The Magic Engineer

by Jr. L. E. Modesitt

  Merga is in the small kitchen, and two large pots on the small square stove—Yarrl’s doing—contain boiling water. On the cutting table is a jar of astra.

  Dorrin stops and pours astra into a bowl. “Merga, would you crush this as fine as you can? Use a clean spoon or something.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  Dorrin follows Liedral to the bedroom.

  “Oh…oooohhh…” Kadara’s moans are low, almost wrenching.

  Rylla looks up. “Be back in just an instant, love.” She motions to Liedral, who slips onto the stool beside the laboring mother.

  “I’ll stay with you,” Liedral promises.

  Rylla shuts the bedroom door, and edges down the hall. “I can tell…the baby’s too big, and the cord’s not right.”

  “You want me to see what I can do?”

  “O’ course I’d be sending for you just to watch, wouldn’t I?”

  “You’re as crabby as ever.” Dorrin’s quick smile fades as he opens the door and edges next to the bed.

  “…that you, Brede?”

  “It’s Dorrin. I just want to help.” His fingers rest ever so lightly on her tightening abdomen, and he waits for the contraction to pass.

  “Dorrin…it hurts…hurts more than Kleth…Darkness…it hurts…”

  Rylla is right. He wipes his forehead on the back of his sleeve, wishing he had more experience, or that his mother were near. Wishing will not help, and he concentrates, first on the child, and the cord that sustains him, infusing more strength, more order there, and on somehow loosening, making the birth canal that fraction wider.

  Rylla nods, as if she approves. Liedral has retreated to the doorway, and Dorrin wipes the sweat off his forehead by rubbing it against his shoulder, still concentrating on sustaining the child as Kadara’s contractions push him closer and closer to the world.

  “…have to push…push…” groans Kadara, red hair so damp with sweat that it is plastered against her skull like a battle helm.

  “You can do it,” insists Rylla. “Another push…now…”

  “…hurts…have to…ooohhh…”

  Dorrin shifts his position, moving toward Kadara’s shoulders, his fingers still lightly upon her bare abdominal skin, somehow feeling like an intruder, even as he fights for the mother and child.

  “Brede!…Oh…darkness…hurts…”

  “Push again…now…dearie. Now!” Rylla insists.

  Kadara grunts. Dorrin concentrates, and, in the doorway, Liedral bites her lip.

  “There…he’s coming…another push…”

  Dorrin tries not to swallow at the mess and the darkish blood that arrive with the infant, instead working to stem the bits of chaos that try to gravitate toward Kadara.

  The boy seems strong and healthy, even as Rylla untangles him from the cord. She shakes her head minutely, looks at the boy, and then at Dorrin. “Aye…he’s a healthy one, Kadara. A healthy one. Now…push…push again…”

  Kadara grunts, and Dorrin waits until she has expelled the afterbirth.

  “Rylla, be very liberal with the astra and the boiled water in cleaning her up. I had Merga crush it, and it should be boiled into the water.”

  “Bitter stuff…but good against wound chaos.”

  “She probably ought to be washed with it every day until she heals.”

  The old healer nods.

  Dorrin eases away from Kadara, his fingers touching her forehead before he goes. “You need to rest…”

  “You were here…for Brede…this time.” Kadara’s eyes droop, but from tiredness. She struggles to keep them open, looking at the reddish-pink child at her breast. “…harder than Kleth…He’s beautiful…”

  Liedral smiles from the doorway, waiting.

  As Kadara slips toward sleep, Dorrin touches her arm again, trying to infuse her exhausted form with a touch more strength, a touch more order.

  Rylla looks at him. “She’ll be fine now. You need to be seeing to your ship.”

  The Black Hammer—Dorrin nods and steps away.

  “Darkness…with…you…” whispers Kadara.

  Dorrin looks back from the doorway, but Kadara is asleep. He walks slowly to the front porch, Liedral beside him, and they step into the cold bright day. Below, the Black Hammer waits, a thin line of steam rising from the funnel into the clear winter sky.

  Liedral turns and takes his hands. “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For waiting, for putting life above destruction, for just being you.” She puts her arms around him and brings their lips together. “And for last night.” Her eyes are still red.

