The Magic of Recluce

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “No. It has nothing to do with youth.” Aunt Elisabet sighed. “Last year, the masters exiled five crafters twice your age, and close to a dozen people in their third and fourth decade undertook the dangergeld.”

  “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  I could tell she was. Uncle Sardit, for all his statements about doing the talking, hadn’t said a word in explanation. I was getting a very strange feeling about Aunt Elisabet, that she was a great deal more than a holder.

  “So where do I go?”

  “You’re sure?” asked Uncle Sardit, his mouth full.

  “What choice is there? I either get plunked down on a boat to somewhere as an exile, knowing nothing, or I try to learn as much as I can before doing something that at least gives me some chance of making a decision.”

  “I think that’s the right choice for you,” said Aunt Elisabet, “but it’s not quite that simple.”

  After finishing my bread and cheese in the strained atmosphere of the house, I went back to my quarters over the shop and began to pack. Uncle Sardit said he would keep the chair and the few other pieces until I returned.

  He didn’t mention the fact that few dangergelders returned. Neither did I.

  III

  LIKE A LOT of things in Recluce, my transition from apprentice to student dangergelder just happened. Or that’s the way it seemed.

  For the next few days after my rather ponderous and serious conversation with Aunt Elisabet and Uncle Sardit, I continued to help out around the carpentry shop. Uncle Sardit now asked me to rough-shape cornices, or rough-cut panels, rather than telling me to. And Koldar just shook his head, as if I were truly crazy.

  He shook it so convincingly that I began to wonder myself.

  Then I’d hear Uncle Sardit muttering about the inexact fit of two mitered corners, or the failure of two grains to match perfectly. Or I’d watch him redo a small decoration that no one would see on the underside of a table because of a minute imperfection.

  Those brought back the real reason why I couldn’t stay as his apprentice-the boring requirement for absolute perfection. I had better things to do with my life than worry about whether the grain patterns on two sides of a table or panel matched perfectly. Or whether a corner miter was a precise forty-five degrees.

  Perhaps it suited Koldar, and perhaps it kept the incursions of chaos at bay, but it was boring.

  Woodworking might have been better than pottery, but when you came right down to it, both were pretty dull.

  So I didn’t mind at all when, several days later, Aunt Elisabet announced that I had better get my things together.

  “For what?”

  “Your training as a dangergelder, of course. Do you think that the masters just hand you a staff, a map, and some provisions, and hustle you aboard a ship to nowhere?”

  That thought had crossed my mind, but I quickly dismissed it in the face of my aunt’s insistence.

  “What about saying good-bye to my family?”

  “Of course, of course. We’re not exactly barbarians, Lerris. They’ve been expecting you for some time, but you’re not an apprentice any longer. So what you do is strictly up to you. The masters at Nylan are expecting you, and several others, the day after tomorrow.”

  “That’s a good distance…” I hinted, hoping that Aunt Elisabet would indicate that the masters would provide a carriage, or a wagon. While I had a few silver pence, I certainly had no desire to spend them on riding the High Road. Nylan was a full day’s walk, and then some.

  “That it is, Lerris. But did you expect the masters to come to you?”

  I hadn’t thought about that one way or another.

  Aunt Elisabet cocked her head, smiling, as if to indicate that the sunny morning was passing quickly. It was, and, if I had to be in Nylan by the following evening…

  Another thought crossed my mind. “When on the day after tomorrow?”

  “No later than noon, although I suppose no one would mind if you were a trifle later than that.” Her smile was kindly, as it usually was, and the sun behind her still-sandy hair gave her the look of… well, I wasn’t sure, but Aunt Elisabet seemed to be more than I had thought. Why, I couldn’t say, just as I couldn’t explain why woodworking seemed so incredibly boring.

  I swallowed. “I’d better get going. That’s an early rising tomorrow, and time to make on the road.”

  She nodded. “I have some flake rolls for your parents, if you’re going that way. And you’ll find a set of boots, with the right trousers and cloak, laid out on your bed.”

