Darius Chapter 18

Meeting the King was less grandiose than Darius expected. Silfor guided them down the eastern corridor, making a few stops along the way to pick up a message, or relay something to a servant. After a few twists and turns, they came to a rectangular door with a rounded top, braced with metal bars in three places along the height of the door. The brass handle was polished by the touch of a million hands, and rattled a little when Silfor turned it. Easing open the squeaky door, they were met with a cramped room consisting of a few small benches around the perimeter, two tall guards with red plumes extruding from their helmets, and a large rectangular table where the King was seated. He didn’t have a jeweled throne, a golden staff or a red carpet rolled out before him – he was just, him.

King Draythar lifted his head as they walked in, a pair of tortoise-shell glasses sitting at the end of his nose. He motioned for them to sit down across the table from him.

“Silfor, what a pleasant surprise. I wish all the nobles and ministers and fools I spoke to in here had a face as pretty as yours. Who’ve you brought with you today?”

“Thank you, father. If you would like, I could teach one of your guards here how to apply powder to your guests? It still won’t make them pretty, but it’ll hide the lumps and bumps.”

Draythar chuckled at the concept. There was a seriously large number of his advisors that he’d pay good money to see covered in pale white powder, if they would succumb to it. Although, being the King, he could probably just demand it. Silfor kept speaking, answering his question.

“I’ve brought with me the man and apprentice who are going to make Erinstone the most powerful nation on the Continent. I can honestly say you’ve never seen anything like this.”

The king raised an eyebrow, remaining doubtful considering some of the things he had encountered in his nineteen-year reign. It had been a mostly peaceful two decades, but that was partly due to the events he had stopped from happening, not the ones he had missed.

“I’ll be the judge of that, go on.”

“Would you like context? Or I can give you the abridged version.”

Draythar moved his hands in a rolling motion, indicating that speed was of the essence.

“By the time you walk out that door, there’ll be four more groups waiting for you. Abridged, please.”

Silfor looked at Darius and Bart for a moment, deciding how best to summarize the events of the past two days.

“Very well. Darius, or perhaps a combination of him and his apprentice, Bart, have created a magical weapon capable of exploding a man with a single swing – on impact.”

The king frowned and gave a half-smile, convinced he was being joked with. He didn’t find it funny.

“Silfor, you are my daughter, so I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt in thinking you haven’t come here to waste my time. Do you have this weapon with you?”

Silfor made a small ‘o’ with her mouth, realizing she’d forgotten the key ingredient to her Darius-Bart-magical-axe soup.

“Yes, umm, we know where it is, but until we retrieve it, you’re going to have to trust me on this one. Bart tapped a watermelon with this axe and my entire dress was soaked red with juice after the carnage. Darius split a log and turned it into wood chips. This is the real deal – we could arm men with these and Erinstone would be unstoppable.”

Draythar stared at Silfor for a long time, processing the news.

“Okay, this seems too weird and wonderful, perhaps I better have the long version. Darius, was it? Yes, can you pass me one of those lemon cakes? Thank you.”

Darius grabbed a small plate and put three lemon cakes on it, sliding the plate across to the King and taking the two cakes closest to him. Silfor poured a mug of water for herself. Bart tried to calm his nerves.

“I assume, being such a long-time citizen of Erinstone, you have heard of the ancient blacksmith named Rath? And you have seen the Temple of Darius?”

Draythar scoffed when she mentioned Rath’s name, but he nodded and continued listening.

“Good, well the legend goes that Rath created magical weaponry and machines that he and his army used to defeat the underkind in Rath’s Battle. Afterwards, he became a recluse, building the Temple of Darius and then hiding away until his death, taking the secret of his magic with him. Yesterday, Darius was given a very old axe to do some repair work on, and after he did so, he smacked it with his hammer and magic burst out of it, blue like starlight. Unfortunately, the soldiers found out and the rumor spread through all Erinstone, so the Royal Forge was flooded with people trying to get their hands on Darius’s creations.”

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She wheezed out the last words in a whisper, then took a deep breath.

“Oh, and one more thing, I’ve given them temporary lodgings here so that they can continue their work in peace.”

Draythar swung his head back and forth, leaning over the table. He looked up at Silfor and spread his hands, slumping back in his chair.

“I’m too fucking old for this. I get what you’re saying but I don’t want to deal with it, and I don’t think I know how to. Can these two be one of your little projects? Keep me in the loop every now and then, but this is over my head. Consider this free reign to act and command however you see fit – you have my blessing.”

Silfor couldn’t have hoped for a better outcome. Wielding the full power of the King was a good taste for the power she would have some day – and she had grown rather attached to it. She recently had the same boon bestowed on her for a couple of days while she managed an aqueduct collapse. She gave a sweet smile to her two new playthings and rose from the table.

