The Magic Engineer (18 page)

“Does that mean a war?” Dorrin asks. “I mean, what would they get from it? If they destroy Recluce, they get fewer spices and wool, and they’d cost more, and they wouldn’t be able to sell as much grain. And if they don’t, lots of people get killed, and lots of gold is wasted.”

Kadara laughs. “You’re too reasonable to fight anything,
Dorrin. You’ll still be asking questions when the White legions march over the hills looking for you. People don’t have to be reasonable. You should know that.”

The smith and healer smiles wryly. “I guess so. I know my machines are only based in order, and it’s logical, when you get right down to it. I mean, chaos gums up anything complex. So, for a machine to work, it has to be order-based. But no one is logical about it.”

Kadara and Brede exchange glances.

“Ah…” Kadara finally says, “I never thought about it that way.”

“Neither did I,” Dorrin admits. His stomach growls.

Brede laughs.

“Here you go!” The serving woman drops three heavy bowls on the table, one right after the other, all steaming. “Where’s your coins?”

Brede hands her a silver. “For all three.”

She hands back a copper, and a platter with a single long loaf lands in the middle, still vibrating on the uneven and battered dark wood after the server has turned to the next table. “More of the same, gents?” she asks the pair of tradesmen.

“Thank you,” Dorrin says politely to Brede, even as he wonders if people will always be looking out for him. His eyes burn from the smoke and the closeness of the air. Kadara smiles at Brede, softly enough that Dorrin wishes he were the recipient.

“My pleasure, Dorrin.” Brede takes a deep pull from the mug and raises it until he catches the server’s eyes. She nods, and he lowers the mug.

“How long are you going to stay here?” asks Brede.

“In Diev?” Dorrin pauses for another sip of the redberry. “Until I discover who I am.”

“Oh…Dorrin.” Kadara’s voice breaks, and she looks down at the table. “How cruel.”

Brede’s eyebrows lift.

“Lortren, she’s a bitch. She knows how honest Dorrin is.” Tears seep from the red-headed blade’s eyes before she wipes them. “It’ll be years…”

“I’m sure that’s what she had in mind.” Dorrin’s voice is dry. He takes a spoonful of the heavily peppered stew, then
breaks the end off the brown bread. “Let’s enjoy the food.”

“Might as well.” Brede breaks off the other end and offers the platter to Kadara, who shakes her head, still wiping her eyes.

“Here’s your refill, trooper!” The serving woman pours more beer into Brede’s mug, then looks at Kadara. The redhead shakes her head.

Dorrin takes another spoonful of the stew, blinking. His eyes burn. From the smoke, he thinks, from the smoke. For a time, none of the three speak, and Dorrin finishes his stew not long after Brede. Kadara is still eating, taking small nibbles from the chunk of warm bread in her hand.

Dorrin yawns. “Tired, I guess.”

“Is smithing that hard?”

“Well…I am doing a little healing, mostly animals, and I work on my designs sometimes at night.”

“Designs?”

“It helps to draw them out before I try to make anything. Sometimes, I carve it out in wood even. I’m working on gears.”

“Gears?” This time Kadara is the questioner.

“You can’t transfer power without gears. I read about them in the old books in my father’s library. And, I mean, the point of a machine is to do something, and that means transferring power from something, like a waterwheel or an engine.”

“But we have waterwheels on Recluce.”

“And there are gears, but I want to build a steam engine.”

“Oh…Dorrin,” Kadara says once again, this time only shaking her head.

Dorrin yawns again. “I need to go.” He stands up. “Thank you. I enjoyed it. Will you be around for a while, or are they sending you out?”

“Not for a while,” Brede answers. “That could change tomorrow. If there are highwaymen below Kleth or Syda, our squad would be the next to go.”

Dorrin pats Kadara’s arm. “Good night.”

“Good night, Dorrin.”

Dorrin picks up his staff from behind his chair along the back wall and walks through the tables and past the soot-smoked lantern hanging outside the Red Lion. The wind chills his face. Overhead, the stars glitter coldly as he walks into the stable where Vaos snores lightly on two bales of hay pushed together.

“Pass the squash,” grumbles Yarrl.

Petra sets the bowl before him. “It’s good, especially with the pepper.”

“Pepper? Can’t afford spices, can we, Reisa?”

“It came from the garden. It’s early and green, but it helps.”

“Oh…that your doing, young fellow?”

