by Eric Vall
I sighed as I leaned back on my stool and stared up at the ceiling without seeing. The royal blacksmith’s workshop here in Eyton was a lot smaller, and a lot less fancy, than Ogder’s shop back in Serin, but they basically looked the same. It was a large, hot, cluttered room, with forges along the back wall, and tables on every empty piece of floor. There were no windows, however, and it made me miss my own workshop that was open to the breeze. Of course, it was now closed and sealed up in Illaria’s mountain range, but that was beside the point.
“You look like you are working hard,” a dry voice came from the workshop’s doorway. “Or is it hardly working?”
I turned to find Aurora and Cayla framed in the threshold. The half-elf was the one who had spoken, and she stared at me with her arms crossed and a single eyebrow cocked expectantly.
“I am taking a moment to gather my thoughts,” I sniffed as I turned my nose up at them. “You can’t rush art, Aurora.”
“Uh-huh,” the Ignis Mage replied sarcastically, but I could see the edges of her mouth tremble as she fought back a smile.
“You haven’t hurt yourself again, have you, Mason?” Cayla asked with a frown as she took a step forward into the room.
The movement caused the skirts of her long dress to swish around her ankles, and my eyes ran up and down the length of the princess as I took her in. Since we had been back in her kingdom, the raven-haired beauty had abandoned the sexy and revealing disguise I had first met her in and switched it out for long, form-hugging dresses that I assumed were more suitable for the daughter of the king. I missed the chains and thigh-high boots, but I was quickly coming around to the dresses. The one Cayla wore right now was the same ice-blue color of her eyes, and it clung to her curves like a second skin as it flowed down to the floor. My fingers itched to hitch up her skirt and have my way with her right here in the royal blacksmith’s workshop.
“Mason?” Cayla asked again, and her voice snapped me out of my lustful fantasies.
“What?” I blinked as I lifted my head, and when I met the princess’s concerned gaze, I remembered her question. “Oh yeah no, I’m fine. No injuries here.”
I lifted my hands and flashed my palms and my knuckles, both devoid of cuts or burns.
“A trend not likely to continue if you keep ogling Princess Balmier,” Aurora teased as she sauntered across the room and perched herself on the table beside me.
Cayla’s cheeks flushed a sweet pink, but the smirk she threw me was anything but sweet.
“Like what you see?” she asked as she ran her hand down her hips.
“You know I do,” I grumbled as I shifted in my seat to adjust my pants, “which means you’re just being cruel now.”
“It is only cruel if I do not intend to follow through,” the princess replied as she swung her hips and walked toward me. “And I very much intend to do just that.” She brushed her hand across the back of my neck as she went around and took the stool to my left, and when she sat down and met my eyes, she licked at her bottom lip.
I groaned unintelligibly and reached out to grasp the tantalizing woman, but she playfully slapped at my hand.
“However,” she said with a wide grin, “you must finish your work first. Then you can receive your reward.”
“Always a catch,” I muttered as I dropped my hands back into my lap.
“Such is life,” Aurora chuckled on my other side, and then she leaned over and nudged at my shoulder. “How is the new design coming?”
“Well, while you and Her Highness were off taking a lovely tour of the castle,” I said as I narrowed my eyes accusatorially, “I was here starting production from scratch.”
“You make it sound as if we have spent the last two days trying on dresses instead of inspecting the castle’s fortifications,” Aurora replied with a roll of her eyes.
“So you say,” I mumbled, but then the Ignis Mage cuffed me on the shoulder, and I held up my hands in surrender. “Alright, alright, I’m sorry. I’m sure you were working hard. I’m a little tired and frustrated is all, forgive me.”
“What is the problem?” Cayla asked as she leaned forward in her stool and glanced at the table in front of me.
I sighed and raked my fingers back through my hair. “Take your pick. I’ve had a lot of them. The problem that caused last night’s little spectacle was, I think, because the gun’s frame wasn’t as strong as it should have been. So, today I started from zero again, and I made sure to make this piece as sturdy as possible given that there are so many moving parts.”
I trailed off and glared down at the revolver.
“And?” Aurora prompted.
“And I don’t know if I’ve succeeded on that front because I can’t get that damn thing to latch,” I groused as I folded my arms over my chest. “If I can’t get it to close properly, I’m just going to have the same problem as I did last night, and I don’t exactly want an encore. So, I can’t test it until I figure out this problem, but I’m probably going to have to take the whole thing apart again and see where I went wrong.”
The two women were silent for a moment as we all stared down at the gun.
Well, they stared. I continued to glare.
Just as I was about to resign myself completely to another disassembly, Cayla reached out and delicately touched the gun with the tip of her finger.
“Could you not use your magic?” she questioned as she tilted her head and continued to consider the revolver.
I frowned. “I tried that the first time around before I went to the watchmaker in Serin. My magic wants to take shortcuts, it attempts to fill in the blanks of what I don’t know with what should happen, or at least what I think should happen. Getting the mechanics to work is trial and error. Elias, the watchmaker, made it look easy, but he deals with tiny moving parts every day. I don’t have the same knowledge that he does.”
