The Magic Engineer (59 page)

Dorrin nods to Vaos, and the youth lifts the white flag with the crimson crossbars. Dorrin kneels and flicks the striker. As the fuse burns, he and Vaos race along the planks and drop behind the low embankment.

CRRRuuummmppp!
Earth, sand, vegetation, and water erupt from the edge of the marsh.

Dorrin rises and surveys the mess, watching the water from the hillside stream slowly carry some of the debris seaward. So far his efforts have succeeded in widening the inlet into a channel nearly sixty cubits wide and almost twenty deep.

Still, the
Black Diamond
is anchored offshore in the momentarily quiet water on the Gulf side of the point, waiting until the blasting is complete.

Behind him beyond the end of the road, a pile of stones is slowly growing, already almost enough for the footings for the first pier.

He turns and squints into the midmorning sunlight. Another wagon rolls down the road from the last turn.

“Who’s that?” asks Vaos.

“I don’t know. Let’s go see.” The two walk toward the end of the road. Northward, on the hillside, below the tents, are foundations for five buildings where Pergun, his lisping and slurring almost gone, toils with the stones and soil until the tim
ber Dorrin has ordered arrives.

“Looks like timber,” Vaos comments.

“They said it wouldn’t be here for another two or three days.”

“Maybe they’re early.”

Dorrin doubts that, but anything is possible, he supposes. He lengthens his stride toward the faint dust raised by the approaching wagon. The carter, a slender figure with graying hair, reaches the road end before Dorrin does and stands by the team.

Dorrin swallows as he recognizes Hegl. The smith waits by the wagon laden with heavy timbers. “You brought her back, Dorrin. I owe you.”

“No.” Dorrin shakes his head, thinking of Kadara’s injuries, her anger, and her losses.

Hegl smiles, a bitter smile. “I know my daughter. I talked to her. She’ll never tell you, but I know.” His face clears. “Besides, I like the idea of building a Black seaport and a real ship like what you started. And I like the idea of you getting the last word on your father. Makes me small, I know, but in some ways, I am small.” The old smith gestures to the wagon. “These are for a temporary wharf. They’re just pine, but you’ll need that until you can quarry the right kind of stone. Julka’s bringing another wagon with smithy tools and firebricks. That’ll take longer, probably a couple of days.”

Dorrin has trouble keeping his mouth from dropping open.

“There’ll be others, too. Some of us want to see some changes.” Hegl grins. “Like your mother.”

“Dorrin! Those the timbers we need?”

“So where do you want them?” asks Hegl. “You got work to do, and I need to rustle up some more stuff.”

Dorrin calculates. The ground beside the pier site is too soft for the heavy wagon. “Right there. I’m just about through cleaning out the channel, so we can put the footings down.”

“I’m just an old smith, boy. But, remember, you need to make this a big port, so don’t think small, like me.” He gives Dorrin another grin and his face sobers. “I owe you more than you know. Weidra never thought she’d see Kadara again, let alone see grandchildren.”

Vaos stands back, his eyes darting from one smith to the other.

Dorrin wants to scream that it wasn’t his doing. He holds back, instead only demurring. “Kadara did it all. The only thing I did was build a ship.”

“The only thing…nonsense. Now let’s get on with these timbers.”

Dorrin knows what he is, and he is not the hero figure that some are making him out to be. Belatedly, he points to Vaos. “Hegl, this is Vaos, my apprentice. Vaos, Hegl was the smith who made it all possible.”

Hegl flushes. “Nonsense, I say…stuff and nonsense.” He looks at Vaos. “You’re strong enough for the shorter cross-beams. Pitch in.”

Vaos smiles and steps toward the wagon.

Idly, as he lifts a timber, Dorrin wonders if Creslin ran into the same problem. Then he shakes his head. Even mentally comparing himself to Creslin is sheer gall. He cannot control storms, nor can he wield a blade, nor has he founded a kingdom and the basis of order. All he has done is build one ship and get a whole lot of people killed—scarcely the basis for greatness.

He lifts down another timber.

