Magic Engineer

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “Do we wait for him-to finish this rabble?” snaps Anya.

  “No. I think we can proceed-slowly.”

  “You are always so cautious, Cerryl,” Anya says brightly.

  “When one cannot rely on sheer force of chaos, dear lady,” the smooth-faced White Wizard replies slowly, “one must needs be cautious.”

  “Bah… let’s get the troops moving.” Fydel blots the blood from his forehead and steps through the space where the tent wall was. Then he pauses and points toward the remaining two bodies. Fire flares, and only ashes remain.

  Anya and Cerryl raise their eyebrows simultaneously.

  CLVI

  DORRIN WAKES TO find his head in Liedral’s lap. She is blotting away the dried and not-so-dried blood with a cool and damp cloth and sprinkling the crushed and powdered astra into the gash on his forehead. The powder burns, and his head aches, not to mention his shoulder.

  For some reason, he thinks of Meriwhen and his eyes fill. He hopes the mare made it to shore. He shudders, and Liedral squeezes his shoulders.

  “It’s all right.”

  “No. It’s not.” He sits up and takes the cloth from her. So many others, even the mare who has carried and brought him through so much, have paid for his desires and dreams of building his engines.

  His shoulders slump. Brede is dead. Liedral was tortured, Kadara left alone and pregnant. Rylla’s cottage lies in ashes, with the old healer uprooted. Thousands of relatively innocent soldiers he dead. Kleth has been razed and burned, and Elparta half-destroyed. Why?

  Because order threw him out and he has set himself out to oppose chaos? Or just because he is stubborn? He recalls Fair-haven-clean, peaceful, even orderly. Just because he cannot tolerate chaos… is that any reason to create disaster?

  He takes a deep breath and squares his shoulders, ignoring the throbbing in his head and arm. Now is not the time to philosophize, but to seek safety for those on board. He looks across the deck and up onto the poop deck to Tyrel at the wheel, then to the sea to the north.

  The Black Diamond is merely holding position inside the breakwater. Two, perhaps three, kays offshore are the two schooners that bear the white and crimson ensigns of Fair-haven.

  Dorrin starts to stand, and Liedral helps him to his feet.

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself,” she murmurs.

  He touches her hand and walks across the gently rolling deck to the short ladder up to the poop and the helm.

  “We need to get out of here,” Dorrin says to Tyrel.

  “How? Where they’re lying, with that wind out of the east-northeast, they can cut us off either way we go. Under full sail, they’re faster than we are, even with your engine, I think.”

  “Which direction can’t they go?” Dorrin rubs his forehead, where the dull hammer of a smith beats still within his skull.

  “They can go where they want to. They’re White Wizards.”

  “I don’t need old jokes. Can they go upwind?”

  “They’d have to tack.”

  “All right. How close to the shore will they dare to come?”

  “With this wind?” Tyrel looks to the sky, and the clouds on the edge of the northern horizon. “Not a lot closer than they are now.”

  “Fine. We’ll just head east right along the coast.”

  “But…” Tyrel shakes his head. “It’s hard to remember that we can go where we want to.” He pauses. “If your engine fails, we’ll go aground.”

  “I understand. But if we go farther offshore, they’ll be able to get close enough to fry us with their wizards’ fire.” Dorrin limps forward toward the hatch to the engine compartment, where, as Yarrl watches, he shuts off the bypass and channels the engine’s power all to the screw.

  The Black Diamond surges past the breakwater, sails still furled to her spars as Tyrel slowly swings the converted schooner onto an eastward course paralleling the coast.

  Dorrin wobbles across the deck to where Pergun lies on a pallet under a makeshift awning. The dark-haired man’s breathing is even, and his eyes are closed. Merga lifts a damp cloth from his forehead, even as the tears dry on her face. Dorrin bends and touches Pergun’s forehead again, offering what little additional order he can spare.

  “Thank you, master Dorrin.”

  “Please don’t thank me now. Thank me if we make it to safe haven.” Dorrin moves to the railing, watching the choppy green water, letting the wood carry some of his weight.

