Issue #70: Gold and Glory
(Part 2)
“Don’t don’t think I follow you.” Willow said, knuckling her head as she tried to work out Cyn’s logic. The Princess had told her about how the group they were assembling would be like a group from an adventure ballad, but exactly how that might be was lost to her.
They were heading down the spiral stair of Castle Freeland’s south tower, intent on reaching the rear yard.
Cyn rolled her eyes if only because her companion seemed to be trying to put way too much thought into it. “Well there’s always a party of four in these things: a hero, a healer, a trap-springer and a magician.”
Once more, Wil seemed lost. “The Sorceress is the magician… and you’re the hero?”
“Well you didn’t think you were the hero did you?” Cyn asked, “Not to sell you short, but I’m of royal blood, it’s my story, and more importantly, I’m the one that uses a sword in a fight. Sorry, but bow and daggers are not ‘hero’ weapons.
Wil left that one alone. It never made sense to her that all the stories seemed to put swords in the hands of the hero when a good ranged weapon could end fights before they really began and a dagger was so much better for close-up work. “Okay. But… I’m not the trap-springer am I?”
“Of course not.” scoffed Cyn. “We’re on the way to collect our trap-springer right now.
“…So I’m the healer?”
“You know all about woodcraft, right? And that includes survival and treating wounds.” Cyn pointed out. They reached the bottom of the tower and Wil pushed open the doors there. The bright light of day spilled in over them along with crisp autumn air.
The rear yard was where any work that needed to be done at Castle Freeland that couldn’t be done inside was carried out. Delivery wagons rumbled in and out of the gates, loading and unloading at the various workshops and storage areas that lined the walls. Guard shifts trained on the hard-packed dirt while nearby washerwomen fussed over huge tin tubs filled with suds.
Cyn ignored most of what was going on and instead aimed herself toward one of the largest outbuildings, the royal smithy.
Castle Freeland’s smithy was like no other. Not only did it turn out expert works of iron; from horseshoes to weaponry, but it also managed steel goods without the aid of a foundry, and the most intricate and delicate works in silver, gold and aluminum available in the known world.
Bypassing the front door, Cyn led Will around to the back where the outdoor forge was set up next to the castle’s outer wall. Two boys, each about ten years old, were manning the furnace; one operating the bellows while one held a crucible of slowly liquifying metal in the center of the blazing heat.
They were twins of the most peculiar sort; both extremely thin, no matter how much they were fed, with hair of an unnatural sheen, somewhere between gold and silver. The blacksmith had rescued them two years earlier when brigands attacked their family; slaying their merchant parents and younger sister. Though he and his young wife did their best to raise them with love and kindness, neither had spoke a word in that entire time.
This morning, they were dressed for using the furnace: cotton breeches and shirts under thick, leather aprons with gloves and boots to match. One of them, the one holding the crucible in with a pair of long tongs, had on glasses with smoked lenses so as to peer into the inferno. Just as Cyn was about to call out to them, the back door of the smithy opened and out stepped the blacksmith.
Nothing about Warrick Kaine suggested ‘blacksmith’. Most people who weren’t familiar with the goings on at Castle Freeland, tended to assume he as a page and far younger than he was, thanks to being a head shorter than most men and lean besides. In place of the typical smith’s physique of rippling muscles and a heat-blasted tan, he was thin, dark of hair and eye, and his skin only bore a hint of the sun’s health.
In truth, he was not only the Royal Smith to the Queen of May and her Household, but the premier smith of his time. This was thanks to his Devise: the Hammer of Damascus, which granted him the power to forge any metal and even change its composition.
He was carrying it now, as he strode out of the smithy. “Is that scrap melted down, yet, boys?” Before either of the twins could reply, he caught sight of his two visitors. “Princess! Miss Willow! My apologies, I didn’t see you there.” He swept a hurried bow, still formal even after sharing several adventures with the pair. “How can I help you? A new sword?”
Mention of the sword made Cyn blush with embarrassment, but she used her powers to keep it hidden. Three times had the smith forged her a blade of unequaled beauty and strength, and three times had she broken it by being overly enthusiastic in combat. She was determined not to break the fourth he’d created for only a week before.
“’Morning, Mister Kaine.” Cyn said, sing-songing the name to make fun of his formality. “Just for the moment, let me be Cyn and you be Warrick, agreeable.”
Warrick laughed nervously. “Far be it for me to argue Prin…Cyn.”
“Princyn? I like it.” Cyn said with a chuckle. “How goes the smithy? And trouble from the guards or your suppliers?”
