carl@fire

Princess Isemeine of the Charus royal family knew where she was headed.

She hadn't earlier. She, Willelmus, and Emaurri had rested for a few more minutes as they luxuriated in the feeling of being alive. The two soldiers had carried it in through the rear entrance into the Creature Market, Isemeine following along in her disguise after wrapping the scarf to cover her entire head save for her eyes.

It wasn't meant to be inconspicuous. It was just meant to ensure that none could say definitively that they'd seen her.

She'd never been inside the building previously, of course. It wasn't something that had interested her. Nor is it a place I'm keen to visit again, she thought as she drove slowly through the city towards her destination. Only if there were animals could it have caused me greater discomfort.

There had just been something about the place. Emaurri had hammered on the steel door until a slit opened near the top. A set of eyes had glared out, softening not the slightest after the soldier had stated their business. The opening had closed, and they'd stood outside for quite some time before the door had finally been opened fully.

A dozen of the Creature Market's armored guards had greeted them.

Isemeine hadn't been surprised. She was used to seeing people with weapons and armor.

She wasn't used to them pointing those weapons at her, however.

Emaurri had talked through it, his quick wit and references to it disarming the guards—not literally, though—before it was revealed that they were simply waiting.

An immaculately dressed man with an equally-immaculately oiled, reddish-brown mustache had appeared a few moments later and ushered them in, apologizing profusely for his guards' rudeness. His age had been difficult for her to place; he didn't quite seem like a young man from his bearing and demeanor, but he didn't look old, either. The discrepancy had puzzled her until she'd realized he must have some devil blood in him.

The man had given Isemeine a knowing look when his gaze paused on her, though he'd remained silent. They'd been brought into a very small, unadorned room, its walls formed of the same smooth, black stone as the building's exterior, with two doors aside from the one they'd entered through. Neale, as he'd introduced himself, was in the position of managing the market's inventory and, specifically, dealing with certain special customers.

The man's eyes upon her had caused Isemeine's skin to crawl, just as when the Archbishop had ogled her earlier that day. She didn't let it show, however. She'd had experience with that.

The quartet of princess, soldiers, and Creature Market pervert had entered the room on the left. The inside was lit by a magic-infused stone of light like the one that Isemeine had given over to Emaurri to be replaced in the emergency tunnel's holder—if there still was a tunnel when they returned. A long table filled the otherwise featureless room. There were no windows, and Neale had assured them that the door and walls were engraved with magic glyphs that ensured their privacy.

It was a surreal experience when the pair of soldiers had unwrapped the thing.

Isemeine had avoided looking at it, being more interested in the man's reaction.

And what a reaction it had been. His eyes had lit up, and his expression had changed into a wide grin that threatened to run off his face and onto his black suit. He hadn't batted an eye when Emaurri had delivered the terms the Queen had given him, seeming too excited for any words other than "Wonderful" and "Incredible".

It would be sold that very evening, he'd said, and Isemeine had felt simultaneously that a weight was lifted from her shoulders and that her stomach had been twisted into a knot.

She avoided thinking about the cause for the latter feeling.

And that had been the end of it. The man had written them a notice of receipt, asked if they were interested in acquiring anything for the party they represented—he'd given her a very direct look then—and they'd left the way they'd come, heading towards the small gate that led to the nobles' district a short ways around the outside of the wall.

Isemeine had adjusted her scarf to cover only her neck, and their passage through the gate had been quick and pleasant.

Still, she found herself unnerved by her brief time in the Creature Market. There had been neither creatures nor market that she'd seen, but that had somehow made it worse as her mind conjured all manner of mystery and horror for her to speculate on.

The long-eared devils, male and female alike, were sold there—once purified, of course, but… Was it only the adults that were for sale? Or were children sold as well?

She'd stopped thinking about that.