  Kadara, her arm bound into a sling, joins him. “You could have done that for Brede.”

  “If you will recall, I wasn’t in much shape to do anything.”

  “Mule crap! You were off babying yourself again. Here you are, two minor flesh wounds, and you can barely walk.”

  Dorrin turns to the redhead. “You have to think what you think, and nothing I say has ever affected that. But I don’t think strength is measured by how well one bears physical pain or how many people you cut down with a sharp blade. Brede understood that.

  “You’ve still got a son you’ll have to raise. He’s born of Recluce parents, and he just might not take to a blade. Will you lose him because you’ll insist on making him into something he isn’t-like my parents did?”

  “You should talk. You don’t care what anyone thinks. All you care about is your damned engines.”

  Dorrin keeps his eyes level on Kadara. “You’re right. I know what I am.”

  This time Kadara looks down at the railing and the water beyond.

  Dorrin steps back as Liedral motions to him.

  “You were hard on her,” observes Liedral. “You were harder on yourself.”

  “Truth is sometimes hard.”

  “Do you like it when someone applies hard truth to you?”

  “Of course not.” He grins. “Except when you do it.” Then he looks northward once more. The easternmost White schooner, probably twice the size of the Diamond, has begun to turn, running crosswind. After watching the ship for a time, Dorrin climbs back up to the helm to talk to Tyrel.

  “He’s going to try and cut for the Cape there-Cape Devalin-where we’ll have to go farther seaward.”

  “Would more speed help?”

  “Aye, for if we can clear the Cape ”fore him, he’ll be forced into the teeth of the wind.“

  Dorrin totters away from the helm and down the ladder to the main deck.

  Near the bow, Rylla points to the beaches, with an arm around Frisa. Vaos is attempting to reposition a board on the amidships stalls, and talks to the horses. Dorrin swallows as he sees the empty stall once more, wipes his eyes and continues back toward the engine compartment.

  Yarrl sets down the shovel and wipes his forehead. “Hotter than a forge, this beast you built. And wetter. But this boy likes it.”

  From one corner, Rek watches the engine, trying to puzzle its workings.

  “Too wet,” Yarrl says.

  Water seeps from several tubes, and the deck is soaked. Dorrin tries to trace the leaks. One is in the seawater line that provides cold water to the condenser shell. Another is around the exit valve of the first cylinder. From what he can tell, nothing will break, split, or fail-not immediately.

  “We need to fire up more.”

  “Will it take it?”

  “Fora while.”

  “You’re the engineer,” Yarrl says with a crooked grin, opening the firebox door again and lifting the shovel.

  Slowly, slowly the connecting rods begin to pick up speed, and the heat from the boiler builds, and more water spills across the heavy-timbered half-deck that holds the engine. A dull vibration builds, and Dorrin spills steam, fractionally, until the engine returns to a stable rhythm, faster than before, but not what, he thinks, the engine might be capable of with work and time. Unfortunately, he has had neither.

  After stepping back on deck, Dorrin checks the white schooner, then hurries to Tyrel, who is talking to Styl.

  “… pails of water… any sand left?”

  “We put some on.” The la
nky bearded man jabs a fist toward the approaching schooner. “Don’t know as it will work if they got a hot White.”

  “We’ll do what we can.”

  “Aye, ser.” Styl vaults gracefully onto the main deck.

  “Used to be a mate for Gossag. Good man,” Tyrel says.

  “How are we doing?”

  “Going to be close. Looks like we’re going to hit off the Cape at about the same time.”

  Dorrin studies the full-sailed vessel. “Will our canvas burn if a fireball hits?”

  “Probably not if we keep it furled. See, they get you one way or another. It’s hard to fire ship’s wood with a flame; needs something like burning canvas, pitch, to set it going. But… you furl your sails, and you go dead in the water, and they board or flame the crew standing off a bit.”

  “If everyone’s below, and the sails are furled tight, we could get pretty close.”

