The Magic Engineer (5 page)

“Rebels? I’m certainly no rebel,” asserts Alys. “I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. I mean, in Hamor, they lock you up after you’re married…”

Lisabet continues with the greens on her plate while Alys expounds on the oppression of women in the Hamorian Empire. Dorrin takes another mouthful of stew.

The second bells still ring as Dorrin steps inside the classroom for the introductory session of the red group. Only Edil is missing, but then Dorrin has just seen the gangly youth hastily putting away his guitar. Lortren stands at the window, her back to the eight students on the pillows.

Dorrin takes his place on one of the three remaining pillows, the one next to Lisabet. As he does, Edil, a sheepish look on his long thin face, tumbles through the doorway. Edil scrambles for the nearest pillow, nearly throwing himself into place beside Kadara.

Lortren turns. Her face is composed. “I will begin with a warning.” She smiles wryly. “No…the warning is strictly for your benefit. I would suggest that what you learn here be shared only with others who have a similar background and understanding. This is only a suggestion, but it could make things a little less troublesome.

“Second, there are no tests. You may learn as you please. If you choose not to learn, at some point you will be exiled. If you work hard and it takes longer for you than others, then you may have that time, at least until it becomes apparent that you have learned what you can.

“Third, if you have questions, ask them. Otherwise, I and the others will assume that you understand what you have been taught.

“And last…any violence, except as instructed in physical training, any theft, or any other form of personal, physical, or intellectual dishonesty will result in immediate exile.”

Dorrin looks at Lortren. “Could you define intellectual dishonesty, magistra? That seems awfully vague.”

The magistra grins briefly. “It is vague. We do not have time or resources to deal with lying. What that amounts to is a requirement for complete and honest answers to any questions you are asked by staff members. It also means doing the best you can to learn. As a matter of principle, I would also suggest the same honesty between yourselves. There is a difference between honesty and tact.” Her eyes range across the group. “If you look like the demon-dawn, don’t ask someone here how good you look.” A few smiles greet her sardonic comment.

“Any other questions? No? Then, I will begin with a slightly different version of the history of Recluce, highlighting a few points which bear on why you are here.”

Dorrin shifts his weight on the heavy brown pillow.

“…common notion is that the Founders were wise, loving, and gentle people, that Creslin was a gentleman among gentlemen, a wizard who only used his power for good, and totally devoted to Megaera. Likewise, the stories say that Megaera was beautiful, talented, nearly as good with a blade as a Westwind Guard, utterly devoted to and in love with Creslin, and possessed of one of the greatest understandings of order ever seen. In a way, these are all true—but more important, they are all false.”

A low hum crosses the room.

“Creslin was perhaps one of the greatest blades of his generation, and his trail from Westwind to Recluce did not drip blood—it gushed blood. At first, every problem he tried to solve with a blade. He even killed a soldier in cold blood because the man threatened Megaera—who was well able to take care of herself. He was strong enough to be able to use order to kill—and he did. More than several thousand died under the storms he called. Of course, after his feats of destruction he was violently ill, often puking all over his own men.”

The silence of the ten young people is absolute. “As for Megaera, the sweet angel of light—she first was a chaos wielder who threatened her sister’s rule of Sarronnyn and who
killed a good score with the fire of chaos before renouncing chaos for order. She did not renounce chaos willingly, either, but fought it the entire way, submitting to the rule of order only to save her life. She took up the blade with the sole aim of besting Creslin and proving that she could kill as effectively as he could.

“And our revered founders—what of their harmonious life together? They squabbled and fought the whole way from Montgren to Recluce. They refused to share bedrooms until well beyond a year after they were married, and the lightnings and storms of their final fight were seen from dozens of kays away. Admittedly, they seemed to have settled into a less conflicting relationship thereafter, but I can guarantee it was scarcely one of sweetness and light portrayed by your teachers or conveyed by the Brotherhood.”

Lortren jabs a finger at Edil. “What does this tale tell you?”

“…Ah…that things are not always what they seem…”

“You can do better than that.” The magistra fixes her eyes upon Jyll. “You, merchant princess, what does the story tell you?”

“I think you are out to shock us with the truth—”

“Be very careful when you use the word ‘truth,’ child. Facts and truth are not exactly the same.” Lortren looks at Dorrin. “You, toy-maker. What do you think the purpose of my story is?”

Dorrin tries to gather his scattered thoughts. “Besides trying to shock us, you’re trying to show that you, and I’d guess the world as well, doesn’t care very much who or where we came from, and that we have lived a very…sheltered life.”

