The Magic Engineer

by Jr. L. E. Modesitt

  “I was going to send a message…but no one was going to Diev…” The chaos Dorrin sensed clings to the factor.

  Dorrin swings down, and immediately brings the black staff into his hand.

  Jarnish is bowing, almost groveling in the mud. “I did what I could, master Dorrin…I got the trader here…I did.”

  “Where is she?”

  “She? Liedral…that’s the one I mean.”

  Dorrin swallows. Jarnish does not know? “Where is Liedral?”

  “Couldn’t put him in the house…” Jarnish’s eyes edge to the stable.

  Dorrin, staff in hand, marches into the stable.

  The agony welling from the beaten and whipped figure lying on the pallet in the corner of the stable grasps at him, and for a moment, he cannot see, so blinding is the pain in and behind his eyes.

  “I owe the trader…but not enough for the Whites…See what they did…Brother they fired in his warehouse. Thought you could help.” Jarnish pulls at his beard. “Can you move…Don’t want…”

  “I’ll take care of…the trader…but I can’t move…not now…” Dorrin’s forehead beads with sweat, despite the chill of the stall.

  Liedral? Why? Just because she hasn’t paid road duties or joined the traders’ association? Or because she carried his toys? Or because the Whites are after him?

  “You’ll move the trader as soon as you can?”

  His eyes burn as he turns on Jarnish. “The Whites aren’t anywhere close, not the ones you fear. I’m the one you need to fear.” He lifts the staff. “You wouldn’t even put her in the house, you gutless bastard.”

  Jarnish backs away.

  “Get me some boiling water, clean cloths, and some blankets.”

  Jarnish looks at the healer, blankly.

  “You want us out of here? Then get me boiling water, clean cloths, and blankets.”

  As Jarnish stumbles from the stable, Dorrin wipes his eyes. Then he takes a deep breath, and his hands touch the surprisingly small wrists.

  Blood is everywhere, crusted across her back, down her legs, matted into her skull, yet none of the wounds is deep, as if they were designed for pain, and more pain. Even worse is the feel of chaos that coats her, although it mostly dusts her—unlike the factor, who seems infused with the whiteness.

  His fingers brush her arms, sensing the infections beginning on her back and thighs. At least the pallet and sheet on which she lies are clean. Offering some directed order to Liedral before returning to Meriwhen, he leads the mare into the stable and ties her in a corner, then unloads the saddlebags with the herbs he has brought.

  Lyssa, the maid, struggles into the stable with a basket of rags, which she carefully lowers onto the straw next to the stall door. “Jaddy says it will be a bit for the boiling water.”

  “Could you get me a bucket of clean well-water?”

  Lyssa does not meet his eyes. “Yes, ser.”

  “And, when you have a moment, a clean shift.”

  “A shift?”

  “The trader is a woman. She hid it to avoid something like this.” Dorrin’s words are calculated.

  “They beat her…for being a woman?”

  “The Whites don’t exactly favor the Legend,” Dorrin snaps. “Could I have some water?”

  Putting Liedral in the stable, of all things. Clearly, Jarnish is under the Whites’ influence, and there is a terrible reason for the beating. The Whites seldom engage in unnecessary cruelty, and with that thought his fists clench momentarily. If only he had insisted she stay in Diev…but he had not, and he cannot change that.

  Lyssa struggles back in with a bucket of icy water.

  “Thank you.” Dorrin tries to soften his voice, but he reaches for a rag and wets it.

  “I have an old shift. It’s soft, and it’s clean.”

  “Thank you,” he repeats softly, using one hand to brush back the tears. He begins to clean away the dirt and the blood. How had Liedral made it this far? Or did the Whites ensure that she did? Why? He pushes away the questions as he works.

  The dark pulse of order finally beats strongly in Liedral’s weakened frame. Darkness has closed over the stable when Dorrin curls up on the straw in one of the two blankets Jarnish has so reluctantly furnished. The dark staff rests beside his fingertips, and he hopes that it will alert him to any danger.

  Outside, the darkness remains when he wakes, grasping for the staff.

  “…no…not that…” Liedral mutters, and each mutter brings a turn on the pallet, and a fresh surge of agony.

