The Wizards' War

by Angela Holder

  Tesi nodded deferentially and slipped out, the cat so tangled around her feet Vigorre didn’t see how she kept from tripping.

  Thirteen

  Josiah scanned the dock as the barge pulled into Korisan. People were everywhere, unloading supplies and preparing empty boats for their journey upriver, but he didn’t see his master’s tall form or the swirl of nervous space that usually surrounded Tobi. He shrugged. He’d hoped Elkan would meet them, but he must be awfully busy with everything that had to be done before they could launch their counterattack on the Ramunnans. Josiah would have to wait a little longer for the words of praise he richly deserved for a job well done.

  Beside him, Meira turned away from the rail and started shouting orders to the barge’s crew about unloading the barrels of saltpeter. Josiah shuddered. They’d spent the last week setting up the saltpeter processing operation in a cave outside Tathorlith. He never wanted to shovel another scoop of bat droppings in his life. They’d left the huge vats simmering under the supervision of volunteers from Tathorlith. Meira had trained them in the steps necessary to transform the stinking black gunk into the gray dust that was a key ingredient in the blasting powder. More shipments would be on their way soon, ready to feed the mill Josiah was going to build.

  He gulped. Pretty soon he’d find out if the complex arrangement of gears and grindstones that whirled so beautifully in his imagination would work in the real world. If Elkan had followed the instructions in his message, the alterations to the fulling mill would be well underway.

  He shouldn’t expect his design to be perfect. Probably it would need lots of modifications. Gevan had told him over and over that no invention worked the way you wanted it to on the first try, and that each failure was a step on the road to success.

  But although he would never admit it out loud, he was sure the blasting powder mill would be the exception. The image of how the entire mechanism needed to function had come to him so suddenly and vividly he was certain it must be the Mother’s inspiration. Surely she wouldn’t steer him in the wrong direction, not when their need was so urgent. The Ramunnans wouldn’t sit around forever while he tinkered with his design, trying to get it right.

  Finally the sailors finished tying the barge to the dock and signaled for the passengers to disembark. Josiah jumped over the rail, Dari right behind him. On the barge, Sar snorted in annoyance while he waited for the sailors to open the gate in the rail and lay a plank across the gap.

  “Where do you think the volunteers are camped?” Dari asked, eyes searching the crowd.

  “Probably in the fields southeast of town. That’s the only place with enough open space. But you should stick with me or go by the Mother’s Hall. The ragweed’s still blooming.” Dari had been fine while they were in the mountains, but Sar and Josiah had headed off several asthma attacks as they sailed down the river.

  “Yeah. The Mother’s Hall.” Dari edged away from Josiah.

  “Go on. If you see Elkan, tell him we’re here. Long black hair, mountain cat, you can’t miss him.”

  “Sure. See you later.” Dari waved and hurried down the dock toward shore.

  Josiah grimaced at Sar as the donkey clopped up beside him. You know he’s going straight to the camp to look for Rovia.

  That’s his choice.

  I guess. If Dari was willing to risk having an attack with no wizard near to help, there was nothing Josiah could do to stop him.

  Meira joined them. “Let’s go talk to the dockmaster. We need to hire wagons to transport the saltpeter to the mill.”

  “Master Zinva.” Josiah swallowed. “That’s her over there.” Maybe she wouldn’t recognize him.

  But the heavyset woman with iron-gray hair squinted at him suspiciously as they approached her. “You’re not up to your old tricks, are you, boy?”

  Josiah shuffled his feet. He and his friends had gotten in trouble with the dockmaster many times for climbing around where they weren’t permitted or sneaking aboard barges to filch a few apples or bits of maple candy. “No, ma’am.”

  She gave him a wry grin. “I should hope a fourth-year wizard apprentice would be beyond such mischief. Your master left instructions that you’re to go immediately to the fulling mill and get to work.” She turned to Meira. “You’re the master miner he told us to expect? I’ll order wagons for your cargo right away.”