“I helped a little,” Dorrin admits.

Yarrl shovels a pile of the mashed yellow squash onto the brown plate, then uses his tin spoon to take a mouthful. He chews and swallows. “Pepper helps.” He takes another mouthful.

Dorrin takes an early summer peach and slices it into quarters, letting the quarters fall onto his plate beside the curried lamb. Then he alternates mouthfuls of the hot lamb and barley with slices of peach.

“You’re a good healer,” Petra says slowly. “That business with the piglets—we would have lost all but one. And Mora…”

Dorrin frowns. “I still worry about Mora—”

“Not bad for a young fellow at the forge,” mumbles Yarrl. “Except he spends too much time with his toys.”

“They’re cute,” Petra protests. “They do things.”

“Still toys.”

Dorrin swallows another slice of peach—a trace green, but the tart moisture cools his mouth from the heat of the spiced lamb. “They’re models, really. Someday, I hope to build bigger ones.”

“Need a light-blessed pile of iron,” Yarrl declares. “And what would you use them for?”

“Whatever…” Dorrin demurs.

“I still wonder why you’d be a smith, rather than a healer,” Reisa says as she ladles an additional scoop of lamb and barley onto her plate.

“I’d like to be both,” admits Dorrin, “but I have to learn to be a good smith first.” The drumming of the rain on the roof
begins to subside as Dorrin finishes the last slice of his peach. “Looks like it might clear up.”

“We needed the rain.”

“Turns the roads into mud, and Bartov is supposed to deliver some ingots and coal tomorrow.”

Petra covers her mouth and looks at her mother, her eyes still crinkled in a smile. Reisa shakes her head.

“Why are you shaking your head, woman?”

“Just the rain, just the rain.”

“Well, pass the meat.”

Dorrin lifts the heavy bowl and sets it before the smith.

“You going to work tonight, youngster?”

“Not tonight, I think. I banked the coals and tightened the vents.” His stomach tightens at his evasion, but he sips the cool cider from his mug without revealing his discomfort. “Not at the forge,” he finally adds.

“Good. Work too much…fry your brain. None of us smiths got much left.”

“I doubt that.” Dorrin laughs. “Brugal certainly would. He claimed you were sharper than the Prefect of Gallos.”

“Hmmmm…” Yarrl pushes himself away from the table. “Going to see Honsard. Wants to talk.”

“He wants to get you tanked on that green wine and get a better price for wagon work.” Reisa’s voice is tart.

“Don’t go and talk, and I get no work.” The smith stands and pulls a leather jacket from the peg on the wall.

Dorrin carries his plate to the wash bucket.

“I’ll do that,” Petra says. “You look to the spices, the sage especially.”

“Sage…hmmphhh…” Yarrl opens the back door and steps onto the porch. “Clear night, leastways.”

“Keep a clear head, too,” advises the gray-haired woman.

Dorrin follows the smith off the covered porch and down the steps, stopping by the spice garden while the smith ambles toward the barn, and the bay he will ride to Honsard’s wagonry. After surveying the spice garden, Dorrin kneels and removes a few weed spouts, his hands brushing the pepper bushes and the sage, for the heavy rains and dampness are unsuited to either. He sees another set of weeds beyond the dill, and absently removes those, waddling around the garden, touching, sensing,
and drinking in the scent and feel of the growing herbs.

Standing, he brushes the dark dirt from his hands, noting again the difference between the carefully composted soil of the garden and the clay of the yard. Creating any garden from the red clay takes time and patience. Reisa has supplied those; he has only added a touch of order.

He fingers the small carrot in his pocket as he walks toward the corner of the barn. He slips into the goat pen, and Mora butts him gently. “I know, I know, but I didn’t bring much.” He slips the nanny the wilted carrot, even as he touches her shoulder.

She is close to term. That he can tell, but how close? With a shrug, he leaves, checking the gate, placing his feet to avoid the worst of the puddles.

The sound of a bullfrog rumbles through the misty twilight as Dorrin walks back to his quarters. He lights the lamp. On the floor, he now has a woven grass mat, and a quilt covers his pallet bed. A crude planked wardrobe stands in one corner, and the writing table has been strengthened with iron braces. Two towels are hung on a rack he has built, and a chipped but serviceable washbowl rests on the shelf between the dowels that hold his rough cloth towels.

