Prince Rendle and the Lamp of Stability

Prince Rendle, the sixth of his name, who of course was only named such because he was the fifth son of King Rendle the first, had a strange life. The king loved his name so much he persuaded his wife to name each of their sons after him. Why she put up with it, no one knew. Prince Rendle the Sixth (also known as Vi) had his own theories behind his father’s obsession, but kept them to himself. In any case, the youngest prince sat in his study with Felix, his only friend.

Felix had her own peculiar properties, being both cat and mouse simultaneously until Vi looked at her, at which point she would maintain one shape or the other until he looked away again. Or blinked. Oh how that got confusing. Vi did find it amusing when Felix first wanted to curl on his lap and be petted, then the next moment would be scurrying along the baseboards looking for a way to escape the cat she just *knew* was in the room with her, because she could smell it. Most confusing of all would be the exercise Vi (sometimes) undertook, where he’d deliberately shut his eyes (or blindfolded himself) and tried to determine which form she took. He’d given that up after the time he’d been bitten by Felix the mouse and it had gotten infected. But it was fun while it lasted.

This particular day he wasn’t paying her much attention, engrossed in reading through his father’s archive of artifacts. He’d only been going at it for an hour or so, all the while Felix had been chasing herself around the room certain she’d catch that mouse. She zipped under the table and pounced, colliding with Vi’s leg and inadvertently scratching him near his ankle.

“Ow, Felix, calm down!” he exclaimed, reaching down to ruffle her behind the ears. She nuzzled up to him and licked at the trickle of blood that welled up in the scratch she caused. “This one sounds promising, though,” he continued. “The Lamp of Stability. Anything that is illuminated by the lamp remains the same.” Felix’s ears perked up. “I wouldn’t mind keeping you as a cat, you know.” He scratched his fingers up under her jaw and she tilted her head up to look at him. He smiled. “I still like you as a mouse, but you’re cuter as a cat.” Sliding a bookmark in to mark the spot, he left to go find his father.

The King sat in an antechamber to his bedroom, which was an office of his own. Vi entered unannounced and sat across from King Rendle, who paid him no attention as he moved methodically. He’d peruse a letter, and either sign it or burn it, depending on his whim. Actually, there was very little whim about it. The King tried to rule fairly, and in matters addressed by letter the effort was very simple; sign one and burn one, alternating until the pile vanished. The decrees of the signed letters were carried out, and the burned ones ceased to exist, let alone matter.

His advisors had of course gotten wise to this, so they’d taken to organizing them in the most beneficial manner for themselves, at which point King Rendle had demanded all correspondence be shuffled and then ultimately sealed. This of course resulted in a ridiculous amount of chaos in all his decisions, but it was definitely the most objective way of ruling. Behind his back his advisors plotted to unseat him.

“Eye Eye!” He said, thinking it was his firstborn before him that he saw. “Or is it Eye Vee? You all look alike to me.”

“It’s Vee Eye, father. I’ve asked you to call me Vi,” he said, rolling his eyes in disgust. He knew his father’s children had never meant much to him beyond continuing the family line, and more importantly his name. Vi was sure there were other “Rendles” out there that couldn’t be claimed legitimately, but it wasn’t his place to bring it up.

“No, no, Vi was just in here, he’s the one with the short hair since he’s the youngest. Yours is plainly longer, and so you must be Eye Vee. What do you want?”

“It doesn’t work like that father. Whatever.” Vi set the book on the table in front of his father, opening up to the page with the Lamp. “Do you know anything about this?”

King Rendle looked at the page, squinting to pick out details. “Oooh, the Lamp of Stability, I think I’ve got something like that around here, yes.”

“So? I’d like to go into the artifact repository to retrieve it. Can I have permission?”

“Eh? What makes you think you can just strut in here and claim any old treasure? Maybe Eye Eye, or Eye Eye Eye but not you, Vee.”

“It’s Vi.”

“Whatever, and no. Not a chance.” The king slammed the book shut and slid it at his son. “It’s too dangerous.”

“It keeps things stable, I can’t see the harm in that, father,” Vi sighed, grabbing the book.

“You don’t understand what this thing can do, Vee. It’s in my repository because I thrive on chaos. Can’t have that if nothing changes. You can’t predict things to be unpredictable because the unpredictable will be predictable if that lamp is lit. I can’t allow it.”

“Fine, I saw something else in the book that interested me then,” he hedged, flipping through until he randomly found something that caught his eye. “The Turbo Encabulator.”

King Rendle’s eyes widened. “I’d totally forgotten about that! I’d put it aside because no one knew what to do with the power being generated by its medial interaction of magneto-reluctance and capacitive duractance. I would absolutely approve of you going into the repository to retrieve that if you want to pursue its capabilities further.”

“I burn to achieve your acceptance, father,” Vi mocked, the sarcasm completely lost on his father as his father continued.

“If I remember correctly,” he said, tapping his lips pensively with his forefinger, “There were six hydrocoptic marzelvanes, so fitted to the ambifacient lunar waneshaft that side fumbling was effectively prevented. Quite genius. Absolutely, Vee. Please. I’m very interested in what you can do with it. You have my blessing.”

“Well, telling me I can get it, and getting past the guard post are different things, father.”

