Magic Engineer

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “Do you need to leave now, or can we talk to some traders first?”

  “I think I’m getting the hang of it…but I don’t think I could rest anywhere around here.”

  “Wonderful… not only does he dream up impossible machines, but he sees impossible jellyfish and strange trees.”

  Both Brede and Dorrin glare at Kadara.

  “I happen to trust his feelings, Kadara, and if you want to sleep in Fairhaven by yourself, I’ll be more than happy to ride with Dorrin.”

  Kadara looks down at the mare’s neck. “I’m sorry. It’s just… a little hard to believe.”

  Dorrin grins in spite of the stinging in his eyes. “If it didn’t hurt so much, I wouldn’t believe me either.”

  “Is that just chaos?” asks Brede.

  “Just?” Dorrin’s tone is wry.

  Brede laughs. “Point to you, Dorrin.”

  “You two. Men…” mutters Kadara.

  “We still need to find some traders,” Brede says. “Do you think they’ll be around the central square?”

  “How would I know?”

  “Well… we’ll check the square first.”

  Dorrin nods. The square seems as good a place as any to begin, and it’s easier to follow Brede through the hidden swirls of chaos. Another farm wagon creaks past, heading back in the direction of Montgren.

  “Why don’t you just ask someone? You men seem to think it’s a disgrace to ask for directions. It’s a lot easier to ask than to ride forever.”

  Brede blushes. “Fine. You ask.”

  “I’d be happy to.” Kadara eases the mare in front of Brede’s gelding and toward two men unloading a wagon before an unmarked building. “Sers… could you tell me where I might find the traders’ area?”

  A potbellied man with a shock of wispy white hair that stands on end in the breeze drops a sack of flour onto a hand cart, then looks up. “Free traders or the licensed ones?”

  “The ones in the city.”

  “That’d be the licensed ones. Most of ‘em got places around the traders’ square.”

  “I’m new here. Is that near the main square ahead?”

  “That’s the wizards’ square.”

  The second wagoner spits into the gutter, then lifts another sack, avoiding any eye contact with the three riders.

  “Where is the traders’ square?”

  “Take the avenue here a ways past the White Tower until it forks. The right fork leads there.” He shakes his head and hefts another sack, letting it rest almost upon his protruding gut.

  “Thank you.”

  Neither wagoner acknowledges her appreciation.

  As the three ride toward the wizards’ square, they pass a squad of white-coated troopers, all of whom turn cold eyes upon them. Even though chaos twines around each of the white riders, Dorrin forces himself to meet the cold eyes of the leader, trying to look as open and curious as the rawest traveler. None of the White guards speaks, nor do the three from Recluce, and the loudest sound is that of hoofs.

  As they near the White Wizards’ square, Dorrin senses the increasing chaos-that and the lack of trees. Now only grass and low bushes comprise the greenery.

  Squeakkk…

  The healer looks down a narrow alley at the cart, which is wheeled by a man wearing little more than rags who is chained to the cart he pulls. Behind the cart are a woman wreathed in the unseen white of chaos and dressed completely in white and another raggedly dressed man. Behind them are two armed White guards on foot.

  The White Wizard gestures at a pile of rubbish, and a line of fire runs from her fingers to the heap on the stones. Whhhsttt. White ashes drift lazily down. The second man quickly bends and sweeps the ashes into a pan which he empties into the small cart. Squeaakkk… The cart rolls on.

  Dorrin swallows. No wonder the streets of Fairhaven are clean. But the cleaning method also explains his dislike for the city. Years of that casual chaos-clean-up have certainly cloaked Fairhaven with white dust that bears the imprint of chaos. “That seems like a waste of magic.” Brede’s voice is low. “Probably a punishment for the wizard as well. Of course, it was a woman.” Kadara glances back at the alley, although the cart is no longer visible.

  “Can we ride around the square?” Dorrin asks plaintively, wincing from the forces that swirl in the white buildings ahead. “I’d like to see it.”

  “I’ll meet you on the far side.”

  “Will you be all right?” asks Brede.

