Natural Ordermage

LXXXIII

After three days of intermittent drizzle, and a downpour on eightday, when Rahl decided he did not want to go to Guasyra, the weather cleared briefly on oneday, only to have the drizzling light rain reappear on twoday.

In late midmorning Rahl looked up from his copying to see Taryl standing in the doorway. Rhiobyn was sparring, and Rahl didn’t know where Talanyr might be.

“Good morning, Rahl.”

“Good morning, ser.”

“What are the duties of the Mage-Guard Overcommander?”

“The overcommander is the direct supervisor of all mage-guard stations in Hamor, ser.”

“That’s a description, Rahl, but it doesn’t tell me what he does.”

Rahl tried to recall anything that might have been in the Manual or that Taryl or Khaill or any mage-guard had said. He didn’t recall anything at all. “Ser…I imagine that he has to review the reports from the stations and decide whether those stations are well run. He must also have to report to the Triad, and make recommendations to them.” Rahl looked directly at Taryl. “Ser, I’ve read the Manual and the Codex from cover to cover, and I cannot recall anything about the overcommander’s duties.”

Taryl laughed. “That’s because there isn’t anything written about it. What about the duties of the mage-captain here at Luba?”

“They’re laid out in the duty book.”

“Have you read it?”

“Yes, ser.”

“Is there anything in the Manual about the duties of a mage-captain?”

“I only recall that mage-captains are responsible for the effective and loyal operation of their stations in the best interests of the Emperor and in accord with the standards set forth in the Manual.”

“Why do you think that more specific requirements are not laid out in writing in the Manual or the Codex?”

Rahl had no idea. He couldn’t even guess. “I couldn’t say, ser. I don’t know.”

“Think about this. If a mage-captain is not honest and effective and loyal, of what use are detailed written procedures? Then think about this. Should Swartheld station be operated in exactly and precisely the same fashion as Luba station or Highpoint station or Cignoerne station or Atla station? Could you write a meaningful set of procedures that would cover all of them?”

“No, ser.”

“That’s why all procedures are set forth in the local duty books, and why the training and standards for mage-guards are as they are. We don’t care so much from what background a mage-guard comes as we do about that guard’s effectiveness, honesty, and loyalty. That’s not to say we don’t have our bad pearapples. That can’t be avoided in any large group that has power, but we do our best to remove them when we find out.” Taryl gestured. “Leave the copying. We need to work on something else.”

“Yes, ser.” Rahl rose, picking up his cap and following the mage-guard.

Outside, the rain had diminished to a light drizzle that seeped out of the low-hanging gray clouds. To the north, over the ironworks, the clouds held a reddish orange hue. Taryl walked to the waiting wagon and, after pulling a cloth from under the second seat and wiping it off, climbed up and sat down. He handed the rag to Rahl, who wiped off the other side before seating himself.

“Blast furnace number one,” Taryl told the driver.

Blast furnace? Rahl didn’t ask aloud. Taryl would tell him in his own good time.

Taryl waited until the wagon was headed away from the station before continuing. “A mage-guard, particularly one who is a natural ordermage, can never afford to be surprised or startled. He or she has to have an internal confidence, an assurance based on both experience and feelings. Your problems, I suspect, occurred because your confidence was greater than your experience, and because Recluce fears giving those such as you the necessary exposure to events and situations that will widen your experience.”

Rahl hadn’t thought of it in quite that way, but what Taryl said made far more sense than anything he’d heard in either Land’s End or Nylan…with the exception of what little he had learned from Deybri, and he hadn’t known enough to build on what she had said.

“Still…no matter what we do to prepare you, there will be the unexpected, but these and other exercises should give you an experience-based confidence that will allow you to face the unexpected. That is our hope, but you are the one who will have to make it work.”

That sounded a little too much like the magisters of Nylan for Rahl, but he knew Taryl didn’t mean it in the same way.

Before that long, the small wagon came to a halt on the southwest side of the southernmost of the blast furnaces. A misty steam surrounded the upper levels of the structure. Rahl followed Taryl along a stone walk toward the furnace, but he glanced westward along the causeway with the grooved iron rails that led to the mills. Halfway between was one of the steam tugs, moving slowly away from Rahl and toward the southern mill.

The misty rain continued to seep out of the clouds above, and heat and steam rose from the sand molds north of the walk, giving the hot air a damp and metallic odor. Taryl moved briskly to a portal at the base of the outer wall, then through it, as did Rahl.

Once inside, a wave of heat, like a wall of invisible flame, slammed into Rahl, and he stopped well short of the circular brick wall that contained the crucible itself.

“See if you can raise a shield against the heat,” suggested Taryl, who had already done that.

Rahl let himself feel everything around him before thinking about shields and trying to let them flow into place before him. The worst of the heat subsided, but he became even more aware of the raw chaos that lay beyond the crucible that held molten metal.

“Closer…” ordered Taryl. “Feel the power, but use your shields to keep it from you.”

Rahl edged closer.

“Follow me.” Taryl gestured, then walked to his left, toward the plug gate being opened by a pair of ironworkers.

Eventually, Rahl was standing almost directly beside the molten iron as it poured from the furnace along an inclined stone channel into the sand mold farther to the west. Even behind his shields, he was hot and sweating profusely.

Then, with a hiss and sputter, droplets of iron, like heavy chaos, splattered against his shields. For a moment, Rahl felt everything slipping, and he concentrated on holding the feeling of the shields, watching as the droplets struck his shields, then slid off onto the layer of sand over the stone floor.

After a time, Taryl motioned for him to step back.

Rahl did, following the mage-guard away from the lower levels of the furnace and then out through the narrow doorway. As he stepped out into the afternoon drizzle, mist and fog surrounded him.

“Your shields still absorb the heat-chaos,” Taryl pointed out. “Let them go slowly.”

The warm drizzle felt cool compared to the residual heat that had been held within his shields, and Rahl just let the pinpoints of rain bathe him for several moments.

“Each of those droplets of molten iron has as much force as a chaos-bolt,” Taryl said. “More than the chaos thrown by most renegade or foreign mages.”

“I didn’t expect that,” Rahl admitted.

“You weren’t supposed to.” Taryl offered a faint smile. “Now…tell me what you feel the difference is between the chaos in the furnace and the chaos when a mage throws a chaos-bolt.”

Rahl considered before speaking. “The chaos in the furnace is…more chaotic. There’s no sense of order about it at all. It’s almost all power. But when a chaos-mage throws a bolt, it’s different.”

“How so?”

“It’s like it has some chaotic order…but the order’s not quite right.”

Taryl nodded. “The chaos of the molten iron is what one might call honest chaos. A chaos-bolt contains a corruption of both chaos and order. That’s one reason why it’s so corrosive. It’s also why an ordermage of equivalent strength can never be defeated by the power of a chaos-mage alone.”

Rahl noted the careful phrasing Taryl used, but did not comment.

Taryl looked northward, where darker clouds were massing. “We need to get moving, unless you want to get soaked-or exhausted trying to hold an order shield against a downpour.” He walked toward the waiting wagon.

With a smile, Rahl joined him.