The Magic Engineer

by Jr. L. E. Modesitt

  “You need to drink this, Gerd.”

  “It’s vile stuff, Rylla. Vile…smells like the river where the fisherman leave their offal, maybe worse.”

  “I’ve sweetened it with syrup and cider.”

  Gerd lifts the cup and sets it down. “It smells vile.”

  “You want to die of the flux, go ahead,” Rylla snaps. “I just wish you hadn’t wasted my good herbs.”

  “I’ll drink it, but I don’t have to like it.” She lifts the cup and swallows. “Uuughhhhh…”

  Dorrin understands. While brinn is effective against the flux, its bitterness is legend, even buried in sweetened cider.

  “You’ll feel better afore long, Gerd.” Rylla hands her a tiny folded square of cloth. “Put this in something hot tonight. Drink it all.”

  “Do I have to?”

  “No. You can have your guts run out the jakes on you until you’re so weak you can’t walk here.”

  “You’re a hard healer, Rylla.”

  Rylla snorts.

  At last, the thin figure wraps her cloak around her and totters out into the cold white glare. Rylla closes the door and turns to Dorrin. “You don’t need to be here,” she repeats. “Scat! Get on your jacket and be on your way to that smithy. All you do here is humor an old woman.”

  “I need to be here, and it’s not humoring you. What I’m doing for Brede is creating death. This helps a little.”

  “That’s the way of the world. Fighting death with death.” The healer shakes her head. “But we’re done for now, and you best be going.”

  “I keep trying to find a better way…”

  “Aye…and that’s a problem, too.”

  Dorrin pulls on his coat and waits.

  “New ways aren’t always better.”

  “You sound like my father.”

  “Ha!” Rylla cackles. “Old ways aren’t always better, neither. People pick a way, be it old or new, and then they want to do it that way. Takes a strong soul to accept the best of both the old and the new.” She cackles again, then motions toward the door. “Scat. We can’t tell if your engine thing will be good or bad, leastways, not until you finish it, and you won’t be finishing it jawing with an old healer.”

  Dorrin is still grinning when he reaches the smithy. Perhaps he can add Rylla’s words to his growing penned thoughts on order and chaos.

  CXXXIV

  The square-bearded wizard studies the unfolded parchment on the table. Beside it lie fragments of blue wax from the seal that had closed it.

  Whistling outside the window, the wind still cannot drown out the clink of masons’ trowels and stones. The candles in the three-branched candelabra flicker with the gusts that find their way around the ill-fitting window.

  The White Wizard walks to the cloudy glass of the window. Below, conscripted villagers toil with the stones of the walls, slowly dragging them back into position for the masons. Dark clouds overhead promise snow or rain, but neither yet falls.

  Finally, the more slender wizard, hunched in a heavy white wool cloak, speaks. “What are they offering?”

  “Just about everything to save their necks.” Fydel laughs. “They’ll turn over any of the ‘unfaithful’ effectively disband the Guards by reducing them to a handful of squads; open the roads to our traders.”

  “Why aren’t you taking their offer?” asks Cerryl.

  “You assume too much.”

  Cerryl laughs softly. “I’m assuming nothing. You won’t take the Spidlarian Council’s offer. I’d just like to know why.”

  “Isn’t it obvious? Why hand it to Jeslek? He’s back in Fairhaven, enjoying fires, good food, and a few other pleasures.” A wide grin reveals large white teeth. “Who knows? We might get a better offer before spring.”

  “We won’t. What you’re hoping is that Jeslek will have to face some mighty Black. But that won’t happen. Do you really think that Recluce will send more warriors or wizards to Spidlar?”

  “No.” Fydel smiles. “But there’s no reason to make it easy for Jeslek, is there? No real reason to hand him an easy victory after he’s muddled through a year of doing nothing, is there?”

  “What about the levies? Why kill them off unnecessarily?”

  “You’re too soft, Cerryl. What are a few hundred peasants one way or the other?”

  Cerryl shakes his head, but says nothing.

