The Magic Engineer

by Jr. L. E. Modesitt

  “They don’t work as well when you build them bigger.”

  Liedral looks over the boat. “Why do you want to sell it?”

  “I’ve done better ones.” He holds up his hands. “The second one has a spring, but it isn’t big enough.”

  “You amaze me.”

  Dorrin looks at the rough-planked floor.

  “You work like a smith. You’re a healer, and you make wonderful toys—”

  “Models.”

  “Models…whatever…” She pauses. “Why did you write me?”

  “Because…I think of you. It’s different.”

  “Would you sit next to me? Please?”

  Dorrin sits on the end of the pallet.

  Liedral edges next to him. “I came to see you. Not to make coins. Not to make polite conversation.”

  “I know. But I feel…so…young.”

  Her arms are surprisingly strong as she pulls him to her, and her lips are warm on his.

  After the kiss and embrace that seems timeless, he looks at her. “I missed you.”

  “I missed you. And I’m not that much older than you, especially in love.”

  “But…”

  “Look at me, the way you do when you’re healing.”

  Dorrin does, and sees the rightness, the essential order. “Oh…”

  “Now, do you see?”

  He nods. Knowing little of order, Liedral is still wise enough to know that she needs order in her lover. He tightens his arms around her, and her lips touch his again. Soon, not just lips touch, nor skin, nor souls.

  LXX

  “You’re impossible…after last night…” Liedral’s lips touch Dorrin’s, and his fingers dig into her bare back.

  “Last night…was just…the beginning.”

  There is a rap on the door. Dorrin looks up. Another rap follows.

  “Yes?” Dorrin says.

  “It’s Reisa. If you two lovebirds aren’t too tied up, you might want to bundle up and come up to the hilltop. I forgot. Tonight’s Council Night.”

  Dorrin sighs. “Council Night?”

  “They’ll be starting the fireworks soon.”

  The two look and each other, then burst into giggles.

  “…fireworks, indeed,” Liedral mutters, pulling on her shirt.

  “Couldn’t we have both kinds?” Dorrin pleads.

  She throws one of her boots at him, but he ducks, and it crashes into the wall. “All right.”

  Dorrin shrugs, then frowns.

  She grins. “Don’t worry about it. Let’s go out into the cold and watch the fireworks.”

  Dorrin groans, but yanks on his shirt and boots. After they don jackets, and Liedral pulls on a knit cap, Dorrin takes her face in both hands, then brushes her lips with his.

  “Cold fireworks, first.”

  “All right.”

  Reisa and Petra stand on the hilltop, looking down on the frozen river and the harbor beyond.

  “You did manage to venture out into the cold.”

  “Ah…yes,” Dorrin stumbles.

  The three women exchange knowing glances. Dorrin blushes and looks toward the harbor.

  A skyrocket bursts, and pinwheels of light cartwheel from it, casting momentary shadows of the leafless trees against the hills to the west. The ice on the River Weyel shimmers.

  “It is beautiful.” Liedral’s voice is barely audible as the sounds of the next skyrockets echo through the darkness. “What are they for?”

  “Celebrate the founding of the Council.” Reisa snorts. “Not that the Council’ll last much longer unless they do something about the White Wizards.”

  Dorrin thinks about the skyrockets, about what powers them, and whether the black powder would or could power a machine.

  Another crummp echoes through the velvet night as the shower of red sparks it has delivered is already fading.

  “The Wizards don’t move that fast,” Liedral says slowly. “They’re very careful, very thorough. When they do move, it’s usually too late to do much.”

  “Wonderful.” Reisa coughs in the cold.

  Another rocket stews golden sparks across the black and white winter sky. Petra clears her throat.

  Dorrin squeezes Liedral’s hand, and she returns the pressure.

  Yet another explosion of light flares over the harbor.

  Reisa coughs, once, twice, and again. “Going in. Cold’s too much.”

  The three remain, near-silent, until the last rocket flares.

  Petra stamps her feet in the snow, turning back toward the house. “Stupid time for fireworks. It’s winter, for darkness’s sake.”

