“That’s very helpful, Zinni. Thank you,” I said. “Where is this Thrace place and these highlands?”
She turned to the map and pointed out several locations. “Technically this is all Thrace here, just above us.” She circled her finger around a chunk of land north of the peninsula on which Port Superior was built. “Some of its political boundaries are loosely defined, lacking geographical features such as mountains or rivers to demark a fine line separating it from adjoining kingdoms. Some Thracians may even claim that our city falls within their kingdom’s borders, but they have made many such claims to many nations over the years, and it usually amounts to nothing but idle chatter from what I have heard.”
She moved her finger to circle a smaller section of Thrace a little to the right of its center. “The highlands are a similar area that lies within a zone tenuously considered to belong to Thrace, but, to my knowledge, there are no settlements present there as the environment is far less hospitable than the surrounding areas of lower altitudes.”
I looked to the carcass and then back to the princess. “Zinni, you are always such a wellspring of helpful information. So, do you have any idea why these gryphons showed up here all of a sudden, so far away from home?”
She, too, looked to the creature and back to me, saying, “I am not sure. My best guess is that perhaps they are being hunted, but it is only a guess. I will have to do more reading and see what I can find, if anything. Perhaps they migrate?”
“All right, thanks. Yeah, only bother when you have the time. It’s not anything pressing, just a curiosity I had. It’d be one thing if we started encountering them on a regular basis, but right now it’s not a huge concern.”
“Well, I already have its stinking body in my place of study, so I will learn everything about it as soon as I can before it begins to rot. Thank you for bringing it to me, Troy and Helen.”
“Of course,” I said. I opened my arms to hug her, but she held her hands up to keep me at bay, wary of the scum I was covered in. “Oh, right.”
“I will hug her for the both of us, Dear,” Helen said, moving to embrace Zinni. “As always, we greatly appreciate your help, Zinni.”
Helen and I left Zinni’s, eager to attend to other matters. When I first met Helen, floating in the sea among the wreckage of a ship she had brought from Egypt, she told me of these powerful cannons she had created while serving the pharaohs. Some of those armaments had been lost in a naval encounter, and the rest were stolen from her by a storm. She told me then that one day she planned to reconstruct them for Trojan use, and those plans were well underway.
The Trojans had formed their own league of engineers under her instructions and set to work rebuilding her powerful instruments of war. We had planned to set out following our little trip to the thicket before we were interrupted by the chaos that ensued our excursion. We would be a few hours later than expected, but it was a setback of no real import.
She and I boarded my vessel from the future, the Moonshadow, and headed east for the massive walled city. We received a message the previous day that her cannons were ready for their latest round of testing and were told that the tests would commence once we arrived to spectate, if we desired to do so. Of course, we desired to see the tests—we always had. This project was Helen’s baby in a sense, and we were both delighted to have front row seats to observe each step forward. There had been several tests prior, but they were all fetal prototypes, nothing resembling the full cannons we intended to have at the project’s conclusion. Such was the way of science: numerous rounds of trial and error with incremental progress.
Night had fallen by the time we reached the port of Troy. We were greeted by several men who formerly sailed under the flag of a band of pirates known as the Sea People. I had slain their leader some time ago, and as a result, they pledged fealty to me and presented me with the man’s concubine, a gorgeous woman named Caria. I took the fiery redhead, former princess of a nomadic tribe known as the Ekwish, or Horse People, as my second bride. Helen welcomed her with open arms, more or less, and we’ve been a happy household ever since.
I thought it best to have the Sea People serve as a naval line of defense for the King and Queen of Troy, suggesting that it would be better for the citizens to have these people serve as a wall against any sea-going attacks and spare the lives of Trojan soldiers. The former pirates were happy to oblige, having a relatively safe place to stay and reliable access to food and shelter on land when they felt the need to dock.
They hurried to meet us, not as a safety precaution as the white fiberglass hull of my boat was recognizable even from a long distance, but more as a formality and to greet their official leader. Even though they took orders from the King and Queen from time to time, they still saw me as their true master.
“Troy! How are you, Sire?” asked one of the men with a gaping, rotten-toothed grin.
“I am well, friend!” I took both of his hands in mine as I continued for the city. “How are you and the other Sea People faring these days?”
“We, too, are well, Sir. How is sweet Caria? I see she did not accompany you this time.”
My second queen hated these men with a passion since many of them were responsible for her kidnapping and enslavement and the murder of her father and many of her people years prior. When they did cross paths, she did her best to avoid eye contact, though none of them ever seemed to notice. I offered to have them executed the moment we brought them to Troy, but even in her anger she agreed that it would be best to have them serve as fodder against attacking forces. I always applauded her level-headedness.
“She is well. Lately, she has been training some of the men and women of Port Superior in horse combat. She truly has been a blessing to us.”
“This is wonderful news, Lord.”
“That it is.” I clapped the man on the back and continued on my way. “Take care, friend, and give the others my regards.”
“That I will, Sire!”
