The Magic Engineer

by Jr. L. E. Modesitt

  He drinks the last of the water before setting the other end cap. When all the black iron is on the staff, he lays it at the edge of the hearth and wipes his forehead with the back of his bare forearm. The almost-completed staff radiates blackness and order. He must wait for the staff to cool before filing the black iron, and ruining a file in the process, then smoothing the wood. At least, he can make his own files, if laboriously.

  In the dimness beyond the forge, he senses someone, and he turns.

  Petra steps into the dim circle of light. She still wears trousers and a heavy jacket. “What are you doing?”

  He gestures at the staff. “Making a better staff.”

  She looks at the staff on the forge bricks, then shivers. “It’s cold, like the stars on a winter night.”

  Dorrin racks his tongs and the hammer. The forge is still too hot to clean out the old ash, and that means he will have to be up early.

  “In a way, so are you, you know. People think you’re pleasant enough, but your outside is as cold as winter compared to the forge fire deep inside. I hope your little trader is tough enough to handle it.”

  “Little? Her shoulders are broader than mine, and she’s taller.”

  Petra studies the staff, not touching it, nor looking at Dorrin. “You’re still learning. Mother told me that, and I didn’t believe it. Not then.” The jacket swings half-open, revealing a thin shift.

  Dorrin can see erect nipples under the thin material. “Why did you come down?”

  “Father told me to watch you work. I used to help him sometimes—before you came. I had trouble sensing what he needed. He kept telling me to try to feel the iron. I didn’t know what he meant. Now I do.”

  “But why…”

  “I couldn’t sleep. Someone was forging the world—that’s what it felt like. Every blow of your hammer echoed through me.” She tosses the frizzy hair off her forehead with a quick flip of her head.

  Dorrin follows her eyes and looks at the staff, sees the blackness beneath the dark wood and black iron.

  “Good night, Dorrin.” Petra clinches the jacket around her and turns, walking back into the darkness on her way to the house and to sleep.

  Dorrin begins to sweep up. Forging the world? Absurd.

  LII

  “How are we to deal with Spidlar?”

  “Repeal the surtax,” suggests an anonymous voice from the mid-benches of the Council chamber.

  Jeslek swivels toward the voice. “Who suggested that?”

  There is no answer.

  “If you don’t want the Spidlarians or the Blacks making golds, then you’ll be making the Hamorians and the Nordlans rich,” suggests the heavy bald man in the first row. “Or the Suthyans and the Sarronnese. Trade is like water. It has to go somewhere.”

  “Why can’t it flow here?” demands Jeslek.

  “That is easier said than done.”

  “Why not increase the tax on Recluce goods?” asks another White Wizard.

  “Think again, Myral. The surtax is a hundred percent already.”

  “So? Those are spices, wines, luxury goods. Besides, who can wear their wool anyway? People will pay still more, and the Treasury will benefit, but not the Hamorians and Nordlans.”

  “Couldn’t we use the tax to build a larger fleet?”

  “We could build the ships, but why do we need any more?” asks Cerryl.

  “To cut off outside trade to Recluce, of course,” snorts Jeslek, young-looking despite the white hair and golden eyes.

  “That would have worked three centuries ago, but after Creslin we had neither ships nor money. It won’t work now. All Recluce is doing now is buying our grain from the Nordlans. The Nordlans pick it up in Hydolar and ship it to Recluce. Then the Blacks sell their stuff to the Nordlans in return. It costs them more, but we lose all that trade.”

  “That’s Jeslek’s point,” offers Anya in the silence that follows. “Unless we cut off trade to Recluce, we lose.”

  “That’s fine in theory,” snorts the bald wizard. “But I have yet to see something that will work. Nor did any of our predecessors. Do you honestly think, Jeslek, that previous councils have approved of the growing power of Recluce? Did they lose scores of ships and thousands of troops on purpose?”

  “Of course not.” Jeslek frowns, then smiles. “But, remember, the Blacks cannot use the winds now—even if they had a Creslin. What if we put more wizards on our ships?”

