Magic Engineer

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Liedral returns shortly, carrying a square block of cheese wrapped in wax, which she sets on the serving table. She looks toward the cutlery box.

  Merga follows her eyes. ‘ Til take care of that, mistress.“

  “I’m not the mistress…” Liedral shakes her head.

  Kadara’s grin makes a caricature of her drawn face.

  The door opens, and snow and a light wind follow Frisa into the kitchen.

  “Wipe your feet, girl!” snaps Merga.

  “They’ll be here soon as master Dorrin banks the fire and splashes the grime off his face and hands.” Frisa looks around the kitchen. “That’s what he said.”

  “Your feet, girl.”

  Frisa stamps back to the porch and wipes her feet before returning and closing the door. She stands on tiptoes to replace the jacket on the peg.

  When the door opens again, Dorrin steps into the kitchen, followed by Vaos. The lamp in the wall bracket flickers with the gust of wind that flows around it, then steadies as Dorrin closes the door.

  “Kadara!” He touches her shoulder lightly.

  Merga is pouring warm cider into the mug at the redhead’s elbow, then goes on to fill all the mugs. “Bread’s almost ready. I’ll be a-cutting the cheese now.”

  The smith seats himself at the end between Liedral and Kadara. Vaos slips into the place almost at the end of the table, nearest the comer where Frisa perches on her stool.

  Merga sets the plate of cheese slices in the center of the wooden table. Vaos immediately reaches and takes two. Dorrin looks at the boy, and Vaos hands one slice to Frisa.

  “You look tired,” Dorrin says into the silence.

  “Darkness-tired, Dorrin. Been a light-fired long year.” Kadara coughs, covering her mouth. “Brede sent me. Couldn’t come himself. They made him marshal. Don’t call him that, but it amounts to that.”

  “What does he need?”

  “Anything… everything. More of those magic knives… something that will work on the rivers next spring… something you can’t see that kills people. Brede thought of mines- using gunpowder-but you can’t get close enough to the levies with those damned wizards to light the fuses. Same problem as guns-they see anything that looks like a gun, and, poof! There goes the powder and anyone who’s near.”

  The smith touches his mug.

  “Just don’t have enough arms and trained people.” She coughs again, then takes some cheese and slowly begins to eat.

  Vaos reaches for the cheese again, and Dorrin glares at him.

  “Just one,” the smith says. “You had a full supper.” He knows Vaos is well-fed, but Kadara is thin and drawn.

  “But he’s hungry,” Frisa says.

  “He’s always hungry.”

  “When did you get back to Kleth?” asks Liedral.

  Kadara swallows before answering. “Yesterday. We had to find space and arrange for reshoeing about half the mounts. I took a spare horse. Not mine. Used to be Josal’s, until they got him.” She absently takes another piece of cheese.

  Dorrin waits until she finishes it. “What happened at Elparta? No one seemed to know how it all happened-just that it did.”

  “They decided that Spidlar was too hard to conquer. Much easier to destroy.” Kadara dears her throat.

  Dorrin motions for Merga to sit down at the table. The dark-haired woman shakes her head and points toward the oven.

  “They burned everyone who opposed them. Everyone who even looked like they supported order. They boiled the river and shook the earth until the walls fell. Then they killed every man and woman left in the city-except they used the women first. The damned fools-we told them to leave, and a lot did, but not enough.” Kadara’s voice is even, level, and colder than the snow that falls outside the kitchen. The steam from the hot cider in her mug drifts past her chin, past the worn braid on her officer’s jacket.

  By the stove, Merga makes the sign of the one-god believers, then glances toward the corner where Frisa sits on the stool.

  “Your magic knives and Brede’s tactics killed several hundred of them. Slowed down their advance. Also got them madder than light.” Kadara coughs, a racking cough.

  “Let me get you something for that,” Dorrin says.

  The redhead sips from the mug. “Hot cider helps. Almost forget things here.”

  Dorrin enters the storeroom and finds the packet he wants, carrying it back to the kitchen, where he crushes some of the leaves, then eases them into another mug. He spoons out a dollop of rare honey-Frisa watches with open eyes-and pours hot cider into the mug, stirring the mixture. “Here.”

