Magic Engineer

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Liedral lifts her mug, coughs, and covers her face. Reisa shakes her head as she looks at Dorrin.

  “Watch the women,” Yarrl mumbles through a mouthful of meat. “Watch the women. Least a few steps ahead all the time. Poor man’s got no chance.”

  “Poor papa.” Petra grins.

  Dorrin takes a sip of his redberry.

  Yarrl takes a final swallow of the thin beer and stands up, abruptly. “Off to see Gylert.”

  “He’s been promising you iron work for seasons.”

  “He is the head of the local traders’ council.”

  “Maybe he will provide work.” Reisa shrugs and looks at Liedral. “What do you think?”

  “I’d try a smaller trader. Good work at a lower price is more important to the smaller ones.”

  “Perhaps you could do both,” ventures Dorrin, slowly.

  “How be that?” ponders the smith.

  “Thank ser Gylert for seeing you, and ask him to suggest some smaller trader who might need unique or special work. That way, he doesn’t have to tell you ‘no,’ and he can’t complain that you have ignored or avoided him.”

  Reisa swallows abruptly, and Liedral looks at Dorrin for a long moment.

  “I’ll be thinking about that.” Yard’s eyes rest on Petra. “Did you groom the bay, daughter?”

  “I did, papa.”

  “Good.” Yarrl tramps through the door, across the porch, and down the stairs toward the bam.

  Dorrin finishes another chunk of the crusty bread and swallows the last of the water in his mug.

  “Would you like any more, trader?” asks Reisa.

  “I’ve had more than enough. It’s far, far better than inn fare.” Liedral leans back slightly in the wooden chair.

  A chain clinks, and Dorrin smiles. “Any scraps for Zilda?”

  “That greedy kid? A few might be managed.” Reisa leaves the table and reclaims a battered dish from the porch, scraping the leavings from her dish into it.

  Dorrin brings over his dish and Liedral’s. The table scraps barely cover the bottom of the chipped brown stew dish. Reisa shakes her head and adds a chunk of bread. Dorrin takes the dish out and sets it in the corner away from the door where the kid can eat without being disturbed. He ruffles her fur before heading back toward the kitchen. Liedral meets him at the door.

  “Just talk to your friend, Dorrin,” Reisa calls.

  “Can we sit here?” Liedral points to one of the stools.

  He takes the other. Inside the dishes clank, as mother and daughter clean up. Outside, Dorrin studies the garden, the barn, and the low grass of the meadow beyond. Zilda’s chain clanks on the chipped crockery from which the kid eats.

  “What happened to your friends?”

  “Kadara and Brede? They joined the Spidlarian Guard here in Diev. They’re somewhere around Elparta now, searching for highwaymen.”

  “Most likely inspired by Fairhaven.”

  “Oh?”

  “That happened in Kyphros, too. Thieves appeared where there hadn’t ever been any. Cattle disappeared. Fairhaven asked the Prefect to act, but the Prefect’s troops never could find them. Eventually, that was one reason that the wizards gave for taking over the plains.”

  “You seem convinced that Fairhaven will conquer all of eastern Candar.”

  “I suppose so.” Liedral gazes into the growing darkness. “I try not to dwell on it. There’s enough else to worry about, like being a trader.”

  “You seem to manage.”

  “You’ve seen how well I manage, scraping by on one cart and sometimes a pack horse, rattling around in a barn of a warehouse that once was a/ways full, letting half of what [bring in go to Freidr, just so his political friends won’t look too closely.”

  Dorrin looks at the barn. What can he say? He has always thought of Liedral as extraordinarily competent. The faint hum of a mosquito punctuates the evening, followed by the indistinct words of a conversation from the parlor between Reisa and Petra.

  “That was a good suggestion you gave Yarrl,” Liedral finally says, shifting her weight on the hard oak stool. “How did you come up with that?”

  “It made sense. Powerful people don’t like to be asked for money, or for jobs. They do like to be asked for advice, and they don’t like being surprised.” Dorrin disengages Zilda from his trousers before she can worry a hole in them. He scratches the kid’s head. The white fur makes it easy in the dimness of early evening.

