Project Empress 005

 (Chapter 3 continued)

A couple of hours later, Cara had closed up shop and had followed Natalie back to Bacchus’ Barrel, the same place where they´d had their after fight meal the night before. 

The door was closed. The sign on the door proclaimed that the wine bar was closed.

Natalie banged on the door. First just a few raps with her fist, followed shortly by some serious bangs, then two or three kicks. She considered her options for a short moment, then decided on using the steel capped end of her journeyman staff to smash it against the door. 

Cara observed the situation with increasing alarm. She was both trying to catch Natalie’s attention while at the same time miming her non-involvement with the situation as the few passers-by looked at them in terror and as Natalie was obviously busy vandalising an ancient door of historical importance their gazes wandered over to Cara demanding answers.

After an embarrassing eternity the door swung open, Walter, cast iron skillet in hand, exploding out of it and almost directly into Natalie’s staff, his eyes growing wide, he instantly pulled his body back trying to turn away from the staff. His hand shot up placing the pan into the closing gap between the staff and his nose. The iron tip, scratched over the heavy pans surface letting sparks fly. As Natalie’s staff lost its momentum, Walter slowly straightened up again, inhaling, his broad chest expanding, his free hand grabbing hold of the staff moving it out of the way, while the skillet hovered menacingly next to his head.

When he spoke his voice was cold and where his words reached they covered everything with frost. “Are. You. Fucking. Insane.”, he said looking Natalie in her eyes. Cara had to force herself not to step away. If need be she had to defend her new master, no matter how afraid she was. 

Even Natalie, who usually went to great lengths to show the world how she had not a single fuck to give about anything, visibly deflated. Her smile was all teeth and awkwardness. 

“Oopsie?”, she ventured.

“Nat?”, Walter barked, his eyes bulging out of their sockets. “Is there a reason why you are trying to murder my door, my nose and my patience?”

Natalie was about to answer, when Walter added. “And my patience is almost dead already…”

“We need to use your garden?”, Natalie said.

“Good for you, but that doesn’t answer my question…”

“Er…”, Natalie shifted her stance slightly to try to pull her staff back, it didn’t budge. “I knocked on your door, because I wanted to ask you if we could use your garden. And as the normal knocks didn’t work I gradually increased the intensity.” The last few words came out more slowly as Natalie was considering each one of them carefully while trying to gauge Walter’s reaction to each of them.

Walter sighed. He relaxed, let go of Natalie’s staff. Cara noted that although Natalie had been pulling to get her staff back, she barely moved when it was suddenly released. 

“Nat, do you see this?”, he pointed to a button next to the door.

“Yes.”

“That Natalie, my idiot child is the button that rings the bell of both my restaurant and the one in my flat above it. Why, pray tell, did you not use it?”

“Oh… yeah… because I thought that maybe there wasn´t electricity at this time of the day?”

Walter just pointed to the sign above the store, Natalie looked to where it was pointing, inside the building Walter flipped a switch. The lighting of the sign went of and on again. 

“Oh…”

“Natalie, this thinking thing has been all the rage with the younger orders within the younger classes of mammalians. You should try it one of these days.”

“Or I could just punch them.”, Natalie said with a smile.

Walters shoulders sank, he rubbed his face with one of his hands while considering his next step. 

“You need the garden?”

“Yep, today starts the training of my new apprentice”, Natalie grinned.

Walter raised an eyebrow. “Compared to yesterday you seem to be rather cheerful.”

“Well I already accepted her. I think she shows promise and now that I’ve slept over it I’m all in. Teaching her is following the Path.”, she smiled. 

Walter considered her words, shrugged and said: “Very well, you have,” he checked his watch, “two hours.”

“Why only two hours?”

“Because then it’s dinner time and both of you will have to eat. You can continue with your training afterwards.”

Natalie beamed. “Cheers Walter, that sounds very sensible and modern mammalian style. Come Cara, let’s get to work.”

“Modern mammalian…”, Walter murmured shaking his head, while Nat and Cara paraded past him. 

Cara for her part had missed everything after the point when Natalie had said that she “showed promise”. She hadn’t received such praise for her martial skill… ever. 

She only came back to her senses when she found herself on Walter’s roof top garden. It was warm and humid up there, smelling of aromatic flowers and herbs. Cara focused on her surroundings, realising that she was in a state of the art rooftop green house. The entire structure had enough space for small trees to grow there. The edges were densely populated by a variety of plants growing in a suspiciously intricate pattern, indicating to Cara, that this were self sustaining populations where one plant gave an advantage to the next. This was not all that surprising, especially for the roof above an establishment that also served food. She should have known, really, as the menu contained only a few dishes but used luxurious ingredients for this late in the year. What was far more surprising though was the large middle part of the garden where only flat growing green herbs had been planted. All edible, but it was clear that they had not been planted there for the harvest but to have a large space in which one could firmly move. A level of luxury that Cara had heard about but had never thought she’d ever see let alone set foot in herself.

“Neat isn’t it?”, Natalie said grinning. 

“It’s breathtaking…”, Cara was still trying to get to grips with what she was seeing.

“Right? I mean, Walter has his own secret salle all of his own.”

