage that.

Once they reached the infirmary, Deybri led Rahl past several empty beds. In looking at them, he could sense an aura of…something. Past the vacant beds was an area that was curtained off.

“Here.” She drew back the curtain slightly and held it so that Rahl could step through.

A man lay on the bed, his upper body propped up. The sailor’s eyes were closed. His forearms were swathed in dressings, and his face was swollen, a mass of blistered skin. With each labored breath, his chest shuddered with a gasping sound.

“He’s unconscious. Can you sense something within his chest?”

Rahl tried just to feel. Then he nodded. Within the man’s chest was a mass of whitish redness. It reminded him of both of the men who had attacked him. It wasn’t quite the same, but it was similar.

“He’s just on the borderline. If…if there were just a little less chaos there.” Deybri shook her head. “I just can’t do any more.”

Rahl looked at her, realizing that she was somehow…frailer. Not in body, but in something. Then he recalled what Leyla had told him about order. Deybri didn’t have any more to give as a healer.

He moved closer to the sailor until he stood almost next to the man. What could he do?

After a moment, he bent over and extended his hands, so that his fingers were almost touching the man’s chest, one set on each side. Then he tried to touch the man with gentle strokes of order across and within his chest.

How long that took he didn’t know, but when he began to feel light-headed, he stopped, then stepped back.

“That’s better,” Deybri said softly. “Can you hear the difference?”

Rahl wasn’t sure that he could. Was the sailor gasping less, breathing more easily? He looked at the man again, trying to sense the chaos. He thought there was less, but he really could not tell.

Deybri stepped back and lifted the curtain. “You’ve done all you can.”

Rahl stepped back beyond the curtain, and she let it fall.

“Thank you.”

“I hope it helped.”

“It did. We’ll just have to see how much.” She paused. “You’d better tell Magister Zastryl that you were helping me heal. You won’t have as much strength for a while.”

“I will.”

After they walked toward the front of the infirmary, away from the injured sailor, Rahl turned to the healer. “Is there a difference between wound chaos and chaos? They don’t seem quite the same to me.”

“They’re not. To me, wound chaos is a little darker and redder.”

“It’s uglier.”

Deybri nodded. “I think that’s because it’s part chaos and part sickness.”

“Couldn’t a white mage help healing by using the chaos to destroy the sickness?” asked Rahl.

“That would take very good control. Pure chaos destroys things. If you’d used chaos on him, you would have destroyed his lungs.”

“Oh…” Rahl shook his head. “Of course.”

“I’ve been told that there have been chaos healers, but they almost have to be gray mages.”

Rahl had never heard of gray mages. “There are gray mages? Who can do both black and white magery?”

“It’s more like some of each,” replied Deybri. “Some say that Cerryl the Great had to have been a gray mage because he built too much that lasted for it to have been accomplished by a white wizard.”

Rahl really didn’t want to leave, but he was already late for arms practice.

“You need to go, but tell Zastryl what you were doing. He won’t mind.”

Rahl hoped Deybri was right. He smiled at her. “I hope I’ll see you later.”

She only smiled in return, enigmatically.