The Magic Engineer

by Jr. L. E. Modesitt

  “Where they stood melted.”

  Dorrin hopes that the fading glow of twilight will hide his flush.

  “Shouldn’t she be all right in Jellico?” asks Brede.

  “Her brother is somehow tied up with the Whites, and he knows we’re from Recluce. Their warehouse was rather thoroughly inspected, and some things are missing.”

  “You don’t think her brother would…”

  “No. But…” How can Dorrin explain the feeling he has of being watched from a distance? Or letter seals that have been resealed? Or the general unease that follows him, that sometimes drives him to working to the greatest extent that his body will take?

  “You don’t know what the White ones will do,” adds Reisa.

  “We’re beginning to understand,” Kadara responds dryly. “But why would they be interested in Dorrin?”

  “I don’t know.” Dorrin looks blankly southward, up the sloping hillsides toward Rylla’s cottage. “They may not be.”

  “You don’t really believe that, do you?” The voice is Yarrl’s. With the older smith’s comment, the conversation halts for a moment.

  “Why do you say that, papa?”

  “Man puts order in everything he does, even cold iron. Whites don’t seem to like that kind of order. Things just sort of fall into place around young Dorrin. Were I a White, I’d be interested in what he was a-doing.”

  “So would I,” squeaks Vaos, from the steps, where he munches on a leftover bread crust.

  “You’re still eating, scamp?” asks Petra.

  Vaos nods as he takes another bite.

  “Makes sense…in a way,” muses Brede.

  And yet, in Dorrin’s mind, too much is missing. What has he done besides heal a few people, grow some spices, and make ordered models and toys? Brede has killed more than a few chaos minions. Dorrin has done nothing of the sort. Dorrin looks southward at the last hints of light on the Westhorns. After all, what more can he say?

  LXXXIV

  The gray stone is heavy…too heavy. Dorrin lifts the sledge and pounds the tube into the space between the stones. Then he pours the powder down the tube until it is filled. The cap is wedged in place, and Dorrin lights the fuse—and sprints downhill and behind the rotting tree stump.

  Crummmppp…

  After trudging back uphill, he surveys the hole that will be his cellar, shakes his head, and places another wooden tube. With luck, by late summer he will have his foundation in place, one way or another. Again, he lights the fuse.

  This time, the results are better, and he begins to shovel clay, soil, and broken rock. Still, he is revising his plans. The cellar will be smaller, far smaller, than he has planned. He wipes his forehead and pauses, looking uphill toward the healer’s cottage.

  Rylla walks through the grass, bringing a pitcher of redberry and a ragged towel. Dorrin uses the towel first.

  “There’s an easier way, Dorrin. And ye’d have more time for healing.”

  “Oh?”

  “Right now, some of the farmers and farm hands have slack time for a few eight-days. Not much, but some. You could pay them to dig out the rest.”

  Dorrin frowns. “How much?”

  “A half-copper a day a man.”

  The healer is right; he cannot do everything. He should have asked, but it is hard for him to ask others.

  “They dug the cellar for my cottage in two days. Yours would be bigger, it be true, but you have a hole for them to work from.”

  “How do I do it?”

  She smiles. “You put stakes at the corners, and make a rod showing how deep you want the hole. I will talk to Asavah. He was my sister’s man.”

  Dorrin sips the redberry. He had not even known the healer had a sister. “Do you have any nieces or nephews?”

  “A nephew, Rolta. He is a sailor, a mate, on ser Gylert’s biggest ship.”

  Dorrin swallows the last of the redberry and points across the ridge toward the garden. “Now that you’ve solved that problem, let me go back to checking the spices, especially the winterspice. Can we get fine sand somewhere? I think the soil has too much clay.”

  “Asavah might have some.” Rylla follows Dorrin up the slope.

  “At a few half-coppers a wagon?”

  “It might not be that much.” The healer smiles. “The sand, even from fresh water, is free. It’s the time of the men and the use of the wagon. We can get sand from the upper branch that goes into the Weyel. And don’t you worry, young fellow. This old healer can afford sand. Who knows? I might even be able to work it into the garden with ye.”

