The Magic Engineer

by Jr. L. E. Modesitt

  Because all wrought iron has a grain created from the forging of its crystals, the strength of the iron lies in the alignment and length of the grain. Using order to reinforce that grain is the basis for creating black iron…Its strength lies in the ordering of unbruised or unstrained grains along the length of the metal…

  He nods and begins to pen the words he considered earlier. Now, when he forges most items, he can also—sometimes—think of other things.

  If order or chaos be without limits, then common sense would indicate that each should have triumphed when the great ones of each discipline have arisen. Yet neither has so triumphed, despite men and women of power, intelligence, and ambition. Therefore, the scope of either order or chaos is in fact limited, and the belief in the balance of forces demonstrated…

  Dorrin pauses. Does the fact that no triumph has occurred show that—or merely that no one of great enough power to do so has yet arisen? He takes another sip of the cider. There is so much he does not know.

  XCVI

  “You never come here much, anymore.” Pergun looks into the half-full mug of dark beer.

  “I was sick for a while, you know.” Dorrin sips redberry from his mug.

  “That was eight-days ago. You still work too hard. What are you doing now that you have your own place? Just the toys?”

  “No. I still help Yarrl with heavy pieces, and he passes off some work when he gets too busy. I did a few copies of that Hamorian sextant for Jasolt.” Dorrin pauses. “Hardest things I ever did. Had to do even brackets for mirrors, and adjusting screws. And I had to do all of the pieces in polished black iron so it wouldn’t rust. It might have been easier to do in copper or bronze, but trying to learn another metal…The compass casings were a nightmare. Maybe I’ll learn copper some other time.”

  Pergun drains his mug and looks across the half-full room toward the serving girl. “I can’t believe that Kyril’s asking four coppers for a mug. Four coppers for dark beer.”

  “Everything’s gotten dear.”

  “Damned Wizards! Begging your pardon, master Dorrin.”

  “I’m as damned as the rest of them.”

  “Not you.” Pergun finally raises his hand toward the serving girl.

  “Can you pay for it, big fellow?” asks the woman.

  Pergun opens his hand, showing the four coppers.

  “How about you, master Dorrin?”

  “No, thank you.” Dorrin smiles at the woman, but she has already headed for the kitchen.

  “Master Dorrin?” The painfully thin and dark-haired Jasolt stands at the edge of the table.

  Dorrin rises. “I’m honored, trader.”

  Pergun looks to leave, but Jasolt raises a hand. “Please stay, and do sit down, Dorrin.” Jasolt pulls up a chair and perches on the edge. “The sextants work well, or so Rydlar tells me.”

  “Make sure he keeps them as dry as he can. They really should be made of brass or bronze.”

  “I told him, and he will.” Jasolt looks down at the table, finally turning his dark eyes on Dorrin. “What do you think?”

  “About what?”

  “I overheard your friend here talking about the higher prices for beer. It’s like that everywhere, you know. I’m just glad you’re here…still.”

  Dorrin’s throat is dry. “I have as little choice as you, trader. Right now, at least,” he adds. “Is it that bad?”

  “You may have noticed there were no fireworks this winter to celebrate the founding of the Council.”

  “I must admit I didn’t.”

  “Also, Certis has posted notices for spring troop levies.”

  “The false highway thefts didn’t work,” Dorrin says flatly.

  “Was that Recluce’s doing?” Jasolt’s voice is even lower.

  “I doubt that it was by intention.”

  “You don’t think the great ones of Recluce care?”

  “No.” Dorrin does not want to elaborate.

  “What are you going to do?” Jasolt asks.

  “I built a new house, you know,” Dorrin says conversationally. “I’m hoping to live in it for a while.”

  “Can you forge something that will help the Council guards? Something…based on order?”

  Dorrin looks into his mug. Jasolt is asking the same questions that Brede and Kadara have kept raising—and people are looking to him for an answer. But what answer can he provide? He feels uncomfortable trying to forge such items as knives—let alone swords.

  “Here’s your beer, big fellow,” interrupts the serving girl, setting the mug before Pergun. “Where’s the coin?”

  Pergun extends the coppers. “Light of a price for a single beer.”

  “Everything’s dear, big fellow.”

