Magic Engineer

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  The smith sighs, then scratches Gilda between the ears. “Goats… there’s always some goat around.” He stands up and dries his hands, moving aside to let Vaos use the water.

  Then he walks across the ridge to the herb garden. His boots still sink into the soft soil. Despite his resolve not to plant or tend, already the brinn is flourishing, blue-green shoots branching out, and so is the astra.

  The soft cool wind ruffles his hair, and he stoops. His fingers brush the herbs, infusing a touch more order into the weaker ones. He smiles as he straightens and heads back to his house for supper.

  And after the midday meal… after that, he must ride to Tyrel’s to finish installing the steam engine on the newly renamed Black Diamond. The engine will work, of that he is convinced, but how well it will work is another question. Are the tolerances in the twin cylinders good enough? Are the rods strong enough?

  He pushes away the questions he cannot answer until he begins to test the engine, stops by the water tap and scratches Gilda once more before he climbs the steps to the kitchen.

  Over the Northern Ocean, the clouds gather.

  CXLII

  “THE TRADERS HAVE told their field commander, the young one from Recluce, to hold Kleth,” Jeslek announces quietly. The tent billows overhead.

  Fydel nods. Anya smiles brightly, and Cerryl smiles politely, with a deferential nod to the High Wizard.

  “Where is Sterol?” asks Anya.

  “In Fairhaven, I presume, which is fine with me. We really don’t need another set of schemers.” The High Wizard pauses. “Your refusal of terms from the Council was brilliant, Fydel, even if you didn’t mean it that way.”

  “I’m so glad you found it so.” Fydel smiles.

  “It forced them to decide on an early defense, in order to plan their escape if it failed. Traders would always rather run than fight. This Brede of theirs is better than they deserve, young as he is, and they’ll squander his talent-and him. It’s a pity.”

  “You intend to spare him?” asks Anya, her tone almost idle.

  “Demon-light, no. After what he’s done to the levies… politically, that’s not wise.”

  “What about your elusive smith? Hasn’t he cost you even more than their commander?” Anya adds, “Drawing wire… much good it will do…”

  “It cost us less than four score levies to get through his river traps, and we control the river all the way to Kleth. Brede is more dangerous.”

  “He’s only a soldier, no matter how good,” reflects Cerryl. “Your smith may have more tricks planned.”

  “Perhaps… but they will not save Spidlar.” Jeslek smiles again.

  CXLIII

  DORRIN STEPS ACROSS the plank to the Black Diamond. On the hillside above the shipwright’s, a half-dozen makeshift tents now flutter in the breeze. The smith surveys them before turning aft and descending the ladder to the engine. On each side of the compartment are coal bins, each with a chute that opens by the firebox door.

  Tyrel stands by the engine. “Will it work?”

  “I hope it works well enough.” Dorrin bends and runs his fingers across the beams that support the engine platform. Then he opens the small hatch that provides access to the shaft. The water level in the bilges has not increased. The greased seals are holding, but will they hold when the shaft is rotating? He hopes so, but there are so many things he has not tested on other than models.

  He closes the hatch and returns to the engine. There he lights the shavings, then slowly adds a shovel of the finer coal. After pacing until the fire catches, he adds another shovel of coal. He lets his senses check the heat in the water-filled cylinders through the top of the cylindrical firebox, trying to sense whether the tubes remain watertight. So far, so good.

  “What now?” asks Tyrel.

  “More coal, and more steam.”

  Dorrin waits for a time, then adds more coal. After that he steps back to the big clutch, making sure that the screw shaft is not engaged.

  Fwwuuuphhh… fwuppp… The engine begins to turn over.

  Dorrin studies the black iron rods as they work, then checks the steam spill valve, opening it to watch the white vapor stream into the sky. Next comes the condenser. Already, it seems too hot. How hot is too hot? Then he checks the piping and twists a valve. How many other problems will he find? The condenser cools immediately, and he moves along to the side of the forward cylinder, listening closely for hisses or gurgles or anything unusual.