The gates of Illium had already been shut for the evening, but that was of no concern since the testing and construction was taking place on the opposite side of the town, outside of the walls. It took about a full hour to travel from the docks to the site at our leisurely pace. Upon our arrival at the tents belonging to the city engineers, we were met by a bright-eyed young apprentice. I’d had the pleasure of meeting the young man several times before, but I could not remember his name, and at this point I was too embarrassed to ask.
“Lord Troy, Grace Helen, we have been expecting you!” the young, slender man welcomed us. Even in his early twenties, his back was beginning to arch in the hunch expected of learned men in the profession of tinkering. I wanted to tell him to straighten up for his own good but knew it would have little impact in the long run and accomplish even less to endear him to me.
“Ah, nice to see you again,” I said, shaking his hand. Helen in turn followed suit.
“Come this way! Master Erion is over at the testing grounds making his fifth last-minute assessment of the prototype today.” He laughed and waved us over to follow him.
We saw the old man bent over the massive hunk of metal, examining its shell in the light of a torch. His white wiry hair shined in an unruly halo around his scalp in the glow of the flame, as did his exposed crown and the liver spots dotting it. He was mumbling something to himself that I could not hear, surely personal thoughts on the machine his attention was attuned to. The old man turned as he heard us approach and his wrinkled face lit up like the light in his hand upon discovering who was coming to greet him.
“Ah! Lords Troy and Helen! How wonderful!”
He barely stood five feet high, losing at least half a foot from his own aged hunch. It seemed with these people that their hunches were worn as a sash of honor, directly proportional to the knowledge stored within the folds of their brains, folds which surely outnumbered the many lining this particular man’s face. He was a comical sight with the signature magnifying glass anchored to his hea
d by a leather strap resembling a thin belt buckle. Behind it, his eye appeared four times as large as its brother.
“I have been anticipating your visit all day. Thank you, Armand. You may leave us now.”
That was it: Armand. How would I remember that? Maybe I could think that he was our man who shows us the way to Master Erion almost every time we come to visit.
“Thanks, Armand,” I said. “It was a pleasure seeing you again.”
The young man bid us farewell and returned to whatever important work he’d been engaged in before.
“So,” Erion said, “here we are! I have faith that it will work this time. Stand over there, and I will initiate the firing sequence.” He indicated for us to take a few steps back and made his way back over to the cannon.
He took his time with the process while recapping everything involved. “As you know, we were able to use the simple ignition spell provided to us by Lady Helen which allows the cannon to fire without a source of fuel. Or rather, the spell draws latent energy from the air around it, both from simple heat radiation and the microbial organisms that happen to be present during startup. Objects such as cannonballs can be placed in the cannon as ammunition, but this is not necessary. In this test, we will simply allow the energy to be expelled from the cannon by itself. If all goes well, we should see that stack of hay explode on impact with the bubble of energy released.” He pointed down the field ahead of us to a mound of haybales stacked in a pyramid. “On second thought, it may be best to take several more steps back,” he warned.
We did as suggested, and he resumed typing in the commands. There were several buttons on the back of the cannon. One adjusted the intensity, directly correlating to how much energy would be taken from the air; one adjusted the radius of the blast, dispersing the energy in the necessary ways to cause the burst to either expand or stay in its initial bubble as it sailed across the field—this was only useful for pure energy shots and did nothing to assist ammunition in reaching its destination (for ammo, it needed to stay on the concentrated blast setting); one set the timer which allowed for a delay up to ten seconds and was necessary for test runs such as this; and the final button—the shiny copper one—meant “fire.” There were to be mechanisms added later to allow the cannon to adjust its aim on the horizontal and vertical axes.
“Here we go!” Erion said as he hurried over to join us, beaming from ear to ear. “5… 4… 3… 2…”
The cannon made a sound like a firework that had just been lit and its tip began to smoke. My heart beat with anticipation. Soon followed a sound similar to a small firework exploding, and I saw from Master Erion’s face that this was not the expected result. He took a half-step back and urged us to do the same with his arm. The cannon let loose another muffled boom, but the hay tower stood unmoved on the other side of the field. Nothing but smoke seemed to have come from the cannon. There was a third boom, this one louder than the other two, and then followed a storm of similar bangs and pops, more smoke, and several sparks at the tail end near the controls.
The three of us crept further away as the noise grew in intensity, and a handful of apprentices tore themselves from their work in the various surrounding tents to investigate the ruckus. A crowd of a dozen or so hunch-backed engineers from several age groups crowded behind us and watched as sparks exploded from the top of the cannon and the metal of its shell melted like butter before our eyes.
“Yikes!” laughed Master Erion. “Well, I must admit I was not expecting that to happen. But Lady Science is a fickle woman!”
“Are you sure it is not Lady Magic?” asked Lady Helen. “Perhaps there was something wrong with your application of the ignition spell?”
“Perhaps, My Lady, perhaps. But it is doubtful. We tested the spell in a standalone experiment and it worked just fine—you were present for that, I believe. I suspect it has more to do with the interface between the spell and the control console. I suspect the parameters I intended to input were different than what the machine understood the input to mean. I will look into setting an upper limit on the energy inputs and perhaps making that button less sensitive.”