  Pergun watches her sway toward the next table.

  “Anything…?” prompts Jasolt.

  “I don’t know. I’ll have to think about it. There might be something. But being an ordered-smith poses a lot of restrictions.”

  Jasolt frowns.

  “It’s hard for me even to pick up an edged weapon, let alone forge one. That’s why I use a staff.”

  “The way you use it you scarcely need a blade.” Jasolt’s voice is wry.

  “I don’t know,” Dorrin repeats helplessly. “I’ll have to think about it.”

  “That’s all we can ask.” Jasolt looks straight at Dorrin. “You might think about joining the Council.”

  “Me? I’m scarcely in that category.”

  “I doubt that it will be long. I did observe your new dwelling has ample…storage…”

  Dorrin does not want to mention that the space is for Liedral, not with the Whites already reading their letters. “It’s…easier to build it that way to begin with. I don’t have any plans to be a trader.” His last phrase is certainly true. He has no real desire to be a trader.

  “Whatever…” Jasolt smiles politely and stands. “We hope you can help. Cold winter…First time I’ve ever hoped it’s long, and spring comes late. Sad thing when a man has to hope for a long, cold winter. Good evening, ser Dorrin.” He inclines his head and turns.

  “Light…” murmurs Pergun, setting down his mug after a long pull. “That dandy treated you like you…like you were a fancier trader than he is. Just what are you, Dorrin?”

  “I’m me. Sometimes I’m a smith, sometimes a healer, and sometimes I’m not quite sure.”

  Pergun sips the beer. “Need to make this last.”

  Dorrin looks at the mug, and the few drops of juice in the bottom. He finishes his redberry with a last swig. “I need to go. Do you mind?”

  “I think I’ll stay,” Pergun says. “Got nothing to go back to. Hemmil keeps the place colder than lake ice.” He jerks his finger toward a ginger-bearded man dicing in the corner. “Gerba has a wagon. He’ll drop me off.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Asked him ’fore you got here.”

  “I’ll see you later.”

  Pergun nods and picks up his mug, heading toward the corner game.

  A boy Dorrin does not know is holding Meriwhen by the time Dorrin reaches the stable.

  “Your horse, ser Dorrin.”

  Dorrin parts with a copper. “Your name, boy?”

  “Alstar, ser.” The youth looks down.

  “Thank you for taking care of Meriwhen.”

  “A pleasure, ser.” The child still does not meet Dorrin’s eyes, and Dorrin leads the mare out into the night.

  Only a single lantern lights the front of the Red Lion. As Meriwhen plods through the slush toward the bridge, Dorrin surveys the houses they pass. Most are dark, and those few not dark show only faint glows that might come from single candles or lamps. Yet it is early. Despite the bitter air, few plumes of smoke rise from the chimneys of Diev.

  The price of dark beer has doubled. It is cold, but few fires are lit, and few candles or lamps. Yet Jasolt prays for a long, long winter.

  He pats Meriwhen’s neck. “Easy, girl.”

  Once he has ridden ac
ross the bridge, Meriwhen’s hoofs drum against hard-packed snow and ice, and the snow heaped on each side of the road reaches nearly waist high. He turns in the saddle, but sees few lights or fires.

  He shivers as he faces the uphill ride to his empty house. A long, cold winter will kill all too many in Spidlar, and yet…so will an early spring.

  XCVII

  After feeding Meriwhen, Dorrin closes the stable door and walks along the path he has worn in the snow between his house and Rylla’s. The snows have reached knee-high, and the morning wind swirls the night’s dusting of powder across the packed surfaces. The gray clouds overhead are cold, but do not promise more snow—not immediately.

  A thin gray plume of smoke twists from Rylla’s chimney, carried by the wind toward the Northern Ocean. He looks back at the smithy, where Vaos is supposed to be building a tool rack. The faintest of white lines rises from the forge chimney, indicating the heat in the banked fire.

  Dorrin stamps his boots on the porch, knocking off the snow, and wipes them on the worn rush mat before opening the door and easing inside.

  A heavy older woman coughs…and coughs—deep wracking coughs. Her face is mottled, almost purple, and between coughs, she wheezes like an ill-constructed bellows. Rylla holds a cup, waiting for the coughing to subside.