  “Better than if I ride through that… stuff.” Dorrin glances at the single four-story tower rising above the square, then shivers, swaying in the saddle, at the force of the energies that surround the White Tower. He forces a smile as he senses the lines of black that contain the tower’s white granite blocks. Even the chaos-masters must use some order! “Are you sure you’ll be all right?”

  “If I stay away from the worst of it, I can handle it for a while.” Dorrin pats Meriwhen’s neck. “I think,” is whispered to himself as Brede edges the brown gelding toward Kadara.

  Dorrin turns right at the next cross street and angles down a narrower way. Although he feels Brede’s eyes on his back, he does not look back, concentrating instead on avoiding the few pedestrians who hug the edges of the thoroughfare. None look up at him as they walk quickly along the white-granite streets, their feet lifting puffs of the fine white dust that rises, then sifts back into the narrow joints between the stones.

  At the end of the first block, he turns Meriwhen to the left, along a street paralleling the main avenue. After less than a hundred cubits he reins up while a vendor maneuvers a food cart into a small narrow oblong of greenery in a wider part of the street.

  Perhaps five men in shapeless gray tunics wait for the vendor to set up his grills and set forth a few already-cooked pastries. Once more, no one looks up at the healer, acting almost as if he did not exist. By the time he rejoins the avenue, Brede and Kadara are waiting for him.

  “Took you a while.”

  “You went the more direct route. See anything interesting?”

  “There really weren’t many people in the square,” Brede says slowly. “Would that be because they’re afraid of the wizards?”

  “Why? The wizards keep the city clean and free from most crime.” Kadara nudges the mare into a walk. “Let’s go.”

  “That much focus on chaos probably makes people uneasy,” speculates the healer, easing Meriwhen into line behind Kadara.

  More than a score of people throng the traders’ square, and wagons creak in and out of the buildings that flank it.

  Brede points to one of the stone buildings-almost no buildings in Fairhaven are of timber-and to a long hitching post in front. From the building, made of the same whitened granite as most of Fairhaven, projects a small sign-Gerrish-Trader. Under the Temple-style letters is the outline of a cart and horse in dark green paint.

  To Dorrin’s eyes the outline appears crude, although the lines are even and the paint relatively new.

  “Shall we try this one?” asks Brede, dismounting with the fluidity that Dorrin continues to envy.

  “We have to start someplace.” Kadara slips off her mount with equal ease.

  Dorrin clambers off Meriwhen, wincing at the continuing soreness in his thighs. By the time he has tied the mare to the fir pole suspended between two stone uprights, Kadara and Brede have brushed away the faint white dust that seems to rise from the streets of Fairhaven and straightened their harnesses and swords. Dorrin follows their example, except that he leaves the staff in the lanceholder. Carrying a staff more than four cubits long into a trader’s place won’t add anything.

  Besides, the way things have been going, he would probably trip over it. So, empty-handed, he follows Brede and Kadara through the half-open door into a small room. A heavy-set man stands by a long table, studying a map held flat and weighed down at each corner by fist-sized stones.

  “Hirl?” He pauses. “You’re not Hirl. What do you want?”

  Bre
de smiles openly. “If you’re Gerrish, I heard you might be looking for help. Guards, general assistance…”

  “Haaa…” The trader shakes his head. “You’re big enough, but your… friends…”

  “Kadara’s probably better with a blade than anyone you have.”

  Kadara’s eyes lock upon the trader, who is the first to look away. He then focuses on Dorrin, who avoids the swarthy man’s stare by looking at the plain wooden timbers that frame the wall behind the trader.

  Dorrin’s eyes skip to the archway to the trader’s right, through which he can see the open space of a warehouse and stable, including stacks of small barrels directly beyond the opening.

  “Blades… why would I need blades?” snaps the trader.

  Brede shrugs. “Perhaps my information was mistaken.”

  “Maybe a copper a day for you, and that’s hauling cargo when necessary… that’s all I need.” The heavy man shrugs.

  Brede looks down on the squat dark man. “I’m a little surprised. We ran into bandits on the way from Tyrhavven. Yet you say that you need no guards.”

