The Princess of Ash: Gunpowder Republic, #1

By Tim Couillard

In a world still halfway between monarchy and democracy, alchemy and industry, a humble country boy seeks his fortune in the city. What he finds may be more than he had ever dreamed... it may just be like something out of a fairy tale. 

A 65,000 word fantasy and the first book in the Gunpowder Republic series. No maps included.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tim Couillard
• Release date: Aug 10, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393871538

Tim Couillard

Tim Couillard (1991-present) is a fan of classical fantasy and light/graphic novels who has been writing since he was 14. Reclusive and eccentric, but a lover of animals and natural scenery, he is a former boy scout, college dropout, and freelance writer. In his free time, he mostly plays videogames.

Book preview

This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

THE PRINCESS OF ASH

First edition. August 10, 2019.

Copyright © 2019 Tim Couillard.

Written by Tim Couillard.

Book Cover design by ebooklaunch.com

With thanks to my family for continuing to support me, and to whatever fans have been patient enough to wait for this book.

Gunpowder Republic

The Princess of Ash

by

Tim Couillard

Contents

Chapter One: The Alchemist’s Assistant

Chapter Two: The Slave and the Hick

Chapter Three: Gunsmith Noir

Chapter Four: The Green Lion

Chapter Five: The Philosopher’s Stone

Chapter Six: The Lady and the Dwarf

Chapter Seven: A Hectic Morning

Chapter Eight: Black and White

Chapter Nine: The Memento

Chapter Ten: Smuggler’s Hope

Chapter Eleven: Guns at Dawn

Chapter Twelve: The Beginning

Chapter One: The Alchemist’s Assistant

Smoke billowed, and a sulfurous smell filled the air. Heat flooded the space like a wave of fire, and a noise like a thunderclap resounded from the close walls and cluttered shelves of an alchemical laboratory. Two heads were coated with a fresh layer of soot, and four blinking, watering eyes peered out of pitch-blackened faces, a young man and woman tangled up in the confusion of the blast that had rocked the lab.

They rose to their feet as the smoke cleared, belatedly extricating themselves from each other. The young man, red-haired, lanky, and freckled, rubbed at his eyes. The girl, raven-haired and petite, swore and coughed like she was about to hack up a lung. They were still reeling from the sudden explosion, and it was a few seconds before one of them finally broke the silence that had fallen.

"O-Okay. That ... That wasn’t my fault, Noire coughed. You bumped me."

I did not, said Rubeus, wiping his mouth. An overpowering taste like a mix of burnt toast and rotten eggs was in his mouth, nearly causing him to gag. That was all you. I bet you put in too much ...

"Yeah? Too much what? Noire rolled her eyes. She had finally blinked out most of the worst irritants. When he didn’t give an answer, she nodded curtly. I don’t think you’re qualified to tell me what went wrong, Rube."

"Well, I know I wasn’t doing anything, he muttered defensively. I was just watching. So it had to have been something you did."

Do you want to start this? she said. One of her eyes twitched. Really? Does this look like the time or the place?

A pause. Rubeus surveyed their surroundings. Then he shook his head.

No, not really. I reckon it don’t matter whose fault this was. His accent slipped slightly on the reckon, a bucolic drawl that betrayed his rustic origins. We’d better both clean it up, or we’ll both be in trouble.

She snorted.

"Oh, come on. You’ve been here long enough to know what Gramps is like. It’s not that bad. He’ll probably just laugh at us for making such an amateur mistake. Maybe take a little out of our wages."

Rubeus looked a little dismal at the latter point. He was not exactly paid much to start with.

"But what mistake did I make?"

Oh, I wonder ... Noire smirked. Do you think I didn’t notice where you were putting your hands in all that confusion?

He blushed, the redness more vibrant than his flaming hair. It was visible even under the soot.

"The explosion threw you on top of me. That was hardly my fault."

But your hands are still your responsibility. She dusted off her palms, feigning primness—although she couldn’t restrain a small, schadenfreudian chuckle. "But at least you’re right about one thing. This is a mess, and we should probably both clean it up."