“Salle? I meant the open space in his garden. He must be really rich…”

“Rich? No,” Natalie laughed, “if Walter was rich, this would be all lawn and there would be servants and shit. Nah. Walter is a man of the blade and a clever one at that, his stratagems were always the best. The plant he grows there don’t mind if you trample them and they are either tasty or are good medicine.” 

“When you are done being impressed by plants existing,” Nat added, “, you can get your sword and get ready.”

This brought Cara back to the present and she started to unpack her things. “Should I change before we start?”, she asked.

“No. I want to see how you move in your everyday clothes.”, Natalie said. “Oh and lesson number one, you should always wear clothes in which you can freely fight.”

“OK.” Cara said, nodding. “She pulled Jeanne D’Arc, her sword out of her backpack and walked to the middle of the green house where she stood, not sure what to do next.

“Go on then.”, Natalie said.

“But you haven’t told me what to do.”

“Yes I did. Move with your sword.”

“But in what way?”, Cara asked, now thoroughly confused.

“I don’t know. It’s you and your sword. Show me your moves. Show me how you strike, how you and your blade move through space.” 

“OK…”, Cara said, still unsure what she was supposed to do. She was used to a kind of training where the master said very clearly which moves the students were to make and how they should do them. So Cara went to her default, moved a few steps forward, a couple backwards. Natalie just watched with a completely neutral expression. ‘Well,’ Cara thought, ‘no complaints is a form of praise.’ and started to add some slashes to her moves. Still Natalie just watched her without showing a reaction, neither good nor bad, and soon Cara was lost in her flow. Striking from above while moving forward, the same with strikes from below, then attacking high and retreating, covering it with slashes from below. It didn’t take long and Cara had forgotten that Natalie was even there and just followed her moves. As she got more and more lost in her own rhythm and motions she began to imagine music playing in the background, something epic and moving, from one of her favourite ancient old orchestral music from the movies of the late 20th and early 21st century. And Cara smiled.

“Huh…”, Natalie said, tilting her head slightly.

“What is it?”, Cara asked, not stopping. She was still busy bashing an enemy with a left right combo over the head, finishing him of with a thrust to the face.

“You move like clockwork”,  Natalie said. There was something in her voice that would have told Cara that  this wasn’t a compliment if it hadn’t flown right over her head. “But a few moves ago something changed.” This, however subtle it may have been, was a compliment, it flew even higher. 

Cara stopped her demonstration, thinking about what had changed. As far as she was concerned, she hadn’t changed anything. Well in her movements at least…

“Um… I did start to imagine music. I sometimes do that when I’m drilling movement patterns.”

“Movement patterns… “ Natalie repeated softly, she hadn’t intended to say it out loud.

“Yeah,” Cara said, “Like the the strikes from above, followed by the stab to the face.”

“Huh? Oh. Yes. I see.”, Natalie’s eyes seemed to focus past Cara and Natalie started pacing around the edges of the garden lost in thought. Cara shrugged and went on with her own training. She took a moment to go through her mental library of music, choosing a good melody and continued.

“Cara!”

Cara was pulled out of her flow of motion by Natalie’s voice.

“Yes?”, Cara said.

“I have a plan now. But first we need to eat.”

“Or”, Cara reasoned, “you can start teaching me now and we have dinner later.”

When she heard this, Natalie grinned broadly. “I love how you think, but we have about 20 minutes to go downstairs and grab a bite to eat before Walter comes up here, murders us and then makes us eat and apologise to him for being a disgrace to all vertebrates.”

Cara was a bit disappointed but, now that she considered the situation, also very hungry.

Project Empress 004

 Chapter 3

Where Cara meets Natalie again, refuses to refuse the call to adventure, enters the world of martial arts (kind of), meets the lord-bishop of Monasteria for worldy reasons and walks “The Path” right through a new rival.

Two days after the encounter with Natalie, Cara was sitting behind the counter at the refurbishing centre where she worked, soldering away on a broken piece of electronics humming to herself. She was in a good mood. She was reminiscing about her training the night before, remedial footwork, again, but she hadn’t had so much fun doing her laps in a while, as this time she was imagining being Natalie, trying to emulate how she had moved when she fought. Of course Master Manfred reprimanded her for leaving the line of attack and reminded her to stay in her lane. She had just nodded and mumbled an apology, walked a few steps as she was told but the moment, Manfred’s was looking into another direction she went back to her experiments. That cost her push-ups… as did the little jump forward she did, just when Manfred had turned around. She had done a lot of push-ups and she still felt them today. Worth it though. 

“Hey.”, Cara had somehow missed that a new customer had entered the shop. ‘There goes my easy Friday afternoon…’, she thought looking up.

“Oh! Hello Natalie.”, Cara said almost dropping the circuit board, she quickly recoverd her composure and her grip. “Do you need help with any old technology?”, she asked, carefully putting away the board and her soldering iron. She got up shifting into ‘professional mode’. 

“In case that you need assistance with a personal electronic device we can repair most of them. You can pay in any of the European currencies with rare items or materials, please see the official list for exchange rates and rest assured that we can bring back most artefacts, Monasteria has one of the largest electronics mines in the region.”, Cara smiled her best service smile and was about to start explaining what needed to be done if Natalie needed help with something larger. 

“Thank you, Cara.”,  Natalie said with with a crooked smile and slightly raised eyebrows. “But I don’t need any assistance, with any small artefacts.”

“No?”

“Nope.”

