Magic Engineer

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “Why not? This hit just before we were due to get charcoal; and Yarrl wants to save some just in case.”

  “What do you want? More scraps?”

  “No. A small lorkin sapling, log, about this big around.” He uses his hands to indicate a diameter slightly less than a double thumb span.

  “Hemmil’ll want to charge you dear for that.”

  “I thought so. Where are they?”

  “At the far end on the side toward his house.” Pergun shakes his head. “I’m cleaning out the saw pit. Let me know when you find what you want.”

  The smith wanders down the center of the warehouse. After a time, Dorrin finally touches one of the black logs. One end is useless, with fractured heartwood, but the remaining six cubits are certainly straight and strong enough. He eases it out and walks back to the saw pit.

  Pergun climbs out, covered with sweat and dampened sawdust.

  “This one? How much might it be?”

  “A silver, at least. Lorkin takes years to grow,” explains Pergun.

  Dorrin pauses, regretfully looks back toward the end of the warehouse. “Perhaps a copper I might spare . . ‘. but a silver, Pergun?”

  “Half a silver, and you won’t find a better bargain anywhere in Certis. Hemmil doesn’t like to sell the lorkin.”

  “Two coppers, and that’s if you trim it to my measure.”

  “You may know plants, Dorrin, but timber is heavier and worth more,” observes the black-haired mill man, winking and nodding toward the office. “Four coppers, but only because I’d not want ill will from any healer.”

  Dorrin scrabbles in his purse. “I’d not do you in,” he says firmly, “but three and a bit is all that I have, save a single other copper with which to eat.” His head throbs slightly as he speaks, for Reisa does indeed have some of his purse.

  The mill hand frowns, then shrugs. “Like as I’d rather not, but if it is all you have, it’s all you have. You carry the scraps to the bins, though.”

  “That I can certainly do, and a few others as well, if that would help.”

  The dark-bearded man grins. “I should have held you to that earlier.”

  Dorrin laughs ruefully. Now all he has to do is trim the heavy wood-which will take days with his knife-and, once he has earned a few more coppers, spend more time at the forge. All for an idea he is not even sure will work-but ordered wood and ordered black steel should make a better staff.

  XLVII

  DORRIN SETS THE box on his writing table, plain enough red oak, except for the butterfly hinges that, once again, he had been forced to make twice before getting correct.

  “Aye, and you can do butt hinges, but any apprentice can do that.” That had been Yarrl’s view. So Dorrin forged butterfly hinges. He also had to make a second set for Yarrl, in return for the iron and the screws for the hinges. Iron, that was the kicker. Dorrin had never realized, not fully, how expensive and heavy it was. A cubit-long rod as thick as his thumb weighs a stone and a half and costs nearly three pennies-more than a meal at some inns. The smith’s scrap pile makes a lot more sense in that light.

  Dorrin runs the oiled rag over the oak again, lightly. Inside- resting on the quilted padding Reisa and Petra contributed in return for a small iron flower-is the model spring-driven wagon. As usual, the unusual-the spring engine-had been the hardest, difficult enough that Dorrin knows that a larger machine driven by springs will not work. Still, he is learning, after his own fashion.

  After slipping the box into an oversized and battered saddlebag recovered from a comer of the smithy, he walks out into the early fall haze-and sneezes from the dust of the threshing from the fields. He sneezes again, and again. His nose waters profusely by the time he reaches the stable.

  It will be a long day. Yarrl’s hammer rings in the background with the harvest-related repairs to mower bars, horse rakes, and wagon tires and braces. Dorrin has promised to work as long as necessary to make up for the time he takes in Diev. Unlike smiths, chandleries close before sunset.

  After saddling Meriwhen and lashing the extra saddlebag in place, he leads the mare out into the warm and dusty morning. Reisa waves from the porch, where she has been checking the netting over the fruit-drying racks before reentering the kitchen. Even between sneezes and mowing dust, Dorrin can smell the pearapples and late peaches being jellied.

  Once on the road, Dorrin finds himself riding up behind two hay wagons in a row. Each creaks, and the rear right wheel of the trailing wagon sways out of true. As he passes the driver, he calls. “‘Ware the back wheel.”

