The Magic Engineer

by Jr. L. E. Modesitt

  “Crazy…cold water on his face in midwinter…”

  Something tugs at his leg. He looks down at Zilda, at the end of the chain held by Petra. The goat is yanking at his trousers.

  “Sorry…” he says.

  Reisa and Yarrl stand by the porch steps. Yarrl spits into the corner.

  “What happened?” Reisa smiles sadly.

  “Something with Liedral. It’s stopped…now, but she’s been hurt.”

  “Do you know where she is?”

  He shakes his head.

  “Wizards’ business…no good to come of it,” mumbles Yarrl.

  “Can you do anything?” Reisa pursues.

  “Not yet…not yet.” He takes a deep breath. “Might as well finish the big straps—while I can.”

  “You sure?” asks Yarrl.

  “I’ll let you know when I’m not.” Dorrin wipes his face and walks back toward the smithy.

  Behind him, Reisa and Yarrl look at each other. Finally, Yarrl follows the younger smith back to the forge.

  C

  Fat snowflakes flow past Dorrin’s face as he rides uphill from Yarrl’s in the darkness of early evening. What has happened to Liedral? Why did he feel the pain? Where is she?

  Somehow, in some way, it is connected to the White Wizards. Still, none of it makes much sense. Dorrin has made little progress in building the machines he has designed, even the simple steam engine. He cannot make weapons, at least not the conventional ones, and he cannot return to Recluce. He is a good journeyman smith, and, in some ways, a good healer.

  Liedral is a woman and a trader who can barely make ends meet.

  Unless he can do something, or unless Brede and Kadara are far more successful than Dorrin, within a year or perhaps two, Spidlar will be under the heels of the White Wizards, and there is a good chance he will be in a work camp building roads, or dead. Yet the White Wizards are worried.

  He nudges Meriwhen off the road and up the drive past Rylla’s cottage. The smoke from the kitchen chimney, the one serving the stove, shows that Merga has been busy with something. He hopes it is better than his own cooking. He dismounts outside the small stable. As he slides off Meriwhen, he hears footsteps.

  “Can I feed the horsey?” asks Frisa, still struggling into the too-big herder’s jacket, snow coating her short black hair.

  “Her name is Meriwhen,” Dorrin explains again, opening the stable door and leading Meriwhen inside.

  “Can I feed Meriwhen?”

  Dorrin hands the girl the bucket, and opens the barrel. “Put three big handfuls in the bucket and let me see it.”

  While Frisa scrambles with the barrel and bucket in the dimness of the stable, Dorrin loosens Meriwhen’s saddle and racks it.

  “It’s dark.”

  “We won’t be here long.” Dorrin winces as the distant pain sears through him. Somehow that agony is closer. But why? Can he find Liedral? How?

  “Is this enough?”

  “What?”

  Frisa thrusts the bucket at him.

  “Three more handfuls,” Dorrin decides. Her hands are much smaller than his. He leads Meriwhen into her stall and takes out the brush. “This is going to be quick, old girl.”

  “Horsey’s not old.”

  “Meriwhen.”

  “She’s not old.”

  “You’re right.” Dorrin continues brushing.

  “Is this enough?”

  Dorrin turns and looks at the bucket that Frisa holds, moving the child back away from the mare’s legs—not that he believes Meriwhen would kick, but not all horses are Meriwhens. “That’s fine. We’ll put it here.” He lifts Frisa up to the level of the manger. “Pour it all out.”

  “Good Meriwhen.”

  Frisa stands outside the stall while Dorrin finishes grooming Meriwhen. He picks up his staff and steps into the snow, waiting for Frisa to follow before closing the stable door.

  Frisa darts ahead and is stamping her small feet on the porch even before Dorrin’s boots touch the steps. He cleans his own boots as Frisa ducks into the house.

  “Good evening, ser.” Merga inclines her head at Dorrin’s entrance. “Seeing it was wet and then snowing, and seeing as you’re growing young fellows”—she jabs a long wooden spoon at Vaos, who stands in the corner by the stove—“I made a stew.”

  Dorrin sniffs the welcome scent of stew. Vaos grins at the smith.