  “How many would that take?”

  “Not that many. That way, we could blockade Recluce. The Nordlans won’t make enough off the island to want to lose ships.” Jeslek’s face bears a smug look, the look of a man who has discovered a solution.

  Another wizard shrugs. “That may be. Bring the council a plan.”

  Jeslek still smiles as the others turn their attention to the next item of discussion. So does Anya.

  LIII

  “Well…ask him…”

  Dorrin senses the whisper, rather than hears it, even as his hammer continues to weld the upset ends of the broken wagon brace. He thrusts the brace back into the fire, noting the coolness of the iron almost as automatically as he checks the grain and the crystal sizes. As the metal reheats, he looks up to see Petra outlined in the smithy door.

  “Gerrol’s dying…” protests another feminine voice, a deeper hoarser one.

  “Dorrin’s a smith,” Yarrl says.

  “He’s also a healer.”

  “Who will pay for his time?”

  Dorrin’s head throbs. Money or not, he cannot refuse what he knows will be asked. He pulls the brace from the forge and turns it on the anvil. Another series of sequenced hammer blows and the brace goes on the forge bricks to cool slowly. Then he sets the hammer in its place on his rack, followed by the cross peen hammer and the punch.

  “I will, if it comes to that.”

  “Oh…daughter. You ask him.”

  Petra walks to the forge, followed by a young woman with straight brown hair and bloodshot eyes. Both wear loose gray trousers and gray jackets.

  “Dorrin?” Petra’s frizzy hair flares away from the heat of the forge, and she blinks from the heat and the tiny particles in the air.

  “Yes, mistress Petra?”

  “Will you help us?”

  “I can but try.” He continues to rack his tools, in contrast to the ordered disorder of Yarrl’s hammers and punches and swages.

  “You didn’t ask who or what.” Petra coughs. “Sheena’s little brother Gerrol is fevered and dying.”

  “It doesn’t really matter. I am, like it or not, still a healer.”

  “Oh…” Petra’s sharp face softens. “How awful. I didn’t know.”

  “Do I have enough time to wash off quickly?”

  Petra looks at his smudged and sweating figure. “It might be best. Honsard would not believe a sweating smith to be a healer.”

  “Fine. I’ll bring my staff.” Dorrin grins briefly, as he grabs a pail from the hook on the wall and heads for the well.

  “Do bring that staff,” Petra says quietly.

  A chill northern breeze reminds him that it is near winter, despite the clear skies and a bright midafternoon sun. Dorrin quickly lifts a full bucket of water. As he straightens, his trousers are jerked.

  “Oh, it’s you, little demon.” He scratches Zilda between the ears and ruffles the kid’s neck. With a last scratch for the little goat, he carries the bucket to his quarters, where he pours some into the wash basin. Then he strips to his drawers and washes as quickly as he can, using the water in the basin for his face. After drying off with a gray towel, he pulls on one of his two brown traveling outfits and takes the staff from the corner.

  Petra has already saddled Meriwhen by the time he reaches the barn. He checks the cinches and mounts, following the two women, Petra on the bay, and Sheena on a gray, as they start down the north road toward Diev.

  Honsard’s wagonry is less than three kays downhill from the smithy. Two barns flank a two-storied yellow hou
se with a wide covered porch. A matched team of Rumoag draft horses pulls an empty flatbed wagon from the hauling yard. Their hoofs clop easily on the stones of the main road.

  Petra reins up at the rail before the house. Dorrin dismounts, leaving his staff in the lanceholder, and follows them onto the porch.

  “This your famed healer, daughter?” Honsard is square-built, with a paunch below heavy shoulders and chest. His small green eyes are set deeply under thin eyebrows. His faded blue tunic and trousers are mud-spattered.

  Sheena nods.

  “You’re paying for him.”

  “No, I’m paying for him,” announces Petra.

  “Could I see the child, ser?” asks Dorrin.

  “Help yourself, esteemed healer. Or my daughter will show you the way.”

