Knight Of The Flame

by H John Spriggs

  With a bit of help and instruction from Be'Var, Rill had gotten that repaired, too. It had been fun, and he had enjoyed the feeling of being genuinely useful.

  He thought some more about the way he drank water from a stream. He supposed that, in the analogy, it was his head, rather than his mouth, that took the place of the cylinder, and that it didn't actually expand or contract, either. If the analogy held, then it wasn't the cylinder that was expanding, but rather some internal part of it. Perhaps that was what the rod was for, to move some mechanism that changed the shape of some internal structure in the cylinder?

  His face a mask of concentration, he got up and examined the top of the cylinder, where the rod entered it, again. It wasn't a tight seal; air could easily get in and out through the space between the two pieces of iron. In that case, if the internal shape changed, creating suction inside the cylinder, wouldn't it just fill with air from the top?

  Rill reasoned that there must be another set of seals, internal to the cylinder, that created a closed system, and that gave him an idea. Slowly, carefully, he began working his way around the cast iron, looking for any cracks or splits or holes or any other way that air might be getting inside the device.

  "Do you think you should be fooling with that?"

  Rill looked up to see Gwenna, arms folded, standing in front of and staring down at him. She was wearing those earth-colored trousers and tunic that she put on whenever she went out into the grasslands to practice her archery, either with Milo or Tavrin. The dried wildflowers in her hair told him that, on this particular morning, she had been with the latter.

  He turned back to the pump. "Does it look like I'm fooling with it?" he said. "I'm looking. That's all." He ran his finger around the bottom edge of the cylinder, looking for anything that might account for a lack of suction.

  "One of the engineers is supposed to come around today," she continued. Rill wasn't looking at Gwenna, but he assumed she was wearing her 'know-it-all' face, the one that made it painfully obvious to its recipient that she thought he was being an idiot.

  "Yes, Gwenna," he said. He smiled, in spite of his rising irritation with her. Of all the things she could decide to bother him about. "I know. I'm just taking a look at it. It's not like I can make it any worse."

  She was getting irritated too. He could hear it in her voice. "You don't know that. What if he comes around and—"

  Rill stood and glared at her. "Just shut your mouth and leave me alone, will you!" He was surprised and a bit delighted at the look of shock on her face. "I'm not going to make it worse," he said. He pointed a finger at it. "It does not work. At all. It can't get any worse than that, can it?" She seemed about to answer, but he cut her off. "And I've been out here looking at it for a couple of hours, but you've only just come out now to bother me about it, have you?"

  Gwenna's face reddened. She unfolded her arms and pointed at herself. "I only just got back, you flaming idiot!"

  "Oh," said Rill, in mock surprise, "only just gotten back, have you? Been out with Tavrin again, have you? All morning? Gosh well that's an awful lot of time you've been spending together lately, isn't it? In fact," he put his hand to his chin and rolled his eyes skyward as though thinking about something, "...in fact that's pretty much every day since we got here that you've spent with him."

  Some of the heat went out of Gwenna's eyes. She didn't respond, though. He knew that she knew what he was talking about. He'd been avoiding saying anything for weeks now, but he just couldn't stand it any more, couldn't stand how cold she was. "My best friend, lying in bed, at death's door for weeks, and you're off playing with Tavrin. Have you even checked on him since the night he was almost murdered?"

  She looked at him indignantly. "Of course I have," she said, just loud enough for him to hear.

  "Well, that's good!" he yelled. "I'd hate for Caymus to wake up—if he ever wakes up—and find that you'd completely abandoned him for someone else. Good to know that you're at least keeping up appearances for him. Good to know that, if he doesn't die, he won't be completely crushed by what you've been doing, you miserable harpy!"

  Gwenna stared at him in disbelief for a moment before she spoke. "We aren't—" she said, the sentence choked off. "We weren't—" She didn't seem know what to say. Rill noticed her hands were trembling at her sides and that a tear was making its way down her cheek. In that moment, he felt a bit guilty for yelling at her.

  He looked down at the ground between them and lowered his voice. "How about you stay out of my business Gwen, and I'll stay out of yours?"