  Dorrin and Liedral grin at each other. Dorrin has to cover his mouth and swallow hard.

  As they reach the yard, Liedral says softly. “Good night, Petra. Thank your mother for telling us about the fireworks.”

  “Good night, lovebirds.” Petra’s voice is warm, even as she closes the kitchen door.

  “She’s nice.” Liedral squeezes Dorrin’s hand again as the two cross the frozen yard to his room.

  “She is. But you’re special.”

  “Like fireworks?”

  They grin again.

  Once inside the room, Dorrin slides the bolt.

  “I’m cold.” Liedral has the quilt wrapped around her.

  “You need more fireworks?”

  A boot flies in his direction, and he ducks, then catches her. Their lips meet again.

  “Fireworks…”

  LXXI

  Dorrin and Liedral stand outside the barn in the cold, but bright, morning light.

  “Do you want to take Meriwhen?”

  “Your precious mare?” She grins.

  Instead of answering, he bends down and crushes together the icy snow, then straightens and throws it at her, spraying her with icy powder.

  “You…” She edges closer to him, tilting her lips for a kiss.

  He bends forward, closing his eyes—and finds himself falling backward into the hard packed snow next to the barn. In spite of himself, he laughs, and she reaches down to help him up with gloved hands. Instead he pulls her down and into his lap. They kiss once…and again. In time, he struggles upright, lifting Liedral with him.

  “You’re much stronger than you look.”

  “All that smithing. Do you want Meriwhen?”

  “No. I’ll take the nag I bought.”

  “What are you doing today?”

  “Being a trader. Trying to find what people will sell cheaply. I’ll know it when I see it. Part of it’s just feel.” She shrugs. “Just like part of being a smith is feel.”

  He opens the barn door, and they step inside, hand in hand. Dorrin kisses her again, feeling the chill of her cheek and the warmth of her lips.

  “Don’t you have to go to the healer’s this morning?” She breaks away.

  “I should.” He sighs. “More hungry children, more broken bones.”

  “Broken bones?”

  “Always women,” he explains. “They say they have accidents. They’re lying, of course. When times are hard, the men beat them.”

  “Can’t you do something?” Liedral looks for the battered saddle for the even more battered gray mare that shares the stall with Meriwhen.

  “What?” Dorrin takes a deep breath. “They won’t leave the men. Where would they go, especially in winter? What could they do? Most of the men won’t change.” He pauses. “Look at you. You dress and act like a man. Why can’t you be a trader and a woman?”

  “People still fear the Legend, I guess.”

  Dorrin hands her the worn brown saddle blanket, waits until she puts it on the gray, and swings the saddle into place, deftly cinching the girths.

  “You’ve gotten a lot better since we first met.” She grins. “At a lot of things.”

  He finds himself blushing.

  “But you still blush the same way.”

  He slips the gray’s bridle in place.

  “I can do that. I was doing it before you knew what
a horse was.”

  “I know you can, but I like doing things for you.” He hands her the reins and begins to saddle Meriwhen. “Darkness!”

  “What?”

  “I forgot my staff. Have to get it on the way out.” Meriwhen steps sideways as he slips the hackamore in place.

  “That’s a giveaway, you know?”

  “What?”

  “The hackamore. None of the great ones used bitted bridles, not according to my father. He said even Creslin used a hackamore.”

  “How did he know?”

  “According to the family tales, Creslin once was a guard for a distant ancestor. That’s why Freidr is so assiduous in courting the Whites in Jellico.” She snorts. “Much good it does us.”

  Dorrin looks toward the barn door. “I suppose we ought to get moving.”

  She leans toward him for another kiss. He obliges.

  “Later…” she finally says, breathless.

  “That’s a promise.”

  She smiles as he opens the door. He watches until she turns left on the main road toward Diev. Then he closes the door and leads Meriwhen across the yard, leaving her outside for the moment it takes him to reclaim his staff.

  After returning and setting the staff in the holder, he mounts, and flicks the reins. “Let’s go. Rylla will be complaining that I wasn’t there at dawn.”

