Council of Blades (15 page)

Moving with all due caution, Luccio Irozzi peeked his head about his apartment's door, then edged into his quar-ters at the head of a band of nervous palace workmen. Moving like men venturing into a dragon's lair, the little procession scanned the room's bewildering array of pipe work, burners, and bubbling pots; they crept across the floor as though expecting pitfalls or showers of burning oil.

No new explosions seemed imminent. Luccio strode across the pitted carpet to Lorenzo's bedroom door, tried the lock, then rapped lightly on the woodwork with his fist.

"Lorenzo? Lorenzo, it is I!" The man's knuckles rippled as he drummed a dirty ditty on the door. "Be a good little pyromaniac and open up the door before I blow your house down…"

Movement came from behind the door-a hiss, an eerie flicker of light from under the doorjamb, and a sudden smell of scorching metal. A muffled and somewhat dis-tracted voice wafted through to Luccio from the far side of the wall.

"Not now! I need five minutes."

"Five minutes?" Luccio puffed out his chest like a fight-ing rooster and nearly capsized a pile of glassware with his waving arms. "Lorenzo, my dressing routine has been disturbed. The delight of a hundred eager young damsels hangs in the balance! I have not a minute to spare, let alone five!" Pained by the potential disaster, Luccio hurtled himself against the portal in theatrical dismay.

"Think, Lorenzo, think! Consider their anguish; the screams, the wails, the suicides! Temples swamped as vast columns of poor, disillusioned girls sorrowfully line up to take their chastity vows."

The door opened just a crack, and a vague, disoriented Lorenzo stuck his head out into the room.

"I am trying to prepare a demonstration. Can't you leave me in peace?"

"Alas, O Lord of Soot, I wish it could be so." Luccio per-formed a bow and elegantly indicated the workmen ranked at his rear. "These noble minions of mine host wish to take possession of the famous painting of the sea goddess. It is to be prepared for display."

With a frustrated sigh, Lorenzo withdrew back into his room.

"It's in the sitting room, just by the door. Don't lift the covers if there's any dust around-the varnish is still not completely dry. And don't take the easel!"

With a flourish of his hat, Luccio allowed the door to be slammed shut in his face. He indicated the sitting room to his tail of servants, then threw himself into a chair to relax as the workmen maneuvered the awkward canvas out into the corridor.

Luccio's preparations actually required very little work; why bother trying to improve on perfection? The man's clothes were deliriously and scandalously slipshod; marked cards were in his pocket, weighted dice in his belt. The Mannicci's reception offered gaming tables, business contacts, and an endless ocean of curvaceous companions. A secret note had been slid beneath his door in the wee hours of the dawn-a note in feminine hand-writing carved upon a sheet of purest mother-of-pearl. All in all, Luccio's evening promised glorious possibilities.

Again a flash of light came from beneath Lorenzo's door; a spot on the wall glowed cherry red, and the wall plaster flaked off with a disappointed little sigh.

"Damn!"

Lorenzo seemed to be having his own troubles. Luccio rested his feet on a table and helped himself to a half-empty bottle of wine.

"Lorenzo, O heart and soul of science, do be careful with your toys…"

Luccio sipped his wine, then almost catapulted clean across the room; some suicidal varlet had laced the stuff with raw liquor. Luccio could already feel his lips turning numb. He raced for the water jug, rinsed his mouth, and prayed for sensation to return before the evening began.

"Lorenzo-what in Talona's name have you been drinking?"

"What?"

"This-this paint stripper, this vile incendiary-this distilled sunfish urine left upon your desk!" Luccio made a face and searched for a piece of fruit to help drive any lingering taste away.

"It's not mine…" The door latch fumbled itself open, and Lorenzo's face appeared in the door. "It's left over from last night. Miliana drank about two bottles of it."

Luccio flicked his gaze from the bottle to his compan-ion in alarm.

"Dear gods! Do you mean to tell me that the woman you've been mooning over drinks this by choice?"