  The kitchen is dim with only the two oil lamps lit, but Dorrin only has the two lamps—yet another shortcoming in his household supplies. He also only has a single large jug of lamp oil. Building the house was only the beginning of his expenses. Even the golds from Fyntal may not last long. Dorrin turns from absently studying the lamp in the wall sconce to Merga.

  “Frisa and me, we set some snares near the pond, and we got two fine hares. You had plenty of potatoes in the cellar, even some roots.”

  “You snared some rabbits?”

  “Yes, ser. I had plenty of practice, and Jisle didn’t mind. He said that they only ate the crops.”

  Dorrin tried not to smile as he sinks into the chair at the table.

  “But ser, for a proper pantry, you be needing more staples. A barrel of flour, more potatoes, some yams…”

  “Probably, Merga, I’ll need all that and more. But could I afford it?”

  “Even these days, you could get a barrel of flour for a silver, and you’d get a couple of coppers back for the barrel when you emptied it. Potatoes are cheap, if you go to Asavah.”

  Dorrin takes a deep breath. “We’ll talk about what we need in the morning. It’s been a long day, and I am hungry.”

  “Frisa, you can take this.” Merga hands a worn basket to the child who carries it across the room and sets it before Dorrin. The aroma of fresh-baked bread fills his nostrils. “I got some yeast mix from Rylla. She says it will do until your lady brings her own.”

  Dorrin coughs, then rises and heads for the cooling tank and the cider. He fills four mugs and sets them around the table.

  Merga sets the heavy pot on the wooden trivet in the middle of the table. “If you’d serve, master Dorrin.”

  The smith understands. Only the master or the mistress of a house should distribute the food. But he serves Frisa first, then Vaos and Merga. There is still plenty left.

  He takes a spoonful, then breaks off an end of the bread and hands the basket to Vaos.

  “Begging your pardon, master Dorrin,” Vaos says, “but this is better than bread and cheese and fruit.”

  “So? I’m not a cook.”

  “The master is a healer,” asserts Frisa.

  “He’s a smith,” counters Vaos. “A good smith.”

  “I do both. Now, eat!”

  Vaos crunches through his large chunk of bread.

  “Yes, master,” agrees Frisa. “Would Meriwhen like stew?”

  “I don’t think so.” Instead of shaking his head, Dorrin bites into the bread, still warm and crusty. After several mouthfuls of stew and bread, he looks up to see the other three eating equally ravenously.

  “Can you ride a horse, Merga? Or drive a wagon?” he asks later.

  “Yes, ser. I used to drive the teams for Gerhalm, when he wasn’t a-feeling well. Jisle, he looked the other way.”

  There is a knock, and Dorrin’s eyes flash to the door. He stands, bumping the table, and has to steady his mug before he answers the knock.

  “Pergun? What are you doing here?”

  “Well…ser…I was just a-thinking…it was looking like snow…and I wanted to make sure the work I did…” The mill hand looks up sheepishly.

  “Come on in. Have you had supper?”

  “I ate a little.”

  “Do we have another bowl?” asks Dorrin.

  “I’ve finished,” Merga says quickly. “I can wash mine out.” She stands and offers her place on the bench.

  Not only does he need more crockery, but he needs more chairs and a longer table. Dorrin takes another mouthful of the stew, watching Merga smile at Pe
rgun as she puts a bowl full of her stew in front of him. The mill hand looks back at her.

  “Did you walk here?” Dorrin asks.

  “It’s not that far,” Pergun mumbles through a mouthful of stew.

  “Hmmmm…” Dorrin almost feels like smashing things with his biggest hammers. The more he does, the more out of control he feels. Everything seems to lead to something bigger, and each time he manages to accomplish something that he thinks will help him build his steam engine, his efforts result in more problems than solutions. He wanted space to work in; instead, he must support a growing household. He didn’t want to worry about a wife; now he worries about Liedral.

  Abruptly, he stands up. Everyone in the small kitchen stops and looks at him. “I’m tired. You all enjoy yourselves. I need to lie down and think.”

