Castle Kingside

Chapter 110: Of Faeries and Potassium Nitrate

Three thousand strides south of Dumitrys coastal outpost, a sole candle flickered in the cellar of a collapsed cottage, casting dancing shadows across stone brick walls black with age and abandonment. A repurposed fishing net split the underground chamber in two. On one side were icky, nasty faeries jamming their fingers into mesh holes and taunting their esteemed teacher with nonsensical shrieks and hisses.

On the other side was Precious. She inhaled a dusty and stale breath. Today, her aim was civilizing beasts. Faeries were little more than pests, plaguing the world of man with beguiling whispers in the night, swindling them of their sanity and lives just to lay eggs on still-warm corpses. Precious would change that. Through flawless and, frankly, genius effort, she would reform the yucky and become the savior of her kind. No longer would humans swat her away on sight. People would revere her as the tamer of the unconquerable as they bowed at her feet, a lucky few getting the chance to kiss her golden toenails.

Precious stepped past the pile of leaves Loudmouth had left behind as feed and towards the dividing net. Her arms pressed to her hips as her steadfast gaze traversed the grimy faces of three dozen faeries. Listen well, my uncultured brethren. Many call me Precious the great, but you may simply refer to me as Precious the enlightened. I have come to free you from the shackles of your ignorance. Though you are too verbally incompetent to thank me now, someday you will. Youre welcome.

One faerie mockingly wiped her muddy butt against the net while three more gathered soot from a brick fireplace and tossed them at their benevolent teacher.

Precious shielded her face, yet black and gray particles caught in her nose and throat. She choked.

The faeries took to the air and hooted with glee.

Anger welled within Precious as she rubbed debris from her eyes, and though she yearned to lash back, Dimitry promised her clout in society if she succeeded. These idiots would only grow more motivated if she gave in to the mockery. She swallowed her discontent. You dummies are lucky I know youre too dumb to know what youre doing wrong. I was like you once, thinking that terrifying a farmers child by yelling into their ear while they sleep is funny. But its not. Its because of you that humans try to kill me without

A child so young that his black hair and lashes had not yet bloomed gold shoved fingers into the corners of his mouth and made farting noises with his tongue. Three more followed his lead to form a mocking chorus.

Dum my, another sounded out. Dum-my. Dummy! Dummy!

Im not the dummy. Youre the dum

Dummy!

Dummy, dummy!

Under siege by a barrage of insults, Precious teetered back. Faeries rarely lived long enough to master a language. Most roamed the wilds, mimicking the cries of birds and beasts until their prey or another faerie tore off their wings and left them to die, while the few that ventured into a village mindlessly repeated the first phrase they heard, meeting their death at the hands of an enraged peasant or the Church before they could learn its meaning.

Dummy!

Dummy!

But these faeries quickly learned the meaning of dummy.

It stung.

Precious felt small. Outnumbered. Before she could regain her composure, the faeries sensed the chink in her emotions and swarmed in flight, purple and orange and striped violet wings buzzing against the net, wicked voices erupting into snickers and giggles and rip-roaring laughter as if to frighten a mob of wild horses into stampeding off a cliff.

Dummy!

Precious kicked a nearby pile of wilting willow leaves. I have you trapped. I control the food. I can make all of you starve. Now stop it!

Dumb dumb dummy!

Youre dumb and stupid and ugly and dumb!

Dummy!

Duuuuummyyyyy!

Thirty shrill voices repeatedly attacked Precious, each insulting digging deeper and striking harder. The sinking feeling in her belly became a bottomless bog. And then she could bear it no longer.

Precious drifted up to the sconce, extinguished the wick of the candle on top, and as dummies continued to sound in the crushing dark, she left the cellar through a gap in the rubble.

Glazing over the inventory report Claricia had delivered to him hours earlier, Dimitry impatiently tapped the desks oaken surface. Those in his army who were once professional coopers worked alongside lumberjacks to craft barrels. Former charcoal burners stacked willow logs within dirt mound kilns and burned them into charcoal. Herbalists foraged for hardy winter fibers that weavers threaded into fuses. Every supply chain necessary for manufacturing bombs and naval mines was in placeall except for one: potassium nitrate.

