Another tube clanged against the stone floor of my castle workshop.
Another failure.
It had been more than a dozen days since Otto completed the leadscrew for the lathe, but a proper arquebus still seemed frustratingly far out of my grasp.
It was the length. The unsupported boring bar deflected and wobbled, resulting in uneven holes and bending the more I pushed it in. I successfully made several prototypes with a short barrel, but against charging cavalry, those would do little good. Their effective range was too short, meaning even if shot, a knight’s momentum would likely still carry them through my ranks.
I had to figure something out quickly. With the harvest season coming in four dozen days, the Count’s window for an attack was shrinking. He was probably going to play his hand soon.
However, it seemed the Count was not the only one making moves.
***
A column of figures in grey robes appeared at the castle gate as the twin Suns reached their zenith. There were four of them—two children, neither older than fourteen, who each led an older person by a length of knotted cord.
Even before the report of their arrival reached me, it was obvious they were wholly unlike any of the people of my domain.
Each wore a flowing dress split into two overlapping layers, one pale as morning light and the other a deep amber of sunset bronze, both connected with pairs of bronze discs that clicked softly as they walked. The children wore a thin veil that betrayed their eyes, and carried heavy satchels and several scrolls bound around their twin belts. The elders, by contrast, had their eyes hidden behind thick veils of white linen. Twin cords of knotted beads hung from their shoulders, and each walked with a staff crowned by two small bronze suns. Blind though they clearly were, their steps never faltered as the children guided them through the praying crowd parting around them.
I sighed. This world’s strange religion had been one of the many things on a growing list of problems I'd been putting off. It was only a matter of time before someone came asking questions about all the new technology being introduced.
“Well, let’s get this over with. And hopefully not end up like Giordano…”
The guard who reported their arrival looked at me with confusion in his eyes, but I quickly dismissed him before he made any comments. I followed a few seconds later, clutching one of my prototype pistols under my tunic.
***
The delegation had settled at the long table by the time I arrived.
The two elders sat side by side, their veiled faces turning towards me in a way that made me momentarily forget they were supposed to be blind. Between them, the two young attendants carefully handed them small bites of bread and cheese, themselves also scoffing it down whenever they’d get a chance. Erika sat across from them, hands clasped on the table, her expression carefully pleasant.
“Brother Strahl, Sister Luzia.” The elder on the left spoke as I sat down, his voice deep and unhurried. “We are of the Twin-Sun Temple at Weidlau. We serve as the guiding lights of the faithful here in the southern valleys.”
“Ah, honoured priests, welcome to Hohengrenzberg.” I kept my tone diplomatically amiable. “I trust the food and drink are to your satisfaction?”
“The hospitality has been most generous,” Sister Luzia replied. She was the smaller of the two, with deep lines carved around her mouth by decades of what I imagined to be stern expression. “But we have not travelled seven days for bread and ale, Your Grace.”
“Indeed. Some of our faithful speak of... troubling accounts from the surrounding villages,” Brother Strahl continued, folding his hands. “Tales of smoke summoned from nothingness. Of thunder conjured from clay vessels. Of men who soar through the skies. Of those thought dead from wounds walking again. The common folk speak of these things with awe, my lord. But awe and fear share the same root.”
He paused, letting his words settle.
So they're worried I have a Hollow among my ranks. How insulting.
“The Temple's duty is to protect the faithful from the threat of those with uncontrollable magic,” he continued with practised gravity. “We know some nobles harbour such people for their own benefit… We do not accuse, of course. We merely seek to make you understand the dangers.”
I sighed. There it was. The same tired accusation dressed up in diplomatic pleasantries. As if I hadn't heard variations of it from every noble, knight, and now priest who encountered something they didn't understand. It was always magic, magic, magic… No appreciation or recognition for all my hard work or the ingenuity of modern inventions. Instead, they are content in believing changes can only come about because one waves their hand and conjures them up.
Frankly, I was getting fed up with it.
“It is no magic,” I answered, perhaps a bit too sharply. “None of what you described is magic. It’s all science. Chemistry, metallurgy, surgery, and basic aerodynamics—not magic.”
Strahl’s veiled face tilted. “We are not familiar with those words.”