"Well… not by choice." Lorenzo emerged from his room, bringing with him the smell of scorched metal and cherry fondant. "It was more sort of an accident. I coaxed her into escaping from the palace with me last night, and we went to a tavern. She just started, well… drinking it. First she laughed a lot, and then she told us she was a princess. Finally, she just fell over and threw up for most of the rest of the evening."

"Miliana?" Luccio sat bolt upright in his chair. "Princess Miliana?"

"Yes, that's the one."

Discomforted and somewhat alarmed, Luccio raised his brows.

"We are speaking, dear heart, of the flower of the Mannicci house? The woman, I believe, I once begged you to pursue?"

"Oh, I couldn't pursue her!" Lorenzo scowled in clear disapproval. "She's my friend."

A knock came at the door. Lorenzo frantically dusted off his clothes as though he had one chance in a million of restoring the ravaged cloth back to life.

"They're here! Now Luccio, please keep out of sight and keep your comments to yourself. These people are very, very nice, and very, very important to me."

Carefully hiding the bottle of soldiers' champagne, Luccio regarded his companion in puzzlement.

"My dear Lorenzo-what on Toril are you doing now? You can't possibly entertain guests. We have a party to attend in half an hour!"

Lorenzo raced about the apartment, dragging rugs across the worst of the scorch marks on the floor.

"It's my patron. The one who gave me the money for all those chemicals. He's come to see my progress on my light lathe. The results will totally astound him. The device is an absolute, unqualified success!"

"As are its explosions?"

"That particular problem is now-relatively-under control." Lorenzo drew on some singed leather gauntlets and made his way to the door. "It is merely a tiny hiccup in the tube design. What are you doing now?"

"Hiding." Luccio lifted up a curtain inside Lorenzo's workshop with a droll, professional aplomb. "A man who has spent an evening plying Sumbria's princess with hard liquor clearly has need of some intelligent paranoia. Since you lack the quality, I shall happily provide you with my own."

Luccio faded out of sight behind a curtain, wiped his dagger blade with distilled venom from a hidden hip-flask, and froze himself as still as death within his hiding place. His friend Lorenzo shook off the incident and bustled forward to open the apartment door.

"Patrone! Blade Captain, what a pleasure it is to see you once again!"

Blade Captain Gilberto Ilego, immaculate in a garb of harlequinade velvets, greeted the young nobleman with an easy bow.

"My dear young man, I was so very pleased to hear from you. Will you permit me to present my colleague, Rufo, a commander of my guards."

A squat, heavyset man with arms of knotted muscle stalked in over the threshold. Dressed in darkest black, his party clothing had quite clearly been lined with mail, not an unusual thing to find in a cautious man-of-affairs. Lorenzo greeted the stranger with an affable, excited wave and led the way into his inner sanctum.

"Gentlemen, I am most pleased you could spare me the time. It will not take long, my lord Ilego. I merely wanted to show you just how far I have come, and to thank you for everything that you have done for me."

Lorenzo led the way across a threshold strewn with soot, copper tubes, and nude sketches of a girl. "Come in and make yourselves at home."

Ilego motioned to his companion; silent, dark and watchful, Blade Captain Ugo Svarezi walked through into Lorenzo's study and carefully scanned the hang-ings, doors, and walls. He passed his gaze across Luccio's hiding place, then turned his back and walked forward to examine Lorenzo's heavy brass machine.

A central table held a most puzzling contraption. Two glass spheres held bubbling brews of deadly chemicals that were fed by pipes and faucets into a central combus-tion chamber. Screwed onto the bench top at the contrap-tion's forepart, there stood a spindly frame which, though empty, seemed designed to secure some vital component or another. Above the hiss and seethe of mingling chemi-cals, the cheerful smell of cherries set the spectators strangely ill at ease.

Lorenzo looked at his creation and beamed an inno-cent, self-satisfied smile.

"Gentlemen, I present to you… the light lathe! The wonder of the age!"