“That sounds like a wise place to start,” I said, only partially comprehending what the old man was saying. “How long will that take? The cannon looks pretty ruined to me.”
“Oh, that is no matter. We have plenty of backup parts. Half of the men are working on more as we speak. Once we have a working model, we want to construct them as quickly as possible. Though, I will admit that things would go much smoother with the help of Lady Helen and possibly Lady Polxyena.”
“Zinni is busy at the moment looking into something for us, but I will return to Port Superior soon and ask when she is available,” Helen said. “I will gather a few essentials and be on my way back here to assist soon after, whether she can help or not.”
“That would be most appreciated, Your Grace.”
Helen responded with a sort of curtsey. We took one final look at the pile of metallic lava pooling in the grass and made for the docks, leaving a huddle of stunned onlookers in our wake. The Master continued laughing at the mess, the sound only fading once we were out of earshot.
3
We stayed overnight on the Moonshadow, not wanting to bother the city guard with opening the gates and having to deal with finding a place for us to spend the night, which would likely have been the barracks. It was always well-stocked with wholesome food and drink, but the bedding was modest and privacy was always lacking—not a fitting situation for a lady of nobility like Helen. The quarters on my ship suited us just fine, and on such nights, I was always reminded of our first weeks together aboard my vessel, braving whatever dangers the seas threw our way.
Helen nuzzled under my arm, and we discussed the day’s events and our next steps. There was a lot to ponder among our growing kingdom, the random gryphon encounter, and the excitement we had for the construction of Helen’s cannons. She decided that she would return on my ship to discuss Erion’s request with Zinni at dawn and come fetch me around nightfall.
I would stay behind and tell the King and Queen of all the happenings since the last time we spoke. It had become a habit of mine to sit in on their audiences when I came to visit the mainland. At these gatherings, their citizens and foreigners came for all manner of reasons—to discuss trade options, groan about the state of this or that, report crimes, and suggest ideas for improvements to the kingdom. They were usually boring affairs. I tried not to become deaf to the droning of the commoners as I sat alongside His and Her Majesties, but most of their thoughts wore on one quickly, all ideas becoming more or less trite among the crowds of other unoriginal ideas and petty complaints.
Most of these people simply wanted a little facetime with the King and Queen so that their brown noses would get noticed. The kingdom was rife with sycophants and hangers-on, and the meaningless praises of such soulless, empty people sometimes made me nauseous. I would have felt bad laying such judgements on people like them if I felt that there was any original substance to them at all.
A ray of sunlight pried at my eyes in the early dawn, ushering me from my slumber. Helen began stirring soon after, and within the hour we had parted ways. I leisurely made my way to the gates of Troy, which had by then been opened to greet the day’s traffic. The guardsmen at the feet of the massive threshold greeted me with beaming grins as I was still shaking off the early-morning grog. I did my best to reflect their perkiness back at them.
In an attempt to wake myself up, I slapped my face several times when I felt that no one was looking. It had been a long night at the end of a long day, and I felt the little rest I had gleaned from the wee hours did little to pacify my exhaustion.
The palace guards permitted me entry past the growing line of people seeking an audience with the royal couple. The Congo line of commons was already stretched down beyond the massive marble steps and reaching into the plaza. I had never arrived so early to this event, so this sight was a bit of a shock for me
.
In the main hall sat King Priam and Queen Hecuba upon their gem-studded thrones. These magnificent chairs were portable, carried into the room and sat before the large fountain in its center for the purpose of addressing these audiences on select days of the week. On either side of them sat two less ornate but still impressive seats for anyone else in the royal household who wished to observe and weigh in on these minor affairs of state. The King and Queen’s eyes lit up when I walked through the door.
“Troy! How wonderful it is to see you, Dear,” exclaimed Hecuba. “Your presence will make the day more tolerable.” Both of them shared my feelings for these mostly tedious affairs.
I was glad to see the pair in such high spirits. It was not long ago that the King was ailing from a deadly sickness created by a foul mixture of magic and science by men under the command of King Mursili of the Hittites. I still did not fully understand the disease’s role in the mad King’s grand scheme of domination aside from casting our kingdom into disarray, but the attack dealt a heavy hand to the Queen and all of her subjects. The King lay on his deathbed then, and the Queen was in no state of mind to rule. She was drowning in grief at the thought that her one true love may be ripped away from her, and it made her act and speak in desperate ways then. It was a difficult time for everyone involved, and I was overjoyed when my men and I were finally able to put the issue to rest by killing the enemy king and finding a cure.
“I thought I’d stop by since I was in the neighborhood,” I said.
“And what tidings do you bring with you, Troy?” asked Priam, the smile between his rosy cheeks as inviting as any grandfather’s.
“Oh, well, a lot has happened in such a short time.” I took my seat at his side and filled him in on all the pertinent details: the gryphons first, then the cannons, and other random updates on the progress of my kingdom and the most recent trade deals made since my last visit.
Gears of Troy 3 Page 3