  The wind whistles, and the sound of stone work echoes through the window, and the candles flicker in the late afternoon.

  IV.

  Order-Forger

  CXXXV

  From the room next door, Dorrin hears Liedral’s breathing, and he wishes he were lying with her. While they can now hug each other, or exchange brief kisses, the internal scars from her torture have only faded, not disappeared. Outside, the low wail of the wind reminds him that winter is not yet over, even though the days are getting longer once more.

  Dorrin slowly sets the paper back in the box, and leans back for a moment in the chair, reflecting on order. His father, his mother, Lortren—they all equate order with good. Yet Dorrin himself has used order to create destruction. Is destruction of those who would impose chaos by force good?

  In an ideal sense, probably not. But pure order almost invariably loses to pure chaos. Yet even Creslin used order to create destruction to stop the Whites.

  Is it wrong to use ordered metal to destroy or stop the spread of chaos? He frowns. If all destruction is evil, then, could not those who oppose order claim that the use of force to oppose chaos is also evil?

  If use of destruction is good for some purposes, then cannot any means be justified by a good enough end? He shakes his head. Logic will not solve his problems there, for he can certainly think up good excuses for anything.

  Still, his father has said that there is always an order-based way to solve a problem. He smiles grimly. Supposedly, the White Wizards can enchant someone’s eyes so they see what is not there. In some way, that is what they did to Liedral—made her see false images of him.

  Conversely, could he not use order to show true images? But what good would that do? Yet…he cannot tell a lie, but as a child—and even as an adult—it has not been as uncomfortable to tell part of the truth.

  He looks at the lamp, then at the small mirror on the chest. He stands and places the lamp before the mirror, then stands behind the lamp. If the lamp were not there, the mirror would only show him—and that would be part of the truth.

  He concentrates on somehow letting the image of himself flow around the lamp, as if it were not there. For an instant the room is plunged into darkness—so dark that he cannot see, and he can always see in the dark. He can sense where things are, but not see. Between surprise and speculation, he loses his concentration, and the room fills with soft lamplight again.

  He laughs softly. Of course, if the lamp were not there, neither would the light to see by be, and the room would be dark. But since the lamp did not move, did he merely imagine the darkness? Or did he somehow remove the image of the lamp and its light?

  His forehead is damp, and he has a slight headache. With a deep breath he finishes putting away his scribblings.

  Outside, the wind still moans. Next door, Liedral turns uneasily in sleep, and somewhere in Kleth, Kadara and Brede prepare for the spring invasion of the Whites. Dorrin turns back the quilt on the narrow bed that has replaced his pallet—once he realizes that Liedral’s recovery will be slow. Then he blows out the lamp.

  CXXXVI

  “Force Leader Brede, is it not true that, unless the Certan and Gallosian forces are stopped before Kleth, they will take over all of Spidlar?”

  Brede looks across the table at the white-haired man in the royal-blue velvet. “Yes, Councilman. They intend to take all of Spidlar.”

  “Do they not intend to destroy all traders in Spidlar?”

  “I cannot read their minds, ser.”

  “Let me put it another way, Force Leader. So far, have they allowed any traders or anyone else who oppo
ses chaos to live?”

  “Not within Spidlar.”

  The Councilman spreads his velvet-covered arms. “Then we must stop them before they advance farther.”

  The two other members of the Council, one on each side of the Councilman, each also in the blue velvet, nod.

  Brede inclines his head respectfully to the Council. “What do you suggest? And how would you recommend we accomplish this effort? You have managed to gather perhaps three hundred half-trained cavalry and two thousand levy troops. The Whites have twice that many garrisoned in Elparta, and have posted levies for the spring for another five thousand. They also have a company of White Wizards who throw thunderbolts.”

  “We leave the details of such to you, Force Leader. But you must stop them before Kleth.”

  “Might I ask if you have tried to negotiate with them?” Brede asks. The Council room is suddenly hot and stuffy.

  “We have sent intermediaries,” concedes the Councilman.

  “And?”

  “It was suggested that until either victory or stalemate developed, negotiations would be premature.”