  Dorrin touches her forehead.

  “…oh…”

  “Just rest easy…”

  “Dorrin…where…? So thirsty…Why did you hurt me? Why?”

  Half of her words dwell on his hurting her—why? As he questions, he eases the slightest trace of water between her lips, and uses his senses to slide her back into a deeper and healing sleep.

  Whether he will sleep after glimpsing the horror in her thoughts is another question. His fingers clench around the staff, and he wishes he were a blade like Kadara and Brede. But how can he forge destruction out of order? And if he can…should he?

  But…Creslin did. The Founders did, and they survived.

  What kind of machine? What kind of magic knives, as Brede has put it? He does not know, but he will heal Liedral, and he will repay the Whites. Somehow.

  CIII

  Liedral is probably not well enough to travel, but Dorrin will risk it, muddy roads and all, before staying longer so close to the chaos that has grown up around Jarnish.

  He continues to pack the two sacks of assorted knickknacks that were in the cart bed into sacks he has retrieved from the corners of Jarnish’s stable. He places a layer of clean straw covered with some rags on the cart bed. The thin pallet will go over that.

  Next comes saddling Meriwhen and harnessing the cart horse. He is thankful he has watched Liedral, although his smithing work has given him some greater idea of how harnesses work.

  After readying the horses, he pauses, rubbing his stubbly face, realizing that worrying about shaving is stupid. Time enough to shave when he gets back to Diev. What else does he need? Food—of course, since the trip will take at least three days, and perhaps four. He should have thought of provisions earlier. He sighs, then glances at Liedral, whose eyes find his. He walks over to the pallet.

  “Dorrin…terrible…you hurt me…”

  She has used the same words over and over. He places his hand on her forehead, trying to reassure her. “I’m here; everything will be all right.”

  “…thirsty…”

  He eases more water into her parched throat, but some dribbles onto the pallet because she has trouble drinking. Yet she cannot lie on her back or sides, not with the terrible welts there.

  In a few moments, she sleeps again, almost as if to escape thinking about the terrors she has endured. He loads the trade bags on Meriwhen, and, with a look at the sleeping Liedral, heads toward the factor’s kitchen.

  After knocking the water and mud off his boots, he steps inside, carrying the empty saddlebags.

  “How’s the young trader? Terrible thing, that,” says the cook. “And a fearsome bunch are those White Wizards.”

  “The trader’s better. Could I buy a few provisions for the trip back?”

  “Sure and you won’t travel the roads in this weather. The mud would stop anyone.”

  “It’s a hard-packed road to Diev, and I made it here. Besides, we cannot stay.” Dorrin glances at the door to the rest of the house.

  “Sad thing it is when you must drag a wounded soul across all Spidlar. And after such a long and frightful winter, too.”

  “About the provisions?”

  “We’ve some, but not as many as we’d like. Yet how could I not refuse a healer’s coin?” Jaddy begins to rummage through the small barrels. “Some dried apples and pearapples…and brick cheese. Here are some road biscuits, hard but still good…”

  Dorrin smiles at the running com
mentary and at the small pile of food that appears on the cutting table.

  “…and the poor trader will need something that can be softened. Just moisten the travel bread with water or cider. Moisten it; don’t soak it.” The cook looks at Dorrin. “You understand, young fellow, healer or not?”

  “Yes, I understand.”

  “Well, don’t just stand there. Pack it all up in your bags. Why else did I get it out?”

  Dorrin can’t help grinning momentarily. As he begins to pack, he asks, “What might I—”

  “We’re not so poor here that a little food can’t be spared, even if you are daft to take to the roads now.”

  Dorrin is still shaking his head as he loads the food under the cart seat. The half-smile vanishes as Jarnish slides into the stable. Dorrin turns and meets him.

  “Ye owe me—”

  “I asked your cook…”

  “No. Pox on the food. Ye owe me, healer, for taking in yer lady trader.” Jarnish’s voice is hard, but his eyes are fixed on the muddy clay of the yard. “It were a big risk for me.”

  Dorrin’s hands reach to the staff he is about to place in the makeshift holder beside the cart seat, where he can easily reach it in this time of trouble. The fingers of his right hand tighten about the dark wood. “It was little risk.”