  “You’re worried.”

  She nods. “Kadara was right. We don’t have forever. Lers—”

  “Lers?”

  “Lers, that’s what Brede asked her to call his son. Lers is all she has of him, and she loved him.”

  “You’re afraid that will happen?”

  “Dorrin…how many times can you go out against the Whites? And if you do come back, will you be able to see? Or think? I remember what you looked like after Kleth. Kadara doesn’t, but you were in worse shape that she was in a lot of ways.”

  “It wasn’t that bad.”

  “Dorrin, I love you, and I want you back. But what we want doesn’t often count. Sometimes…when you’re fighting your own demons, it’s hard to realize…” She breaks off and clings to him. “I want something of you…”

  He clings to her, and their tears mingle.

  The low steam whistle from the Black Hammer echoes uphill, and Basla whinnies.

  “You need to go.”

  The whistle sounds again, and Dorrin looks westward, into the Gulf, out toward the white triangles on the water that mark the White fleet.

  Their lips touch, and part, before Dorrin runs from the porch, untying the reins and swinging into the black’s saddle. He blots his cheeks with his sleeve as he rides downhill toward the waiting black ship, the fingers of his right hand straying to the staff, even as the twinges of the headache warn him.

  CLXXXI

  Dorrin passes a half-dozen houses in various stages of construction on the flat at the base of the hill, all of the black stone that results from ordering the softer and more brittle blue stone that underlies the dark clay. Half of the houses have dark slate roofs. He returns the wave of a stoneworker as he guides Basla onto the end of the High Road that leads to the pier. The air smells fresh, still crisp, in the bright and cool sunlight, except for the faint odor of burning coal.

  To the east, he sees several sails, impossibly white against the waters of the Gulf. Then he is at the pier, where he hands the reins to one of Tyrel’s assistants he has never properly met. “Please tie her in the shed.”

  He glances back uphill and waves, hoping Liedral is there, watching, before he turns. “How many ships are there?” he asks as he hurries up the gangway, his staff in one hand.

  “Lift it!” snaps Kyl, and the line-handlers pull the railed plank away from the ship, and then hurry to the singled-up lines that hold the black warship to the pier. “More than a score, according to Selvar.” Kyl frowns. “He says that it’s hard to tell because about half the ships have white wizards on board, and they’re using wizardry to hide themselves. If you just look with your eyes, it seems like a handful, maybe seven or eight, but they can’t hide their wakes.”

  Dorrin hurries toward the engine compartment, where Tyrel is shoveling coal into the firebox. Beside him is Styl, watching closely.

  “If you would—” begins the captain.

  “Go.” Dorrin studies the crude pointer indicator. “We’ve got enough steam to head out.”

  Kyl waits for Tyrel to climb up the ladder before descending. Dorrin shovels another heap of coal into the box, then motions to Styl. “Once this gets to here”—he points to the indicator—“just keep the fire where it is.”

  “Yes, ser. Master Tyrel and master Yarrl had me practice on the last run.”

  Dorrin shakes his head. Styl had been r
ight there, and here he is repeating his own instructions.

  Kyl steps onto the engine deck. “What are you going to do?”

  “We’re going to persuade them to go home and leave Recluce alone.”

  Kyi looks from Dorrin to Styl and back to the engineer. “You are serious, aren’t you?”

  “Yes. I’m no Creslin. And besides, it wouldn’t do any good.”

  Kyl and Styl exchange glances, then look at Dorrin.

  “What wouldn’t?”

  “Destroying their whole fleet. Anyway, we don’t have enough rockets for that.” Dorrin begins turning the valves to feed the steam to the cylinders, and the sound and heat rise in the engine compartment. He continues to listen, and to adjust the flows until he feels the engine is running smoothly. Then he eases the clutch, and the shaft begins to turn, with the vibration of the water churning behind the ship rising.

  Dorrin checks the firebox and throws two quick shovels inside, then closes it and hands the shovel to Styl. “Keep shoveling until the steam pressure’s up. You know what to do.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  Dorrin climbs the ladder and makes his way to the pilot house, with Kyl close behind. By the time he reaches the helm, Tyrel already has the Black Hammer into the channel and outbound.