Natalie looked at Cara, Cara looked back expectantly. Natalie’s half smile began to falter. 

“Cara?”

“Yes?”

“This is the point where you ask, what I am here for instead.”

“Oh… I was wondering why you didn’t say anything else…”

Natalie waited for a few more seconds, deciding to make some encouraging hand gestures.

“… er…”, Cara said, Natalie’s smile returned and the gestures became a bit more pronounced. “Why are you here, if not for a repair?”

“I,” Natalie said, straightening her stance as she spoke, “am here to get you, Cara. You asked me to be your master. And as… someone… reminded me, I actually need to prove that I can teach the art to someone else. I do like your spirit. So, here we are. Think it over, if you accept I’ll take you as my trainee, I will teach you what little I know of the old Liechtenauer style, to the best of my ability. Sleep over it, you can give…”

“Yes.”, Cara said.

“…tomorrow.” 

“Yes.”, Cara said again.

“I wasn’t quite finished.”, Natalie said, “If you agree, you will have to become my trainee full-time. I think I have found a way of how to fina…”

“I will be your apprentice.”, Cara said.

“Do you have that much money?”

“No, I’m pretty much broke.”

“Aren’t you jumping the gun a bit then?”, Natalie asked.

“You were about to say, that you had found a way to finance it.”, Cara said.

“What about your job?”

“I’m almost done for today.”, Cara said. “And I work for the city, which has a very strict ‘Either you work or you can fuck right off policy’.”, she added raising a finger as she quoted the ‘policy’, “So once I’m done with that,” she pointed at the circuit board. “I hand in my resignation, cash in my last wage and off we go.”, Cara smiled.

“Just like that.”, Natalie asked.

“Just liked that.”, Cara smiled. 

After a short pause Natalie said, “OK, then. Get your work done. Afterwards we will have your first training.”,  as she said this Cara’s face lit up, “And then tomorrow first thing in the morning… after sleeping in and a decent breakfast, we go a visit the lord-bishop.”

“The lord-bishop?”

“Yeah, he is the source of income I mentioned before, I have an offer he can’t refuse. I hope.”

Project Empress 003

 Chapter 2

A midnight feast

About 20 Minutes later, Cara was washing her face in a small restaurant she had walked past countless times over the years, but until now had never entered. An old place in an even older building. She always wanted to go, she had not thought that it would be a stranger who would drag her here after she had gotten into a fight in an open street. Combat against a bunch of ruffians on a dark rain slick street at night, it did sound like a real adventure, but she had spent a significant amount of that time sitting on her bum…

‘Never mind, it’s over, I survived and I might have gotten a new master out it.”, she thought to herself, squaring her shoulders, enjoying the warm water flowing over her hands a bit longer. Then she saw her face and frowned. She finished washing her hands, reapplied her basic make-up, checked her face, liked what she saw, nodded to her mirror image and walked back into the restaurant. 

In the main room Natalie had spread herself all over a table that could have seated 6 people. But it was almost midnight, the place was mostly empty and the way she was talking to the owner it looked like the two were old friends. 

“Ah there she is!”, Natalie said, waving across the room. “Walter, that over there is Cara, tonight’s fightress in distress.”, she smiled, being her own best audience, while Walter just rolled his eyes. 

“I wasn’t in distress!”, Cara protested. 

“The bruises you’ll have by tomorrow will tell a different story”, Nat said. 

 “It was an unfair situation, it was three against one, and they did not even let me draw my weapon.” 

Natalie and Walter exchanged glances. Walter just smiled, while Natalie snorted.

“Yeah,” she said, “thugs these days, no manners…”

“This would have never have happened in times of the union”, Walter added facing Cara but his eyes looking at Natalie.

“Oh fuck off…”, Natalie said. Walter just smiled, gesturing at Cara to take a seat. 

Natalie still glowering at Walter said, “We need some food how about your special?”

Walter nodded and left.

“What’s the special?”, Cara asked her eyes going wide, imagining that this was some special treat that only the owners personal friends got. 

Natalie, just shrugged. “What ever strikes Walters fancy that night, but it’s always delicious.”

“Oh…”, Cara said, her shoulders sagging slightly, she then winced, as her body, now sure that the imminent danger was over, was giving her the damage report, nothing major, but it was lengthy. But then Cara perked up again, “Your style, that was Liechtenauer style, right?”

“Er…” but before Natalie could say anything else, Cara continued.

“First you went into an Alber, coming closer to your foes, the first misjudged the distance to you and ran right into your counter.” As Cara talked her eyes grew ever larger, she took the fork in front of her starting to mimic the moves she had seen with it. “Later you used a very high Tag defence to keep projecting threat… and at the very end you used a Krumphau but while approaching from behind, I’ve never seen one played like that…” 

Natalie, was now leaning backwards a bit her own hand inching towards her knife in case she had to defend herself against the retelling of her own fight.

“Someone knows her sources.”, Natalie said. 

“Of course, you can’t know the art if you don’t read the sources.”, Cara said sitting up as she said it. “On the other hand, just knowing the words doesn’t make you a great fighter”, she added slowly deflating again.

Natalie nodded. “Without practising the art, the words are worthless”, she said. “How long have you been doing this?” Natalie gestured with her chin towards Cara’s large backpack. 

“Four years…”, Cara said her head sinking. 

