The Magic Engineer

by Jr. L. E. Modesitt

“That may be,” Liedral says coolly, “but it’s not yours.” She has the bow in her hands, and the arrow ready.

  “You use that bow, pretty boy, and the rest will pull you down,” blusters the tall man.

  “Now…be a good boy—”

  Dorrin eases Meriwhen closer, then drops his concealment and strikes.

  Crack…The cudgel drops into the mud from the force of the staff. The tall man holds a dangling wrist with his other hand. His eyes gape as he sees the dark figure on horseback. “Darkness…”

  “You could call it that,” Dorrin snaps, reeling in his saddle, eyes burning and head aching.

  The short man steps forward, and Dorrin forces back the burning in his eyes as he parries the awkwardly swinging blade, then thrusts to disarm the second traveler.

  Neither Liedral nor Dorrin has to do more, as the entire group of refugees scrambles out of the road. Dorrin rubs his forehead, trying to massage away the results of his violence with the staff.

  “Where did you learn that trick?”

  “I’ve been practicing. It’s hard, though. I can’t see. So I sort of have to feel where I am, and I’m not all that good at it.” He continues to watch the refugees, but none of them even look at the cart and horseman. A woman in gray tatters tries to bind the broken wrist of the tall man.

  Dorrin’s head continues to pound—but what else could he have done? Force—always force. Is force the only thing anyone in Candar respects?

  Wheee…eeeee…

  Dorrin pats Meriwhen on the neck. “Easy, girl.”

  “How much longer?”

  Dorrin tries to calculate, despite the headache. “Too long.”

  “How long is too long?” Liedral asks dryly. “That doesn’t say much.”

  “You’ve traveled this road more than I have. How long do you think?”

  “With this mud…we’ll be lucky if we can make it in another day.”

  “That’s too long,” Dorrin says.

  “I think you’re right.”

  Neither looks back as they plod through the drizzle and the mud.

  CXL

  Dorrin struggles out to Yarrl’s wagon with another section of black iron, easing it onto the bed. The wagon creaks under the weight.

  Vaos stands in the mud by the wagon, wiping his forehead in the still air. “Need any more, master Dorrin?”

  “That’s all for this trip. Should only take one more.” Dorrin glances toward the north. So far the spring sky is clear. His eyes shift to the herb garden he has not touched. There is only so much he can do, and, if by some miracle Brede should halt the White hordes, they have more than enough herbs for the year. Besides, the perennials will continue without his help.

  Frisa stands on the porch, scratching between Gilda’s ears. The goat is chained to the corner post. “Can I ride with you, master Dorrin?”

  “Not this time, Frisa.” Dorrin closes the tailgate and climbs onto the wagon seat.

  “You come inside and get your jacket, you imp,” calls Merga from the kitchen.

  Dorrin grins and flicks the reins. Slowly, slowly, the wagon groans its way out of the yard and downhill toward the stone-paved road. As he turns onto the road, he must swing wide to avoid a group of men and women who trudge toward Diev. In the group are three children.

  None even look at the wagon as they put one foot in front of the other, one in front of the other. Their clothes, well-made, are still filthy from the mud of the road, and they all, even the children, bear good-sized packs.

  Dorrin looks back up the Kleth road, squinting, and sending his perceptions. There are others walking his way. He concentrates on the road, guiding the wagon down toward lower Diev, even as his thoughts center on the refugees. If Brede cannot hold Kleth, there will be more, many more.

  The wagon rumbles past the Red Lion, with its windows unshuttered and open, and past the Tankard, which is also open and serving.

  Dorrin smiles wryly. For now, the war is providing business for Kyril and also for the Tankard’s owner. For now.

  “A copper, good ser…a copper, for the sake of the good darkness…” Beyond the Tankard, a stopped woman with two children at her ankles cries for his coins. He carries few coins, and he cannot help all those who beg.

  Only a single small ship—a sloop with tall masts—is berthed at the piers. Fast and small, clearly a smuggler. A well-made wooden carriage sits at the foot of the pier. Dorrin turns the wagon toward Tyrel’s.

