by Jeff Grubb
The Chief Artificer responded to his wife’s call by holding up a single hand. With the other he held a stylus, checking a long column of figures. He did not look up.
“Of all the…” muttered the princess, several decidedly unregal lines appearing on her forehead. “I swear, he spends every living moment working until he is exhausted. Then he wakes in the morning feeling he’s fallen six hours behind schedule because of sleep. Urza!”
The hand stayed up, and, as if to show he was listening, waved back and forth a little.
“Perhaps this will help,” said the visitor, reaching into the satchel and pulling out his gift. What he produced looked like nothing more than an inanimate hunk of rope of chain. He flicked a switch at one end of the chain, and it suddenly stiffened and struck forward. It was a snake, suddenly come to life in his hands. Kayla jumped at the transformation.
The snake leapt across the open space as if on invisible wings, landing among the papers littering Urza’s table. It burrowed among them, emerging directly beneath the Chief Artificer’s notepad. It raised its head, rattled its tail, and rasped a hissed warning at the Argivian scholar.
The entire orniary went dead silent. The lathes stopped, the students wrestling with the wing tarps froze, and Urza paused, stylus in hand, regarding the snake’s fang-filled mouth.
Then he leaned forward and tapped the snake’s snout with the end of his stylus. It rang out with a hollow sound, and the serpent immediately curled into a small coil. The Chief Artificer looked up, a broad smile on his face. “Who did this?”
The newcomer blushed. “That would be me.”
Kayla stepped forward with the letter of introduction. “This is Tawnos, a toy maker from Jorilin. He wants to become your appren—”
Urza did not let her finish but took the letter from her hand and said, “Toy maker? And that is one of yours?”
“One of them,” replied Tawnos.
“Why wood?” asked Urza. “Metal would be a lot more long-lasting.”
“Wood’s lighter,” answer the younger man. “And yarrow wood produces a more natural sound for the snake when it moves. Metal versions tended to clatter.”
“So you tried it,” said Urza, his eyebrows raised. “Good. That’s very good. Spring-driven, I suppose.”
“Clock mechanism,” said Tawnos. “I was told you worked as a clockmaker.”
“For a time,” said Urza abstractedly. His hands were busy examining the snake, probing, bending, pushing. “Then I retired to join the government. Less heavy lifting.”
Kayla began, “Darling husband, my father is expecting—” but was silenced with by an upraised hand.
“It’s very lifelike,” the artificer observed. “Did you study snakes to make it?”
“We have a lot of coastal snakes,” said Tawnos. “That one was based on a kind of viper found along the coast. I made it for my own amusement, as a kind of practical joke.”
“Urza,” Kayla began again but was completely forgotten by the Chief Artificer.
“What about birds?” asked Urza. “I’ve been trying to improve the lift ratio of the ornithopters.”
“It depends what you want,” said Tawnos. “Soaring birds like gulls or even vultures might be inappropriate as models for ornithopters. I should think you want ones that can launch quickly from a perch, like predatory owls and other raptors.”
Urza’s face brightened, and at that precise moment Tawnos knew he had secured his position. “I had not considered that,” said the blond-haired artificer. “I always considered a bird to be a bird, regardless. But you are correct: form follows function, and function determines form. Here, take a look at these plans, and tell me if I have a soarer or a fast launcher.”
Tawnos looked over the papers littering the desk and inhaled deeply. There were all manner of ornithopter plans, showing different wing configurations and positions. Some of the machines resembled things he had seen in nature, while some looked as if they would never fly under any circumstances.
Suddenly he remembered the princess, who had been trying to get two words in edgewise as he and Urza talked. But when he looked up from the plans, she was gone, and Urza was shouting at the lathe workers again for greater precision.
* * *
—
The princess’s heels were shod with metal and always sent a message as she moved across the palace’s polished marble floors. Sometimes it was a leisurely tapping, reassuring the staff that her majesty was thinking as she walked. Sometimes it was a slow, methodical clack, which usually meant she was walking with someone else, usually some official from the hinterland who was getting a local tour. And occasionally it was a skipping staccato produced by her run, much less common now than in the times before she was married.
The message being tapped out at the moment was a warning. She had just been to see her husband, the Argivian artificer, and was not happy with the results. The stern rapping of metal on stone was enough to send the most hardened courtiers fleeing in terror, and to cause even the most experienced servants to reverse their directions and quietly back up the way they came.
As a result, Kayla had empty halls and full thoughts as she stalked along the way leading to the drawing room. She fumed as she walked.
He was busy. He was always busy. Given sufficient resources, he would devote all his time to his projects. The ornithopters. The metal statues. The great plodding beasts that had suddenly appeared one morning in the rose garden. He would work until exhausted, and he would work everyone around him to the same state. If she did not send a guard for him, he would sleep in that orniary of his. Sometimes she did let him sleep there, but that did not slow him down.
Of course her husband was not the only guilty party here, she realized. Her dear father was just as much a cause of her husband’s neglect. Always asking for something new. Some special favor for this baron. Some particular device for that temple. Something to make one guild or another’s life easier. A new way to haul water. A new way to harvest crops. And of course the Chief Artificer could not refuse his warlord anything, particularly if it was excuse to develop some new device.