  Kadara swigs down the mixture in one gulp. “Uggggh…”

  The eyes of the little girl in the corner open even wider.

  “Best get it over, girl,” Kadara says. “Don’t ever let the men see you weak.” She sets aside the medicinal cup and takes several more sips of the hot cider. “Brede made the wizards mad. Don’t like not getting their way. Come spring, they’ll burn their way north.”

  Liedral glances toward Merga, who is lifting bread from the oven. The aroma wafts toward the table.

  “Still hard to believe,” Kadara says. “Warm house, good food.”

  Dorrin stands behind her, and touches her wrists, trying to let a little order flow into her tired frame.

  “Feels better.” She shakes his hands off and lifts her cider.

  Dorrin eases into his chair and waits. Behind him, Merga slices a loaf of bread, muttering, “Really too hot…” She sets the three others on the cutting table to cool.

  “I take it the cheese-cutting things didn’t work too well at the end.”

  “No. They just walked villagers in front of them-slowly. Took their time. Ran horse troops alongside the roads with archers.”

  Merga sets the sliced bread in front of Kadara. Vaos looks from the platter to Merga and then to Dorrin. Dorrin shakes his head.

  “Let him have a piece,” Kadara says. “Life’s too short.” She leans forward and puts her head on the table, then slowly sits up.

  Vaos puts down his hand.

  “You’re staying tonight,” Liedral says firmly. “You need the rest and the food.” She stands up and steps behind Kadara’s chair. “She can sleep in the main room, on the cushions.”

  “Sleep on the floor,” mumbles the trooper.

  Liedral guides her toward the main room, which was designed to be a parlor someday but which contains little but cushions and two old chairs.

  Vaos reaches for the bread once Liedral and Kadara leave the kitchen.

  Dorrin carries his cider to the kitchen door, opening it and looking out. The heavy snow continues to fall, and there is already no trace of Kadara’s tracks to the house.

  Only the faintest glimmer of light penetrates from Rylla’s house.

  Dorrin closes the door and swallows the last of his cider. What can he possibly build for Brede? How will it make any difference? He carries his mug to the wash tub and sets it in the lukewarm water.

  Outside, the snow keeps falling.

  CXXIX

  DORRIN AND VAOS slowly fuller the heavy stock into a square bar, strong enough, Dorrin hopes, to hold the greater length of black wires. He nods at Vaos to strike again after he turns the stock. When he sets the second piece on the back of the forge to anneal, Kadara steps past the slack tank.

  “I need to go.” While Kadara’s face is pale, some of the darkness beneath her eyes has lightened.

  Dorrin walks with her toward the smithy door and the welcome cool outside. They stand by the porch, where a wanner breeze blows in from the south, a wind warm enough that, under the midmorning sun, the snow has melted into a layer of slush barely covering the toes of Dorrin’s boots.

  “You were up early, Liedral said.” Kadara looks toward the barn.

  “I’m working on something for the rivers. The Whites can’t walk people ahead of boats, but the wires have to be heavier, and so do the stocks. That will make them harder to carry.” Dorrin sighs. “M
aybe that won’t matter. I’ll work on some way to use gunpowder, but that will take some doing.”

  “Brede has confidence in you. He says you have all winter.” Her laugh carries a bitter undertone. “And don’t abandon your ship… we may need it.”

  “I’ve begun to think about that.” His eyes turn across the slush-covered yard toward Liedral, who is leading Kadara’s mount from the barn. “Still, it’s only one, and, come spring, the Whites may have dozens offshore.”

  “Perhaps you’d better get it refitted earlier.” The redhead coughs and covers her mouth.

  “If I don’t figure out how to help Brede, we won’t have that long.”

  “How long before you have those river sheers?”

  “I can have a few within the eight-day. Why?”

  “It might be nice to have them in case the White Wizards don’t wait until spring.” She coughs again.

  “They’ll have to do something before there’s ice on the river.”

  Kadara takes the horse’s reins from Liedral.

  “You shouldn’t be riding.”

  “I’ve ridden with worse. So have most of my squad.”