“Four years?”, Natalie said, trying to keep her voice as neutral as possible. 

Cara deflated even more, wincing again, as her shame allied with her bruises. “Yeah, my master tells me that I don’t have any talent, but that I should not mind that so much, because we all have our limits and that’s nothing to be ashamed about.”

“Did he now?” Natalie asked, “What’s your teacher’s name?”

“Manfred Brumotti von Burg.”

“Never heard of him.” Natalie shrugged.

Silence fell over the table, as Cara began fidgeting, Walter came back with the food, two large plates of pasta, with a rich saffron and cream sauce and large pieces of meat. 

“Enjoy”, he said leaving them to their awkward pause.

“So…”, Cara said, “When can you start teaching me?”

Natalie’s fork slipped out of her fingers and clattered on the table. “I am not your master, Cara!”

“But you obviously are a master. I have never seen someone use so many advanced techniques in such a chaotic situation”, Cara said, gesticulating wildly, again making Natalie inch away from her. “I know that I have no talent, but I love fencing and I have no problem with working hard. I spent my first 6 weeks only with footwork…”, she paused for a second, “and my footwork is still bad, but,” she said perking up again, “I will keep working on it. I’m not in a hurry, it’ll take as long as it takes”, she beamed nodding to herself.

“Your footwork, isn’t bad”, Natalie said, “You are just a bit rigid in your movement is all.” Natalie paused, closed her eyes, took a slow breath, “But I can’t be your master. I am still a journeyman myself”, she said gesturing at her staff and her trousers. 

“But you could show me some basics? Answer a few questions…”

“Weeeell…”

“Oh, if you are looking for a master you can do much better than with her”, interrupted a man in a stylish suit, wearing a long coat, that was all the fashion in the Atlantic kingdoms to the west. A scabbard containing a bound long sword, was hanging from his belt. 

Every corner of Natalie’s face discovered the existence of gravity in this very moment. “Now, you appear…”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you too, Nat, and I am doing great, thanks for asking. And who is that friend of yours?”

Natalie gestured with a limp hand towards the man who had just appeared, “Cara, may I present to you, Robert…”

“Master”, Robert, added with a indulgent smile.

Clenching her fists and teeth Natalie added, “Master… Robert Cavendish Gutierrez… an… old acquaintance…”

Robert’s grin just grew broader with the introduction, he took a chair, which he turned around so that the backrest was facing forward. Natalie, rolled her eyes. Cara remained cautiously confused.

“Walter, old man! How have you been doing!” Robert shouted across the room, startling the other two groups of people in the room. 

“I’m old, Robert, not deaf, but I’ve been doing well thank you. Red or white?”

“Walter, old man, you know me. I’m not a wine person, give me a beer, a big one.” This caused a few sharp intakes of breath from the other regulars, this place served wine and very pointedly no beer. Walter just laughed. 

“Ah, one of these days you will develop a sense of taste”, Walter said.

“And what a tragic day would that be, because on that day I would stop visiting this place.” Somehow Robert survived saying this. Walter disappeared in the back.

Natalie held her face safely in the palms of her hands mumbling something into them. She peeked over the the tips of her fingers but Robert was still there so she retreated again. 

Cara decided to smile. It was a worthy attempt.

“So, Cara, you are the chosen one, eh?”

“Chosen one?”, Cara asked.

“Natalie over here still has one last grand quest open,” he said still beaming, “before she can stop pretending to be a journeyman and finally”, for a moment his smile froze, Natalie glowered with one eye at him, between her fingers, “earn her rank of master.”

“Oh! A quest? For real?”, Cara asked. 

“No, not for real.” Natalie’s voice came from between her hands.

“Well for you it might as well be, Nat”, said Robert, now much calmer, “, you need to teach before you can be recognised as a master. And time is running out…”

“I’m not that old…”, Natalie said.

Robert inhaled, wanted to say something, didn’t raise a finger, tried again, another failure. “Nat,… it’s not about you. Not anymore. Six months from now the allied fencing schools of Vienna will host a grand martial tournament and the grand prize is "Tutte le arti della scherma sono solo una. Come tutti i fiori che crescano da uno stesso albero."

“That’s the anonymous 45-7a XII manuscript!”, Cara said.

Robert and Natalie looked at her, Robert a-, Natalie be-mused.

“She knows her sources.”, Robert said.

“But there is only one manuscript”, Cara argued.

“Yes.”, Robert said.

“And there is no transcription.”

“Yes.” Natalie sighed.

“Isn’t that manuscript, like the most closely guarded secret of the Vera Scherma club.”

“It is.”, Robert said nodding, his smile returning and growing with each nod. “And me and Nat over here, really need that book for a little project of ours. Isn’t that right, Natalie?”

“Yes…”

“So I take it,” Robert said, “that you take this Cara…” he hesitated.

“Gibson Müller.”, Cara said.

“Cara Gibbson Müller, as your student?”

“Yes..”

“Well then I declare you almost master and student. You may now spar.”

“YEEESSS!”, Cara jumped up from her chair. 

