The Autumn Republic

Her face split into a grin. “Uncle SouSmith! It’s me, Little Flerring. My dad’s Flerring the Fist.”

SouSmith’s fists slowly uncurled. “This is that Flerring?” He snorted. “You’re all grown up, Little.”

She grinned back at him. “Been, what, ten years? People grow up in that time. I haven’t seen any of the old crew since Dad moved us out here to start the powder company.”

“Never took Flerring for a chemist,” SouSmith said.

“Mom does most of the headwork. Dad does the mixing-well, he did anyway. Lost both his hands in an explosion two years ago. He oversees a dozen mixers now and runs the place while Mom is in Fatrasta.”

Adamat stepped up beside SouSmith and leaned on his cane. “Do you think we could see your father?”

“You’re not bringing us trouble, are you, SouSmith?”

SouSmith looked at Adamat, and Adamat drummed his fingers on his cane. Impossible to tell. If Flerring made the blasting oil, he could very well be complicit in the attempt on Ricard’s life. Not that they had to know that. Adamat shook his head. “Just chasing a lead. You probably won’t hear from us after today.”

Flerring gave a nod and opened one of the double doors that led into the building. “Careful what you touch,” she said, “We don’t keep a lot of powder in the main building, but you can never be too careful.”

They entered what looked to have once been an immense stable capable of housing almost a hundred head of horses. The stalls were filled with raw materials, their doors marked in white chalk telling what was stored inside. They passed dozens of them filled with barrels and boxes of sulfur, saltpeter, charcoal, glycerol, nitric acid. Everything was packed in sawdust and straw, which was strewn all about the place.

“This looks incredibly unsafe,” Adamat commented.

“We keep everything separate,” Little Flerring said. “None of the ingredients are particularly dangerous on their own.”

“Lots of straw. Seems an immense fire risk.”

“No flames allowed within fifty feet of the building. We do all our work during the light of the day.”

Adamat noticed she had left her blunderbuss outside. It did seem they were quite careful. “What can you tell me about blasting oil?”

“I’ll let Dad do that,” she said, pausing beside one of the stalls. She gestured inside to a makeshift office.

An old man sat at an all-too-small desk in one corner. He was bent over with age, his hair gone gray, but he still had shoulders half a hand wider than SouSmith’s. The outer-stall wall had been given a large window, and the man hunched over a book. Adamat instantly noted the man’s hands-or, that is, the lack thereof. Immense arms now ended in iron caps. One had a dual hook for grasping, and the other a flat piece of steel in the shape of a paddle.

“Dad, you’ve got guests,” Little Flerring shouted. “Dad!” She gave SouSmith and Adamat an apologetic look. “He’s very hard of hearing.”

“Eh?” The big man turned toward them. At the sight of strangers he got to his feet, and Adamat almost took a step back. Flerring the Elder-Flerring the Fist-was immense. He towered over Adamat and made even SouSmith look regular-sized. The left side of his face was burned and scarred, making it look lopsided when he smiled. “Is that SouSmith?” he asked loudly.

“Fist,” SouSmith said, nodding.

“Fist?” Flerring shook his handless arms at SouSmith. “Not so much anymore.” He gave a long, almost mechanical chortle.

The two big men made their greetings and Adamat introduced himself. Flerring the Elder led the whole group around the corner to part of the barn where the stalls had been removed and a comfortable sitting area installed, including several sofas, armchairs, and the entrance to an ice cellar, into which Little Flerring disappeared, only to emerge a moment later with a bottle. She poured them all chilled wine while her father talked.

“Blasting oil,” the big man said, shaking his head. “It was our first big discovery. We’ve done well over the years, creating specialized powder for the Adran army and the Brudania-Gurla Trading Company, but blasting oil was going to make us stupid rich.”

Adamat sat up at the mention of Claremonte’s company. “You do business with the Trading Company?”

“Everyone does,” Flerring said. “And you’re naïve to think they don’t. The company is our biggest source of saltpeter. We have other sources, of course, but they control just about all the import business. Where was I? Oh, yes. Blasting oil.”

“Can you tell me about it?”

“Eh?”

Adamat repeated his question loudly.

“It’s a liquid mix of…”-Flerring paused-“Well, I’m not gonna give out trade secrets.”

“I understand,” Adamat said sympathetically. “What can you tell me without giving up too much? Does it explode similarly to gunpowder?”

“It’s a high-velocity explosive. Far more destructive than gunpowder. It doesn’t take much, either. A glass ball or tube of the stuff no bigger than my stub here”-Flerring wagged one arm-“is enough to crack stone. We planned on revolutionizing the mining industry with it. Just didn’t work out in the end.”