  Dorrin opens the cottage door.

  “There ye go again, treating me like a fine lady, instead of the old crone I am.”

  “You’re more of a lady than most who claim the title.”

  “You’ll turn my head yet, young scoundrel. I take it the fine words mean you’ll be on your way to the smithy? After not healing at all this morning?”

  Dorrin blushes.

  “Now…now…you won’t even let me have a compliment without taking it away? Shame on you!” Rylla grins. “Off with you.”

  “What about Granny Clarabur?”

  “She can do without your pretty face. Besides, all she wants is to tell everyone how terrible her health be. She’ll have been doing that for near on ten years, and she isn’t close to dying yet.”

  Dorrin bows to Rylla’s superior logic. “Then I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “I’ll see if Asavah can bring the sand, along with those strong fellows to dig your hole. You just bring the coppers, in coppers, mind ye.”

  Dorrin is still shaking his head as he rides back to Yarrl’s.

  When he arrives, he finds that Reisa has Vaos weeding the garden.

  “Master Dorrin, master Dorrin, you’ll be needing me in the smithy, won’t you?” The imp’s voice is as close to pleading as Dorrin has heard, and he lifts his mud-covered hands almost in prayer.

  “Yarrl decided to deliver the wagon work to Froos,” Reisa noted.

  “Froos is in no hurry to collect what he commissions, I take it.”

  “Nor to pay,” adds Petra from the barn.

  “He said you’d know what to do.”

  “Harness work for Honsard and Bequa, and the old cooper…”

  “Milsta,” Reisa finishes.

  “Master Dorrin?” asks Vaos.

  “I need to curry Meriwhen. It’ll be a bit. You can finish there.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  Reisa grins from behind Vaos. “Just finish that row, young Vaos, and then you can wash off all the dirt.”

  Dorrin dismounts and leads Meriwhen into the barn, still grinning at the thought of Vaos gardening.

  “You’re mean.” Petra leans against the hay rake.

  “Why?”

  “Just because you never played as a boy, you don’t think anyone should.” She smiles, but her words are firm.

  “I played,” Dorrin protests, unsaddling Meriwhen.

  “At what?”

  “Oh, I watched Hegl, or my mother, and sometimes I tried to build boats and sail them in the surf.”

  “Who was Hegl?”

  “Kadara’s father. He was a smith. And sometimes Kadara and I played.”

  “Likely story. You probably spent more time watching her father.”

  Dorrin pauses.

  “I thought so.” Petra shakes her head, then sets aside the rake and walks toward the field where the cows are tethered.

  Dorrin takes out the brush and ponders. Has he ever really played—except when Liedral has come to visit? Is that why he misses her? The only reason? No…that is hardly the only reason. He takes up the brush. He still has too much to do, and he needs to get to the smithy.

  Once changed and in the smithy, Dorrin can see a broken wagon tongue and the old harnesses that Yarrl has left out, and even a skiving knife, should he need it. Vaos almost scampers into the forge area, his hands still wet.

  “The big tank is low, Vaos,” Dorrin says. �
�I’d say we’ll need two pails of water. But first bring in another barrow of charcoal. Yarrl must have left even before midmorning.”

  “Yes, master Dorrin, he did.”

  “I’m not a master, you imp. I’m a striker, and flattery won’t get you out of getting the charcoal and refilling the slack tank.”

  After looking over the work at hand, Dorrin lays out the tools he will need, and then rebuilds the forge fire once Vaos brings in the charcoal.

  “Before you get the water, keep pumping this until we get white across to here.”

  Vaos nods glumly.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “It’s my mum. She’s talking about hooking up with Zerto. He’s a mate on old Fyntal’s Dorabeau. If’n she does…”

  “You sleep here most of the time, anyway.”

  “It’s not me. It’s Rek. He’s my little brother. He’s ten.”

  Dorrin waits.

