“I am.” Dorrin gestures to the bench.
“I have to get things ready to leave. They say a Bristan trader will be in next eight-day.” Liedral sits on the bench, and Dorrin settles next to her. He puts an arm around her and squeezes, but only for a time, until he can sense the tension rising in her. More than a year has passed, and they still cannot hold each other for long before the discomfort that was once screaming agony begins to bubble up in Liedral.
“I’m sorry,” she says.
“So am I.” He stands, then bends and kisses her cheek. His eyes burn as he goes down the steps. Once he turns back to look uphill, but Liedral has gone inside, getting ready to head out to the warehouse, he supposes.
The late summer sun warms Dorrin as he pauses by the latest structure, a small, squarish, one-story armory-black, like all the other stone buildings. At least he had enough sense to lay out a plan that sets plenty of open space between buildings for the town that seems to be growing.
Silently, he watches as Kadara stretches and forces her right arm to full extension, then lifts the small weight once, then again, then again. Not only can he see the streaking on the redhead’s face, but he can feel the agony and discomfort of her exercise. The discomfort arises from her swelling abdomen, and the weight of her son, and the agony comes from rebuilding that slashed and sundered arm.
He has added his own order to that struggle, silently, without thanks, but without Kadara’s opposition, either. She suffers him to help heal her.
Dorrin blots his forehead with his sleeve in the stillness. While it is well before midmorning, the stillness promises a warm fall day, and the sea beyond the point is almost glassy, the green-blue sky carrying the faint haze that foretells searing heat later.
Through the heat, the clinking of hammer and stone rises, and the hammering of spikes and nails.
He shifts his glance to Reisa, who also exercises, but with an iron wand twice the weight of a real blade, to Petra, and to several others who have joined the blade squad that Reisa and Kadara have formed-including Quenta, a former farm youth from Feyn who has begged for their training, and others whose names he has never known.
Beyond the armory are the foundations of yet another building-a barracks for the new Black Guard of the port town to replace the tents that Quenta and the others are now using. Dorrin smiles. Pergun has become the de facto director of building. All the buildings are “his”-his armory, his warehouse, his barracks.
Already, Dorrin can sense that the community created out of necessity is developing its own character-and drawing others from the isle in the process. So far, all of them have been orderly in character, but Dorrin has no illusions that it will remain that way. Will he have to follow the exile precedent of the Council?
He shivers, then turns and resumes quick steps downhill to the shipwright’s, where, no doubt, Tyrel will be grousing about some new detail.
Even before his booted feet carry him inside the shed and toward the blocks where the ship rests, Tyrel has found him.
“Master Dorrin… you sure the new engine won’t go over four hundred stone?”
“It should be less than that-two hundred and fifty or less, but we still have to consider the water tanks, and the coal bins…”
“The bunkers are both fore and aft and braced different.” Tyrel points toward the slideways into the channel. “Those… are ye sure they’ll support this little monster?”
“They should.” Dorrin hopes the calculations he has checked and rechecked are accurate.
“Do ye have a name yet for the monster?”
“Why are you always calling it a monster?”
Both look at the near-completed hull, seventy cubits long, perhaps twenty-five wide, with the deep keel that has required both higher graving blocks and a deep trench beneath, not to mention use of explosives and the Black Diamond to dredge the inlet deeper.
“It’s a black monster. All ye designed it for was destruction. Hasn’t got cargo space for much. Just room for troops and coal and weapons and an engine.”
“You told me I couldn’t build anything bigger… and I can’t afford more. Darkness… I can’t afford this.”
Tyrel looks up. “You’re getting a mite of help, young fellow.”
“I’m getting help.” More than he probably deserves, but his coins are running out, and neither the ship nor the engine is close to completion. He pauses. “Let’s call it the Black Hammer. ”
“Black Hammer it is. Fitting enough for a smith, leastwise.” Tyrel coughs. “We need to look at the collar for the main shaft bearing.”