  On the hillside to the west of the shipwright’s are several ragged tents, and a thin and bearded man watches as the wagon rolls into the yard and up to the blocked Harthagay. Dorrin pulls on the reins, and the brake, and the wagon creaks to a halt.

  The ship’s name will have to change, but names are not his highest concern right now.

  Liedral waits, her hand on the blade she has begun to carry once more. Dorrin looks at the staff by his feet.

  “Any problems?” she asks.

  “No. But more refugees are beginning to walk the road from Kleth. Did you see the smuggler in the harbor?”

  “It’s Drein. He’ll go anywhere if the coins are high enough.”

  “Someone with a carriage was talking passage, I think.”

  “There will be more.” Liedral looks toward the yard where the Harthagay still rests on blocks out of the water. “Once she’s in the water, you’ll need guards.” She gestures toward the hillside. “People are going to be getting more and more desperate.”

  “The way things are going, if Brede can’t stop the Whites, we probably should think about moving everyone down here, and my smithy stuff. At least within the next eight-day. Do you want to talk to Tyrel about it while I get the last load? Or should I?”

  Liedral smiles. “I already have. He’d actually feel better if you did. He’s banking on you to get him out of here.”

  “I think everyone is.”

  “How many can you take?”

  “A score, maybe. I don’t know. I haven’t finished assembling the engine. I don’t know if it works. I still have to finish Brede’s damnable devices, and now I have to think about moving everything out of the house and smithy.” Dorrin climbs off the wagon and begins to lead the mismatched team through the gate and up alongside the ship.

  “You don’t like what you’ve done for Brede?”

  “Darkness, no. You know that. Forging things to kill people? Or to stop them from killing more people? What an awful choice.” He ties the horses to the post.

  “That’s life.” Liedral smiles a tight smile. “I didn’t think you cared much for the Whites.”

  “I don’t. But so far, I don’t think anything I’ve forged has killed any Whites—just soldiers, just their tools.”

  “We all make a choice of what we serve.”

  “And I thought making caltrops was bad.” He shudders, then takes a deep breath and lets down the tailgate. “It doesn’t make sense. I still can’t really handle an edged weapon, but I can forge something that’s worse.”

  “Could you make another pair of those slicers?”

  Dorrin thinks, then shudders. “It would be hard. I don’t know.”

  “There’s your answer.”

  He looks puzzled for a minute. “You mean, in a way, I have to learn what’s destructive?”

  “You have to teach your feelings through experience. Isn’t that how we all learn?”

  Dorrin frowns as he eases the curved iron that will protect the condenser from the wagon.

  Tyrel and his apprentice step into the sunlight. “Don’t work so hard, master Dorrin. We’ll use the hoist and swing this stuff up.”

  Dorrin sets down the iron and waits.

  Liedral grins at him. After a moment, he grins back.

  CXLI

  With the heavy tongs, Dorrin turns the plate and nods to Vaos. The striker brings down the hammer as they begin to fuller the iron into a sheet not much thicker than three or four sheets of parchment.

  After several reheatings in the forge, the pla
te reaches the right thickness. Then Dorrin takes the bench shears and trims it, uses the flatter to rough-smooth the edges before setting it on the bricks to anneal. They begin work on the next plate.

  “How many…of these?” pants Vaos.

  “Thirty-six,” Dorrin says.

  “What are they for?”

  “You don’t want to know.” The smith neither wants to explain, nor to dwell on the specifics of what they are forging. That he must forge something so destructive because he can find no other solutions is bad enough. Equally important, if Vaos does not know what they are forging, he cannot reveal it.

  Vaos rolls his eyes and lifts the hammer. Dorrin slips the hot iron onto the anvil and nods.

  By midday, both are soaked with sweat, even though the late spring day is cool. As he sets aside the tongs, Dorrin looks at the stack of thin iron plates. Welding and forging them into black iron boxes will be neither quick nor easy. Should he just punch and rivet the sections together? Will it make that much difference? Rivets will do. He sets the tongs in the rack. “Time for something to eat…and drink.”

