Natural Ordermage

LXXX

By eightday morning, when Rahl showered and dressed, his bruises had turned yellow and purple. All of them hurt to the touch, some more than others. Thankfully, most were concealed by his khaki uniform. Every movement still caused lingering pain or soreness…somewhere. Yet the dull aches and occasional sharp pains didn’t matter so much, not now that he had his order-sensing back. He’d tried to create shields, but that skill evaded him-so far.

After a hurried breakfast, he stood outside the station building with Talanyr, waiting for the wagon. Rhiobyn was talking to Klemyl several cubits away.

“…don’t know what he did to upset Taryl…beaten within a span of his life…could hardly move yesterday morning…”

“…Taryl…doesn’t do anything without a reason…”

“Are you sure you can stand a wagon ride to Guasyra?” asked Talanyr. “You had trouble sitting still at copying yesterday.”

“I can handle a wagon ride fine, and I’d like to get away from the station, even if it’s a touch uncomfortable.” Rahl adjusted his uniform visor cap, almost the same as that of a mage-guard, except there was no starburst above the black visor. With the heat of summer and the clear sky, he was grateful for the cap.

Under the early-morning light, Talanyr surveyed Rahl. “He really beat you up, didn’t he?”

“He had to.”

Talanyr nodded. “Sometimes, it’s that way.”

“I see Klemyl over there…and Rhiobyn.”

“Rhiobyn fancies he can learn something from him, but Klemyl just wants to get to Guasyra to see his consort and his son.”

“Doesn’t Rhiobyn see that?”

“He was raised in Cigoerne, and that’s where Rhiobyn wants to be.” Talanyr laughed. “It’s not impossible…but it’s not likely.”

The two turned as the long wagon rumbled up.

Rahl had to steel himself as he climbed aboard, and he let out a slow breath as he settled onto the hard seat in the fourth row.

“You’re sure you’ll be all right?” asked Talanyr.

“I’m fine.” Rahl did have to sit with more weight on his left buttock. “Tell me about Jabuti, since I’ll probably never get there.”

“It’s a little place smaller than Guasyra. There’s only one market square, and it’s not even on a paved highway. That doesn’t matter much because it almost never rains or snows there. All the rain falls in the western forests below the highlands…”

Rahl sat back, if gingerly, and listened as the wagon began the long ride up the road to the pass, and then down to Guasyra.

Prompted by an occasional question, Talanyr was still talking when the wagon neared the twin-spired Kaordist temple, and the muted sounds of song wafted toward them on the still air.

“Their song sounds ordered,” Rahl pointed out.

“They have disordered drums sometimes, I’ve heard.”

Rahl was still half-listening to Talanyr and pondering why anyone would worship order and chaos-they just were-when the wagon came to a stop opposite the market square in the small town.

“…anyway, despite what my father hoped, there wasn’t much point in carrying the timber up over the passes, except for the little that people in Jabuti needed. It was so much cheaper to float it down the river and ship it to the coastal ports…”

“Always the golds,” agreed Rahl as he eased off the wagon, concealing a wince. The odor of burning charcoal wafted past him, suggesting that the vendors were preparing their braziers for a day of cooking. He glanced toward the raised platform of the square, where some sellers were still setting up awnings and tents.

“Let’s head south, toward the river park,” suggested Talanyr. “The vendors are running late. We can come back later. Are you game for trying a place that serves Sylpan food? Not now, but this afternoon?”

“What’s it like?” asked Rahl warily. Hamorian cooking seemed to be prepared either as hot and spicy or hotter and spicier.

“Well…it’s a bit bland. They say it’s subtle. More fowl and rich sauces and rice grasses.”

Was any Hamorian cooking subtle? Rahl had his doubts. “I’d like to try it.”

“I thought you might.” Talanyr grinned, turning westward along the north side of the square.

Rahl could see Klemyl nodding to Rhiobyn, then hurrying northward toward a narrow lane that angled to the northeast, leaving Rhiobyn by himself. The mage-clerk walked eastward, away from Talanyr and Rahl.

“Knives! Fine knives! The finest…”

“The best in spices, peppers to burn hotter than a stove…”

Rahl hurried his steps to catch Talanyr, and the two walked to the east end of the square before turning south.

“The river park’s on the far side of the center of town, but you’ll have a chance to see the merchant establishments on the way, such as they are,” said Talanyr. “The square’s on the north end of the main street, and the park’s just a few hundred cubits beyond the south end.”

Rahl forbore to mention that he’d already seen the merchants’ shops once, if briefly.

Beyond the square, the first establishment was a tavern-The Iron Bowl-but the maroon door was closed, as were the matching shutters.

“You don’t ever want to go there,” Talanyr said.

“Oh?”

“Costly, and not worth the coins.”

Across the narrow paved street from the tavern was an apothecary, and beside it an alchemist’s. Both doors were open, and Rahl caught the faintest hint of something that smelled like a combination of mint and brimstone. The way the two shops were linked, and their identical narrow vertical windows, Rahl thought they might have the same proprietor-or have had the same builder.