 

Project Empress 002

(Chapter 1 continued) 

The attacks almost overwhelmed Cara. The second she had not looked at her assailants, they had pushed forwards bringing their sticks down. ‘That’s not the first time they are doing this.’, a calm part that usually watched her while she was fighting, or in this case panicking, said. ‘The timing is too good, when I try that in the salle with the others we never work that much in unison.’ She let go of her backpack and jumped away from the attack. ‘But then, the one we are attacking is armed.’, her inner voice added, as the man jumped over her backpack and his friend swarmed around. She blocked the attack from her left, reaching out with her arm to block the arm and not the defence stick. That worked, but now that her back was exposed, the woman behind her hit her there. “Ouch.” ‘But that wasn’t so bad.’, Cara thought, turning, she had plenty of experience in stick-knife fights where they used short wooden sticks as “knife simulators”. What she had learned there was that no one from her club would ever enter a knife fight and come back in one piece and that being hit by a stick while painful wasn’t that bad.

That night she learned that it wasn’t that bad if it was one hit and as long your opponent retreated then; and asked if you were OK when it looked like they had actually hurt you. It was much worse if the people who attacked you didn’t give a fuck about you and didn’t stop hitting you over and over again. She could retreat but they just kept coming at her and even her secondary calm voice was now shocked into silence. As she moved back the woman to her right shouted, “Stop moving.”, shoving her hard. Cara lost her balance and fell. The woman to her right laughed, as Cara scrambled back on her hands and feet trying to get back up. The laughing woman stomped on her shin. 

Cara gasped. seeing stars for a moment.

“Well aren’t you a bunch of cunts…” a female voice said. The three stopped and turned around. There in the light of a streetlight stood a thin, tall woman, wearing some kind of retro union style. Heavy boots, bell-bottom jeans, some kind of longsleve with a loose crop top over it and a long tweed coat that went almost down to her ankles, that had several patches sown onto it, finger-less gloves and a choker with a blue and ring of stars emblem on it. Cara would have laughed, if she hadn’t been so wet and overwhelmed.   The new arrival was leaning on a journeyman staff that went about as high as her shoulder.

“Piss of.”, the man said. “This is none of your business.”

“Or,” added the laughing woman, “stay and wait until it’s your turn.” 

“Are you OK, down there?”, the stranger asked Cara.

“For now.”

The stranger, butting both her hands on one end of her journeyman staff, moved it in front of her lowering it, so that the point at the far end was pointing at the floor. Cara could see a metal cap glinting on the end of the staff as the strange woman carefully stepped over her bag lowering herself into a combat stance. 

‘She is going into Alber!’, Cara thought, recognising that her would be saviour was part of the martial art community and judging from that stance an adept of the Liechtenauer style. 

“Good.”, the stranger said smiling. “Now who of you idiots wants to go first?” 

“I said wait your turn.”, the woman to Cara’s right spat, jumping forward, defence stick raised high. The stranger, stepped into her line of attack, shuffled half a step, raising her stick so that her attacker ran belly first into the point of the stick. The stranger didn’t wait for the reaction, spinning towards the man in the middle the stick arcing up towards his face, which he blocked with defence stick. The stranger moved onto the street, the stick high above her head pointing up to the sky. Now she had the full attention of the three students and goaded them onto the street where she had more space. 

The three moved around her, circling here warily.

“Take your bag and run.”, the stranger said to Cara. “I’ll take it from here.”, she did not wait for Cara’s reaction, dashing forward with a strike from high above against the man, a smirk still on her lips. As the man jumped away from the stranger´s attack, she instantly shifted the force of her attack towards the woman to her right, with a long descending strike to her hands, taking care not to loose sight of the third attacker.

Cara scrambled back up to her feet, ran to her backpack, opened the long zipper, and grabbed hold of her training sword. An old, steel sword, that had been passed down from her grandfather to her, the blunt edge wavy with the dents of decades of combat. 

She got up, turned around and saw that the stranger was still dancing between the three students. The man was limping now and the ‘laughing’ woman who had stomped Cara´s leg was now holding her defence stick in her off hand, still shaking her other hand.

As they were all  focused on the stranger, Cara moved towards the group until she reached the other woman who had her back turned to her.

“Hey!” Cara said, her voice as firm as she could mange. “Stop fighting, or else…”

Everyone stopped moving, turning to face her. The ‘other’ woman smirked. “Or what?”

The stranger just shook her head but took advantage of the situation by jumping to her side where the ‘laughing’ woman stood, swinging her journeyman staff against her temple. The ‘laughing’ woman noticed it, pulled up her defence stick but it was to little to late, the impact of the staff bashing her own stick into her face.

The ‘smirking’ woman, looked Cara in the eye and said, “You are going to attack me with a steel sword? That’s a bit unsporting, isn’t it?”

“Under the circumstances I think it’s justified to hit you with the flat of the bla…”, Cara could not finish the sentence. The ‘smirking’ woman had jumped forward, using her defence stick to push Cara’s blade aside, grabbing the cross guard with the other and sending Cara flying. She rolled over the wet asphalt her sword clattering alongside her. No time for this. She took the energy of her motion to come back to a, slightly wobbly crouching position. The ‘smirking’ woman was coming for her. Making a “no” motion with her defence stick, when the stranger jumped out of the darkness behind her.

“Wrong enemy.”, the stranger said, whipping her staff onto the arms of the ‘smirking’ woman and using the rebound energy to smack her in the face, knocking her out cold.

“You aren’t very bright are you?”, the stranger said.

“I could not leave you alone. There were three against one. What kind of martial artist would run away from a fight when another one is still standing tall?, Cara asked. 