  Dorrin studies the haul-master, sensing flickerings of chaos within him. Then he leaves Honsard standing on the top of the stairs to the covered porch.

  The boy is dying. The thin frame shivers from a chill, despite the heat radiating from the parched forehead, despite the quilts heaped over him, and the closed and shuttered window.

  Dorrin’s fingers brush the child’s forehead, and he concentrates. The fever alone will kill the child before too long. He straightens.

  “He hasn’t been cut or wounded, has he?”

  “No. He fell sick two days ago, and he just kept getting hotter, and he wouldn’t wake up this morning.”

  “Is there a tub, one you can fill with water?”

  “A bath! You must be mad! Baths are the demon’s invention, or the legacy of the cursed Legend,” rasps Honsard from the hallway.

  Dorrin’s eyes harden into black steel and focus on the heavy-set man. “Do you want him to die?”

  The man’s eyes say yes as he shakes his head.

  “The fever alone will kill him before long.”

  “You’re a healer.”

  “I know my limits, ser. Without a cool bath to drop that fever, I cannot help enough to heal. Even with a bath, it will be hard. Wait longer, and no healer, not even the greatest, could save him.”

  “Please…father…”

  “On your head, daughter! Have the man do as you will! You have already. You brought this to pass.” Honsard turns. “There is a tub in the kitchen.”

  Dorrin looks at Petra. “Can you boil some water? Water from the well will be too cold, I think.” As the two scurry for water, Dorrin again touches the fevered brow, letting his weak order senses touch what he can. He does not know what the disease is, only that flickers of an ugly whitish-red permeate the child.

  In time, a tub of lukewarm water stands in the kitchen. Dorrin lifts the boy from his quilts and, with Sheena’s and Petra’s aid, strips off his soaked underclothes.

  “He’ll need a dry bedgown and bedclothes, and a towel in a bit.” Dorrin lowers Gerrol, moaning and thrashing, into the tub.

  “Now what?” asks Petra. “Will this stop his burning?”

  Dorrin shakes his head. “Some fever is not too bad.” Not from what he recalls of his mother’s teaching. “But too much can kill. The water helps also if he cannot drink. At least his skin can.”

  He tries again to strengthen the black flames of order within the boy. Has he succeeded? He cannot really tell, except that Gerrol seems to breathe easier. He watches—how long he cannot tell—until the boy’s skin begins to raise chill bumps.

  “Can you get his bed ready?” he asks Sheena.

  She nods, her eyes bloodshot, but not tearing.

  Dorrin turns to Petra. “He’s going to need several baths like this. If he stays in the water too long, it will also raise the fever.”

  “Bah…” mumbles Honsard from the doorway. “He’ll live or die, not mattering what some quack does.”

  “Are you telling me to let him die?” snaps Dorrin.

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Good,” says Petra coolly.

  Dorrin lifts the light figure from the water and into the towel held by Petra. She staggers under the boy’s weight, and Dorrin slips an arm under Gerrol’s shoulders to help.

  “You’re stronger than you look,” Petra says wryly.

  “Your father works me hard.”

  “Not as hard as you work yourself.”

  They wrap Gerrol in the quilts again, and Dorrin watches.

  By the time the sun touches the horizon, Dorrin has immersed Gerrol three times, and the boy’s fever has clearly dropped and stayed lower. Gerrol lies under the clean but gray sheet. A light sheen of perspiration coats the boy’s forehead, and the worst of the reddish-white flickers of chaos have vanished.

  “You need something to eat,” Sheena says.

  Dorrin’s head feels light.

  “Sit down.”

  The healer slumps into the chair, and a cup of broth is placed under his nose. He sips, and the worst of the lightheadedness departs. He eats three large slabs of bread with cheese. His head clearer, he studies the child again, the too-long lank brown hair and the narrow face so like his sister’s. He touches Gerrol’s forehead and lends a shade more order to the still-faint blackness within. The red-white ugliness of chaos has retreated into faint flickers of white.

  “He needs some boiled water.”

  “Boiled?” asks the narrow-faced young woman.

