The order war, p.49
The Order War, page 49
“Does it matter?”
Eldiren and Jehan exchanged glances.
Beltar glanced around the tower rooms, vacant now except for the basic furnishings, before answering his own question. “That might be why Histen left. He just might be waiting to let us destroy each other. Histen’s shrewder than I am, and he has a lot more experience.”
“At times, Beltar, experience defers to raw power,” added Jehan.
“Perhaps, but that means I always have to maintain that power, as you keep pointing out.”
“Very true.” Jehan’s voice was even, almost disinterested.
“And very difficult,” said Eldiren.
“You two are such comfort.” Beltar shook his head and looked at the amulet again before turning back toward the stairs. “We’ll need to convene the Council.”
“Of course.”
CXXVIII
Justen rolled the uncompleted land engine out of the smithy, the iron bars and oak-framed sides barely clearing the wide door, although the door was fully open. At first glance in the early summer sun, the land engine’s framework looked like a haphazard assembly of iron rods, oak struts, and bars, all set amid four iron-tired wheels. The circular, heavy lifting rings in front of the driver and behind the space where the third seat would be rose above the rest of the frame—but not above the squat boiler and funnel that dominated the rear of the machine.
“Ugghhh…” Justen strained to push the engine the last few cubits out of the smithy as the front wheels rolled up the slightest of inclines. Despite his grunting, the wheels turned easily enough. Justen’s lips twisted at the thought, considering that he had used marine shaft bearings designed for far greater weight and stress. The drive systems were overengineered, and that meant he was going to have to really work on keeping the armor lightweight.
“Good work on the wheels.” Cirlin stood watching from behind Justen, and even Horas had turned from the garden to look. “They don’t bind at all, and the axles are solid—no bowing, even with all that weight.”
“It’s ugly-looking,” ventured Elisabet.
“It’s not done yet.” Justen slipped a chunk of wood behind one wheel, then straightened. He walked to the other rear wheel and eased a second block in place before heading to the well with a bucket.
Elisabet shook garden dirt from her hands and crossed the yard to the engine. She walked around the framework, her fingers occasionally brushing a rod or a strut. “It feels solid. It just doesn’t look solid.”
Justen returned with the first bucket of water, which he slowly poured into the machine’s reservoir. Then he walked back to the pump. With a last look at the land engine, Cirlin slipped back into the smithy.
Across the yard, Horas returned his attention to a row of beans.
“That’s going to take a lot of water.” Elisabet peered at the reservoir and then at the bucket Justen carried.
“Not that much,” answered Justen, filling the second bucket. “It’s a ship system, and most of the water is recovered. It would have been lighter without the condenser, and I had to keep the pressures higher…well, a lot higher, because I can’t use a seawater cooling system.”
He carried the second bucket back to the engine and poured it into the reservoir. Then he pointed. “There are spaces for the air to come in, and when the engine’s moving, the air goes past all those tubes. That helps to cool the condensate.”
“That’s why you want Gunnar to help, isn’t it?” asked Elisabet.
“Huh?”
“I’m not stupid, Justen. I’m your sister, remember? This engine can’t go that fast. If you want this cooling to work, you need a lot of air, and Gunnar’s an Air Wizard. I could even do that. Can I come?”
“No.”
“I didn’t think so. It’s going to be dangerous, isn’t it?” Elisabet continued to study the spaces around the condenser-radiator. “I’ll bet this gets really hot.”
“It does. Not too hot, I hope.” Justen clamped the reservoir cap shut and walked around the smithy to the coal bin, returning with a full scuttle. After several trips into the shed and the smithy for shavings, he touched the striker to the small pile in the firebox, waited for the flame, and began to feed in coal.
Horas gestured to his daughter, and Elisabet finally drifted back to the garden and her weeding, while Justen built up the fire and used both the few gauges and his own senses to measure the system’s performance.
Wheeee…
For a time, he let the steam moan through the open safety valve in order to check the piping at lower pressures. Then he closed the valve and shoveled more coal into the firebox, letting the pressure build. He checked the clutch system again to make sure that the drive shaft to the wheel was disengaged. He didn’t need the land engine rolling off on its own.
While the steam pressure built, he continued to examine the steam lines and the heat distribution, wondering how he would be able to armor the land engine without cooking its operators.
But first he needed to make sure that the systems worked, before he worried about armor and weapons, both of which he was certain would be necessary. Then he had to decide whether the systems needed to be reworked, and if so, how much.
With a sigh, he pulled the blocks from one wheel, then from the other.
“He’s going to see if it runs!” squealed Elisabet.
Justen looked toward his sister, who covered her mouth and looked to their father.
“It is a momentous time,” she said in a low and serious voice.
Horas covered his mouth, but his eyes twinkled.
Justen slipped into the single seat that was in place, then engaged the clutch.
Clunnnkk!
The engineer winced at the stress on the reduction gears. He’d have to do something about that initial engagement, or ensure that he could feed steam to the turbine at lower rates, or he wouldn’t have any gears left before long. Still, the land engine crept across the yard toward the lane.