It was a perfect match. Urza liked to build things, and Daddy liked the things Urza built. It didn’t matter to the warlord how Urza created his wondrous devices, and Urza never thought about what her father wanted the devices for. All of their scheming left Kayla alone.
She stopped and stamped a foot hard on the stone floor, causing several of the hiding servants to wince and wonder if the mark she left could be polished out or would require replacement of the stone. She took a deep breath and tried to calm down.
Actually, she told herself, things were not as bad as they might be. The Yotian people, after a brief period of concern about the warlord’s new son-in-law, quickly warmed to Urza. The wedding helped win over the common people and most of the merchants. The minor nobility was vastly relieved to see that Urza did not care for political power beyond the limits of his worktable. And the temples…
Well, the temples were a small problem at first, despite their supposed enthusiasm at the wedding itself. Argivians were nastily irreligious, and the devotion of various gods, real and otherwise, was a major political consideration in Kroog. Not to mention the fact that all the assembled religions were keenly aware that they themselves had had the chance to admit this Urza the Argivian into their temple schools but had turned him away because of his heritage.
Things were a little problematic for the first few years, what with the churches all waiting for some misstep or announcement from Urza that would trample on one group or another’s beliefs. Urza himself provided the solution to that potential problem. First, by staying in his workshop he provided little provocation to the temples. Second, he managed to wrangle from the Jalum Tome a small bit of old Thran science on the temples’ behalf.
It was a simple device, a small amulet with a sliver of active power stone mounted on its back. It emitted a low-pitched hum that served to keep the wearer calm, and
in doing so provided a modicum of protection. Naturally anything that smacked of the healing arts was snatched up by the temples, who immediately pronounced Urza to be a wonderfully fine fellow, even for an Argivian.
So the temples were happy. The merchants were happy when more people flocked to Kroog, hearing of their “magical” amulets. And the common folk were made happy by merchants hiring more help, and by the ornithopters that were now seen flitting among the towers, attracting still more people to Yotia. And, Kayla told herself, Daddy was happy because he had metal statues, ornithopters, and wonders others did not have, and a son-in-law who delighted in making more.
In fact, Chief Artificer Urza was making everyone happy in Yotia except its princess, his wife. To make matters worse, Daddy had mentioned to her that he did not have a grandson yet, an heir to carry on the title. Was it her fault that the warlord kept her husband continually occupied with other matters?
Kayla knew there were other options for intimate companionship, of course, but she had always found them distasteful. When she was growing up, the matron had all manner of stories of queens and princesses who dallied with some handsome young courtier or kind-hearted commoner. But most of those stories were cautionary tales that usually ended with one or both of the two people involved dead or in exile. Somehow it did not seem like a good set of choices to her.
But she was still young, and beautiful, and there were those who looked at her in a fashion that her husband did not have time for. It was nice to know that one could turn heads, she reflected. Kayla was sure that the tall, brawny toy maker from the coast had almost swallowed his tongue when he finally recognized her. It was little things such as that that made her feel good.
She thought about the newcomer, Tawnos. He was tall and broad-shouldered; she had no doubt he had drifted into craft work after spending his youth hauling in the sardine catch off Jorilin Point. His blond hair was in continual disarray, giving him a lost, puppy-dog look. There was a man, she thought with a smile, who was in need of a good young woman to put his life in order. And his manners! Pure hinterland; you could even hear the gulls when he talked. Under court tutelage, that would change soon enough.
Of course, from the start Tawnos seemed to have developed a rapport with her husband. If her husband was sometimes unreachable by her, he might listen to a man who spoke in the language of inventions, devices, and science.
Kayla shook her head. Part of her wanted to see the handsome young newcomer survive the grind of working with her husband—Tawnos seemed like a nice young man. But part of the princess knew that if he was to fit into her husband’s world he would have to alter to fit Urza’s needs. She had learned that if one did not fit into his plans, one was simply ignored.
She was walking slowly now, her heels a soft tap against the marble. The courtiers knew that the storm was over, whatever its cause, and she passed several of the servants, who bowed briefly as they carted fresh linens, silverware, more of the inevitable scrolls about the palace.
Finally she reached the drawing room, took a deep breath, and entered. The privy council was already meeting.
Her father the warlord was already there, hunched over one end of the long table. On his left hand was Rusko, who had arrived at the palace with Urza and showed no sign of ever decamping. Indeed, the clockmaker had become the semiofficial liaison with the merchant guilds in Kroog and would only part with that title (and the perquisites included) when either he or Kroog was no more.
On the right side were the Captain of the Guard and the seneschal. The captain had been the warlord’s squire back at the dawn of time but had aged less gracefully than her father, and in fact spent most of his time napping. The seneschal looked much as he had on her betrothal day. Probably his own frantic nervousness prevented any illness or misfortune from getting within twenty feet of him.
The three men were Daddy’s closest advisors. And herself, of course—always welcome and always paid attention to. The four of them formed the warlord’s privy council.
“Is he coming?” asked the warlord sternly.
