Chapter Eight

His Own Creation

Two weeks after my conversation with Delmar at the feasting hall, I found myself spending another day with Ceecee at the Tinkerer’s Workshop. There were, of course, many different workshops and yards and tool sheds around the campus to use for working on our own little special creations, but the Tinkerer’s Workshop and its humble set of tools was often unoccupied, especially by Kreuzhainers who experimented with different forms of arcane runecrafting.

Also, Ceecee often talked to herself as she worked, which others found annoying.

I didn’t mind, however, and I needed her for small tips and nudges on the two things that I was working on.

The first, of course, was a little substitute key made out of copper wire. When she had asked why I was working on a key, I had fibbed about having problems with a finnicky lock on the chest of belongings that I kept by the foot of my bed. That was enough to alleviate her concerns, and in some way or form, I was able to ask her for pointers on keeping the key in shape with the mold that I had fashioned out of the contours of Kazador’s lock.

The second was my own creation.

It was what I called a hand cannon.

This little invention of mine was, as instructed, as special as anything else ever produced there in the College of Engineering. Certainly, it was more special than Kazador’s model. After all, his miniature fortress repelled apples and chisels. It wouldn’t repel cast-iron shot blown out by blackpowder from the barrel of a portable cannon.

This creation could change the course of the war. Between the Union of the Free Cities of Jatta and the Empire of Sevisk, the next most compact cannon or firearm weighed upwards of three imperial tonnes at the very least, operated by a crew of two common footsoldiers and one engineer or master mason. With a hand cannon, it would be no stretch of imagination to venture a whole legion of foot soldiers equipped with their own beast of blackpowder, advancing and marching forward onto the Seviskian line, felling them as they move. Perhaps even felling a dragon? Perhaps Ignisclaw?

It was with wholehearted disappointment then, of course, that I simply could not fathom how to get my creation to simply function to begin with. The thing just didn’t work. Whatever variant, whatever adjustment I made to its design and prints, I simply couldn’t find the right balance between shrinking down the cannon’s barrel to something portable while having the right amount of blackpowder to ignite and fire off some cast-iron shot over a distance.

Ceecee was, of course, witness to the many different failures of all the different versions of the hand cannon that I had crafted and tested with real blackpowder. Of those, she had seen thirty-two different prototypes fail in my very hands. Thirty-two manifestations of failure as I chased a wild vision that no engineer, human or dwarvish or Kreuzhainer or Avengardian, had been able to accomplish.

We had placed an apple, similar to the one that the Professor was known to enjoy, on a stool across the workshop, but we had never managed a prototype of the hand cannon that could dent the apple’s skin. We hadn’t even managed a version that could touch the apple, to be honest.

There was a whole spectrum of other problems that cannons and similar firearms held inherent within them, of course. A good quarter of cannons simply exploded in place, with the volatility and wild variance of blackpowder instability causing too much force to be contained within the iron or bronze of a cannon bore. And even foregoing then, the complex and intricate properties of blackpowder would lead to a whole assortment of different shortcomings. The projectile inside might fire and fall short, for example, or it might spiral and turn in whatever wild direction - including friendly infantry, or wandering cavalry. Imagine a portable design for such a cannon, with accurate blackpowder calculations! This could change the tide of war.

Sadly, to imagine was all I could seem to do, even with the tools that I had my disposal at the Tinkerer’s Workshop as well as with Ceecee’s advice and input.

“Maybe you could line the bore with some i-iron plate to make it stronger. Here, let me forge something for you.”

“What if you made the b-blackpowder pot a bit wider at the top and narrower at the bottom? You’d waste less powder.”

“The barrel you f-forged is way too wide. The shot could go anywhere!”

The first few failures were innocuous enough. The blackpowder pot would fail to connect with the vent, and even after lighting the fuse, nothing would seem to happen. Everything would just fizzle out.

After the early versions, however, I was really starting to worry Ceecee about the safety of what I was attempting to accomplish. The first ignition was less akin to that of cannonfire and closer to a wholly uncontrolled blackpowder explosion inside an iron pot. I burnt my hand and my whole forearm was peppered with the debris of various metals and alloys that Ceecee had helped me cast. After that incident, I made sure to conduct any other tests away from the stores of blackpowder that the Tinkerer’s Workshop had set away for us to work with.

