No Strings Attached - Chapter Forty-Six

Chapter Forty-Six

55th Day of Spring - Year 1758 of the Golden Era

Shorefarm, Yellowfield, Draya Calyrex

Viridian wanted to look back at the others, but was afraid that doing so might give away their position. She wasn’t sure if... Three was a threat or not, but they might still be one. They were definitely not human, in any case.

Their body, all mechanical and colourful, but still opened in a few places to reveal gears and small cords threaded into pulleys, wasn’t organic at all, as far as she could tell. A puppet? Just like herself.

“What are you doing here, Three?” she asked.

“Oh? I’m lost lost lost,” the automaton said as it slumped. “You see, my troupe and I were travelling the land when all of a sudden... oh, woe, oh woe! Oh what terrible woe! But our guards were driven to madness, our troupe leader, the venerable Mister Smiles went red in the face and sprung horns from his head, and then the animals went nuts!”

“I see,” Viridian said. “Where were you when this happened?”

The automaton spun, their torso twisting all the way around so that they could point down the road they’d come from. “That’a way! I believe the sun rose and set, and rose and set, and the rose and set once more since I saw the last of my troupe.”

“So... three days,” Viridian said.

“Or more.”

“Or more?” 

Three splayed their hands open, revealing only three fingers to a hand. “I’m not good at maths.”

“Okay,” Viridian said. “What do you want to do now? And... are you a boy or a girl?”

The automaton’s eyes, which were surprisingly lidded, clicked open and shut, then they spun towards her. “Ah! A boy...” they reached back and plucked a bowler hat from within the carriage. They placed it on their head. “A boy!” The hat was twisted, and suddenly there were two. They held the hats over their chest in a crude imitation of breasts. “Or a girl... Ah ah ah! But I am neither! For I... am a joke!” Their arms spread wide, and from the inside of the hats came a small burst of confetti which rained down onto the road.

“Okay,” Viridian said. She made a mental note of that.

“Not one for circuses, are you?” the clown asked.

“I don’t think so. But I like your hats.”

“Why thank you! I have many a costume and disguise here. Perhaps I can put on a one-cart show for you my dear! Ah, but I’m getting ahead of myself. You asked what I want to do now and I’m afraid I haven’t the faintest!”

“You don't know what to do next,” Viridian confirmed.

“Not a solitary clue! Not one, and not two!”

Viridian finally gave in and surreptitiously glanced back towards the bushes on the roadside that hid her companions. She met Lazur’s eyes, and the other puppet shrugged.

“Maybe we can help, then,” Viridian said. “We are staying in a town just down the road. We saw you coming, and came to meet you, but we can lead you back.”

Maybe the sailors would appreciate the clown’s entertainment. She was kind of curious about the costumes herself.

“I see, but I doubt my troupe is there,” they said.

“They’re not,” Viridian confirmed. “But Magus Maldrak will return soon. He is very smart.”

“A magus, you say? Well well well! Lead the way. My faithful steed shall pull me onwards! I’d invite you along to ride in my humble abode, but I’m expressly forbidden from allowing non-troupe members within.”

“Why?” Viridian asked.

“A child was once eaten by my cogs and gears,” the clown said. Then they removed their face and replaced it with one that had a cheeky smile painted on. “I jest!”

Viridian wasn’t sure about this clown, but they didn’t seem too dangerous. In any case, she was going to ask Magus Nocthorn to look at it first, and maybe Artificer Woodbone. “Come on out, I think it’s safe,” she called.

Carnel grumbled as she stepped out from the brush, a boarding axe in each hand. “Boring,” she complained. “But we probably wouldn’t get any essence from this one.”

“Oh my! More audience members!” Three said.

“Hello,” Lazur said. “Was that magic that made these?” She bent down and scooped up a few pieces of paper confetti off the ground.

“Yes! The magic of sleight of hand!” Three said.

“Nevermind, then,” Lazur replied.

Three switched their face back to their original smiling visage, the other sliding into a clever seam on the side of their top that opened into a small compartment in their chest. “So many automaton cousins,” they said. “You’re not the first I met, and yet in all of my time in the troupe, we were usually an uncommon sight!”

“We’re not the first automata you’ve met?” Viridian asked.

“Oh, no no nope!” Three said. They folded themselves back into the carriage, then their upper body popped out of a hole at the front where they could see where they were going. A slap of the reins and the mechanical horse at the front started to move its legs, all four clumsily trying to grip to the road. 

“Well?” Lazur asked. “Where did you see others?”

“Oh, here and there,” Three said. “A few days before I lost my troupe, when things were starting to be strange, we encountered a group of them wandering on a road. I believe it was on the road between Doomeadow and Fort Centaden. A gaggle of automata came shambling along. They stank, at least according to those in the troupe blessed with noses. Undead, I think, or something made from the once-living, unlike us fine artificial gentlemen and gentleladies and gentlejokes!”

“What did they do?” Viridian asked.

“I recall thinking that they would accost us as bandits and highwaymen, and they seemed armed enough to do so, but no no no, they were led by a man on a horse, wearing strange garb from head to toe and even atop the head and around the toes. He guided them by, and that was that.”

That was strange. Probably. “Was that normal?” Viridian asked. She wasn’t sure. Maybe groups of stinking undead automatons were common.

“No! Not that I recall. But this is the magical land of Draya Calyrex! The unusual is common, the fantastical merely unusual, and the legendary happens once in a while.”

“Anything else?” Carnel asked. “I mean... did you see anything else on the way here?”

The clownish puppet seemed to think on it for a moment before replying. “Strange wild animals, braver than before. Heaps of dead birds. A pack of wild mutts the size of small horses. They came about and gave me a good sniff and growl, but ran off eventually. Though I think one urinated on my wheels.”

Viridian looked over at the one crooked wheel. It did have bite marks on it, now that she was looking.

They were, fortunately, not too far from the village. A glance up at the lighthouse as they approached and she caught a glint of light off a spyglass, then flags flew, and when they rounded a corner and started down a slight slope towards the village, it was to be greeted by a half-dozen sailors who looked like they weren’t certain if things were going to break out into a fight or not.

“Stay here,” Viridian said to Three and her companions before she walked closer. She found the same sailor that had spoken to her earlier and flagged him down. “Can you tell Magus Nocthorn that we need to talk? And maybe Artificer Woodbone?”

“Sure thing,” the man said. “Which Woodbone? Senior, or junior?”

“Either,” Viridian said.

“Alright. Keep an eye on that thing, it’s not natural,” he advised before running off. He walked strangely and ran as if his britches were too tight. It was something she noticed a lot of the sailors doing when on dry ground.

Viridian returned to the cart and started to talk to Three about costumes while they waited. The troupe, it seemed, had a large number of performers at one time, and they enjoyed putting on plays, which of course required costumes of all sorts.

“I don’t carry the dragon costumes, that’s Four, and I don’t carry the monsters, that’s Six. What I do carry are costumes of fools and jesters, noblemen and nobleladies, and of course heroic adventurers and dastardly villains!”

“That’s very nice,” Viridian said. “Can you mend and make costumes too?”

“I know my way around a bit of needlework,” they said.

Viridian nodded. “Can you help us, then? We are mostly naked.”

“I don’t mind,” Carnel said.

“We really need the help,” Viridian continued. “I don’t enjoy this feeling, but I don’t have too much to work with.”

Magus Nocthorn was coming down the road by the time the clown replied. “I wouldn’t mind helping you at all! A favour for a favour keeps our bellies full.”

“We don’t have bellies,” Carnel said.

“It’s an expression!”

***