Rubeus again looked around at the shambles of the lab. All manner of knickknacks and detritus had been thrown about, especially near the worktable where the blast had taken place. The shelves overhead looked shaky, and many of their contents had been disturbed or knocked out of place. It wasn’t a total disaster area, but there was an indisputable mess, and nearly every inch of the laboratory, which included shelves and cupboards and complex instruments as well as the main worktable and a large athanor-style furnace in the corner, was coated in a fine, fresh layer of soot.

He nodded.

Yep.

Silently, Noire handed him a broom. Then they both got to work. Rubeus began sweeping up the soot, and while he did that, Noire went to ground zero of the blast.

She stooped over the worktable, assessing the damage. The imprint of the blast had seared older marks, cracks and pocks and stains and burns accumulated over years of heavy use. This table had seen similar accidents before, and its surface was like a battlefield cratered by mines and cannon fire. It had endured all of that, and it would survive this too. It was a solidly constructed thing, built to survive practically every conceivable mishap from acid spills to sudden fires to, yes, even outright explosions like the one that had given her and Rubeus such a shock.

She just hoped the noise hadn’t scared off any customers. If it had, then contrary to what she had told Rubeus, they actually might get into real trouble. A minor accident while experimenting in back was one thing—but scaring a potential sale from the shop would be quite another. Thankfully, this wasn’t too likely. Most of the customers at Green Lion Curios were aware of its proprietor’s alchemical endeavors, and they fully expected to hear the occasional small explosion.

With that said, Noire still winced as she looked at the mess. Decanters were overturned, a mortar and pestle had been flung to the floor, and the charcoal lines of the hermetic formula she had painstakingly traced onto the tabletop were washed out in a blanket of acrid umber. It wasn’t pretty.

Scritch-swash, swish-scratch, the bristles of the broom in Rubeus’ hands worked their way back and forth over the floor, scuffing the soot and dragging it across stone tiles, gradually piling it in the middle of the lab. His progress was too slow for her taste, and the sound of the besom was as grating to her as nails on a chalkboard. Of course, she knew this wasn’t Rubeus’ fault, but she was still frustrated. This shouldn’t have happened in the first place.

That explosion was an embarrassing accident for someone who had been trained in alchemy for any length of time, and Noire had been helping her grandfather in his lab since she was old enough to work. To make it even worse, her whole self-proclaimed specialty lay with the elements of fire and sulfur, with explosives and combustibles. It was humiliating to think she had caused such a blast, and it almost physically pained her to look at the mess they had made—the mess she had made, whatever she might say to Rubeus.

To top it all off, she just felt gross from the soot. She didn’t mind a bit of dirt or grease here and there. That much would have been fine. But being covered from head to toe in soot and ash and powder residue? That was simply intolerable. Grimacing, therefore, she looked around for a washcloth—as much to daub herself off a little as to wipe up something of the mess. While she searched, she squatted down to pick up the fallen mortar and pestle. Examining it, she saw that the shallow bowl had lost most of its contents in the tumble. She also noticed a new, hairline crack along its side.

Great. Most of the important articles in her grandfather’s laboratory were sturdily made, intended to survive a small explosion or two, but nothing was indestructible, and some instruments had fallen from their shelves or been hit by bits of flying debris. Also, again, there was soot everywhere. That couldn’t be good for some of the more finicky mechanisms. A layer of charcoal black was coating every surface, and she was sure it would take them forever to clean it all. She felt exhausted just thinking about it.

Noire sighed, at last finding a serviceable rag in one of the drawers. But she could have kicked herself. This was an inexcusable outcome for someone at her level of initiation. Maybe Rubeus, who had no talent for alchemy and had given up on any hopes of learning the art just a couple of months into his employment at the shop, might have been expected to make such a mess, if he was experimenting alone without anyone to guide him. But her? She was almost at a journeyman level. She shouldn’t have slipped up like this.

Sheesh, Rube ... Noire mumbled. What do you think? Was it the niter that did it, or the phosphorous?