There were purified seadevils sold there, sure. But… According to her books, weren't they supposed to have shells, or fins, or eyes that did not need to blink? The limited few she'd seen in the castle had been much more human-looking. Did they somehow remove those characteristics during the purification process?

That line of thought was slightly less troubling, but she'd still forced it from her mind.

Were there devilspawn for sale there? She'd heard the rumors, fanciful tales that a few of the extremely wealthy used them for bodyguards, but she'd never seen one in person before.

It was an idle thought that troubled her much less than the one that had come after.

Were there people there? She knew the laws about that sort of thing from her governance tutors, but it had always seemed to her that the language was a bit less direct than it would have been if she'd written it. Instead of simply "No human shall be a slave", the law had been written as "No human faithful to the Goddesses shall be a slave".

It had taken quite some time for her to force those thoughts from her mind as they'd ridden in a steam-powered taxi back up to the castle. She hadn't taken a vehicle pulled by animals for obvious reasons.

Yes, the castle. It still stood, a bit worse for wear in some places near the top and around the edges, but it was clearly in no substantive danger of falling to pieces. She'd wondered what could have happened to cause even this level of damage. Emaurri had obviously been attempting to reassure her when he'd made the claim that no great harm would befall the castle, but he hadn't been wrong. Between the Hero, the Archbishop, and all the mages, surely nothing should have damaged the castle at all, no matter the size of the wave. Even if it had been unbelievably massive.

The loss of the city's docks and their accompanying boats was to be expected in this case, though surely it had been nothing but coincidence which had caused the city to be constructed some distance away from the river rather than being situated directly adjacent as other towns and cities had been. Or had it been coincidence? She imagined one or both of the Churches would claim to have foreseen this in the distant past. They always did. No, it couldn't possibly have been decided upon in a rational manner as a result of the river flooding with some regularity due to snowmelt and torrential rains.

The lack of bishops and cardinals crowing over their Goddess's prescience was a matter which had surprised her upon her return to the castle. She'd been walking through the halls towards her chambers, thinking to catch a quick nap, when she'd taken full notice of the irregularity. The castle was in an uproar. Something unusual had happened, though she knew only the aftereffects of the wave and not precisely what had transpired to cause such misfortune to befall those involved. The Archbishop was severely injured, it seemed, the castle mages were all abed from exhaustion, and the Hero—her husband-to-be—was missing. Not that she presumed he was gone forever; he was a Hero, unfortunately. But now she had a few hours of freedom to spend as she wished!

Suddenly, sleep had been the furthest thing from her mind. She'd returned to her room, changed into a set of light brown, leather, riding trousers—the same ones her mother hated for her to wear anywhere she might be seen in them—and her second-favorite light blue, frilly blouse along with a high-necked undershirt, switched to a more utilitarian white neckerchief, pulled on her most comfortable boots, grabbed a small coin pouch, and headed straight for the far stables where her steed was kept along with those of the Royal Guard. She fancied taking a ride around the city to have herself a think, the kind she'd been unable to have as of late, and it turned out her intuition had been correct: this was the perfect opportunity for it.

Isemeine had always prided herself on her creativity. She liked to think things through on her own, independent of conclusions anyone else had drawn. It was one of the first things Mister Godfry had proposed she try as part of her studies, and the habit had always remained with her.

That was how her steed had come about. Steamcars were good, she'd thought when Valgud Flintbrow, her mechanics tutor, had demonstrated how they worked after teaching her the foundations of thermodynamics, as he'd termed it. She'd been fascinated by every facet of it, the concepts fitting together naturally in her mind. Yes, steamcars were quite good, in fact. But then there had been the obvious question for her: being that they needed to generate heat, and quite a lot of it, what fuel powered them?

Fuel logs was the answer, as Valgud had shown her, even teaching her the process by which they were created in his usual gruff, terse manner. Magically and mechanically compressed blocks which lasted far longer than the coal that was used to power some of the larger engines she'd already learned about.

