The Fire Queen

Chapter 62

I put the issue of Queen Herana's ambitions to the back of my mind and shifted my attention back to the steam locomotive. The full scale version of the model that Brumli had shown me in his house was now complete and was running nice and smoothly. Brumli only had one concern: fuel. Keeping the boiler hot so that the machine could keep running required a lot of coal, which we could mine for but that would mean taking resources away from the new iron ore mine in the east, which I wasn't prepared to do. Brumli had a suggestion for how we might secure an unending supply of fuel, but it involved great risk.

"In Gronden there are these creatures: fire turtles. They live in volcanoes, swimming in the lava, because of that nobody has ever been able to get their hands on one, however, these birds can withstand the high temperatures inside of volcanoes. If we got some of those turtles for ourselves, we'd have no problems with powering these machines."

Brumli's idea was a good one, and I decided that we would put it into action right away. I had Ferland summon the Gronden ambassador to go over what we had in mind with him so as to avoid any friction between our two kingdoms over us trespassing on their territory and doing as we pleased.

The Gronden ambassador arrived at the palace with much that he wished to talk about. The issue of the fire turtles was dispensed with in short order with him giving us permission to enter their kingdom and capture some, and from there the discussion turned to the topic of Herana's political maneuverings.

"As you are aware, Queen Alegra, we are a small kingdom, and do not have the power to influence events in the realm ourselves," he said to me.

"Yes, I am aware of that."

"Whichever way the realm goes we are forced to go that same way, and often it leads to us not being able to prioritize our own needs."

"I understand your frustration, but as I have already told King Philip and Queen Herana, I have no intention of becoming involved in these games."

"If you will permit me, Queen Alegra, the opportunity that currently exists for someone to establish themselves as the dominant leader in the realm is going to be seized by someone and it is our belief that the best outcome would be for that to be you."

"How can you be so sure that I would be better than Herana?"

"In your reign as queen thus far you have demonstrated that you value qualities such as fairness and honesty, that is why we have no doubt that the realm would be better off with you at the center of power."

"If Herana is serious about forming alliances with Kandalar and Volstaff then it's going to be a long time before she can exert any kind of serious pressure on the other kingdoms because of how long it's going to take for those two kingdoms to return to stability."

"I'm not so sure it's going to take as long as you think it's going to take; the Overseers have chosen new rulers for those kingdoms and depending on the amount of support that they get from Theran those kingdoms could return to being troublesome actors very soon."

Ambassador Weyland may have been right about my timetable being wrong, but I wasn't prepared to take time away from the steam locomotive to deal with politics. We set off the next morning for Gronden: me, Uraia, Brumli and Cyrus. Cyrus rode with Brumli. Cyrus's job was going to be to remain on the ground with Brumli and apply the binding stones to the turtles after Brumli's phoenix Nelly had cowed them while Uraia and I would be responsible for grabbing the turtles out of the volcano. We flew south-west to Gronded with each phoenix carrying three metal cages. The journey took us two days and took us to the very western coast of Gronden, where Ambassador Weyland told me was the best place to find fire turtles. We flew westwards across Gronden and were guided to our destination by the smoke bellowing out of the active volcanoes. We flew over each one we saw and descended to just above the lava looking for fire turtles. We didn't find any in the first two volcanoes we checked and began to worry that our journey was going to prove fruitless. In the third volcano that we checked we again found nothing, only in the fifth volcano, the one closest to the shore, did we find what we'd come for. The volcano was teeming with them, and when we descended into the volcano we understood why. The lava was more active and the temperature was higher inside this volcano than in the other volcanoes, making the job of extracting them from the lava that much more dangerous. When we landed on a nearby beach to set down the cages and get them ready, Uraia and Brumli exhorted me to remain on the beach with Cyrus and allow them to handle the extraction of the turtles.

"We're proceeding with the original plan, Myra's too excited about this for us to sit it out."

Cyrus and Brumli got the cages ready and Uraia and I set off to catch the turtles. At first we tried to be as safe as possible by descending slowly into the volcano and gently grabbing the turtles, but as soon as we got close to them they submerged under the lava. The only option available to us then was to swoop down from high above and quickly grab them before they had the chance to submerge. Uraia and I flew up and waited for the turtles to resurface, and when they did I went in first. Myra went into a steep dive just like she did when we went fishing, only unlike when we went fishing she didn't use her talons to grab the turtle; worried that the sharpness of her talons might injure or even kill the turtle I had her grab the turtle with her beak instead. Our first attempt at capturing a turtle using this method proved successful; Myra and I managed to reach the turtle before it had a chance to submerge, we were unaffected by the active lava and Myra was able to grab the turtle with her beak gently enough to avoid doing any damage to it. The turtle tried to escape from Myra's grasp by expelling flames from its shell, but these flames were nothing for Myra, who didn't so much as react to being on the receiving end of the turtle's defense mechanism. Having watched me and Myra it was time for Uraia and Igor to try their hand at grabbing a turtle and they were able to do so without any great difficulty.

"Let's go," I said to Uraia when she and Igor emerged from the volcano with a turtle.

We returned to the beach where Brumli and Cyrus were waiting for us. We dropped the turtles on the sand and just like when we'd caught them they began to emit flames from their shells as a warning to Brumli and Cyrus, but they were quickly made to submit to us by Nelly screeching at them. Cyrus applied the binding stones to their heads and had them enter their cages, and then it was time for me and Uraia to return to the volcano and grab some more turtles. Uraia and I made four more trips to the volcano and captured an additional seven turtles. The turtles weren't terribly heavy and carrying them in their cages proved not to be a problem for Myra, Igor and Nelly.