Sterol glares at the mirror, and the vision of the ship at the pier, and the buildings on the hillside. “How you ever let this happen, Anya…” The White Wizard gestures and the swirling mists refill the mirror.

“The question is whether they keep him.” Anya brushes her long red hair back over her shoulder, seating herself in a chair placed to catch the afternoon breeze from the open window. “What happens next?”

“It would appear they’re staying on Recluce. The chief Councillor
might
still send them off to Hamor, but it doesn’t look that way.”

“Chief Councillors have been known to be overridden…”

“Veiled hints don’t become you, Anya. Every High Wizard has to worry about being replaced. Perhaps you should take the post to learn about it.”

“Me? A mere woman? No, thank you.”

Sterol coughs and rubs his forehead. “If their Council allows him to stay, it might cause actual chaos on Recluce.”

“You’re dreaming. I saw that young smith, or whatever he is. He’s so Black that even Jeslek’s fire wouldn’t touch him.” Anya shivers at the recollection. “Whatever he does, he won’t create chaos.”

“He certainly did in Spidlar,” reminds Sterol.

Anya frowns. Her eyes flicker from the bed in the corner to the door, and she forces a slow deep breath.

“How do you like the fish?” asks Merga.

“Good…” mumbles Pergun from one side of the long table.

Beside him, in a row, are Frisa, Rek, and Vaos. Frisa stares at the fish, much as Dorrin does, while the two youths eat without tasting. Across the table, Rylla grins, but half her fish is already gone.

“I’m beginning to feel like a fish,” Dorrin says in a low voice to Liedral, who sits to his right. He looks at the fish on the plate, one of a mismatched set scrambled together by his brother Kyl, then out the as-yet-unglazed window. Above him rises a roof, with exposed beams, but no ceilings.

All five of the buildings at Southpoint share the same state—mostly finished walls and roofs, but minimal ulterior work, except for the shipwright shed and the smithy.

The basic frame for the second ship is taking shape, and already Dorrin and Tyrel have had words, and Dorrin has been forced to compromise yet again, although the compromises have not changed the look of the ship from the model he developed, mainly for Tyrel.

“Begging yer pardon, master Dorrin…begging yer pardon…you cannot put that much iron on that small a ship…not if you want her to cross the Gulf…”

“…that bad. Are you listening? Dorrin?”

“Sorry,” he apologizes.

Liedral gives him a rueful grin. “Even when you are here, you’re not. It’s a good thing I’m going back to Land’s End for a while.”

“Oh…yes.” Now he remembers that she will be waiting for a Hamorian ship that seems likely to put in on the way back from Renklaar. “What do you think will sell best?”

“I don’t know, but I’d guess the toys. If you could spare a little time to make a few more for the next ship, whenever it might come in, I think it would be well worth the time.”

“Listen to the trader,” suggests Yarrl from the other end of the table.

Reisa and Petra grin. Even a faint smile crosses Kadara’s lips, followed by a disconcerted expression as she covers her mouth with the back of her hand. A hand strays to her slowly growing abdomen before she catches herself and cuts another piece of the dark fish.

Rylla follows the gesture. “You need all that fish, mistress Kadara.”

Kadara groans.

Fish tastes like fish to Dorrin, and the meat at Southpoint has been generally fish supplemented with some mutton. On good days, there are crunchy quilla roots, or perhaps dried pearapples. Although there is adequate food on Recluce, the blockade has limited imported food to items that can be dried or salted, since most must come from Brista or far Hamor.

Even past midsummer, it is too early for the fresh pearapples, or for the few apples nursed along in secluded orchards, or for the greenberries or redberries that cling to the higher cliffs, but ripen late.

There is some flour, barley bread, and mutton, and fish. There are adequate spices, but Dorrin feels that he has already tasted every spice possible on mutton, and no spice changes a fish from a fish—not any that he has tasted.

Still, he should not complain about the fish, not when much of it is basically a gift from Kyl. His brother has only come to Southpoint once, and then only to bring in a huge basket of fish from his boat. All the other times, his crew or someone else has delivered the fish, almost like a peace offering or a thank you. But why? They had never fought, not beyond boyish squabbles, and what has Dorrin done to merit thanks from Kyl?