As he sits on the stool, he takes a sheet of paper from the wooden box and dips the quill into the ink, beginning to sketch out in greater detail the idea that has been swirling inside his head. The better his design, the less work at the forge—and that is easier on his body and his limited funds for materials. He considers it work, but would rather not mention it to Yarrl. Besides, Dorrin has promised Pergun he will go to Kyril’s the following evening. He hasn’t gone recently, and he knows he needs to, if only to hear what is happening in and around Diev.

In time, he stops the sketch and takes out another sheet of paper, this time slowly calculating as he places numbers at various points on the sketch. He wishes the numbers were better—or that he had paid more attention to the higher calculations at the Academy.

Finally, he sighs and puts aside the quill, and places the papers in the other wooden box—the one under his pallet with his notes on his models. Then he strips off his trousers and shirt and climbs into his bed. Thoughts of black steel and carts that move
without draft horses and boats that move without wind swirl through his thoughts until darkness claims him.

“Dorrin!” His name is followed by a rapping on his door. “Dorrin!”

“Yes?” He struggles out of his bedroll and off the pallet, yanking on his trousers. “What is it?”

“It’s Mora. I need some help.”

“I’ll be right there.” He pulls on his trousers, boots, and work shirt, and unlatches the door. Reisa is halfway to the barn. Dorrin follows.

The nanny lies on a pile of straw under the slanting roof of the barn, shuddering periodically. Reisa is bent over the suffering animal, her good arm repositioning the goat’s hind legs.

Dorrin squats down to help, to help with whatever Reisa will direct him to do, for he has no experience with any sort of birth.

Mora moans, and Dorrin winces at the pain. Pain follows pain, with one interlude of joy, and, after what seems an endless night, Dorrin slumps against the fence. No order remains in the twisted body of the nanny goat. Nothing he can do will change that. A single kid whimpers from Reisa’s arms.

“Sorry—I tried.”

“I know. I watched you visit her almost every night.”

“I tried.”

“Youngster, some things will be. Not all the order in the world, nor all the chaos, can change fate.” She cradles the kid. “What about this one?”

Dorrin studies the still-damp kid. “If you can get some kind of milk, broth, something, I can probably keep her alive until she can eat on her own.”

“But you couldn’t save Mora.”

“I’m not strong enough. This one’s small.”

“I won’t call her ‘this one.’”

“What will you name her?”

“Zilda, I guess. It means ‘lost one’ in…where I came from.”

“Aren’t we all?”

“I don’t think you’re lost, young Dorrin. You’re solid. Where you are is where you are. Don’t lose that. Yarrl laughs at your toys, but he’d give an arm to be able to make them. I’d almost give my other one to grow herbs and heal like you.”
Reisa pauses as a faint whimpering “baaaa…” escapes from her arms. “I’d think either cow’s or goat’s milk would do. I can trade some pepper with Werra or Ghunta. Some broth, tonight, I’d guess.”

Dorrin touches Zilda again, trying to strengthen the blackness within the kid. Then he takes a deep breath and straightens. “Now what?”

“Petra can take care of Mora.”

Dorrin understands, although neither will speak of it. All that can be used will be, but Reisa will not ask that of herself, or Dorrin.

Dorrin nods and turns back toward his quarters and his pallet.

Jeslek smiles as he looks westward at the needle peaks, still covered with the ice of the winter. Behind him, the red-headed woman, also in white, glances from the guards to the Westhorns and back to the guards. The three guards look down at the whitened granite of the road.

The wizard’s senses begin to probe the chaos deep beneath the last stretch of the high grasslands of Analeria, loosening a bond here, leaving another untouched. The ground begins to tremble, and on a distant hillside, indistinct dots that are sheep collapse into the high grass as the shaking increases. Yet the road remains stable, with only the faintest hints of vibration underneath.

A faint haze spreads across the sky, and smoke begins to rise from the grasslands on each side of the white road. Slowly, ever so slowly, the road appears to sink, as if dropping below the surrounding terrain.

Anya smiles nervously, while the guards keep their eyes firmly on the granite underfoot.

Jeslek’s eyes focus downward also, following his senses deep beneath the earth, opening channels of chaos, and letting the earth do its work, thrusting small mountains upward, no longer restrained by the bonds of order.

“A great one, he is,” murmurs the youngest guard. “They
say he’s the one foretold in the Old Book.”

The road shudders, strongly enough that Anya stumbles against the guard who has spoken. The guard steps back from her with a start, as though he had been burned.