“I suppose not.” I took a breath and dialled back the edge in my voice. “What I mean is, everything I've done here can be explained without invoking the Hollows, or magic, or divine intervention. Smoke is a product of an… alchemical reaction between certain substances. The thunder you mentioned is a mixture that can be made by anyone. Surgery is just advanced medicine. And flight...” I hesitated. I didn't actually want to explain the gliders in detail. “...well, that one's a bit more involved. But the principle is the same. It's all knowledge that can be taught to and used by anyone.”
“It’s knowledge that no guild teaches, Your Grace.” Luzia countered. “No academy, no noble house we know of practises such arts. The stories say it all began with only you. You will forgive an old lady her concern, but the stories about you have changed very suddenly. One with your… reputation of Austmark does not simply become a practitioner of these... arts.”
I could see the question caught the attention of others in the room, too. The guards subtly leaned in. The servants standing by the table hushed their murmurs. Even Erika raised her eyebrows expectantly.
“So?”
“So we must ask,” she continued, her tone neither hostile nor kind. “Are you harbouring Hollows, Your Grace? I know it may seem beneficial given your… situation, but those wounded souls carry a danger one cannot fathom. Or… are you maybe one yourself?”
“No,” I answered firmly. I was no wizard, mage, sorcerer, magician, shaman, warlock, nor any other ridiculous word one may use to describe it. “I am an engineer.”
The word meant nothing to them, obviously. But it meant everything to me.
“These things you call magic. They are mundane, as I said. My father employed scholars and craftsmen from across the Empire.” The lie came smoothly, though I felt it become less believable each time I said it. “Some of them explored... unconventional methods of working with materials. I was fortunate enough to observe their work.” I shrugged. “And honestly, much of it is quite obvious with a bit of experimentation. Mix certain powders, and they burn. Wash your hands before dressing wounds, and you will see they get infected less often. It's just a matter of observing, recording, and repeating until you find what works.”
The last part wasn’t even a lie. Most of what I brought forth to this world were concepts that are painfully obvious in hindsight, but that took humanity embarrassingly long to discover. I simply sped up the timeline a bit.
Still, I felt the weight of every eye in the room—Erika's most of all—and knew the explanation was thin.
Luzia seemed to share this impression. "You speak with conviction, Your Grace. But conviction is not proof. Without proof we can verify, the Temple cannot simply—"
“Then let me give you something you can verify,” I cut in. Trying to convince someone of something they couldn’t even imagine was a dead end. It was time to try a different approach. “Tell me, how does the Temple copy its holy texts?”
Even if the majority of common folk were illiterate, the temples still had to transcribe prayer books for their priests and make commissions for nobles. However, given that one of the rituals for becoming a full-fledged priest was staring into the Suns until one went permanently blind, I imagined their ability to produce texts was severely limited.
The question caught the two priests off guard. “B-by hand, of course. The apprentices are trained in scribing before they take their vows.”
“And how many books can a novice copy in a year?”
“Perhaps… three, if the text is not overly long. Though I do not see how this is relevant—”
“What if I tell you, I can make you a machine that produces a dozen copies in a single day?”
Silence.
“A dozen every…?” The attendant with ink-stained fingers whispered, then caught herself and glanced at Luzia. The old woman's veiled face betrayed nothing, but her trembling hands, resting on the table, had gone still.
I briefly explained the concept of the printing press: moulded lead plates, ink rollers, and the lever mechanism. I kept it simple and focused on what mattered to them: the texts they struggled to reproduce. And more importantly, how none of it required magic.
Erika's eyes widened slightly as I laid out the workings of one of our most valuable inventions. It was clear why—after all, we used the same design to print our Marks. But every prayer book they printed was another person who might learn to read. And every person who learned to read was another future clerk, foreman, or factory worker. Not to mention, this way I would outsource the construction of the machines to someone other than my overstrained manpower pool.
The ink-stained girl couldn't contain herself any longer. "Brother Strahl, if such a device could truly—"
“Hush, Maren.” Luzia silenced her, but her own voice carried a tension it hadn't before. The old woman's fingers were tracing slow circles on the tabletop. Thinking. “You would share this with the Temple freely, Your Grace?”