  Fwwwuuuppphhh… fwupp… fwuppp… The engine and the flywheel pick up more speed, settling into a smooth rhythm.

  Tyrel looks at the swiftly stroking rods, the planetary gear, and the flywheel. He is white. “Darkness…”

  “You’re right,” Dorrin says calmly. “It’s based on order.” He opens the firebox door to shovel in more coal. Checking the condenser, he finds a trickle of water oozing from the bottom. More leakage.

  “You’re grinning, young fellow!” bellows Tyrel above the engine noise.

  Dorrin is grinning, despite the leaking condenser. He climbs up to the deck and studies the harbor. Another smuggler is tied up at the far pier-a black-hulled bark. Two armed guards stand at the base of the gangway, and several wagons are lined up on the pier.

  After checking the hawsers, Dorrin climbs back down to the engine room, where he shovels more coal into the firebox. Then he closes the iron door and steps to the side, where he eases the clutch into position.

  Clunk…

  He winces at the force on the gears, black iron or not, as the shaft begins to rotate. A rough humming rises, vibrating the deck underfoot.

  Dorrin opens the hatch behind the engine to check the shaft. Grease oozes from both the support collar and the hull seals. The vibration increases as the engine builds up power, then seems to level off. Dorrin sends his perceptions along the shaft, trying to sense any roughness. Although he is uncertain, he feels the shaft collar needs to be raised. He darts back to the deck and scurries aft to check the screw, and the water boiling up past the rudder. The lines tighten, and the Black Diamond strains at the hawsers that hold her to the flimsy pier.

  Creaakkkkk… creeakkkk…

  “Master Dorrin! She’ll pull loose the wharf! Do something!”

  Dorrin hurries back to the engine, forcing himself to go down the ladder deliberately. The heat in the engine space is nearly overpowering, and his clothes are drenched. When he reaches the clutch lever, he pulls on it. The lever does not move, even as the power to the screw continues. Dorrin again jockeys the clutch to release the gears, but the mechanism seems frozen.

  “Master Dorrin! Do something!”

  Dorrin walks to the side of the engine, yanking the steam release wide open.

  WHHHHHEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeee… The scream of escaping steam roaring up the tube into the atmosphere is deafening, and Dorrin wants to plug his ears. Instead, he twists another valve to reduce the water flow to the firebox. Immediately, he can sense the temperature of the tubes rising, and he reopens the water flow valve.

  Clearly, he needs some sort of emergency bypass-or a better clutch-or both. He tries to move the clutch again, but it remains locked.

  Still, the loss of the screaming steam reduces the power and the engine and screw slow. But it is a long time-nearly twilight-before the screw comes to an absolute stop, even though the immediate loss of power is enough to keep from threatening the wharf.

  As they wait for the firebox to cool, Tyrel looks across at Dorrin. “You really got something here, young fellow.”

  “I hope so.” Dorrin wipes his forehead. He remains hot and sweaty, despite the bucket of water brought on board by one of Tyrel’s apprentices. He takes another dipper full, then splashes some across his forehead.

  “Never would have believed it, excepting that everyone says you do good work.” Tyrel coughs. “Told my boys that if they said a word to anyone I’d flog ‘em, unless you turned ’em into toads first.”

  “You’re making me into a monster.”


  “Better a live monster than having every tradesman in Diev down here the day the Whites march up the Kleth road.”

  “You think it’s going to be that bad?”

  “Worse,” grumps the shipwright. “Most every merchant in Diev moved their hulls out of here early last winter-right after Elparta fell. Lot of ‘em kicked themselves for letting you have the Harthagay-the Diamond, I mean. But they figured no one else could get her off the sand.”

  “It wasn’t that hard. I read about the way it could be done when I was a boy. The Bristans do it a lot.”

  “How many people read? Reading’s an order-based study, isn’t it?”

  Dorrin has never thought about that, but reading is the use of ordered symbols to convey meaning. But the chaos wizards read-he is certain of that. Again, it seems as though chaos must use order.