  “She likes you.”

  “I’m not sure why.” Dorrin runs a hand through his curly hair. It needs cutting, but it seems to him like it always needs cutting. The faint whine of a mosquito warns him, and he frowns, trying to recast the sort of ward that will work to discourage the flying insects. He wishes he had read those sections of his father’s library far more intently, but in concentrating on machines, he never considered the continual annoyance of hungry mosquitoes, which always seem to prefer redheads.

  “lam.”

  The kid’s chain clinks as Zilda attempts to chew on Liedral’s boots.

  Dorrin wipes his forehead. Has he gotten the ward correct? The sound of the mosquito seems fainter, at least.

  “You’re kind. Stubborn, though.” After a pause, she continues. “I meant that about the letter.”

  “I do owe them something, I suppose.” He waits, and sits quietly as Zilda bounces into his lap and curls up. A faint breeze, smelling of distant rain out of the Westhorns and sheep, caresses his smooth-shaven face. “Why did you come here?”

  “You know why.‘.’

  “I still have a lot to figure out,” Dorrin says after another long silence. “And I want to build my machines.”

  “I know. But you’d better think about making golds, too.”

  “Why?”

  “How can you afford metals, or wood, or whatever you need for materials?”

  Dorrin laughs. “I guess I had better think about it. What do you suggest?”

  “Me? I’m just a poor trader.”

  “But what kind of things sell?”

  “Anything rare or well-made and functional or a necessity of some sort.”

  “Just the sort of things Recluce has exported for the past centuries.”

  “Why else would anyone buy things from the Black Wizards?”

  “I’ll have to think about that. I could grow spices. I’m pretty good at that. Perhaps sell some of my models as toys. They are well-made.”

  “You’d sell those?”

  “I’m not a collector. Some of them served their purpose once I finished them. They didn’t work the way I expected.”

  “Oh…”

  “That’s the way it works. You design it, and then you try it out. It’s a lot easier to make models than to spend the effort on building something big. Of course, models still work better than the full-sized machines, but most times, if the model doesn’t work, the machine won’t either.”

  “Dorrin, do you mind?”

  “That you came? No. I’m glad, but I couldn’t tell you why.” He grins in the darkness, knowing that she cannot see the expression. “You are a bit older, you know.”

  “And wiser.”

  “There is that.”

  “I’ll lea veil at that.” She stands. “You have a letter to write, and I’m leaving early in the morning.” She has entered the house even before Dorrin has managed to set Zilda on the porch. He shakes his head, then turns back toward his quarters, thankful that, with his growing sense of order, he needs no light, except for detail work like smithing or writing.

  Once inside his room, he lights the lamp with a striker and takes out a sheet from the box of parchments he uses for designs. He finds a quill and the ink. Then, after turning up his lamp, Dorrin smoothes the parchment. What should he write? How should he address it? Carefully he dips the quill into the ink, then begins, leaving a space for the salutation. The dim light is more than adequate as he writes deliberate word after deliberate word.

  I am well, working as an
apprentice smith here in Diev. The smith is brusque, but not unkind, and I have learned much more than Hegl would have believed, and I no longer ruin good iron. I hope that Hegl is happy that his lessons have not gone to waste.

  We passed through Vergren and saw the wonders of Fairhaven on the way. I found Fairhaven too rich for my blood and am much happier where I am. I now have a mare I call Meriwhen. You can tell Lortren that my riding skills have improved.

  Kadara and Brede are with the Spidlarian Guard. For the past few eight-days, they’ve been patrolling the northwest roads.

  The weather here is colder than in Extina, and even the spring ice took some getting used to, but working in a smithy is not chilly even when the snow gets knee-deep outside. It only has once, a late-spring snow that was unexpected, although the older folks talk about the times before the Black Wizards changed the world and the weather, when everything was better.

  I have not found whatever it was that Lortren expected I would. If I have, I don’t know that I have. I hope Kyl has found what he must find, and that this letter finds you all healthy and happy.

