Prologues

by Broken Phalanx

Interlude 5: An Engineer's Interlude

The diagram had been nice. No, really, it had been; Arwia, at the least, had been forced to admit that to herself. The chief engineer had outdone himself this time . . . mostly.

Arwia spent a moment just looking at the colossal framework before her, before glancing down at the paper she was holding; the core of the building was the work of some sort of genius, and the thought of using the power of wind to power an internal mechanism would’ve seem impossible had she not read into the specifics of the design. But the rest of the building . . . it was . . . superfluous. There really was no other way to describe it; the core of this so-called ‘wind-mill’ was functional, but the other notes were the work of either a madman or an idiot.

Why should we bother placing living rooms in the bottom floor? No one would want to live in a place that was perpetually cracking and crushing wheat into flour; far too loud. And pretty much everyone has some type of housing, and if they don’t, they damn well can make one. It’s not that hard. . . four walls and a roof. And trees are hardly in short supply. . .

Her thumb scuffed over the paper as her eyes ran across the windmill diagram again. Her brow furrowed as a number of thoughts ran through her head.

It still needs the same height, something about wind getting more powerful the higher you go or something. . . Perhaps we could make the entire structure into a pseudo-silo? Only problem there is getting the flour afterwards, and having an explosion here would be bad. Well. . . an explosion anywhere would be bad, but I’d hate to see how far a machine like this can spread destruction when ablaze. Eh. Smartest choice might be to build it mostly to specifics, but to make a few adjustments so it can easily be converted into a storage space.

Arwia carefully rolled up the paper, tying it closed with a bit of twine she had made a habit of carrying with her, and passed the scroll to the foreman with a nod that portrayed considerably more vigor than she actually felt. It wasn’t until she had walked the distance back to the hastily constructed lean-to cabin that had been her temporary home for the last few days that she allowed herself to slouch.

Something is fishy about all this. I know Harris. I was educated alongside that nosey little bastard; he’s smart, but he’s not the sort of person who’d really be capable of just creating something like this, especially not in such an off-the-cuff way.

He knows something.

Or someone.

Or something about someone.

She paused for a moment to chuckle at her own thoughts. What in the hells am I thinking? Harris? Extorting info from people? A noodle could be more intimidating. Besides, there aren’t that many other architects, and I know exactly zero who’d let another person hog all the credit. Next thing I know, I’ll be saying that The Witch-Prince is making those blue prints, or that pigs fly, or something else equally absurd . . .

Not that any of that really matters right now. . .

Arwia watched the woods for a moment, carefully wiling the minutes by. Her contact had said this week, at around midday, but time was rapidly passing and she had yet to so much as see this particular person.

Er. . . person might be a bit of a stretch. Perhaps. . . ‘Individual’ might be a better phrase, she thought, as she carefully tended the fire and threw a small satchel of ground coffee into the pot to boil. I forget her name, but that shouldn’t be too much of a problem. I mean, how many horses can a single person run into in a single day?

“Looking for me?”

Ah.

Arwia turned around slowly, both to carefully remove any surprise from her face and to not worry the . . . informant.

“Hello,” Arwia said, coolly, into the forest.

Where in the hells is this one?

“You’re looking in the wrong direction, but that’s not really important. What is, however, is that I happen to know some important information. Do you happen to have the payment?” the voice from the forest asked, gravelly, before coughing violently for a few seconds.

In reply, Arwia withdrew a small cylinder from her bag and shook it; it was a hefty price for information, she knew, but if the king had been willing to parley with. . . whoever this was, even indirectly, it was far above her pay-grade to refuse.

“Open the container and show me that the contents are in order.”

Arwia grit her teeth as she did so, and it was with great vexation that she unraveled the scroll and revealed a copy of the windmill diagram to the unseen speaker.

Well. It looked like a copy, at least.

A moment passed where the invisible informant mumbled some words under her breath. Then, finally, there was a short cough, and she said, “That seems to match expectations. Toss the scroll to me and I’ll-”

“Like hell. Tell me what we need to know, then you get the scroll.”

There was an uneasy moment as both of them considered the pros and cons of how the next few moments could go. Arwia was finding, with each passing silent moment, greater and greater regret in only bringing a throwing dagger, and the informant was realizing, perhaps, it wouldn’t be wise to irk a human while in human territory.

The full extent of their deliberation took a few minutes, before both realized that, frankly, neither had a winning hand and both were in no position to really argue over something that’d inevitably end with both getting what they wanted to some extent.

“Here,” the unseen speaker finally said, breaking the silence, before a small parcel was chucked towards Arwia’s feet.

Arwia opened the package, read the note, and cracked a grin.

Simple.

“Now, the blueprints. Toss them into the. . .” a few seconds of violent hacking passed before the informant was able to continue, “. . . into the forest.”

A simple baton throw later, and Arwia was happily humming as she started the long walk back to Akkadia.

Perfect.

And the note, carefully tucked into her pocket, simply read:

27th. Meeting of Unicorns. Near the Everfree edge/fort.

Author's Note:

Dun dun daaahhh . . . who's this mysterious pony?

Spoilers . . . it's exactly who you think it is.