  “Boil the water and let it cool in a clean and covered pitcher that has not been used for milk.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” Petra promises, as she leaves for the kitchen.

  Dorrin takes another slab of bread, understanding for the first time why his mother often came home white-faced and exhausted. Healing is every bit as hard as smithing.

  “Why does he need boiled water?” asks the sister.

  “It’s easier for the sick to drink and keep in their body,” Dorrin simplifies. “You want a good clean well, don’t you?”

  Sheena nods.

  “Boiled water is cleaner than even good well water—if you store it in a clean pitcher.”

  “Where did you learn all this?”

  “From my mother.”

  “Does she live near here?”

  “No.”

  “Oh.”

  Petra returns. “The kettle is filled and over the coals. Is the old gray pitcher in the corner cupboard all right?”

  “That’s fine. Just be careful, please. It was mother’s.”

  “I can use another.”

  “Use it. She’d be pleased.”

  Petra leaves Sheena and Dorrin on the stools, watching the sleeping boy faintly bathed in the flickering light of a single candle.

  Dorrin touches Gerrol’s forehead again and nods. “I think he’ll be all right. Just make sure he has plenty of the boiled water and just breads for a while until his stomach settles. Then try some soup, and little bits of other things.” He stands.

  “Thank you.” Sheena’s arms go around Dorrin, and her lips—hot and dry—touch his…and cling, and her hips move suggestively against him. “…all I can give…”

  Dorrin gently disengages from her.

  “Don’t you…?”

  “You don’t owe me for doing what I had to do.”

  “No one else could have saved him.”

  “I almost didn’t, and it will be weeks before your brother’s well.”

  Sheena looks at the faded carpet, her eyes focusing on a rose pattern.

  “Darkness.” Why hadn’t he seen? “Your son?” Dorrin whispers.

  Sheena does not look up, but Dorrin can see the tears.

  “It is your secret.” His voice is low, and his own eyes burn. “But, then, you have more than paid.” His hand touches her shoulder, and he wills her what comfort he can.

  Finally, she looks up, muddy tracks streaking her cheeks. “Are they all like you—the Black ones?”

  “They are good, mostly, but not like me.”

  “They sent you away?”

  Dorrin nods.

  “Why couldn’t they see?”

  “They and I have d
ifferent dreams. For them, as for most people, what is different is evil.” He stands, then walks toward the door.

  Honsard stands halfway down the stairs.

  “He should recover,” Dorrin says quietly.

  “What do I owe you?” the wagon-master asks peevishly.

  “Nothing.” Dorrin pauses. “Unless you want to give Yarrl some more paying smithy work.” He steps out into the morning chill.

  Sheena stands on the porch. “I gave your mare some grain and water.”

  “Thank you.”

  Sheena is still standing on the porch when he turns onto the road back to the smithy.

  LIV

  “They’ve adopted another surtax.” The tall Black wizard opens the meeting with his announcement.

  “That’s not as big a problem as the Whites deciding that they want the Fairhaven ships to sink all blockade runners.” The slender dark-haired woman’s voice is level. “The Nordlans will not unload grain at Land’s End once Fairhaven threatens their ships—unless we’ll take steps to remove the White ships.”

  “Why don’t we?”

  “Because the only real weapon we have is the winds, and even I can’t bring more than one or two big storms—not without changing Recluce back into a desert…or a swamp.” The air wizard lifts his hands. “Or handing Jeslek even greater power than it took to raise mountains. We already have given him too much.”

  “What are we supposed to do—starve? Or forsake order just to keep a White Wizard from getting power?”

  “I’ve given up more than you—far more! And we won’t starve. We have our orchards, and the Feyn River fields produce some wheat and more than enough barley…”

  “Darkness, Oran! We haven’t had to eat barley for generations. Drink it, yes. Why can’t we grow more wheat, like the farmers have below Extina?”

  “The ground isn’t ready—not without a lot of healer work, and that just strengthens Fairhaven’s side of the Balance.” Oran wipes his forehead.