  Josiah fidgeted while Meira made the arrangements. She spent a few minutes talking to the members of her company, choosing some to come to the fulling mill with them, sending others off to the Mother’s Hall to offer their help with whatever tasks were needed. Ravid clung to her for a moment, but Zagan lured him with the promise of treats and other children to play with. Eventually the toddler consented to release his grip on Meira’s neck and let her pass him over. Zagan headed off through the crowd, Ravid on his hip, Dobon clinging to his hand. Meira watched them go, then turned to follow Josiah.

  * * *

  The road that led upriver to the fulling mill hadn’t changed much since the last time Josiah had walked it, but it felt strange. So much had happened to him in the past two years that his younger self could never have imagined.

  The fulling mill with its ponderously spinning water wheel looked the same as always. But it was surrounded by swarms of workers and piles of disassembled equipment. The six huge fulling stocks lay tumbled in the grass, ignored by the hurrying men and women. Josiah pushed past the workers and through the wide double doors.

  The interior was transformed beyond recognition. All the fulling equipment was gone, replaced by a half-built skeleton of the blasting mill he’d envisioned. Josiah gaped around, his gut churning.

  He’d done this. At his word these people had torn apart a well-functioning mill and started constructing an untested fantasy. It would be his fault if all this effort and destruction was wasted. If he couldn’t get the blasting powder mill running in time, or if the smiths couldn’t reproduce the Armada’s weapon, or if Meira’s powder didn’t work as well as the Ramunnans’ Secret after all, he would be responsible. He’d sworn to Elkan that it could be done, and his master had believed him. He’d ordered this massive undertaking on the strength of that belief.

  It was a huge mistake. Who was he to think the Mother would grant him special inspiration? Who was he to imagine that the things he pictured in his mind could ever be more than dreams? Who was he to cause such chaos and disruption to so many lives on such a slim thread of hope? He felt sick. He wanted desperately to shout for everyone to stop and put things back the way they used to be.

  But it was far too late for that.

  Sar pushed his head under Josiah’s hand. Josiah fondled the donkey’s ears and wound his fingers in his spiky mane. Dear Mother, what have I done?

  What you needed to do to give us a chance to win this war.

  Josiah gulped. But it’s impossible. This is never going to work. I should have consulted with the Builders’ Guild first. There are masters that have been doing this sort of thing their whole lives. I’m just an apprentice; I don’t even have any training—

  He broke off. Overhead, hammer blows rang out as a worker industriously pounded a long beam into place. Wait a minute. That’s wrong. There’s nowhere near enough room between those two sections. He strode over and shouted up to the worker, “That’s not where it goes!”

  A series of arguments followed. Josiah kept trying to explain the problem, but none of the builders would admit they might be making an error. He did his best to stay reasonable, but it wasn’t long before his temper frayed and his voice rose. “The gears aren’t going to line up properly! That’s nothing like the way I drew it. Smash it, why can’t you see!”

  A stocky woman strode over. “What’s the problem?”

  Josiah whirled on her. “Are you in charge? They’re doing it wrong! Make them stop!”

  She held out a hand calmly. “I’m Master Rada Builderkin Builder. Master Elkan asked me to oversee the alterations to the mill. I’m guessing you’re Jo
siah.”

  Josiah bit back his frustration and accepted her offered handclasp. “Yeah. Most of it looks fine, but this bit isn’t what my plans showed. It’s going to mess up the whole gear assembly. You’ve got to make them do it right.”

  “We’ve been following your plans, but I’ve made a few modifications. Let’s see if we can sort this out.”

  She led him out of the main room into what had been Master Sef’s office. Thank the Mother his old master was nowhere to be seen. Papers he recognized as the plans he’d hastily sketched were spread over the big desk. He darted past Master Rada and rummaged through the sheets until found the one he wanted. “Look! It’s right there! Six feet! They didn’t even leave one!”

  Master Rada peered over his shoulder. “Ah,” she said. “That’s the problem. You didn’t indicate the units, and all the rest of your measurements are in inches.” She tilted her head. “That explains why the numbers didn’t add up. I adjusted them here, here, and here to make things fit. We’ll have to rip those sections out and change them back.”

