Toymaker

Prologue

Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge my friends and family who have supported me over the years to keep on writing. Whether it's those who have said my writing has inspired them to my fellow appreciators of fantasy. Here's to all of you!

Also, I wanted to give thanks to my work colleague who pointed out I use the word 'that' far too much. 

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Two days had passed and still there was no sign of the mysterious woman, or her companion, that had thrust the babe in his arms. Had they been hurt? Possibly killed? It was impossible to say. Lacet dared not ponder the third possibility. For someone who grown up as he had, it was unthinkable. What kind of monsters would abandon their only child?

Yet, each time he had tried to return to Wyndhaven to seek additional information about Merrine, the bedraggled woman with a desperate look in h er eyes, a strange compulsion had settled upon him and Lacet had found himself marching back out past the gates of the capital. No matter how hard he tried, he could not enter the capital for long.

If it was a spell, he did not know it. At the Academy, there had been talk amongst scholarly circles of a new untapped field of magic. One that had been centred on the mind and the electrical impulses which powered all living things. It had been an elective. And like so many subjects at the Academy, it had not interested him much, focused as he was solely on passing the mandatory courses he already. What spare time he had, Lacet had poured into reading up on what few scholarly papers there were on golems and tinkering with his own clockwork projects.

Lacet raised the mug of the inn's cheapest ale to his lips and took a sip, his mind turned once again to the child he had been unceremoniously saddled with. What was he to do with her?

Given his funds, he would not be able to stay in this inn near Wyndhaven for much longer. The pittance he had received upon graduating from the Academy would not last him long with another mouth to feed. And he needed every coin he could get if he hoped to become the foremost scholar on golemetry. Opening up an apothecary shop was just the beginning.

And yet, he could not simply abandon the girl either. Lacet knew what it was like to have no-one to care for him. Fortune had smiled upon both him and Marus when the matron had decided to take them both in. Maybe he could bring the child back to the orphanage before setting off. At the very least, she would have a safe haven from the harsh realities of the street.

It wouldn't be the best life, but it was better than nothing. And if he found some success, he could funnel some money back to her and the orphanage.

Draining the rest of his ale, he stood from the table. He could not keep dithering like this.

It was time to make a decision. One way or the other.

The longer he tarried, the more his plans for the future crumbled into dust. And that was not something he could afford. Not when so many things hung in the balance.

Still, there was a possibility even now Merrine was looking for her child. Not for the first time, Lacet wondered if he ought to have set up watch at one of the other gates coming in and out of the city.

At the time, discretion had seemed the better part of valour. Whoever the robed figure had been, they had promised trouble. Not even a ball of boiling plasma had done much against them. The magic unravelling and dealing little more than a glancing blow.

The Eastern Gate, therefore, had been perfect for his needs. It was understated with little foot traffic except for the occasional large caravans that left through it, headed towards the duchy of Everrun and to the other outlying territories of the Kingdom.