The Magic Engineer (3 page)

“There are no great weather-wizards on Recluce now. Not like Creslin.”

A thin man in white shakes his head. “Was he as great as the records say? Destroying an entire Hamorian fleet?”

“That was before he really got going,” snaps a heavier man in the first row. “Check the older histories. Especially about the weather.”

“Don’t play games with the youngster,” croaks another voice. “Just tell him.”

“You tell him, Fiedner.”

“It is so simple, young master wizard,” croaks the dried-out wizard called Fiedner. “So simple, and so complex. Three centuries past, the Council included Blacks. Not many, to be sure, for the Whites looked down upon the Blacks. And the magic of order is more complex and less directly powerful than that of chaos. Or so everyone thought until Creslin walked off the Roof of the World.”

“He was real?”

“Aye, that he was. Real enough to change a White witch into an order-master near as great as he. Real enough to destroy scores of ships sent against him. Real enough to turn Kyphros into the hot desert it is today, and northern Spidlar into a cold and snowy wilderness. Real enough to turn Recluce from a desert into a garden island.”

The young man shakes his head. “Folk tales! Nonsense!” Fire flares from his fingers—not just red-tinged white, but a flame like a blade that saws a chunk out of one of the granite columns bordering the chamber.

Clunk…

“Folk tales, they are. But you’re here today because Creslin lived then.”

“Explain,” demands the slim young man with the sunlike eyes and white hair.

“The Balance is real. Aye, real, and you disregard it at your peril. Jenred the Traitor never believed in the Balance, and we
have paid and paid for that ignorance. In Creslin’s time, chaos dominated, and the Balance was forced to find a focus. The Blacks manipulated the focus into creating Creslin, and they had him trained outside of Fairhaven.”

“Westwind? That much is verifiable.”

“It is what is not verifiable that concerns you, Jeslek. Creslin was order-bound, but trained as a Westwind senior guard. That meant more then. Along the way, even before he attained his powers, he killed an entire bandit troop singlehandedly, and three or four squads of White Road Guards. Oh, and he could sing almost as well as the legendary Werlynn.”

“What does that have to do with me?”

“It saved his ass when magic wasn’t enough. You had better learn the same,” cackles the old voice.

“Bah!” The voice cuts nearly as deeply as the chaos fire of the speaker. “Not even the Blacks of Kyphros could stop me.”

“They are not the Blacks of Recluce.”

The words hang for a time in the air.

“Who said that?”

But no voice owns the statement, and in time Jeslek sheathes his fires and steps into the twilight outside the chamber, walking along the never-dark, white-lit streets of Fairhaven toward the old city center.

The tall man tethers the horse and locks the brake on the two-seated wagon. The two redheads reach for their belongings. Shortly, four figures traverse the stone lane that leads gently uphill from the coastal road. The two redheads bear packs on their shoulders. The two men walk as though they bear heavier and unseen burdens.

The paved and time-smoothed walk of black stone stretches toward half a dozen black stone buildings roofed with a gray slate nearly as black as the stone walls. Even the wide windows in the buildings are framed with dark wood. The grass between the walks and walls and buildings is dark green, thick, wiry, and short.

The four pass a diamond-shaped garden of blue and silver flowers—set within low walls of the same black stones. The leaves rustle in the cool fall breeze. In the deep green-blue sky, white puffy clouds scud westward.

“Where are we going?” asks the sole female, too old to be a girl, too young to be a woman.

“To the black building on the right,” responds the tallest figure.

“All the buildings are black.”

“Kadara,” warns the shorter of the two men.

“This whole place is black.”

Dorrin glances from Kadara, who has had the nerve to voice his own feelings, to his father. “Why is it called the Academy?” He has heard the answer, but knows that Kadara has not, and does not want Hegl or his father to be critical of her.

Oran’s lips quirk before he responds. “Originally, it had no name. It started years ago when a former Westwind Guard tutored some younger Blacks in self-defense. They paid for the tutoring by teaching logic and the science of order to what was then the remnant of the Westwind Guard detachment.” Oran pauses, gestures at the building. “The side door, there.” He steps forward. “Someone supposedly called the place the Academy of Useless and Violent Knowledge. It became the Academy.”

They walk up two wide stone steps onto a small covered porch. Kadara tightens her lips, and her eyes rake over both her father and Oran before coming to rest on Dorrin. Hegl shifts his weight as he stops.

“Perhaps they can teach me about using a blade,” she says mildly.