The stranger laughed. “So dumb, but you have a good heart kid.”

‘Kid?’, Cara thought, ‘She can’t be much older than I am…’. 

“My name is Natalie. But you can call me Nat. What’s yours?”

“My name is Cara.”, she hesitated for a moment, then fell to one knee adding, “But can I call you master?”

“er… what?”, Nat said. “Is that some kind of kinky thing, no shame, but…”

Cara had grabbed hold, of her sword and was now presenting it to Nat with both her hands. 

“I see that you are a true master of the martial world and that you walk the Liechtenauer path. Please teach me your skills.”, Cara said. “Master.” , she added quickly.

“I’m not a master of anything,” Nat said. “Let’s gather your things and maybe leave the scene before the city guard appears.”

“Yes, master.” Cara beamed.

“I’m not a master.”, Nat said.

“But you just saved me and fought and won against three!”

“Those idiots hardly count. They are just the typical run of the mill street thugs.”, she looked at them. “Students?”, she shrugged. “No matter what clothes you put on them, arseholes will always be arseholes…”

“But I couldn’t do anything against even them!”

Nat looked at Cara arching an eyebrow. “Yeah your art is pretty week Cara.”

“See? That’s why I need you as my master. Teach me.”

“Is that an order?”, Nat asked.

“Yes!”

“Well I can show you a couple of moves… but you have to buy me dinner first.”

“Deal!” Cara beamed.

Project Empress 001

Prologue

It’s the year 20xx.

In the first third of the 21st century: the great global industrial civilisation failed.

As it fell it dragged the entire world down with it, leaving it fractured in thousands of tiny pieces. Everyone blamed each other. The shadow of tyranny grew and devoured once great nations. But in a shattered world that still remembered a once golden age, the tyrants were soon eaten by the wolves they themselves raised. 

Out of the ashes, built on ruins, half remembered cultures and jealously guarded remnants of the old technology, a great number of new small nations, city states and petty kingdoms rose. 

Europe once on the cusp of unity and greatness had returned to its savage ways it had existed for so long, but it was here in these lands, that the historical martial arts underground rose. People used old manuscripts and treaties describing martial arts that had lain dormant for centuries, to bring them back. They were people bound by a common appreciation of the ancient martial arts, who during these times of chaos rose to the challenge, bringing a certain semblance of order into the chaos of a burning world. 

Let me take you into a world, where warlords vie for supremacy over the old Europe, where high scientists fight to bring back the wonders of the world that was, where some people dream of becoming kings in a world ripe for the taking, while others still dream to bring back the great unity of the past. 

Chapter 1 
The eternal novice

“No, you´re dragging your feet again, Cara.”, said Manfred, the high instructor of Cara’s martial arts academy. Cara just nodded, focusing on her feet, trying to place them with more precision on the floor when moving.

“Now you are moving your whole body up and down.”, Manfred sighed. “How long, have you been here already?”

“4 years and three months.”, Cara answered, now trying to lift her feet without her body following them. 

“And yet you are still a total novice.”, Manfred said, “Usually it takes people six months, if they are slow, to get the steps right. But with you…?” he inhaled and shook his head. “Keep going, in time even you might get it right.”

Cara just nodded focusing on her movements, trying to get at least one lane right. Teeth gritted she moved, slowly the wall of the hall in front of her inching closer. When she finally reached it she looked up beaming, looking around but Manfred had long moved somewhere else and was observing a manoeuvre some of the advanced pupils were doing. 

Slightly deflated Cara turned around and decided to have a bit more fun on her way back, swinging her long sword around more and just stomping away. Not elegant, but at least a bit more fun. Doing that she sometimes found by chance something smooth within her janky motions. 

Later when she was going back home through the night, enjoying the light rain cooling her off, she sometimes changed her stance and tried to move like a real sword master. Left foot moving boldly forward, her right following behind steadily, only that in her case she as usual dragged her right foot along over the floor. Not a good technique perhaps, but Cara was happy to be able to learn the art of long sword fighting at all. She didn’t have to be good at it. She’d been bad at sports and coordination her whole life, a fact that all her PE teachers and also Manfred never got tired of reminding her. But she didn’t mind, because she had a sword. The thought alone made her smile.

“Look at that.” said a voice from behind her. “Looks like we have a real athlete here.” There were laughs. Cara turned around trying to remain calm.

There were three students, the guy who had just called her and two female friends of his who had laughed. All three carrying defence sticks. ‘Shit’ Cara thought, remembering that she had packed her defence stick into her backpack together with her sword…

“I don’t want any trouble.”, she said.

The woman left of the guy, said, “Yeah I don’t think you’d be trouble even if you tried.”, they laughed again moving closer, pulling out their defence sticks.

“Where’s your stick darling.” asked the woman to the right.

“In… in my backpack, with my sword…”, Cara said.

”With you sword?” the guy in the middle laughed. “Are you a sword master? One of those historical martial artists then?”

“I’m not a master.”

The three just laughed.

“Go on then,” the woman to the right said. Take out your stick or your sword if you prefer.”

Cara took a small step back. “The sword wouldn’t be fair, even if it doesn’t have an edge. It is steel and has a much longer reach than a defence stick.”, she said.

“Aww, look at you,” the woman on the right again, “that is so incredibly considerate of you. Come on get your stick then and let us play a round. I always wanted to fight a ‘real’ martial artist.” The others snorted.