“No,” Cayla replied with a soft smile, “but you have a connection and an advantage that he does not. You have your power.”
“I don’t understand,” I said with a furrowed brow.
The princess pursed her lips and tapped at her chin with a slim finger. “Alright, I do not fully comprehend how your abilities work, but I believe you have done similar things. How did you mine the ore for these weapons back in Illaria? More specifically, how did you find them in the bedrock?”
“My magic,” I started, and then my eyes widened as realization slowly washed over me. “I-I sent out my magic, like a pulse, and with it, I could tell where things were.”
“Yes,” Cayla replied as a wide smile broke out over her face. “And then when the basilisk attacked, you did the same thing when you used your power to find the gun in the workshop, and then you used that same magic to summon the weapon to you when you fought Abrus.”
“So maybe,” I said as I sat up straight and my heart began to pound with excitement, “maybe I can do the same thing but on a much smaller scale! I send my magic out like a radar, pinpoint the problem, and then fix it from inside the gun. No disassembly required!”
“Sounds like you have a plan now,” Aurora chipped in as she crossed and then re-crossed her legs on the table in front of me.
I put a hand to my forehead and blinked owlishly at Cayla. “Gods. How did I not think of this sooner?”
The princess giggled and leaned forward to peck a kiss against my cheek.
“Sometimes you just need a little perspective,” Cayla responded as she pulled back. “You are also a little prone to tunnel vision, Mason. You like to face a problem head on, and you keep advancing until it gives way to you.”
“Are you calling me stubborn?” I asked as I narrowed my eyes in mock offense.
“Strong willed,” Cayla corrected with a smile, “and it is not a poor attribute to have. Lesser men would have abandoned a project like these weapons long ago, but not you, Mason. And not only have you created successful versions, but now you are making improvements. What you have accomplished is no small feat.”
My cheeks warmed at the compliments, and I reached out to squeeze her hand. “Thanks, Cayla.”
The blue-eyed princess squeezed back and grinned.
“Before we inflate Mason’s ego any further,” Aurora cut in as she slid off the tabletop, “could we perhaps try this solution you’ve proposed? Dinner is approaching, and I’m rather hungry after pacing the castle’s parapets.”
“Patience is a virtue, Defender Solana,” I teased as I turned to look up at the standing half-elf.
The Ignis Mage simply planted her hands on her hips and raised her eyebrows at me expectantly.
“Alright, alright,” I chuckled, and then I reached out to pick up the revolver. “Let me give it a try.”
I wrapped my fingers around the cool metal and cupped the gun in both of my palms. Then I flashed a quick smile at the women beside me before I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and summoned up my magic.
It was a little overwhelming at first. When I did this during mining, I instructed my power to seek out metal in the rock, and since the two were so different, it was easy to hone in on the ore and pull it out. This was different. The entire revolver was made of metal and, more than that, it was metal that my magic had already touched. Vague impressions rebounded back to me, impressions of what the metal used to be and then what I had molded it into, and they all overlapped to form a kind of white noise or static.
I furrowed my brow and concentrated harder as I tried to wade past all the non-essential information my magic was delivering to me. I focused instead on the shape of the revolver, the shape of its frame and springs and joints. Then I centered in on the way these pieces came together, how the edges butted up against one another, and how they shifted and reshaped themselves as each one moved independently.
I bent the frame in my hand back and forth along the pivot hinge, and I saw in my mind’s eye how the pieces glided and slid and…
“There!” I exclaimed out loud as my eyes flew open.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Cayla jump and Aurora twitch.
“What? Did you find the problem?” Cayla asked excitedly as she leaned forward.
“Yes,” I replied with a broad grin, and then I broke the barrel open entirely to point beneath the cylinder. “Here. The frame is just slightly misaligned along this hinge. The swivel actually needs to be moved forward on the frame also. That will keep the heavier part of the body absorbing the impact.”
Cayla squinted her eyes as she leaned even closer, and even Aurora frowned at the gun.
“I do not see the issue with the swivel,” the half-elf remarked, and my grin grew wolfish as I realized that not even her enhanced sight could spot the error.
“I didn’t either,” I replied, “which is because it’s barely a hair’s breadth off. I don’t think it’s visible to the naked eye, but with my powers, I could see it like a fault line running across a map. That small space is what is keeping the barrel catch from latching properly, but you know what? It wouldn’t even be an issue if it wasn’t placed so close to the grip. That’s actually the real issue.”
“Can you fix it?” Aurora asked as her emerald green eyes flickered up to mine.
“Let’s find out,” I said as adrenaline and magic snaked through my blood.
I closed my eyes again and sent out a tendril of my power into the revolver. It wound through the creases and crevices before it found the misalignment. In my mind’s eye, I watched as my magic flared white-hot within the skeleton of the gun, and then I felt that the metal shifted and adjusted as I willed it to. Then I placed a small block of raw steel on the side of the frame, and the entire lower joint moved forward so that the swivel was another half an inch forward on the body.
When I opened my eyes again, the revolver looked whole and untouched, but I could still feel my power radiate off it. My magic seductively whispered to me about the perfection of the weapon I held, and my heart began to pound a steady but fast rhythm.
