“He may be an exile or an adventurer. I cannot say which. In either case our guest clearly comes from a most powerful and ruthless warrior race. This being so, he should be treated as a member of the highest caste while he remains here in Coylia.”
Dennis stared at the man, dumbfounded. He wanted to laugh, but it was too preposterous even for that!
He started to speak twice and stopped each time. It occurred to him to wonder if he should interfere at all. His initial impulse to protest might not be the right strategy at all. If Hoss’k’s sophistry led to the granting of high status and respect here, should he even interfere?
While he considered, Princess Linnora abruptly stood up, her face very pale. “My Lord Baron. Gentlemen.” She nodded left and right but did not look at Dennis. “I am fatigued. Will you excuse me?”
Her chair was withdrawn by a servant. She did not meet Dennis’s gaze, though he stood and tried to catch her eye. She bore stoically the Baron’s lips upon her hand, then turned and left, accompanied by two guards.
Dennis’s ears burned. He could well imagine what Linnora thought of him. But all considered, it was probably best that he had remained silent right now, until he had a chance to think about what was to be done. The time for explanations would come later.
He turned to see Kremer smiling at him. The Baron took his seat and sipped from a goblet whose lacquer had, over the years, developed into a magnificent, arsene blue.
“Please sit down, Wizard. Do you smoke? I have pipes that have been used every day for three hundred years. As we relax, I am certain we will find matters of mutual benefit to discuss.”
Dennis said nothing.
Kremer eyed him calculatingly. “And perhaps we can work out something that will benefit the lady as well.”
Dennis frowned. Were his feelings that obvious?
He shrugged and sat down. In his position, he had little choice but to deal.
4
“It’s a good thing the palace has lots of well-practiced indoor plumbing,” Arth said as he worked to join two ill-fitting pieces of tubing, binding them with wet mud and twine. “I’d hate to have to make our own pipes out of paper or clay and have to practice ’em up ourselves.”
Dennis used a chisel to trim a tight wooden cover to fit over a large earthen vat. Nearby, several kegs of the Baron’s “best” wine awaited another test run. The maze of tubes overhead was a plumber’s nightmare. Even the sloppiest Appalachian moonshiner would have shuddered at the sight. But Dennis figured it would be good enough for a “starter” distillery.
All they had to do was get a few drops of brandy to come out the other end of the condenser. A little final product was all they needed for it to be useful and therefore practicable.
Arth whistled as he worked. He seemed to have forgiven Dennis since being released from the dungeon and assigned work as “wizard’s assistant.” Now wearing comfortably old work clothes and being fed well, the short thief was enthralled by this extended making task, unlike anything he had ever done before.
“Do you think Kremer’s goin’ to be satisfied with this still, Dennizz?”
Dennis shrugged. “In a couple of days we should be producing a concoction that’ll knock the Baron’s fancy, two-hundred-year-old socks off. It ought to make him happy.”
“Well, I still hate his guts, but I’ll admit he pays well.” Arth jingled a small leather purse a quarter filled with slivers of precious copper.
Arth seemed satisfied for now, but Dennis had his private doubts. Making a distillery for Kremer was a stopgap measure at best. He was sure the warlord would only want more from his new wizard. Soon he would lose interest in promises of new luxuries and trade goods and start demanding weapons for his upcoming campaign against the L’Toff and the King.
Dennis and Arth had been at this task almost a week. Here and now, few spent much more than a day making anything. Kremer was already showing signs of impatience.
What would he do when the distillery was operational? Show the Baron how to forge iron? Teach his artisans the principle of the wheel? Dennis had hoped to keep one or two of those “essences” in reserve, just in case Kremer decided to renege on his promise. The warlord had vowed eventually to heap wealth on Dennis and provide him with all the resources he’d need to repair his “metal house” and go home. But he might change his mind.
Dennis was still ambivalent. Kremer was clearly a ruthless S.O.B. But he was competent and not particularly venal. From Dennis’s readings of Earth’s history, a lot of men who were revered in legends weren’t exactly pleasant people in real life. Although Kremer certainly was a tyrant, Dennis wondered if he was particularly terrible as founders of dynasties went.
Perhaps the best thing to do would be to become the fellow’s Merlin. Dennis could probably make Kremer’s victories overwhelming—and therefore relatively bloodless—and in so doing become a power at his side.
Certainly that would win him a freer hand, perhaps even to repair the zievatron and return home again.
It did sound like the right plan.
Then why did it feel so unpalatable?
He could think of at least one person who wouldn’t agree with his decision. The few times he had seen Princess Linnora since the banquet they had been at least two parapets apart, she escorted by her guards and he by his. She had nodded to him coolly and swept away with a swirl of skirts even as he smiled and tried to catch her eye.
Dennis could see now how Hoss’k’s logic at the banquet would sound compelling to someone raised in this world. The misunderstanding irked him all the more because it was so unfair.
But there was nothing he could do. Kremer was keeping her in Dennis’s sight but out of earshot. And he couldn’t insult the Baron in her presence—spoiling all of his plans— just to regain favor in her eyes, could he? That would be shortsighted.
It was perplexing.
He and Arth built their still in a broad court not far from the enclosed jailyard they had escaped from only weeks before. Except for their small corner, the broad field was taken up by drilling grounds for the Baron’s troops. Near the outer wall of sharpened logs, sergeants marched militia from the town and neighboring hamlets—practicing both the ragged weapons and their equally motley bearers.
Nearer the castle, regulars in bright uniforms used then-battle-axes and halberds to slice at chunks of meat hanging from tall gibbets. The gleaming blades sheared through meat and bone alike. The chops were collected in tubs and carted off by drudges to the palace kitchens.
Even the pair of guards assigned to watch Dennis and Arth kept busy. They took turns striking each other lightly with dull blades, working on their armor.
Overhead, the Baron’s aerial patrol went through their maneuvers. Dennis watched them dive and swoop around each other, as facile as the sprightliest gliders of Earth, staying aloft for hours at a time in the day thermals near the castle. They practiced throwing clusters of small, deadly darts at ground targets in midflight.
No one else on Coylia had anything like these gliders. The innovation was said to have come one day when the observation kite the Baron himself had been riding was cut loose in an assassination attempt. Practiced to perfection as a kite, the untethered airfoil instantly went into a spinning fall.
But instead of plumeting to his death, Kremer had been caught in a powerful winter updraft. Showing unusual imagination, the Baron had recognized almost instantly that something new was involved. He concentrated desperately on practicing the unwieldly glider, rather than resigning himself to certain death, and the amazing happened. To the awe of all those watching, he and the kite had shimmered for a few moments in the sparkling nimbus of a felthesh trance. The fabric contraption changed before everyone’s eyes into something which flew!