The Magic Engineer

by Jr. L. E. Modesitt

  Jisle’s farm is less than the two kays Merga promised, and Dorrin is barely puffing when he leads the two into Jisle’s barnyard. Three one-room huts squat between the barn and what looks to be a fowl coop.

  “That be our cot.” Merga points to the one nearest the barn, her voice trembling.

  Dorrin sets Frisa on the flaking brick stoop. The door is of warped and splitting pine with obvious gaps between the frame and the door itself.

  “Who you be?” A squat man emerges from the barn and barrels toward the three. He carries an axe.

  Dorrin lifts the staff from the holder, letting Merga dismount as she may. “I’m Dorrin. I’m the healer that’s trying to help your daughter.”

  “Filling her head with ideas of horses. You’re the one.” Gerhalm holds the axe in both hands.

  “Why do you beat them?” Dorrin tries to keep the anger from his voice.

  “Don’t beat them. They just have…accidents.” Gerhalm’s voice turns oily.

  The blackness within Dorrin surges forth, and he drops his staff and grabs the heavier man with both hands, letting the blackness flow through him into the farm worker.

  Gerhalm tries to wrench free, but the smith’s arms are as hard as black iron. “…darkness…no…no…NOooo…”

  When Dorrin releases the man, Gerhalm sinks onto the step, the axe dropping in the dirty snow by his feet.

  “You will never lift a hand to either Merga or Frisa. Ever!”

  Merga backs away from Dorrin and her man, eyes flickering from the blackness that seems to enshroud the healer.

  Gerhalm drops to the snow, almost groveling. “Don’t…not that…”

  “Get up,” Dorrin orders.

  Gerhalm backs away from the healer. “Not again, master…not again.”

  Frisa sits on the stoop, still chewing on the last crust of the bread. Dorrin turns to Merga, who has sunk onto her knees.

  “I didn’t know,” she whispers. “I’d a not done it to Gerhalm…”

  “I didn’t hurt him. He just won’t beat you again.”

  “I didn’t know…” The young mother refuses to look at Dorrin as he remounts Meriwhen.

  “’Bye, horsey,” calls Frisa.

  All the ill have left Rylla’s cottage by the time he returns.

  The old healer shakes her head. “Darkness…what you did! You put a curse on Gerhalm, too?”

  “Hardly.” Dorrin’s laugh is forced. “I couldn’t curse a soul. I did put an order command on him. He can’t lay an angry hand on either.”

  “For a man, these days, that be a terrible curse.” Rylla’s laugh is as harsh as his. “What will ye do when he leaves her?”

  “You think he will?”

  “Not in the next few eight-days, but by summer’s end.” She leans back in the chair, sipping her herb tea.

  “I don’t know.” He takes a deep breath. “I’d better think about planting spices and building my own cottage. If that’s all right with you.”

  “Be fine with me. No one’d touch an old healer with a Black master living near.”

  “I’m not a Black master.”

  “Maybe not yet. Nearest thing to one around, though.” She takes another sip from the chipped mug. “Might as well be getting you back to old Yarrl.”

  “Might as well.”

  “Your mind still on your lady trader?” Rylla smiles.

  Dorrin shakes his head. That kind of understanding he will never have.

  The ride back is quiet, except for the splashing of Meriwhen’s hoofs in the melting ice and snow. When he opens the barn door, he sees Reisa.

  “You’re back early.” Reisa is breaking apart a bale of hay to feed the mule and the bay.

  “I was helping a child who was beaten.” He removes his staff from the holder and leans it in the corner.

  “She’ll just be beaten again. That type never changes.”

  “No.” Dorrin’s voice is flat. “He’ll never beat her again.”

  “You didn’t…use your staff?”

  “No. I was more cruel.” Dorrin is all too aware of the darkness in his eyes as Reisa steps back. “I bound him never to hit either the mother or the child.”

  “Darkness…some ways you scare a body.”

  “Sometimes I scare myself.” Dorrin finishes loosening the saddle girths and removes the saddle, racking it carefully. He folds the blanket, then removes the hackamore. Meriwhen is happier with it, and he needs no bitted bridle. He takes the brush and begins to groom the mare. Reisa stands and watches. Zilda clinks her chain from the far corner of the barn.