The chemical comprised the bulk of black powder by mass. Without potassium nitrate, Dimitry couldnt arm the myrmidon with explosives, nor could his soldiers load firearms; a crippling setback thatd force the Hospitallers to abandon the coast and retreat. How would he explain to his troops and a hesitant populace that the western expansion had failed?

Dimitry hoped he wouldnt have to. This morning, he sent a courier to Malten to recall a farmer and some chemists. His employees. They had stayed behind to work on specialized tasks, but with the Sorceress Guilds sudden notice of departure, Dimitry needed them here now. They were vital for the industrial-scale production of black powder.

So he waited. And waited. After half a day of sitting around, Dimitry began fantasizing about the construction of an expedient transport network between here and Malten. Sadly, neither engines nor motors existed in this world, and securing a highway that stretched past a dozen miles of deserted forest was no less a ludicrous endeavor.

He stood up to stretch his spinesore from sitting on a crude oak chair the army carpenters had madeand the deoxygenated blood pooling in the veins of his lower limbs returned to his heart, restoring comfort to his prickly legs.

The sudden movement awoke the command tents only other inhabitant. Forehead red from sleeping on the manual containing Mira and Richters combined military knowledge, Angelika stretched her arms across the table. Hey.

Afternoon.

Still here?

Unfortunately.

That sucks, she yawned. Her face rolled onto the other cheek. Guess all you can do is wait. Might as well take it easy.

Thats what Im doing, relaxing and watching in admiration as my most promising officer toils away at her studies. I almost feel guilty sitting around while youre hard at work. Truly an inspiration to us all.

Angelika clicked her teeth. Slumping back in her chair, she picked up the manual and lazily flipped past the leather cover. I was just reflecting on what I read.

Uh-huh.

Defensive square and hedgehogs and stuff like that.

I dont remember seeing those in there, Dimitry said.

Like an underachieving high school jock whose coach discovered her failing grades, Angelikas shoulders slumped. Ill get through it eventually.

Dimitry doubted her claim. The girl had spent all afternoon glancing at the first page only to get distracted by the scab on her elbow, marching troops that sang off-key cadence verses outside, and picking her nose. Anything thatd keep her from studying. Even now, Angelika pushed the manual aside and stared past him.

Im back, a tiny voice said.

Alarmed by a familiar voice brandishing an uncharacteristic gloom, Dimitry turned around.

Precious shuffled forward, not taking a moment to wipe away the grime that clung to her layered white gown from when she crawled through a gap between the tent and the frozen ground it lay on. Her head hung low, and her green wings melted over her shoulders like a depressing mantle. So tired.

Tell me about it, Angelika said. I could use a nap.

Though he had never been a father, paternal instinct gripped Dimitry. He gently cupped the creature in his hands and brushed her off with his thumbs. Did anyone discover you on your way here? What happened?

Faeries are dummies. No matter how I try to convince them, they just make fun of me.

That bad, huh?

First thing I learned on the job, Angelika said, is that you cant take peoples shit. When the troops dont get up on time or skip out on training, Ill shout in their ears a good while and eat their lunch and supper right in front of them. Promise theyll never fuck around again.

Precious shook her head. They rather starve if itll make me mad.

Domesticating faeries proved to be tougher than Dimitry had hoped. He assumed that the Churchs teachings fueled the disconnect between corrupted creatures and humans, compromising interspecies cooperation, but if Precious looked like a bright-eyed suburban teacher destroyed after a day of instructing inner-city kids, temperament was a more pressing issue. A problem Dimitry had little patience for.

Faeries could fly, allowing them to locate heathen raids before they struck. Perfect scouts for the upcoming Nights of Repentance. The sooner he integrated them into his army, the fewer troops would sustain injuries from lacking information. But a humane approach did not seem to work.

Angelikas right, Dimitry said. Let them starve.

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Precious glanced up at him with watery golden irises peeking out from under equally golden bangs. I cant be the glamorous leader of the faeries if theyre all dead!

I never said to let them starve to death.

Go on.

When humans go hungry long enough, theyll eat mud or grass to satiate the emptiness. Since theyre humanoids and need to eat, I imagine faeries get desperate, too.