  “She won’t take him or me. She says my dad left us on her, and she’s had enough. I’m settled, but Rek…”

  “What’s the problem?”

  “He’s got a clubfoot. So he can’t run. Can’t do stable work or quick errands.”

  “Can he stand or carry things?”

  “Yes, ser. He’s as strong as I am.”

  Dorrin realized Vaos has trapped him. “I’ll take a look.”

  “Would you?”

  “I said I would. But any decision’s Yarrl’s, you understand, and if you say a word, I won’t even try.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  “Get the water.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  Dorrin checks the forge heat, then takes the tongs and sets the flat iron on the bricks. With the cold chisel he cuts off the old rivets and removes the broken sections, checking the iron. Finally he nods. The tongue can be welded together, but he will need new stock. He frowns, then walks along the junk pile until he comes to the assorted wagon and sleigh spars and timbers. As he vaguely remembered, there is a square oak brace that will do, with a bit of shortening.

  He clamps the brace in the box vice, measures it against the original, and shortens it with the crosscut saw, then rasps and files it smooth. After loosening the vice, he removes the brace and checks it against the cracked original tongue, nodding. Finally, using the brace and bit, he drills the holes for the rivets.

  Next comes the welding. First he takes the narrow bar stock and heats it, fullering it down with hammer blows across the anvil horn until it is thin enough to wrap around the cracked tongue. Then he sets the fullered bar in the forge to heat, while he takes the tongue and heats it almost to white-hot before removing it and using the hammer to scarf the contact points and upset the edges where he will wrap the bar stock. Next come several taps to remove the scale, followed by the flux. He sets the tongue back in the forge until both it and the thin iron are white-hot. Both come out, and Dorrin quickly hammers the two together, striking from the inside out with a few light strokes. He sets the welded tongue on the forge bricks to cool to forging heat before completing the shaping.

  While the iron cools to cherry red, Dorrin fullers the small bar stock to rivet size, then uses the hot set to cut them, setting both on the forge while he returns to the tongue and uses the flatter to finish smoothing the tongue.

  After wiping his forehead, he dips the tongue brace in the slack tank and sets it on the anvil. He heats the first rivet, then drives it through the brace until it flattens against the round-bottomed swage.

  Dorrin lifts the ball peen hammer and with four quick offset strokes finishes the top of the first rivet holding the iron of the wagon tongue in place. With the tongs he lifts the second rivet from the forge and slides it into place. A quick stroke flattens the bottom side against the swage, and Dorrin follows up with another set of glancing strokes, first on the top, and then on the bottom.

  After setting aside the hammer and tongs, Dorrin carries the heavy tongue out into the corner for finished work and then lugs back in the heavy leather harness, which he lays on the workbench. A heel chain clevis, and two hame line rings need replacing, and that means reworking and riveting the harness as well.

  With the cold chisel, he cuts away the old rivets and measures them to get the right rod stock. He sets the stock for the replacement rivets aside, and takes the larger rod he will need to fuller down to forge the hame line rings. According to Yarrl, weight-bearing rings for carter’s harnesses must always be forged fresh. That may be, reflects Dorrin, why Yarrl’s work holds up better than Henstaal’s.

  “You’re almost as quick as Yarrl.” Vaos’s face is flushed, and sweat runs from his hair.

  “Take a break and get some water,” Dorrin orders.

  “Thank you, ser.” Vaos does not scamper from the forge heat, but walks toward the comparative cool of the yard.

  Dorrin looks at the boy’s back, wondering why he has even agreed to see Vaos’s younger brother. If Rek can pump the bellows, perhaps he can offer to pay part of his upkeep. Dorrin turns to the next harness.

  LXXXV

  As the last beam falls in place, Dorrin grins.

  “Why are you so cheerful?” asks Pergun. “It’s only the frame for a small barn.” He points toward the large foundation less than fifty cubits away, composed of neatly mortared stone. “You still haven’t told me how you’re going to get the frame up on that.”