Thinking about the fish will not get it eaten or Dorrin back to the smithy. He cuts a large slice and stuffs it in his mouth, trying not to think about it. The he takes a drink of water. Water is about all they have for beverages. Redberry is out of season, and, with the constant drain of his coins for supplies, Dorrin cannot buy spirits, nor has there been time to set up a brewery, or a distillery, let alone do the brewing.

He takes another bite of the fish and of the boiled seaweed, which tastes even worse. Kadara was right: he had been well-off in Spidlar, and he misses those small luxuries.

“Could you wait a day?” he asks Liedral. “I could work on some toys and things. There are a couple of things that I could do this afternoon and tomorrow—like the simple boats and the crank-fan.”

“If I leave early the next morning…”

“At least, you’re listening some of the time,” says Yarrl.

Dorrin knows he isn’t always listening, but he is trying to juggle so much, and more and more he feels like everything is chaotic, out of control.

Still…the unproved new boiler sections are almost done, and the shaft gearing will take days, if not an eight-day. He takes another bite of fish and seaweed, and follows it with the last of the stale biscuits on his plate, and more water.

“Master Dorrin eats his seaweed,” Merga explains to Frisa. “It’s good for you.”

Both Vaos and Frisa look unconvinced as they stare at the brown tendrils on their plates.

“Tomorrow, we’ll have quilla. It’s soaking now,” Merga adds.

“That’s not much better,” mumbles Rek.

Reisa, looking up from a clean plate, only shakes her head. Dorrin will appreciate the quilla more than seaweed, but the choice is between something crunchy and tasteless and something that tastes like oily sawdust. He finishes his water.

After lunch—Dorrin finds it hard to adjust to “lunch” as opposed to dinner as the midday meal—the smith marches back to the smithy and, after packing the forge fire, and starting Rek on a gentle rhythm with the bellows, pulls out a section of three-span-wide plate.

“What would you like me to do?” asks Yarrl.

“Can you finish the steam drum without me?”

“Mostly. Least until we get to the last weld. That’s going to take us both if you want it to hold.”

“Let me know. I really need to do these boats.”

“I know, Dorrin. Coin speaks.” Yarrl pauses. “You know, some of those holders want some wagon work. They don’t like traveling all the way to Feyn for that smith there.”

“Do it.” Dorrin measures on the workbench before lifting the tongs. “If they want it tomorrow, start taking it. We can work on the ship later, if we have to, but…you need coin. You can’t live forever on what you brought.”

“It’s not that bad. You know, Reisa’s charging the holder youth for blade training. Not much, but it helps.”

“Everything helps.” Dorrin swings the iron into the forge. “Pick it up a little, Rek. Vaos, you’ll need the small sledge. We’re going to fuller this down to not much more than sheet.”

Vaos slips the bottom fuller onto Dorrin’s anvil.

“You take over the bellows for a while. Yarrl’s going to need Rek for that boiler section.”

“Yes, ser.” Vaos’s voice is resigned to the assignment of the drudge work, and that, Dorrin reflects, is normal. His eyes stray to the large grindstone that will be necessary to polish and shine the propeller for the
Black Diamond
. The metal surface must be as smooth as possible, Dorrin senses. He shakes his head. He needs to get on with making goods for coin, not wool gathering over the new ship when he is not working on it.

Both smiths move iron from opposite sides of the forge, and their hammers lift…and fall…lift and fall.

Dorrin wipes his forehead, wondering when Liedral will be back from Land’s End, and how successful she has been with the Nordlan brig, and with his toys and gadgets. Darkness knows, they need the coins. He lifts the hammer again, and again, until the iron has cooled below the cherry red he needs. With the tongs he thrusts it back into the bricks.

On the other side of the forge, Yarrl works on replacing the
curved claw side of a peavey for a holder. His hammer is almost musical on the iron.

“You’re working like the demons of light are after you.” Rek’s face glistens under the sheen of sweat as he pumps the bellows.