  He walks slowly to the back bedroom and closes the door. Not all the rooms have doors yet, but his does. Nor does he bother with the lamp as he pulls off his boots and trousers.

  Lying under the coverlet on the wide bed meant for two, Dorrin tries to cast his thoughts out—the same way he was taught so long ago by his father, the air wizard. This time he is not seeking natural storms, but chaos.

  Sparkles of white fire flicker from the countryside, a sullen white different from the snow, but Dorrin is too tired to cast his thoughts even to Kleth. While Kleth is nearer than that distant agony of Liedral’s, he cannot yet tell in which direction she lies—assuming that the pain is hers. But to whom else could it belong?

  So he tosses and turns in the night.

  CI

  Vaos gestures as Dorrin finishes the hammer stroke on the cherry-red iron he is fullering into thinner strips for hinges. Somehow, between everything, people always need things like hinges and nails. He holds his stroke. “Yes?”

  “The big guard, the blond one, him and the red-headed one…they’re here to see you.”

  Dorrin lifts the iron and sets it on the bricks before placing his hammer in the rack. “Have Merga warm up some cider and see if there’s some bread. Then bring in some more charcoal, and sweep up the place.”

  “But…ser…”

  “Vaos.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  Dorrin still worries about Liedral, but his senses only tell him she is closer than before, closer and in pain. And now Brede and Kadara will bring more worries. He walks to the smithy door. Both an icy wind and the glitter of the frozen white snow strike the smith as he steps into the yard. The tracks of the two riders cross his own earlier prints out to the stable.

  Brede and Kadara tie their mounts to the railing. Brede wears a ragged beard, a fresh scar across one cheek, and his eyes are set in dark holes. Kadara’s face is an angular caricature, with deep circles around her eyes.

  Dorrin gestures toward the kitchen. “Can you have something to eat?”

  Brede nods tiredly. Kadara says nothing as she tromps up the steps.

  “You can stable them if you want.”

  “Can’t stay all that long,” Brede grunts.

  “This is a lot warmer than where we’ve been.”

  Both troopers knock the snow off their boots before stepping into the kitchen and slumping into chairs. Merga looks up. “The cider’s not quite warm, ser. But I can set out some bread, and cheese, and there’s a little dried fruit.”

  Dorrin takes off his leather apron and hangs it on a peg by the door.

  “That sounds wonderful,” says Kadara.

  Brede just unfastens his jacket.

  Dorrin looks at Merga. “Why don’t you and Frisa go see how Rylla’s doing? I’ll take care of the cider.”

  “Yes, ser. Might be as she could use some help with the heavy snow. Frisa’s in the room. I’ll be going.” Merga grabs for her herder’s jacket and scuttles out onto the porch.

  “Building a domestic empire, Dorrin?” Kadara’s chuckle is hard, forced.

  “No. I ended up with them…because I tried to keep her and her daughter from getting beaten. The man committed suicide, and…” He rises to get the pot in which Merga poured the cider and spices. Without spilling much on the table, he fills both mugs.

  “Thank you.” Brede holds the cup to his face, inhaling the steam. “It’s been a long winter.”

  Kadara sips silently.

  “You need something,” Dorrin suggests into the silence.

  “Yes, we do,” Brede answers. “The problem is that I don’t know what I need. Come spring—and winter cannot last forever—the Certan levies will pour down the roads toward Elparta. They could use the rivers.”

  “I can’t make edged weapons. I could make some black iron shields.”

  “They’re heavy,” Kadara says slowly.

  “They’re what Recluce uses against the fireballs of the White Wizards. I could make them pretty thin.”

  “That might help—if we had one or two for emergencies.” Brede nods. “That won’t be enough. We need something that will stop them on the roads. Do you have some magic knives that slice up troops from a distance?” Brede’s laugh is harsh and cynical.

  “I never…besides…”

  “I know. You get ill even thinking about edged weapons, let alone forging them.”

  “I can’t do it.” Dorrin sits in the chair across from her.

  “How convenient,” Kadara says.