  “Why did you let her go?” asks Reisa when he finishes. “The trader?”

  “Because she needed to go. Because I won’t hold her when she needs space. Because I’m still confused.”

  “You’re young.” She frowns. “The young always make their own mistakes. By the time you learn, you’re old, and the young won’t listen.”

  Dorrin asks gently, “What are you trying to tell me?”

  “Life is short, Dorrin. Too short.” She lifts her handless arm. “I thought I’d always be able to match a blade with anyone. Sometimes, it only seems like yesterday. Twenty years—gone in a flash. Most of them were good years, but the good ones went with the bad.”

  Dorrin closes the stall door and puts the curry brush on the shelf. Meriwhen whickers softly.

  “White Wizards are closing in. Hope you see her again. Next time, don’t let her go, no matter what she tells you.” Reisa coughs, wipes a damp eye, and then takes the curry brush. “Bay needs brushing.” She opens the second stall door. “Better get into the smithy ’fore Yarrl kills himself doing too much. That way, you two come from the same cloth.”

  Dorrin walks slowly across the packed snow toward his room to change. Was he wrong to let Liedral go? But how could he demand she stay? He can barely support himself. His head aches as he thinks of the golds in his strongbox. No—that is not true. He can only support himself if he wants to build his machines.

  His eyes burn, even as his head throbs. Things had been simpler, much simpler, before Liedral came.

  LXXIV

  A thin line of smoke dribbles into the clear blue-green sky ahead of the column of riders. Brede hunches down in his jacket to keep his ears warmer against the wind, even as the squad plods east on the rolled and packed snow of the road to Fenard. Unlike the bare-headed Brede, Kadara wears a knit cap. Both wear heavy fleece-lined gloves.

  “Damned wind…”

  “You’re always damning something, Vorban.”

  “Shut the frig up, Sestal.”

  Brede and Kadara exchange glances and headshakes.

  “Why should I? You complain too much. Least we’re getting paid. You want to be some peasant farmer? Sit buried under this snow waiting for the spring to turn it all to mud?”

  “Paid for what—freezing our asses off chasing thieves that aren’t thieves? Pretty soon, we’ll be fighting Certan regulars. Then what?”

  “All right,” snaps the squad leader.

  Kadara’s eyes fix on the smoke. “Another trader, I’d bet.”

  “On his way back,” Brede adds.

  “How do you figure that?” asks Vorban, riding behind Brede.

  Brede turns in the saddle. “That way, they get his goods and coin, and Spidlar gets nothing. It doesn’t hurt their traders, just ours.”

  “All right,” repeats the squad leader.

  “…all right…” mimics Vorban, in a voice low enough not to be heard beyond those around him.

  The riders plod onward through the packed and crusted snow that has refrozen, melted and refrozen.

  “Check your weapons.”

  On the opposite hillside, a fire burns, and a handful of riders trot uphill and eastward, leading three horses, and leaving behind two smoldering wagons. They wear the dull purple of Gallos.

  “…shit…” mumbles Vorban.

  Brede and Kadara look wordlessly at each other.

  “…light and darkness�
�shit…” repeats Vorban.

  LXXV

  The slender man in white looks again at the object on the table, then at the box from which it came. His hands draw away from the darkness that surrounds both. “Where did you get this, Fydel?”

  “A trader named Willum. In Fenard,” replies the bearded man, also in white, although he does not wear either the gold and white starburst on his collar or an amulet around his neck.

  “It feels like something from Recluce.”

  “With the Blacks’ disdain of complex tools?” The stolid White Wizard snorts. “You aren’t saying that those iron-headed conservatives would ever allow this, are you, Jeslek?”

  “Hardly. But the combination of natural wood, black iron, and order—who else could produce that? Did the trader say where he got it?”

  “Not at first. I pressed him a little, and he sweated, but he didn’t say. Before he saw me, he was telling people that it was a miraculous toy brought from afar. Someone asked him if the Black devils made it. He just laughed and say it didn’t come from that far away. I got him later—solved several problems. Before he…ah…”

  “You didn’t use chaos-fire, you idiot?”