  "Excuse me?" The unfamiliar voice came from one of the doors to the courtyard.

  A young man stood in the doorway. He was fair of complexion, with a short fringe of orange hair atop his head and light freckles on his face. He carried a number of pouches and tools on a thick belt around his waist. The blue tunic he wore, one of the uniforms of the Kepren military, carried a small symbol, a gear embroidered in gold thread, upon the left breast.

  The newcomer looked between the two of them with a bit of apprehension. "Am I...interrupting anything?"

  Gwenna, who had been holding her gaze on Rill, turned to him and wiped her cheek with the back of her hand. "No," she said, "not at all." She briskly stepped away and brushed past him on her way back inside.

  The man stared after her for a moment, then turned back to Rill, an eyebrow cocked in suspicion. "Should I come back another time?" he said.

  Rill shook his head. His gaze traced the frame of the door Gwenna had just left through. "No, no," he said, "it's not a problem. Just a bit of an argument, that's all." He smiled and met the man's eyes. "You're here about the pump?"

  The man smiled in return. "About the pump, yes," he said, and he stepped forward toward Rill and the pump. The man walked with a slight hunch and what might have been a limp if it were only a bit more pronounced. He wasn't an ugly man, by any means, but Rill got the distinct impression he wasn't quite put together properly, as though his waist was thicker than his chest, or perhaps his joints were too large. The smile, still on his face, was genuine, though, as he reached out to shake Rill's hand. "Daniel," he said, "of the Royal Engineers."

  Rill took the proffered hand and shook it firmly. "Good to meet you, Daniel. My name's Rill."

  Daniel leaned forward, conspiratorially. "Don't worry, Rill," he said, "I'm sure she'll come around." He gave Rill a wink, then squatted down and began examining the pump.

  "Oh no," said Rill, squatting also, "we're not together or anything." He frowned to himself briefly, trying to figure out how to summarize the state of things. "This friend of mine is sick, and she's been spending an awful lot of time making eyes at another man."

  Daniel nodded without looking up. "Ah," he said as he pumped the handle a few times, "that's a shame. Married, are they?"

  Rill's frown deepened. "No," he said, "they're not married."

  Daniel nodded again, now poking a finger into the spigot in much the same way Rill had done a few minutes previously. "Engaged, then?"

  Rill smiled at the thought of Caymus being engaged to anybody. "No, no," he said, "nothing like that. Flames," he continued, "they've only actually known each other for month or so."

  It was Daniel's turn to frown. He turned his head up to look at Rill. "Betrothed?"

  Rill just shook his head. He was feeling a bit confused by the questions.

  Daniel stared at him, his freckled face contorted into a mixture of confusion and suspicion. "So, if they're not promised to each other, what's the problem with her spending time with another man?"

  Rill was a little stunned at the question, the way that this stranger had put it so very logically. He felt that twinge of guilt starting to grow. "I suppose it's not really a problem, as such," he said. "They were just spending a lot of time together before my friend got sick, and it just feels like she should show him just a little more loyalty."

  Daniel grinned. His fingers were running along the iron cylinder of the pump body. "Aught to be
sitting by his bedside weeping, eh?"

  Rill couldn't help but smile at the engineer's easy-going demeanor. "Yeah, I guess you're right, when you put it that way," he said. Daniel didn't seem to be but a few years older than he. Rill wondered if it was age and experience that had him making so much sense, or if his clarity had something to do with his having an outsider's view of things. He turned his head toward the doorway by which Gwenna had left. "I guess I owe her an apology."

  Daniel turned his attention back to the pump. "I'm guessin' if she's as worried about your friend as you are, she'll understand." He leaned back and manipulated his legs until he was sitting cross-legged on the grass, his knees on either side of the pump. "So," he said, giving Rill a questioning look and tilting his head toward the device, "what do you think's wrong with it?"

  "Me?" Rill was surprised. He'd been expecting the professional engineer to ask to be left to his work at any second.

  "Sure," he said. "You were poking around at it earlier, weren't you? Can't poke around at something and not learn something, so what do you think's wrong with it?"

