The Magic Engineer

by Jr. L. E. Modesitt

  “Not much good except to pick up those souls too poor to know how to be a highwayman and too desperate to be otherwise.” Jarnish takes another puff on the pipe and the acrid smoke drifts toward Dorrin.

  “They’re good at picking up tavern wenches with their tales,” offers Jaddy.

  “What about you, lad?”

  “I’d like to apprentice to a smith, ser.”

  Kadara looks at Brede with the slightest of frowns.

  “A smith? Aren’t you a tad slender?”

  “I’m stronger than I look.”

  “Any experience?”

  “Was an apprentice for a while.”

  Jarnish takes the long-handled pipe from his mouth, blowing a cloud in Dorrin’s direction. Dorrin tries not to choke. No one on Recluce smokes, although he has read of the practice, especially in Hamor.

  “What kind of smith, young fellow? Must be a dozen smiths in Diev, not that I know them all from here—smiths for the traders’ ships, smiths that make horseshoes and not much else, smiths that make who knows what.”

  “The kind that makes tools and parts for wagons or sawmills—that sort of thing.”

  Another cloud of smoke follows before the factor speaks again. “Just two smiths like that in Diev. There’s Henstaal, and he’s got a place out beyond the south wall, just off the turnpike. Good solid forge. Then there’s Yarrl, and he’s on the north side, off the guard road.”

  Dorrin munches another piece of dried pearapple.

  “Henstaal’s got three big sons, older ’n you. Yarrl’s only got a daughter. No apprentice, not the last time I heard. Rumor was he made his daughter help him.” Jarnish blows another cloud of smoke down the table.

  “What’s the problem with Yarrl?”

  “Not as there’s any problem…exactly…young fellow, but they say as his woman’s got the evil eye, and his daughter…well, her tongue…and they’re not from here, either. He set up shop there when I wasn’t much older ’n you, and never said where he was from. Never has, either. Good work, but…says what’s on his mind. Can’t keep apprentices. Last one lasted three days.”

  “All I can do is try.”

  The factor stands. “Can’t mint coins if you don’t keep hammering, nor milk if you don’t water the cows.”

  Dorrin takes the hint and rises. “We’ll be on our way as soon as we gather our packs together.”

  “Don’t need to hurry that much. Let the lady blade finish her cider.”

  Brede stands. “We thank you for your hospitality.”

  “That’ll not be a problem. I owe young Liedral, and this’ll help with that debt.” The factor gestures with the pipe, then sets it back in the brown dish. “I’m off to the barge landing, Jaddy. Maybe they’ll have some winter trout at the market there.”

  “Don’t take any unless they’re silver. The brown ones turn bitter.”

  Jarnish shrugs as he pulls on his jacket.

  Once the factor has stepped outside, Dorrin heads up the stairs to gather his jacket and pack, leaving Brede and Kadara to finish their breakfast. In the dusty attic, he rolls his bedding and cinches it tightly, and packs his gear into the saddlebags. He pulls on his jacket. With the bags over his right forearm, his staff in hand, and the bedroll in his left arm, he heads back down the stairs, nose wrinkling at the acrid odor of burned tobacco…and at the faint aroma of something else carried by Jarnish, except it is not a smell. It is almost as though a faint dusting of chaos flakes off the factor. Dorrin shrugs. Traders have to deal with all sorts.

  Brede has finished the dark bread and has just set his empty mug on the table when Dorrin reenters the kitchen. Dorrin’s nose itches, and he snuffles to keep from sneezing.

  “Are you all right?” asks Brede.

  “Fine.” Dorrin eases around the table and toward the back door. Lyssa opens it for him. “Thank you.”

  Lyssa smiles, and Jaddy shakes her head, not pausing in measuring out flour onto her work table.

  The chill air relieves the itch in Dorrin’s nose. Meriwhen whuffles and tosses her head up from an empty manger as Dorrin opens the stall. “I know. You’re still hungry. You’re always hungry.” Dorrin rummages through the feed barrels and finds the oats and a scoop. While he hasn’t discussed the feed with Jarnish, a scoop or two from the large barrel shouldn’t be too bad. His head throbs as he thinks the thought. Clearly, he will have to leave a coin or something for the extra feed. “You’re always causing problems,” he says as he empties the oats into the manger.

