The Magic of Recluce

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

I couldn’t read the book from front to back. That I had given up early. So I read the back sections first, the ones on the mechanics of order, and I tried some of them out, like aligning metals to strengthen them or change their characteristics. Those were easy, at least on nails or scraps, after a little practice.

  And, using a pot of water and a candle as a burner, I could figure out how the weather modifications worked… sort of. What scared me there were all the qualifications and warnings about large storms changing harvests later in the year and creating droughts elsewhere. But the pot of water and the burner weren’t going to change anything except make the air in the shop a little damper, and that didn’t hurt the wood at all.

  So I sat there, back against the wall, feet up on my pallet, trying to make sense of what I had learned… or thought I had learned… and realizing that some things were not possible-even for the order-master I wasn’t.

  A glimmer of yellow from the shadows caught my eye.

  … whhsttt… A whisper of slipped feet followed.

  Deirdre stood back from the curtains to my alcove. How long she had been there, I didn’t know, but her dark eyes flickered from me to the book and back.

  In my shorts and nothing else, I felt undressed.

  “You can come in, Deirdre.”

  She did, but not far, only just inside the curtain that served as the doorway to my alcove. She wore an old maroon woolen robe over a worn white shift, and her shoulder-length hair was tied back.

  “Lerris?”

  “Yes?” I turned and swung my feet off the bed, setting them on the floor and sitting sideways on the pallet bed.

  “Were you once a priest?” Her voice was soft, as it always was. Not timid, just soft.

  I did not answer her, and she said nothing, finally sitting on the end of the pallet, the faintest scent of roses reaching me.

  “You couldn’t sleep.”

  She shook her head. “I worry about Papa.”

  “So do I.”

  “I know…” She edged herself toward me. “He sees it, too. He won’t say anything.” She reached out a slender hand and laid it on my forearm. Her fingers were firm and cool against my skin, and I swallowed, fighting against wanting to hold her.

  “Lerris…” She eased even closer.

  I tried not to shiver. It had been too long since I had held a girl, far too long.

  “Please… stay… whatever you want…” Even though she had moved almost beside me, deep within she was shivering, and not with desire; yet at the same time she was calmly purposeful.

  Taking a deep breath, I removed her hand. “Deirdre… I will do what I can for your father.” I took another breath. “I want to hold you-really hold you-and more, but that would not be fair to you or to your father.” Then I smiled crookedly. “And if you stay that close to me for long, it will be very hard for me to behave myself.” I wasn’t kidding. She smelled warm and wonderful, and she brought home how lonely it had been. But she didn’t want me. She wanted me to save her father.

  She edged back, just enough to let me know she was grateful, but not enough to make me think she found me that unattractive-or something like that. I wasn’t sure.

  “Thank you.” That was all she said, but she meant it, and that was enough. She sat there for a time. Finally, she asked, “Where are you from?”

  “A place far away, so far that I may never be able to return.”

  She looked at me, and I looked back, and she opened her mouth and then closed it before asking another question. “Why are you here?”

  “You’d have to say that it’s a pilgrimage of sorts, a time for me to learn, and to decide.”

  “Have you learned things you didn’t know?” She wrapped the robe around herself more tightly, reminding me that the shop was chill, that winter still held Fenard.

  The cold didn’t bother me as much as it once had, but that was because I had begun to look at my own internal order, I suppose.

  “Some days…” I admitted. “I never seem to learn what I thought I was going to learn, though.”

  She nodded at me to continue.

  “I left woodworking once, when I was an apprentice, and I wasn’t sure I’d ever do it again. It seemed… well… ü was boring. Why would anyone want to care about whether the grains lined up just right, or whether there was too much pressure on the clamps?” “*

  “You seem to like it now… some days I stand and watch you, and you don’t see me, even when I’m almost beside you Grandpapa was like that.” I licked my dry lips, catching the scent of her again, and feeling my heart beat faster. “You’d better go.”