I dunno, said the country boy. Does phosphorous usually explode?

Not usually.

Well ... He scratched his head. ... maybe it was the niter, then.

Noire shrugged.

Maybe.

Rubeus leaned on the broom, clasping both hands over the end as if he was resting them on a cane, and the bristles splayed like a bird’s toes between his feet. He’d swept up a third of the floor so far, but those parts somehow looked even worse than the unswept areas, with soot streaked in stubborn traces and gathered into the cracks between the tiles.

"I’m surprised Leo hasn’t come barging in yet. Do you think he’s taking a nap? It wasn’t too busy in the shop when you hauled me back here, so I don’t think there could be a customer keeping him. And there’s no way he didn’t hear that."

It’s the wrong time of day for a nap, said Noire. "And this usually is a slow hour for business. But don’t look a gift horse in the mouth! Gramps hasn’t come back here yet, so we still have a chance to clean up the mess we made of his lab."

Rubeus cocked an eyebrow.

"We?"

She responded with a slightly flinty look.

"Yes. We."

Fine. The redhead shrugged. If you insist.

He resumed sweeping. Once Noire was satisfied that he was back to work, she brushed a hand through her hair, grimacing at the feel of the sooty layer between her tresses and her skin. Taking her newfound rag, she began wiping off the table. After a minute she was standing on tip-toes and bending forward to reach in back.

Rubeus looked her way while he continued to clean. He watched her for a moment.

Noire was attractive in her own way. She was on the small side, short and petite, a little boyish in a manner that was somehow more feminine than androgynous. It mostly had to do with her clothes, perhaps, and with how short she wore her hair. With a little grooming, a nice dress, and a womanlier poise she might be quite fetching, but as is it was, she had no suitors. Not that she seemed to mind this fact—not as far as Rubeus had seen in the time he’d known her, anyway, and he had been here for almost a year.

Had it really been a year? Yes, nearly so. Time sure flew.

Anyway, it wasn’t like they were strangers. He was familiar with Noire—just familiar enough to sometimes forget that she was a young woman around his own age. But even if she wasn’t his type, he could still see what someone might hypothetically see in her, and he watched for a moment longer, feeling a flicker of the brief curiosity that sometimes took root between his feckless infatuations. Now and then he wondered ... but no flame had ever caught.

It was probably nothing.

Noire paused, feeling his eyes on her back.

Where do you think you’re looking, Rube? she said mildly, even conversationally, shifting on her toes as she wiped behind the worktable to get the soot that was nestled in the crevice between it and the wall. Eyes on the job.

He looked away quickly.

I don’t know what you’re talking about.

She peeked over her shoulder and saw that he was focusing pointedly on the floor, his cheeks once more a tad pink under the soot. A smirk twitched the corner of her mouth upward, and she took a step back from the table and stretched.

"This is filthy, though, she theatrically griped. Could you fetch a bucket of water, Rube? We need something to wash with, and you aren’t as dirty as I am, so you won’t be spreading as much of a mess if you go out to fetch that. You were lucky."

"Lucky. Right. I was just a little farther from the blast, is all. But, sure. You do look like you could use a rinse."

She laughed at his cheek.

Yeah, yeah. Go on, already, you scoundrel!

With a small smile, Rubeus set aside the broom and headed toward the hall. He was about to open the lab door when it suddenly swung inward, nearly smacking him in the face with the handle. He jumped back at the last second, only narrowly dodging the potential headache.

Then he stared, and so did Noire.

In the doorway loomed an aging, massively fat man with a bald pate and a hoary sweep of hair in back that looked like the last vestiges of a once impressive mane. He also had a modest but very bushy beard, and arms that were thick with muscle as much as flab hung down at his sides. Clever, beady eyes glinted out of a round, ruddy face wrinkled by many past smiles.

This was Leo, master of Green Lion Curios. He was an alchemist by craft and a shopkeeper by trade, but he looked more like a blacksmith or a butcher. He was tall too, only barely shorter than the lanky Rubeus, and with fifty or so more years of meat accumulated onto his groaning frame. He had long ago gone to seed, but he was still physically imposing. The sheer amount of space he occupied alone did something to slightly cow the guilty pair.

