The Magic Engineer (66 page)

The swirls in the mirror depict perhaps a dozen ships bearing the red thunderbolt banner straggling back into the Great North Bay. Cerryl raises a finger, and the image vanishes from the mirror. “Now what?”

“You send out another fleet, this time one that will follow orders,” Anya says lazily from the reclining chair. Her eyes focus on the high gray clouds visible through the tower window slit beyond the table. On one side of the table sits a deep basin of cold water.

“Sterol was right,” Cerryl adds, his voice conversational as he looks at the box on the small table, a box containing a gold-painted amulet.

“Don’t tell me you’re going to let that nobody on Recluce humiliate us?” Anya’s voice takes a harder tone.

“There is a Balance, and we can accept it, or fight it. Everyone who has fought it has lost. The trick is to make it work for you.”

“You sound like you’re weaseling out, Cerryl. We can’t
have that.” Anya sits up straight in the chair, but does not rise to her feet.

“Why don’t you listen, for a moment? It won’t hurt.”

“I’m listening.” The words are cold, yet white flames lurk beneath her eyes.

“This smith-wizard builds machines. Those machines must contain chaos-fired steam or water. That means they embody great, great order. If he builds many of his machines, he increases the amount of chaos in the world. That would increase our power more greatly than his, because his order would be locked in those machines.”

“So you would encourage him to build those machines? To attack and destroy our ships? That would certainly increase chaos. How much good it would do us is another question.” Anya rises like a pillar of white flame.

“He won’t do that.” Cerryl gestures at the now-blank mirror. “He could have destroyed the entire fleet with his little black ship. He didn’t. He’s certainly no weak-willed Black idiot either. Weak-willed idiots don’t fight head-on. He destroyed Jeslek and Fydel one on one—Fydel with a staff, not even that ironclad chaos of his.” He steps over to the larger dining table and slips off the amulet he wears, setting it on the table, his back to Anya. He opens the box and removes the painted amulet, concealing a wince as the metal burns his hands. “Besides, you saw his ship. Even if we could board it, what could anyone do? Our White Guards couldn’t even touch half of it with all that black iron.”

Anya steps toward Cerryl’s back. “It’s too bad you’ll follow Sterol, Cerryl dear.”

“I don’t think so.” Cerryl lifts the amulet and turns. “But, here, you wear it. You always wanted to.” With a quick gesture, he drops the gold-painted iron links around her neck.

Anya lifts her hands, then screams as a circle of flame burns away the gold paint and the white cloth beneath it. Her hands reach for the hot iron, but Cerryl grasps her wrists and nods toward the door.

“I’m not quite as dense as I look, dear Anya. And while I’m not as powerful as you, or Sterol, I do occasionally think.”

The three guards who hurry across the white stone floor bear chains of heavy and cold iron in their gloved hands.

“You need me!” the redhead screams as the additional heavy iron chains slip around her.

“Indeed we do. You will make a perfect example for future would-be schemers. You will look ravishing once your image is captured for display. Most fetching.” Cerryl smiles and inclines his head to the guards. “Good day, Anya.” He plunges his hands into the basin of cold water, taking a deep breath as the water cools his burns.

Liedral unwinds the black string, letting it drop on the light-green grass of early spring. Dorrin follows with the heavy stakes and the black steel hammer. With short strokes, he pounds in each stake and fastens the string.

In time, they reach the dusty stone road in the middle of the peninsula. Dorrin hammers in another stake on the eastern side of the road, then takes his belt knife and cuts the string, tying it tightly to the stake. After crossing the road he pounds in another stake and ties the string to it. They proceed westward until they stand on the rocky headland overlooking the western shore. Dorrin hammers in a last stake and turns to watch the dark green of the Gulf waters, to drink in the whitecaps that break on the gray stones below.

Liedral stands beside him. After a time, his arm goes around her broad shoulders, and he squeezes.

“Will the string be enough?” She removes the broad-brimmed hat and brushes back the light brown hair.

“It’s only a symbol. That’s where the wall goes that we promised the Council. All our people will live on our side, except for trade or visits to family—and all machines, ships, and the artifacts Oran has worried about for so long will stay behind the walls. Nylan, the Black City of the order-smiths.”

“I prefer the magic engineers.” She shakes her head. “I know, I know. We don’t want to say much about the deplorable machines. You’ve said enough about that.”

“It’s not because the Council deplores them. I agree with
them, because too much order in machines can only lead to greater chaos.”

“You think it will?”

“With people like us in the world?” Dorrin grins. “Of course. But not for a long time. Then it will be someone else’s problem.” He kisses her cheek. “In the meantime, we’ll look for other problems.”

“Problems?” asks Liedral, putting her arms around his neck.

“Problems,” he answers before her lips cover his, as the gentle rounding swell of her body against his defines the next problem.