  A faint smile crossed her face as she rose, almost a grin, but touched a little with a sadness I could feel without reaching. “Thank you.”

  She was gone too soon, and almost too late, and I wondered what harm it would have done to have taken what she had offered. But the words of my father, and Talryn, and the book hammered at me, and I knew I had done what was best. Enjoying Deirdre would have been deceiving her, and, more important, deceiving me. Yet my heart was still beating too fast, and my body ached, and I dreamed of golden-haired girls, and a black-haired woman, and even a redhead, and woke sweating and sore. But I woke knowing what I had to do.

  XLII

  THE SQUAD LEADER looks over her shoulder. “Tell Gireo to drop back another hundred rods.” Her body adjusts automatically as her mount starts down the long slope that will lead to the Demon’s Triangle-the mythical intersection between Freetown, Hydlen, and Kyphros.

  “A hundred rods?”

  “Twice the separation he’s got now.”

  “But we can’t reach him if they attack from the rear…”

  “We can. We’re not his good-luck piece. He’s a big boy.”

  “But…”

  Her hand touches the hilt of the blade. “You replace Gireo.” Her soft voice carries across the road, still shrouded in the mist laid down before dawn. Under the cavalry cloak and hood, her long hair is tightly bound up in black cords.

  The man shakes his head, but turns his mount back uphill.

  In time, the trooper called Gireo urges his gelding up beside the dark-haired woman who has shed the cloak and folded it into a saddlebag. She wears the still-untarnished silver firebird on the collar of the leather officer’s vest.

  Gireo’s eyes burn as he takes in the slender officer. On foot he would look down on the woman by more than a head.

  Her eyes seem to look through the fog ahead.

  He opens his mouth.

  “Quiet.” The word barely carries the distance between them, yet it arrives with the impact of a quarrel.

  Gireo shuts his mouth, but his teeth grate inside his cheeks.

  “Gallian regulars,” mutters the squad leader. “Damned ghouls.” Her eyes look again into the mists. “Wizard… not this far from Gallos.”

  She unsheathes her blade, nudging her mount into a quick walk. “Get the others to close up… quietly.”

  Gireo drops back, but says nothing to the two troopers in file behind him, as he glances from them to the squad leader. The road flattens out as it nears the valley below, and the damp and packed clay of the roadbed dulls the sounds of the Kyphran squad.

  Ahead, a flickering pinpoint of light appears, then disappears, shrouded and unshrouded by the ground fog rolling out of the Little Easthorns.

  Gireo looks back toward the squad leader, but she has vanished into the mists. He frowns, but does not unsheathe his blade.

  The Kyphran squad rides downhill.

  Whhheeee… eeeee… eeee…

  … eeee… eeee…

  Clink… clunkh…

  The sound of a single set of hoofs thunders toward the Kyphrans.

  “Form up!” The single command is snapped out of the fog like an iron lash, and even Gireo turns his mount.

  The squad leader lets her charger carry her past the first two files. “Move it!”

  Almost reluctantly, the Kyphran troopers urge their mounts forward into
a trot.

  Nearly a dozen Gallians are in the saddle as the Kyphrans break out of the fog and lumber toward the invaders.

  The squad leader has resumed the van, and her blade flashes, though there is little light to reflect from the cold steel.

  Whhhsttt… hhstttsss…

  “… damn…”

  “Your right, Gireo!”

  “… aiee!…”

  All the sounds are from the Kyphran side. The Gallians fight silently.

  Whhsttt…

  “… you!”

  “… chaos… bastard…”

  Whhssttt…

  In time, the Kyphran squad draws up not far from the abandoned fire that still flickers through the morning fog. One mount and man are missing. Another mount’s saddle is empty. A dozen figures wearing the purpled gray of Gallos are sprawled in and around the camp.

  The squad leader reins up by the fire. “Gireo, get the weapons and strap them to one of the Gallian mounts.”

  “Get them yourself.”