Ive never eaten mud, but when its late in the winter and there arent any berries or leaves around, I sneak into villages to munch on thatch roofs. Sometimes theres mold and it tastes nasty.

Perfect. Thats the starvation state you want to put the faeries in. Then, you condition them.

Condition them?

Give them food whenever they behave, but never enough that theyre full. Psychologists, really smart people, call that a continuous schedule of reinforcement. If you keep faeries hungry, theyll keep behaving to get more.

Angelika jumped out of her chair. Think thatll work for soldiers as well?

I know what youre thinking. Dont.

Just curious.

Legs folded and arms resting on her lap, Precious blinked tenderly, hanging on to Dimitrys every word like a star pupil.

He continued. But continuous reinforcement wont work forever. Faeries are clever. Theyll game the system. Once you feel like theyre taking advantage of you, behaving only when they need food, you move on to an intermittent schedule.

Whats that?

Dont reward them every time they comply. Just sometimes. Keep the faeries guessing. Like miniature gamblers, theyll behave constantly to maximize their chances of getting a reward.

Thats fucking brutal, Angelika said. Did Zera teach you that?

A genius named Skinner did. And seriously, dont do this to the troops.

The girl exhaled through flared nostrils. I wasnt gonna.

Precious stood up and thrust out her chest thrust as if ready to take on the world. Ill try again.

Pride surged within Dimitry. Was this how parents felt when they watched their kids recover from one of lifes many slumps? Just dont starve them too long. Only until you can teach them basic societal norms. The little rascals need tough love, but they have feelings too. Understood?

Leave it to me.

I know you can do it.

Im coming too, Angelika said.

Precious walked off alone. Loudmouth, youll just get angry and motivate them.

Wont.

Will.

Dimitry leaned back in his chair, stroking his chin. Did Angelika gain an interest in psychology, or was she merely procrastinating from her duties? The answer was obvious. Still, the girl deserved a break. If you want to go with Precious, smuggle her out of the camp. I wont risk her being seen. Not yet.

It was night when they came. Lanterns banished the endless dark from atop creaking carts, flooding layered footprints in the snow and the thinning forest canopy above with light.

First to emerge from between the trunks of naked oaks was a man whose gray hair belied his youthful features, aged only by a burn scar stretching from his jaw to under the rugged woolen scarf entombing his neck. At the sight of Dimitry and his guard of thirty halberdiers, Clewin exhaled a relieved sigh, then knelt and raised an upturned hand to Celeste.

The chemists apprentices caught up soon after. Last month there were three. Now, twelve men and women rushed to form a line. They dropped the handles of their handcartscontents hidden beneath canvas tarpsand greeted the apostle with reverent praise like their master.

Dimitry wasnt a fan of pious displays; they did little more than remind him of the lies he cast to those he strove to help. However, after waiting a day and one half more for his employees to arrive, their faithful postures filled him with a glee he could hardly suppress. He stepped forward and patted Clewin on the shoulder. How was the trip?

Cold and weary, Your Holiness, but the discomfort will soon pass. The young man rubbed his hands, eagerness apparent from his broad smile. Is Claricia around?

So that was what empowered Clewin with the will to trek from Malten to the coast. His wife. Though Dimitry was happy for the lonely spouse and wished him the best for the reward he sought to claim, another matter concerned him. Im sure shell be thrilled to see you, Dimitry said, glancing past Clewin and his apprentices, but where are the rest of you?

A snag in the road. Jescos barrow got stuck not far back, and both sorceresses are with him while he gets it loose. Should be here soon.

Perfect. Everyone made it. Dimitrys ambitions could manifest at last. Did you do as I asked?

Course! Clewin grinned. We scrubbed the church until every last grain of black powder, holy sand, and saltpeter was gone. Its like we were never there.

Dimitry nodded with approval. On the Night of Repentance, thugs raided the chemistry lab in search of explosives. They might strike again. To prevent the secret from leaking to his adversaries, he had Clewin remain behind and remove all traces of black powder from Malten. From now on, assailants would have to infiltrate the coastal outpost and over one thousand armed soldiers to catch a glimpse of its manufacture. And the other project?