  Another thought crosses Dorrin’s mind. “Can we get some canvas? If anything happens to the engine…”

  “I’m ahead of you, master Dorrin. You let me help you run this little ship, and bring my yard boys, and you can use anything I’ve got.”

  “Done.” Dorrin doesn’t even have to think. Without Tyrel, he will have no ship. “Let’s go look at that clutch.”

  With the pressure off the gears, the clutch disengages easily. Dorrin studies the gears. “Darkness…”

  The angle of the teeth on the gears and the tension created once the shaft starts to turn effectively create a lock. He frowns. Redesigning the clutch is definitely necessary, as is a better steam bypass system.

  Tyrel watches as Dorrin moves to the condenser system. The puddle of warm water on the deck testifies to the leak. Dorrin pulls the wrench from his belt, thankful he had enough foresight to make all the bolts with the same-sized heads, and begins to remove the cover.

  Once he opens the cover, he has to laugh. The problem is clearly one of condensation, and that means another set of tubes and some adjustments. Can he use the external condensate as a partial replacement of the fresh water lost from the system? Again, he nods as he loosely refastens the cover.

  Even in the growing darkness, Dorrin is again sweating by the time he climbs back to the deck. After wiping his forehead, he glances at the hillside. Only a single tent remains. At least there are some benefits to a malfunction-it reduced the interest in the Black Diamond.

  CXLIV

  DORRIN LOOKS AT the black box. Then he shrugs, looking at the three holes in the road, each roughly three rods apart. He hopes the different-length fuses will burn as he has calculated. And that the wooden rods will support the smaller paving stones. And that the stones are wide enough so that one of the Certan or Gallosian horses or levies will step on them.

  The two troopers wait as he sets the first thin-walled, black iron box in place, and then places the nails in position around the plunger cylinder.

  “What are those for?” asks the heavy-set and sandy-haired trooper.

  “To tear horses and people apart,” Dorrin says quietly.

  To the west, across die green of the meadows and south toward Elparta, a low cloud of dust and fires spreads on either side of the White horde. The air is clear, and the sun sparkles in the blue-green sky of spring. A chorus of terwhits echoes from beyond the stone wall bordering the south side of the road.

  The trooper swallows.

  Dorrin positions the wooden dowels that support and balance the hollowed stone. “For darkness’s sake,” he cautions the troopers, “don’t step on that stone. You won’t leave enough raw meat for a stew.” He wipes his dripping forehead before he sets the stone in place.

  The other trooper gulps.

  Dorrin wipes his forehead. How has he gotten into the position of designing demon-devices? And installing them, when a misstep will shred him into small bits of meat?

  He finishes with the first one. “Hand me the broom.” Care- fully, gently, he brushes dust across the stones until the whole area looks-he hopes-untraveled since the last rain.

  Then he does the same with the second box, and the third.

  His arms and hands are shaking by the time he finishes, and the sweat rolls down his forehead, even though a cool breeze blows from the Westhorns across the sloping plains. His head pounds with a dull aching.

  Brede’s troops have already cleared the herders and the few farmers, insisting all leave, and retelling the tales of Elparta. Few have needed much encouragement after learning that the Whites are marching downriver.

  “Are you done?”

  Dorrin looks up to see Kadara, accompanied by a trooper holding Meriwhen’s reins. He wipes his forehead. “I’ve done what I can. I hope it works… I think.”

  Kadara frowns as Dorrin slips the broom into the lanceholder next to his staff.

  “Each time I design something to kill, the Whites do something worse.”

  “I don’t think they can do much more than burn everything and torture and kill anyone who resists,” Kadara says dryly. “We need to get out of here. Keep your horses on the grass until we get to the curve up there.”

  Dorrin follows her directions, looking back over his shoulder to gauge the progress of the White horde.

  “Why aren’t there any outriders?” asks the heavy trooper.

  “Because we’ve always killed them all,” answers Kadara. “That’s why this just might work. This time, we didn’t leave them villagers or herders to march in front of the army. So they’ll be slow and crowded. I hope.”

  “What now?” Dorrin asks.

