Chương 145: AF Chapter 144 – King and Smith and Sculptor

Giving a Shout-Out to the Longwinded One, the fellow who recently did a interview Podcast with me. He has started writing his own story here on Royal Road, and sent me advanced chapters to read and review. His story has gone live today. https: //www. royalroad. com/fiction/88011/children-of-the-cold-moon-the-four-treasures-saga It is a VERY well-written story. My sole detraction is that the MC is not my 'style', it's the older, classic style of a Lucky Fool (which a lot of people prefer).

I encourage everyone to give it a try. If you like old Celtic stuff with a dash of modern updating, you will enjoy it! I rated it a 4. 5, and the only reason it isn't a 5 is because of me, not the author or the story. Even if it isn't my cup of tea, I think a lot of people will greatly enjoy it, and it's very well done. ============== The lugian king actually blinked at Princess Kristie in shock.

"You… found a way to forge worldbone? To this level?" he asked in disbelief, looking back and forth between her and the Blade in his hands.

"You aren't considered a master smith in my family until you can forge your own Weapon of worldbone," she replied lightly, smiling slightly, and he blinked again at the sight of her eight canines. Even if they weren't prominent they were highly noticeable.

"You are a smith!" King Kresovus exclaimed with approval and delight.

"A rare trade for women among your people, Princess!" he pointed out for her.

"Aye, mostly because of the strength required." She held out her hand, and the king politely stopped his perusal of Quaver and respectfully returned it to her grasp. The Gold on its edge returned the instant she laid hand upon it. The Mick stepped out of the way as she turned, adopted a basic stance, and began the Salute of the Rose. There's dancing, there's swordplay, and then there's profound swordwork being used by a Grandmaster of the Sword.

Kristie hummed, Quaver beat its two Notes in time, and we all watched spellbound as she went through the Salute of the Rose for the lugian king. He had wielded her Sword and knew how heavy it was. That she could move it that lightly and that fast, flicker-quick and with such grace and ease, bespoke a level of strength even a lugian had to respect.

When it was all done and she bowed to him with dipped Blade, there was naught he could do but salute her and bow deeply in return, completely overwhelmed by a display of art and swordsmanship he had not imagined possible, and no parallel of which existed in his culture. The Lost Light gleaming for just a moment as a swirling golden rose about her at the end there was just surreal, too...

"A magnificent display, Your Highness," he said deeply.

"You know your steel well!" We could all tell it was a deep compliment by the king of a race of metal workers.

"I do indeed, Your Majesty," she inclined her head back to him, stepping back to her place with us.

"An' may I also present the Magos Devra al-Ryin, called Ryin, bearer of the Matrix path of magic o' Imperial Ispar," the Mick immediately went on, as if the whole Salute of the Rose hadn't been more than a breath of interruption in his introductions. King Kresovus' eyes were bright as he looked at me.

"And do you work in steel as well, young Magos?" he asked expectantly. The perfectly carved and mirror-smooth tiles next to me flowed together in stones of white and black, smooth as water, precise as geometry, forming a slender footed stand, atop of which the spare crystals from the stone below gathered into a slender vase, out of which grew an entire bouquet of white and black roses for him, which I sent gliding across the floor towards him. Notably, not a single tile on the floor was altered in the slightest.

The stand stopped in front of him. He just stared at it a moment, as if fearing to touch it for its delicacy, and then slowly reached out to grasp the slender vase, finding it the perfect size for his massive hand. He brought the bouquet up to his face slowly, and stared at the carved flowers from mere inches away. He even inhaled of them deeply as we watched, and I saw a faint tremble pass through him from head to toe.

"I smell only stone, or I would not know they are not in bloom…" he breathed out, opening his eyes to look at me. He blinked, looking left and right, because he did not see me. The Mick and Kris leaned their heads back. Lugians having stumpy necks, the king actually had to bend his body back slightly to see me up there, floating upside down in midair close to the forty-foot dome of the ceiling, looking down at him… and my hair wasn't even falling down as it should have, nor my clothes.

His glittering dark eyes really widened then.

"You… can fly?!" he blurted out in amazement. I flipped over, swooped left and right, and back upright, then glided down the air as if skating on the air until I landed next to Kris once again. Crown gleamed, and the king's dark eyes followed it as I reached over with my Staff and poked the Mick.

The Mick promptly leapt into the air, laughing like the rogue he was, and zipped on up to apex of the ceiling before taking a couple rounds about the chamber, then drew his Claymore and began a spinning, wheeling flashing display of bladework up there in the air, displaying enough precision and control to make it obvious this was no mere levitation, and that he had total control of his speed, trajectory, and inertia. This story has been stolen from Royal Road.

If you read it on Amazon, please report it He came falling smoothly back down to the ground with a wide grin on his face… and then Bunita shrank back down to the size of a dagger and was sheathed at his side. The king had no doubt noticed the basket hilt, but thought the sheath a trick or strange Isparian representation of the Mick's Blade, not realizing it was his Sword shrunken down. He looked at the sheathed not-dagger, over to Princess Kristie, and then back to me.

He very carefully set the vase of Shaped stone roses back down upon the equally elegant stand, and stepped away from it with equal due care.

"Lord Mick, you have indeed brought to me something worthy of diamond eyes," he declared firmly.

"I believe that your people call that 'scoundrel's luck', or somesuch thing?"

"Ach, Your Majesty, dinnae wound me so. Ye'd make me uncle envious an' all," the Mick replied instantly.

"No doubt I would," the king agreed in dour amusement.