  “Aye…”

  ‘ Til get everyone below.“ Dorrin climbs down the ladder to where Merga ministers to Pergun. ”Can you and Petra get him below?“

  “It’s cooler here, master Dorrin.”

  Dorrin points to the oncoming schooner. “They’re going to attack. You can bring him up later.”

  Merga looks at the fevered man.

  “He’ll die here. They’ll flame the deck.” Dorrin takes down the blanket that has served as a shade for the former mill hand, folding it quickly and setting it on the deck. “Get this below also.”

  He begins to search for his staff, both with his eyes and senses, and finally reclaims it from a corner in the empty stall where Meriwhen should have been. He steps out of the stalls, carrying the staff, toward the bow. Kadara sits propped against the forward side of the one fully completed stall, in the shade. She looks up warily.

  “You need to get below. There’s a White ship coming.”

  “I can fight.”

  “I think we can get by without fighting. If they board, you’ll need to fight, but I’d rather avoid this fight.”

  “Wouldn’t you always?”

  “Yes.” He steps around her toward the bow and Rylla and Frisa, where he repeats his warning, and asks Rylla to pass it on to Vaos. Looking to the helm, he sees Tyrel gesturing and motioning below. Styl and the two other men finally leave the poop deck, but not until they have lashed an open-topped barrel, filled with seawater and a bucket, to the railing closest to the helm.

  Liedral? Where is she?

  He finds her in the mess space with Reisa and Petra. Reisa is directing Liedral in sharpening an ancient pike. All three are fully armed.

  “We may not need that… I hope.” He repeats his warning, and then climbs topside, where he goes to the engine space.

  “The Whites are getting close. I’m going to close this halfway.”

  “Leave it open. We’ll die from the heat,” Yarrl yells over the sound of the engine.

  Dorrin looks from the oncoming schooner to the engine compartment. “Then stay low on the deck here.”

  Yarrl nods and glances at Rek, even as he throws another shovelful of coal into the firebox. “You hear that, boy?”

  “Yes, ser.”

  Dorrin climbs back to the helm, almost dragging the staff.

  The White ship is perhaps a dozen cables from the Black Diamond, close enough that Dorrin can make out the name- White Storm.

  “Let me take this,” Dorrin insists, looking over his shoulder at the approaching White Storm.

  “I’m a better helmsman, master Dorrin,” Tyrel insists.

  “I know. I need you alive. You don’t want to get fried, do you?”

  “I was a-hoping you could protect us both.”

  “I’ll be lucky to protect myself,” Dorrin admits.

  Tyrel looks nervously to the starboard, toward the breakers that seem all too close. “Don’t get any nearer to shore… and if… when you get abreast of the cut in the beach there, just before the tip of the cape, you need to bring her seaward another dozen rods at least.”

  “Let me loop this here.” Tyrel makes two quick rope loops to secure Dorrin’s staff to the side of the wheel cage.

  “Thank you. I’ll need it.” Dorrin takes the wheel, swallowing. Why is he getting into positions like this?

  “Thought you might.” Tyrel eases down onto the main deck, where he stands by the hatch into the poop. Other than the man Dorrin regards as the ship’s captain, the decks are now clear.

  The White Storm seems to slash through the water, and the bearing between the two ships seems almost constant, the distance steadily decreasing. Dorrin watches the approach. Is the Black Diamond gaining ever so slightly?

  A swirl of wind carries coal cinders into his face, and he blinks. The stack should be taller, and that would also increase the boiler draft. But again, he has not had the time to work all the details out. It is a miracle of sorts that the engine works so well.

  More cinders fly in his face. He looks at the stack, sensing a vibration in the deck, realizing that Yarrl is forcing more power into the engine.

  The Black Diamond continues to gain on the angled approach of the White Storm. Dorrin is now actually looking slightly back.

  More cinders fly toward Dorrin. Why now?

  He grins. They’re nearing the Cape and the time when the White ship will face a straight headwind. Dorrin sobers and swallows as he sees the cleft in the beach appear to starboard. Now he must turn the Diamond seaward, cutting the distance between the two ships. He eases the wheel, but the turn is gentle-too gentle.