Justen turned the steering tiller, and the land engine eased to the left, into the center of the narrow lane leading past the garden and the house and down to the main road.
Sssssss…
A fine jet of steam sprayed from a joint between the steam-return line and the condenser-radiator assembly. Justen shifted his concentration for a moment, but the leak did not appear to be growing. While his attention was on the leak, the engine had veered toward the house, and he corrected with the tiller, overdoing the change in direction so much that the engine lurched as the heavy wheel caught in softer soil on the edge of the lane.
Justen held his breath momentarily, but the front wheel found firmer ground and the engine straightened. Another problem: soft ground.
Should he consider widening the wheels? How much weight would that add? Could he avoid that?
The engine almost veered off the other side of the lane before Justen eased the tiller back in order to keep the machine on the packed surface of the lane.
Justen took a deep breath, realizing that he had better concentrate on directing the machine and worry about the engineering changes later.
At the end of the lane, he turned the engine onto the road and then throttled back so that it was barely moving while he turned it around to head back up the gentle slope of the lane to the smithy. His forehead was pouring sweat despite the summer breeze that blew past him.
Creaakkk…
Wincing at the stress on the iron-shod wheel, he eased the tiller, gauging whether the wheels would stay on the road. The left front tire gouged a track in the softer shoulder of the road, and the land engine lurched again but stayed upright.
Ssssssssss…
The joint leak was louder, and a second leak was bathing Justen in warm mist as he tried to line up the land engine on the lane to avoid running over the garden or hitting the house or getting mired in soft ground.
The soft ground bothered him because the armor would make the whole thing that much heavier. As it was, he wasn’t even carrying the weight of a full load of coal or water.
The land engine lurched toward the garden, and Justen corrected, trying to keep his mind on steering and not on engineering, even while the hissing leaks and various creaks and stresses reminded him of too many engineering problems.
And he was going to travel hundreds of kays in it…when he couldn’t even get the thing down the lane and back?
He sighed, then eased the tiller back again to avoid the softer ground.
By the time he had disengaged the clutch, eased in the converted wagon brake, bled off the steam, and blocked the wheels, his clothes were as soaked as though he’d stood in a summer rainstorm—dripping both from his own sweat and the leaking steam and water lines.
He looked at the water-coated framework and shook his head.
“It works. It really works!” Elisabet hugged him, then let go. “You’re soaked! Ugghhh.”
“Very impressive, son.” Horas looked at the land engine.
“But one of a kind, I think,” added Cirlin from the smithy door.
“I’m not sure where to start in reworking it.” Justen slowly paced around the machine, seeing the other problems he hadn’t had time to notice when he was driving: the leak in the waterline joint from the reservoir to the boiler, the need to reposition the steam-return line…He shook his head again. Why did he even need a clutch? Why not just change the design so the throttle controlled the steam flow directly to the turbine?
“Looks to me like most of your problems are the kind that can be fixed,” added Cirlin. “Doesn’t the design work?”
Justen half-smiled. He’d been so absorbed in the little glitches, he’d forgotten that the land engine in fact worked.
“Yes…it actually does.”
“Has anyone else built one?” pursued Cirlin.
“Not that I know of.”
“I think you’d know.”
“It works, Justen,” affirmed Elisabet. Then she looked at his damp shirt and trousers. “But you sure did get wet.”
Cirlin smiled. “We can fix the little things. Remember…it works.”
Justen nodded, but his eyes flicked over the mass of iron and ordered oak and pine, thinking about all the improvements he should have considered earlier. His gaze halted on the area behind the boiler, and he realized that somehow he would have to add more space for coal.
“He’s not here,” said Elisabet. “He’s already thinking about how to fix everything.”
“He wouldn’t be Justen if he weren’t,” Cirlin responded.
“He still ought to change into some dry clothes,” added Horas.
“I imagine he will…when he thinks about it.”
Justen reached out with his senses toward the condenser-radiator joint.
“That may be some time…”
There was so much to do, Justen reflected, and he really hadn’t even gotten very far with the lenses, either.
CXXIX
At the sound of the horse entering the yard, Justen set down the model of the balloon and peered through the door, wondering if Ryltar had already sent someone after him. He took a deep breath as he watched Altara swing out of the saddle and tie the bay to the stone hitching post by the stable.
He walked out through the light rain. “Greetings!”
Altara brushed her short hair back and shook the water off her hand. “I can see you’ve been busy. Got anywhere dry? I’m on the way back from the Black Holding…again.”
“Let me just check something.” Justen walked back to the shed and motioned for Altara to enter. “What are you doing here?”
“Seeing what you’re doing.” Altara glanced into the workroom that had been a storage shed. “Also, telling you that you had better do it fairly soon. The so-honorable Counselor Ryltar has begun to tell people that you are mad and that you should be confined. I had to elaborate on your rest cure. And I did point out that the iron deordering you had done, order-mad or not, had saved us nearly a dozen golds since spring. Jenna and Claris were impressed, but Ryltar just frowned and said that it showed how dangerous you are.” The chief engineer laughed, off-key. “Of course, I don’t see how they could hold you unless they shackled you in cold iron. But that isn’t the point.”