Lortren smiles, coldly. “That’s not too bad, for a start. All of that is correct. I am also trying to make you think. To reason, if you will.”

Dorrin thinks about how cool and detached Lortren appears, and wonders whether his father has seen this side of the magistra. Then he recalls how carefully the weather wizard had addressed Lortren.

“Remember this. There are two sides to reality. There is what is, and there is what people believe. Seldom are they exactly the same. Why not?” This time the magistra’s eyes fix on Tyren, the shaggy and brown-haired young poet who had at
tempted to charm Jyll the night before after dinner.

“Is it…because…people find what is…real…I mean, what is…I mean, is it too hard for them to believe in it?”

“That is correct.” Lortren’s voice softens. “All of us find some aspect of reality too hard to see as it is—even when we know better. That usually isn’t a problem when it remains personal, but it can be a problem when a village or a duchy all accepts unreality.”

Dorrin’s eyes flicker to the window and to the deep green-blue and fast-moving white clouds. His thoughts move to the question of machines and the unthinking belief by his father and Lortren that such devices are of chaos.

“You do not agree, Dorrin?”

“No…I mean, yes. I agree, but I was thinking that even people on Recluce might have beliefs like that.”

“I just gave you some, didn’t I? About the Founders?”

Dorrin nods.

“You look doubtful. Did you have something else in mind?”

“That’s different,” Dorrin stumbles, realizing he does not want to state the machine argument, but he is unable to find another.

“What about the rest of you?” Lortren’s eyes sweep the others.

Finally, the tall dark-haired girl—Lisabet—clears her throat, then begins in a voice so quiet that Dorrin leans toward her. “Maybe Dorrin is saying that what we believe about the past and what we believe about today are two different kinds of beliefs.”

“Huhhh…” The involuntary grunt comes from Shendr.

“I’m not sure it matters,” answers Lortren. “Whatever the cause, people have trouble accepting certain actions, events, or behaviors. Part of what I hope to teach you is to learn your own weaknesses and to guard against them.”

Dorrin tries not to frown. He is more interested in learning how to get other people to change their minds about their weaknesses than in learning about any more of his own weaknesses.

“Now,” continues Lortren, “why is the difference between what we have heard about the Founders and the sort of people
they actually were important?”

Dorrin isn’t sure he cares. People are people, and others believe what they want to. Still, he watches the magistra and listens.

“What is the social basis for the Legend?”

The social basis for the Legend? What does the Legend have to do with understanding anything? Dorrin looks around the small room. The Academy of Useless Knowledge and Unnecessary Violence indeed—but it is better than the alternative of immediate exile.

Kadara twirls a short strand of red hair around the index finger of her right hand, her forehead faintly creased. Brede shifts his weight on the battered leather cushion that serves as his seat. Arcol swallows and glances toward the half-open window and the morning fog outside.

“Come now, Mergan.” Lortren’s low voice carries an edge. “What is the Legend?”

“Well…it says that the women Angels fled and came to the Roof of the World. They founded Westwind and the Guard and the western kingdoms…” The pudgy girl looks at the polished graystone floor tiles.

The magistra clears her throat. “You come from Recluce, not from Hamor or Nordla. You should certainly know the Legend. We’ll try…Dorrin, what was unique about the Angels who fled to earth—to our world, if you will?”

Dorrin licks his lips. “Unique? Well…they fled from Heaven, rather than fight a meaningless war with the Demons of Light.”

“That’s spelled out in the Legend. But…” She draws out the word. “What was supposedly unique about those particular fallen Angels?”

Kadara lifts a hand.

“Yes, Kadara.”

“Weren’t they all women?”

“That is indeed what the Legend says. Why is that patently incorrect?”

“Incorrect?” stumbles the normally silent Arcol.

“Ah, yes…incorrect. Why?” repeats Lortren.

As the silence draws out, Dorrin answers. “Because they had children, I suppose, but…”

“You were going to say something else, Dorrin?”

“No, magistra.”

“You were thinking something else.”

“Yes,” he admits, wishing he had not.

“And?”

Dorrin sighs. “According to the Legend, the Angels had weapons that could shatter suns and whole worlds. Why couldn’t they have had machines that allowed women to have children without men?”

“Perhaps they did have such machines in Heaven, Dorrin…but…if they had such machines, where are they? Even more important, how did these powerful Angels, who had the supposed ability to shatter worlds, end up in a simple stone hold on a mountaintop with no weapons beyond the shortsword?”