She'd frowned, feeling somewhat disillusioned. Didn't that mean one's steamcar could run out of fuel? It would become stuck?

Valgud hadn't had a great reply to that, she'd thought. Who wanted to carry around a load of spare fuel logs? Too cumbersome.

His allotted time for tutoring had passed, eventually, and she'd decided to purchase a small steamcar for herself afterwards. She'd pondered the thing for quite some time as it sat in the stables along with all the other steamcars owned by the royal family. She'd never actually driven it anywhere, but she still continued to do the maintenance in order to keep an engine in perfect condition—namely running it every so often and taking it apart for cleaning, as she'd learned must be done.

Her studies had continued afterwards, and she'd begun to learn magic under the too-careful eye of Balan, the castle's oldest mage. She wasn't especially talented or powerful, but it was to the same extent that anyone could learn provided they had someone to teach them.

Isemeine had soaked up the knowledge of the arcane like a sponge. She'd asked an inordinate number of questions, and the old mage had been forced to answer her in each case, though she could see how he'd wished he could be elsewhere. That was fine with her. She'd only had his time for a year, so she'd needed to make the most of it.

And then, just this past year after Balan had quit his tutoring and claimed to be too busy to answer any more questions, she'd figured out the solution to an old quandary of hers that Valgud had said was impossible. A bath heated by a trivial use of magical fire energy had done it, and the revelation had sent her back to the stables with boundless excitement.

Why use a fuel log at all? Why not just use magic as the fuel?

This was a question she had worried at ever since Valgud had departed, his typical terse denial of the idea's merit driving her to consider it time and again. She'd originally thought to do away with the boiler entirely, driving the turbine solely with wind energy, but that had been quite a bit too advanced for her. Instead, she'd begun by removing the compartment that burned the fuel log. Then she could simply heat it directly since fire energy was much simpler to manage. The how was the problem, though. Creating a continuous, controlled stream of fire energy that could boil water was no difficult task for anyone trained in basic spellcasting and elemental theory, regardless of their strength and talent, but how could she pass it from the driver's seat down to the engine…

Isemeine wasn't talented or skilled enough to be able to direct fire energy or cast a spell that boiled water in a location she couldn't see or touch. She'd just needed to figure out a way around one of those deficiencies, and then—

Of course! The thought had come to her as she was about to doze off one night. She could run a metal rod through the shaft of the steering column using a material that would conduct heat—perhaps copper, or, better yet, aluminum since it was lighter—and add some threaded copper at the end to transfer the heat to the boiler, just like so…

Creating this is surely a pinnacle application of magical and mechanical theory. Isemeine was very proud of the magic-powered steamcar that she drove around the city. Still, though, I wish I could tell someone. But then if I did, they'd copy it and probably find some way to turn it into a weapon.

The princess frowned. It's not that I'm opposed to war as a concept, but this constant state of war that we remain entrenched in seems to have no end. I'd rather not be responsible for continuing it.

She forced the thoughts from her head, returning to the intrigue that had set her on her current course.

It had begun when she'd set out for a leisurely ride alone around the city, just as she always did. She needed no escort; who would dare attack her when they'd face the wrath of not just the royal guard, the army, and the city's citizens, but also the Heroes sent by an actual deity?

She grimaced at the reminder, tugging the scarf around her neck more tightly.

First, she'd sought out Rosa, an old woman who usually sat near the main gate who—

Rosa wasn't there.

Isemeine had grown concerned, imagining something had happened to the chatty old lady who never failed to provide adequate distraction—and, after thinking for the entire time she'd driven across the city, she'd decided a distraction was precisely what she needed rather than more time to think about that. The stall next to Rosa's grandson's…

Gwalter. It had taken her a moment to place the name since she hadn't been able to come out this way in some time. Not since her betrothal, anyway. The Hero liked to have her stay in the castle. Nearby, he'd said. Just in case he got a little thirsty.