  Hunched beside the hearth of the main room is a man, twisted, bent, who shivers, despite the heat from the low fire, and despite the layers of ragged blankets that cover him.

  Dorrin sees the thin woman and the child in the corner, even before Frisa asks, “Can I see your horsey?” She steps toward him, but her hand does not let go of her mother’s faded gray trousers. Merga—her thin face sad—has on a herder’s jacket, a larger and more tattered version of what Frisa wears.

  There are no obvious physical injuries to either mother or child. The farm woman looks at the plank floor, her eyes avoiding Dorrin’s. The heavy woman’s coughs ease, and she takes a wheezing breath.

  “Drink this,” orders Rylla.

  “It smells awful.”

  “Do you want to cough your lungs out, Erlanna?”

  Erlanna takes the cup, and Rylla walks over to Dorrin. Her eyes flick to Merga and Frisa. “Gerhalm walked away into the last snow. Asavah found his body yesterday.”

  “Why? He walked into the storm because he couldn’t beat his woman?” Dorrin tries to keep his voice low.

  Rylla nods toward the kitchen, and the two walk to the far corner, by the back doorway that overlooks the ice and snow covered pond.

  “Gerhalm worked when he was told, did what he was told, and was paid whatever Jisle thought was fair. When the crops were good, so were times. When the weather was bad, so were times…”

  “You’re saying that the man had no control over his life, and that the only things he had control over were his woman and his child, and when I took that away, when times got bad, he couldn’t take it anymore?”

  Rylla nods. “Merga has no place to go. She’s not strong enough to work the fields for Jisle.”

  “Darkness…” Now what will he do? The two will likely starve or…

  “She can cook, I’m told, and she could be a serving maid. She was when Gerhalm got her pregnant.”

  “I don’t really…” Dorrin sighs. “I’ll work something out, I suppose.”

  A heavy knock, repeated twice, thunders on the door. Dorrin looks up, glances at Rylla. The older healer walks to the door and opens it, admitting a heavy man in a long, blue woolen cloak. He sweeps off his hat with dark leather gloves. “Is this where I might find ser Dorrin, the healer?”

  Rylla points toward Dorrin. “There he be.”

  The man’s eyes fix on Dorrin, avoiding Erlanna and Merga. “Ser Dorrin?”

  “I’m Dorrin.”

  “I’m Fanken, and I work for Trader Fyntal. His lady is quite ill, with something of a fever and a flux, and the trader would request your immediate attention.” The words are polite, but stiff, as if the man has been instructed to be polite.

  Behind Fanken’s back, Rylla nods, pointing to the purse at her belt.

  “I will need a moment to finish here,” Dorrin responds, “and to gather a few items that may be of help to the lady. You can wait here, or…”

  “I will wait by the door.”

  Dorrin turns to Merga and Frisa.

  “Can I see the horsey?”

  Dorrin swallows, his mouth dry. “I heard that…hard times…have fallen on you…I am…truly…sorry…”

  “You did as you saw best, master Dorrin. The summer was good, and we hoped…” Merga chokes back tears, and shakes her head.

  “I…could use a cook and serving maid…Not much more than room and board…I’m not…that well-off.”

  Merga’s red eyes catch Dorrin’s. “I’d not accept such charity…save…” She looks at the dark-eyed child who watches.

  “It need not be charity in time. This is sooner than…I had planned.”

  The silence stretches out. Fanken coughs. So does Erlanna.

  “She can stay here for a while, Dorrin,” offers Rylla. “You need to go with Fyntal’s man.” She bends over and whispers in his ear. “Healers have few opportunities for real golds.”

  “There is that.” He looks toward the door and the dour Fanken. “But if Merga could stay here until I can rough out another room in the storage area, that might be better.” Dorrin shakes his head. He has only a few golds left, and even pine timbers and planks will not be cheap. Perhaps nothing serious is wrong with Lady Fyntal. He nods toward Merga and walks back toward the herb shelves in the kitchen.

  “I told you,” Rylla says gently. “You be putting curses ’pon people, and they come back.”

  “It wasn’t a curse. How can keeping a man from beating a woman be a curse?”