“None at all.” he shrugged broadly. “I had a discussion wit Captain al-Utt and his subordinates won’t soon think they can make demands of me—especially not through the boys.” His features darkened as he glanced over at the twins. “I’d like to flog the man that did it though—you know how sensitive the twins are.”
Not half as sensitive as their father is about them, Cyn thought. “I’ll look into it, but you know how Mother feels about corporal punishment as discipline.”
“Any other time, I would agree with Her Majesty on this.” said Warrick, “but when my boys are involved…” He tapped the Hammer of Damascus into his palm, wishing it was someone’s head. He wore metal on him at all times; from a belt of chains to numerous rings on his fingers; and when the Hammer struck the rings in his offhand, it reflected his mood on the matter by transforming the rings into spiked knuckles. He didn’t notice, but Cyn did.
She coughed politely. “I completely understand, Warrick. At the very least, he’s losing his rank as I hear. I’ll even expel him if it comes to it. In any event, we’re in a bit of a rush, so I’ll just lay it out:”
“Her Majesty has another mission for you to undertake.” the smith interrupted with a knowing smirk. “I’ll accept of course, but I need to inform those who have orders in with me…”
“Actually, we’re not here for you.” Wil said, speaking for the first time since they arrived. After an awkward moment, she added, “Sorry.”
Cyn tossed a friend an annoyed look, but nodded. “Yeah, sorry. You see for this, we’re going to need a Neo-Deviser instead of another, you know… actual Deviser.”
Warrick scowled a bit. “She’s still an ‘actual Deviser’, Princess. Its just that she made her own.” Normally, he would have been just as angry at her for the slight as he’d been over the man who frightened the boys. The difference was that he knew the princess enough to know that she was just bad at decorum rather than being malicious.
“Sorry. Right.” Cyn said, not sounding convinced.
Neo-Devisers were a new wrinkle in the fabric of the world’s balance of power. Devices bound themselves to who they chose, often people who quested for or stumbled upon them; there was an element of being chosen by Fate to it.
Meanwhile, the ancient magic came down in the blood; a second form of nobility in the eyes of many.
But Neo-Devices were built by ordinary men and women who acquired the knowledge from observation and deduction based on both Devices and the ancient magic. It was a new form of power that anyone could take up if they applied themselves, and unlike Devices, a person could have more than one.
Warrick took a deep breath. “You know that I would be perfectly willing to rush headlong into whatever danger or intrigue you asked, Cyn. You are both my sovereign’s daughter and a friend. But I’m less than thrilled about my family being directed into the same. But this is Christina’s choice, not mine. Can’t argue any, I guess; not with how many times I’ve gone off and joined you.”
“Good man.” Cyn smirked as he stepped aside to let them enter the smithy.
As she tried to pass though, he caught her elbow, pulling her to a stop. For most other people on the kingdom, handling the Princess in such a manner would be a hanging offense. Even if they weren’t friends however, the look he was giving her would have stayed her hand. “Just look out for her, will you?”
Behind Cyn, Wil nodded solemnly even before the Princess spoke. “Of course we will. We’re not strangers to this sort of thing, you know? After all, you always came back alive, yes?”
That got one more nod from Warrick and he released her to head inside.
To say that the smithy was cluttered would have been a misstatement. Clutter implies chaos, disorder and untidiness. Everything in the smithy was precisely where it was meant to be and the pair that used the work space, plus the twins would have been able to find anything they might need at a moment’s notice with no trouble.
Anyone else, however, was in trouble.
Cyn had to be careful where she put her feet with each step because the floor was littered with crates and jars overflowing with nails, screws, hinges, springs—any piece of metal that might be passed off as scrap by other people. Under the attentions of the Hammer of Damascus, and of that worthless tin or iron could become silver or steel.
And with the machinations and Neo-Devising of Christina of Carl’s Isle, they could become so much more.
Example of her handiwork adorned the walls and counters toward the front of the smithy where the goods for sale were placed. Cyn’s eye fell on a crossbow with twin hoppers of bolts sprouting from the top side at an angle from one another. It had a crank instead of a trigger and when she’d seen it demonstrated, it fired more bolts in a minute than a seasoned bowman. That wasn’t even a Neo-Device; just applied science for the kind the Queen placed so much value.
With no time to waste investigating the other mechanical wonders being sold alongside Warrick’s more practical blades and armor, Cyn just called out the woman’s name into the huge shop.
“Here.” Came a distracted reply from an area sectioned off by tall shelves.
Cyn and Willow traversed the room with care, following the voice until they found themselves in a workspace tucked between shelves.