  “Then, could I presume that you are ordering an all-out effort to hold Kleth, regardless of cost or losses?”

  “We leave the military details to you, Force Leader. But if Kleth falls…” The Councilman shrugs. His cold eyes center on Brede.

  CXXXVII

  “They’ve built some fortifications around the southern side.” Dorrin leans in the saddle toward Liedral. In the rear of her cart are eight sets of slicers adapted for use on the river. His other works of destruction are still in progress, but the spring melt has come sooner this year, and Brede will need the river slicers soon, once the runoff dies down.

  “Will that do any good, really?” Liedral fingers her bow.

  “Against a White Wizard who can raise mountains and topple walls?” Dorrin’s laugh is hard. “Not if they get close to the city.”

  The day is bright, even with the white puffy clouds that dot the sky, and the wind blows warm out of the south. The road mud is only damp, rather than ankle-deep. The road itself is empty, save for Dorrin and Liedral, and flattened, bearing the imprint of many feet, all headed from Kleth.

  Four soldiers stand by a rough hut meant to guard the western approach.

  “Where you bound?” asks the stocky man in an ill-fitting breastplate.

  Dorrin studies the ironwork for an instant, dismissing it. “I have some equipment ordered by Brede. We’re delivering it to him.”

  “Aye, and you’ve also got fine wines for us all, no doubt,” cracks a soldier with a goatee.

  Dorrin rests his hand on the dark staff. “I don’t think he would be too happy if he didn’t get what he ordered.”

  “Sure, and you’ve traveled this road from far Diev just to deliver a small cart?”

  The staff is in Dorrin’s hands, and then at the guard’s throat, almost like black lightning. “My name is Dorrin. I am Brede’s smith, and you will let us pass. If you wish, you may escort us to him.”

  “Dorrin…oh…shit…” mumbles the man in the rear. “This here’s the Black smith…”

  The front guard swallows. “Ah…Fredo will escort you, master smith.”

  “Thanks for nothing…”

  Dorrin leaves the staff ready until the cart is rolling toward Kleth.

  “The red-headed cat told Ralth you might be a-coming, but he never believed her,” Fredo chatters. “But I told him that mighty as the great Brede is, he can’t be doing it all without some help…and terrible as Kadara of the blades is, she’s not enough, either…”

  Liedral rolls her eyes and looks at Dorrin.

  “They say that the High Wizard of all of the Whites is leading the hordes. Must want to trample us poor folks pretty bad, but I don’t see as why. After all, Spidlar’s a pretty thin country, leastwise compared to Certis or Gallos, and all we have are animals and traders. Course sometimes it’s hard to tell which is which”—Fredo laughs, and continues—“but our traders, leastwise, leave us be and mostly don’t raise levies or try to fatten their purses through taxes…”

  More than half the houses in Kleth are deserted, some obviously so, with shutters fastened tight and planks covering unshuttered windows. Others are just empty, and a few have gaping doors and emptied interiors.

  On the main road, a single store is open, more of a food stall than a market, and around it gather a handful of levies and blue-liveried cavalry. A handful look at the cart, watching as Dorrin and Liedral pass. After another three kays, they reach the houses on the southern side of Kleth that serve as barracks and headquarters.

  “There be the headquarters place, where all the squad and section leaders meet.” Fredo gestures toward a larger house, with a split-slate roof and moss-tinged brick walls.

  The smell of the stables wafts over them from the building behind the headquarters house, and Dorrin coughs. Idly, he wonders what that much manure would do for his herb gardens in the clayey soil of Diev. Liedral halts the cart in front of the doorway with a blue-coated sentry. After dismounting, Dorrin hands Meriwhen’s reins to the trader and steps up to the blue-coated sentry. “My name is Dorrin. If you would convey to Brede that—”

  “I’ll be telling him immediately, master Dorrin. If you would just wait here.”

  Fredo shakes his head. “If Ralth could see this…the headquarters guards treating the smith like a Guildmaster or a Councillor…”

  “He is a Guildmaster,” Liedral whispers. “Everyone in Diev bows to him, and he hates it.”