  Dorrin.

  After he rereads it, he dips the quill yet another time and pens in the salutation, compromising with “My dear family.”

  Then he lays it aside. He will fold and seal it in the morning for Liedral to take.

  Liedral-how can a woman seem so much like a friend, and so solid a person, and yet… ? He knows he does not lust after her, as he has after Kadara, or even after the comely tavern singer, but he was glad to see her, in the way he is glad to see the dawn, or the sunlight after a cold rain. Is that friendship?

  He pulls off his shirt and trousers and lies down upon the pallet, pulling the worn and somehow comforting quilt over his bare shoulders. Outside, a bullfrog’s burrruppp… echoes through the darkness, underscored by the sighing of the leaves in the oak trees beyond the bam.

  XLIV

  THE SUN HAS not fully cleared the eastern lowlands when Dorrin steps into the barn. Liedral is already harnessing the cart horse.

  “Here’s the letter.” He hands her the letter and a half-silver. “Is that enough?”

  “That should be more than enough.” She holds the harness in her left hand. “Do you ever sleep? Reisa says some nights you work until midnight.”

  “I don’t need that much sleep, and Yarrl lets me use the worst of the scraps, but they take a lot of effort. Sometimes I have to actually melt them, and that’s dangerous.”

  Liedral frowns.

  “Iron bums when you get it hot enough… if you’re not careful.” He lifts the bag.

  “What do you have there?” She brushes the silky hair back off her forehead. Dorrin glances at the broad-brimmed hat upon the cart seat.

  “Yes. I’m headed back to be the young trader-presumably male-that no one really wants to look too closely at.” She places the sealed letter inside a leather case under the seat and turns back to the horse.

  Dorrin sets the bag on the cart seat as she buckles the harness. He extracts the miniature sawmill blade and wheel. The black steel blade glints in the light through the barn door, and the red oak is smooth and polished.

  “It’s beautifully done.”

  “You turn the handle and the blade turns. It won’t really cut much. You think you could sell it for something?”

  “I won’t sell it unless I can get what it’s worth.”

  “How much is that?”

  “I don’t really know, except that Palace toys for Sarronnyn go for as much as four golds. This is as good as some. Why are you giving it up?”

  “It didn’t work the way I wanted.”

  “How can you tell?”

  Dorrin looks toward the door before speaking. “Once it’s built, and I work with it, I can sort of sense the sticky spots, the points where the design isn’t right. This one… it doesn’t transfer the force from the handle to the blade very well. I have a new idea, using an angled gear and little iron balls. They’re hard to make. Might just be easier to make them bigger.”

  This time, Liedral shakes her head. “You just might change the world… if the White Wizards don’t find you first.”

  “Me? An apprentice smith and sometime healer?”

  “You.” She takes the model, a half cubit long and less than a span high, and puts it inside the case with the letter. “It does fit. Good.” Then she turns back to the smith. “I don’t know when I’ll be back. If you need me, you know where I am. Jarnish can also get me a message.”

  “You’re leaving now?”

  “I have to make up lost time.” She leads the cart horse toward the door.

  Dorrin takes his leather bag and opens the door wide enough for the cart.

  “Remember, Dorrin, there has to be a reason. You see that with your machines, but it’s true of people and countries as well.” Liedral leads the horse and cart clear of the bam.

  “I suppose so.” He purses his lips, not knowing what else to say.

  Liedral slips up onto the cart seat. “Take care, Dorrin.” She flicks the reins, and the cart lurches forward over the hardened clay.

  He watches until she is on the road, but she has not looked back. He heads toward the smithy, not feeling like eating. Not on this morning.

  He begins the day’s work by breaking up the longer lengths of charcoal to the proper size for the forge and by bringing in what will be needed for the morning. As he completes his efforts, Yawl appears and unbanks the forge, the coals still hot enough to smoke sawdust as he begins laying in charcoal.

  “Get the heavy stock, Dorrin… the big bar on the top end.”

  Liedral’s words still run through his mind. “Why are things the way they are? There has to be a reason, doesn’t there?”

