Mandes set the ornament on the table before the emperor. It was pretty, but hardly remarkable amidst the splendor of jewels and ornate decor. Smiling slightly at Ackal’s lukewarm response, Mandes clapped his kid-covered hands. With each clap, the small star enlarged, growing to bushel-basket size. Empress Thura, seated next to her husband, gasped and applauded.
Mandes levitated the spiky ornament from the imperial table down to the pavement. He clapped his hands once more, and the glass star expanded again. The crowd around the imperial table exclaimed at the performance.
From their place far down the high table, Oropash and Helbin did not bother to hide their disapproval. Magic was high art to them, not meant for sideshow entertainment.
In addition to all his other violations of the wizards’ code, Mandes now was cheapening their craft merely to amuse the emperor and his guests.
The Mist-Maker spread his arms wide and mouthed silent words of power. The transparent star rose slowly into the air. With a tilt of his head, Mandes set it turning on one point. Catching the torchlight, the spinning star flashed and scintillated, throwing rainbows of light over the admiring crowd.
More than a little tipsy, Tol leaped to his feet. Miya clutched his arm, trying to stop him. Kiya broke her sister’s grip and cut off Miya’s protests.
Oblivious to the danger that threatened him, Mandes was embellishing his act. He put the tip of one finger to the bottommost point of the whirling star, as if balancing it there. Many in the crowd laughed. Ackal IV smiled.
All laughter died when Tol approached. The grim expression on his face spoke volumes, and someone in the crowd yelled, “Take him, Tolandruth!”
“Liar! Betrayer! Murderer!” Tol declared.
Suddenly, the star exploded. With a sound like discordant music, brilliant shards rained over the nearby tables. Mandes threw an arm over his face. Tol did not do so fast enough, and a shard cut his right cheek.
A hush fell over the plaza and all eyes went to the emperor. Far from being displeased, Ackal IV looked more alert and interested than he had all evening.
Mandes was livid. “How dare you interfere with the emperor’s diversion,” he said, drawing back from Tol. “You might have injured him, breaking the crystal orb!”
Tol wiped the line of blood from his cheek. He saw a dark object lying on the ground amid the broken slivers of glass. Mindful of the sharp shards, he bent down and picked it up. It was a lump of lead, formed into a plum-sized ball.
“Lord Tolandruth did not interfere,” called out a strong, clear voice. “I did!”
Striding down the lane between the tables came a dark-eyed young man with curly black hair. He was dressed like a foundryman in leather apron, gauntlets, and leggings. To his surprise Tol recognized Elicarno, engineer and builder of machines. He was trailed by eight young men similarly attired.
Elicarno carried a strange and complicated device. It had a heavy wooden stock, shaped for grasping at one end. At the other end, two pivoting arms stuck out nearly at right angles to the stock, their free ends connected by a thick cord, like a bowstring.
“Master Mechanician, what’s the meaning of this?” Despite the disruption, there was no anger in the emperor’s challenge. Plainly, he did not find Elicarno’s sudden arrival unwelcome.
Elicarno halted a few steps away and bowed with a wide sweep of his free arm.
“Your Majesty, my apprentices and I come to wish you a long and happy reign. I bring you this hand catapult, the latest project from my workshop.” He set the device on the imperial table.
“So it was you who shattered Mandes’s star?” Ackal IV asked.
Elicarno admitted it. He’d broken the glass star with a single lead missile loosed from his hand catapult. Mandes puffed out his chest, ready to bask in the emperor’s outrage.
“Remarkable,” was Ackal IV’s comment.
Mandes deflated visibly as the emperor fingered the tightly twisted skein of cords that powered the throwing arms. When the bowstring was drawn back, the skein was compressed further, imparting power to the arm.
“What is its range?”
“Aimed range is a hundred paces, Majesty, but it can loft projectiles up to two hundred paces.”
Tol asked, “Can it throw darts or arrows?”
“With some adjustments, yes.”
At Elicarno’s nod, Tol picked up the hand catapult. It was weighty but well balanced. The engineer explained he should tuck the butt end against his right shoulder and aim by holding the stock level with his eyes.
From his place below the emperor’s wives, Prince Nazramin remarked loudly, “Ingenious. Just the thing for knocking pigeons off the battlements. No more soiled statues!” Some in the crowd greeted this remark with titters.
Elicarno’s black brows knotted, and Tol could see the retort forming on his lips. Nazramin was not the sort to take sharp words from a commoner, so Tol forestalled any reply by quickly asking how the device worked. He grasped both sides of the cord, and pressing the butt into his hip, he tried to draw the bowstring back. However, the skeins were very strong, and he succeeded in pulling the bowstring only halfway toward the catch-hook set in the middle of the stock.
“Allow me, my lord.”
Elicarno looped the string over an iron hook attached to his broad leather belt. Bending forward, until the stirrup on the front of the catapult was resting on the floor, he put his foot in the stirrup. By straightening his back, he pulled the bowstring across the catch, where it held.
Mandes, furious at having lost the emperor’s notice, could remain silent no longer.
“How long are we to listen to this tradesman?” he protested. “Your Majesty, by rights he should not even be here-”
“I will listen as long as I like,” came the mild reply.
Mandes’s gaze flickered toward Nazramin, hoping to find an ally, but the prince was busy downing a large goblet of wine.
Fixing a bland smile on his face, the sorcerer smoothed his blue velvet robe. “As Your Majesty pleases, always,” he said. “We all know what interesting toys Master Elicarno makes.”
“Toys?” the engineer exclaimed. “I’ll show you a toy!”
He took the lead ball from Tol and loaded it into the catapult. Holding the device high, he turned swiftly, searching for a target. A bronze statue of Ackal Dermount II on the palace promenade caught his eye, and he squeezed the release bar under the catapult’s stock. The bowstring hummed, and the small gray ball flashed away. A heartbeat later, the projectile hit the bronze torso with a metallic plunk. The statue rocked from the impact.
“That lead ball just penetrated bronze plate a finger’s width thick,” Elicarno announced. “The target was over sixty paces away. At forty paces, I can pierce iron armor. With the improved version of my hand catapult, projectiles will go through an iron cuirass at two hundred paces!”
“Sacrilege!” Mandes said, pointing dramatically to the ruined statue. “You desecrated an image of the emperor’s ancestor!”
“It was a terrible likeness anyway,” Ackal IV said.
During the polite laughter that greeted his sally, the emperor began to cough. He couldn’t stop. Thura rubbed his back, her round face creasing with worry.
When he finally regained his breath and lifted his head, blood was trickling from the corner of his mouth. Those nearby gasped, the murmurs of concern rippling outward through the ranks of notables. Thura wiped the blood away with a linen napkin.
“Your Majesty!” Mandes said, taking advantage of the silence. “Permit me to say these claptrap machines are not worthy of your attention! Leave such mechanical trivialities to the gnomes. The Emperor of Ergoth can rely upon the swords of his brave warriors and the magic of his loyal sorcerer!”
If Mandes hoped to win the sympathy of the assembled warlords with his remarks, he failed. Even the dullest soldier present could see the value of Elicarno’s invention, and many of them had been on the receiving end of Mandes’s spells and potions. Not a word was spoken in his support. Mandes’s eyes kept darting to Prince Nazramin, but he was engaged in a murmured flirtation with the ladies seated on either side of him.