There was a long, pregnant silence. Leo cocked an eyebrow, slowly surveying the mess that had been made of his laboratory, looking from Noire to Rubeus to the seared, scarred worktable.

So ... which of you did it?

His voice was deep and resonant, booming even when he spoke lightly, and he drew their eyes into his own as easily as if he possessed hypnotic powers, although there was no menace in his expression and no real hint of wrath. He was a jolly, good-humored, easygoing fellow, but his granddaughter and assistant still both shrank before him.

I did, Noire squeaked.

She did, Rubeus said at the same time.

Just her? Leo eyed Rubeus curiously.

The redhead flinched, and Noire fidgeted.

He, uh ... helped.

W-With cleaning. I helped sweep.

But not with her dabbling? Leo surveyed the smudged remains of an alchemical formula sketched out in charcoal. Not even just by fetching her anything?

Well ... I mean I did get her the things she asked for, but that was all.

Noire nodded in confirmation of this.

Leo stroked his beard.

I see. And you didn’t get anything mixed up? You gave her the precise reagents she asked for?

I, uh ... think so ...

Rubeus looked away. He couldn’t read very well, so the labels weren’t that much use to him. He had to identify the ingredients by appearance as often as not, which was sometimes difficult. Noire was perfectly literate, though, and she probably would have noticed if he’d given her the wrong thing. This thought was what he clung to, anyway.

Leo hummed, reading something of what was in Rubeus’ eyes, and looked back at his granddaughter. He then stepped properly into the lab, and Rubeus staggered out of the way. The shelves faintly vibrated with the old alchemist’s footfalls, his boots thudding under an elephantine bulk.

He shook his head.

You should have asked for my help if you were going to try something new, Leo said to his granddaughter. And you shouldn’t have been tinkering back here when you could have been helping out in the shop anyway.

"But we’re always open so late, Noire whined. There won’t be enough time for me to try anything if I wait until we’ve closed up shop. Especially when I have to wait for you to finish up in here first. And it isn’t like it was busy."

"There would be time ... Leo began. Then he chortled. ... But, no, maybe not enough for both of us to experiment. That much is true. And I do monopolize the lab. Still, that’s my prerogative as the master. While I’m proud of your continuing inquiries into the Black Art, it’s also important for you to remember your responsibilities in the shop."

I knooow, Noire said with a sigh. "But I thought you’d hired Rube so we wouldn’t need to spend so much time on all that daily drudgery. That is what he’s here for, right?"

Certainly, said Leo. But in that case, why would you take him back here to help you at all, a slow day or not? He would have been more use sorting inventory and attending to customers. He isn’t much help in the lab.

Rubeus turned to Noire with a nod.

He’s right, you know.

Oh, shut up, she muttered. His comment appeared to have irritated her for some reason.

That explosion seems to have damaged some of my instruments, Leo said, getting their attention once more. "We’ll need to get those fixed. The cost will be coming out of your wages, of course. And while we’re at it, I’ll also have you replace what you used up. At least what can be replaced here in Terminium. Rubeus can go out to the market and do it."

You’re going to have Rube take care of it? Noire looked conflicted.

He’s less dirty, Leo said simply. Not by much, but still. And your mother will want to scrub you off personally before she lets anybody see you.

She grimaced, seeing his point and hating it.

Okay, Rubeus said. Will you give me the money for the stuff, then? Or will that also be ...?

I’ll give you the money, but not before you clean up a little, Leo answered bluntly. You’ll need to bathe to get all of it, but for now you can at least wash off your hands and face.

Rubeus conceded to this, seeing Leo’s point. Once he had rinsed himself to a minimum presentable degree of cleanliness, he was sent out with a coin purse, a satchel, and a list of reagents (both mental and physical).

Noire, in the meantime, was handed over to her mother.

...  ...  ...  ...  ...

Here, said a hoary, one-eyed shopkeeper,