And, just to complicate matters further, I hadn’t devised some means of even igniting the blackpowder without another, separate assistant lighting some flint and tinder to set off the blackpowder pot and ignite a shot in the first place. It was simply too awkward for a lone wielder to hold the hand cannon, aim it towards some general direction, and somehow use a freehand to light the blackpowder tin and the same time.

Delmar, at least, was enjoying a much greater degree of success with his endeavors over at the Wallwright’s Yard, though many Kreuzhainers were taunting him for his lack of ambition. His watch tower was simply that - a watch tower - little more than some wooden ladders reinforced with steel plates. Still, he was building up to a fairly impressive height now at ten rods high. We ventured a guess together that once finished, a watchman from the top of the tower would probably have supposed a man on the ground to be no bigger than an ant. Not very useful for watching the streets, but very useful for watching for Seviskian dragons gliding through the skies.

He was very humble in his approach to the calculations as well. No ego of his clouded his way. He sought help from anyone who could conceivably assist with his project. He approached the Professor, Maren, myself, and even some Kreuzhainers. He even thought to ask Kazador - and to both of our surprise, Kazador had assisted him with it. Delmar, Ceecee and I had a good laugh about the whole ordeal that evening. In some shape or form, it felt like everything was taking a turn for the better.

But still, despite his assistance for Delmar’s tower, I still wanted to know what Kazador was hiding behind his curtain. I still wanted to know what foul tricks or magicks he had used himself in building that impenetrable fortress. When asked, he had told Delmar that it was nothing but honest Kreuzhainer sweat and forging. Deep in my heart, I knew that it was something more similar to a forgery. There was simply no way anyone, no matter how talented, could have constructed that intricate model to be that robust and sturdy in that amount of time.

So one afternoon, while most of the College was outside in the Yards for the unveiling of the different projects, including Delmar’s own watch tower, I feigned a slight sickness and chose to stay in the dormitories while everyone else had left. I was patient. I couldn’t lock the dormitory doors without arousing suspicion, and with my imperfect replication of Kazador’s key, I knew that it would take me a good few moments before working the chest open. And so, I waited. I waited until outside, the exhibits were in full swing, and the Professor would be going from siege engine to trebuchet to model battlements.

And once I had waited long enough, I went to work.

I made my way to Kazador’s bed and pulled his chest out from underneath it. The chest was identical to mine, save for its lock and the fact that his was many times heavier than my own. Curious. It was a similar situation as when I had created a mould of the lock’s inner mechanisms with the wire. My own chest wasn’t full by any means - I simply didn’t own enough belongings to fill it up - but that wasn’t enough to justify just how much heavier his chest was.

I could hear spatters of clapping and excited cheering from the yards outside. I spared a moment to wish Delmar the best of luck with his watch tower. We had tested it together, and it was stable and got the job done, so there wasn’t much more from him to do, but still. After all he had been through, he deserved a clean project to showcase to the Professor. To the class. He deserved a bit of pride in what he had accomplished and learned over the past seven months.

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I jammed my replica key into the lock, and it didn’t fit quite right. I frowned. Ceecee had warned me of this. Copper, she explained, is a relatively soft, malleable, and ductile metal compared to other forged alloys and compounds. Even in the short amount of time between forging it to the contours of the mould and then, some part of the key had deformed. It wasn’t fitting in.

I exhaled warm air into the replica key. I rubbed my palms against it, similar to how I had seen farmers and fisherman making a small fire with some dry twigs back in Listerborough. I warmed the key as much as I could, then jammed it back into the chest.

Some more clapping from the yards outside.

The chest clicked. The key worked. I yanked it back out, and as I did, it looked to deform the key even further. That was fine. It would have to do. I’d only get one shot at rummaging through Kazador’s belongings before locking the chest again and concealing my little play at trickery.

I swung the chest open. The lid was heavy, and grimy with oil. The inside smelled like old books…but curiously, inside, there was only one pouch, one set of the golden baubles that Kazador would wear on his beard, and some simple Kreuzhain-styled clothes. What?