  “Ye owe me,” Jarnish insists, his voice even harder, and Dorrin can sense the prodding of chaos behind the trader’s words.

  “Then I will repay you in like coin.” Dorrin releases the staff.

  Jarnish looks up, and Dorrin’s eyes catch the other man’s, and the smith’s hands, hard and unyielding like the iron he fashions, seize Jarnish’s hands by the wrists.

  “I will repay you in order.” Dorrin laughs, a harsh almost crying sound, as he weaves order around the factor. “You will no longer be able to tolerate chaos in the slightest of matters, and your skin will itch, and crawl when it nears you.” His eyes flare, and darkness falls from them over Jarnish, who tries to break from the iron grasp.

  The trader has shivered, whimpered once, and ceased his struggle long before Dorrin releases him.

  “You’ve killed me,” the older man sobs. His hands rip at his clothes, then he turns and shambles from the stable scratching his neck, and pulling at his garments.

  Dorrin does not watch, instead returning to the stall and lifting the pallet, Liedral and all, into the cart. Then he leads the cart horse and Meriwhen out of the stable.

  Jarnish is standing in his underdrawers beside the well, pouring a bucket of cold water over himself. “Another one…another one.”

  Jaddy scurries through the mud toward Dorrin.

  He waits. At least he owes her that.

  “A terrible curse you put upon him! No good will come from that, and I thought you were a nice young fellow.”

  Dorrin smiles sadly. “I only blessed him with a desire for order.”

  “Oh…that be an even more terrible curse! How could ye be so cruel?”

  Dorrin looks pointedly toward the cart bed.

  “You’ll be thinking he beat her…I know he didn’t.”

  “Had he beaten her,” Dorrin says slowly, “he would not stand. Ever.”

  “A just man you are, and that makes you all the more terrible.” Jaddy looks back toward Jarnish, who shivers under another rush of cold water. “No one could curse you more than you already are. For all those around you will suffer, and suffer.”

  “They already are,” Dorrin admits. “They already are.” He climbs onto the cart seat and flicks the reins.

  The cook watches as the cart lurches through the mud of the yard and out to the road.

  CIV

  Creaakkk…Dorrin guides the cart around the uphill turn and back onto the straightaway. Behind the cart, Meriwhen whickers, still complaining about the packs she carries. Liedral, lying on blankets and between two pillows, sleeps in the small space behind the cart seat.

  Driving the cart is worse than learning to ride had been. The seat is hard, and the roads a mess of mud and slush. And Liedral still moans, sleeping or half-awake.

  “Holloa, the cart!”

  Two ragged figures sit on the fallen tree beside the road. Dorrin’s heart beats faster, and his perceptions fly toward the men. There are only two of them, and neither carries a bow. Still, he reaches down with his left hand and eases the staff into a position where he can grab it easily.

  He might as well continue up the gentle slope and through the trees too far apart to be a forest, since he cannot turn the cart quickly enough to escape—and because he needs to get back to Diev.

  The two men amble into the road. Each carries a sword.

  “Holloa. We’d like to collect the tolls.” The dark-bearded man stands a half-head taller than Dorrin and waves a battered sword.

  “I wasn’t aware that there were any tolls on this road.”

  “There are now, my peddler friend.”

  “Aye, and they’re steep, too,” growls the shorter man, who holds his sword more like a bludgeon.

  Dorrin bends and brings the staff up with a one-handed fluid motion.

  “Ah…the peddler has a toothpick.”

  Dorrin reins the cart to a halt and drops to the muddy road, sliding as he does.

  “Poor peddler…Aye, and he can’t even stand.” Both men come around the left side of the cart horse toward Dorrin.

  Dorrin wiggles his boots, trying to get a firmer footing in the muddy road, then squares the staff and waits.

  The taller man stops. “Now. Let’s have the purse.”

  “No.” Dorrin doesn’t care that much about the purse, but he has no illusions that providing the purse will allow their escape.

  “Poor peddler…poor dumb peddler…” The tall man swings the sword.