  I swallowed again. I hadn’t thought about the boots, although my heavy apprentice clothes would have been adequate for most hard travel.

  “Thank you…” I looked down. “Need to say good-bye to Uncle Sardit.”

  “He’s in the shop.”

  After going back to my room, I found my clothes had been wrapped in one bundle, and that someone had laid out not only boots and clothes, but a walking staff of the heaviest, smoothest, and blackest lorken. The staff was almost unadorned, not at all flashy, but it was obviously Uncle Sardit’s work, probably months in preparation as he had cut, seasoned, and shaped the wood, and soaked it in ironbath. The ends were bound in black steel, with the bands recessed so precisely they were scarcely visible against the darkness of the wood.

  I held it and it seemed to fit my hand. It was exactly my own height.

  Finally I shrugged, and looked around for the old canvas bag in which I had brought my old clothes. Not that there were many left after nearly two years of growing and discovering muscles in the process of woodworking. Don’t let anyone tell you that precision woodwork isn’t as hard as heavy carpentry. It isn’t. It’s harder, and since you can’t make mistakes, not for someone like Uncle Sardit, it requires more thinking.

  The last thing laid out was a pack. Not flashy, not even tooled leather, but made out of the tightest-woven and heaviest cloth I’d ever seen. Dull brown, but dipped in something that had to be waterproof. I wondered if Aunt Elisabet and Uncle Sardit felt guilty for deciding that I didn’t fit in. Certainly the staff and the pack alone were magnificent gifts, and the clothes, although a dark brown, were of equal quality and durability.

  That wasn’t all. Inside the pack was a small purse. Attached was a note.

  “Here are your apprentice wages. Try not to spend them until you leave Recluce.” I counted twenty copper pennies, twenty silver pence, and ten gold pence. Again, a near-incredible amount. But I wasn’t about to turn it down, not when I couldn’t tell what might lie ahead.

  I picked up the staff again, running my fingers over the grain, examining it once more, trying to see how the ends were mated so closely to the wood that the caps were scarcely obvious.

  At least they, or my parents, whoever had supplied me, wanted to send me off as well-prepared as they could. I remembered from Magister Kerwin’s dry lectures that dangergelders were only allowed whatever coins they could carry comfortably, two sets of clothes, boots, a staff, a pack, and a few days’ provisions.

  If you decided to return, of course, after your year or more away, and the masters approved, you could bring back an entire ship, provided it wasn’t stolen or unfairly acquired. But then, the masters weren’t too likely to let you return if you’d turned to thievery.

  I shook my head, put down the staff, and examined the pack, realizing my time was short. Inside were another set of clothes and a pair of light shoes, almost court slippers.

  Stripping to the waist, I headed down to the wash trough to clean up before putting on the new clothes. Uncle Sardit was humming as he buffed the desk he was finishing, but did not look up. Koldar was down at the sawmill, trying to find enough matched red oak to repair the fire-damaged tables at Polank’s Inn.

  I’d overheard my aunt and uncle discussing the fire, acting as if it had been totally expected, ever since young Nir Polank had taken over from his ailing father.

  “Some have to learn the hard way
.”

  “Some don’t…” my aunt had answered, but she hadn’t said anything more once I had entered the house for dinner.

  On the washstones was a fresh towel, which, after the chill of the water, I gratefully used. At least I hadn’t needed to take a shower. Standing under even partly-warmed water in the outside stone stall wasn’t exactly warm. Cleaning that stall was even less enjoyable, but Aunt Elisabet, like my father, insisted on absolute cleanliness. We didn’t eat unless we were washed up, and more than once as a child I’d gone without dinner for refusing to wash.

  They both took a shower every day, even in winter. So did my mother and Uncle Sardit, although my uncle occasionally skipped the shower on the days that Aunt Elisabet was out visiting friends.

  I folded the towel, and put it back on the rack.

  “Getting ready to go?”

  Uncle Sardit stood in the shop door, finishing cloth in his left hand.