  Meriwhen only chews the grain as Dorrin takes out the brush and begins to curry her. The headache continues after he replaces the brush in the saddle bags and starts back to the kitchen.

  Brede and Kadara are leaving as he approaches.

  “I forgot something,” Dorrin explains.

  “What? You have that guilty look.” Kadara frowns.

  “I need to pay for some extra oats.”

  “Why bother? The factor could spare a handful.”

  “I need to.” Dorrin steps around the redhead and up the stairs.

  “Such a stickler…”

  “I doubt he has much choice, Kadara,” answers Brede. “He is a healer.”

  Dorrin steps inside.

  “What do you need now, boy?” demands Jaddy, elbowdeep in flour.

  “I just wanted to leave a copper or two for some extra feed.” Dorrin reaches for his purse.

  “Jarnish won’t be minding that.”

  “Probably not, but I will.”

  “You’re order-bound, aren’t you, boy?”

  Dorrin nods.

  “Too bad there aren’t more like you. World be a better place.” She looks at the wooden bowl filled with dried pearapples and peaches. “Lyssa!”

  The maid appears from the pantry.

  “Wrap up a double handful of the fruits for them. Jarnish said to send ’em off proper.” She grins at Dorrin. “Just leave the copper on the table there. I’ll be a-telling Jarnish, don’t you worry.” She glances at the maid who has wrapped the fruit in a thin gray cloth. “Another handful or so. Jarnish wouldn’t have these folks starving on the road.”

  “You didn’t have to—” protests Dorrin.

  “Neither did you, boy. Now take the fruit and be on your way.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Nonsense! Just be on your way. Bring me a trinket from the forge, someday.”

  “I will.”

  Jaddy looks back to her baking, and Dorrin takes the cloth filled with dried fruit and walks down the steps and out to the stable.

  “What’s that?”

  “Dried fruits—pearapple and peaches.”

  Kadara shakes her head while Dorrin packs the fruit into his left saddle bag. Then he struggles with the blanket and the saddle, with the saddlebags, and finally with the hackamore.

  “Are you ready?” asks Brede, leading the gelding toward the stable door. “I shoveled out the worst of the stalls.”

  “You two…” Kadara flicks the reins of the chestnut.

  “You catch more redtails with honey than vinegar,” observes Brede calmly.

  Dorrin clambers into his saddle and follows them out to the still-frozen and rutted road. The sun has finally cleared the trees to the south of the factor’s yard, and only a few thin and high white clouds break the green-blue of the sky.

  “This heads toward the mountain road.” Brede points westward.

  “I heard the factor.”

  Dorrin just nods and follows, his gloved hand touching the dark wood of his staff. The three ride at an even pace westward, toward the first low rise in the road.

  Uncounted hills later, Dorrin squirms uneasily in Meriwhen’s saddle. His legs and his buttocks are bruised—even after all the kays. Will he ever get used to riding? Ahead of him, Kadara sits easily in the saddle of the larger chestnut, absently running through a set of blade exercises, then sheathing the larger sword.

  Dorrin glances at his staff, then takes a deep breath and extracts it from
the lanceholder. Slowly he begins loosening up his shoulders.

  “Dorrin…”

  The redhead turns. Brede is flat against the gelding’s mane.

  “…I don’t mind if you practice, but would you look before you start? That wood is hard.” Brede grins.

  “Sorry. I thought you were behind me.”

  “What did Lortren say about assuming things?”

  Dorrin flushes.

  “It’s not that bad, so long as you’re not intending to be a blade.”

  “It’s not that good,” admits Dorrin. “It’s still hard to get a feel for the wood.” He looks across the hillside beside the road at the muddy trail that leads to a small stone house. A plume of white drifts from the chimney into the clear sky of late afternoon, rising above a small stone-walled barn and a wooden privy.

  “Why?”

  “I suppose because it’s a weapon, when you get right down to it, and weapons are for destruction, and that’s chaos.”

  Brede nods. “I’m glad I’m not that order-linked.”