  LXXII

  Dorrin glances around the barn, but Leidral’s gray is nowhere to be seen. Quickly, he unsaddles Meriwhen, brushes her, and then hurries to his room, where he deposits his staff and shirt. He looks at the stains that resulted from his efforts to mix honey and spices. The shirt needs washing, but washing is a chore in the winter. With a deep breath, he pulls on the ragged shirt he wears in the smithy. He still thinks about the fireworks. Can he obtain some cammabark or black powder? Where would he store it? The old root cellar down the hill from Rylla’s cottage?

  Vaos looks up from the grindstone. “Good day, master Dorrin.”

  “Good day, Vaos.”

  Yarrl sets the iron rod he is working back in the forge and wipes his forehead. “Good thing you’re here early.”

  Dorrin sets the sledge on the clay by the anvil. “Why?”

  “Trader named Willum stopped by. The fellow who’s a chandler.” Yarrl grips the tongs and nods toward the bellows. Vaos follows the implied directions and begins to pump the bellows lever.

  “He was talking about one of those little toys you made for him,” grunts the smith, withdrawing the metal from the forge.

  Dorrin shifts his grip on the sledge, following Yarrl’s gestures as the older smith moves the metal across the anvil’s horn.

  “…darkness good…smith…for such a young fellow…”

  The wiry young man has never mentioned his abilities to sense the level of heat within the firebrick, or the order within the iron, nor does he intend to, not after his brief visit in Fairhaven.

  The smith thrusts the metal back into the inferno. “Anyway, he’s headed down to Fenard in the next day or so…wanted to know if you could make him a few more…said he’d pay half silver each…especially if you could do little boats of some sort. That mean anything to you?”

  That Willum has stopped and asked for toys—and offered more coins—is interesting. Dorrin does not whistle, but his lips are pursed. Nearly automatically, he gestures to the bellows rod again, noting that the fire needs more air. Vaos sighs and resumes pumping.

  “He likes my toys. I made a wagon, a windmill, and a sawmill. I could do a boat, but that would be harder, especially to make it float properly.”

  “An iron boat? Even one that’s part iron?” Yarrl coughs, then swallows, wiping his forehead with the back of his bare forearm.

  “An empty bucket floats, doesn’t it?—and it’s part iron.”

  Yarrl brings the metal to the anvil, and Dorrin lifts the sledge.

  A half silver for his toys? He brings the sledge down, then lifts it. Yarrl shifts the iron, and Dorrin strikes as they pick up an easy rhythm.

  At least twice, Dorrin looks over his shoulder, certain that someone is there, but only the three of them are there.

  LXXIII

  “I don’t want to go.” Liedral’s arms are tight around Dorrin.

  “I don’t want you to go.”

  “I’ve already stayed too long. You need more time…and so do I.”

  Dorrin wonders where the time has gone. Her horses—she has another pack horse, bought cheaply because feed is scarce in Spidlar now—are packed and heavily laden, and she can pick up one of the few coasters in Spidlaria, but only if she leaves soon. Finally, he reaches out and touches her, not just with his fingers, but with a touch of darkness, blackness, that is soul. They stand, locked together, for yet one more time before she breaks away.

  He watches the road long after the horses have vanished into the dawn light. Then he washes and shaves in ice-cold water, and, as an afterthought, washes the stained shirt he has promised himself he will wash for almost an eight-day. He hangs it in his room and dons the lighter one, and his jacket, then takes his staff and returns to the barn to saddle Meriwhen.

  At least, he will be early at Rylla’s. He snorts as he closes the barn door and mounts. Meriwhen retorts with a whicker.

  “I know it’s early. Traders get up even earlier than healers or smiths.” He whistles tunelessly as Meriwhen’s hoofs crunch through the road’s crusted surface. Although the nights are cold, the days are getting warm enough to melt the snow and ice. Spring will be welcome, but how much mud will arrive with it?

