LE Modesitt Recluce 14 Natural Ordermage v1.2

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what he d been wearing, and they seemed to fit better.
Let s see, young fellow, growled Elina.
Rahl bristled inside at her tone, but pulled back the curtain and stepped
forward.
Both women studied him.
Leyla nodded. So did Elina.
They ll do, added the magistra.
Now& for some boots. This way, ordered the wardrobe mistress.
Rahl followed her to another series of bins, from which she extracted three
pairs of brownish boots. He tried on five pairs before he and Elina were
satisfied.
Then she handed him another set of grays and extra drawers. That ll do you.
Leyla looked at him. Just leave the old ones. They ll wash them and use them
for rags in the engineering halls.
Washrags? he blurted.
There s no sense in wasting them, and they re pretty worn. You re expected to
wear relatively clean clothes every day, and you re responsible for washing
them. You get two complete sets of garments, and four sets of underdrawers.
You can put the second set in your room on the way back.
Washing his own garments? Rahl didn t mind chores, but washing was for women.
Again, he bottled away the irritation.
Rahl was definitely feeling unsettled by the time he had unloaded his new
garments and was walking into the building Leyla called the academy. The
wardrobe mistress had measured him without touching him, and he d seen more
clothes, casually stored, than he d ever seen anywhere in his life. He had the
kind of boots merchants or Council Guards only wore, and his old perfectly
serviceable clothes would be washed and then turned into rags. He d met
another exile whom he couldn t sense, discovered he d have to do wash and who
knew what else, and found out about skills he d never heard of. And it was
still-early in the day.
We ll go to the duty study. This is where you ll meet the duty mage or
whoever s working with you every morning after breakfast. If someone s not
here, wait. Leyla stepped through the entry arch, narrower than the others
Rahl had seen, and opened the door.
Yes, magistra. To Rahl, the black stones of the building felt older than
either the quarters building or the eating hall.
She led him into a small study with a square table and four chairs. At one
side was a writing table, set under the window. Sit down. She closed the
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door and seated herself at the table.
Rahl took the indicated chair, across from the magistra.
Before we start, do you have any questions? About anything.
The Council Guards said that there weren t that many exiles sent to Nylan,
Rahl began, but I saw a lot of people in the eating hall. The mess.
Leyla nodded. There aren t that many from any one town in Recluce north of
the wall, but there are scores of towns, and it takes anywhere from two
seasons to a year, sometimes two, to train them to fit into Nylan or prepare
them for exile. Unlike the Council, we just don t throw people on ships or
indenture them to merchants or slavers in other lands.
Rahl still had his doubts about that, but merely nodded.
Anything else?
He had more than a few questions, but he really didn t know how to ask them or
whether he should. I might later, when I ve seen more. He paused. There is
one. Can I write letters to my family to let them know where I am?
You can write all you want. The post fee is two coppers a page, roughly, for
it to be carried to Land s End.
I don t have two coppers.
Right now, you get three coppers an eightday if your studies and your work
are satisfactory. After four eightdays, if you re still in good standing, it
goes to five. You don t get paid the first eightday, but after that you ll get
paid at the counter in the corner of the mess on sevenday after the midday
meal.
Three coppers wasn t that much, but he didn t have any real alternatives, and
he was coming to like that less and less.
Leyla looked at Rahl. What do you know about order? Tell me.
All the world is a mixture of order and chaos. Order is the structure of the
world, and chaos is the destructive energy of the world& Rahl went on to [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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