  “The same way we did this.” Behind Dorrin the rectangular frame stands, even with what will be the doorway to the hayloft squared off in beams.

  “Huuhhh?”

  “Look. That’s why I build models. You figure it out on a small scale, and then you do it bigger. This crane will work. I can do that. That saves me coins so that I can hire others to do the things that take time—or pay for timber at Hemmil’s extravagant prices.”

  “Why do you need a small building at all?”

  “For horses.”

  “But that one is big enough.”

  “Not for a house and a small smithy and a small warehouse. The smithy doesn’t have a foundation. It’s on the other end—the cleared part.”

  Pergun spits out away from the stable.

  “You want to earn your coppers? Get out that hammer. We need to frame this and get the flooring across the top before we put the roof joists up.”

  Pergun lifts the hammer. “For this, I’m spending a free day?”

  “You’re lucky you get free days.”

  “Does everyone from Recluce work like you do?”

  “No…just those of us who got kicked out.”

  “You know…all the troopers are scared to death of your friends.”

  Dorrin opens the small keg of nails he has forged. “Here. Why?”

  “Good nails. You make them?” Pergun slips a handful, more like miniature bridge spikes, into the cloth pouch on his belt.

  Dorrin nods.

  “Vorban told me the she-cat threw a shortsword through a highwayman.”

  “Through him?” Dorrin puts a plank in place, and, in three quick blows, fixes the top in position. “Even for Kadara, that’s hard to believe.”

  “He looked over his shoulder when he said it. They still would rather follow the big guy, though. Vorban says that he knows what he’s doing. Most of the officers don’t.” Pergun works on the other side of the door frame, framing the pine planks away from Dorrin.

  Before midmorning, the small stable is framed, and Dorrin has Meriwhen and the crane lifting the prejoined roof trusses into place.

  “…that’s it…a little lower…” Pergun wipes his forehead. “How did you think of those brackets?”

  “It seemed logical.” Dorrin unstraps the leather cradle before moving the crane to the other side of the building.

  “Never seen anything go up this fast.” Pergun walks to the other side of the floor, avoiding the square opening. “Better do a ladder here.”

  “Good point. Need to box off one stall, too. But the roof should come first.” Dorrin resets the crane and puts the cradle around t
he other truss.

  “First man I know who builds a stable for his horse before he builds a roof over his own head.”

  “It’s simpler this way. Besides, I can see that I’ll need different brackets—heavier, too—for the main building.”

  Pergun shakes his head and waits for the truss to rise to him.

  “If I designed some clamps, here,” says Dorrin, half-aloud, “I could do this alone.”

  “Light! Don’t you like people? You do everything alone, and you do it better.”

  “Of course, I like people. But I can’t afford to pay all of them.”

  “There is that.”

  “Here it comes.” Dorrin urges Meriwhen forward, and the truss is lifted up to Pergun, who guides it into the brackets. Next come the cross beams, which fit in the notches in the trusses, then the flat planks for the roof.

  It is late afternoon when Pergun eases the borrowed wagon away from the framed stable and the foundation of the main building. “You ever stop working, Dorrin?”

  “There’s a lot to do,” Dorrin replies from atop the stable where he is installing shakes. “Like you, I can’t take off very often.”

  “You’ll be here till sunset.”

  “Probably until the roof’s done. The rest I’ll do in bits—until I put up the house and smithy.”

  “When will that be?”

  “At least a couple of eight-days. I want to get it up before harvest, though. Rylla says there’s a slack time just before that, and I can get some help for not too much.”

  The mill hand surveys the ridge. “They’ll have you on the Council in a couple of years.”

  “Not me.”

  “You make coins, and you don’t have much choice.” Pergun flicks the reins. “Don’t get caught up there after dark.”

  “I’ll try not to.” Dorrin frowns at Pergun’s last comment. Does making money limit choices? How much? He continues nailing shakes into place.

  LXXXVI

  “He’s getting totally insufferable.” Anya takes a deep swallow.

  “Getting?” Sterol’s fingers touch the edge of the screeing glass.