  “Thanks, fellow, but tell it to Ostrum-dumb bastard. Can’t wait to get this to the Guard barracks-while the price is good. Not your problem, but thanks be to you anyway.”

  Dorrin urges Meriwhen past the two-horse team. The road traffic is heavy, and dusty, and Dorrin sneezes more. Ash and soot and charcoal do not bother him, but harvest time and road dust do.

  The dust diminishes once he rides on the stone road into lower Diev. Passing the rebuilt Tankard, he sees the beggar woman who continues to plead for coppers. But there are no troopers there, not this early.

  Willum’s chandlery is a long block shy of the trading compound and the piers of lower Diev. The crossed candles of the sign have recently been repainted, and the wood has been revarnished. So have the wooden floors, and new hangings cloak the entrance to the back room of the establishment.

  A single man stands behind a counter on the right side. Opposite him is a polished iron and brass stove, unneeded in the harvest heat.

  “I’d like to see Master Willum, if possible.” Dorrin smiles politely.

  “It’s always possible, but I don’t know as it’s likely unless you got business planned with him.”

  “That’s what it’s about.”

  “No charity, no begging for alms for the poor, healer?” The man looks over Dorrin’s brown clothing.

  “I’m also a smith, and I work for Yarrl.”

  “Can’t be working hard if you’re here now.”

  “I’ll be working well past your supper and bedtime.” He forces a smile. “But if one wants to do business with a chandler, one must do business when the chandlery’s open.”

  “True enough, true enough, young fellow,” interrupts a heartier voice from the end of the counter. “And what might you be interested in selling?” The speaker is blond, with a belly that flows over a wide brown belt and almost submerges the heavy brass buckle. His shirt is brilliant green, and his brown trousers match both belt and boots.

  Dorrin walks to the end of the counter. “You might say that it’s a curiosity, but you are known for having strange and unusual items…”

  “That I am, fellow. That I am. And I travel all the northern ports to get and to sell. That’s my business. So what is this curiosity?”

  Dorrin sets the box on the counter.

  “A box? Nice enough, especially the hinges, but Petron the cabinetmaker does better, and certainly not a curiosity.”

  Dorrin opens the top to show the wagon.

  “Hmmmm… a wagon, but it has no horses.”

  The smith takes out the model and sets it on the flat counter, twisting the crank a half turn. The wagon rolls toward the far end.

  “Magic…” whispers the first man from the corner.

  Dorrin shakes his head. “No. Just an ingenious little spring. It’s all mechanical.” He tries not to smile as Willum closes his mouth.

  “Who did you say you were?”

  “Dorrin. I work for Yarrl.”

  “The foreign smith fellow-does work for Honsard and Hemmil and types like them?”

  Dorrin nods.

  “How come you wear healer brown?”

  “I’m also a healer.”

  “A healer-smith. A smith-healer with a curiosity! That’s worth a silver just to say I saw one.” Willum’s voice is hearty, but his eyes are cold.

  Dorrin retrieves the model wagon and replaces it in the box, but leaves the top open for the moment.
<
br />   “Curiosities draw business, young fellow, but not many people buy them. I’d buy it just to let people know the great Willum has another one. But who could I sell it to?”

  “I’d suggest it to one of the Spidlarian Council members as a unique present to a son. Or perhaps as a gift to the Sarronnese court.”

  “Fine words.”

  “It’s good work. Worthy of a fine trader and chandler- especially one with all the contacts that you have, Master Willum.” Dorrin closes the box. “I’d rather you…”

  “Let’s not be hasty, young fellow. It might be worth five silvers.”

  “The last one sold in Tyrhavven for more than three golds.”

  “You don’t bargain much,” Willum says, a trace sourly.

  “No, ser. I’m not a bargainer. I don’t make many, and each one is different.”

  “Each one?”

  Dorrin nods.

  “I’ll give you three golds for it-if the box comes with it.”