  “I’m not that dense. Plain torture works fine. Then we took him out onto the main road and made it look like another highway attack. The Gallosians all thought it was just that.”

  “You’re awfully prolific with illusions. Is that wise?”

  Fydel shrugs. “The burned wagons and loot were real.”

  “What did you find out?”

  “The crafter who made it lives in Diev. His name is Dorrin. No one has heard of him.”

  “Where’s Diev? That’s somewhere near the Westhorns, isn’t it?”

  “It’s a small seaport and mining town on the coast. It’s about a hundred kays west northwest of Spidlaria.”

  “That could be even worse,” muses the taller wizard with the golden eyes.

  “Oh?” The stolid wizard’s eyes dart to the toy on the white oak table.

  “Well…you pick it up and hold it, then.”

  “I’d rather not,” Fydel says apologetically.

  “What if it were a full-sized windmill? Built like this?”

  “They wouldn’t use that much black iron in proportion. Besides, why would they want to?”

  “Fydel.” Jeslek’s voice is hard, and the other wizard steps back. “Say it were a ship or…whatever. What could you do to it?”

  “I’d leave it alone—but they can’t built ships like that.”

  Jeslek shakes his head. “Am I surrounded by idiots? They don’t—not now. This proves someone can. Do you want it to be Recluce?”

  “But it’s not from Recluce.” Fydel nods at the toy he has brought in a box to avoid touching it more than necessary. “One craftsman isn’t a community.”

  “Look at it,” snaps Jeslek. “That contains solid carving, or some sort of equivalent woodworking, worked black iron, and a small infusion of order. That means a smith, a woodcrafter or toymaker, and a healer—or someone who’s all three. If this Dorrin is…I’ve never seen anyone like that.”

  “So…making toys…what danger is that?”

  “None. Just so long as he keeps making toys. And so long as Recluce doesn’t get the same idea.” Jeslek studies the toy again, walking around the circular table.

  The bearded wizard ducks backward, his tunic brushing the white stone wall behind him. “Maybe he was from Recluce. They probably exiled him for doing something like that.”

  “They can’t stay that stupid forever,” returns Jeslek.

  “They’re still reliving the legends of Creslin.”

  “Let’s just hope that they continue to do so.” Jeslek turns to the other wizard. “Put out word to all the road guards and inspection points…and anyone else—you know what I mean. If there’s anything about this Dorrin, I want to know about it. Do you understand?”

  Fydel nods.

  “I’ll keep this…darkness-damned thing…for now.” Jeslek looks toward the doorway, and the other wizard inclines his head.

  “Good day, High Wizard.”

  After Fydel leaves, Jeslek ponders the toy, thinking about the young smith who has forged it. Does he know what power he possesses? Clearly not. Like all the Blacks, he sees only a fraction of what is.

  He smiles as a light tap strikes his door. “Come in, Anya.”

  The red-headed wizard slips in, again sliding the bolt behind her.

  “You don’t have to lock it. Who would intrude?”

  “I do prefer privacy.” She smiles demurely.

  Jeslek glances toward the window, and the darkness outside, lit faintly by the whiteness of Fairhaven itself.

  “Your efforts against Spidlar are proving unexpectedly beneficial.”

  “You mean, the business with the increased chaos energy? Of course.” Jeslek laughs, but his eyes do not echo the sound.

  “It’s effective. Spidlar requires more order to survive, and you create more chaos in Gallos and Kyphros.”

  “That may be.” He gestures to the toy on the table. “What do you think?”

  Anya makes no move to touch it. “About what.”

  “The toy there. Go ahead. Pick it up.”

  “Is this a joke?” The red-headed wizard laughs, uncertainly, but she does not touch the toy.

  “I see Fydel already told you about it.”

  “What if he did?”

  “Oh, Anya.” He shakes his head sadly. “We need to crush Spidlar before this toymaker makes bigger things. And you worry and plot about whom you would make my successor, and how you would use your body to control him.”

