Natural Ordermage

LXXVIII

Over the next few days, little changed-except at odd times, Rahl would experience a return of his order-senses. The first few occasions were brief, but thereafter each time the feeling lasted a little longer-so long as Rahl did not attempt to do anything with what he felt. On eightday, he was the clerk-recorder for the duty mage-guard, and that kept him from joining Talanyr in going to Guasyra.

On threeday morning, he found himself once more assigned to follow a mage-guard. Dymat was not a chaos-mage, but an ordermage, one of the oldest mage-guards Rahl had seen, with silver hair and a long horselike face.

As they stood near the duty desk, Dymat studied Rahl, then shook his head.

“Ser?”

“I’ll tell you later, young Rahl. Do you know what I do?”

“No, ser. Only that you’re involved with the mills and forges.”

“I’ll explain on the ride to the rolling mill. We might as well get started. Besides, Klemyl is waiting.”

Rahl only knew that Klemyl was one of the younger mage-guards at Luba station, slightly shorter than Rahl himself, with curly dark red hair and a high-pitched voice.

Dymat turned and walked quickly across the entry hall where the duty desk was located and out through the door to the wagon area. Three wagons remained, and Dymat hurried toward the second one. Klemyl was already in the forward bench right behind the driver. Dymat swung up into the second bench, and Rahl followed.

Klemyl smiled politely, nodded, then turned to face forward, addressing the driver. “We’re all here. You can leave.”

Rahl had the impression that, for all his politeness, Klemyl was less than pleased. Was that because of Rahl…or for some other reason? Rahl certainly hadn’t had anything other than passing contact with Klemyl.

For several moments, as the wagon picked up speed under a gray summer sky, Dymat was silent. Despite the high clouds, the air was warm and would be stifling by midday. Rahl’s nostrils burned slightly from the acridity in the air, and his eyes watered.

“What I do is simple, tedious, and vital to all of Hamor. In fact, this is true of what almost all the mage-guards do,” began Dymat, his voice overly loud, at least to Rahl. “The production of iron plate, beams, and rods is most important for all of Hamor. The mills turn the pig iron into plate and other materials. They operate at high pressures and temperatures and contain many steam engines that provide power for the mills. If chaos should gain a foothold anywhere, production could be slowed or even halted for days, if not eightdays.” Dymat smiled and looked at Rahl, as if expecting a response.

“I can understand that, ser.”

“Speak up, Rahl.”

“Yes, ser,” Rahl replied, more loudly.

“You will see steam engines and steam tugs the like of which exist nowhere else. Do you know why?” Dymat looked intently at Rahl.

Rahl tried to think of a possible reason. If keeping out chaos was so important…“Ser, is that because-”

Dymat didn’t seem to hear.

Rahl raised his voice. “Is that because those engines require the constant inspection of mage-guards to keep chaos away so that they will continue to work?”

“I see you can think. Not so quickly as one might wish,” bellowed Dymat, “but one cannot have everything in Luba. No, one cannot.”

Rahl merely nodded.

“We must keep chaos at bay all the time, and I will show you how.” Dymat turned and looked ahead.

The wagon followed the road to the north, in the direction of the loading docks, but then took the fork that continued farther west. Before long, they passed south of the southernmost of the coking furnaces, and then south of the lowest of the blast furnaces built on the inclined slope that stretched to the north.

As Rahl studied the west side of the furnaces, he realized that the slope had to have been built-possibly by magery-because the slope was far too regular and the west side had been cut away, so that each furnace was exactly the same distance above the one below. He also noted that great stone causeways ran from the west side of the furnaces to the mills.

The driver turned northward, following another paved road toward what looked to be the southernmost mill. Then the wagon reached one of the stone causeways. It jolted once, then again, as its iron tires crossed something. Rahl looked down. The wagon had passed over a pair of iron-lined grooves in the stone, set almost three cubits apart.