“Thank you, father, I won’t let you down. Come now Darius, Bart, let me show you to the King’s Forge.”

The King delved back into a stack of papers, taking a small break between audiences to stamp his approval for several military matters. By the time the next person came in, magic axes and mystical monsters had already exited his mind.

Silfor click-clacked back down the corridor, leading them west to the King’s Forge. It was situated in a strange spot; awfully close to the houses of some of the nobles that lived close to the castle. The door to the forge was tightly shut from misuse – the heavy stone blocks around it having compressed in as they settled over the years. Darius had to get a run up and crash through with his shoulder, sending mortar and stone dust everywhere in the stale room.

“Good heavens, I only just finished putting the Royal Forge in order and look at this! You could knit a blanket out of all these spiderwebs!”

He picked up a rusted tool and scraped it along the wall, gathering a matted mass of spiderwebs and egg sacs.

“And it’s so dark – where are the windows? Two seconds in here with the forge blazing and you’ll be seeing fairies!”

Bart laughed at his boss’s hate for messy forges. For a man who was usually calm and amiable, a dirty workstation always put him on edge.

“Alright you old geezer, stop your complaining – look, I'll crack these open and we’ll have better ventilation then we do at the Royal Forge. And look at that view!”

He yanked on some heavy wooden shutters, revealing a spectacular view of the Premarantic Ocean. He could see giant waves forming and collapsing kilometers away, and a strong sea breeze blew in, disturbing the webs.

“Phwaw! Gunna have to be careful leaving that open when there’s sparks in the air – might burn this whole place down if we’re not careful.”

Silfor had hung back when they entered the room, and now she whistled along the corridor, summoning a pair of servants.

“I want you to gather eight cleaners and get them here immediately with buckets of hot water, mops, and anything you might need to give this place a complete deep-clean. This is on the King’s orders, so you do not take no for an answer, got it?”

The two servants nodded like a child’s bobblehead toy, then ran in opposite directions to recruit more staff.

When they returned, Darius and Bart were escorted out of the room and left in the corridor while the cleaners came out with bucket after bucket of muddy water, emptying them out onto the grass from a small window. It didn’t take long for the King’s Forge to be back in working condition, a deep scrubbing bringing it back to its former glory. The only issue was the rusted tools that hung on the hooks throughout the workspace. Darius found a huge store of dry wood on the rear wall and got to work starting up the forge. When it was hot enough, he threw in all the rusted tools, even the anvils and larger metal items, and covered them with coals, keeping the temperature hot enough to blast off the rust, but not hot enough that all his tools and anvils would melt. He had to wait a long time for them to cool down. Quenching them wasn’t an option, as the rapid cooling made the metal brittle – not a trait he valued in his tools.

Instead, the pair had to wait it out. They spent the time talking about the magical axe, trying to corroborate what they’d both seen and decide if there were any puzzle pieces they could glean from each other. Eventually, they decided to leave it till the next day, heading to their rooms to get some rest after the wild morning.

As they ambled down the west corridor, Silfor came past and stopped them. She had guards behind her. Red Plumes.

“And where do you think you two are going?”

Darius stopped short.

“We’re headed back to our rooms, we had to blast clean the rust off the tools so we’re waiting till tomorrow for them to cool properly.”

Silfor clicked her fingers and the Red Plumes stepped forward, hands on their swords.

“No, you’re not. While you’re in my employment, I’ll feed you well, pay you well, and treat you well, on one condition. You start working when the some comes up – and you stop when it sets. If you need new tools, have a servant go to the Trader’s District and fetch them for you, trust me, we can afford it.”

Silfor had lost all her charm from the first day they’d met her. This side of her was cold, ruthless and unyielding. Darius put an arm in front of Bart, pushing him back the way they’d come.

“Very well. I apologize, I had thought this was only a temporary station. The Royal Forge will need a replacement while I’m gone – my other apprentices won’t be able to handle it themselves. And there are a lot of things we will need if we’re to recreate Rath’s magic – may we have a dedicated servant to help us?”

Silfor swiveled her head, looking for a random servant to assign to Darius. Everyone had left upon seeing the Red Plumes.

“Fine, the more time you spend in there tinkering, the better. I expect results, and keep in mind I will not be impressed if you don’t get me any.”

She motioned to the silent guards.

“Quaren, Pyuter, go with them and wait outside the door until it gets dark.”

The guards raised a hand to their brows in salute, then stepped forward, herding Darius and Bart back the way they came.

Darius realized what he had stumbled into. They were no longer blacksmiths.

They were captives.