  The squad leader sighs, but the blade is in her hands. “Do you want to die on your horse or on your feet?”

  Gireo shrugs. “You couldn’t win on foot in an honest fight.” He swings off the chestnut gelding.

  She smiles and dismounts.

  He leaps forward even before her foot is clear of the stirrup.

  She dives under his blade and emerges from the roll with her own blade before her. Whhssskk… Clinnkkk… Whhhstttt…

  His blade slips from his fingers as the blood fountains from his throat, as his knees crumble. “Bitch…” Even before he has finished dying, she has resumed her seat on the charger. “Hyster… gather the Gallian weapons.”

  The thin bearded man looks from the giant on the ground to the slender woman upon the horse. He swallows, then dismounts without a word.

  Two other men exchange glances.

  “… see how fast her blade is…”

  “… kill you as look at you…”

  “… killed seven of the Gallians, though…”

  She lets the whispers continue for a time, then clears her throat. “Let’s go.”

  XLIII

  SINCE WHAT I had to do would further upset tradition in Fenard, I needed someone with a personal interest, and Brettel was the only one possible.

  I kept telling myself that as Gairloch carried me out the north road to the mill-master’s operation. Perhaps I had just picked the day because the sun was finally out, and the wind down, and the air so clean and clear that despite its bite on my face, I wanted to sing. I didn’t. That would have been inflicting too much on poor Gairloch.

  The thoughts of song died as I neared the mill and the gray stone warehouse.

  “Lerris, what brings you here? Did you finish that chair?” His silver hair glinted despite the afternoon overcast, and his smile was welcoming.

  “You gave me the order two days ago. Good chairs take some time.” I grinned right back at him, but I couldn’t sustain the expression.

  His eyes raked over me. “Come on into the parlor.”

  “Would that be all right?”

  “I’ll be there shortly. I need to tell Arta about some cuts. If you want some redberry, Dalta will get it for you.” He was off, his short legs propelling the big torso and broad shoulders toward the mill with a walk that would have been running for most men.

  Wiping my forehead, I dismounted and tied Gairloch to the post, loosely. Although he needed no tying, there was no point in advertising either his training or my abilities. I wondered if the people at the Travelers’ Rest had ensured that a mountain pony was always there at Felshar’s Livery when dangergelders arrived, or whether it had been specially set up for me. Talryn, nursing a guilty conscience?

  Although the afternoon was clouded, the dampness and heat, and the lack of any breeze at all, created the feeling of walking through a hot bath in winter clothes. My growing internal order-mastery let me handle cold, but heat was another question.

  At the long one-story house beside the lumber warehouse, I lifted the brass knocker and let it fall.

  A young woman opened the door.

  I smiled in spite of myself. Seeing the eyes as blue as the sky after a rain, hair as bright as spun gold, skin more finely finished than the silk of white oak, and a figure like a temple statue, I could have cared less that she came to less than my shoulder.

  “May I help you? The mill-master is in the main building…” Her voice was firm, yet smooth as a good finish on black oak.

  Gathering myself back together, I nodded. “I’m Lerris, the journeyman for Destrin. Brettel asked me to wait for him in the parlor.” I paused. “Are you Dalta?”

  “I’m Dalta.” She smiled politely, with a natural warmth that promised nothing while cheering the afternoon, and for some reason I thought of Krystal, though I could not have possibly said why.

  “He mentioned redberry.”

  “I’ll take you to the parlor.”

  She even provided me with a glass-a real glass tumbler- of redberry, and I sat in a chair probably made by Dorman, since it matched one I had seen in his plan book, and wondered what Brettel’s consort looked like to have produced such a daughter.

  Then I wondered about Deirdre, and whether what I was planning was fair. Recalling Talryn’s acidic comments about fairness, I ended up shaking my head.

  “You look like hell, Lerris…” Brettel carried another tumbler, but his steamed. The odor of spiced cider filled the room, mixing with the smell of burning wood from the hearth.