  He turns the wheel more, and the Black Diamond angles closer to the White schooner, close enough that Dorrin can see a white-garbed figure standing just aft of the bow. The White Wizard raises an arm and white fire flashes southward.

  PHsssttttt…

  The fireball sails by the upper spars.

  “Turn her back, master Dorrin!” yells Tyrel.

  Dorrin tries to bring the Black Diamond back onto a more eastern course now that the ship has regained its separation.

  PHHHssttttt…

  Another fireball flies past, lower, and close enough that Dorrin can feel the heat and the chaos as he wrestles with the wheel. As he straightens the helm on what he hopes is the proper course line, Dorrin grabs for his staff with one hand, yanking it upward as another flash of fire flames toward the Black Diamond.

  Phhhssst… platttt!!! Fire sprays around Dorrin and the staff he has raised barely in time, but the ship heels because Dorrin has lost the wheel. He grabs for the spokes, and pain sears through his hand, although, somehow, he halts the bow from falling off into the breakers and brings the ship back toward course line.

  He looks over his shoulder, and raises the staff one-handed against another fireball.

  Shhhh… plant… Chaos-fire splatters around him, blown back by the wind.

  Suddenly, it seems, the Black Diamond begins to pull away from the White Storm as if the White ship were standing still.

  Another firebolt flies, but lands in the green sea behind the Diamond. Dorrin turns the helm slightly more seaward, hoping he has not already run too close to the breakers and the sandbars and rocks over which they break.

  His head aches; his shoulder throbs, and now his thumb seems broken or… something, as he shifts the staff to the injured left hand and tries to wrestle the ship onto the course he feels is safe.

  Yet another fireball falls astern.

  “Master Dorrin, let me take her!”

  Dorrin nods, and Tyrel scrambles for the helm, frantically turning the ship more to sea.

  The sometime healer and smith holds the staff loosely facing aft, watching as the White Storm, sails almost flat, struggles to find the wind before being carried onto the cape. The Black Diamond chugs onward.

  Dorrin finally walks forward to the engine space. “Let her go slower,” he yells.

  Yarrl wipes his forehead and closes the firebox door, slumping against a cross-brace.

  Dorrin listens. A series of vibrations he does not like have
crept into the engine… or the shaft. He limps aft to the helm once more.

  “Can we run on sail later?” he asks.

  “Aye… if we can get enough to sea.”

  “I’m going to let the others come on deck.”

  Tyrel laughs and jabs a hand back toward the cape. “He’ll not be coming after us for a time. White bastards…” He spits downwind.

  Dorrin sits down on the deck, too tired to move, but the word has passed, because Liedral arrives carrying a basket.

  “You need to eat.”

  Dorrin does not protest.

  “What did you do to your hand?”

  “Lost an argument with the wheel.”

  “Dorrin…” Liedral shakes her head, and her short hair flies out. “You eat, and I’ll get Rylla.”

  He eats, one-handed, while Tyrel sings a vaguely obscene song, tunelessly, and Styl and the other two begin to rig for sail.

  CLVII

  “RAZE THE CITY.” Sterol looks down at the twisted links in his hand and the blackened amulet.

  “The whole city? Those who were left surrendered and accepted the banner of Fairhaven.” The eyes of the red-haired female wizard widen.

  “I don’t care about the people. Let them go where they will. No city strikes down a High Wizard and remains to mock Fair-haven. I want all the crops and livestock taken. Then sow every other field with salt and fire, and level every structure. Destroy the breakwater and fill the port with stone.”

  “I did not realize you so loved Jeslek.”

  “I hated the man. That’s scarcely the point, is it?” Sterol’s voice is almost silky. “Do you want the world thinking that leaders should be targets in warfare?”

  “I understand. Do you wish a reward published for the Black… wizard?”

  “Light, no. Do I have to spell out everything for you? We post a reward, and those idiots on Recluce might take him back. This way, everyone around him has to look over their shoulder.”