  A feeling of melancholy brushes across him, and he straightens in the saddle, for the feeling is somehow distant, not exactly his. His eyes water. Is it from the wind? Liedral? How could he have asked her to stay? Should he have gone with her? But what could he have done to make a living? Now, at least, he is earning coins, from the extra smith work and from his toys. When Willum had showed up the afternoon before, Dorrin wished he had completed more than the half-dozen small toys. There had only been one boat, and not his best work at that. But Willum had rubbed his hands and paid on the spot.

  Meriwhen skitters slightly as a hoof slips on ice. Should he have reshod her with ice shoes? It’s too late in the winter for that, but something to think about next fall. There is always something else he should have done.

  He turns Meriwhen off the main road into the deeper unpacked snow of the narrow way. The white smoke shows that Rylla, as usual, has a warm fire burning.

  Dorrin ties Meriwhen at the post. The day will be warm—for winter. He loosens his jacket as he walks to the door and opens it. Five people are standing or huddling in the main room—three women, a boy, and Frisa, who is held in Merga’s arms, whimpering.

  Dorrin takes off his jacket and hangs it on the peg behind the door.

  “Least you’re here when you’re supposed to be.” The grumpiness does not hide the concern in Rylla’s voice. “Kysta’s got the flux; and Weldra’s covered with red blotches; and…maybe you’d better look at little Frisa. Merga says she took a bad fall.” Rylla’s eyes fix on Dorrin. “I still have some brinn that might help with the flux.”

  “Do you have any astra?”

  “It’s dried. Put ’em together, you think?”

  “With a herb tea. Rebekah said that it sometimes works.”

  “Darkness…why not?”

  The thin and red-eyed young mother holds Frisa. “She can’t walk.”

  “You carried her here? How far is that?”

  “Down from Jisle’s farm. A long two kays, master Dorrin.”

  Dorrin gestures toward the stool. “Can you sit by the fire, Frisa?”

  A whimper answers his question.

  “You remember my horse? If you’re good, I’ll give you a ride home.”

  “That not be necessary, ser,” protests Merga.

  “You can’t carry her back all that way.”

  “I managed her here.”

  Dorrin holds his sigh as Merga eases Frisa onto the s
tool. The child winces. The young healer runs his fingertips along her neck, letting his senses search out the injury. Pain and bruises cover her back and legs.

  The powdered willow bark will remove some of the pain, and he can instill some order, but the child has little nourishment and less spirit.

  He studies the mother. Darkness on one cheek indicates a scarcely healed bruise, and he can sense others, less well-healed. He stands abruptly, glaring at the fire, his guts churning in rage. Finally, he says softly, “I’ll need to get something for you, Frisa.”

  After walking to the kitchen and the cabinet next to the old-fashioned hearth, which also burns, though little more than coals, he takes out the jar with the willow powder and measures some into a small cup. Then he pours a dash of herb tea into the cup and swirls the mixture. The taste, he knows, is awful, but the potion does reduce pain and helps joints and bruises heal. He stuffs a chunk of stale bread into his pocket when Rylla is not looking.

  “…drink this,” orders Rylla to the older crone with the cane. “None of your nonsense, Kysta. Just drink it.” The healer glances at Dorrin and looks away.

  Dorrin carries the cup back to Frisa. “You need to drink this. It doesn’t taste very good, but it will make you feel better.”

  “Don’t want to.”

  Dorrin looks at the battered child. “Please, child.” His fingers touch her wrist, and he tries to send a sense of reassurance.

  “Don’t…”

  He looks into her eyes. “Please.”

  “If I can have a ride.”

  He nods and holds the cup. She gulps.

  “Awful…ugggg…”

  “You were a good girl.” He squeezes her hand, then stands up, looking at the mother. “She can’t walk yet. I’ll give you both a ride.”

  “But…Gerhalm…” Sheer terror fills Merga’s eyes.

  “I intend to see Gerhalm.” Dorrin’s words are like ice, and, instantly, the entire cottage stills.

  “…darkness…” whispers the old woman Kysta.

  The room is quiet long after Dorrin carries Frisa out to Meriwhen. He boosts Merga up and then hands her daughter to her. He hands the stale bread to the little girl. Then he begins leading the mare westward up the hill.