  “He’s been fed and curried.” Liedral strokes the neck of the bay. “There are supplies in the saddlebags: dried apples and cheese, and some crushed astra for that cough. And a loaf of good bread. Give some to Brede.”

  “If there’s any left.” Kadara smiles.

  “Even you can’t eat all of what we packed,” responds Liedral.

  Kadara swings easily into the saddle.

  “I’ll bring what I have in an eight-day or so,” Dorrin says.

  “Send a messenger. It’s a long trip if we’re not there.”

  Dorrin looks at Kadara.

  “Sorry. There aren’t any spare horses, are there?”

  He shakes his head.‘ The Council left us alone, but they took one of Yard’s, and all but the plow horses from Jisle. If you’re not there, or Brede isn’t… then what would you suggest?“

  “Ask for Brede. If he’s not there, he’ll leave instructions. That’s probably the best we can do.”

  “Tell Brede we’re thinking about him,” Liedral offers.

  “I will.” Kadara touches the reins, and the bay eases across the yard, each step squashing through the slush and mud.

  Dorrin reaches out and takes Liedral’s hand as they watch Kadara ride down the ridge drive toward the main road. He squeezes her fingers lightly, and is rewarded with a tightening of her fingers around his. As he stands there, her lips brush his cheek, but only for an instant. He turns to her, catching the tears in her eyes.

  “It’s so hard, sometimes,” she says. “So unfair.”

  “Yes.” Dorrin has thought that, especially over the last year. Chaos seems to triumph over order, and those, like Liedral or Kadara or Brede, who try to hold back chaos seem to suffer more than those who accept it.

  “She looks so tired,” Liedral continues.

  “She is tired, and it will get worse.”

  “You look tired, too.”

  “That’s going to get worse also.” Dorrin forces a laugh.

  “But why? Why do bad things keep happening to good people?”

  “I don’t know. I only know that I have to do the best I can.” He takes a deep breath. “And it’s not half the price that Brede and Kadara are paying, and they don’t even want to stay here in Spidlar.” Liedral squeezes his fingers a last time before letting go.

  “I’m sorry. You need to be held. So do I.”

  “Shall we try?” Again, Dorrin tries to make his voice light.

  For a long moment, they embrace, standing in the slush and mud.

  CXXX

  “YOU’VE SPENT NEARLY a full year, Jeslek, dear,” says Anya coolly, “and you have exactly one small city. Not the most promising of campaigns.”

  Jeslek matches her smile, looking out the tower window. “It’s nice to be back in Fairhaven.”

  “So you can check up on everyone, I suppose.”

  “Do you really think I care about all the little plots? I’m more interested in you.” He glances toward the table set for two.

  “What about your renegade smith? Or your Recluce-trained warriors? Don’t you need to worry about them more than about the Council?”

  Jeslek gestures, and the mists of the screeing glass part to reveal the red-headed smith, working with a large wheel in his smithy, aided by a youth.

  “What’s he doing?” asks Anya.

  “Drawing wire, it looks like. Much good it will do him.”

  “Maybe he has some other use for it.”

  “Perhaps. But it doesn’t matter. We’ve still only lost a few hundred levies, and perhaps four or five score cavalry-and none of the White company. I’d rather take some time, and fewer casualties.”

  “You are so rational it makes me sick.”

  “Does it now?” He steps toward her, reaching for the clasps to her gown. “Does it now?”

  CXXXI

  AFTER GLANCING AT the clouds overhead, Dorrin rolls the last barrel down the path toward the Harthagay. The dull rumble of thunder echoes off the flat gray of the northern sea. A jagged flash illuminates whitecaps beyond Cape Devalin, barely visible in the moments after dawn. The fine cold mist of the winter sea rain bites at his face, mixing with the sweat from his forehead.

  He pauses at the edge of the narrow beach, looking down at the old schooner. His eyes flicker to the three hummocks beyond the sand where the Guild buried the bodies that had washed onto the sand-what little had been left by various scavengers.

  With a deep breath, he resumes easing the barrel down to the ship. Each movement is gentle, and his senses almost caress the barrel, looking for the signs of chaos that will send him scrambling for cover.

