AN :
Next goal for another extra chapter is 400 power stones.
In the Game of Stones, you either win or you wait. The more Power Stones you offer, the faster the chapters come.
...
( Acolyte Hallyne POV )
The yard of Casterly Rock was comparatively modest, given the sheer size of the castle it resided in. It was probably still large enough to fit another castle within, but not more than a small one, and perhaps at most two thousand men could stand in it comfortably.
It was cut into the top of the lower summit of the Mountain, the 'Lion's back' in a twenty-foot deep pit quarried out of the solid rock, and the sides were reinforced with stone buttresses to ensure it remained open. Stone grates sat in many corners and low places in the yard which funneled rainwater or snowmelt down into the castle's reservoirs, giving it a practical purpose as a giant raincatch.
While it was typically, as Hallyne understood, used for training Lannister knights and squires, and for festivities or the like, tonight it was occupied primarily by a large apparatus which Callum Lannister was futzing with. An apparatus of tubes and copper wires, it stuck out like a sore thumb on the sands, even in the thin light of the crescent moon above.
"I think we're ready… everything is fixed into place." The boy said quietly, before speaking up. "Everyone, I'm glad you've all come up here tonight. I know the stairs are a bit of a pain."
Hallyne wasn't the only one to groan at that, several of the other men and women in the courtyard echoed him. There was quite a motley collection, a Summer Islander if he wasn't mistaken, a beautiful woman who was unmistakably Lyseni, the boy's uncle and Castellan of the castle, and half a dozen Essosi of different sorts. After the groaning was done, Callum chuckled, walking around the device he'd built.
"Now I'd like to thank everyone for setting aside time to come out here this evening. And special thanks to Maester Eomund and Uncle Kevan for letting me skip out of my lessons a little bit to get this thing finished." He then inclined his head slightly towards the portly Essosi man "And of course, I could not have finished it at all without your help Lo'am."
The fat man chuckled good-naturedly, his chins jiggling. "Here here, on with it then." He grinned broadly.
Callum took it in stride, nodding."I suppose I am rather eager to get this underway as well. Any questions you have can wait until after it's started, I'll explain then." The boy grinned, walking to one side of the device and taking hold of a wooden dowel affixed to a lever, like those used to operate winches and castle portcullises. "I won't waste any more time with this. Be sure to not look directly at it for too long."
With a heave of his shoulder, the boy dragged down the dowel rod, and with a hissing snap the device shuddered, and a flare of light burst forth in a clear glass ball at one end of it. Snapping and crackling, it lit up the entire courtyard with a brilliant white, as if a second moon had plunged down to earth. Hallyne blinked rapidly raising his hand in front of his face as the sudden brightness made his eyes sting. "What manner of fire…" he wondered aloud as he lowered his hand, the gleaming glass sphere burned with an inner radiance more brilliant than any he had seen before.
"Whoof that's bright," Callum said grinning beside this wonder of crackling light, holding his hand beside it to shade his face. "So what do you all think?" He glanced back and forth. "It's lighting up the courtyard pretty well yeah?"
"Is this… sorcery?" Ser Kevan Lannister asked, though his voice seemed doubtful. "Callum, what is it that you have made?"
"Not at all, Uncle!" Callum seemed eager, his smile enormous cast in the silhouette of the crackling white light. His voice held a joyous, almost manic tone. "Not one bit of sorcery, merely applied knowledge." He threw his hand back towards the device eagerly. Hallyne was still blinking spots from his eyes but he could see now that it was part of the construct, copper wires feeding from the mess of cylinders into the glass ball.
"Just as man in ancient days learned to tame fire by means of sticks and stones, I have learned a means to tame lightning by copper and tin and charcoal." The boy sounded proud, and, Hallyne supposed, he had the right to. The brilliant light within that crackling sphere brought wonder to his heart, though there was fear also.
'Just like the substance…' the alchemist thought, staring at that glowing orb, burning away the night.
"Dramatics aside." Callum continued. "This device is what I am calling a charcoal arc-lantern." He said, waving his hand over the ball. "A charge of electricity, that is, lightning, is run between two sticks of charcoal, with a separating layer of plaster between them and a connecting bit of charcoal at the tip." The boy tapped his two index fingers together. "The charcoal connecting the two rods burns away in an instant, but the lightning continues to arc between the two charcoal rods, slowly burning away at the plaster between them. The light you can see is coming from the arc of lightning between the two bits of charcoal."
Hallyne listened carefully, not quite understanding what he was hearing, despite the simplicity with which the child laid out the concept.
"Aha, so you have bottled lightning!" The summer Islander said bombastically, "A work of true craftsmanship my friend Lo'am!" He patted the glassmaker on the back.
"There's nothing special about that glass though." The fat man muttered quietly. "It's a good product but nothing out of the ordinary."
"When you say a charge of lightning is run between two charcoal rods-" the Lyseni woman spoke to Callum, who perked up at the question. "How exactly do you make the lightning do so? That is the sorcery here is it not?"
"Ah, well that gets down to the nature of electricity," Callum spoke the strange word again. "It is more a matter of understanding the properties of physical matter than it is of magic, as Maester Eomund would say." The boy nodded to the old man. "There is nothing in this device that could not be replicated by any of you, with no mystical learning or higher knowledge."