  For a time, Dorrin watches as the Hammer glides through the protected waters of Reisa’s extended breakwaters. The pitching begins as the ship hits the rougher waters of the Gulf.

  “Where to?” asks Tyrel.

  “Take us straight toward the flagship.”

  “Which one?”

  “Sorry. See the shimmer behind the schooner with the blue banner? Head there.”

  Tyrel turns the wheel. “Still can’t believe this. No worry about the wind. You just go where you want.”

  Like heavy butterflies in the wind, the White ships move with the wind, while the Hammer—a solid quarrel of order—plunges outward.

  The schooner downwind of the flagship veers to port as the wizard on board senses the blackness of the Hammer.

  Dorrin realizes he is holding his breath and releases it, as the Hammer eases alongside the big schooner bearing the name White Serpent.

  “Ease back. Match her speed.” Dorrin wipes his forehead, once, then again.

  The Serpent begins to tack, and Dorrin nods, grinning. Tyrel grins in return as the Hammer follows the Serpent into the waves. Dorrin grasps the pilot house’s inside rail. He motions to Kyl. “Light off one rocket. Aim at the bowsprit.”

  “Firing first rocket.” Kyl drops through the hatch and down to the deckhouse where the rocket tubes are located.

  The black iron missile streaks toward the Serpent. The flare and the explosion are almost simultaneous, and are followed by the pattering of debris on the forward shield.

  The Serpent’s bow swings port, and the big schooner wallows as the forward jib and the forward section of the bowsprit sag into the Gulf waters.

  “Circle around to the other side.” Dorrin wipes his forehead. The longer before his weapons injure or kill someone, the better.

  Whhhsttttt…

  A fireball streams past the black iron of the pilot house. Then a second one, and a third. Tyrel winces as the third sprays across the metal.

  By now the Serpent lies nearly dead in the water, main sail half lowered, and fluttering in the light breeze, as several men hack at the wrecked bowsprit and sail that drag into each swell.

  “Kyl, can you destroy the rudder with another rocket?”

  “We can try.” Kyl turns. “Fire another one. Right aft and below that poop porthole there.”

  Three black iron missiles later, the rudder hangs uselessly, and the Serpent begins to list ever so slightly to starboard.

  Occasional fireballs flash past the Hammer, from both the Serpent and the surrounding ships, as the small ironclad continues to circle the larger schooner.

  A seaman pants up into the pilot house. “Styl says that the shaft’s running hot, Master Dorrin.”

  Tyrel looks from the helm to Dorrin. “Told you we’d have trouble with those bearings.”

  The bearings work better than grease seals, but they do not work well enough. Dorrin can only hope the shaft will last for a while. “How hot?”

  “Need to shut down and grease her ’fore long, Styl says.”

  Dorrin looks at Reisa. “Send up the boarding crew. Tyrel, bring her around to the starboard side of the Serpent.”

  “They’ll fry you, Dorrin!” protests Kyl, standing halfway up the ladder into the pilot house.

  “That’s what the shields are for.” That’s also what he is for, he thinks. “If we can’t hold the deck, start firing rockets.”

  “The angle’s lousy. We can only hit a couple of places.”

  “Fine. Put several large holes in the hull, right at the water line.”

  Dorrin grabs the staff, and nods to Reisa, who stands below in the space below the ladder to the main deck. The ten men and women in black, with the black blades and matching shields, wait behind the hatch door.

  “We’re right opposite her gangway point.”

  “Go ahead and grapple.”

  The hooks go out, cast from beneath the turtleshells on the Hammer’s deck. Dorrin watches as the forward grapple bounces off twice. The third cast is successful, and the Serpent and the Hammer are locked together with the rope/chains that cannot be burned.

  “You take care of the shaft, Tyrel, and we’ll take care of the wizard. Bowmen!”

  The iron shutters on the side of the pilot house roll open half a cubit in three places. Behind each opening stands an archer, each with a quiver of black iron and lorkin arrows.