  “Look. We don’t travel the back roads. They’re not patrolled by the White guards, and they’re slow and twisty.”

  “Do the wizards’ roads go everywhere?” interrupts Dorrin.

  “Of course not,” snorts the trader. “They only connect the major cities. But that’s where the people are; and where the people are is where the coins are.”

  “Don’t so many coins tempt bandits?” Brede persists.

  “Not if they want to stay alive.” He gestures. “Go on. I don’t need guards, especially outlanders, and women. Besides, armed guards means using weapons, and using blades means that someone’s going to get killed, and that’s not good for business.”

  Brede steps back. “Who does trade the back roads?”

  “You might ask in the alleys, friend. Nobody with brains, that’s for sure.”

  Gerrish is not telling the whole truth, but Dorrin does not shake his head. Instead, for a moment, he looks at the figures unstacking barrels in the warehouse beyond. Then he turns his eyes back to the trader. “Do the unsanctioned traders still operate from the old grounds outside the city?”

  “How would I know? Outside the city, the alleys-it’s all the same to us.” The trader squares his round shoulders and broad paunch, with a look toward the warehouse.

  “Thank you, trader.” Brede gives a half-bow.

  Kadara ignores the man as she turns, her hand on the hilt of her blade.

  Dorrin, although tempted to wish the man well in the name of order, just to see him squirm, merely nods as he turns away from Gerrish.

  Back on the white-paved street, the three look to the horses, which wait, apparently undisturbed. Brede stops by the stone support, glancing across the street toward another sign with a trader’s symbol.

  “Now what do we do?” asks Kadara.

  Dorrin glances around the traders’ square, his eyes flickering from one white stone building to another, none more than two stories tall. The avenue beside which he stands runs straight as a spear toward the great city square of Fairhaven, where the wizards’ buildings surround a well-kept park that contains even a few ancient white oaks. The vegetation in the center of the traders’ square, circled by the same white paving stones that comprise every main thoroughfare in the White City, is comprised only of the short wiry grass and evenly trimmed low bushes with blue-green needles-candlebushes.

  The healer recognizes that the greenery consists of plants which can withstand chaos and few, if any, true flowers in Fair-haven. Two men and a woman, wearing the pale blue tunics of traders, enter the building which the three exiles had just left.

  “Well… what do we do now?” repeats Kadara. “Try one of the others?”

  Dorrin shakes his head, and both look at him. “You can’t pay protection to two masters, and the traders here must look to the White Wizards. Maybe I’m wrong, but”-his head inclines toward the sign across the white paving stones from where they stand-“trader Alligash probably would give you exactly the same rationale.”

  “Do we just give up?” Kadara’s hand remains on the hilt of her blade.

  “We need to look outside Fairhaven,” opines Dorrin.

  Brede looks at the sun, now hanging just above the stone roofs on the western side of the square, and grins ruefully. “We probably ought to find somewhere to stay. This isn’t a place where you can sleep in the square.”

  “Our coins aren’t going to last forever,” reminds Kadara.

  “Then we need to get out of the city,” suggests Dorrin.

  Both Brede and Kadara glare at Dorrin.

  Click… clickedy… click…

  “… shit…” Kadara reaches for her saddle, but does not attempt to mount.

  Three horses move quickly into the square from the direction of the main city square. All three bear the white-clad and white-armored guards. Two guards are female, but all are hard-faced and short-haired, and their white-bronze blades glitter with the white-red of chaos.

  “So where are we headed?” asks Brede, his big right hand on the reins to the gelding. He does not untie the leathers from the post.

  “Out of the city. Toward the west,” suggests Dorrin.

  “Hold it!” The speaker is the leading guard, a rangy older man with salt-and-pepper hair and a beaked nose.

  “I beg your pardon?” offers Brede, the reins to the chestnut in his hand.

  “You’re outlanders?” asks the White guard.

  “We’re not from Fairhaven-that’s true,” admits the tall man, his voice mellow and polite.

  “Another bunch of those young Recluce pilgrim types, I’d bet.” The low-voiced comment comes from the dark-haired female guard. She shifts her seat on the gelding directly behind the group leader who had spoken to Brede.