Scowling at the contraption, Ugo Svarezi spoke out for the very first time.

"All this paraphernalia, just to drive a lathe?"

Lorenzo took on a new dimension; suddenly the crisp, driven young inventor, he pointed out the salient parts of his machine.

"Gentlemen, this machine works by using a combina-tion of optical science, mechanical pumps, and explosive chemical reaction.

"As you know, my lord, the Blade Kingdoms have estab-lished patent laws for inventions both magical and mechanical. Although the patent for this device is regis-tered in my own name, I would never have completed the work without your confidence and assistance. Therefore, patrone, with your permission, I would like to modify the patents to include your own name. It will thus ensure a financial reward for all your infinite kindness."

Ilego made a little face of scorn and waved the sugges-tion entirely away.

"No, no, no-the machine is yours. I merely hope that I have given encouragement to the arts." The Blade Captain and his brooding colleague moved closer, inspect-ing the machine. "This is the complete mechanism?"

"It is indeed, my lord. Now, let me explain the theory, and let me demonstrate the principals in operation."

Lorenzo made to open up a curtain and provide more light, but for some reason every time he tugged at the drapes, the drapes tugged back. Abandoning the idea, the young nobleman dragged lanterns closer to his creation and guided his two guests about the simple machinery.

"Essentially, sirs, I have discovered a series of chemi-cals which react violently when combined together. The light lathe has two of these chemicals stored here, in these glass spheres. By opening these valves, a precisely measured amount of each chemical is fed into these tubes, and squirted into the steel combustion chamber… here."

Ilego stroked quietly at his chin.

"Why are the spheres made of glass?"

"The chemicals are extremely acidic, my lord. I have replaced my previous metal holding tanks with ones of noncorrosive glass."

Lorenzo squatted down and traced the plumbing of the machinery for his two guests.

"Now, when the two chemicals combine inside this chamber, they instantly give forth a violent blaze of light. It is this light that provides the working force of the machine.

"The principal is similar to… eye spectacles… or a simple spyglass, only in reverse." Lorenzo drew diagrams on the white plaster walls with a piece of charcoal. "Instead of gathering distant light sources, and channel-ing them in to the eye, this lens gathers the scattered light from the chamber and concentrates it into a single, coherent beam.

"And just as light from a lens can be used to burn paper or start a fire, so too can this machine's light be used to generate heat. Intense heat. Hot enough to melt through stone, or even steel!"

Ugo Svarezi flicked a swift look from Ilego to the young inventor.

"What is your lens made of? Glass?"

"Oh, no, Sir Rufo, glass cannot withstand the intense heat of the combustion chamber." Wistfully removing a small white gem from his pocket, the youth squatted at Svarezi's feet to display the stone's qualities to his com-panions. "I have used a quartz crystal, which a gem cutter has polished into a smooth little lens. The lens is good for three, or maybe four seconds of operation-after which the stresses will shatter it clean through. A dia-mond would obviously be a better choice but, alas, the cost would be absurdly great."

A demonstration was clearly in order. Lorenzo propped an inch-thick plate of steel in front of his machine, care-fully placed the lens in its frame, then raced over to his desk to find a battered old helm. He donned a breast-plate, lowered the visor of his helm and hung himself with wet leather sacks, signaling his associates to join him in crouching behind a heavy crossbowmen's pavis. The inventor reached out to hold two leather cords attached to his machine.

Ilego looked down at him with some concern.

"Is this device safe?"

"Oh, quite safe!" Lorenzo exhibited the inventor's eter-nal, doomed optimism. "We shall use a quarter-second burst. Shield your eyes!"

Lorenzo tugged at his two strings, then frantically ducked behind the shield.

A brilliant white light cracked like lightning through the room-a brightness so intense it stung the skin like a desert sun. A whipcrack noise ripped through the air, and a stench of burning metal and stone heralded an evil cloud of steam. The observers scarcely had time to jerk with shock before the afterimages were dancing in purple spots across their eyes.