Got it all right here. Clewin stood up and weaved between handcarts, peeling away their tarps. Some contained jagged sandstone pyramids. Others, punctured shell fragments; obscure tissues that had once belonged to a deceased heathen a third the size of Maltens castle.

Dimitry harvested the organs from a carapaced devil last month. Hoping to uncover a weakness, he had instructed his head chemist to perform everything from hardness tests to corrosion and safety experiments on every unique piece of flesh.

Not that Dimitry expected much in the way of results. His facilities lacked the simplest scientific instruments. Even graduated cylinders and condensers were out of his reach. They were problems he hoped to remedy with an upcoming joint magic and science research institutea colossal undertaking involving hundreds of personnel who would study not only biology and chemistry but also corrupted modified enchantments, heathens, and the spaces where each subject intersected. A possibility now that he had vast land and manpower resources. Just thinking about the project sent shivers down Dimitrys spine.

He paced himself. The mass production of black powder came first. There would never be a research institute if heathens trampled the coast. Dimitry motioned his troops to guide Clewin and his apprentices through the outpost, but his arm stopped halfway.

A cart containing sheets of gelatin-like blubber caught his eye. They too were once carapaced devil organs, yet one among them stood out.

Dimitry lifted a slab resembling hard, translucent resin. Whats this?

Heathen gel, Clewin said. We scorched that one to see whatd happen.

Plastic was all Dimitry could think as he gripped the stiff, dehydrated tissue and palpated its smooth surface with outstretched thumbs. Its safe?

The chickens and rats seemed alright being around it.

Plastic. Plastic. IV bags, waterproofing, construction materials. The possibilities were without end. Ill hold on to this. Dimitry pointed to a squad of a dozen soldiers. See that they reunite with their families and get comfortable. Ill call for them soon.

Exhilarated like a child rummaging through gifts beneath the Christmas tree, Clewin almost skipped after his guides, and the apprentices followed, dragging along handcarts whose dangling lanterns drowned in the incandescence of towering bonfires.

As Dimitry examined the organ, wondering if his craftsmen could mold it somehow, the last visitors approached. Two mounted sorceresses flanked a man who pushed a wagon with barren axles through trodden snow. It was Jesco, the head of Dimitrys crop hybridization project. For the past month, the sharecropper had been breeding seeds in a time-accelerated greenhouse, hoping to produce high-yield strains of wheat and samulfood crops that supplied the bulk of the worlds caloric needs.

F-forgive me, madm, Jescos pleas became audible as he neared.

Disgruntled like an aircraft passenger sat beside a shrieking infant throughout a transcontinental flight, the elder of the two sorceresses shoved him forward. Dont stop to apologize. Keep walking.

Sorry!

Stop again and youll truly be sorry.

Perhaps shivering with fear rather than from the cold, Jesco parked his wagon beside Dimitry in silence. He knelt.

Both sorceresses dismounted and displayed the same courtesy.

Dimitry wondered what Jesco had done wrong, but felt it inappropriate to ask. Appreciate the help, ladies. Care to warm up and grab something to eat before you go back? We have salted caviar.

We are obliged, Your Holiness. Holding the reins of their horses, the sorceresses strode into the camp.

Jescos shoulders relaxed as they left. He looked up at Dimitry with the smile of a proud kindergartener who waited all day to show off the macaroni necklace he had made. Your Holiness sir. It worked like ya said it would.

What did?

After digging through the deep pockets of his layered cotton overalls, Jesco revealed a decapitated wheat stalk with missing grains. Big grains. Cross-pollinization.

Dimitry held the stalk to torchlight, illuminating its crisp, golden hues in shades of red. You grew that?

Bestest of the lot! Harvested it last night.

So this was the crown jewel of the F1 generation. While the yield couldnt compete with the modern varieties grown on Earth, compared to the wheat strains he saw while riding through the endless fields of the Amalthean Kingdom, these grains were marginally larger and fuller. A slight improvement with grand implications.

According to Saphiria, eighty percent of Remoras inhabitants were farmers. They had to be. Even when planted at full capacity, food crops were a scarce resource that could barely feed those who grew them. But what if harvests multiplied? A mere ten percent increase in yield could free millions of peasants from farm work, allowing them to train as artisans, engineers, and teachers. What about twenty percent? Thirty? If wheat could improve so much in a single generation, how would the world look after every vital crop underwent dozens of generations of hybridization?