“More like the Black Mages of Recluce.” Dorrin retrieves the block of iron, deftly eases it onto the anvil with the tongs. He never knew building a new engine would take twice as many parts, it seems, as the old one.

“But they’re your people.”

“Things are never that simple.” Dorrin nods to Vaos. The striker brings down the hammer on the swage—once, twice. Dorrin returns the iron to the forge, heated here by coal, which requires more work with the bellows by Rek, and occasional sprinkling of the coals with a water can—another item Dorrin had to quickly forge. Dorrin returns the iron to the anvil and nods to Vaos again, for another series of blows. He taps the anvil to signify that the striking on this piece is done. When Vaos lifts the small sledge, Dorrin sets the short and rough valve casing on the fire bricks.

“No one is my people. Not at the moment. They’re more afraid of me than the White Wizards. The White Wizards can only starve them to death.”

“That’s…a funny thing…to say,” pants Rek.

“Slow down for now.” Dorrin pulls another flat plate from the stack on his work table, built of a few of the timbers delivered by Hegl. In between engine parts, he must continue to work on the black iron tubing, hoping that it will not be needed, and knowing that it will.

Frisa slips in through the open door, her hair fluffing away from her head. She studies the iron annealing on the firebricks. “Is that something special, master Dorrin?”

“Is it?” asks Rek.

“It’s for a special purpose.” Dorrin’s head throbs as he realizes the evasion he has voiced.

“Mommy told me to tell you that master Kyl is walking up from the pier.”

Dorrin sets the iron back on the bench. “Take a break, and get some water, Rek, before you burn up. Vaos, stay here in case Yarrl needs you.” Then the smith walks through the door
way of the space that is part smithy, part engine works, and part something else and looks down the hillside to the pier where the
Black Diamond
is tied. In front of the converted sloop is a smaller vessel, with two lower masts and nets drying across the main deck.

A stocky figure marches up the gravel pathway from the Great Highway. Dorrin raises his hand. The other grins, raising his own hand.

Dorrin walks over to the porch. “Merga, do we have anything to drink?”

“Water and cool tea.”

Dorrin grimaces and waits as Kyl crosses the last few rods between them. “I didn’t think we’d see you for a while.”

“I didn’t think so, either, but the winds aren’t right, and it’s easier than fighting them. Sort of nice to have a port down here, even if getting in is tricky under sail.”

“All we have is water and cool tea.”

“Water’s fine.”

As if she has heard, Merga arrives with two tumblers.

“Let’s go up on the porch.” Dorrin leads the way to the bench. Some time he hopes they will have chairs, but the new ship comes before chairs, and the only two they have are the two at each end of the long kitchen table.

Dorrin sits and takes a deep swallow of the water. At least it is cold, and he is glad he did divert some of the stream for running water in the house. At least he could buy piping rather than having to forge it.

“Still can’t get over how you’ve changed.” Wispy hair straggles across the tanned forehead of the stocky man.

“So have you.” Dorrin surveys Kyl, taking in the weathered clothes and sun-bleached eyes. “Was it hard?”

“Getting them to let me go to sea? No…not after your letters.”

“I hoped…but I was never good with words—not like Brede.”

“What happened to him?”

“He was good enough to be made marshal of Spidlar. The Whites got him when they crushed his forces at Kleth.”

“Was that when you got injured and blinded?”

Dorrin nods.

“What about Kadara?”

“She was almost killed early in the battle. Liedral brought us both back. How I’m not sure. I just managed to hang on…my horse.” He swallows hard, thinking of Meriwhen, still picturing her in the water behind the
Black Diamond
.

“I didn’t mean about Kadara being wounded. You once were…”

Dorrin grins. “I was. I wanted her for a time. Then I found Liedral, and I recognized the difference. Kadara’s always been in love with Brede. I finally realized that Kadara was indeed more of a sister than a lover. We’ve adjusted, although she was bitter for a time, and will be, because I couldn’t save Brede. I hope that will pass and that I can become some sort of an uncle to her son when he’s born. That would be fine.” He lifts himself off the bench. “I need your help.”

“With father?”

