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“My book?”

“Lerris, it doesn’t take a mind reader to see your thoughts. You’re clearly from Recluce. You have the talents to be a first-class order-master, and you were surprised—not curious, but surprised—to see my copy of The Basis of Order.” The gray wizard looked ahead, toward the southwest.

I ignored him and went to get Gairloch, not that I had far to go. He waited just at the top of the incline. I almost fell off him, scrambling into place and trying to catch up with Justen and Rosefoot.

More smoke plumes rose into the pale blue sky, angling toward the northwest. Behind the wind, I could see clouds building again, over the hills in the distance to the southeast. With the warmth of the sun and the southern air might come rain, or worse, sleet.

“How far to Jellico?” I asked as we came abreast of him.

“More than another day.”

“How many other towns are there along the way?”

The gray wizard smiled faintly. “A scattering, though few with inns, and fewer still even the size of Weevett or Howlett.”

We rode a time further before I asked another question. “How can you hide in plain sight so that I cannot see you or the heat waves?”

“That is the same question.” The gray wizard coughed and cleared his throat before continuing. “What is sight?”

I tried not to sigh. I asked a simple question, and, instead of an answer got another question. “Sight is when you see someone or something.”

Justen sighed. “What is the physical process of sight? Did not anyone teach you that?”

I looked as puzzled as I felt, not understanding what he had in mind.

“Light comes from the sun, chaotic white light. It strikes an object and reflects from that object. The act of reflection partially orders the light. Those reflected rays enter your eyes. What you see is not the object at all, but the light reflected from that object. That is why you cannot see when there is no light. Now it really is not that simple, but those are the basics. Do you understand what I mean?”

I wasn’t that dense. “Of course, my eyes see a reflection of reality, not reality itself. That means that when I feel things, that feeling may be truer than sight?”

Justen nodded, without taking his eyes from the road or looking at me. “Remember that some real things cannot be felt, and many chaos-touched objects are not real but can hurt nonetheless. But you are right.” He cleared his throat again. “There are many ways not to be seen, but they all involve two ideas. The first is touching someone’s thoughts so that they do not know they have seen something. That is the chaos-way because it destroys a link between perception and reality.”

“The way of order?” I prompted.

“That is much more complicated…”

I nodded at that. Anything involving order was more complicated.

“Light is not straight like an arrow, not exactly, but like a wave upon the ocean. Light can be woven with the mind, although it takes practice, and you weave the light around you so that it never quite touches you. Actually, it is not difficult as an exercise, but using it can be very dangerous unless your nonvisual perceptions are well-developed.”

“Nonvisual perceptions?” Just when I got the idea, he added something else.

“What you call feeling out things…”

“Oh…but why?”

Justen shook his head, muttering something about basic physiology and wave theory.

Finally, after we had ridden up a gentle slope that overlooked a park-like setting, unlike the kays and kays of peasant fields, hogs, and huts we had passed, I asked again.

“Lerris, why don’t you use your brain? It is meant for thinking, you know.”

I waited.

“If you cut yourself off from light, then your eyes don’t work either. No more easy answers. You ask rather than work things out, and then you won’t remember.”

So we rode on, and I ignored the continual growling in my stomach.

XXXIV

JELLICO? HOW DID it differ from Freetown or Hrisbarg or Howlett or all the other hamlets and towns masquerading as places of importance?

No expert yet at judging people or towns (as I was