There was a woman there, perched atop a chair that was little more than a cushion on a wheeled base. In front of here was a work bench where something that looked a great deal like an oversized gauntlet lay in the midst of a scattering of tools and small part. A panel had been opened on it to reveal a rat’s nest of pulleys and clockwork. Behind her was a draft desk, tilted for ease of use, bearing a huge sheet of vellum covered with drawings of the gauntlet in various states of construction.
The woman was taller than her two visitors with her short, red hair held out of her bespectacled eyes by a leather cord She was wearing a sleeveless homespun house dress, tightly belted to keep any cloth from catching in machinery. At the moment, she was leaning over the gauntlet, observing it through a large magnifying lens clamped to the edge of the table.
For a moment, she went on working without looking up, leaving the other two women to stand there awkwardly. Thought Cyn was well acquainted with Warrick, she and Christina were casual acquaintances at best, a relationship chilled by the fact that Cyn hadn’t held her tongue about his misgivings about the union between Warrick and Christina.
Devise or not, Warrick was a smith while Christina’s father was a military man and landed. Cyn had loudly supposed that the entire thing was arranged to add the Hammer of Damascus to the heirlooms on Carl’s Isle. Discovery that Christina was a sort of Deviser in her own right and seeing how the young couple got along staunched to suppositions, but left a bitterness in the air between them.
Barely able to tolerate being ignored, Cyn chose the most formal route. “Christina of Carl’s Isle, I’ve come in the name of the Queen.”
That made the other woman pause. When she looked up, a sour looked briefly marred her features before she slipped on a mask of propriety. “Princess.” She straightened to attention. “How may I serve the crown today?”
Like her mother, Cyn didn’t wallow all that much in the station she held, but sometimes, like that very moment, it felt damn good. “My mother’s set me on a mission; one I won’t be able to undertake on my own.”
A look of worry set in. “You’re here to collect Warrick then?”
Cyn smiled, showing more sharp teeth than a normal person might, “No, this call to adventure is yours, tinkerer. The person we’re after is likely using a Neo-Device, so we need an expert in the field.”
“And none of the others were available?” Because she didn’t have the leeway when talking to the Princess that her husband did, Christina couldn’t use the sardonic tone she wanted, so instead her voice was all sweetness and light.
This earned her a hard look from Cyn that melted into a weary sigh. Weary because she realized that she would have to employ something she usually avoided: Tact. “Actually, no. Normally, I would needle you on this, but this is important: Someone got into Castle Freeland and stole a Device—or Neo-Device, we don’t know which—that contains a copy of all the knowledge Mother has gained from the Crown of the Codex.
“Now listen carefully, because I’m only going to say this once: you’re the best at what you do in the city, possibly all of May, and I need you help. This isn’t about me, or you, or how I may have ruined your wedding a tiny bit. This is about May; a ‘Queen and Country’ situation.”
Christina looked from Cyn’s haughty expression to Willow’s pleading eyes and considered. There was bad blood between her and the Princess and t was entirely Cyn’s fault. Cyn being Cyn, she’d given up on ever hearing an apology long ago.
On the other hand, it was Cyn that always brought Warrick home safe and the missions she undertook in the name of the Queen protected and advanced May’s interests in ways the army never could. Brat or not, proud or not, she was a force for good.
And if Christina turned her down and some second rate Neo-Deviser got her killed, she would bring her entire family down to pariah status.
Besides, she was on rather good terms with Willow, so it wasn’t as if she would be stuck bickering with Cyn the whole time. She stood up, making sure to tower over the Princess, and wiped her hands clean of machine oil and other grim on her dress before extending a hand. “I am a loyal servant of the Crown, after all. And I’ve wondered what deviltry you two drag my husband into. When do we leave and what do I need to bring?”
“A bell past noon.” said Cyn. “And pack for a journey of at least a week.”
Wil coughed politely. “But our first task is only to investigate the wall with the sorceress. We don’t know if the Device even left the city.”
Cyn scoffed. “Oh, it so did. There’s no way something this big doesn’t extend outside the kingdom. This is going to be out greatest mission yet: fraught with peril, derring-do and littered with epic confrontations with mind-bending horrors!”
“That does seem to match the stories Warrick brings back.” Christina confirmed, much to Willow’s obvious dismay.
***
Elsewhere, the world pulsed and a voice that was no voice recited to itself even as it tortuously sought out the words to give meaning to its thoughts.
Dreaming, dreaming.
And yet not. An open mind touching possibilities.
They all are but not for you. Never for you. You fall through yourself, into your altered lives.