  Dorrin frowns. ‘ Three golds and the box-if I also get a few cubits of fine material to line the next box.“

  Willum laughs. “Light! I’ll give you three cubits of good material. Roald! He can have the end of that Suthyan turquoise velvet.”

  “I take it that the turquoise wasn’t popular.” Dorrin tries to keep from grinning.

  “How was I to know that pale blue was the color that they said the devil witch of Recluce wore? Some biddy started the tale, and no one would buy that color. But it will look good lining a solid box, won’t it, fellow… Dorrin, is it?”

  “Dorrin.” He waits as Roald appears with a small leather pouch and a bolt of fabric wrapped in ragged flour sacks.

  Willum opens the pouch and counts out the three golds. Dorrin puts the coins in his purse.

  “How soon before you might have another… curiosity… ?”

  Dorrin smiles wryly. “As your man pointed out, there’s a great deal of very heavy and practical smith work to be done right now.”

  “That might be for the best.” Willum smiles. “Good day, young Dorrin.”

  Dorrin inclines his head. “Good day, Master Willum.”

  Clouds have begun to build over the northern ocean, clouds that promise cooling later on, but little else. Dorrin fastens the empty saddlebag in place. Meriwhen whickers as he mounts, and he pats her neck. “Good girl.”

  In the dust just beyond the end of the stone road, a kay beyond the bridge into Diev proper, rests a tilted hay wagon, bales thrown off the road. The carter is slowly stacking the hay by the roadside as he unloads the wagon bed. The iron tire of the now-shattered rear wheel rests against the side of the wagon.

  “Get that mangy team back…”

  “You saw us coming…”

  Two other carters, the outboard edges of their traces tangled, snarl at each other, even as the two wagons block the road.

  Dorrin guides Meriwhen up onto the grass and around the confusion.

  XLVIII

  THE TWO TROOPERS ride van, half a kay ahead of the squad, their mounts picking their way along the rough road around the south side of the escarpment. The sun hangs low on the western horizon. Neither speaks. Each listens for a branch cracking in the sparse firs to the north or the crackling of dry grass in the seasonal wetland to the south. Above the firs are the half-bare and twisted branches of the maples, partly cloaked in faded leaves.

  The blond man reins up, nods to his left. The woman’s eyes follow his gesture to the trail less than fifty cubits ahead. He removes the bow from its case, strings it easily, and opens the closed quiver. The woman loosens the straps on the long sword; the Westwind shortsword is always ready.

  With the faint crackling from the lowest clump of firs, the blond spurs his gelding, and both riders charge toward the trees, low in their saddles.

  An arrow barely misses the man, and he reins the horse up, nocks an arrow, and looses it, almost before his mount has stopped.

  “Oooo…” The indrawn breath and moan are clear enough.

  The blond trooper has a second arrow ready.

  “Hold your shaft! Hold your shaft! I’m a-coming down.”

  The woman reins up farther along the trail. “Better come out, boy.”

  “Spidlarian bastards! Let my boy go! He didn’t do nothing.” A bald man with a straggly ginger beard and an arrow through his right arm lurches onto the road.

  A youth, not that many years younger than the troopers, stands up, still half-concealed by the browned tall grass.

  “Keep your hands up,” orders the redhead.

  “You’re a woman.” He looks past her toward his father.

  “I’m a trooper.” She flips the sword in the air, then catches it. “I can also throw this hard enough to put it right through you.”

  “Bitch…” the youth mumbles.

  “I’ve been called worse. Now get up here. Where are your horses?”

  “Ain’t got none.”

  “The tracks show otherwise.”

  The boy looks past her, then bolts uphill. Her arm goes back, and the blade flies. The youth falls, moaning, and the trooper dismounts and reaches him before he can move.

  “You killed my boy!”

  “I’ll kill you if you move,” snaps the blond trooper. He can hear the clinking and footsteps of the squad behind.

  The redhead reclaims the shortsword, yanking the youth to his feet. “The cut on your leg isn’t that bad. If I’d wanted you dead, boy, you’d be dead.”