  Dorrin looks at her. “Every day I try to heal people who are dying because their bodies don’t have enough food to resist flux or consumption or fever. Half the people in Diev are slowly freezing because they can’t afford wood and don’t have the strength to get into the hills to cut it and bring it back. I feel guilty because we have food. Even being a trader has become a high-risk occupation—you know that. What do you want, Kadara?”

  “I’m sorry, Dorrin. But I’m not. We’re getting old and tired, and you’re getting wealthy and successful. You have a house. You have a clean bed every night, and people look up to you. Everyone looks away when we ride by. Death sticks to us like a leech.”

  Dorrin looks down at the table.

  “This isn’t going to help,” Brede says tiredly.

  “Let me think…I said that in the fall, didn’t I?” Dorrin looks at the table. Knives—what cuts like a knife that isn’t a knife or a sword? Can he do anything with the gunpowder? “Will they have White Wizards with them—the Certans, I mean?”

  “Probably. Some detachments will.”

  “How is your squad doing?”

  “It’s Kadara’s now.”

  Dorrin looks at the two, realizing they both wear braid.

  “Brede’s a strike leader, with three squads under him.”

  “Oh…” Dorrin tried to think. “Do they always use the roads?”

  Brede snorts. “We all use the roads. How else can you move troops through the hills at any speed? Everything else turns to dust and mud.”

  “Hmmmm…”

  “If it will help, good coin-oriented smith, the Council has authorized me to buy up to two golds’ worth of weapons…” Brede’s tone is ironic.

  “Use the coins for supplies,” snaps Dorrin.

  This time Brede looks at the table. Kadara breaks off an end of the loaf and chews on it.

  “I’ll develop something—darkness knows what—but something…and you’ll get a couple of shields.” Dorrin stands and walks back to the stove to refill their mugs. First, though, he pours himself a mug.

  “You’ve worked hard,” Brede says slowly. “Maybe not as hard as a trooper, but your eyes are tired, and there are new lines on your face.”

  “I’ve been trying,” Dorrin admits, “but everything takes more than I thought. If I want to build an engine, I need coin for metal and tools. To get that means working hard…” He steps back to the table and refills the mugs.

  “Dorrin, just what are you going to do with such an engine? What will you use it for?” Kadara asks.

  “I could use it to run a sawmill or a ship or a grain mill. The ship makes the most sense, because the ocean has more order within
it.”

  “You’d better build it quickly,” Brede says, “unless you can find a way to stop Fairhaven and its captive levies.”

  “Have you seen your trader friend lately?” asks Kadara.

  “No.” Dorrin sits. “She’s been hurt, somehow, but I can’t locate her.”

  “And you’re just sitting here?” Kadara sets her mug back on the table.

  “Where do you suggest I go?” Dorrin asks.

  “Sometimes, it pays to wait,” Brede says. “And that is often the hardest thing to learn.” He breaks off a piece of bread and chews it.

  “Stop being so old and wise and philosophical.” Kadara smiles faintly.

  Dorrin lets his breath out slowly.

  “Isn’t that better than being young and rash and stupid?” Brede laughs.

  “Not a great deal. How about being young and happy once in a while?”

  “That was in another country, wench. But I will try.”

  Dorrin takes a bite of the dried pearapples, then sips his cider, thinking about shields and invisible knives and roads…and the nearing agony that is Liedral.

  CII

  The rain slashes his face as Dorrin urges Meriwhen down from the ridge road and along the muddy flat and toward the trees south of Jarnish’s yard.

  Liedral has to be at the factor’s, or somewhere near. He had left Diev once his senses indicated she was getting nearer. In Kleth, at least, he will be closer to anywhere else in Spidlar—between the roads and the river.

  The wind moans in his ears as he sees Jarnish’s small warehouse. Meriwhen’s hoofs squish through the thin mud that overlies the stones of the road. Kleth is noticeably warmer than Diev, and the snow has begun to melt off, leaving the fields with a blotchy appearance.

  As he guides Meriwhen into the factor’s yard, he recognizes the cart tilted upward by the stable. Both the burning in his guts and the fear in his heart are sharp—sharp enough to cut. And lying over the entire yard is a sense of diffuse whiteness, a vague fog of chaos.

  Even before he dismounts, Jarnish is rushing from the kitchen.