  “You’re impossible.”

  “No. Just realistic. And slow. But not totally stupid.”

  “Not totally.” Anya settles into the chair next to the wine. “Would you mind if I poured the wine?”

  “Please do.”

  “You don’t seem terribly upset.”

  “Why should I be? White is White. An adder is an adder. My views won’t change you, and you are lovely. So why shouldn’t I accept what you offer? You’re no real threat to me. To Sterol or Fydel, yes.”

  “You seem rather sure of yourself.” She fills two goblets.

  “I’m dense about these things, actually. You know that. But it doesn’t matter. You know that as well, although I’m sure you haven’t told Sterol that. So does he, although he hasn’t told you. You both are waiting for me to overreach myself. In times of troubles, every High Wizard does, you know. I’m hoping to be the first who doesn’t. You’re betting I’m like all the others.”

  Anya takes a deep swallow. “This is…rather…amazing.”

  “Not at all.” Jeslek steps up behind her and runs a hand under her collar and across the skin of her shoulder. “Not at all.”

  LXXVI

  Out of the black predawn sky, the rain falls like iron nails driven into the sodden snow—snow that an eight-day earlier had been waist deep in the fields and hard-packed more than knee deep in the smithy yard.

  Dorrin hurries onto the porch, where he knocks slush and mud off his boots, then brushes them with the shoe broom. After that, he wipes them on the mat before stepping into the kitchen. Warmer than the cold damp outside, the kitchen is still cool and dim, lit by a single oil lamp set on the table.

  Yarrl sits at the end of the table, two slices of bread, each with a wedge of cheese, before him. “Slop season.”

  “It wasn’t like this last year, was it?”

  “It was—just before you came. Only seen one spring that wasn’t slop. Don’t want to see another. Drought was so bad half the animals died.” The smith chews through cheese and bread, his left hand on the mug of cool cider.

  Dorrin cuts himself bread and cheese and looks in the cupboard for some dried fruit. “Any fruit?”

  “No fruit. Damned White Wizards.”

  “If that’s a curse, you don’t need it. They were damned by better people a long time ago, and Creslin was the only one
who made it stick.” Reisa, wearing a heavy sweater and bulky trousers, steps into the kitchen. “There is dried fruit. Liedral left us a small cask of it. Mixed pearapples and something else. I haven’t opened it.”

  “Woman, you haven’t opened it, and it’s like there isn’t any.” Yarrl grumbles through a mouthful of bread and cheese.

  “No, it’s not.” Reisa slips shavings into the cold stove, uses a striker to light a candle stub set in a holder, then uses the candle to light the shavings. She waits for the shavings to catch before adding a shovelful of stove coal. “I’ll make bread for dinner, and it’ll still be warm for supper.”

  “Fat good that does me now.”

  Dorrin pours cool cider into a mug.

  “Can’t argue with women, Dorrin. They don’t answer what you ask, and answer what you never thought of asking.”

  “You can’t argue with men, Dorrin,” Reisa says evenly. “They don’t listen to what you say, and they hear what they want to, not what you said.”

  “I guess that means you can’t argue,” adds Petra from the doorway. She looks at the half loaf of bread remaining on the cutting board, then takes the knife and cuts two slices, offering the first to her mother.

  “Thank you.” Reisa takes the bread with an eye still on the wide stove.

  “Worse than White Wizards…have an answer for everything, and they’re sneakier.”

  Dorrin sits at the corner of the table. “Brede and Kadara say the thieves are riding horses with Gallosian horseshoes—the kind with the funny angles on the sides of the cleats.”

  “If the cleats are angled, they’re not properly cleats.”

  “Father,” snaps Petra, “stop being so difficult.”

  “That doesn’t sound good.” Reisa, measuring flour into a bowl, looks up. “Oh, Petra. I’ll need milk earlier today.”

  “It’s raining an ocean out there.” Petra looks into the dim dawn and the curtain of water, then closes the door.

  “I still need the milk.” Reisa coughs. “Before long, the Prefect will be claiming that the midlands above Elparta belong to Gallos.”

  “They never have,” snorts Petra.