Hallyne felt a bit skeptical of that as he tried to avoid staring directly at the enormously bright flame. It was as if Callum Lannister had pocketed the fire of the very sun itself, regardless of whether it was lightning as he said. He felt questions form in his mind far faster than he could possibly ask them. This was a new wonder! Hallyne wished desperately to know more. Alas, unfortunately there was still an order to these things, and the Castellan's questions came before his own, pressing as he felt them.
"That did not answer the question. How does it work?" Ser Kevan Lannister asked, walking up to the device. "Is it dangerous?" Hallyne held himself back from snorting. Of course, it was dangerous! Could he not see the light it gave off? That fire must be indescribably hot! Hotter than Wildfire! Perhaps as hot as dragonflame!
"Well, you shouldn't-Dont touch it!" Callum said to his uncle, just as the man seemed about to reach out for the copper wires. "You could hurt yourself severely, lightning can run through your body as easily as it can charcoal!"
"So that's a yes then?" Kevan asked, pulling his arm back slowly.
"Yes! Don't do that!" Callum had gone from sounding triumphant to exasperated. "The lamp itself is also very hot, it could start a fire if improperly placed, and the fumes from the burning charcoal could be hazardous if used indoors." The child explained. "Would you stick your hand into a fireplace to see if it was dangerous uncle?"
Lord Kevan chuckled at the analogy, before glancing warily back at the device, shielding his eyes from the light. "Are you certain it's not sorcery though?" he asked again. "I have never heard tell of such a thing, save for the glass candles of Valyria…"
"This is nothing like a glass candle!" Callum protested. "I don't even need the glass! That's to diffuse the light so that it spreads better!" The boy was in it now, Hallyne could hear the passion in his voice, like an alchemist speaking about his craft, the passion had taken him. "Glass Candles use actual magic, probably. They're a lost art from ancient times. This is no such thing! This is something new! Like the press, it's something I invented!" He laughed. "The only one in the world, but soon there shall be more of them! They're simple things once you understand them!"
Lord Kevan actually took a step back from the boy, blinking in surprise. "Are you alright Callum?"
Hallyne watched as the boy blinked, falling out of his passion visibly, and shaking his head. "Ah, I'm sorry Uncle, I think I've just let this project get a bit too much to my head," he said after a moment, Kevan visibly relaxing at his words. Hallyne just hoped he could get to the actual questions soon, there was so much to learn! "I'm a bit invested in it if you can't tell, and I promise you, it's all understanding and engineering, no sorcery at all, no more than there is in a firepit."
The Castellan of the Rock looked like he was about to reply when a childish shriek of glee filled the courtyard rather suddenly, drawing the attention of all. "CALLEM!" Hallyne blinked as a very small, and indeed very ugly child walked out from one of the arches at the side of the courtyard with a limping gate, his hands raised into the air. "CALLEM YOU FINISH'D IT!"
Hallyne had heard that Lord Tywin had a dwarf son, but even he couldn't have conceived of a child so ugly within his mind. The boy's face was twisted, his forehead jutted out and one eye was larger than the other. His hair was so silvery as to be white, and his fingers were stubby. Combined with his limp he looked more like a Mummer's freak than the son of a lord, but such thoughts were dispelled a moment later as Lor-Ser Kevan began to speak.
"Tyrion boy, you ought to be in bed." The man said good-naturedly, walking forward to scoop his nephew up into his arms. The boy's stunted size allowed it easily. "Your brother's work is dangerous at any rate."
"Callem said he'd show me when it was done!" Tyrion maintained, and Kevan grumpily looked back at his other nephew, raising his eyebrow, it was certainly a striking figure cast in the blazing white light of the 'arc lamp'.
"I did." the somewhat older boy acknowledged, scratching the back of his neck. "Though I'd planned to do so, you know, in the morning, in my study."
"That's cheating!" Tyrion- for the boy's name was Tyrion, whined in his uncle's arms. "Everyone else gets to see!"
Kevan Lannister sighed as if he had heard this debate before. "Very well, I suppose you can look, but don't stare straight at the light." he chided, which prompted a chuckle from Callum in turn. It was all very heartwarming in Hallyne's opinion, but he wasn't really that interested in the family drama, instead, he shuffled forward to look at the makings of the device more closely.
"Ehm, Pardon me, Milord Callum, but I have some more questions about this-ah, device." he gestured his hand towards the collection of cylinders and copper wires that made up the base of the thing.
Now that the initial questions of sorcery had been resolved (not that Hallyne would have minded sorcery one bit) he was full of questions and a need for clarification about this device, how it functioned, and how it lit fire from lightning. "I presume that these cylinders, and the wires, serve in some manner to channel the lightning which lights the lamp?"
"Ah!" Callum nodded, turning from his uncle and brother to Hallyne and nodding. "Yes, they're a series of voltaic piles- well, hmm, how should I explain this?" he tapped his chin. "At its core, all of it comes down to generating an electrical charge-"
=======================
If you'd like to support my work, or get early access to chapters before public release you can join my P atreon
Link to join my p treon :
[email protected]/moonlight10