  Josiah’s stomach lurched. “Oh.” He stared at the drawing, feeling sick. Sure enough, he’d neglected to write anything to show that the scrawled number in question was different from the rest. He hadn’t even noticed, in his haste to get his vision on paper, that he’d switched units. “Smash it. I’m sorry. Of course you thought I meant six inches.” To his horrified shame, tears stung his eyes, and his voice cracked. “How could I be so stupid? I don’t really know what I’m doing, I’m not a builder, I’ve never done anything like this before—”

  Master Rada put her hand on his arm. “It was a simple mistake. These sorts of miscommunications happen all the time. In the Builders’ Guild we always go over plans to find errors, and even so we sometimes miss things. You did the best you could in a hurry and without knowing the standard symbols, and I did the best I could to figure out what you meant.”

  Josiah stared down at the plans. They looked clear to him, but he wondered if they appeared a hopeless jumble to Master Rada. “Tell me the truth. Do you think this is going to work?”

  Master Rada chose her words carefully. “It’s a clever design. I’ve never seen anything like this arrangement of gears, but it should function the way you’ve indicated. There are things that will need to be changed. Some pieces are going to need to be a lot stronger than you’ve shown to hold up to the forces they’ll have to endure. I’m not sure about this paddle set up you’ve got to stir the ground powders together, and I think this trough you’ve got bringing in water is going to have to be completely redesigned. But your understanding of the basic principles is sound. You’ve clearly got a natural talent for envisioning mechanical contraptions. There’s a long way between idea and reality, but I think together we can make this work. Well enough, at least.”

  “Soon enough? The Ramunnans are going to find out about our army and march on Korisan eventually. If we haven’t made enough blasting powder by then…” Fear and hope warred in Josiah’s gut.

  Master Rada tapped the plans. “We’ll find out, won’t we? No use worrying in the meantime. Better to spend our time and energy getting the job done.”

  For the rest of the day Josiah worked as hard as he ever had in the wheat fields or the Beggar’s Quarter. It was amazing to see his ideas taking shape in wood and metal and stone. It only took a few hours to pull out the portions the error had affected and redo them correctly. After that the rest of the main mechanism went together quickly. The network of shafts and gears operated just as he’d pictured, once they filed down the sides of a couple sets of teeth so they meshed properly.

  So far the Masons’ Guild had only delivered one of the three sets of grindstones they’d need, but it looked perfect. He and Sar used the Mother’s power to turn it while Meira fed in chunks of sulfur, and she declared the resulting yellow powder satisfactory. Master Rada helped him redesign the paddle assembly, and he could tell the new version would be a vast improvement over the old one. He worked to memorize the Builders’ Guild symbols she showed him so in the future he could communicate his ideas more effectively.

  By dusk he was exhausted, but his doubts were diminished enough he could push them to the back of his mind. They wouldn’t be gone completely until he saw their weapons blasting away at the Ramunnans.

  A hand on his shoulder startled him as he pored over the plans one last time in the dimming light. “Sar looks bored.”

  Josiah turned and grinned at Elkan. “He helped us maneuver awkward pieces into place two or three times. And we wouldn’t have been able to test the grindstone without him. But other than that he’s spent the day grazing. I thought he’d be glad of the rest.”

  His master snorted. “He’s not nearly as lazy as he’d like us to believe. It looks like things are coming along well here.”

  Josiah shrugged. “Master Rada is great. My plans were a mess, but she fixed them.”

  “How long do you think it will be before you’re producing blasting powder?”

  Josiah spread his hands. “A couple weeks, maybe, if nothing goes wrong. Something’s bound to, though.”

  “Call it a month, then. I won’t plan the attack for earlier. I just checked with the smiths who’re forging the tubes, and they’ll need at least that long to finish them.”

  Alarm flashed through Josiah. “They’re not making all ten of them already, are they? We’ve got to test one to make sure it works! We might have to change the design a bunch of times to get it right.”

  “I know. Right now they’re working on the first one and gathering the metal they’ll need for the rest. They won’t go ahead until we’ve got a working model.”