"I appreciate the courtesy of your introducing your comrades to me, Lord Mick, and I sense that you are here for something more. What is it you came here to ask of us?" he inquired sternly.

"And no talking around the subject!" he chided the Black Aluvian firmly.

"I would nae dream o' such, Your Majesty," the Mick lied without blinking an eye.

"Me fair companions here have questions of your smiths an' learned ones, regarding the changes to magic an' the knowledge of the lugians. If possible, they be wanting to sit down with some of the elders an' plot our a new road of knowledge with them, one that will lead our peoples off these islands once more."

"Hooo…" the king murmured, giving Kris and I a sharp gaze.

"One who can shape worldbone, and one who can meld stone like water and give the gift of flight. The elders would throw me from the throne rather than be denied a chance to meet with the two of you!

"I can have a meeting called within an hour, in the sternest language that even the most reluctant of them must respect. Would that suffice for your purposes?" he asked generously. Kris inclined her head.

"It would, Your Majesty. We do not intend to stay for now, but soon enough, we will be bringing together the sages of all races to start disseminating a new way forward. You saw a faint glimpse of it in the show of the Sword. Such knowledge and power applies also to Axe and Hammer and Mace."

"I shall also be in attendance with you, then, preparing for such, if it all be true," the king agreed promptly.

"What matter draws you away from such important work?" he asked patiently. The Mick stiffened only slightly.

"Ye understand if it rolls off me tongue poorly, Your Majesty, but 'tis actually a matter of honor." The lugian king actually went quiet, staring at the Mick long and deeply, obviously thinking on those words. The Mick endured it without batting an eye, and we were more curious at the weight behind the silence than anything.

"Treachery?" the king finally asked softly.

"There was word passed from the Aun Hunters just before you arrived of a tumerok seduced by the Gotrok. But for one such as you to claim it a matter of honor …"

"Former paramounts and Isparians being used as assassins and paid by the undead," the Mick stated quietly in very clipped, precise words. The knuckles on the lugian king's one hand creaked with almost deafening intensity in the sudden quiet. His breathing was very deep, indeed.

"Even our kin among the Gotrok, the Hea, and the frogs do not treat with the undead," he breathed softly, but oh, the weight on every syllable.

"Treachery in every breath from those who do not breathe, and yet, some are still so weak…" He shook once, a baleful light in his gaze.

"I know you do not wish this to be some great show. I will send two of my Guards with you. They will say little, they will obey your every word, do nothing if you do not require it, and do whatever is needed if you do." The Mick took that on its face.

"Then I hope to not need them nor sully their names. Make sure they bring black masks, for I'll not have what's done tracked to them or their kin."

"Petty vengeance and spite from rats in the tunnels!" the king spat knowingly.

"They will be waiting for you when it is time to leave, Lord Mick!"

"Thank you, Your Majesty." The Mick placed his hands to his chest and bowed respectfully to the one-handed lugian. Kresovus turned to us, only a bit of the ire lingering in his eye.

"And I will await your words at the meeting to come. Please refresh yourselves in the city while they gather." Our meeting with the lugian king was over. We all bowed respectfully to him, and headed out the room.

"Not a good relationship with the king, aye?" Princess Kristie asked lightly.

"I've never asked him f e r a thing all these years, only given what knowledge I could pass along, an' done favors for him on the mainland."

"Favors," Kris repeated knowingly. Favors to kings were never light things.

"Run to the old homelands of Linvak Tukal, under the eyes of the Gotrok?" Kristie wondered aloud airily.

"Lot o' holes in those mountains the Gotrok don't know, odd as that may be. Lots o' lugians in the city who aren't happy with the Gotrok, either, an' word still needs to go back an' forth. The Gotrok set themselves up with the sponsorship of the Virindi, while the elders appoint a true king. For all their claims o' legitimacy of the Warrior Tradition of the lugians, they have broken the customs of their people an' ignored the ancient laws.

"I may have offed a few particularly egregious examples o' Gotrok hate-spewers, too," he added as a light afterthought.

"He wouldn't have sent you as an ambassador or negotiator, but I'm sure you escorted those he did…" Kristie said leadingly.

"Aye," the Mick answered simply, as we continued down the ramps.

"They'll nae let a Gotrok, Hea, or burun through the Portal to Freehold when it opens, so it always be us sending ambassadors t' the main."

"Did the undead hammer the lugians like they did us?"

"The undead moved against the lugians back during the 'good times', as it were," he replied after a moment.

"They were wantin' the chorozite an' other metals for their people, an' they captured a bunch of lugian miners, then sacrificed the weak to turn the stronger ones inta undead, forcing them t' slave away around the clock mining for them.

"Ye might say they've never forgotten that horrible insult, be it par for the course on the undead 'rewarding' their servants with 'immortality'."

"Aye. From their perspective, it was probably a glorious reward and inspiration for these new servants of theirs, and they should be grateful for their status," I spoke up from behind the two of them.

"Their own desires on the matter were completely inconsequential, of course, primitive earth-grubbing brutes that the lugians obviously are."

"It's like ye know the type intimately or something, lass," the Mick drawled, as we reached the bottom, and he led us towards the nearest place to grab something to eat. I didn't reply, because Aelryinth's views on the undead were very, very deep and very hard to break away from, etched in the death of worlds. Undead had put him and I into this situation in the first place. There was next to nothing Good about any undead, and precious little that was ever good.

I set it calmly aside, noting we had another strong ally through the Lord Mick, who was promising to be a better resource than either Kris or I had ever predicted.