  Before the blade even reaches forward, the black staff has thrust, then cracked across the man’s wrists. The sword lies in the mud, but the would-be bandit lifts a knife and lunges. This time Dorrin is even quicker, and one body lies in the road mud.

  The smaller, ginger-bearded man’s sword sweeps toward Dorrin before he can recover fully with the staff, and he ducks, but the blade tip rakes across his forehead.

  Dorrin’s feet slide on the muddy road, but he manages to lurch into position with the staff before the remaining bandit can bring the sword back. He waits for the clumsy swing with the old blade, parries it, and then slams the end of the staff into the bandit’s diaphragm. Even as the man falls, Dorrin automatically follows up with a second blow.

  Then, as the white agony sears through his brain, he leans on the side of the wagon, barely able to hang on.

  After the pain subsides to hammers banging through his skull, he checks the wagon, but Liedral still moans in her sleep, and Meriwhen whickers when he touches her neck. Then he drags the bodies into the melting snow beside the road, and, atempting to be practical, checks the robbers’ purses. He finds one silver and four coppers, plus a gold ring, all of which he slips into his own purse. He leaves the battered swords next to the bodies, which he does not even attempt to bury. The winter has also been hard for the scavengers.

  Dorrin has no illusions about his prowess. Neither man was a real highwayman, and his work with the staff was clumsy at best. He uses one of the clean rags he brought from Jarnish’s to clean and blot the cut across his forehead, trying to sprinkle it with some crushed astra, which burns as he applies it.

  After climbing back onto the cart, he flicks the reins. Is this the sort of desperation Brede and Kadara deal with all the time? What can a mere smith do? He shivers, even as his free hand brushes Liedral’s fevered forehead, trying to instill yet more order and reassurance.

  The cart slides over the hill crest, and Dorrin can see the haze of Diev in the distance, reinforced by the kaystone on the curve at the bottom of the hill.

  “Thirsty…”

  With one eye on the road, he fumbles with the water bottle, dribbling some on Liedral’s cheeks, but getting most of it into her mouth.

&n
bsp; “…Dorrin…”

  “I’m here.”

  Creakkkk…The cart hub scrapes the kaystone as Dorrin tries to guide it around the curve while still reassuring Liedral. The wheels barely have purchase on the slush that remains of the rolled and packed snows of winter.

  “I’m here,” he repeats, glancing toward the Westhorns beyond Diev, and the gray clouds that promise another cold rain, even more miserable with the pounding that surges through his skull. He hopes they will make it to his holding before the rain does. “I’m here.”

  CV

  Dorrin looks at the plate on the anvil. He has never done much cold-working, but armor, even shields, requires cold hammer work. Yet black iron cannot be hammered.

  He sets the larger plate aside and takes a smaller chunk of iron, scrap from a strap, and uses the tongs to ease it into the forge. As he watches the color of the metal, Vaos wheels in another load of charcoal in the iron-tired wheelbarrow. The front wheel drips mud all over the smooth clay floor.

  “Vaos, after you…Just clean up the mud.”

  “But, ser, the floor is just clay, and I’ll get more mud on it when I go out again. It’s pouring.”

  “The mud bothers me. It may be unreasonable, but I need it cleaned up.”

  “Yes, ser.” Vaos trudges toward the broom.

  “Brush it off the wheel, too, if you would.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  Dorrin brings the iron to the anvil, strikes the metal to thin it down to the thickness of armor, slowly infusing order to turn it into black iron. When he is done, he sets the fullered and ordered iron on the back edge of the forge to anneal, and searches for another chunk of scrap.

  The second chunk he fullers down to plate thickness and then turns into black iron, placing it in turn on the back of the forge.

  Next he gets out the charcoal and tries to calculate on the smoothed plank he uses for his smithy figures. If the shield is roughly a twentieth of a span in thickness…He checks the figures. Just the metal surface of a shield one and a half cubits across will weigh more than a stone.

  “Darkness!” The braces and frame straps will add more than a half stone. What if he thins the metal further? Will it withstand a White Wizard’s firebolt? He wishes he knew more. Even Brede would not want to carry a shield weighing a stone and a half. If he decreases the size of the shield, and thins the metal…