  Rill appraised the young man, trying to decide if he was seriously asking his opinion or if he was just mocking him. There seemed to be no malintent in his eyes. "Well," he said, looking down at the machine, "there's no blockage in the spigot, the bearings appear to be connecting everything together properly, and I can't find any cracks that would be letting air in." He squinted at the mechanism. "It worked for a day or two, but not very well, so I have to assume there's something on the inside that was almost completely worn away before, then gave out after the first few pumps."

  He looked up at Daniel, who was nodding. "Go on," he said.

  Rill pointed at the main body of the pump. "I don't really know what's in here," he said, "but I think that the piston," he indicated the rod that went in the top, "moves some sort of plunger up and down, that changes that internal dimensions." He closed his eyes, considering the problem in his head, constructing a mental picture of the imagined workings. "The piston has to have a tight seal against the inside of the shaft, and I suppose that could have worn away..." He paused, thinking about it, then shook his head, "but still, you'd get some water, even if the seal wasn't perfect."

  "So," he heard Daniel say, prompting him for more, "some part of it that failed to the point that it doesn't pull up any water at all anymore?"

  Rill snapped his fingers and opened his eyes, beaming. "The gurgling sound!" He pointed to the very bottom of the pump. "There has to be something down here that keeps the water from going back down once the suction brings it up. If it was broken, the water would all just drain away again. I can hear the water coming up initially, so that must be it." He looked back Daniel, who was grinning and holding a wrench out to him.

  "The premise seems sound," he said. "Go ahead and take the body off and let's see if you're right."

  Rill hesitated before taking the wrench. "You sure?"

  "Yeah," said Daniel, shrugging with a great deal of enthusiasm. "Let's see what you've got."

  Rill eagerly took the proffered wrench and felt around the bottom of the pump, looking for the spot where it connected to the well pipe, underground. After he dug a bit of dirt out of the way, he found the large nut holding the two sections together and secured the wrench to it. He looked up at the engineer, wincing a little. "Which way do I turn it?"

  "Ha!" Daniel exclaimed. He pointed to his right—Rill's left—indicating a counter-clockwise motion. Rill did as instructed, and found he needed to exert quite a lot of force before the thing budged. After a minute or so of turning, however, the pump body came loose of the pipe in the ground. Rill was careful not to let any dirt get into that pipe.

  "Alright," said Daniel, handing Rill another wrench from his belt, "now take the bottom off it."

  Rill had to fumble a bit with the now-freed pump body and the two wrenches before he could get the leverage he needed. In the end, he sat on the ground, holding the pump with his knees, while he pulled the wrenches in opposite directions to remove the bottom section, about half-an-inch's worth of metal cylinder, from the device.

  When the bottom came free, he put the wrenches down and spun it in his fingers, examining it. The section contained a small chamber of its own: it had one hole in the bottom, which would have led to the pipe, and another in the top, leading to the body of the pump. Between the two holes, in the chamber, a piece of leather was flopping around. Rill picked and pulled at it until it came out, then took a closer look. It was circular, with a slightly conical shape, and it had a giant tear in the center.

  Rill held the flap of leather up, triumphantly, poking a finger through the tear. "That's it, isn't it?"

  Daniel nodded at him. He reached out and Rill handed it over. "That's it," he said, "the valve." He then reached into one of the pouches at his belt and pulled out another, holding them up for comparison. They were exactly the same, except for the obvious wear and tear on the one that had just come out of the pump. "With the thing out of service so long, it likely dried out, and the pressure of those first few uses would have been too much." He shrugged, then handed the new valve over. "It happens. Would you mind replacing it?"

  Rill took the proffered piece of leather and started working it into the mechanism. Daniel talked as he did so. "Never opened one of these up before, eh?"

  Rill shook his head. "No."

  Daniel nodded. "Ever study them? Known anybody who did?"

  Rill smiled. "Nope. Just got to thinking about it this morning, trying to figure out how it worked."

  "Well, then," said Daniel, idly scratching at his cheek, "I'd say you have a mind for machines."

  Rill smiled, getting the leather in place. "That's what Kavuu said."