She hadn't heard the word used in that way before, but she understood the implication. And with her mother telling her to respect the wishes of her husband-to-be as well as enforcing them, she'd seldom been able to leave the castle since.

But the man in the stall next to Gwalter's had told her that the grandmother and grandson duo had taken off for the rest of the day, seeming to be in high spirits. Something about a giant of a man wearing clothes of a cut and style that was fit for nobility and bearing a large, glowing spear.

It had seemed ominous to her, but the man had reiterated how happy the old woman and her grandson had seemed after the mysterious stranger's visit. She'd decided to shrug it off as happenstance. Perhaps she'd follow up on it at a later time. If she remembered, of course.

Thwarted in her first attempt at finding a suitable distraction, she'd parked her steamcar near the guardhouse for the main gate and gone inside to inquire whether Percevale was on duty. There had been dogs inside, though. She…

She'd discovered that the friendly-but-troubled gatekeeper was not on duty. In fact, he'd taken the rest of the day off.

He'd mentioned Carl as he departed for the day.

How curious.

It was a name Isemeine had never heard before, but that didn't surprise her. There were many things she'd never heard before, such as repurposing the word thirsty to mean—

She'd thrust those thoughts aside as well. Better not to dwell in her brief time of freedom.

A Sergeant Adlard had been there at the guardhouse as well. He'd overheard her line of questioning and added his own thoughts on the matter. Carl was, in fact, the same huge man wearing expensive clothes and carrying a large, glowing spear.

With such an unusual name and description, it was unlikely to be coincidence. No, it had to be the same man.

But there was more, too! The sergeant had readily recounted how the mysterious man had caused it to rain coins out of the air.

Isemeine knew quite a bit about magical theories, both the elemental kind and the more generalized arcane sorts. She'd understood how Mage Evelune had managed her feat of magically pickpocketing her way into the castle dungeon; it was a not-so-simple trick of attraction, twisting and ensnaring the very essence of all coins within a given area such that they became one with another coin she likely had on her person. The other coins would then move to their natural position, that of the other coin.

This hadn't sounded like that at all, however. Coins from the air itself?

Isemeine would have to think more on that one, just as she had already begun to do whilst stroking her chin in deep consideration back at the guardhouse. Could he be… No, they were real coins, the sergeant had said, having questioned the potter afterwards and inspected some of the coins himself. It was not simply a complex illusion.

She'd frowned. The sergeant had no idea how he'd done it, either, not that he was an expert on such things. But he had seen enough sleight of hand on the street to know that it was surely not that, either. He'd readily asserted that much.

That the mysterious man had been recalcitrant later when confronted had not surprised her. Flaunting a large magical spear, telling one of the most well-known men in the entire city—the same man who was always at the main gate—something that made him leave his post early for seemingly no reason at all, speaking with Rosa and causing her to disappear as well, somehow managing to produce coins out of air—also for no reason…

The man was truly an enigma, but it seemed that his skill with words was the most potent thing about him. What had he said to make both of those main gate fixtures leave their usual spots, both with smiles on their faces?

Isemeine had found her distraction and her destination.

She'd heard that the man seemed to be making his way towards the nobles' district. By all accounts, he was dressed for it, too, save for being oddly barefoot. She winced at the thought. The city's streets were…

Well, they were cleaned often enough, but she would certainly never do such a thing.

And so it was that the Charus Kingdom's fourth princess was noticed asking after a man in the nobles' district as the smaller sun began to set on that day. It was memorable for anyone who noticed, but at the same time not as much as it should have been.

Everyone in the nobles' district was curious.

Who is this Carl? Isemeine pondered the question as she spotted the small house on which Old Ingrid's Shoemaking was advertised in an austere, but tasteful banner. So this is where he's been headed? It's fortunate I wore these boots today.

Ingrid tended to grow upset when one entered the lower floor of her house—the shop area—wearing inferior shoes or boots.

I wonder how she'll react to someone whose feet are bare?