I opened the pouch and immediately, it was apparent. This pouch was enchanted. It went by many names - an Everspace Pouch, a Pocket o’ Plenty, an Endless Satchel. But still, as a mason, I knew it by the name artificers would call it by - it was a Havensack.

I reached into the Havensack and felt many different belongings. Many different tools, books, furs. I hoped, of course, that everything inside had been long dead; anything otherwise would have given me an awful fright.

I fished out some parchment, then some empty notebooks, and then a pair of leather gloves. This gave me some pause. They felt different, apart from not being rotten and on the verge of deterioration, like mine. I realized that these gloves, too, were enchanted. Kazador was most definitely not lying about hailing from a rich clan of masons and artificers. After a few moments of inspection, a small moment of contact between the glove’s thumb and its palm produced a fairly bright spark, and the artifact’s purpose was apparent, and I recognized it as a pair of Flintstrike Gloves. Like a flint and tinder, but easier than a snap of a finger.

These were rare. The Professor owned a pair, but they were a personal item, not something owned and distributed by the college. And with that, a familiar sense of envy and jealousy washed over me. Delmar’s jest about refugees and thievery rang familiar in my mind…but still, I pocketed the pair of gloves in my trousers. It wouldn’t be all too far-fetched for Kazador to assume that he had misplaced his special pair of gloves for an ordinary pair from one of the workshops or yards by accident.

And still, I delved deeper into the Havensack. Schematics, blueprints, even a sketch on the margin of some old notebook would do. Surely, for such a magnum opus of a fortress model, Kazador had preserved some part of his project’s plans for the future. Surely, he had some ambition of turning that model into a real-life dwarven fortress out in the field one day.

Out from the Havensack, I pulled out a thick leather-bound notebook.

This was it. Kazador’s journal.

A hit.

Immediately, I started flipping through the pages, keeping my eyes wide for any schematics or diagrams of interest. Ever since I had entered the college myself all those months ago, with an abundance of paper, parchment, and ink, I had immersed myself in journaling, and spent almost every other free minute I had to myself obsessively sketching down diagram after diagram, plan after plan. The margins of everything I owned was filled with calculations and ink battlements.

In Kazador’s journal, I found nothing of the sort. I found no sketches, no diagrams, no blueprints. No obsession, no passion for the craft. This did not add up. He was raised in the forges. Brought to life by master masons and dwarven engineers.

The words that lined Kazador’s thick skull were centered on fashions from far-off lands like Duar Four Forges, like Avandrea, like Sonderland. Words that described gossips and intrigue between different nobles across territories of the Union of Free Cities. Princesses who were betrothed to one lord, but in bed with some other dwarf. Princes who were addicted to that herb, or this concoction. It was all gossip that may have sated the bloodlust of some other intruder into Kazador’s journal, but not for me.

I read on further. Finally, I saw something of interest - it wasn’t a diagram nor schematic, but he had written the word “model” and “fortress” repeatedly in one section of the journal. I read on, picking out every word from his scratchy dwarvish handwriting.

No…

…I found another messenger to deliver a message to my Father in Kreuzhain. The last masons he had sent me produced an undesirable craft. The plaything they called a fortress could barely withstand the fist I had thrown at it. Wholly unacceptable. Hopefully the next runecrafter Father sends knows how to build something with his hands…

Kazador’s fortress was impeccably done, and it was a mind-boggling achievement to have been accomplished by a lone mason’s hands. Simply because it wasn’t created by one. It was designed and forged and runecrafted by a team of dwarvish stonemasons, from some workshop in Kreuzhain.

Kazador was a fraud. What quality, even, could one expect from him? From a mason who had no confidence in the fruit of his own craft? Who took the work of real masons and passed it off as his own?

He was a fraud. And a hypocrite. He lectured us - like children - that if we didn’t hone our craft, then we would build walls and towers that crumbled. That folded like paper. That would forsake the lives of the people they were meant to protect. We had done nothing wrong, but he branded Delmar, Maren, Ceecee, and myself as incompetents anyway.