  “That’s about the way I feel.”

  “You look like you want to ask for something out of the ordinary.”

  I nodded.

  “Don’t tell me you want to marry Deirdre.”

  “No. That would be wrong for both of us, but she’s part of the problem.”

  Brettel sipped, delicately for such a broad man, from the tumbler, waiting.

  “You know Destrin’s failing…” I began.

  “He doesn’t look well.”

  “I can’t maintain the business too much longer.”

  “I can’t say I’m surprised.” His face darkened.

  “Hold it. I’m not walking off soon… but I need a favor, and not for me.”

  He took another sip as his expression slipped back to neutrality. “Why are you asking me?”

  I decided to blurt it all out. “I need to train an apprentice for Destrin. He has to understand or feel woods, and he has to be older than the normal apprentice, and I really want him to be suitable for Deirdre.”

  “That’s a big order. Who appointed you Destrin’s keeper?”

  “I guess I did. No one else was helping him. Now that I’ve made things profitable. I can’t just leave it. But the time will come…” I shrugged again.

  “Why can’t you stay?”

  “For now, I can. The time will come, probably before too long, when…”

  “You’re awfully mysterious, Lerris. Why should I do this?” The man was pressing, but he had been good to me, and I could tell he embodied order.

  1 looked around the parlor, let my senses expand. No one was within hearing distance. “What do you know about Recluce?”

  Brettel just nodded, not even looking surprised. “There’s always been something more about you. Are you helping Destrin?”‘

  I knew what he meant. “As I can, but there’s nothing anyone could do.”

  “You’d do this for him?”

  “He’s a good man. Not a terribly good crafter, but a good man. And he fights each day because he feels he can offer Deirdre nothing.”

  Brettel scratched his left ear, then took a long pull. “Do you have any ideas where such an unusual apprentice might be found?”

  “How about the younger son of one of the woodlot owners or the farms where you log? You might have a feeling…”

  “I might… does he have to be older?”

  “No… but not too much younger… gentle at heart, but stubborn, if that’s possib
le…” I closed my mouth, realizing I was revealing far too much.

  “You worry about me?”

  “A little,” I admitted.

  “You should.” Then he smiled. “But I told you I was Deirdre’s godfather, and whether you came from hell itself, something needs to be done. Let me think about it. There are a couple of youngsters that just might do.” He chuckled and added, “And their parents would believe we were doing them a favor.”

  I finished the redberry while Brettel thought.

  “I’ll get back to you,” he told me while ushering me out.

  An eight-day later Bostric arrived.

  So did a commission for a red-oak chest for Dalta’s dowry, with instructions to take my time and do it right… as if I ever would have done it any other way for Brettel.

  Bostric was gangly, red-haired and freckled, initially as shy as a spooked quail, at least when I was around, and stubborn as a cornered buffalo. But he listened, and he could feel the woods. In his work on the woodlot, he’d even used a saw and tried his hand at carving. His figures of people and animals were artistically better than mine.

  Destrin just humphed, between coughs and when he had the strength to do so, and Deirdre made larger portions of the ever-present barley soup. Boring it might be, but she smiled more, when she wasn’t fussing over her papa, and that was about all I could expect.

  I still sometimes dreamed about golden girls, and sometimes about a black-haired woman, and woke up sweating and worse. I wondered why I dreamed of Krystal, but had no answers. All the time, Bostric slept soundly in the pull-out pallet we had built for him in the shop.

  XLIV

  BRETTEL’S COMMISSION GAVE me another idea. I decided to make two of the chests, keeping the pieces for the second red oak dower chest in the stable when I wasn’t working on it. If I didn’t do it, no one else would, and Destrin really never looked at what I was working on until it was close to completion.

  He was usually wrapped up in his benches and plain tables and fighting out the coughing attacks. When he wasn’t, he worried about Bostric or me.

  “He’s all right, Lerris. He’s just not you.” If I heard them once, I heard those words a score of times as the winter drew out.