As they walked, Talanyr explained.

“…basketmaker’s there…use a river reed, and they’ll actually hold water. That’s what Klemyl claims, but it might be because his consort weaves some of them…”

“…coppersmith…honest work…nothing special…”

“…cooperage…good workmanship, but he’s got a problem because there’s not much oak anywhere near here, and no spruce to speak of…”

Before that long, the two stood at the north side of a green hedge. Rahl looked at it closely, realizing that the dusky green leaves concealed a myriad of thorns, all of which looked needle-sharp and were at least as long as his index finger.

“False olive hedge,” explained Talanyr. “Some of the wealthier folk use them like walls around their grounds. The thorns can cause wound chaos if the cuts aren’t cleaned quickly.” He walked farther south along the hedge until he reached a set of brick pillars, clearly an entrance to the park beyond, an expanse of green, with brick walks and scattered broad-leaved acacias to provide shade to the tables set beneath them.

Following Talanyr into the park, seemingly empty, except for a consorted couple engaged in intimate conversation at one of the tables, Rahl glanced toward the river on the west side of the park. A low brick wall separated the greenery from the water, except for the two piers that jutted out a good twenty cubits into the grayish water of the river. Two small girls stood on the nearer pier, and each held something, a sugared pearapple, perhaps.

As he continued to follow Talanyr along the brick walk, his eyes went back to the girls. A seagull swooped down toward them, and one threw up her hand to ward off the bird, but the other, startled, jumped back, then lost her balance and tumbled into the river.

Talanyr sprinted toward the pier. At the shoreward end, he yanked off his boots and belt, flinging his cap aside, and dashed to the end of the pier, where he plunged into the water.

Rahl rushed to the end of the pier, where he saw Talanyr swimming in circles around where the girl had been. Then Talanyr vanished beneath the water himself.

What could Rahl do? He wasn’t that good a swimmer.

The other girl looked from Rahl to the river and back at Rahl.

“Go get her parents!” Rahl just hoped that Talanyr could rescue her before the parents arrived. “Tell them what happened.”

Talanyr appeared above the water, then vanished again. After a moment, he reappeared, then dived beneath the slow-moving gray water again. When he finally emerged, he had the girl in one arm.

Rahl flattened himself on the timbers of the pier and took the girl from Talanyr. He opened her mouth and struck her back, trying to force water out.

Talanyr climbed out of the water. “Let me have her.” He laid her on her stomach and turned her head to the side. Then he pressed her back. Water gushed, then oozed from her mouth. He repeated the motions several times, until no water issued forth.

“I’ve gotten the water out of her, but she’s not breathing. She’s not breathing…” Talanyr glanced up at Rahl. “Can’t you do something?”

Rahl dropped to his knees beside the dark-haired girl, turning her over. She looked so pale and fragile. He could sense the combination of chaos and order that he knew was life, but it was faint and fading. What could he do? What would Deybri have done?

He had to feel…to sense. He gently grasped her wrists, then closed his eyes. He had to give her strength…if he could.

Feel-that was what both Deybri and Taryl had emphasized…if in their own and differing ways.

Rahl tried to re-create the feeling he’d had when he’d merged himself under Taryl’s pummeling in the darkness. Slowly, everything seemed to darken around him, but he could sense a faint series of sparks, fading…fading. Gently, afraid to force anything, he touched one spark, and then another…and a third…and a fourth…

Somewhere in the process, darkness found him.

“Rahl! Wake up! You did it!”

Rahl found himself being shaken. “Oh…I’m awake.” He looked around.

A wide-eyed and round-faced woman was wrapping a blanket around the girl, who, while still wet and pale, was clearly awake and breathing. A stocky man in a clay-stained apron stood beside the pair. Tears streamed down his face.

“Ser mage-guards…how can I thank you? I have so little, but my daughter, she is everything…everything…”

Rahl shook his head. “You don’t have to give us anything.” He grinned tiredly at Talanyr. “Except maybe a towel.”

In the end, they followed the man-Kesyn the potter-and his consort, while Talanyr carried the girl, as protectively as though she had been his own daughter or younger sister. Then they sat on the shady side of a tiny courtyard, with Talanyr wearing an old blanket while his khakis baked in the sun.

“You are certain my Eysla will be well?”

“She will be well if she doesn’t fall in the river again.,” Talanyr replied. “Do you have a healer here?”

“Yes.”

“If she has a fever, take Eysla to her. Sometimes, after people have been in the water, days later, they get chaos in the chest,” said Talanyr. “There is none there now, but it could happen.”

Kesyn nodded slowly. “You are the young mage-guards, is it not so?”

“We’re mage-clerks,” replied Talanyr, “and, if we do well, we will become mage-guards.”

“You are from Atla?” Kesyn looked at Rahl.

“That is how I learned to speak,” Rahl replied. “I’m an outlander.”