The driver turned westward on the center of the causeway, and Rahl noted that another set of iron grooves bordered the north side of the stone pavement. Ahead was the mill, so large that it stretched at least four hundred cubits from north to south, and even farther westward. Shortly, the wagon halted some fifty cubits short of the east end of the mill. A huge arched portal gaped before them, an opening fifty some cubits across, Rahl judged.

“We get off here,” announced Dymat, easing off the wagon.

Rahl joined him and walked beside the mage-guard toward the portal. He glanced back, but the wagon was on its way to take Klemyl to whatever his duty was. Rahl moistened his lips and took two hurried steps to catch up with Dymat.

From within the mill issued a thunderous rumbling, combined with dull and heavy impacts so powerful that the stone beneath Rahl’s feet vibrated. Occasional shrieks, as if iron itself were being torn apart, punctuated the rumbling thunder.

Then, from the right side of the portal, an enormous flat wagon rolled forward, pushed by what could only have been the steam tug mentioned by Dymat. Both the wagon and the steam tug had iron wheels almost as tall as Rahl, and both were constructed entirely of iron. The steam tug had long drivers attached to its wheels. It took him a moment to realize that the massive wheels fitted in the iron-lined grooves. The steam tug measured a solid thirty cubits in length, and a plume of gray smoke issued from a squat stack near the front of the tug.

“Nothing like that anywhere else!” shouted Dymat. “Did I not tell you?”

“You did,” Rahl called back, wondering how much pig iron or iron ingots the flatbed wagon could carry. He also couldn’t help but wonder why there were no massive steam engines elsewhere in Hamor and nothing like the giant steam tugs. Then he nearly shook his head. How could there be? If such machines required constant attention by ordermages, if there were many at all, they would require all the mages in Hamor.

Dymat walked toward the open portal of the mill, and Rahl followed. They stopped some thirty cubits inside the portal. Under the high roof, supported by wide stone columns, the mill stretched almost a kay from where Rahl stood, and the noise from the welter of machinery battered at him. The air above the far end of the mill was so hazy that the details of the brick columns there were blurred.

Dymat gestured, then bent his head so that he was effectively shouting into Rahl’s right ear. “The pigs come in hot, but not hot enough for milling. They go through what they call a regenerative furnace, then a hammer forge and a cogging mill. That’s where they get cut and shaped into the slabs that go into the plate mill here. The slabs are about a hundred stones, and they get rolled by the big flywheel engines. The wheels are more than seven thousand stones, and they flatten the iron to whatever the thickness necessary. Most are quarter span, but for warship armament, they sometimes produce plate that’s a full span in thickness. Just follow me.” The mage-guard turned and began to walk down the open space on the left side of the towering furnace, from which waves of heat welled. The furnace looked more like a huge oblong box, but Dymat spent little time inspecting it, looking at it almost cursorily as he passed. At the end of the furnace was a set of massive rollers, each as large as Rahl’s own body, set in an even more massive frame that extended from the slot in the back of the furnace to the next assembly, presumably the hammer forge, Rahl thought.

The hammer forge was even higher than the regenerative furnace. Through the structure of iron beams and supports, Rahl could make out what looked more like an enormous oblong that rose…slowly, and then came down with great force. With each impact on the red iron, iron sparks flew; the stone floor shook; and hot air gusted around him, air that was metallically acrid.

Dymat took a few steps, paused, studied, then took a few more, slowly making his way toward the western end of the giant forging apparatus. There he stopped well short of it and studied it for a long time.

Rahl had no idea whether the ordermage found any chaos or not, because not only were his normal senses battered and numbed, but he had no feeling at all in the way of order-senses. But because Dymat did not seem disturbed, Rahl had the feeling that nothing was amiss.

At the west end, while Dymat continued to study the forge, Rahl watched as a section of reddish iron moved slowly over another set of the massive rollers toward the next assembly. Two men stood by a set of enormous levers. One looked briefly at the mage-guard, but his eyes went back to the slab emerging from the hammer forge and rollers that held and carried it forward.