Dimitry needed to make the hybridization operation scalable. A sole greenhouse on the cathedrals top floor wasnt enough. While the combination of hastia, accelall, illumina, and incendia worked agricultural miracles, space was limited, and enchantments were expensive to weave and maintain, fading by the day.

Greenhouses that did not rely on magic were the solution. However, while Dimitry might have had workers to manage them and land to build them, he lacked one fundamental resource: clear glass. The people of this world did not know how to produce it, and neither did Dimitry.

But he did have an unattuned relic. It remained from the time Dimitry plundered Wairas cache. If it scoured his memories for clues on how to manufacture clear glass, perhaps the glass workers in his army could fill in the gaps. Greenhouses were a possibility, as were microscopes and plentiful chemistry wares. He would consider it.

Your Holiness sir, ya alright?

Fine, Dimitry said, just impressed with how well youve done. Maybe its time you got your own apprentices.

Mouth agape, Jesco stared at him like a deer at an oncoming truck. Apprentices? Ya mean like Clewin? What for?

Well talk about it later. Dimitry walked away. Come on, theres work to do.

W-wait, a broken voice called after him. Aint I gonna get to rest like everyone else?

In a deforested field on the outposts northern outskirts, men and women gathered around a clay-floored pit large enough to bury a mid-size sedan. Shovels glinted in the firelight, swooping from all sides, tossing soil until a waist-high layer of brown coated the base. Then came troops hauling barrels filled with the accumulated waste of countless soldiers, gathered from under portable latrines for this very moment. Urine-soaked feces formed the second layer, and wood ashes followed shortly to suffocate the stench in a sprinkling of white.

Jesco topped off the grotesque concoction with a mixture of withering leaves, dead branches, and wood chippingsthe byproduct of construction projects from around the campsitethen kicked a barrel whose dark amber liquid contents reeked of highly concentrated urine. Now we water it with dung-water and pee for about a year, then the fertilizer should be ready.

Unfortunately, Dimitry didnt have a year. Nor was he producing fertilizer. Though he might one day use a similar blend to grow hybrid crops in a long field of greenhouses, tonight he strove to make potassium nitrate. It was a method he recalled from the relic containing black powder knowledge: American soldiers mixed wood ashes with urine and feces to create enough potassium nitrate to fight the civil war.

That was all he had to work with. Dimitry didnt know the precise chemistry, nor did he know what steps came next. All he knew was that the process probably resembled composting. Jescos agricultural skills shed a glint of light on the mystery, but only biochemical guesswork could take Dimitry the rest of the way.

As urine contained nitrogen-rich urea and the end product was potassium nitrate, nitrification reactions must have been involved. The work of nitrifying bacteria. If Jesco was right that the decomposition process would last a year, the sluggish metabolic rates of fecal microbes were to blame.

Normally, the temporal bottleneck would have put an end to Dimitrys ambitions. He needed potassium nitrate within days, not months. But fortunately, he had magic.

Dimitry lifted a timber beam as tall as himself and passed it to Jesco. Plant the bottom end into the compost pile, and hammer it in on my command.

Why?

Youll see. Dimitry glanced over his shoulder. Katerina, youre up.

A young woman whose onyx irises gleamed in a roaring bonfires embers stepped closer. All Sorceress Guild expeditions included enchantresses to enchant munitions and armor, and Katerina was one of two assigned to his outpost. Give me the word, Your Holiness.

Weave the beam with witheria.

Are we brewing poison?

Her question was not without merit. During Dimitrys time in Ravenfall, a witheria enchanted crossbow bolt had lodged itself into his friends shoulder, rotting the wound into a gray husk within momentsan infection that progressed hundreds of times faster than normal. Its uses were injurious. The people of this world had every reason to consider witheria a weapon.

From Dimitrys perspective, however, the spell was the opposite of preservia. Instead of stifling the metabolic activity and proliferation of bacteria, witheria accelerated both processes by an insane degree. He hypothesized the same effect could compress the year-long timescale of microbial nitrification into mere days. Hours.