Cara swung her backpack to the ground slowly squatted down keeping an eye on her three assailants. She slowly opened the zipper and started groping blindly in her bag, finding a glove, her mask, jacket, everything but her stick. Her heart was pounding harder and faster with every moment. She lowered her gaze for a second, that was the moment when the three struck.

Project Empress xxx

 I never finished any of my stories here. 

So this time I am going to post the ending first. Followed by the beginning of the story. This time, the story is complete and I'll just fill out the bits in between.

Chapter n

It had taken Cara many years, battles and constant struggle. On the way here she had lost friends, made new ones, rivalries had come and gone, she had experienced so much. Yet until this day, despite what others may say, she had never thought of herself as a master. There was still so much left to learn, so many other styles she needed to investigate and there was always the echo of one of her greatest teachers in her mind: “Those who call themselves masters of the art, aren’t.”

She did have students though, many of which were now great martial artists in their own right. She had fought and won enough battles, had decoded the works of the mad Portuguese master. The one thing that she was missing, was to write her own treatise. She smiled putting her pen back to paper, finishing the last words of her own book describing her view of the art. Her smile almost turned into a frown when she thought about all the work it would entail to type up her manuscript later. She shook her head, focusing on the present again. Her smile growing bolder and broader she finished her work, adding a few more sentences that intended, endings are hard. 

She sighed, put her pen aside, took a deep breath, enjoying the nights silence and the warm feeling of accomplishment. Now when others called her master she would not feel all that uncomfortable anymore. 

She sat back up and took a sip of her now very cold tea, when Liam burst through the door. 

“Cara! Cara!” he screamed, waving his arms.

Cara first almost choked on her tea, then almost spit it all over her freshly finished manuscript, in the last second she could stop her self from runing her magnum opus, instead coughing the tea into her nose from where it gushed all over her.

“Liam!” she snapped, but before she could add anything else Liam added: 

“A lost manuscript has appeared. Some private collector just died and his family is getting rid of the old man’s library in an auction, the whole thing almost went unnoticed in the historical martial arts world but then one of…”

“Liam.”, Cara said, wiping away the tea from her face, all thoughts about her own work forgotten. “Liam, what kind of source is it?”

Liam stopped talking, his eyes growing big he told her: “About 200 folios more than 60 drawings of the highest quality…”

Cara’s heart skipped a beat. “One of the lost Spanish grand masters?”

“The people selling it have no idea what they have in their hands but I saw the pictures. It is one of the lost Spanish long sword sources.”

“Where?”, Cara asked.

“Andorra.”

“Get your things, contact the others, we hit the road within in the hour.”

“Which weapons should I take?”, Liam asked.

“All of them, you’re going to need them.”

Project: Ashes 006

 Chapter 4 continued

He moved the Alternator, no that wasn’t right, the Alternator moved everything else. Following the wide arcs of the script, dipping into the very essence of the portal, going deeper into the artful flourishes of it as it looped into itself, further into the letters, from large to small. This, was his art. There was movement and energy in all things. You first need to understand how they relate to each other, how they interact. Once that big picture has been established, you slowly sink into the details. Using the context of the large to guide you to the intricacies of the small.
The shadow of a memory was cast in his mind. The awe of the others at his art, how people said that this type of craft was the closest to “real” magic. He laughed. The Infinite Sky let him know that he had always loved this, how something so subtle, had the most spectacular effects. The fun he had not only doing his work but in doing it delighting others, returning to them a sense of wonder. The Young Trickster, a part of him that never was far from the surface especially loved how once understood, this art was the least in raw power, once you understood the flow and interactions, it did not take much force to push or pull the flow of things into a new direction, which the cascaded in spectacular ways to its new and intended form.
Yes, it was also possible to do that in a very subtle imperceptible way, but where was the fun in that?

He felt the totality of the portal and the room woven within, now connected to the alternator. For now he just followed with thought and motion the way it was now, turning around to Needs a Sense of Humour. He remembered some of her now. That face that constantly waited for something stupid to happen. The simple joy of making it fall apart into its nigh infinite configurations of exhausted annoyance. But that was a pedestrian joy. No the real challenge, was to get the most precious of prizes…

“Ready?”, he asked beaming at her.

There was “the face”. Lips a bit tight, one corner of her mouth pushing down enough to show her displeasure but making it clear that the situation did not warrant the effort to push it further. Her eyebrows slightly raised over tired eyes.

“Yeah… ready…”, Needs a Sense of Humour sighed.

He moved the Alternator, that was right now poised high above his head, pointing towards the portal, down and forward in a wide arc, which ended in a little flourish. Needs a Sense of Humour started rolling her eyes as he did this. But with the motion, the Alternator had changed the flow of the entire structure of the portal. The script glowing brightly, bursting on lightning paths into all directions. All the components started to glow indifferent colours, shifting into motion.
As they were enveloped by the shining parts, forming a shining dome above then, while turning into a transparent floor beneath their feet under which the main engine room was unfolding, he saw it, the greatest prize of all:
Her eyes had stopped rolling and where now wide, her favourite mouth corner had turned up into a warm smile and for a moment Needs a Sense of Humour was relaxed, enveloped in the joy of the moment.

“You are such an idiot.”, she said.

