to pursue?'
'Oh, I couldn't pursue her!' Lorenzo scowled in clear disapproval. 'She's my friend.'
A knock came at the door. Lorenzo frantically dusted off his clothes as though he had one chance in a million of restoring the ravaged cloth back to life.
'They're here! Now Luccio, please keep out of sight and keep your comments to yourself. These people are very, very nice, and very, very important to me.'
Carefully hiding the bottle of soldiers' champagne, Luccio regarded his companion in puzzlement.
'My dear Lorenzo-what on Toril are you doing now? You can't possibly entertain guests. We have a party to attend in half an hour!'
Lorenzo raced about the apartment, dragging rugs across the worst of the scorch marks on the floor.
'It's my patron. The one who gave me the money for all those chemicals. He's come to see my progress on my light lathe. The results will totally astound him. The device is an absolute, unqualified success!'
'As are its explosions?'
'That particular problem is now-relatively-under control.' Lorenzo drew on some singed leather gauntlets and made his way to the door. 'It is merely a tiny hiccup in the tube design. What are you doing now?'
'Hiding.' Luccio lifted up a curtain inside Lorenzo's workshop with a droll, professional aplomb. 'A man who has spent an evening plying Sumbria's princess with hard liquor clearly has need of some intelligent paranoia. Since you lack the quality, I shall happily provide you with my own.'
Luccio faded out of sight behind a curtain, wiped his dagger blade with distilled venom from a hidden hipflask, and froze himself as still as death within his hiding place. His friend Lorenzo shook off the incident and bustled forward to open the apartment door.
'Patrone! Blade Captain, what a pleasure it is to see you once again!'
Blade Captain Gilberto Ilego, immaculate in a garb of harlequinade velvets, greeted the young nobleman with an easy bow.
'My dear young man, I was so very pleased to hear from you. Will you permit me to present my colleague, Rufo, a commander of my guards.'
A squat, heavyset man with arms of knotted muscle stalked in over the threshold. Dressed in darkest black, his party clothing had quite clearly been lined with mail, not an unusual thing to find in a cautious man-of-affairs. Lorenzo greeted the stranger with an affable, excited wave and led the way into his inner sanctum.
'Gentlemen, I am most pleased you could spare me the time. It will not take long, my lord Ilego. I merely wanted to show you just how far I have come, and to thank you for everything that you have done for me.' Lorenzo led the way across a threshold strewn with soot, copper tubes, and nude sketches of a girl. 'Come in and make yourselves at home.'
Ilego motioned to his companion; silent, dark and watchful, Blade Captain Ugo Svarezi walked through into Lorenzo's study and carefully scanned the hangings, doors, and walls. He passed his gaze across Luccio's hiding place, then turned his back and walked forward to examine Lorenzo's heavy brass machine.
A central table held a most puzzling contraption. Two glass spheres held bubbling brews of deadly chemicals that were fed by pipes and faucets into a central combustion chamber. Screwed onto the bench top at the contraption's forepart, there stood a spindly frame which, though empty, seemed designed to secure some vital component or another. Above the hiss and seethe of mingling chemicals, the cheerful smell of cherries set the spectators strangely ill at ease.
Lorenzo looked at his creation and beamed an innocent, self-satisfied smile.
'Gentlemen, I present to you… the light lathe! The wonder of the age!'
Scowling at the contraption, Ugo Svarezi spoke out for the very first time.
'All this paraphernalia, just to drive a lathe?'
Lorenzo took on a new dimension; suddenly the crisp, driven young inventor, he pointed out the salient parts of his machine.
'Gentlemen, this machine works by using a combination of optical science, mechanical pumps, and explosive chemical reaction.
'As you know, my lord, the Blade Kingdoms have established patent laws for inventions both magical and mechanical. Although the patent for this device is registered in my own name, I would never have completed the work without your confidence and assistance. Therefore, patrone, with your permission, I would like to modify the patents to include your own name. It will thus ensure a financial reward for all your infinite kindness.'
Ilego made a little face of scorn and waved the suggestion entirely away.
'No, no, no-the machine is yours. I merely hope that I have given encouragement to the arts.' The Blade Captain and his brooding colleague moved closer, inspecting the machine. 'This is the complete mechanism?'
'It is indeed, my lord. Now, let me explain the theory, and let me demonstrate the principals in operation.'
Lorenzo made to open up a curtain and provide more light, but for some reason every time he tugged at the drapes, the drapes tugged back. Abandoning the idea, the young nobleman dragged lanterns closer to his creation and guided his two guests about the simple machinery.
'Essentially, sirs, I have discovered a series of chemicals which react violently when combined together. The light lathe has two of these chemicals stored here, in these glass spheres. By opening these valves, a precisely measured amount of each chemical is fed into these tubes, and squirted into the steel combustion chamber… here.'
Ilego stroked quietly at his chin.
'Why are the spheres made of glass?'
'The chemicals are extremely acidic, my lord. I have replaced my previous metal holding tanks with ones of noncorrosive glass.'
Lorenzo squatted down and traced the plumbing of the machinery for his two guests.
'Now, when the two chemicals combine inside this chamber, they instantly give forth a violent blaze of light. It is this light that provides the working force of the machine.
'The principal is similar to… eye spectacles… or a simple spyglass, only in reverse.' Lorenzo drew diagrams on the white plaster walls with a piece of charcoal. 'Instead of gathering distant light sources, and channeling them in to the eye, this lens gathers the scattered light from the chamber and concentrates it into a single, coherent beam.
'And just as light from a lens can be used to burn paper or start a fire, so too can this machine's light be used to generate heat. Intense heat. Hot enough to melt through stone, or even steel!'
Ugo Svarezi flicked a swift look from Ilego to the young inventor.
'What is your lens made of? Glass?'
'Oh, no, Sir Rufo, glass cannot withstand the intense heat of the combustion chamber.' Wistfully removing a small white gem from his pocket, the youth squatted at Svarezi's feet to display the stone's qualities to his companions. 'I have used a quartz crystal, which a gem cutter has polished into a smooth little lens. The lens is good for three, or maybe four seconds of operation-after which the stresses will shatter it clean through. A diamond would obviously be a better choice but, alas, the cost would be absurdly great.'
A demonstration was clearly in order. Lorenzo propped an inch-thick plate of steel in front of his machine, carefully placed the lens in its frame, then raced over to his desk to find a battered old helm. He donned a breastplate, lowered the visor of his helm and hung himself with wet leather sacks, signaling his associates to join him in crouching behind a heavy crossbowmen's pavis. The inventor reached out to hold two leather cords attached to his machine.
Ilego looked down at him with some concern.
'Is this device safe?'
'Oh, quite safe!' Lorenzo exhibited the inventor's eternal, doomed optimism. 'We shall use a quarter-second burst. Shield your eyes!'
Lorenzo tugged at his two strings, then frantically ducked behind the shield.
A brilliant white light cracked like lightning through the room-a brightness so intense it stung the skin like a desert sun. A whipcrack noise ripped through the air, and a stench of burning metal and stone heralded an evil cloud of steam. The observers scarcely had time to jerk with shock before the afterimages were dancing in purple spots across their eyes.