“Indeed I would.”
“And what would you ask in return?”
A fair question. Nothing in this world came free, and she knew it.
“Only a little. Every tenth machine you construct.”
It sounded generous on—and to a point it was. But I left a far more important consequence unstated: more books in circulation meant a more literate population, and a literate population was one far more susceptible to revolutionary ideas. Even those that went against the temple’s preaching.
Strahl leaned toward his companion. They murmured between themselves for a while, their attendants watching with poorly concealed anticipation.
“In addition,” I continued while I still had their attention, “I will share some of the medical practices we've developed. Methods of treating wounds, preventing infection, basic sanitation. Your temples already care for the sick, and this would make that work more effective. And once again, demonstrate our work is not magic.”
Erika's expression tightened. A faint narrowing of her eyes, a small press of her lips. She said nothing. But I knew the look well enough by now. Every technique on that list had been earned through her sleepless nights following my vague guidelines, and here I was giving it away so casually.
Sorry, Erika, I will make it up to you.
But right now, more temples practising basic hygiene meant fewer people dying. And every person who survived was another future pair of hands for the fields, the mines, and the factories.
The two elders murmured between themselves. Maren kept glancing at me, clearly burning to ask more about the press.
“Your offers are generous, Your Grace,” Strahl finally spoke, choosing each word carefully. “The Temple will study them.”
“Should the things you shared prove safe and useful for our flock, we will overlook the rumours for now,” Luzia added. “But know that if the unsettling stories continue to spread, we will have little choice.”
“You are welcome anytime.” I put on my warmest diplomatic smile. The whole thing felt very much like corruption and bribery, even though I genuinely had nothing to hide.
The priests and their apprentices departed before the second Sun touched the mountains, the two children leading their elders down the path, villagers kneeling for blessings in their wake.
I watched them go from the narrow window of my room and exhaled.
Hopefully that settled things.
Last thing I wanted in my domain was a witch-hunt for Hollows that weren’t there.
***
Once the audience finished, I surprised even myself and decided to go to bed at a reasonable hour for a change. The barrel boring wasn’t getting anywhere, and I figured I would be smarter about it after a night of proper rest.
However, as I lay on the straw mattress, my mind drifted back to the boring bar despite my best efforts.
“The deflection increases as a cubic function of the unsupported length, so I need either a stiffer material or a way to support it from the inside,” I mumbled to myself.
Tick. Tock. Tick.
The giant pendulum clock in the tower below kept its patient rhythm in between my words. It annoyed everyone who slept within earshot, but I found the sound comforting. It was a small heartbeat of progress in this world.
It also reminded me of the old clock I had in my kitchen back on the farm. I used to take it apart and put it back together every other week, much to my parents’ dismay. They insisted I'd break it one day.
Tick. Tock. Tick.
I turned to the other side, trying to dispel the distracting thoughts. As I did, my eyes wandered to the nightstand where I’d left the prototype gun after the audience.
I was glad I hadn't needed it.
Tick. Tock. Tick.
“Now, what if I have up on long thin guns entirely, and instead try for—“
Tick.
Silence.
The weight hadn't wound down. I'd reset it not an hour ago.
My hand found the pistol before the thought finished forming.
A whisper of fabric. Then a voice, barely above a breath.
“Your heart is very loud. But not for much longer.”
She was right beside me. In perfect darkness, without a sound, she had crossed the entire room.
I rolled off the bed and fired.
The friction ignition sparked and the room erupted in white light. In the flash I saw her—delicate, veiled, a thin wire stretched between her hands and descending towards where my throat was.
The ball caught her upper arm.
Startled, she took a step back, but kept standing.
It didn't matter. The blast in the stone room was deafening. Within seconds, boots pounded down the corridor. The door burst open—guards with spears and crossbows, and Erika behind them, lantern in one hand, surgical knife in the other, still in her nightclothes.
The assassin didn't resist.
Erika knelt and pulled back her veil. A young face. And where her eyes should have been—smooth, scarred skin.
Did the priests change their mind?
I stared at her, then at the smoking pistol in my trembling hands.
Or was she someone they tried to warn me about?