Kesyn merely nodded and looked at Talanyr. “Afrit?”

“Alas, yes,” replied Talanyr mock-mournfully. “Jabuti.”

Kesyn nodded knowingly. “Wyala’s cousin’s consort’s uncle came from there, many years ago. He said that it was almost as dry as Luba. He said it was so dry that he shriveled up, and the wind blew him here.” A hearty laugh followed.

“Jabuti’s not quite that bad, except in the late summer,” replied Talanyr. “Astoy…that’s another question…”

At some point, Rahl fell asleep in the canvas chair, only to wake with the sun well past midafternoon.

“You certainly slept the day away,” said Talanyr, standing beside Rahl, wearing dry, but somewhat wrinkled khakis.

“Whatever I did tired me out more than I knew.” Rahl sat up gingerly. Once again, he was stiff, if not quite so much as he might have been. He slowly rose from the chair.

At that moment, the potter reappeared.

“We should go, Kesyn,” Talanyr said, adjusting his khakis.

“You do not have to go.”

“My friend has recovered, and so have my clothes,” replied Talanyr with a laugh.

“May order surround you and shield you, and may the strength of chaos defend you both.” The potter stepped forward and threw his arms around Rahl. “I cannot thank you enough for my daughter, but you must know that I would have given anything that I possess to save her.”

Rahl couldn’t help but feel embarrassed. “We did what anyone should have done.”

“Anyone did not save my daughter,” announced Kesyn, stepping back. “You did.” In turn, he embraced Talanyr. “Young mage-guards, you are what makes Hamor great, and may the Emperor reward you as I cannot.”

Eysla stepped forward shyly from around her father’s legs, then inclined her head. “Thank you.”

Rahl smiled at the girl. “You are welcome, but please be careful around the river.”

She smiled nervously, clinging to her father’s trousers.

Rahl stepped back, not wishing to frighten her.

As Rahl and Talanyr walked back toward the market square, Rahl heard a clinking, and it was coming from him. He frowned, then put his hand in his single trouser pocket. He felt coins and drew them out. There were three silvers. How? He shook his head. Kesyn. It had to have been the potter, when he’d hugged Rahl before they’d left.

“Talanyr…Kesyn slipped these in my pocket.”

“I know. I saw.”

“I can’t take them. I’ll have to give them back.” Rahl stopped.

Talanyr touched his shoulder. “You can’t. You’ll insult him, and what you did isn’t against the Codex. You healed his daughter. She’d have died without you. Kesyn knows that. That’s why you were the one who got the silvers.”

“I couldn’t have done anything without you. I can barely swim.”

“Take the favor fate gave you, Rahl. Chaos knows you’ve had little enough favor lately. I was just glad we saved her.”

The slight roughness in Talanyr’s voice gave Rahl pause. Taryl had compared the girl who had been near the vendors and the thieves to Talanyr’s sister. Rahl decided against probing something that painful. Instead, he looked at the silvers, then back in the direction of the potter’s shop and dwelling. Kesyn was a proud man, but he shouldn’t have given Rahl the silvers, but…if Rahl was too proud to take them…He smiled wryly and placed the silvers in his belt wallet. He did have a use for them.

“I’m glad you’re not that stubborn,” said Talanyr. “I’d heard that most mages from Recluce were insufferably stiff.”

“Some are,” Rahl conceded. His thoughts went to Puvort and Kadara, with their more orderly than thou attitudes, their insistence on there only being one way.

Suddenly, Rahl found his fists clenching and his entire body so tight that every sore muscle was even sorer. How could they be that smug? That certain?

Then, he stood alone, isolated, all his order-senses gone.

“Are you all right?”

Rahl stopped, slowly taking a deep breath, then another. He’d gotten so angry that the rage had almost taken him over-and he’d lost his order-senses. For a moment, he closed his eyes. What could he think of? Something warm, peaceful…

Deybri came to mind, and he concentrated mentally on creating her image in his mind, the waves in her brown hair, her smile, the gold-flecked brown eyes, the clear skin, and her warmth. He tried to picture her as he’d first seen her, in the mess at Nylan.

As his rage receded under that remembered warmth, he could feel his order-senses returning, if not completely.

“What was that all about?” asked Talanyr. “You just stopped and closed your eyes. Are you hurt?”

Rahl shook his head. “No…well, not…” He shook his head again. “It’s hard to explain, except that…trying to regain what I once had isn’t easy. Even keeping it isn’t easy, either.”

“I’m amazed at what you have done,” Talanyr said quietly. “Not many escape the drudge jobs of the ironworks, and very few become mage-guards.”

“I’m just a mage-clerk,” Rahl pointed out.

“That’s still a great accomplishment, and you will be a mage-guard. Taryl wouldn’t spend so much effort on you if he didn’t think so.”

Rahl had his doubts, not about Taryl’s efforts, but about whether anyone besides Taryl would see it that way.

“We need some dinner,” Talanyr said. “Especially you.”

“I could use something to eat.”

They both laughed.