“They renounced machines as the mark of chaos,” asserts Arcol, the round face and pug nose somehow incongruous with the dogged belief in the Legend.

“Ah, yes, the answer of the true believer.”

Arcol flushes, but his chin squares. “Destruction is the mark of chaos, and the Angels fled to avoid becoming the tools of chaos.”

“Shall we consider that?” asks Lortren.

Why bother? Even Dorrin knows that machines do not last forever, and that anything built long centuries ago would have broken or been reused for the metals or made into simpler artifacts—or even lost under the snows and ice of the Roof of the World.

“What’s the point of it all, magistra?” The voice is Brede’s, the deep mellow tones more appropriate to a graybeard than to a fresh-faced and muscular youth with hazel eyes. “I mean, some women wrote down that they escaped from a bunch of crazy men. They built a kingdom on a mountain top. They used their blades to chop up anyone who got in their way and claimed that the reason was that men were all weak and silly.”

“Blasphemer…” mutters Arcol.

Kadara’s mouth quirks as if she suppresses a grin.

Lortren does in fact grin, but the expression is more the look on the face of a hill cat who has discovered a meal than a look of amusement. “Brede, you raise an interesting question. Do, by chance, you happen to know the only country in Candar that had the same government and the same power from its inception until its destruction at the hands of the White Wizards?”

“That has to be Westwind, or you wouldn’t have asked the question.”

Dorrin wishes that he could think as quickly as Brede, or handle a blade as deftly, or…He catches his thoughts. Wishing will do no good.

“And what is the only country in the world that truly followed the Legend?” Lortren pursues.

“Westwind.” Brede is matter-of-fact. “That only proves the Legend held together a country based on female might of arms. It doesn’t prove the truth or untruth of the Legend. And, in the end, the white magic won out.”

“Where did Creslin come from? And why do you enjoy freedom from chaos?”

“Westwind. But he was rebelling against the Legend.”

Lortren smiles, faintly. “Brede is correct in his reasoning—so far as it goes. We will deal with that later, however. Back to the question of the moment—why is the Legend patently untrue on its face?” The black eyes scan the room. “Kadara?”

The redhead with the clean profile and clear skin nods momentarily. “Unless they had special wizardry or special machines, they couldn’t have had children. If they had chaos wizardry, that doesn’t fit, and the Legend doesn’t mention machines or men…”

“So you are saying, in effect, that the Legend lies by omission?”

Kadara nods.

“For now, that is enough about the truth of the Legend. We’ve avoided the Legend’s social basis, although Brede spelled it out rather bluntly.”

The blond youth looks at the floor, as if displeased at the attention.

Kadara smiles. Dorrin swallows as he watches her eyes light on Brede.

“Why is the Legend effective?” Lortren points at Mergan.

Mergan glances helplessly at the floor, at the window, and finally back at the white-haired magistra before mumbling, “I don’t know, magistra.”

“Think about it,” suggests Lortren. “Arcol is sitting there ready to strangle Brede, nearly twice his size, because Brede doubts the truth of the Legend. Westwind was the longest single continuing stable government in Candar, or in the world, and the only one which was guided since its beginning by the Legend. The next most stable and long-running is that of Recluce, founded by someone raised in the Legend. What do those things tell you?”

“I don’t know.” Mergan looks at the stones in front of her leather pillow-seat.

“Dorrin?”

“Is that because people believe in it?”

“Correct. Any government supported by a deep and widely-held belief will remain effective and stable so long as that doctrine remains widely believed. Why did Westwind hold to the Legend, despite the clear factual inaccuracies?”

“Because the Legend worked for Westwind.” Brede’s polite words are almost sardonic, but not quite.

Dorrin shakes his head. Beliefs! Machines and tools are much more solid than all the talk about governments and cultures. Even weapons are more solid than beliefs. He wishes he were back in his room, where he could work on the drawings of the new engine. His eyes turn toward the red-headed young woman, whose eyes, in turn, are upon the athletic and poised Brede.

“…then why are the Whites so successful…?”

Dorrin purses his lips. Lortren doesn’t understand, either, though she knows more than his father. Beliefs and blades are not all that can move the world, yet how can he prove that?

“…most people in Fairhaven are pleased with their lives. Why? Tell me why that might be, Arcol?”

Dorrin looks toward Arcol, whose mouth is open like a dying fish. He ignores the glimmer in Kadara’s eyes as she watches Brede, who, in turn, disregards that warmth bestowed upon him.