  Vaos slowly racks the sledge, then rubs one shoulder blade and then the other. “We doing more after dinner?”

  “It’s fine work, no more heavy fullering until tomorrow. We still haven’t finished all the plates.”

  The two walk out into the breeze, cool despite the bright and cloudless green-blue sky.

  “Don’t forget to wash up,” Dorrin says.

  “Yes, ser.”

  “Mistress Liedral rode over to see Reisa. That’s what she said,” announces Frisa as Dorrin passes the porch.

  “Did she say what she was doing?” asks the smith.

  “No.”

  “Did she take the cart?”

  “She rode like you do. She even had a sword.”

  Dorrin pauses. Liedral has always preferred the bow. Sword? Reisa? Is Reisa doing her best to train Liedral and perhaps Petra?

  He splashes cold water from the new tap across his face. Despite his precautions, the old tap had frozen and snapped, leaving a large pool of water in the middle of the yard once the ice thawed. The new tap is no better than the old, but he did not want to spend the time to design and forge something better—not while he is trying to split his time between the smithy, where he must spend some time on paying work, such as it is, and on Brede’s infernal devices, and the shipyard, where he is trying to assemble his engine. He is already paying two men whom Pergun and Asavah recommended to help Tyrel guard the shipwright’s yard.

  “Oooffff…” Dorrin wobbles from his squatting position, almost sprawling onto the damp stones around the water tap. He turns and looks at the small white goat. The chain is just long enough to reach from the bottom post of the porch stairs to the water tap.

  The smith sighs, then scratches Gilda between the ears. “Goats…there’s always some goat around.” He stands up and dries his hands, moving aside to let Vaos use the water.

  Then he walks across the ridge to the herb garden. His boots still sink into the soft soil. Despite his resolve not to plant or tend, already the brinn is flourishing, blue-green shoots branching out, and so is the astra.

  The soft cool wind ruffles his hair, and he stoops. His fingers brush the herbs, infusing a touch more order into the weaker ones. He smiles as he straightens and heads back to his house for supper.

  And after the midday meal…after that, he must ride to Tyrel’s to finish installing the steam engine on the newly renamed Black Diamond. The engine will work, of that he is convinced, but how well it will work is another question. Are the tolerances in the twin cylinders good enough? Are the rods strong enough?

  He pushes away the questions he cannot answer until he begins to test the engine, stops by the water tap and scratches Gilda once more before he climbs the steps to the kitchen.

  Over the Northern Ocean, the clouds gather.

  CXLII

  “The traders have told their field commander, the young one from Recluce, to hold Kleth,” Jeslek announces quietly. The tent billows overhead.

  Fydel nods. Anya smiles brightly, and Cerryl smiles politely, with a deferential nod to the High Wizard.

  “Where is Sterol?” asks Anya.

  “In Fairhaven, I presume, which is fine with me. We really don’t need another set of schemers.” The High Wizard pauses. “Your refusal of terms from the Council was brilliant, Fydel, even if you didn’t mean it that way.”

  “I’m so glad you found it so.” Fydel smiles.

  “It forced them to decide on an early defense, in order to plan their escape if it failed. Traders would always rather run than fight. This Brede of theirs is better than they deserve, young as he is, and they’ll squander his talent—and him. It’s a pity.”

  “You intend to spare him?” asks Anya, her tone almost idle.

  “Demon-light, no. After what he’s done to the levies…politically, that’s not wise.”

  “What about your elusive smith? Hasn’t he cost you even more than their commander?” Anya adds, “Drawing wire…much good it will do…”

  “It cost us less than four score levies to get through his river traps, and we control the river all the way to Kleth. Brede is more dangerous.”

  “He’s only a soldier, no matter how good,” reflects Cerryl. “Your smith may have more tricks planned.”

  “Perhaps…but they will not save Spidlar.” Jeslek smiles again.

  CXLIII

  Dorrin steps across the plank to the Black Diamond. On the hillside above the shipwright’s, a half-dozen makeshift tents now flutter in the breeze. The smith surveys them before turning aft and descending the ladder to the engine. On each side of the compartment are coal bins, each with a chute that opens by the firebox door.

