Big Bang Theories

Queen Malin held the fire lance in her wrinkled hand. Greying fingers turned it over as her eyes scanned the surface of the metal tube as if it were a gift of the gods.

            “We have three of these, your majesty, including the one you hold. We saw them tear through armour. With a thousand of those the imperials might stand a chance against the curaduile trees. Our defences would be meaningless.” Danielle Longbow reported to the queen because Sir Fabian Castel had not spoken in more than a day.

            “We can manufacture our own copies of this design,” Lupita said. “My father is more than capable of recreating the weapon if we give him one to study.”

            “The fire lance is nothing without the powder, which is made exclusively in Coowin She. We have enough for a handful of demonstrations. After that, the tube is useless.” Danielle threw up her arms.

            “We can analyse the powder to determine the contents.” Lupita said.

            “It’s black powder, what more can anything tell you?”

            “There are methods to determine the elements contained in anything. The royal library has several tomes dedicated to alchemical testing.”

            The queen pointed to a girl with black hair down to her waist who wore the green robes of the royal coven. “Find those tomes and bring them here immediately. Have a guard bring the alchemical instruments up and mind they’re careful with them.”

            The teenager blushed at being spoken to directly by the queen. She nodded and bowed several times before running out of the door.

            “You’re certain your father can create weapons like this?” Queen Malin turned to Lupita.

            “My father might need to destroy one to see how it looks inside but we have three. He can make anything if he can picture it inside and out.” Said the master smith’s daughter.

            “Guard,” the queen snapped her fingers, both soldiers at the door turned to look. “Take this to Hwanda Smith and tell him I want a hundred copies of it as soon as possible. He is to make it a priority and he may destroy this device to see how it works. I need him to begin right away.” Both guards looked at each other and decided with hand gestures who would take the task. The winner rushed to the queen and bowed, before taking the metal tube and running from the room.

            “You’re unusually quiet Sir Castel. It unsettles me. Why?”

            “Apologies my queen. I have been pondering a world dominated by those weapons that can pierce armour from feet away in the hands of a novice. I have been wondering what place there will be for men such as myself who have devoted themselves to the sword. My like will become a thing of the past.”

            “You will learn to use this weapon Sir Castel. If possible, we all will.” Queen Malin’s voice was that of a mother scolding an impudent child. “As the times move, we must move with them. The curaduile gave us an advantage over the Empire of the Holy Proclamation. We cannot be caught off guard when they attack us with these new weapons.

            We must consider ourselves blessed Sir Castel. If you had not travelled to Sliabh we would never have known of Lady Guinevere’s treachery. You would never have met Archbishop Murphy. I would not have sent you back with the bodies of his assassins. We would never have known of these weapons, never mind had time to study and copy them.

            The technology of war is always evolving. The weapons you brought us give us the chance to do the same. It has also revealed an unlikely ally in the Church of Red Knives. As Archbishop Murphy said to you, their best defence is letting us face the wrath of the empire. That is a sentiment we can and will exploit.” She stretched, looking decades older than she really was. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to see how the princess is doing. Lupita, begin the analysis of the powder immediately and come to me if you discover its properties.”

            “Yes, my queen.” Lupita bowed low with the rest of them as Queen Malin departed.

When the glass tubes and pots were brought to the queen’s study, Danielle watched as her girlfriend pored over the dusty volumes of alchemy from the royal collection.

            As she worked, Lupita made notes, mostly of the things the black powder certainly wasn’t. She explained to her soldier of fortune, who pretended to understand.

            “I’m surprised I wasn’t told to take guard duty,” Danielle said. She watched her partner measure out mere grains of the powder and then hold them over the flame of a candle. The bright spark and the smoke made them both flinch but the hand holding the spoon was steady as the smith’s daughter held the smoking spoon beneath her nose.

            “Sulphur. It contains sulphur.” The witch noted it down in her hurried handwriting with a feather quill.

            “How do you know that?” Danielle’s eyes wandered around the room covered with tapestries of hunting scenes and crowded bookshelves. Orange light danced with shadows on the grey walls as the fire crackled.

            “The smell.”

            “You really think we can make this ourselves?”

            “Of course.”

            “The empire doesn’t seem to think so. They wouldn’t have bought a thousand if they thought they could make their own.”

            Lupita wagged a contrary finger. “They don’t have to make their own because they can afford to buy them, which makes them less of a threat to Coowin She. If the Empire of the Holy Proclamation is reliant on the Empire of the Endless Wall for its new weapons, they have a stable partnership. If it seemed our northern enemies had any intention of making their own fire lances and black powder, Coowin She would refuse to sell them any, to preserve their monopoly.” Lupita smiled and winked. Her brown eyes were golden in the light of the candle.

            “I don’t know what that means.”

            “It means we were lucky that Coowin She had some of their shipment stolen by Patrick Murphy’s assassins but unlucky that they bothered selling the weapons at all.”

            “No. I meant what does the word monopoly mean?”

            “Having a monopoly,” Lupita’s warm brown cheeks creased into a smile, “means you are the only one in control of something.”

            “Do you ever feel like we’re in the middle of a lake, too far to swim to shore and we would be better off giving in to the water than struggling on against the inevitable?”

            “Why do so many of your metaphors involve swimming, fisher girl? No. I believe there is always hope.”

            “Every battle with the empire we lose more of our comrades. Soon the empire will be using those fire lances against us. Even if we have our own, the casualties will rise again. All the empire has to do is keep wearing us down until we’re all dead. Patrick Murphy was talking about moving the Church of Red Knives if he had to. I keep thinking that he had the right idea. The empire is a tide that will keep coming until we drown. We can sail away from this if we have to. We could travel across the world, far away from the Empire of the Holy Proclamation.” When she finished talking Danielle saw Lupita glowering at her.

            “Really? You’d abandon Leonor? Where would we go?”

            “Anywhere safe. I’ve been fighting. I’m sick of seeing people die. I’m sick of killing. I have nightmares about finding you dead after a battle.”

            “Then help me crack this instead of giving in to your fear.”

            “It’s not about fear Lupita, it’s about survival.”

            “I love you,” said the witch in a whisper, “which is why I’m not shouting at you right now. But I can’t believe you would abandon your home. Leonor is the only place I’ve ever known. All my life people have treated me and my father differently because of the colour of our skin. We had to earn the trust of everyone we met because no one gave us the benefit of the doubt. Now my father is the Master of Smithing and I work with the queen. You want us to leave that all behind after everything we’ve been through to earn it?”

            “What good is any of that if you’re dead?” Danielle asked.

            “What good is a life spent looking back over your shoulder. The empire will keep coming whether we face them here or not. If you’d listened to Patrick Murphy, you would have heard him talk of multiple empires, all trying to conquer the world. Running from one will only send us towards another. We know at least two of them have these weapons.” A flush of anger was growing hotter on Lupita’s cheeks.

            “I can bet you something else, if Coowin She was willing to sell those weapons to the red imps, then they have better ones. Did you think about that? These are scary,” she held up a fire lance that sat on the table beside her, “but there are worse ones.

            You should go. I need to work.”

            “Lupita, I-”

            “You’re distracting me. Go.”            

            “I love you.” Danielle said, hearing her girlfriend’s grinding teeth.

            “I’ll see you later.”

            As she turned, Miss Longbow heard a deep sigh.