  “Good.” Josiah’s breath came easier.

  Elkan’s tone didn’t change, but his hand on Josiah’s shoulder tightened a fraction. “Is Meira here?”

  “She was. I think she left to go pick up Ravid.”

  Elkan removed his hand. “Why don’t you show me around, and then we’ll head to the Hall. I saved a spot in the apprentice quarters for you. I’m sure we can find a place for Meira and the others if they need one.”

  “I think they intend to camp. They brought tents with them.”

  “That’s just as well. Most of Tevenar’s wizards are here; the Hall’s a bit crowded.” His quirked eyebrow told Josiah that was a major understatement.

  He was glad he’d be spending most of his time at the mill. “So you don’t need Sar and me for healing?”

  “Not right now. We’ve cut back to the minimum. I’ve got all the wizards and familiars training for battle, a hundred of them every morning or afternoon, the rest in shorter shifts. They need as much practice as they can get catching arrows. And few of them have ever needed to disable an opponent.” Elkan’s face reflected his dislike of hurting people, even enemies who were actively trying to kill him, but his voice remained steady. “I’m teaching them the techniques we developed.”

  “Good.” Maybe he could work with Sar on refinements that would let them take out more foes with less effort. Dislocating a hip took a major push with the Mother’s power. At a distance it was a significant energy drain. Would popping a tendon in the leg work as effectively? It would take longer to heal once the battle was over…

  Elkan’s voice interrupted his thoughts. “Come on. I want to see this masterwork you’ve created.”

  Josiah led Elkan around the mill, showing him everything. Elkan was gratifyingly impressed. When Master Rada assured him that she believed Josiah’s design had an excellent chance of succeeding, his bearing lightened significantly.

  At length they rounded up Sar and Tobi and headed back toward town. Josiah chattered about the mill, ideas for increasing the wizards’ efficiency in combat, speculation about how the wizards they’d left in Ramunna were doing, and anything else that came into his mind. Elkan commented occasionally, but mostly he listened.

  As they neared Korisan, Elkan held up a hand as Josiah paused for breath. “Tell me about your trip. Did you enco
unter anything unexpected along the way?”

  Josiah gulped. “Um…” He’d rather not talk about the events in Jevtaran. Did Elkan really need to know how close he’d come to breaking the Law?

  Yeah, Josiah supposed he did. Reluctantly, he began, “Actually, there was something. Just outside Jevtaran, a girl stopped us and asked us for help…”

  The words came more easily as he got farther into the story. He didn’t leave anything out. Elkan frowned when he described his plan to trick Sar and the farmers, but he didn’t interrupt. His eyes glowed with warm approval when Josiah explained how he’d found himself unable to go through with the deception.

  When Josiah relayed how the Mother had spoken to Sar, Elkan’s mouth opened in astonishment. “What?” He turned to Sar. “She allowed you to use her power to lie? Really?”

  Sar bobbed his head and flicked a lazy ear forward and back. Elkan shook his head. “I never would have thought… Go on.”

  Josiah poured out the rest of the story. “…and so Dari came with me to Shalinthan, and to Meira’s new mine, and the rest of the way here. I told him to go to the Mother’s Hall, but I think he planned to sneak down to the army camp and find Rovia.” He twisted his fingers together. “Maybe I shouldn’t have gone through with it after all. The Mother said she’d hold me to my promise if she had to. What if it all comes out and she makes Sar break our bond?”

  Elkan stared into the distance. “You were right that we need every fighter we can get. More than four hundred volunteers came from Jevtaran. If they hadn’t we’d be dangerously short. Yet you were also right that your actions were a betrayal of the people’s trust in the Wizards’ Guild. We can’t afford to lose that. Right now we need it more than ever.”

  “I know.” Josiah wrapped his arms around Sar’s neck, feeling miserable. “I couldn’t think what else to do.”

  “You did the best you could, and the Mother gave her approval. We’ll deal with any consequences when they arise.” He gave Josiah a bleak grin. “I’m proud of the way you handled the situation.”