“Moment of truth,” I whispered and then I grasped each end of the frame and bent my hands to bring them back together.
The two metallic pieces met with a rasp, and then I pushed a little harder. A click resounded across the silent room as the barrel catch successfully latched and locked.
“Oh hell yeah,” I breathed as I held the revolver up in front of my face. It felt way more secure.
The dark metal of the barrel reflected the orange flame of the surrounding torches, and besides the two women beside me and Bobbie 2.0, it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
The only thing it needed now was the grips, and I already had those cut and set aside. I turned back to the tabletop and searched through the chaos until I spotted a flash of white. When I reached out and picked up the grips, the pale material was cool and smooth against my fingers.
“Remind me to thank your father for all these materials,” I said with a nod at the worktable. “The ore, tools, and use of the workshop too, of course, but I’m really grateful for these ivory grips.”
“Well, no one else was using the chimera’s teeth,” Cayla replied with a flash of her own. “My father was glad to donate them to a good cause.”
“And there’s no better cause then putting bandits in the dirt,” I said with a broad grin. I finished affixing the grips in place with a few screws and several twists of magic, and then I lifted the revolver and sighted down the seven-inch barrel.
I put a section of wall on the other side of the workshop in my sights, and then I placed my finger on the trigger and squeezed. The loud click of the empty chamber was like music to my ears.
“Should we go test it now?” Aurora suggested with bright eyes and an eager smile.
Cayla’s blue eyes and grin were equally wide as she nodded her head enthusiastically. “Yes. I believe it is still early in the evening. We could set up the firing range while there is still daylight left. If it works, we’ll have a celebratory dinner, and then we can start production in full tomorrow.”
“Actually,” I started with a wince as I set the revolver back on the table, “that’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.”
The princess blinked and then frowned. “What do you mean?”
I sighed and rubbed at the beard on my cheeks. “I mean I’ve been giving it some thought these last few days, and I think that while guns might have been Illaria’s solution, I don’t believe they are for Cedis.”
Both women stared at me in shock and confusion.
“I do not understand,” Aurora said as her eyebrows furrowed into a sharp ‘v’ above her bottle-glass green eyes.
“Yes,” Cayla added, and the princess worried at her bottom lip. “You have all these weapon designs, and you just completed your first improved model. Why do all that work if you didn’t believe it would help?”
“Well, I did at first,” I explained, “and I needed to make these upgrades for myself, anyway. I can’t go up against the likes of Camus Dred, or this ‘master,’ without every advantage I can think of, and reloading faster is definitely an advantage. However, as I worked, I gave the problem, and your kingdom, some more thought. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that guns won’t be as effective here as they were in Illaria, though I did go ahead and make a batch of thirty guns, both the fixed-frame, regular revolvers and the rifles, for the royal retinue that King Davit has here in the castle. Just in case Camus Dred or the mysterious ‘master’ had any ideas about attacking Eyton straight on.”
I turned and gestured to a large wooden box that was shoved up against the workshop’s far wall. Inside were nestled twenty lever-action rifles and ten revolvers. Unlike the top-break, it had taken me less than my first day in Cedis to craft all of those since I was well practiced in their designs. It was little more than muscle memory, and this time around, I didn’t even need Aurora or Cayla’s help to put them all together.
“Why do you not believe that more guns wouldn’t be helpful?” Aurora asked as she tilted her head.
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�Because as Cayla and her father both pointed out to us,” I replied with a nod toward the princess, “Cedis does not have a standing army like Illaria does, so we have no one to arm with these weapons effectively and send them out to deal with bandits or monsters. At first, I had considered possibly making a whole lot of the guns and then figuring out a way to ship them to the towns so they can defend themselves, but that opened up a whole other realm of problems, which is why I only ended up making a small batch for the royal guard.”
“Problems like what?” Cayla asked with a frown.
The princess’s eyes were sharp and cold as ice, and I could tell that I had upset her with my declaration. But I had given this a lot of thought and consideration, and I knew that I was right.
“Like the fact that most of the citizens of Cedis have not had weapons training, which increases the risk of accidental injury,” I pointed out gently. “Granted, the soldiers in Illaria have never been trained with guns, but at least they have some foundational respect on how to handle dangerous and lethal objects.”
Cayla opened her mouth to argue, but I held up a hand to cut her off.
“More than that,” I went on, “if we mass produced these weapons and then shipped them off, we also run the incredible risk that they’ll be intercepted or stolen, and they could fall into the wrong hands. The bandits are bad enough already. Now, imagine how dangerous they could be if they were armed with our guns.”
Cayla’s mouth fell shut, and she pursed her lips as she realized that my reasoning and logic was valid.
I reached out and took the princess’s hand into my own as I looked deep into her eyes. “I promised to help you save your kingdom, and you know that I am a man of my word. I just do not believe this is the way to do it.”
“Then what do you propose?” Cayla questioned as her fingers clenched tight around my hand. “Do you plan on riding across the countryside, shooting as you go? That could take weeks, months even, and meanwhile, my people will continue to suffer, and this ‘master’ that we seek will continue to plot.”