  Daniel raised his eyebrows. "Kavuu?" he said, as though shocked by the word. "You mean the mitre, Kavuu?"

  Rill looked up, screwing the valve section back onto the pump. "Yeah," he said. "You know him?"

  "I know of him," said Daniel, shaking his head in wonderment. "A mitre serving in Kepren's the kind of thing folks tend to hear about. I never met him myself, but I know he and our captain used to be friends before he left to go back to Otvia." He folded his arms. "When did you see Kavuu?"

  Rill, now using the wrenches again to get the valve chamber on tight, thought about it a moment. "A few weeks ago," he said. "My friends and I passed through Otvia on our way to Kepren." He put the wrenches down, satisfied with the fit. "I helped him fix a couple of things while we were there and he said just what you did, that I have mind for it." He chuckled and gazed at the machinery in his hands. "Even gave me a letter recommending me to the Engineering Corps. I'd nearly forgotten about that."

  "Letter, eh?" asked Daniel as Rill went about screwing the pump back onto the well pipe. "Not really interested, then?"

  "It's not that," Rill said, as he tightened the fit and pushed some of the dislodged dirt back against the pipe. He stopped for a moment, looking in the direction of the room where he knew Caymus still lay, "I've just had other things on my mind since then, that's all."

  "Your friend?"

  Rill looked back at Daniel. "Yeah."

  They didn't say anything for a few moments. Daniel seemed to be considering something. "So," he said, finally, "does it work?"

  Rill shook himself out of his thoughts, stood, and pumped the handle. After a few up and down motions, a steady rush of water came streaming out of the spigot.

  "Blast," said Daniel, smiling to himself and not even looking at the pump. He unfolded a piece of dirty-looking paper and what looked to be a charcoal pencil. "I'll tell you what, Rill," he said as he wrote, "lots of folks don't like working with machines and even fewer actually understand them. With all the trouble that sounds like is coming for us in a short time, the captain's told us we're going to need all the help we can get."

  Rill looked at Daniel sharply. "Trouble?"

  Daniel ignored the question and handed him the piece of paper. Rill took it and examined th
e writing. It contained a list of tools, from the simple to the complex: hammers, wrenches, calipers, magnifying glasses, and other contraptions he didn't recognize. He looked up from the list. "What's this?"

  "That," said Daniel, picking his wrenches up from the ground, putting them back into his belt, and getting to his feet, "is a list of some basic tools you'll want if you're going to join up."

  Rill looked at him quizzically, but a small smile was gathering on his lips. Daniel continued. "Look," he said, "the captain is a good man, but he's not that easily impressed. If you come to him with just a letter, even one from an old friend of his, he's going to politely show you the door. But," he waggled a finger at him, "if you show up with that letter and a complete set of tools, you'll be set. You have access to a forge?"

  Rill cocked an eyebrow. "A forge?"

  Daniel grinned and tapped a finger at the paper in his hands. "Some of these, you can buy. The rest, you're going to have to make with the ones you can buy."

  Rill nodded in understanding. "So, it's not having the tools, it's making them that's the impressive part." He thought of Be'Var's forging abilities. He supposed that the old master might make time to help him with the making of new tools, especially if it got him out of the mission and into a division of the Royal Army. "Yeah," he said, then looked up at Daniel with a mischievous grin. "It's Flamehearth Mission. Of course we have a forge."

  Daniel returned the grin. "I'll tell the boss to keep an eye out for you, then?"

  Rill nodded enthusiastically. "Definitely." Then, he remembered the other thing the engineer had said. "Seriously though, Daniel, what's the trouble you're talking about? Does it have anything to do with the krealites?"

  The word 'krealites' had become part of the local vernacular in the last month. Rill suspected that the prince himself had had something to do with the spreading of the term. Daniel had seemed ready to ignore the question again until he heard the word uttered. When he did, his face took on a somber quality, and his eyes turned away from Rill until he was looking northward. "I don't really know, to be perfectly honest with you," he said. "It's all just rumors and speculation, but what I'm hearing is that there's an army out there somewhere, way up to the North. It's got men and horses and those krealite things in it, and it's coming our way."