  The shafts immediately clear the deck area opposite the Hammer.

  “Boarders away!”

  Quenta swarms up and onto the Serpent’s deck, swinging his shield forward as he bounces over the railing. The first fireball sprays around him, followed by several arrows.

  “Archers! The poop deck!”

  The black arrows fly aft, and the white arrows cease.

  Reisa, Petra, and two others reach the deck, and Dorrin scrambles up. Even before he is steady on the white oak planks, Quenta and another black trooper lock shields before him.

  Dorrin probes, his senses out, for the feeling of concentrated chaos, his staff automatically pointing toward the higher poop deck.

  “Get the Black bastards!” Nearly a score of White armed men charge from the forecastle toward the handful of Blacks.

  The black arrows drop five before the defenders reach Dorrin’s party.

  Dorrin’s staff drops another, and the black blades begin their work.

  “Aeeeiii…” One White guard’s arm flames from the bite of Reisa’s blade.

  Two firebolts flash toward the Black forces, but Dorrin turns his staff and thoughts, and they flare harmlessly onto the deck as the infighting intensifies.

  Quenta slashes and drops one White guard, but loses his blade as the white sword of a third man slices his biceps. He swings the shield on his left arm to block the next slash.

  Petra’s blade drops that White guard, and Dorrin steps farther left, using the staff to disarm and drop another guard. He ignores the twinges beyond his eyes.

  A screaming black arrow knocks down yet another attacker.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Dorrin can sense a black figure—and another—go down before the Whites are felled or thrown down their blades, the second falling as fire blazes past his ear. He lifts his staff and deflects another fireball, and a third, searching for the White Wizard. Dorrin finds the man in white standing to the left edge of the poop deck, shielded by the overhang from the archers on board the Hammer.

  The three remaining White crewmen hold their hands up. One White archer lies propped against the port railing of the Serpent, his body almost level with Dorrin’s eyes because of the schooner’s list.

  Dorrin steps toward the wizard.

  Another fireball flies toward the engineer, but he lifts the st
aff and the heat flares away from him as he takes another step aft.

  “Stop, you Black worm. I’ll destroy the entire ship.”

  Dorrin takes another step and stops. “Why?” He casts his senses out, circling the white flame that is the chaos wizard, a man with a square beard.

  “Why not? You’re out to destroy me.”

  “You’re not exactly here on a mission of peacefulness,” Dorrin points out, strengthening the wall of order around the wizard.

  “What are you—” Before the wizard finishes his sentence, another fireball flares toward Dorrin, who lifts the black staff and lets it absorb the energy.

  A second fireball flashes, and a third. The third is far weaker, and dies even before it can reach the staff

  Dorrin walks steadily across the planks toward the bearded figure in the white cloak.

  A bit of flame erupts from the wizard’s fingers, then dies.

  Dorrin extends the staff, almost gently, cracking the wizard, now aged and creaking, across the wrists, and then the neck. A dead body pitches headfirst onto the deck.

  Dorrin turns.

  The White crewmen all kneel, as if in reverence, pleading. Dorrin ignores them, instead dropping to the prone figure on the deck and rolling her gently over. His fingers feel clumsy as he fumbles out the dressings and the powdered astra from the pouch at his belt, as he simultaneously tries to hold order within Petra’s wiry body.

  The thrust is deep, but her heart and lungs are safe, and he can use order to bind the slash together, thank darkness, once he spreads the powdered astra into the wound, although the pool of blood on the white deck tells the real danger. Dorrin’s eyes burn as he works, Reisa standing over him like a one-armed avenging angel.

  Finally, he straightens up, and nods to Reisa. “We’ll need something stiff to carry her on.”

  “How…will she…” Reisa’s voice is like frozen iron, blocking all feeling.

  “She’s lost a lot of blood, but I think I stopped it in time.”

  Styl vaults over the side of the white ship, carrying a canvas stretcher one-handed as if it were a toy, and Dorrin looks at the young man, at the rage and the tears, and then at Reisa, realizing that, once again, he has been so tied up in his own world that he has not seen the loves and pain of others.