  “Yes, sir.” I swallowed. “Appreciate everything… sorry I just don’t seem to have the concentration to be a master woodworker…”

  “Lerris… you stayed longer than most… and you could be a journeyman for some. But it wouldn’t be right… would it?”

  Since he was standing three steps above me, I looked up. He didn’t seem happy about my leaving.

  “No… probably get more bored with each day. And I don’t know why.”

  “Because you’re like your dad… or your aunt. In the blood…”

  “But… they seem so happy here…”

  “Now…”

  I couldn’t seem to find anything to say.

  “Be on your way, boy. Just remember, you can always come back, once you discover who you are.” He turned back into the shop and returned to buffing the already shining wood of the desk, without humming.

  All of a sudden, there seemed to be so many things unsaid, so many things that had been hidden. But no one was saying anything.

  It seemed so unfair. As if I couldn’t possibly understand anything until I’d gone off and risked my life in the Dark Marches of Candar or the Empire of Hamor. Then everything would be fine… just fine.

  And my parents-they never came by to see me. Only if I ; went to see them, or on High Holidays, or if they came to visit my aunt and uncle.

  Up in the apprentice quarters, no longer mine really, I pulled on the clothes, ignoring their comfort and fit, and the boots. Then I picked up the cloak and folded it into the pack, and strapped the old clothes to the outside. Those I could leave at home, if it were truly home. Besides the new clothes and the pack, the staff was the only thing that felt right.

  As I looked around the quarters, I wondered about my armchair… and my tools. What about my tools? Uncle Sardit had said something about taking care of them, but hadn’t said how.

  I found Uncle Sardit in the shop. He was looking at a chest, one I hadn’t seen before.

  “I thought I’d store your tools in this, Lerris, until… whatever…”

  “That would be fine, Uncle Sardit… and could you find some place for the armchair?”

  “I was going to keep it here, but I could take it back to your parents.”

  For some reason, I’d never considered the chair as belonging where I’d grown up.

  “Whatever you think best.” One way or another, I wouldn’t be needing it for a while.

  “We’ll take good care of it… just take care of yourself so you can come back for it.”

  We stood there for a moment, with everything and nothing to say.

  Finally, I coughed. “I’m not a woodworker, Uncle, but I learned a lot.”

  “Hope so, boy. Hope it helps you.”

  I left him standing there, turning to rack my tools in the chest he had made for them.

  Aunt Elisabet was waiting at the kitchen doorway with a wrapped package. Two of them.

  “The bigger one has the flake rolls. The other one has some travel food for you.”

  I took off the pack and put the travel food inside, but just strapped the rolls to the top. They weren’t heavy, and while it was cloudy, the clouds were the high hazy kind that kept the temperature down but almost never led to rain. That early in the summer the farmers would have liked more moisture, but I was just as glad I wouldn’t have to trudge to Nylan through a downpour. I had a feeling I’d be traveling in enough wet weather.

  “And here are some for you.”

  On a plate she had produced from nowhere were two enormous rolls, one filled with chicken and the other with berries that dripped from one end.

  “If you want to get home by dinner, you’ll need to start now.”

  “Dinner?”

  “I’m sure your father will have something special.”

  I did not answer, nor ask how she would know that my father would have a special dinner, because, first, she would know, and, second, I was wolfing down the chicken-filled flake roll. In all the hurry to get ready for Nylan, I hadn’t realized how hungry I was. When you chose dangergeld, you obeyed the rules of the masters, including their schedule.

  After washing down the last of the first roll with a tumbler of ice-cold water, I took the second.

  “You have enough time not to eat them whole, Lerris.”

  I slowed down and finished the dessert roll in four distinct bites. Then I took another deep swallow from the tumbler.

  “Do you have your staff? Your uncle wanted you to have the best…”

  I lifted the staff. “Seems to belong to me already.”

  My aunt only smiled. “You should find it helpful, especially if you listen to the masters and follow your feelings… your true feelings.”

  “Well… time for me to go…”

  “Take care, Lerris.”