The heat from the forge and the mill was far more intense than anything Rahl had felt as a loader.

Dymat paused and motioned for Rahl to join him.

Rahl nodded and stepped forward.

“Plate mill!” announced Dymat, gesturing toward the next assembly. “Slabs from the hammer forge come in here to the first set of pinions, then to the roughing rolls, and finally the smoothing rolls. Any chaos in the pinions or the rolls, and we’d have iron and steel exploding all over the mill. That’s because they’re turning, and there’s already chaos being structure-trapped into the iron. You can see the chaos-red of the slabs. The iron can hold great chaos, even when heated to melting, but chaos in the mill…that’s something else.”

Again, Rahl followed as Dymat slowly inspected the plate mill. Once more, Rahl could sense nothing.

As he followed and watched the order mage-guard, Rahl was more than certain that, if there were any way he could avoid it, he wanted no part of being a mage-guard at the ironworks.

By the time Rahl had finished his day with Dymat and climbed aboard the wagon back to the mage-guard station, his eyes and lungs burned. His ears rang, and all he could smell was hot metal.

“Isn’t it a grand place?” demanded Dymat.

Grand? That was one word for it, Rahl supposed. He nodded, then added, “Yes, ser.”

There was just enough time before dinner for him to wash up and get the grime off his face and hands and out of the corners of his eyes. Even so, he was the last at the juniors’ table in the station mess.

He could barely wait for the servers to place the pitcher of lager on the table, but he still allowed Talanyr and Rhiobyn to fill their mugs first. Then he filled his mug and immediately took a long swallow to ease his throat. After the fumes of the mill and having to shout to make himself heard to Dymat, his throat felt raw.

He immediately refilled the mug.

“Where did you go today?” asked Rhiobyn.

“The mill…with Dymat.”

“Are you hoarse?” asked Talanyr with a grin, keeping his voice low.

Rahl nodded.

“It’s not my favorite duty,” Talanyr added.

Rhiobyn smiled broadly. “They won’t even let us near the mills or the blast furnaces, except to light off a cold furnace. It’s another benefit of being on the chaos side.” He stopped as a server set a platter of burhka and noodles in the middle of the table and a basket of bread on the side.

“How can you even sense chaos in all that?” asked Rahl.

Talanyr shrugged. “I can’t. It might be that being partly deaf helps.” He frowned. “But Taryl can, and so can Dymetrost. It could just take higher-level order-skills.”

Rahl nodded. That might be possible, and he was far from having any real control over whether his order-senses were present or not. Being able to sense chaos in the mills might be a true test of sorts, not that he was looking forward to anything along those lines. He filled his platter with the burhka and noodles, then took a small mouthful and a bite of bread.

“How is the arms training coming?” asked Talanyr.

Rahl swallowed before answering. “Much better. Khaill seems pleased, and I don’t get many bruises anymore. I still sweat a lot. He makes you work hard.”

Rhiobyn and Talanyr exchanged glances. Finally, Talanyr spoke. “If you’re really good with weapons, you might get assigned to a city patrol station.”

“From here?”

“It does happen, more than you think,” Rhiobyn said. “That’s for clerks and junior mage-guards. Most of the seniors will stay here.”

“Is that because…?” Rahl decided not to say more.

“It depends,” replied Talanyr. “Some of the mage-guards actually want to stay here. Dymat likes his duties here. So does Dymetrost. Others prefer it to Highpoint or coastal duty in the north.”

“If you could choose,” asked Rahl, “where would you like to be stationed?”

“Someplace smaller near Atla. Really, I’d like Rymtukbo, but that’s too close to Jabuti, and you never get stationed near your hometown. It’s too hard to be fair if you know people. Sometimes, they’ll move a mage-guard who’s gotten too friendly, too. They do it more than once, and he’s likely to end up here.”

Rahl could see why the Triad would follow that policy, but was it necessary for all mage-guards?

He stifled a yawn and then took another mouthful of dinner. It had been a long and tiring day.