Oran opens the dark oak door and holds it for the others. The three others remain on the wide stones of the porch without moving. Finally, Dorrin shrugs and steps inside. A white-haired and muscular woman a shade shorter than Dorrin appears in the doorway on the far side of a foyer that measures perhaps seven cubits on a side.

“Greetings.” Her voice is more musical than her stern and ageless face.

Dorrin nods. “Greetings.”

“Greetings, magistra,” offers Oran.

“I’m still Lortren, you pompous ass,” returns the black-clad woman. “You know what I think about titles between adults.”

Oran inclines his head slightly. “This is my son Dorrin, and this is Kadara, the daughter of Hegl, here.”

“Let’s go into the study.” Lortren turns and steps through the doorway.

Hegl looks quizzically at Oran, who follows Lortren. Dorrin and Kadara follow their parents.

“I might like her,” mouths Kadara.

“Maybe.” As they step into the next room, Dorrin notes the stacks of freestanding shelves filled with books—thousands, from what he can tell as they walk down a narrow passageway to the right of the shelves. Perhaps thirty cubits from the door, the shelves end, and the room opens onto a space filled with three tables. The corner table, set between two windows, contains two covered pots seeping steam and a tray filled with plain rolls. Six chairs are pulled up to the table.

Dorrin’s stomach growls, not loudly enough, he hopes, for the sound to be heard. It has been a while since the noon meal.

“Sit down anywhere,” offers the magistra.

Dorrin waits until his father and Hegl move toward seats, then glances at Kadara and offers her the chair he holds. She shakes her head and sits on the other side of her father. Dorrin sits beside his father, leaving the empty chair between himself and the smith.

Lortren nods toward the pots. “Hot cider or tea. Help yourself.”

As Oran lifts the teapot, Lortren clears her throat softly. “Some people have called this the Academy of Useless Knowledge and Unnecessary Violence…or the School for Sophistry and Swords. For most people who live on Recluce, the description is probably correct. We try to teach the understanding behind knowledge and the use of weapons for those who learn that understanding. Both tend to be necessary.” Her eyes turn on Dorrin. “Do you know why?”

“No, magistra.”

“I won’t force an answer from you. That comes later. The simple answer is that once you learn why things work, you generally upset people, particularly in places like Nordla and Candar. People who are upset often want to take it out on those who
upset them. It helps if you can protect yourself.” The black eyes twinkle for a moment.

“You mention travel to Candar…” asks Hegl hesitantly.

“Most of those who learn here end up spending time in Candar or Nordla. Some even go to Afrit—Hamor, usually.”

“Why?” asks Oran casually, as if he knows the answer.

“Because instruction is never enough for those who have difficulty accepting things as they are.”

Hegl swallows and nods. Kadara nods, and Dorrin frowns, wondering if the Academy is nothing more than a way to educate troublemakers for exile. He keeps his words to himself, since saying anything will change nothing.

“You speak as though your…students…are almost troublemakers,” offers Kadara, her voice brittle.

“All of you are. I was once, also. It usually takes not only training and theory, but a healthy dose of reality to turn chaotic trouble-making into something useful.”

Dorrin sips the hot tea and munches on a roll.

Hegl glances from the white-haired magistra with the unlined face and melodic voice to his daughter, then toward the air wizard. “I wonder…”

“You wonder if entrusting your daughter to me is a good idea? I would too. It’s not a good idea. The only problem is that the alternatives are worse.” The melodic voice turns hard. “What happens to chaos-mongers?”

“They get exiled,” responds Hegl.

“What generally leads to chaos-mongering?”

The smith shrugs.

“Discontent, unhappiness with life,” answers the air wizard.

“That’s your real choice,” affirms the magistra.

“Because I’m not happy with the way you all have arranged my life, I have to learn all this nonsense and even study in Candar?” Kadara asks.

“No. You will learn enough so that you can live and survive in Candar or Nordla. Then you will decide whether you can accept what Recluce offers. And you are one of the lucky ones—whose parents can purchase the training. The others often just get a lecture and a boat ride.”

Dorrin shivers. This is something he has not heard before. His eyes and Kadara’s cross. Then they look at their parents,
but neither man will meet his offspring’s question.

Lortren stands. “That’s about it. You two can go, and I’ll show these two youngsters to their rooms.”

While the words are polite enough, Dorrin understands that Lortren controls his future and perhaps even his life.

“How…where…?” the smith stammers.