“No. He won’t listen to either one of us. As a matter of fact, he still has trouble listening to common sense. Sometimes, anyway.” Dorrin strides past his brother and into the part of the high-roofed building that is the metal fabricating area.

Kyl follows, puzzled expression on his face.

Dorrin stops by the newly built and already battered workbench, lifting the black model of the new ship. “Look.”

“It’s low, not much freeboard, deep keel.”

“You need that to carry the black iron plating.” Dorrin turns to a black box nearly four cubits long, which he opens. Inside is a black metal tube with a shoulder rest and a handgrip. “This is just as important.”

“What is it?”

“A rocket launcher. Here.” Dorrin hands his brother a shell. “It’s filled with explosive powder.”

“Won’t the White Wizards just set it on fire?”

“It would be hard for any except the greatest ones. The casing is thin black steel. Take it.”

Kyl holds the projectile, then sets it on the bench. “Why?”

“I’d like you to tell mother about it. You might also explain that I don’t intend to be driven off Recluce.”

“You wouldn’t!”

Dorrin’s eyes are like black steel as he looks at his brother. “I intend to save Recluce. And my ships are the only way that
will work right now. But Oran insists that everything will be all right so long as we maintain the old order, and he’s working on Ellna and Videlt to change their minds. I can’t build a ship and politic.” He ignores the headache that reminds him that he is doing just that as he speaks to his brother.

“I think you’re doing just that.” Kyl smiles, and hands back the shell.

“You’re right. Do you have any better ideas?”

“Forget about the weapons. They already know you can do something awful. It’s better if I just talk about your feeling responsible for all these people and worried that father will let his fears mess up everything.” The younger man gestures toward the sun-framed smithy door. “Already, you must have thirty people here from elsewhere on Recluce. It will grow. Darkness, I’d like to live here.”

“I haven’t counted. I’m glad we had some tents. You’re welcome, though I don’t know as we’re the best market for your catch.”

Kyl laughs. “You will be. You don’t need force. All you need is time.”

Dorrin has been using force too much, and Kyl is right. But will the Whites and the Council give him time? “You’re right. But I worry.”

“You can always use force, Dorrin,” Kyl says. “Remember, your letters worked—after mother read them.”

“I trust your judgment.” Dorrin points downhill. “Do you want to see the plans for the new ship?”

“I saw the keel and frame on the way up. It looks like the model, keel and all—demon-damned deep.”

“I’ll show you the plans. Just wait here.” He ducks into the house and walks into the large room in the far corner that contains but a chest, a table and a stool, and a big bed—the only kind he and Liedral can still share—and pulls the drawing from under the chunk of iron that serves as a paperweight.

Kyl smiles as Dorrin sits down and smooths out the paper on the part of the bench between them. “Here.”

“It’s low,” Kyl repeats. “No masts and not as much freeboard as a schooner.”

“It’s a warship. Nothing more.”

“It looks nasty.” Kyl gives a shiver. “Do you have a name yet?”

“Not yet. Black something, I suppose.”

“You ought to call it something appropriate, like
Black Smith
or
Black Blade
.”

I don’t know. It’s not a smith or a blade.”

“
Black Hammer
, then.”

Dorrin purses his lips. “Maybe. That sounds better than anything I’ve thought up. We’ll see.” He begins to roll the sheet up to keep it from blowing in the breeze. “You know, I’ve never thanked you for the fish…or for being one of the few that weren’t always after me.”

Kyl glances at the rough stone of the porch floor. “You always were there for me. I never could do anything for you. Now I can.”

Dorrin looks at his brother. “I’m glad.”

“So am I.” Kyl stands and looks at the whitecaps beginning to form on the ocean beyond the inlet. “I need to catch the winds or my crew won’t forgive me.” He clasps Dorrin roughly for an instant. “I’ll see you when I can.”

Dorrin watches as his brother hurries toward the fishing boat tied in front of the
Black Diamond
. Then he carries the tumblers into the kitchen and sets them on the wash table.

Unfortunately, he will still need the rockets. He has no doubts that the White Wizards will try something.