  He writhes, but her hands are like steel, and her shoulders are broader than his, and more heavily muscled. She whips a length of rope from her belt and binds his hands. By the time she has dragged him to the road, the rest of the squad has arrived, and Brede has bound the bald man.

  “… hellcat got another…”

  “… so’d the big fellow…”

  “… you want to get in their way, Norax?”

  “What you got here, Brede?”

  “I’d say the two who tried to take that Certan merchant. Their horses are somewhere back up behind the grove. If you’ll take over this one, I’ll see if I can get them.”

  “… let him take the risk…”

  The squad leader nods, and Brede eases his mount into the narrow trail. Kadara looks down at the youngster standing on the hard clay, then rummages in her saddlebags and takes out a short length of cloth. She dismounts again, and lifts away the ragged trousers, binding the long slash in his leg.

  “… first human thing I seen from the she-cat…”

  “He’s just a bandit, Kadara. They’ll just hang him.”

  “Don’t hang him… he’s just a boy,” pleads the bald man.

  “He helped you rob a peddler and try to take that Certan trader. That’s enough to hang for.” The squad leader’s voice is tired, cold.

  Kadara straightens and swings back into the saddle.

  At the sound of hoofs, the troopers look toward the trail. Brede leads back two bony horses, both bearing packs. “Looks like some of the peddler’s copper work.”

  “Good. Set them on their mounts. If you can call them that.”

  Brede dismounts, hands his reins to Kadara, heaves the older highwayman onto one horse, almost effortlessly, and then sets the youth on the second.

  “… demon-damned ox he is…”

  The wind, picking up as the sun touches the horizon, moans softly.

  “Let’s head back. We can leave them for the magistrate in Biryna. He’ll hang them nice and proper.” The squad leader turns the black gelding around. “Kadara, Brede, you can have the rear.”

  The two drop back behind the squad.

  “As for you two, try to stay in your saddles. Rather have you hang than be a target for Shenz here. Not much difference in the end, I suppose.”

  “You damned Spidlarians! Bleed us friggin‘ dry.” The bald man with the ginger hair twists in the saddle of his gaunt horse. Both the animal and the would-be highwayman show their ribs clearly. “You bastards and the damned wizards. The wi
zards burned all the sheep, and you take our last pennies for wormy grain. Can’t afford shit, and-”

  “Shut up,” snaps the squad leader.

  The younger captive looks back, in the general direction of Gallos.

  “You won’t see that again,” mumbles a trooper with one arm in a sling.

  Brede and Kadara exchange glances and slow their mounts until a wider gap opens between them and the eleven horses of the main body.

  “They’re starving.” Brede’s voice is low.

  “That’s what Fairhaven wants. We’ll see more as the winter wears on.”

  “The more we hang…”

  “If we don’t, no one on the roads will be safe.”

  Brede shakes his head, and the horses carry them westward toward Biryna, toward their tents-and the magistrate.

  XLIX

  WHITE LIGHT FLARES from the tall slender man as he strides across the central square toward the tower.

  “He’s come to claim the amulet, Sterol.” A red-headed woman in the white of chaos looks at the High Wizard. “So I will leave this to you.”

  “You don’t want him to know you were here, I take it?”

  “If he bothered to check, I couldn’t keep it from him, but he’s not concerned. He knows he’s the most powerful White.” Anya’s tone is ironic. “And, after all, I am only a mere woman.”

  “A mere woman? Now, Anya… I doubt many here would call you-”

  “Unlike Jeslek, who believes himself clever and powerful.”

  “He is very clever, and exceedingly powerful.”

  “You’re going to give him the amulet?” Anya steps toward the door.

  “How could I keep it from him?” Sterol sighs. “I promised it to him, and he shall have it. Whether he can keep it is another question.”

  Anya nods, turns, and departs.

  Sterol glances at the mirror on the table, thoughts not totally focused, but wondering about the next challenge posed by the forces of order. He finds a vague picture emerging from the white mists-a young redhead hammering iron. Then the image dissolves, almost simultaneously with the sound of a rap on the door of the tower room. The High Wizard purses his lips-a young man forging iron? A second rap on the door reminds him of his situation, and he turns to greet his successor.