Lortren smiles, faintly. “If you want to see where your daughter will live, come along. It’s just a small plain single room.”

Hegl steps after his daughter. Dorrin looks at his father and shakes his head. Although he will never be the wizard his father is, he can sense enough to know that Lortren tells the truth.

“You’d rather I didn’t?”

“I’d rather you didn’t,” Dorrin confirms. “Besides, you know what the rooms look like. Hegl doesn’t.”

“Quiet, but sharp, isn’t he, Oran?” observes Lortren.

“Too sharp for his own good, I fear.”

“Good-bye,” Dorrin says, shouldering his pack. Oran remains by the table as the four leave.

Lortren leads them down a corridor through another dark oak door and onto another covered porch. “Over to that building.” She points to a two-storied, slate-roofed structure perhaps two hundred cubits uphill with narrow windows.

Dorrin counts the windows—ten on each level. If his estimate of the width of the roof line is correct and there are rooms on both sides, the building will hold forty students. “Is that the only place where students live?”

“Not the only one, but most students live there. There’s no absolute requirement for it, but it’s a long walk from either Land’s End or Extina, and you will be kept rather busy.” Lortren hurries down the steps and along the stone-paved path toward the student housing. She walks almost at a slow run.

Dorrin stretches his own stride out to catch up. “How long will our instruction take? Here, I mean.”

Lortren laughs, a short laugh that is half musical, half bark. “Probably about half a year, but that depends on you.”

“How often do you start groups—”

“Are there others—”

Both Kadara and Dorrin break off in mid-question, but keep moving to stay abreast of the black-clad magistra.

“We allow new groups to start about every five or six eight-days. We usually have three or four groups at different stages.”

Dorrin is certainly not the only one questioning the order or meaning of Recluce—not if Lortren is training nearly eighty young people a year.

The only sound is that of breathing, of booted feet upon stone, of the wind through the trees in their orderly spacing throughout the grounds, and of the intermittent and distant
shhhhsss
of the Eastern Ocean breaking upon the white sands under the cliffs to the east of the Coastal Highway that fronts the Academy.

Lortren pauses at the top of the uncovered stone stoop before yet another black oak door—this one to the student quarters. “Kadara, you can wait here or follow us upstairs. Dorrin, your room is upstairs on the far end.”

She opens the door, and Dorrin follows. After a moment, so does Kadara. Hegl trails them up the stone steps and down the dim hallway to the last doorway on the left. The magistra opens the door. “No locks. There’s a small privacy bolt.” She points to the metal fastening and steps aside to let Dorrin enter.

Dorrin’s room is not large, measuring no more than seven cubits long and a little more than five wide and containing only a wardrobe, a narrow desk with a single drawer, a chair for the desk, and a single bed not much more than a thin pallet upon a wooden frame. The polished stone floor is bare.

“Very plain, but adequate.”

On the foot of the bed is a folded sheet and a heavy brown blanket.

“At the fourth bell—that’s also the announcement for dinner—meet me in the library, and we’ll go over the rest of the rules and your schedules. By then, most of the others should have arrived. There are three others here so far. Feel free to walk anywhere on the grounds. You may enter any room with an open doorway, although I would suggest knocking first.” She pauses. “Any questions?”

“What would happen if I just left?”

“Nothing.”

“And if I go where I’m not supposed to?”

Lortren snorts. “You can go anywhere you demon-well want to. If you interrupt a class or someone’s work, they’ll naturally
be upset. But that’s your problem. You could hurt yourself if you get careless in the armory, but that’s also your problem. There’s nothing secret about this place. I just don’t want to explain all the rules ten separate times. That’s why we’ll get together before dinner and do it all at once.”

The black-clad magistra turns to Kadara, who stands in the doorway. “Now…let’s get you to your room.”

As the sound of steps fades away, Dorrin stands alone in the small room.

Sniff…

The redhead wrinkles his nose at the faint mustiness, then glances at the desk which sits beneath the window. He has to lean across the wooden writing top in order to slide the window open. As he straightens up, his head brushes the oil lamp in the bracket affixed to the edge of the window casement.

Standing behind the desk, he looks through the open window toward the east. While the trees on the far side of the coastal road block his view, he knows that the Eastern Ocean is there, the breakers foaming on the kays of soft white sand that stretch toward Land’s End.

He looks at the pack, then back out the window.

Finally, he lifts the pack and begins to remove the clothing, first the lighter shirts and the underclothing, before beginning to place them in the wardrobe.