  Fanken leans forward, his face stiff, as if to catch every word.

  “You can take the little bag there,” Rylla suggests. “Brinn, astra, willow bark…”

  The younger healer nods and begins to pack. He adds in pinches of several other herbs, tied in twisted squares of cloth, and a small stoppered bottle of liquid willow bark.

  “Remember,” Rylla notes in a low voice as he picks up the bag, “traders can pay in gold.”

  Dorrin recalls that he has committed to taking on a servant he does not need—all because he stopped a beating. As he passes Erlanna, the woman coughs again, and his perceptions brush her. Like so many, she has not eaten well, despite her weight, and the sickness preys upon her weakness. How many will die of diseases simply because they have lost the strength to fight them? Too long a winter, and Fairhaven may not have much of a fight.

  Outside the healer’s cottage, Fanken walks toward a thin gray. The trader’s man looks from the thin horse to Dorrin.

  “I’ll be with you in a moment. I need to saddle my horse.” Dorrin points toward the barn, then continues in the direction he has pointed.

  Fanken grunts.

  The wind is sharper than earlier in the morning, and the clouds overhead are darker. Without really trying, Dorrin can sense the heavy oncoming snow, and he stops by his house to grab his heavy jacket before going to the stable. Still, he saddles Meriwhen quickly and rides to join Fanken.

  “Nice horse.”

  “She’s been good to me.” Dorrin turns Meriwhen downhill on the main road, toward the bridge. “Where is Trader Fyntal’s house?”

  “On the ridge west of the harbor. Past the third pier and up the road.”

  “Do you know how long Lady Fyntal has been ill?”

  “No.”

  “Did the trader say any more about her illness?”

  “No.”

  Clearly, Fanken does not like his role as messenger.

  “Are you from Diev?”

  “No. Quend. Came here as a boy.”

  “Ever take the sled runs on the beaches?”

  “No. Damned fools who do.”

  Dorrin asks no more questions, but concentrates on riding. Lower Diev is warmer than upper Diev
, but not that much warmer. Few fires burn despite the chill wind, and the streets are empty except for one mounted trooper bearing dispatch cases and riding out toward the Kleth road.

  All three piers are empty, except for a single small fishing boat tied at the first. Beyond the breakwater, the sea is more white than blue, and Dorrin can even see two ice floes tossing amidst the white-caps.

  “Too rough even for the Bristans.” Fanken directs his horse up the sloping road toward the ridge top where two solid dwellings of gray stone and timber survey the harbor. Unlike so many houses in Diev, both houses sport healthy plumes of smoke from their many chimneys.

  Fyntal’s house is the one closest to the Northern Ocean, slightly smaller, and with a view of both harbor and sea. Fanken rides past the covered porch and around to the stable where a stable boy darts out.

  “Just stable the healer’s mount.”

  “Yes, ser.” The boy looks away from Fanken, though his lowered eyes glance sideways toward Dorrin.

  “Easy, girl.” Dorrin dismounts, and pats Meriwhen on the neck. “Just treat her gently.”

  “Yes, master healer.”

  Fanken hands the reins of the gray to the boy. “Be back in a bit.” He turns and marches across the rolled and packed snow of the yard.

  Dorrin smiles at the blond stable boy.

  A heavy white-haired man opens the door even before Dorrin reaches it. He looks down from his four-cubit height at the healer, his bag, and the black staff. “Master Dorrin, I appreciate your coming on such short notice.” His eyes turn to Fanken. “And I do appreciate your getting the healer for us, Fanken. You may go, if you would like.”

  “Thank you, ser. I’ll be at the warehouse.” Fanken nods and turns.

  Dorrin follows the older man into the foyer, placing his jacket on the old branched cloak tree, and setting his staff in the corner behind the tree. The foyer is paneled in dark-stained oak, and a leaf-patterned Hamorian carpet is centered on the stained and varnished oak floor that reflects the light of the two gleaming brass oil lamps in matching sconces.

  “Leretia is upstairs. She had the flux—all of us did. I think it was some bad fowl. But she just got worse and worse. Wine didn’t help. Neither did warm baths. Don’t believe in healers much, but Honsard’s girl told Noriah how you healed her brother. I thought it couldn’t hurt.”