Even the heartiest cure can be a deadly poison, Dimitry said. The reverse is also true.

I will not attempt to argue against Zeras wisdom. Katerina held out her palm, and a purple glow choked the beam, bright like the letters of a purple neon sign. Its done.

Now, Dimitry said.

Leaning back to avoid the enchantments area of effect, Jesco picked up a log with calloused hands and pummeled the beam until it pierced the compost pile and wedged into the clay floor below. The bright magic vanished into a heap of organic waste.

All night, troops took turns stirring the foul mixture and pouring concentrated urine, boiled to a fraction of its original volume to avoid spilling over while retaining the entire nitrogen contents. The putrid stench of raw sewage and condensed urea slowly waned as a dark and starry sky rotated into the gray of dawn.

Jesco took samples throughout the process, and at noon, he turned to Dimitry with a dumbfounded expression. The composts still moist but I think its done.

Dimitry did not celebrate. Only the successful extraction of potassium nitrate could guarantee his colonys survival. He dismissed Jesco and the otherswho promptly left to bathe in heated seawaterand retrieved a chemist reluctant to leave his wifes pavilion tent.

Clewin and his apprentices converted a half-built shed into a spotless laboratory within minutes. Under Dimitrys guidance, they mixed a bucket of fertilizer with boiling water, then filtered the solution through a fabric sheet, removing the rotten remnants of sticks among other large impurities.

The product was a green glass beaker full of blackened water, discolored by microscopic contaminants. Even if the liquid contained dissolved potassium nitrate as Dimitry had hoped, evaporating away the water now would crystallize an impure product.

For that, he had a simple solution: activated charcoal. In the emergency room, it was a medicine that treated intoxicated patients by impeding the absorption of poison through their stomachs. In the lab, it was a decolorizing agent. While Dimitry didnt know how to make it, he didnt need to. The people of this world were way ahead of him. Clewin, a former apothecary, prepared the black powder alongside the colonys many charcoal burners and scooped a spoonful into the beaker. Within a few minutes of swirling, the solution turned clear.

The colored impurities were gone.

Praying to Zera and Thor and Odin and the Ghost of Christmas Past for a pleasant result, Dimitry poured the liquid onto an iron tray and hovered above, watching with bated breath as the excess liquid evaporated away.

And it did.

Slowly. Tauntingly. Leisurely.

After an hour that had passed slower than tar and the addition of an incendia enchanted surface to expedite the process, the first crystal formed. Clewin and his apprentices gasped at a process that might as well have been Zeras bidding.

Dimitry placed the transparent mineral on an outstretched finger, its jagged edges shimmering in incendias red glow. Was that it? Potassium nitrate?

Only a test could tell for sure.

Heart pounding in his ears, Dimitry stood by the wall and pretended all was under control while Clewin gathered crystals and blended them with sulfur and charcoal. The makeshift black powder was complete.

They lit a spark.

The powder did not ignite.

It wasnt potassium nitrate.

A dozen unsure glances shot towards Dimitry, who stood still, massaging his brow as dread rushed down his spine, colder than the day a biopsy confirmed his cancer diagnosis. Where did he go wrong? Were the urine and feces ratios off? What if nitrifying bacteria didnt operate in this world as they did on Earth? How would his troops defend themselves against heathens without black powder?

His anxiety showed only through trembling hands as he walked up and gripped the tray. On top was a central splatter of clear liquid with jagged crystals around the edges. Everything he had worked for. Useless.

And then he saw it.

A sole long and sharp crystal formed at the waters edge, different from the others. Could that have been another chemical? Dimitry dipped a stirrer into the water, and more such crystals formed, blossoming like needle teeth around the glass rods sides. Clewin! Once more!

The chemist prepared another batch of black powder and lit a spark. This time, it ignited.

Potassium nitrate!

Dimitrys knees went weak with relief as those around him realized they had just produced saltpetera luxurious preservativefrom piss and shit.

How? Clewin uttered, sweeping back his gray hair.

Ideas flooded Dimitrys mind. He would streamline the operation. Expand it. For his aims, he would need more potassium nitrate than all the waste in his colony could ever provide. A citys worth, perhaps. Well discuss that along the way. Lets go.