  Tyrel stands by the engine. “Will it work?”

  “I hope it works well enough.” Dorrin bends and runs his fingers across the beams that support the engine platform. Then he opens the small hatch that provides access to the shaft. The water level in the bilges has not increased. The greased seals are holding, but will they hold when the shaft is rotating? He hopes so, but there are so many things he has not tested on other than models.

  He closes the hatch and returns to the engine. There he lights the shavings, then slowly adds a shovel of the finer coal. After pacing until the fire catches, he adds another shovel of coal. He lets his senses check the heat in the water-filled cylinders through the top of the cylindrical firebox, trying to sense whether the tubes remain watertight. So far, so good.

  “What now?” asks Tyrel.

  “More coal, and more steam.”

  Dorrin waits for a time, then adds more coal. After that he steps back to the big clutch, making sure that the screw shaft is not engaged.

  Fwwuuuphhh…fwuppp…The engine begins to turn over.

  Dorrin studies the black iron rods as they work, then checks the steam spill valve, opening it to watch the white vapor stream into the sky. Next comes the condenser. Already, it seems too hot. How hot is too hot? Then he checks the piping and twists a valve. How many other problems will he find? The condenser cools immediately, and he moves along to the side of the forward cylinder, listening closely for hisses or gurgles or anything unusual.

  Fwwwuuuppphhh…fwupp…fwuppp…The engine and the flywheel pick up more speed, settling into a smooth rhythm.

  Tyrel looks at the swiftly stroking rods, the planetary gear, and the flywheel. He is white. “Darkness…”

  “You’re right,” Dorrin says calmly. “It’s based on order.” He opens the firebox door to shovel in more coal. Checking the condenser, he finds a trickle of water oozing from the bottom. More leakage.

  “You’re grinning, young fellow!” bellows Tyrel above the engine noise.

  Dorrin is grinning, despite the leaking condenser. He climbs up to the deck and studies the harbor. Another smuggler is tied up at the far pier—a black-hulled bark. Two armed guards stand at the base of the gangway, and several wagons are lined up
on the pier.

  After checking the hawsers, Dorrin climbs back down to the engine room, where he shovels more coal into the firebox. Then he closes the iron door and steps to the side, where he eases the clutch into position.

  Clunk…

  He winces at the force on the gears, black iron or not, as the shaft begins to rotate. A rough humming rises, vibrating the deck underfoot.

  Dorrin opens the hatch behind the engine to check the shaft. Grease oozes from both the support collar and the hull seals. The vibration increases as the engine builds up power, then seems to level off. Dorrin sends his perceptions along the shaft, trying to sense any roughness. Although he is uncertain, he feels the shaft collar needs to be raised. He darts back to the deck and scurries aft to check the screw, and the water boiling up past the rudder. The lines tighten, and the Black Diamond strains at the hawsers that hold her to the flimsy pier.

  Creaakkkkk…creeakkkk…

  “Master Dorrin! She’ll pull loose the wharf! Do something!”

  Dorrin hurries back to the engine, forcing himself to go down the ladder deliberately. The heat in the engine space is nearly overpowering, and his clothes are drenched. When he reaches the clutch lever, he pulls on it. The lever does not move, even as the power to the screw continues. Dorrin again jockeys the clutch to release the gears, but the mechanism seems frozen.

  “Master Dorrin! Do something!”

  Dorrin walks to the side of the engine, yanking the steam release wide open.

  WHHHHHEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeee…The scream of escaping steam roaring up the tube into the atmosphere is deafening, and Dorrin wants to plug his ears. Instead, he twists another valve to reduce the water flow to the firebox. Immediately, he can sense the temperature of the tubes rising, and he reopens the water flow valve.

  Clearly, he needs some sort of emergency bypass—or a better clutch—or both. He tries to move the clutch again, but it remains locked.

  Still, the loss of the screaming steam reduces the power and the engine and screw slow. But it is a long time—nearly twilight—before the screw comes to an absolute stop, even though the immediate loss of power is enough to keep from threatening the wharf.