  “So am I,” adds Kadara.

  “How much farther?”

  Brede sighs. “That means another day after today, maybe a day and a half to Diev, if your friend the trader’s directions were accurate.”

  “Liedral’s been right so far,” Dorrin says.

  Kadara doesn’t turn, but Dorrin can feel that she is grinning.

  “Stop it.”

  “Stop what? I didn’t say a word.” Kadara takes out the shortsword for at least the third time since morning and begins to twirl it.

  Dorrin looks at his staff, then slowly resumes the exercise. He shifts in the saddle again as Meriwhen reaches the top of yet another low rise in the chain of seemingly endless rolling hills. The stone walls separating the flattened and brown meadows from the road look little different from those outside Kleth.

  “There should be a way station before too long,” Brede announces cheerfully. “We can take a break.”

  “You aren’t planning on riding all night?” Dorrin asks.

  Neither blade answers him, but Brede eases his gelding past Meriwhen and up beside the chestnut. A clump of mud flies past Dorrin’s leg.

  The next rolling hill brings no sign of the promised way station, and, with a deep breath, Dorrin shifts his weight in the saddle once again.

  II.

  Smith and Healer

  XXXIV

  Brede and Kadara wait on the crest of the hill. Dorrin reins up beside them and looks over the shallow valley that separates them from their destination.

  On the flat cliffs above the low waterfall begins Diev, divided by the River Weyel, not sprawling like the herder towns of Weevett, nor huddling within a proud wall like Jellico, nor slowly dying like Vergren under the white lash of Fairhaven. The lower section of Diev squats in the delta, a fourth-rate port behind Spidlaria and even Sligo’s Tyrhavven, a port so poor that not even the near-desperate Liedral visits it often.

  Diev is merely a town to serve the northwest sheep farms and the scattered mountain holdings, a town without pretensions, a town on the single road that leads from Kleth to the inhospitable north coast of Candar. That poor road peters out into a trail that eventually dead-ends a few kays beyond Diev, the town where the Westhorns meet the Northern Ocean. Beyond the buildings and the rising plumes of smoke that twist over the low plateau, the Westhorns loom, still a mass of white snow, heavy rock, and glittering ice that dwarfs the small efforts of the men squatting below the mountains.

  “Not terribly promising,” offers Brede.

  “It meets the criteria, at least,” Kadara says. “We’ve traveled through Fairhaven and the Easthorns, and we will serve—somehow—at the foot of the Westhorns…for longer than a year.”

  “The longer-than-a-year phrasing still bothers me,” Brede says slowly.

  Dorrin frowns. Lortren never set forth any such rules for him. She only told him he must find himself.

  “Well…sitting here in the wind won’t get us to Diev.” Kadara flicks the chestnut’s reins.

  Brede follows Kadara down the road toward Diev. Dorrin watches for a moment, seeing how easily each sits in the saddle. Then he lifts Meriwhen’s reins and pats her neck. “Let’s go, lady. Wherever we’re headed.”

  XXXV

  Dorrin pats Meriwhen on the neck, surveying the smithy—the covered walkway that connects the square-chimneyed forge building to the narrow house, built of smoothed and dressed planks; the small barn; the corral with the pair of horses and the pig pen. Beyond the barn are three solid oaks, still without leaves, growing almost in a perfect triangle.

  Should he have come alone? When all is said, he is alone. Brede and Kadara must fight their own battles in finding employment as blades.

  “Hallo!” He reins up before the forge building. There is no answer. After tying Meriwhen to an iron ring on a square post, he steps into the faintly eye-burning mist and hot metallic smell of the smithy. Dorrin edges past the broken implements and unidentified metal parts that line one wall. Compared to Hegl’s smithy, Yarrl’s is a confused mess, and even the tool rack is filled with an bewildering array of hammers, tongs, and other tools. Some he recognizes, like the standard hammers, swages, fullers, and punches laid out on the hearth edge in easy reach. But he sees tongs shaped almost like serpents, and there are two large cone mandrels on huge weighted bases. Of the two slack tanks, one is divided into two parts.