  “They’re more interesting than the one-god pilgrims from Kyphros,” adds the third guard, a heavier blond woman.

  Dorrin senses some discomfort behind the words, discomfort not exactly linked to the three from Recluce.

  “Where are you headed?” demands the older guard, swinging off his horse.

  “West. Through the Easthorns and beyond,” Brede answers simply.

  “Likely story.” He half-snorts, but looks toward the trader’s building, then at the dispatch case in his hand. Finally, he shrugs and looks at the blonde. “Derla, I need to talk to Gerrish. You can take care of these… pilgrims…” He ties the horse beside Brede’s, and his boots click on the stones as he walks into the trader’s.

  “So… what brings you to Fairhaven?” snaps Derla. She edges her mount forward until the gelding almost separates Dorrin from Brede and Kadara.

  “The usual,” Brede replies. “We were sent out to learn about Candar and the world.”

  The woman’s discomfort is almost palpable to Dorrin, and he squirms, wondering what he should do. She is, after all, a White guard and a servant of chaos.

  “What do you think?” Derla looks at the younger and dark-haired guard.

  “According to Zerlat, the big one’s a natural blade. The redhead is a mage, but he’s no Creslin. He can barely sense the winds. He is a pretty fair healer…”

  Dorrin catches his breath, realizing that the meeting in the square has scarcely been chance. He edges toward the one called Derla, and his hand brushes her leg. Chaos or not, he must respond to the twisted knot of agony tied within her. Despite the invisible white flames that lick around her, there remains a core of order that he touches, easing the pain and strengthening her. He shivers as he steps away, pale, and takes a deep breath, shaking his head against the throbbing caused by the contact.

  Kadara closes her mouth quickly, but not so quickly that Dorrin cannot sense her disapproval.

  “You didn’t have to do that,” snaps the guard.

  Silence, except for the heavy breathing of six horses, shrouds the corner of the square.

  “Fair’s fair.” Derla eases the gelding back awa
y from Brede, Dorrin and Kadara. “And I’m more than sick of bleeding all over the entire continent so that some stupid man can have a child someday and boost his frigging ego.”

  “I’m sorry.” Dorrin leans away from the blond.

  “Don’t apologize. You’re a man. It’s not your fault that you’re all glands and little brain.” The white-clad guard smiles politely and turns toward the other female guard. “So… what should we do with them?”

  The dark-haired woman shakes her head. “The Council doesn’t like people from the isle, and Jeslek is saying that Recluce has stolen our rain and our crops for centuries.”

  “Have the orders changed?”

  They both grin.

  “Young fellow… Dorrin… whatever your name is… if I were you, I’d get out of Fairhaven real quick and quietly. And take your friends with you.”

  Brede and Kadara look from the guards to Dorrin. Then Brede vaults into the saddle. Kadara studies the dark-haired guard for another long moment.

  “You heard what I said, witch-blade. If you want to swing that toy of yours much longer, I’d get out of here.” The blonde turns to her dark-haired compatriot. “Hard to believe they’re descended from Creslin… so dull…”

  In the process of clambering onto Meriwhen, Dorrin suppresses a grin as he senses Kadara’s combined puzzlement, anger, and frustration. But, as he turns the mare, he inclines his head to the two guards. The blonde flushes, although her expression remains as cold as that of a formal marble statue.

  Until they clear the square the three ride in silence.

  Finally, Kadara looks over her shoulder and then back at Dorrin. “What they see…”

  “Kadara.” Brede’s voice is low, but firm.

  “Don’t ‘Kadara’ me!”

  Brede and Dorrin exchange glances.

  “And stop looking at each other like that!”

  Both men shrug, almost simultaneously.

  Dorrin looks at the road ahead, leading westward.

  XXIV

  KADARA, BREDE, AND Dorrin ride along the white-paved highway south toward the old trader’s grounds. Dorrin pats Meriwhen’s neck when they pass another set of mounted White guards, but the guards only look, and turn their mounts onto a narrower road headed east. Kadara again looks at Brede.