“I know. But tell me that this isn’t glorious.”

“It is glorious.”, she said shaking her head still smiling.


A few moments later they conversion was done. The Alternator, had disappeared again, melding with his being. While they both had to adjust to the strange and overwhelming view. Even he, who should have known better, felt how was overcome by a feeling of vertigo and disorientation.
Far below them he could see a gigantic spinning ring of light surrounding them. It was made of a countless number of tiny strands, that it spiralled out of it as it moved, slowly growing brighter and dimmer in a slow and steady rhythm.
What caused the feeling of unease was that they could see the ring at all. Here in the ‘control room’ it was made visible so that he could keep an eye on it as a whole, to always know in what state the whole of the machine was. It was also great for others to see it work, it helped them understand what was happening.
However the cascade spiral was a construct made to contain and stabilise the force of the universe. As such it was huge in a way that was utterly outside the capacity of any life form to comprehend. It was not infinite, it did not encompass all of reality, that was never the point and would have been completely outside of the abilities of Glorious Idiot and everyone else in the known universe. It was made to contain something and keep the things surrounding it safe and be able to draw enough energy to keep going for a significant amount of time on a cosmic scale. So it was large enough to contain several hundreds of galaxies within it.
Which is exactly what Glorious Idiot and Needs a Sense of Humour saw. The ring blow them wasn’t a representation, but the actual machine in its entirety, pulled together in a way by his art, that a single human could see all of it.
The shards and facets had not problem with this, they were blissfully limited in their abilities to understand at fundamental level what they were seeing, so that they could work with what they could comprehend and what they did know.
The Endless Sea and the Infinite Sky however were not so limited, they were there to take all in. Not this type of “all” though, this was beyond their capacity of the endless and the infinite.

“I feel like my soul is going to puke…”, she said. “And after that I’m probably going to puke out my soul…”

“I…”, he failed to come up with anything else for a while. “Look up. At the dome.”
He followed his own advice. The dome was also “transparent”, as one could look outside, it was ringed by a lush green forest above them a beautiful night sky. An illusion obviously. He should have known. But here was something that had vanished even from the Infinite Sky. He began to suspect the reason for this.
The illusory sky above him, calmed him. This was an infinity he was used to down to his animal core. There was an implication of the vastness of space, instead of a glimpse of its true expanse.
“No, really look up at the dome.”, he insisted, trying to find her in the periphery of his vision.

“I’m trying. But…”, she heaved, “Up doesn’t make any sense…?”

“Look away from the ring.”

“How?”, there was now a sharp serrated edge to her voice now. “It’s everywhere. It’s everything.”, her eyes growing wider.

“Just move your head around until you see something that isn’t the ring.”, he said, very careful to calm his voice.

“The rind is everywhere…”

“Your stupid thing!”, he said. “The dumb block of crystal you keep lugging around.”

“The Eternal.”, a spike of venom pushed through the panic in her voice. Hearing that he actually relaxed a bit. For a moment he was even thankful for how predictable Needs a Sense of Humour could be and that she really needed a sense of humour.

“Yes. That thing, that shows you all the threads of the universe. An counts stuff. And turns everything into lists and tables and arrays.”, he kept going.

“What about it.”, there it was that ever simmering ember of annoyance.

“Pull it up to your stupid face and look at it.”, he said.

“My face is not stupid.”

“You either should or shouldn’t look into mirrors more often, not sure what would be better for you. But look at the stupid thing already.”, he said, carefully stoking the ember.

“Why? It’s not like…”, there was a brief pause. “Oh.”
“I see.”, she said.

After a longer pause. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. And keep looking at the Eternal or up into the sky above the dome. It will help you get used to the ring.”

“Does this always happen?”, she asked.

“I think it does?”

“I know, I have been here before. I know that this is one of the places where you are the most smug. This is like your cathedral of smugness.”

“I’m pretty sure this is the greatest thing I and…” he choked. “That we… that we ever made. There were others. There where so many others.”

Again there was a long time of silence.

“This is not the time for sorrow.”, she said, pulling him out of a deep dark pool into which his thoughts were sinking. “It will be worse, if we don’t keep going.”
“OK.”, she said her voice now calm and cold again. “We came here to see if your device is still working. Which it is,”, there was a slight waver in her voice. “So now what?”

“Now,” he said, the Cleaner taking over his mind, “I check the machine, while you find out what I need to do stop the universe from completely unravelling. Once things are stable again, we can go and look for the cause of this.”

“Right.”, she said, her fingers already moving over the surface of the eternal, every now and then grabbing a thread from around her pulling it through her device. “Let’s start with a bit of good news for a change. Your machine is actually overcompensating.”, she paused for a moment, “Heh… that also explains you wavy stick.”

That is not the kind of humour Needs a Sense of Humour needs he thought.

“But back to the important bit”, she said, “you can reduce the impulse and rotation of the cascade spiral significantly, that way the strands won’t fray as much anymore. You can use part of the energy to wrap the lose threads around the central ring and keep them there. At least I hope you can. And if possible store the excess energy so that we will have something to draw from later.”

He nodded. “Reducing the speed is no problem. Will need some feedback though as I will also have to adapt the impulse. I will also start introducing more helical torque that way we should be able to reduce the number of frayed threads too.”

“Perfect.”, she said. “Let’s get to work then.”