  She didn’t give me any special advice, and since I wasn’t exactly in the mood for it, that was probably for the best.

  As I walked down the lane with its precisely placed and leveled gray paving-stones, I felt both my aunt and uncle were watching every step, but when I turned around to look I could see nothing, no one in the windows or at the doors. I didn’t look around the rest of Mattra, not at the inn where Koldar was laying out the timbers from the sawmill, not at the market square where I had sold my breadboards-one had actually fetched four copper pennies.

  And the road-the perfect stone-paved highway-was still as hard on my booted feet as it had been on my sandaled feet when I had first walked to Mattra.

  I made it home, if Wandernaught could still be called home, well before dinner. But Aunt Elisabet had been right. I could smell the roast duck even before my feet touched the stone lane that was nearly identical to the lane that led from the street to Uncle Sardit’s. Mattra and Wandernaught were not all that different. Some of the crafts were different, and Wandernaught had two inns and the Institute where my father occasionally discussed his philosophies with other holders or- very occasionally-masters from elsewhere in Recluce. But nothing very interesting ever happened in Wandernaught. At least, not that I remembered.

  My parents were seated on the wide and open porch on the east side of the house, always cool in the summer afternoons. The stones of the steps were as gently rounded as I recalled, without either the crisp edges of new-cut granite nor the depressions of ancient buildings like the temple.

  “Thought you’d be here about now, Lerris.” My father’s voice carried, although it had no great or booming tone.

  “It’s good to see you.” My mother smiled, and this time she meant it.

  “Good to be here, if only for a night.” I was surprised to find I meant what I was saying.

  “Let me take the pack and the staff-Sardit’s work, it looks like-and have a seat. You still like the redberry?”

  I nodded as I slipped out of the pack straps. My father laid the pack carefully next to the low table.

  “Oh, I forgot. The top package is for you-Aunt Elisabet’s flake rolls, I think.”

  They both laughed.

  “Good thing we don’t live closer, not the way s
he bakes…”

  My mother just shook her head, still smiling.

  For some reason, they both looked older. My father’s hair was no thinner, and it still looked sandy-blond, but I could see the lines running from the corners of his eyes. His face was still smooth, with a slight cut on his chin from shaving. Unlike most of the men in Recluce, he had neither beard nor mustache. I could sympathize. Although I could have worn a beard, I followed his example, not blindly, but because whenever I worked hard I sweated buckets, and I found even a short and scraggly beard more of a bother than shaving-cuts and all.

  He was wearing a short-sleeved open-necked shirt, and the muscles in his arms looked as strong as ever. The woodpile behind the house was probably three times the size it needed to be. Dad always claimed that handling an axe was not only necessary, but good exercise.

  My mother’s angular face seemed even more angular, and her hair was too short. But she had always worn it too short, and I doubted that she would ever change that. Short was convenient and took less time. She also wore a short-sleeved faded blue blouse and winter-blue trousers, both more feminine, but essentially mirroring what my father wore-not because she cared, but because she didn’t. Clothes were a convenience. That’s why Dad did all the tailoring-except for holiday clothes-for Mother and me.

  He was funny about that. He refused to let anyone see him work. He’d take measurements, fit partially-sewn garments, and adjust until they fit perfectly, but not with anyone around When I was little, I thought he must have had someone com< in. But as time went by, I realized that he understood clothes understood too much not to have done the work. Besides it’s pretty difficult not to believe, when your father disappears into his workrooms with cut leathers and fabrics and returns with the products-especially when there’s only one door and when you’re an exceedingly curious boy trying to find a nonexistent secret passage. There wasn’t one, of course.

  While I was remembering, my mother had poured a large tumbler full of redberry, and Dad, after setting the pack down and recovering the flake rolls, had disappeared. To the kitchen, presumably.

  “It’s too bad you have to be in Nylan tomorrow,” offered my mother, as I eased into one of the strap chairs across from her. My feet hurt, as I knew they would with the new boots, but I’d wanted feet and boots worked together as soon as possible.