  The sands are hard and flat shoreward of the ship, but he eases the barrel halfway across the sands, then stops. Leaving the barrel upright, he walks to the ship.

  The Harthagay, according to Liedral, had scarcely been the most seaworthy of vessels even before her grounding, but most of her problems had rested with her captain, the young and presumably dead Jarlsin.

  Dorrin runs a hand along the clinker-planked side, letting his senses check the wood again. The hull remains sound, and even the mainmast is intact. The winds have left only shreds of the canvas, and Dorrin had been forced to cut away the pieces of the dangling lower crossbeam. The winter current has shifted the sand so that the Harthagay’s stern half floats in three cubits of water. The low waves lap two-thirds of the way to the stem, which remains hard on the dune that now lies less than ten cubits from the high water mark.

  More than an eight-day of work has cleared the beach and built what amounts to a channel behind the stern. Now he must loosen the stem-hoping his calculations are correct.

  Dorrin walks to the barrel and takes his pry-bar, levering off the top and extracting the first wax-dipped basket. He walks toward the low dune where the shovel waits.

  He digs two cubits into the sand before he places the basket and lights the fuse with the striker. Then he runs, throwing himself behind the hull.

  Crumpppp!! Sand flies with the noise.

  Dorrin returns and surveys the hole in the sand, deciding that he could have dug somewhat deeper. He checks the hull. Outside of a thin coating of sand driven into the varnish, no damage appears.

  He digs again until he is ready to go for another basket, which he places within the hole, and lights, repeating his dash around the stem.

  Another explosive charge, and the hole under the stem fills with water.

  Dorrin begins on the northern side. After the first charge, his too-shallow sand pit is filled with water, and he is forced to use the baskets with the long wax-coated fuses.

  Four more explosions and the Harthagay settles onto an even keel, rocking in a long pool of cold water.

  Next comes more work-work and faith. He straps the bladder around his waist and steps into the boat that dips ominously under his weight, and the
weight of the small toothed anchor. Slowly he rows seaward, watching the line uncoil, until there remain but a dozen cubits. After inching his way toward the stern, he levers the anchor overboard. The boat lifts in the water, rocking him backward and jamming a davit into his back.

  “Darkness…”

  He rows slowly back to the Harthagay. Even under his leather gloves he can feel blisters forming. Rowing is not the same as smithing, not exactly.

  After tying the boat to the ship, he walks to the stern and the waiting winch. Slowly he turns the handle. The schooner rocks, grinds on the sand, and edges seaward perhaps a cubit. Dorrin cranks again, but the ship remains motionless. Soon he is cranking easily, but only to retrieve the anchor and to start over.

  Before long, he is back in the boat rowing seaward again, to the north, where perhaps the bottom will offer more to hold the anchor.

  At least the sea is almost flat in the late morning as he rows back and climbs back aboard. He pauses and takes a deep drink from his water bottle, sitting on the poop deck, his feet on the ladder to the main deck.

  Once more, he takes the winch and turns-slowly. The cable tightens. He cranks again. The cable creaks. He edges another quarter turn, and the Harthagay shivers. Another turn, and another, and the schooner shivers backward toward the sea.

  When the stem is even with the former shoreline, Dorrin takes another quick sip from the water bottle before increasing his efforts.

  By midday, the schooner floats free, anchored, but with less than three cubits of water under her keel.

  Dorrin takes the first rocket and puts it in the circular trough, then clicks the striker.

  Quickly, but deliberately, he ducks behind the mast of the Harthagay.

  The green flare explodes-as designed-a good hundred cubits above the sea toward lower Diev.

  Dorrin waits, then takes another signal rocket, and repeats the process.

  He finishes the water bottle, and eats a wedge of cheese and a half a loaf of old bread.

  Three gulls wheel about the bare mainmast of the ship, then dive toward the chop of the sea. Dorrin scans the horizon for Liedral and the Mocked Hare, but no canvas appears from the south. He turns toward the north, finally, and there, bearing in on the Harthagay, is the Suthyan coaster, easily twice the size of the sloop.