  “We wait up on the knoll beyond the curve, right where they can see us. Brede says that way, they won’t be quite so suspicious, at least not as suspicious as if they reach an open stretch of road, and see no one.”

  A handful of riders wearing blue trots across the meadows to the southwest, out from behind a low hill.

  “They just fired some arrows and tried to lure out some outriders,” Kadara tells Dorrin. “Brede wants them to think that we’re still trying to harass them as well as we can.”

  “Darkness-damned fine commander, Brede is,” mumbles the thinner trooper.

  Dorrin rides and watches. The blue-clad riders approach from the west, slowing as they near the curve in the road.

  “You’re a darkness-better rider.” Kadara reins up on the knoll overlooking the road.

  “I’ve had practice.”

  Leading the long advance, that train of riders and foot soldiers that stretches two kays back toward Elparta, are two squads of cavalry under the purple banners of Gallos. Behind the vanguard, separated by less than a dozen rods, are the first Gallosian levies. Behind the first set of levies, a half-hundred rods back, are the shimmering banners of the White Wizards.

  As the wizards pass, the grasses blacken and shrivel, with fires started by firebolts that strike the far edges of the meadows bordering the road. The effect is to leave a green ribbon winding through blackened and sooty fields and meadows.

  “Why doesn’t the wind carry the fires toward the road?” asks the heavy trooper.

  “It will,” Dorrin says, “but not until later. That’s why they throw the firebolts so far out.”

  The second group of Spidlarian riders reins up beside the four who wait. One horse is riderless.

  “They got Ertel. I hope this works.” The woman trooper looks at Kadara, then at Dorrin. “This your Black mage?”

  “I’m a smith, mostly.”

  The woman turns to Kadara, dismissing Dorrin. “How long?” **

  Kadara glances to Dorrin.

  “I tried to set it so that it would blow around the first wizards.”

  “Those are the young ones. Their High Wizard-his name’s Jeslek-is way back… way back.”

  “I couldn’t make the fuses any longer.”

  “Well… better some wizards than none.”

  “… darkness, yes…”

  “… pot any wizard in a storm…”

  Dorrin finds himself holding his breath as the vanguard oozes slowly uphill and onto the level stretch where his devi
ces rest.

  He watches. Has one horse stumbled? Did the plunger work?

  The vanguard passes over the mined section, and the first group of levies clears the area.

  “Darkness! When will something happen?” mumbles the heavy trooper.

  “A little longer…” Dorrin says, hoping… not knowing what he hopes, for he has used order to create great potential for chaos. And yet, what can he do? The people of Spidlar do not deserve to be killed or burned because they oppose chaos.

  The purple banners advance, as do the white ones. The vanguard slows as the mounted troopers near the curve in the road, as they see the Spidlarian Guards on the knoll. Behind them, the column slows, and begins to bunch up.

  CRRRRRuuummmmmpppp!!!! Earth, stones, bodies, blood… undefined shreds spray skyward.

  CRRRRRuuummmmmpppp!!!! A second gout of colored soil, stones, and flesh erupts into the sky.

  CRRRRRuuummmmmpppp!!!! By the third gout of gore, Dorrin is blind from the pain that has seared through him, barely able to hang on to Meriwhen.

  None of the troopers speaks.

  The first line of white banners is no more, nor is the second group of levies, nor the third. From pits below the knoll, perhaps a score of archers appear, and began to fire upon the vanguard and the remaining Gallosian levies. The vanguard circles, then charges the knoll.

  By the time Dorrin can breathe and straighten up in the saddle, only two mounted Gallosian troopers remain, and they ride back toward the Gallosian levies-fully half of whom are either lying on or around the road, or wounded. The remaining Gallosian levies scramble rearward, toward the green banners of Certis.

  “Too bad we can’t follow up,” Kadara says.

  Dorrin rubs his forehead, seeing the carnage intermittently, between flashes of white and black that seem to cycle behind his eyes. His breath is ragged, his thoughts scattered.

  “Not enough troops. We’ve got maybe two thousand trained people left. They’ve got twice that down there-or they did.”

  “Got a couple hundred, maybe more.”