Rahl…he was Rahl. He was the one who had been exiled.
Lights-whitish and reddish-flared across his eyes, and he staggered.
“Blacktop…”
Blacktop…No, he was Rahl. He was Rahl.
The entire reading room began to revolve around him, and he barely managed to put the book down on the nearest bench, before sinking onto it and holding his head in his hands.
More flashes of light flew across his eyes, and yet he knew that the lamplight in the room had not changed.
Rahl…he was Rahl, but how had he gotten to Luba? How had it happened?
Fragments of images swirled through his thoughts……listening to a mage-guard saying, “You don’t have to wear the bracelet, not as an outlander, but you do have to have it with you if you leave Swartheld for any other part of Hamor,” and taking the bracelet and putting it on his left wrist…
…dodging as a tall man in worn tans and a long knife darted in at him, then smashing the man’s wrist with his truncheon and then his jaw, before pivoting barely in time to deflect the short staff of a second attacker, jamming the truncheon just below the center of the man’s ribs-and watching the man die…and then seeing a mage-guard appear and throw two quick chaos-bolts to destroy both bodies…
…sitting at a long desk in the Merchanting Association and worrying about Shyret’s dishonest maneuverings…
…standing at a doorway, looking a last time at Deybri before the door closed in his face…
…trying to walk back to the Merchanting Association, feeling sleepier, and sleepier, and then being rolled up in something-the carpet that Shyret had had waiting…
“Nooo!!!!”
“Blacktop! You’ll have the guards on us!” Hasyn remonstrated. “Keep it to yourself.”
Keep it to himself…to himself. Wasn’t that what everyone wanted? Don’t bother us with your problems and questions. Don’t ask about things we don’t want to hear. Don’t complain when what we tell you doesn’t make sense.
Even so, he closed his mouth, and found himself shivering in rage and anger, the tears streaming down his face.
He was in the ironworks in Luba, the ironworks of Hamor.
Slowly, he stood.
Hasyn looked at him, then stepped back. “Are you all right? You’re not going to do anything stupid, now, are you?”
Rahl would have laughed, but he knew it would have become hysterical bitterness, a torrent he could not have stopped once he started. “No. I can’t afford stupidity.”
“You sound different.” Hasyn continued to frown.
At that moment, Rahl realized something else. He couldn’t sense what Hasyn felt. Nor could he sense what surrounded him. He could only see…and hear.
He had lost all his order-skills.
What had Shyret done to him?
He was a low-level clerk and checker in a prison ironworks in a land far from his birth, and he had been stripped of almost everything-his name, his memories, his order-abilities, what few coins he had possessed, and whatever future he might have had.
The utter unfairness of what had happened surged up within him. Every time he had needed help or assistance or wanted an explanation, someone had told him that they couldn’t explain, or that it was his fault, or his problem, or that they were terribly sorry, but they really couldn’t help him-and then all of them had turned their backs and left matters up to him, only to reproach him, or exile him, when they hadn’t liked what he had done.
All of them except Deybri.
His whole body shuddered.
After a moment, he took a long and deep breath. He had to get control of himself. He had to. He looked up to see that Hasyn continued to back away from him. The older man kept glancing over his shoulder as he distanced himself from Rahl.
Rahl shook his head. “I’ll be fine, Hasyn.”
That didn’t seem to reassure the steam mech, who turned and hurried out of sight down the corridor.
Rahl stood alone in the reading room. That seemed somehow apt.
Now…he had no choices, and no allegiances-except to those few who had honestly tried to help him. He could only do what he could, whatever that might be, in whatever fashion he could.
If he could do anything at all.
LXVIII
For much of the night, Rahl did not sleep. First, he tried to call up each one of the order-skills he recalled, but he had no use or even awareness of any of them, no matter what he tried. Then, exhausted, when he tried to close his eyes and summon sleep, one memory after another emerged, each jolting him back into wakefulness.
Beyond all the memories was a single question. If Shyret had been so worried that Rahl might reveal something, why hadn’t he just killed Rahl? There had to have been a reason. Was murder too risky? Because he’d registered with the mage-guards, and if he turned up dead, someone would be unhappy? Except Shyret wasn’t supposed to know that Rahl had order-skills, and he didn’t know that Rahl had registered. Or did he? Or was it that if anyone from Nylan looked into his death, the investigation might reveal too much? Or that the magisters in Nylan might send an ordermage to inquire?
The latter was the most likely, and that irritated Rahl. His death might get someone to look into things, but his life and his questions wouldn’t. He could feel the rage seething, and not that far beneath, but he blocked it away. Rage was not something he could afford. Not in Luba, and not if he wanted to get any sleep.
In the end, he dozed, fitfully, if that, trying to ignore yet another concern, that of how he could find a way out of Luba, a way that would get him out with both mind and body intact-even if he no longer could call on his order-skills.
He was awake with the first chime of the morning bells, a chime that splintered like miniature knives in his ears.
As he washed and dressed quickly, another thought reoccurred to him. Taryl had already discerned something because he had asked if Rahl had remembered wearing a bracelet on his wrist. And if Rahl didn’t tell the mage-guard…
Once again, he was in an impossible position. He hadn’t done anything really wrong, certainly not since ending up in Luba, but sooner or later Taryl would ask again, and if Rahl waited, that could do him no good at all. Rahl didn’t want to tell Taryl, not in the slightest, but like it or not, he did remember the problems waiting had caused him with Puvort, and in Swartheld, and Taryl was likely to be even harder on him.
Apprehensive as he was, he made his way to the guard station.
“What do you want, Blacktop?” asked a guard that he did not know.
“The mage-guard Taryl, he said to leave a message with you, or whoever was on duty, if I remembered anything that he was asking me about.”
“Yes?”
“I have,” Rahl replied. “I’m just following his orders. That’s why I’m telling you.”
“I’ll pass it on.”
“Thank you, ser.” Rahl inclined his head politely, and then made his way to the dining area. As he filed toward the servers, tin plate and cup in hand, several of the checkers looked in his direction, and then looked away even more quickly. By the time he had been served, no one would meet his eyes.
Why? Because Hasyn or someone had heard about how he’d acted in the reading room the night before? Or because word had spread that a mage-guard would be seeking him out? Or because he appeared different-even if he hadn’t seemed so to himself when he had looked in the mirror earlier that morning?
Rahl found a corner at one of the tables and ignored the way the checkers closest to him edged away. The egg and quinoa breakfast casserole seemed far less edible than on previous mornings, but that might have been because he’d had no basis for comparison from before he’d come to the ironworks. Still, he ate it all, and drank every last drop of the beer, bitter as it also tasted.
When he left the dining area, the guard by the door avoided looking at him, and he stood by himself while he waited for the morning wagon to the loading dock. He sat next to Hasyn in the last row of seats. Two of the hoist sling-men sat in front of them.