Dorrin takes a deep breath. Every time he and Tyrel discuss the ship-the Black Hammer now-he has another half-dozen smithing items to redo or develop or add to his list.
The two men climb the ladder and edge across the beams that will support the engine deck.
“If you brace that the way you drew it, and there’s any vibration in that shaft, you’ll be a-tearing that right out.” Tyrel points to the problem.
Even without trying to calculate, Dorrin can sense that the shipwright is correct. “What do you suggest?”
“Run a set of false beams right inside the hull, next to the structural ones. They’d be held in place by weight, but if the shaft vibrates, you see, it won’t separate the hull from the beams.”
“How much extra weight?”
“With the iron you’re putting on, you won’t notice it. Maybe fifteen stone.”
Fifteen stone is fifteen stone. Where can he shave off another fifteen stone? He must keep the ship as light as he can for the speed. Tyrel doesn’t really consider speed, only structural soundness.
“Do it. I’ll have to find where else I can cut weight.”
The tapping and clinking of the rest of the shipwrights are underscored by the sound of a heavy wagon pulling up beside the big shed.
Dorrin looks down through the beams, recognizing both Hegl and the healer beside him. “Excuse me, Tyrel.” He climbs across the unfinished beam work and down the ladder. Why has his mother made the long ride to Southpoint? Is something wrong with his father? Has the Council changed its mind, and is she warning him?
The wagon is laden with a variety of items, ranging from a cradle to a barrel of ship spikes and hull bolts.
Rebekah waves to Dorrin with a smile, but has stepped away from the wagon to allow the unloading to proceed. “Go ahead and unload, Dorrin.”
Dorrin turns to the wagon.
“I’ll be leaving these with Tyrel,” says Hegl as he lowers the tailgate and lifts the barrel of bolts.
Styl appears behind Hegl and grasps the barrel of spikes. “Never say the smiths don’t bring what ye need when ye need it.” He offers everyone a gap-toothed smile as he carts off the heavy barrel.
Dorrin unloads two shipwright’s adzes with spur heads, and looks at the cooper’s adz beside it. “This for them, too?”
“Tyrel said he’d have to make some special barrels for this monster of yours.”
“It’s got a name now. Kyl’s idea, mostly. The Black Hammer. ”
“Black Hammer, eh? You going to hammer the Whites?” Hegl sets aside several shovels and two pickaxes. “These be for the one-armed lady.” He picks up a narrow hoe. “And this for the old healer and her garden. Light as a feather.”
“You didn’t have to do this.”
“Of course I didn’t. Haven’t had this much satisfaction in a long time. I just grinned at your father every time I put something on the wagon.”
Dorrin looks at his mother, but she is smiling. So he unloads a half-barrel of smaller deck spikes. Intar carts the barrel off into the shed.
“That’s it for here,” Hegl announces. “I’m up to the big house next to unload Kadara’s goods. Hop on.”
Dorrin offers a hand to his mother, as she climbs back onto the wagon seat. Then he vaults into the back.
When they reach the point on the road nearest the house, Hegl sets the brake and blocks the wheels. Except for Merga an
d Frisa, the house proper is empty, although Yarrl’s hammer rings from the smithy.
“Where is Kadara?” asks Hegl.
“Down where the armory will be, I’d guess.” Dorrin points to where several figures are digging out a foundation.
“We’re here. Let’s unload.”
Hegl and Dorrin carry the furniture into Kadara’s room-a bed, a mattress, the cradle, and a small dresser.
“Next trip I’ll bring the rest.” Hegl closes the tailboard and wipes his forehead. “Think the one-armed lady’d mind if I gave the pick and shovels to Kadara for now?”
“Darkness, no!” laughs Dorrin. “Half the time they work together anyway.”
“I’ll be heading down there.”
“You’re welcome for lunch,” Dorrin insists.
“Aye, and I’ll be there-after I unload.”
Dorrin and Rebekah watch from the porch as the wagon rumbles back down to the armory site.
“Why did you come?” Dorrin asks as relative quiet settles over the porch.