“Is he ever?” replied the princess, trying to keep a bright tone in her voice. “No, he’s wrapped up, breaking in his new apprentice.”
The warlord looked a question at Rusko, who merely shrugged. “A new one to me. I’d bet this one lasts a month at the outside.”
The princess took a seat next to Rusko. The clockmaker used to burble in the royal presence, but that had diminished and finally stopped some years before. Kayla realized she missed the fawning, just a little.
“What is the situation along the Sword Marches?” asked the warlord.
The Captain of the Guard sniffed and stifled a sneeze. Kayla always noticed that direct questions caused the old man to sneeze. “Steady,” he mumbled. “The Fallaji are getting more and more brazen with each month. There’s talk that one of the tribes is gaining control over the others.”
“Another tribe besides the Tomakul?” asked the seneschal nervously.
The captain fought off another sneeze, then replied, “The city Fallaji are token heads, and I’ve heard that even they have agreed to go along with this new desert clan. Usually the tribes of the deep desert spend most of their time raiding each other.”
“Except now,” said the warlord. “They’re raiding more caravans now.”
“Or demanding exorbitant ‘tolls,’ ” added Rusko, “or, in some cases, ‘caretaker fees’ for additional caravan guards they provide. It’s extortion, sucking the lifeblood out of the merchant class!”
“And our patrols?” inquired the warlord.
The captain pinched his nose. “We have three companies along the marches. Once a caravan reaches Yotian territory, it is safe. There have been no raids into Yotia proper at all. But we don’t have enough men to accompany every caravan across the desert.”
“What about the ornithopters?” asked Kayla.
That question evoked a full-fledged sneeze, followed by a handkerchief produced with a flourish and a loud blast of the nose. “We could send them along with the caravans,” the captain said at last, supporting Kayla’s suggestion.
The warlord shook his head. “I wouldn’t want anything like that falling into the Fallaji hands. How about using them to patrol the marches?”
The captain blinked hard. “We could. We don’t have enough of them right now.”
“Why not?” demanded the warlord.
The captain looked as if this query would produce another sneezing fit, so Rusko came to his aid. “The limit is not in raw machines, or even in young men and women foolhardy enough to want to fly them. The problem is power. The ornithopters run off an old Thran device, a power stone. The metal statues do the same. There aren’t a lot of them in Yotia. Urza has been working to try to mend broken power stones, but it’s an iffy job. We can build all manner of ornithopters, but they’re just pretty kites without the proper stones. That’s problem number one.”
The warlord grunted. “Any place else we can get more stones?”
The seneschal spoke up in a meek voice. “The Argivians have collected a large number of stones over the years, but they use them for their own devices. And they are scouring the desert for more, I understand.”
There was a pause. Kayla could see the wheels turn in her father’s head. Whenever he started thinking like this, the result was normally trouble for someone.
“Captain,” he said finally, “I want you to send exploration parties into the desert. They will carry descriptions of the stones so they know what to look for. We’ll ask Urza about the most likely places to find them.”
This last was not a question, so the captain nodded in agreement.
“But what if our parties meet Argivians looking for the same stones?” squeaked the seneschal.
“They’ll probably be relieved to meet other civilized men in the desert, as opposed to those Fallaji fanatics,” snapped the warlord. “But just to be sure, I want you to frame a letter to the Argivian king. Tell him what w
e’re doing, but frame it in terms of mutual defense: All of us against the savages in the heartlands. That should calm him down enough. Anything else?”
Rusko spoke up. “One thing, Your Majesty.” He produced from beneath the voluminous folds of his vest a small dish and a bottle of black powder. “With the Chief Artificer’s successes, you have decreed that we keep our eyes open for other devices, either in old books or the marketplace, that could be used by Kroog to better protect itself. I think I have something that may be useful.”
The former clockmaker laid the dish on the table; into it he poured a small amount of the black powder. The powder was crystallized into small spheres and reminded Kayla of shriveled peas. Rusko then rose and lit a taper from a nearby oil lamp. He touched the lit taper to the crystals, and they popped and burned brightly, setting up a cloud of noxious smoke that hung over the table.
That was too much for the old Captain of the Guard, who already had his kerchief over his face. The seneschal looked as if he was about to bolt for the door. The warlord waved a hand through the cloud. “Goblin powder,” he grumbled. “What of it?”
“Goblin powder,” agreed Rusko. “Also called dwarven fireblack, or black dust, or burningbright. It’s a chemical concoction that the goblins and dwarves of the north use.”
“And usually blow themselves up in the process,” commented the warlord. Kayla leaned away from the table, in search of clean air.
“Because it is volatile, tricky, and temperamental,” replied Rusko. “It’s hard to use because you have to be close to it in order to light it, and if you are too close when the fuse burns down, you get blown up.”
“It is used in small amounts for children’s poppers, and other noise-makers,” the seneschal ventured, “but it has no practical use.”
“Ah,” said Rusko, holding a hand up. “What if you could set a fuse and throw the powder at an enemy before it explodes? Or, better yet, if you could fit the container with a flint that causes a spark when it strikes the earth?”