How dare he.

For this, Kazador must suffer.

He will feel my pain.

Suddenly, I noticed a sensation that I hadn’t experienced in months. The smell of sulphur…

In a rage, I read on. More, more. Feed me more coal from which I will spit out Kazador’s frail physique. I wanted more. I flipped through the pages, my fingers shaking with rage and emotion. More descriptions of runecrafters and master masons his father had fed him with, straight from his silver spoon. More inane, vapid gossip of interlopers and fake idols, nobles clothed in the blood and sweat of those they ruled. Expressions of wicked ego and forlorn vanities.

And then, I read the passage…

…The sheepherder had the gall to ask me for assistance earlier today, as if I were his milkmaiden or caretaker. I was going to scream at him, but then I figured I wouldn’t weigh free gold on the scales. I took the opportunity. On the day that they exhibit the works in the Yard, I think the whole College will see that these sheepherders are sheepherders, and not masons…

What has he done with Delmar’s tower?

I threw the Havensack and Kazador’s journal into the chest and I slammed it shut. With a swift kick, I booted the chest back underneath his bunk, and I kicked off the bedframe and started running, sprinting, rushing, out of the dormitories, my own shirt disheveled and barely buttoned up. I must have had a manic, crazed look on my eyes. Other Lances of the War College, other scholars, gave me an odd look as I darted past them.

I crashed into a pair of scholars holding tomes, and all their paper and parchment spilled into a mess of leaf and ink on the floor, but I could spare no moment. No breath to offer an apology. Before they could protest and complain further, I darted on. Past the class hall, and past the feasting hall.

The Wallwright’s Yard.

It was crowded with different professors, Lances, masons. Cannons and rockets boomed and screamed in scattered demonstrations of engineering mastery. People crowded around different machinations of war, different sorts of contraptions and walls and defenses. I scanned above the crowd, finding a runecrafted trebuchet, then a brass-cast ballista, and then finally - Delmar’s watch tower.

I rushed after it, screaming his name, shouting and bellowing so loud that my lungs were aching for air and my eyes felt as if they were about to pop.

“Delmar! Delmar!” I screamed as loud as I could, but with the crowd, with the cheering, with the cannonade of different firing cannons and rockets being exhibited, I stood no chance. Delmar was on his tower, climbing up its ladder, almost reaching the top…

“Delmar!” I called after him again. “Get down there! It’s not safe!”

From up above, Delmar could not hear me, but a small group of Kreuzhainers had heard me and snickered wickedly. They did not understand what I had meant. They had not read what I had seen.

“Boom!” another cannon went off on the other side of the yard.

I made my way right up to the base of the watch tower. Emblazoned on its wooden foundation was a plaque with only three words. Avengard’s Skyward Protector. I pushed and shoved my way through the crowd until I was right by the tower, holding the rungs up to the ladder, and I considered making my way upwards so that Delmar might hear me and I could explain, but I thought better of it. If Kazador had given him sabotaged calculations, then the tower might not take kindly to two people resting atop its peak.

“Delmar!” I called at him again. This time, he heard me.

He leaned from over the edge, arms pressed against its railings and hollered at me, “Scipio! Look at what I’ve done! Something to watch over Avengard with, yeah?”

“Boom!” one of the larger cannons, one of the ones that required a squad of seven men to operate went off, and the ground shook. I heard wood creaking. I saw wood splintering.

“Delmar, get down from there!”

“Boom!” another cannon went off, and the earth trembled yet again, and the tower’s base beam groaned before snapping with a wicked wooden crack. I do not know which was louder; the cannon or the sound of hundreds of thick support beams snapping and iron rivets and supporting plates clanging against each other.

Dust and loose splinters and stone scattered into the air as beam after beam crashed into the ground. The tower tilted and swayed quickly, wildly, in one direction and then the next, as shockwave after shockwave of snapping echoed around every section of the tower.

“Delmar!” I screamed one last time, before a sharp, stray metal rod jutted into the side of my face, and a hard, broad base of wood slammed into the back of my head, and I blacked out before my body had collapsed onto the ground cold, along with Delmar’s last creation on this mortal plane.