“Kyl tells me that I might be able to help.”
“You did. I can’t thank you enough for what you did for Pergun.” Dorrin shifts from one foot to the other, looking down on the slight and red-haired figure, who seems ageless.
“You still do it… hopping around when I look at you. You’d think I’d set you on a bed of red ants.” Rebekah smiles fondly at her son. “I was talking about Liedral.”
“There isn’t anything physically wrong.” Dorrin gestures to the bench, and she sits down. He sits at the other end, straddling it to face her.
“I figured that. But… I do have some experience.” Her voice is wry.
“I’ll readily grant that.” Dorrin laughs ruefully. “If you want to see Liedral, she’s down at the warehouse.”
“I saw her on the way in-just from the wagon. I wanted to talk to you first. If you’re willing for me…”
“I’m willing for anything. Rylla’s tried everything she-can think of. So have I.”
Rebekah nods. “I need to know exactly what the Whites did.”
“I don’t know exactly. From what she can remember and the cuts and welts, they… whipped, tortured her… and planted false memories of my doing it to her. She knows the memories are false, but that doesn’t seem to help much. The idea was to get her to kill me.”
Rebekah’s voice is steady as she asks, “Was she raped?”
“No. At least there was no blood and no memory.”
The healer sighs. “That’s something… I think… although that would have been hard on a White.”
“What do you have in mind?”
“I’d like to talk it over with Liedral first. It has to be her decision, son. I don’t see why she wouldn’t agree, but… it is her body and her choice.”
Dorrin frowns. She sounds as if she has something fearsome in mind.
“Oh… it’s nothing fearful. It’s rather simple, certainly physically painless, even possibly pleasurable… but it will take a long time. You have to keep in mind that Liedral must be totally in control, and you listen to her, and especially not to your male instincts.”
“I understand.”
“I doubt that. Not fully.” Rebekah smiles.
Dorrin blushes.
“Tell me about the progress with your ship.”
Dorrin looks down at the porch floor.
“Darkness, I’m not your father, and I am old enough to make my own mind up, as I hope you would have understood a long time ago.”
The young engineer represses a grin at the asperity in his mother’s voice. Some things don’t change. “Well… we’ve decided on a name, the Black Hammer. It really came from Kyl in a way…”
CLXVIII
“THE COUNCIL WANTS to know what you intend to do.” Anya’s eyes drop to the blank mirror upon the table.
Sterol gestures, and the white mists vanish. A view appears in the glass, so solid that it might have been painted there, a view of a black ship moored at a pier in the narrow inlet, with five black stone buildings on the hillside above. “Look. Have you ever seen anything so clear?”
“No.”
“I haven’t either. What aspect of the Balance created that monster, I don’t know…”
“The Council is worried. They want you to do something.”
“Fine! What am I supposed to do? Send a fleet out against Recluce? What good will it do?” Sterol snorts and looks at the image in the mirror on the table. “The old Black ones won’t respond. Should we attack the island? Do you know what black iron swords do to our White guards? Do you want one of those things he built blowing you into shreds? Like the great Jeslek?”
“The Blacks are divided,” says Anya quietly. “They want this Dorrin to disappear as much as we do.”
“That may be, but how does that explain all the people helping build this new town? He didn’t carry them all on that little ship. And they’re all still Blacks. That means he isn’t creating any chaos on Recluce, the demons know why…” Sterol rubs his forehead.
“Why can’t you send a fleet? Recluce doesn’t have even a half-score of warships, if that. They don’t like fighting. And most of those ships are spread across the oceans.”
Sterol rubs his forehead again, then touches the amulet that rests against his chest. “Haven’t you heard a word I’ve said?”
“The Council wants some action, Sterol.” Anya’s voice is sharp.
The High Wizard lifts the amulet. “Here. You take it. Be my guest.”
The redhead looks at the amulet, then at Sterol. “I won’t be tricked like Jeslek.”
“Either shut up or take the amulet,” Sterol snaps.
