‘I wonderedwhat all those bracelets were for.’ she said. ‘Wait just amoment.’
A minute latershe returned with a box of bracelets and handed it to Aquitain. Helooked in and saw dozens of mind control bracelets. He tipped thebracelets out on the floor and picked out the construct braceletsfrom amongst them. The others were for controlling slaves.
Now it becameclearer. The people who lived here before were under mind control.A powerful mind wizard had lived here, with his slaves. If so therewould be some other interesting features and goodies lying aboutthe place that probably even Llanlorian didn’t know about. Hedecided to keep that information to himself.
‘The otherbracelets are all inactive.’ he said. ‘You can melt them down fortheir silver value if you ever need money which I doubt afterlooking around here.’
Llanloriansmiled. ‘Money is not a problem but getting reliable andtrustworthy labour is.’ she said.
‘Unfortunately,no one wants to work for a giant spider.’
‘Mmm ..’thought Aquitain. ‘Maybe I could help there as well but for themoment I’ll keep quiet.’
‘We still havea few minutes before our meeting my Liege. I would like to checkout the constructs if I might.’
‘By all means,Aquitain, I’ll see you in a few minutes.’ She replied and then shedisappeared.
Aquitainteleported to the Street of Statues. Having been there just a fewminutes ago, he had a clear image of where he wanted to go andwent. Asterix arrived shortly thereafter.
‘Bloody welltrying to run the place already.’ he mumbled.
‘No. I’m notinterested in running the place Asterix. You can do that. I aminterested to know that if I go to sleep here, I will wake upagain. The security around here is terrible.’
‘We haven’t hadanyone try to break in since I’ve been here.’ said Asterix. ‘HerLadyship makes sure of that.’
‘And whowatches while she sleeps?’ asked Aquitain.
‘I dunno. Maybeshe doesn’t sleep or maybe Rat Catcher keeps watch.’
‘Asterix, ifshe sleeps then we’re vulnerable. If I can get these constructsworking, we’ll all be a lot less vulnerable. Have you got anypaint? I need some red and blue.’
Asterixdisappeared for a couple of minutes then came back with two pots ofpaint and a couple of brushes. Aquitain painted a red dot on thefront and back of one each of the iron, stone and brass constructsthen blue dots on the others.
‘That’s so weknow which is which; now for the bracelets.’
He tried eachin turn to find out which belonged to which construct and markedthem accordingly.
‘Now let’s findout the damage.’ he said as he clipped on the two brass constructbracelets, one on each wrist.
‘If you use thebracelets, use them one at a time until you get used to itotherwise you’ll have trouble.’
Aquitainordered them to walk and the two brass constructs walked withouttoo much difficulty. They started slowly and made some metallicgrinding sounds at first but then got quieter as they walked along.He took them up to the corner and directed them to march down themain street.
Returning toAsterix he took off the bracelets and said.
‘I’ve got thempatrolling back and forth up the main street. They won’t hurtanyone unless they are attacked or someone tries to stop them. I’msurprised that they are working so well. Are you sure nobody’s usedthem for a long time?’
Asterix seemedsure.
He then clippedon the iron construct bracelets and ordered them to step forwards.With great strain and horrible grinding metallic sounds they slowlymanaged to step forward. He then ordered them to step forwards andthen backwards continually. They did this ever so slowly at firstbut slightly faster each time. With each step flakes of rustdropped to the ground. These, he could believe hadn’t been used forages.
When he triedthe stone constructs they didn’t respond. Their stony bodies hadcrystallized too much. He asked Asterix whether he had anyway ofcreating magic sound. Asterix disappeared and returned with a wandof sound burst. After fiddling with it for a while they finally gotit to work and blasted the stone constructs with about ten burstsdirecting them to various parts of the body especially the arms andlegs. After that Aquitain tried again. This time the stoneconstructs could walk and move their arms, slowly at first thenwith more gusto.
He called thebrass constructs back and got them doing pushups. Moved the stoneconstructs to patrolling the main street and went back to the ironones. The steps forward and backward had limbered them up quite alot. He then got them walking in circles around him. Asterix wasamazed with all this and eventually wanted to try one. Aquitaingave him a brass construct bracelet, showed him how to control it,and told him the usual set of safety rules. After all, these werepotentially dangerous, almost mindless machines. Asterix couldn’twait to put it to work.
‘Can theyteleport?’ he asked.
‘I’d guess so.’said Aquitain. ‘Let’s try it.’ He was wearing the iron constructbracelets when the thought came to him that he should have askedthem to see if they had names.
Aquitain tookoff one bracelet so that there was no chance of confusion and usingmindspeak asked, ‘What is your name?’
The constructreplied, ‘Iron worker two, master.’
Then thinkingback on the fact that maybe the previous owner was a mind wizardAquitain said ‘and what is your other name.’ The construct replied.‘I am called Pestilence, master.’
‘Pestilence,follow me five paces behind.’ he said and teleported a hundredpaces up the road. Pestilence appeared behind him. He thenteleported back again with the same instruction and the ironconstruct followed.
Asterixexcitedly listened how to do it and then immediately disappearedwith one of the brass constructs. While he was gone Aquitain triedwhat he had been waiting to do but didn’t want Asterix to see.
He took off thebracelet and commanded Pestilence to follow him five paces behindand it did. He then went back and found out the second name of allthe other constructs except the one the one being used by Asterix.It was then time for