  “He hates it? A Guildmaster who dislikes respect, but o’ course it wouldn’t be respect, would it, him being so young? It’d be fear, and no man with any self-respect wants to be feared, less he’s a bully, and your smith seems like a decent enough sort.”

  “He’s more than decent. This sort of work is hard on him.” She stops as Dorrin returns and takes the mare’s reins, absently patting her on the neck.

  A squad leader Dorrin has not met follows the sentry out, and Brede follows the squad leader. “Dorrin!”

  “Brede. I have some of what I promised.” Dorrin gestures to the cart.

  “Cirras will show you to the armory, where you can unload. Then he’ll help you stable your horses, and we’ll talk.”

  “Kadara?” asks Liedral.

  “She’s on patrol.” Brede looks back to the building. “I’ll see you in just a bit.”

  “That would be fine.” Dorrin senses the many demands on Brede’s time.

  “If you would follow me,” begins Cirras.

  The armory is a barn behind the headquarters. Dorrin studies the forge and the slack tanks, including one containing an oily solution. The anvil has a larger horn than his and a wider variety of stakes for the hardie hole.

  In addition to the armorer, there appear to be two strikers, and several boys. One is bringing in charcoal, another handling the bellows, and another one powdering some sort of ashes, presumably for a flux paste. The armorer sets aside the hammer and lifts the iron that will be a helmet off the stake form, placing it on the fire bricks, before he steps to the doorway.

  “There are some weapons that go in the locked room,” Cirras tells the lanky armorer. “Made by master Dorrin for Force Leader Brede.”

  Dorrin dismounts, but does not move to enter the armory.

  The armorer nods to Cirras and steps around him. “Master Dorrin, I’m Welka, the Guard armorer here.”

  “I’m glad to meet you.”

  “I wanted to meet you…especially after I saw the stocks of those…devices…”

  Dorrin looks down for a moment, then back up. “I’m not…not totally pleased about making weapons, you know?”

  The armorer smiles wryly. “I can sense that. It’s good for us that you’re not. That shield you made Brede? What was it?”

  “Black iron.”

  “I thought as much. Too bad. That’s not something that can be taught, is it?”

  “Not unless you can handl
e order.”

  As they talk, Cirras and two armorer’s aides unload the eight canvas-wrapped packages and carry them through the ironbound door into a back room whose mismatched timbers reflect hasty construction.

  “Well…you do good work, master Dorrin. Right now, I wish you could handle edged weapons, but I’ve only met a couple of order smiths, and they couldn’t either. You seem somewhat…more…adaptable…”

  “Much more adaptability may be my undoing,” Dorrin blurts.

  “I won’t ask what’s in the canvas.”

  “It’s probably better that way.” Dorrin looks at Liedral and the empty cart. “I guess.”

  “Why are you doing this?” asks Welka. “If I might presume?”

  “I owe Brede and Kadara…and I owe Spidlar for accepting me, and I feel bound to oppose chaos.”

  “You take your debts seriously.”

  “Very seriously,” adds Liedral quietly.

  Welka nods to Dorrin. “Good to meet you, master Dorrin.” He steps back toward the forge and the half-turned helmet.

  “Darkness…” mumbles Fredo. “Special he is, your master Dorrin, when the master armorer pays his respects.”

  “The stable is this way,” suggests Cirras.

  After unsaddling Meriwhen and unharnessing the cart horse, and sending Fredo back to his duties, the three walk across the packed clay of the yard to the building where they had met Brede. Cirras takes them past the sentry, and into a small anteroom with chairs.

  “I’ll tell Force Leader Brede you’re here.”

  After the young officer leaves, Liedral grins at Dorrin from her armless wooden chair. “You are very important, master smith Dorrin.”

  “I’m not that much of a master smith, just one who can twist his soul farther than most.” The chair creaks as Dorrin shifts his weight and looks toward the closed door.

  “You really dislike building weapons, don’t you?”