  Muscles on the smith’s back ripple as the hammer rises and falls, as the tongs reposition the hot iron. Then the iron cools and is thrust back into the forge. The smith watches the metal heat and returns it to the anvil.

  At length, the piece—a complicated and twisted brace of some sort—is set on the edge of the forge to anneal. Then the hammer is set aside, and the smith turns. “Who are you, youngster?”

  “My name is Dorrin. I’d like to be your apprentice. Jarnish said you might need one.”

  “Jarnish? What’s a factor know about a smithy?”

  Dorrin smiles politely.

  “Scrawny fellow. You eat like a hog. All young fellows do.” The heavy-chested man circles around Dorrin. “What makes you think you’re a smith?”

  “I’ve been an apprentice.”

  “So why aren’t you still there?”

  “I’m from Recluce.”

  “Oh, one of them? So why’d they throw you out?”

  “I wanted to make toys, little machines. They don’t have much use for them.”

  “I can’t say as I do, either.”

  “I can do the work.”

  “You expect to take over the place in a year or two, boy?”

  “No, ser. I don’t ever expect to take it over.”

  “Not good enough for you?”

  Dorrin bites his tongue. “If I become a good smith, then I’ll have to leave before you’re ready to give up. If I don’t, you’ll find someone else.”

  “Ha! Sharp in thinking, leastwise. What do you know about smithing?”

  “A little…but not enough.”

  “You willing to handle the great bellows there? Can you make nails? A good apprentice could turn out hundreds in a morning. How good’s your scarfing? Good enough to make a solid weld? Can you fuller a bar even enough so it doesn’t split?”

  “Usually.” Dorrin can sense someone else approaching, but does not turn to see who the newcomer might be.

  “Hard work. You listen. Do what I say. No lip.”

  “Can I ask questions?”

  The smith frowns.

  “You let this one go, Yarrl, and you be a damned White fool.” A firm voice intrudes.

  The smith looks up at the angular woman. “Smith business, Reisa.”

  Dorrin follows the smith’s glance, forces his eyes to study Reisa casually, even as he notes that the gray-haired and broad-shouldered woman’s right arm ends just below the elbow. The smith finally looks back to him.

  Yarrl shrugs. “Don’t pay much. Food, a bed in the smithy corner room, and a co
pper an eight-day until you’re good enough to work your own metal. If you can’t learn my needs for a striker and make good nails within an eight-day, you’re no good to me.”

  “Fair enough. Is there a spare stall in the stable I can use—in return for cleaning it?”

  Yarrl opens his mouth, closes it, and finally speaks. “You want a stall? To sleep in?”

  “I have a horse, ser.”

  “How will you feed it? Don’t expect me to pay you and feed your animal.”

  “No. If I’m good, I’ll make enough to feed her. If I’m not, you won’t keep me. I have a few coins, enough for a while.”

  “I don’t know…”

  “Yarrl…” Again, the low voice cuts off the smith.

  “All right…you clean the stable on your time, not mine. Now, get the animal put away and get back here. Might as well see right off if you can earn your keep.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  “…least he’s polite…” The smith turns and lifts the hammer.

  Reisa smiles at Dorrin, with the slightest of head shakes, then adds, “I’ll show him the stable.”

  Dorrin follows the one-armed woman to the barn, and the three stalls. A mule stares at Dorrin from the first. The second is empty, as is the third.

  “Petra has the bay and the wagon at market.”

  “Is Petra your daughter?”

  “That she is, and a good one.” Reisa’s voice bears an edge.

  “Then you’re lucky.” Dorrin smiles.

  “Are you really a smith apprentice?”

  “I’ve been one. Also been a healer.”

  “And you want to be a smith? The work never ends, not even for Yarrl.”

  “Somehow…I need to work the metal…”

  “I thought so…but you’re still a healer, one of the Black ones?”

  “Yes.” Dorrin looks at her right arm.

  “No. I know no one can do that. You do animals?”

  “If it’s not too bad.”

  “Goats?”

  “I’ve never done one, but I could try.”

  “Get your horse settled and your things in your cubby. It’s not much. Better than the barn, though, and, you work out, Yarrl will let you fix it up better. Then you look at my goat.”