Beauty in alteration. Beauty in possibility. Unreality that has become.
Every step a journey. Every step comes closer…
Words were anathema. So was what any person, however mad, might call thought.
Nonetheless, there was a plan.
About Vaal
Landon Porter is the author of
The Descendants and
Rune Breaker. Follow him on Twitter
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Fantasy IS my first love – I only got into superhero fiction by finding works such as your own on the internet – so if there was any re-imagining of the Descendants that would catch my attention… I’m intrigued with where you’re going with this. 😛
The missing piece of the classic adventuring party is of course the audience-relatable plucky* youngster with no relevant skills or abilities who constantly endangers everyone with their pluckiness but whom everyone recognizes as the greatest hero of the group after they save the day through sheer blind luck and ridiculously contrived circumstance.
[* Dictionaries define ‘plucky’ as meaning brave or spirited, but nowadays it’s mostly used to mean an annoying liability. If you ever meet a person described as plucky in real life, run for the hills and hope they don’t follow.]
close, but no cookie I say.
We’ve got the dps, the rogue, the mage… we need a tank! Enter the Honorable Sir Kane, Knight of the Alloyed Whips
I suppose I show my D&D influences when I say that I saw the party as fighter, rogue (actually a ranger, but close enough) and mage, meaning the last member would be a cleric for that perfect quatuor.
Trying to imagine Melissa as a fantasy character makes me laugh.
That’d work too… work amazingly… we’d probably get some sort of Granny Weatherwax approach to healing. ‘I’ll make you feel better. I won’t make you feel welcome’
It’s just I’d be shocked to have a Cyn focus without Warrick 😛
Kura?
“The Tank is DPS! The Tank is DPS! Fifteen bucks a month to put up with this mess.” ~ Nhym
So glad you guys are on board with this. I was slightly worried I’d wake up to an inbox full of ‘WHAT DID YOU DO?!’ :p
Getting a feeling like when I watched Buffy the Musical – don’t quite know what’s going on, but expect it to be a lot of fun.
I really like it. Lots of subtle reveals going on too.
We get to see lots of warm fuzzies about Cyn and Laurel and assuming the powers work the same way despite being artefacts, we get to have a few more insights on the mystery that is Facsimile
It cool. I like this re-imagining of This Descendants.
Words are very
Unnecessary
They can only do harm.
Nonetheless, there’s a plan.
(Apologies to Depeche Mode.)
Oh my gosh! Le twist!
I’ve always wanted to do this:
dun dun DUN
I think I’m the only one not liking the medieval thing. The story itself is interesting, but I’d rather you didn’t obscure the actual plot behind the imaginary setting. It just feels extremely unnecessary. And Willow being relegated to a background role is just insulting to her character. If it has to be anyone, why not Melissa? She’d have useful healing “fieldcraft”, and be snarky enough to make conversations interesting. In the real setting, of course it’d have to be Zero, but making her less a sidekick than an occasionally useful servant is just wrong.
I understand your issues and I can promise you that they will all be addressed. Not to give too much away, but there’s more to this tale than meets the eye initially, and Wil is most certainly not going to relegated to the background.
I actually expected more people to have problems with this because I don’t usually do something this… weird… but I hope you’ll stick with it because I feel it has one hell of a payoff.
Oh snap! Cyn is an idiot, letting her emotions get the better of her, as usual. And this time even Melissa told her to listen!
Seems to me Melissa was more of an idiot there to just talk about ‘listening to his story’ without any mention of anything relevant like “it wasn’t him” which apparently was the main gist of the story. The fact she didn’t mention a convincing reason why his story would matter essentially implies there isn’t one.
Every villain has some sob story about why they’ve done whatever, and there’s always someone soft-hearted who’ll accept it as an excuse.
I’m more partial to ‘evil speeches of evil’ [Where the villains asserts why it’s totally okay to be evil] than sob stories.
Yeah those are cooler, but sadly not every villain has one of those prepared.
Is Cyn going crazy? She was slipping in and out of her fantasy character for a minute there. I’m assuming this is the payoff that was mentioned, but that threw me for a minute.
It’s a bit more complex than that. If I posted the name of Part 2, I think it would explain a lot.
And that name i[REDACTED]
Next Issue: Descendants #71 – Yellow
“…a zweihänder in a concealed crossbow.”
Can’t be sure with all the gunblades and whatnot in media these days, but I think that should be and.
“… the blade sheered through…”
Sheared is the one you want there. The two are confused almost as often as hoard (stockpile) and horde (large group of irate nomads).
“…above the earth, heat the call…”
Heed.