“No. It wouldn’t be. I’d have to leave Recluce, which is what he wants.” Not that I don’t want to anyway—just not until I’m ready. “Has Gunnar told you what he found out about Ryltar?”
“You look like the demons’ hell. Worse than when you were working night and day in Sarronnyn, and at least as driven.” Altara shook her head. “And, no, Gunnar hasn’t said anything about Ryltar.” She glanced toward the models on the bench. “What are those?”
“Balloons. You put hot air in them and they rise. At least they would if I could get the bags light enough.”
“Why can’t you? But what good are they? You couldn’t steer one anyway, not like a ship.”
“Maybe I could put an engine in it with an air screw like a ship’s screw…but that would be a long time away. I can’t even get these to rise more than a few cubits.”
Altara waited.
“It’s the fabric. Linen’s too…It leaks too much unless I coat it with wax, and it’s too heavy then. Paper’s too weak.” Justen looked at the models on the bench. “I’m trying to get some silksheen from Naclos, but it hasn’t arrived, and it may not.”
Altara frowned. “I think it has. It must have. That was one of the things Jenna mentioned—that you had received a huge shipment of fancy cloth, and Ryltar said that showed how crazy you are. He wanted to know where you got the funds, because the cloth arrived with an invoice declaring it was prepaid.”
“Great. How do I get it without proving that I’ve gone crazy? And why didn’t Hoslid let me know?”
“I think Ryltar prevailed upon him. His Marshalle—Hoslid’s—was lost in the Western Ocean with a full cargo, and he borrowed heavily from Ryltar.”
Justen wiped his forehead. “I just love getting such wonderful news. I still don’t know how I can get the cloth if Hoslid thinks he’ll be upsetting the Council by releasing it. Do I go in there and demand it?”
“You could. He’d have to give it to you.”
“And that would give Ryltar more fuel for his rumormongering, you think?”
“Probably.”
“You know what he’s been up to?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea.” Altara grinned wryly. “But if you want to tell me, it can’t be good.”
“We can’t prove it, not with hard evidence, but he’s gotten golds from Candar—a lot—for past services, and he’s accepting smuggled gems from Hamor.”
“Fairhaven, you think? How could he?”
“He’s never felt right to me.” Justen laughed bitterly. “Honest corruption isn’t quite chaotic. It feels different, and…without exile any more…”
“You really think he would have been exiled under the old system?”
“Probably not. Coins find a way around any system. Let’s get you something to eat and drink. Can you stay tonight?” Justen set the models in their brackets and opened the door, looking at the increasingly heavy rain.
“I don’t think I’d better. I can make Fallroth tonight, and that would get me back to Nylan by mid-morning.”
The two engineers hurried across the yard, dodging around the growing puddles and up onto the covered porch, where they scraped their boots and wiped them clean.
“You had an idea about my silksheen cloth?” Justen asked.
“Give me your authorization and I’ll claim that we’re testing the cloth for sails for the merchant fleet. Say that you ordered it because you could get it cheaper.”
“Ryltar will know that’s not true.”
“So? He won’t be able to claim it publicly. Besides, Hoslid couldn’t refuse the Brotherhood, and Ryltar’s at the Black Holding right now. That means four days before he finds out, and maybe another four before he could send any instructions.”
Justen nodded. “Let’s see what we’ve got here for you to eat.”
CXXX
“Can I come? You put the second seat in.” Elisabet stood beside Justen as he removed one of the wheel blocks from the land engine.
High, thin clouds kept the midsummer day from being too oppressively hot, but Justen felt sweaty all over as he slowly walked around the craft, letting his senses roam over the piping, assemblies, and drive shafts.
The land engine still looked like a mass of struts and bars assembled around a small firebox, a boiler, and a steam engine, but many of the armor plates that would eventually cover the framework had been forged—some of them almost to parchment thinness. Justen did not intend to put any plating in place until the steam and drive systems worked perfectly, since repairs would require removal of the plating.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I’m still not sure that things will work right, and I don’t want to have to worry about you.”
“Justen, if nothing bad happened before, how could it happen now?”
“This time, we—”
“We? You mean I can come?”
“No. I meant that…oh, you know what I meant. You’re just trying to take advantage of me when I’m thinking about other things.”
“It’s the only time I can take advantage of you. Besides, Mother said you did a good job.”
“A good job isn’t a safe job.” Justen reflected on his order-tipped arrows—definitely good engineering, but not safe for anyone involved. The same had been true of his efforts with cannon powder. He shook his head, wondering how he always seemed to get involved with destruction. Was it proof of what the ancient had said about too much order being no different from too much chaos?
He took a deep breath and opened the firebox to ease in another shovelful of coal. Above him, the steam valve began to whistle faintly, purging excess air from the system.
“Justen…”
“No. Once I know it’s safe, then you can come.”
“Promise?”
“Promise. Now go back over by the house or into the smithy.”