  He fingers the length of wrought iron in his hands. What makes iron different from copper, or tin? They are different, but why? And how is cast iron different from steel or wrought iron? And why did ordering wrought iron make it stronger than steel, yet less brittle?

  He looks at the metal, again, letting his senses enfold it.

  “Dorrin? Is it hot enough?”

  The apprentice smith lays aside the iron. “Almost…” He takes the overhead lever of the bellows and begins to pump, evenly. Later, he will have to make nails, a tedious job at best. Before that, though, he will certainly have to get out the files and smooth out whatever Yarrl forges.

  XLV

  “NO SOONER DO we take action against Recluce than traitors here in Candar steal the livelihoods and the coppers from our people…” The words of heavy-set and black-haired wizard garbed in white rumble across the chamber.

  “Proud words, Myral…”

  “I stand with Myral.” The wizard who speaks is soft-spoken, with short brown hair, frail in appearance. “The renowned Jeslek and the noble Sterol have done their best to improve the lot of our people. Can we do any less?”

  “What’s in it for you, Cerryl?”

  Cerryl smiles softly, letting the clamor die down before speaking. “With such imposing figures as Jeslek and our High Wizard Sterol already expressing their concern… how about survival?” He grins.

  A patter of nervous laughter circles the chamber as he steps off the low speaking stage and edges into a corner.

  “While I would not be so direct as gentle Cerryl…” begins the next speaker, a man with white hair, but an unlined and almost cherubic face.

  Cerryl pauses next to the redhead in the corner.

  “Most effective, Cerryl.”

  “Thank you, Anya. I presume the effect was as you and the noble Sterol wanted.” He smiles softly. “Or as you wanted, should I say.”

  She returns the smile. “You flatter me.”

  “Hardly. With your ability…” He shrugs. “Perhaps you will someday be High Wizard.”

  “Being High Wizard in these times might require rather… unique skills.”

  “That is certainly true, a point which Jeslek is certainly not adverse to making-repeatedly. I would pre
fer your approach, I suspect.”

  “A woman as High Wizard?” Anya’s tone is almost mocking. “You do me high honor, indeed.”

  “I recognize your talent, dear lady.” His smile is bland.

  “You are… sweet… Cerryl.” She tilts her head. “Would you like to join me for a late supper-tomorrow evening?”

  “Your wish is my desire.”

  “You are so obliging, Cerryl.”

  “When one is limited in sheer power of chaos, one must be of great service, Anya.”

  “I am so glad you understand that.” She turns and steps toward a broader wizard with a squared-off beard.

  Cerryl smiles faintly, nods to his colleague, and continues toward a seat on the back bench.

  XLVI

  DORRIN WHISTLES AS he rides. In the rain, even under the oiled leather waterproof, he is damp. On the east side of the road, he sees the golden grain bending under the water that has fallen for days. His notes are off-key, but whistling is better than complaining. Besides, so much rain has fallen that a continual sheet of water now lies around the smithy, and Yarrl is almost out of charcoal because the roads from Tullar’s forests and charcoal camps are impassable to the heavy wagons.

  Dorrin casts his senses into the heavy clouds in the west. He smiles as he finds that the rain will break before long. He stops smiling when Meriwhen tosses her head and sprays his face with horse-scented water droplets.

  In the pouch at his belt are the three golds sent from Liedral through Jarnish and then through Willum, at the chandlery in lower Diev, for the model sawmill. His hand strays to the pouch Three golds? For a model? Or is Liedral sending him more than she received for it?

  He has several others that he could sell. Would Willum offer one for sale? Then he could get some idea of what they might be worth, although people in Spidlaria could certainly pay more. He guides Meriwhen along the grassy edge of the road leading down off the main road and into Hemmil’s mill.

  He has barely entered the covered area when Pergun greets him.

  “Ever see such crappy weather? The vintners are claiming it will ruin the grapes; the farmers can’t get the grain out of the fields; we’re having to slow down because no one can pick up anything because the side roads are impossible. And here you are.”