Anya’s hand lifts, then drops. Finally, she sighs. “Someone has to do something.”
“Why?”
“Do you intend to do nothing while this… oddity… builds so much order into black iron that Recluce will dominate the Eastern Ocean forever?”
“I don’t see that much of a threat. He can’t live forever.”
Anya laughs, harshly. “You know those were Jenred the Traitor’s exact words? Creslin didn’t live forever, but he lived long enough that you-the High Wizard of Fairhaven-are afraid to take any direct action against Recluce. Will you be the one who’s remembered for letting Recluce dominate all of Candar?”
“No.” Sterol chuckles, bitterly, and lays the amulet on the table beside the mirror. The image of Southpoint vanishes. “You want action. Take the amulet-or give it to someone else.”
“I’m asking you, Sterol.”
“And I’m refusing.”
She nods toward the door, and three guards appear, all bearing chains. Behind them stand three White Wizards.
“How predictable, dear Anya. You would all chain me rather than act yourselves.”
The redhead’s eyes burn; her fingers tighten on the white bronze dagger.
Fire, white flames, and swirling mists fill the room. The mirror upon the table explodes, and two of the guards shrivel into dust on the white-powdered stones.
As the remaining white smoke subsides, Anya picks up the amulet, glancing down at the pile of white dust that lies within the white robes and white boots. She turns to one of the remaining wizards and extends the amulet. “Here. You earned it, Cerryl.”
Cerryl looks at her sadly. “No. You earned it, but I’ll wear it for you.” His eyes flicker to the white powder on the stone, which vanishes as he watches.
“Good. We need to plan the attack on Recluce.”
“As you wish.” He gestures. The sole guard, the other wizard, and Anya step outside the tower room. Anya closes the door behind her.
CLXIX
DORRIN CLOSES THE bedroom door and turns to Liedral.
“You don’t have to do this.” Liedral’s eyes meet his.
“What do I have to lose?”
“Your patience, your mind, your self-esteem…” She forces a laugh.
“What do I do?” Dorrin looks at the smoothed plank floors
that need oiling or some sort of finish, then at the bed, almost stark in the light of the single lamp.
“Lie down on your stomach.”
“On the bed?”
“No. On the floor.” Liedral snorts. “Of course on the bed. I may be difficult, but I’m not that cruel. Besides, I don’t want to be responsible for the splinters.”
Dorrin eases off his boots and lies on the bed, fully clothed, facedown. “Now what?” His voice is muffled.
“You just lie there and let me rub and massage your back. According to your mother, I need to reestablish physical closeness and an instinctive understanding that you won’t hurt me.”
“But-”
“I know. But… will trying this hurt?”
Dorrin feels like shrugging, but does not. She is right. Nothing else has worked. He takes a slow deep breath and releases it, conscious of the faint perfume from the coverlet that reminds him of Liedral and the physical closeness they once shared. His eyes burn, but he keeps his face averted as her strong fingers knead the muscles in his shoulders and upper back.
“You’ve put on more muscle.”
“There, anyway, it’s muscle.”
Despite the knot in his stomach, her fingers are strong, and soothe the strain in his shoulders and neck. His breath becomes more even.
“How do you feel?” he asks.
“Hush… I’m working.” Despite the amused tone to her voice, there is also an edge.
Dorrin turns his head more to avoid breathing through the feather mattress that seems determined to cover his nostrils. “Ahhh… chwwww.” He rubs his nose and resettles himself so he breathes fewer stray bits of down.
The intermittent wind carries bits of conversations to them.
“… thought black stone… be depressing, but it’s not…”
“… amazing the difference…”
“… you think master Dorrin’s a wizard, a real wizard?”
Liedral proceeds quietly and methodically for some time, and Dorrin enjoys the relaxation.
“My fingers are tired.” Liedral shakes her hands and leans back.
“You’ve been doing it for a long time.” As Dorrin shifts his weight on the soft mattress and turns over to see her, Liedral wobbles on her knees. He reaches and catches her, momentarily holding her close.
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