“Yes, yes, quite right. I forget I’m the only one who can just waltz in there.” King Rendle scribbled out a note and affixed his seal, marking it as official permission. “Now remember, the main winding is of the normal lotus o-deltoid type placed in panendermic simboloid slots of the stator. Every seventh conductor (not sixth or fifth, but seventh!) is connected by a non-reversible tremie pipe to the differential girdlespring on the ‘up’ end of the grammeters…”

Vi ignored him, taking the note and walking out while his father was in mid sentence, obviously enraptured by the thought of revisiting the Turbo Encabulator. “I don’t know how he hasn’t been completely fleeced of his fortune, Felix,” he said as the mouse chased up his leg when the door to his father’s antechamber closed behind them. Even as the door vanished behind a corner, he could hear father’s voice carrying down the hall, talking to himself. Something about a “drawn reciprocation dingle arm to reduce sinusoidal depleneration.” Vi shook his head.

When they reached the artifact repository, Vi waved at the guard and Felix jumped down onto the table, purring (as cats do) at her property. The prince patted her and she was content, knowing he knew his place.

“Ho there, Prince Vi. It’s been a while. What’d you convince your father you’re after today?” Max the guard looked like all muscle and no heart, but Vi knew he was a softy who cried while reading the novels he had plenty of time to read while posted at a job everyone seemed to have forgotten about. Every now and then Vi would sneak the man a book to stave away his boredom.

“Turbo Encabulator,” he winked knowingly. Max laughed.

“That’s a new one! Or an old one. I guess. King Rendel, your grandfather, locked it away a good long time ago.”

“That’s nice,” Vi said, slapping his note down on the counter. “Can I go in, or what?”

Max read the letter, following his finger while mouthing the words slowly. Vi crossed his arms impatiently as it took the guard five minutes to get through the letter.

“What in the seven hells is an ambia…ambula…ambivalent lunar waneshaft?”

“Beats me. And he actually wrote that? Damn, I should have taken a look at it first,” Vi laughed. Felix squeaked and hopped off the table, scurrying under the door and into the repository.

“That and a whole lot more I didn’t understand. Smarter minds than me for it, I suppose. Maybe that’s you?”

“Maybe. Anyway, Felix already ran inside, so…” he gestured expectantly at the door.

“No problem, Prince Vi,” Max said, unlocking the door. “Don’t get lost!”

“I never do,” Vi said, smirking as he closed the door behind him.

The Prince had forgotten how dark the repository was, and managed to light a torch from the hearth that kept burning low near its entrance. It mostly served to warm the backs of the guard posted outside, and gave them reason to enter and patrol the area at least briefly to ensure its security. All told, it was an inefficient system, and the few windows into the room sat high upon the southern wall, tightly barred but opposite the entrance.

Large but not immense, the repository was where the king deposited the spoils of conquest that either intrigued him or begged to be forgotten. In common practice he forgot all of it, except those few things like the Turbo Encabulator that captured his imagination and fascination. Even so, out of sight and mind, like all other things in the artifact repository, it had been forgotten.

Vi almost wanted to look for this thing, if for no other reason than to show it off as proof that he’d come for it. Instead, he looked through the mountains of objects deposited in no logistical fashion for the Lamp of Stability, only knowing what it looked like from the vague picture in his book, which he’d accidentally left behind in his father’s antechamber.

“Well, Felix, I guess we’ve got our work cut out for us,” he said. Felix meowed in agreement, leaping up onto a small chair and sneezing at the dust she disturbed. They spent several hours rummaging, during which time Felix the cat stalked Felix the mouse, while Felix the mouse hid and cowered from Felix the cat and proved to be an amusing distraction from Vi’s tedious task.

Ironically, the Turbo Encabulator was one of the earliest things Vi found, situated as it was somewhat near the door but still covered by other larger but lighter things, like a woman’s overly ornate frock and a gym bag. While the name felt massive, the item itself was rather small. After a few minutes of analysis, it was plainly obvious to Vi that the item would not only provide inverse reactive current for use in unilateral phase detractors, but also would be capable of automatically synchronizing cardinal grammeters. He wrapped it inside the frock and stuffed both inside the gym bag, leaving them near the entrance to deliver to his parents as gifts. Surely the King would be impressed at his understanding of this artifact.

Vi’s search had gone on so long he’d almost forgotten the Turbo Encabulator when Felix meowled in pain and hissed, and the prince heard a scrabbling sound followed by a thud and something skittering away. One of the larger piles near the center of the room began to teeter, then collapsed in a crash. Billows of dust blasted through the room, and Max yanked open the door to see what was going on. Coughing and laughing, Vi disentangled himself from some of the mess that had crumbled around him.

“You alright, my prince?” Max asked as he offered a hand to pull Vi free.

“Yeah,” Vi replied, still chuckling. “I think Felix got a little carried away.” The mouse ran up onto his shoulder and was chittering away with her nose twitching and whiskers vibrating as she snuffled the air. Vi cooed at her.

“Did you find that, what’d you call it, the Retro Discombobulator?”

“It was the Turbo Encabulator, Max. And no, still looking,” he said as his eyes at last fell on the Lamp of Stability where it had fallen on the ground. Felix seemed to notice that he’d noticed, squeaked several times, and ran down his leg toward it. “I’m sure I’ll find it,” he finished.

“I hope so, Prince Vi. Something with that many random words associated with it has to be impressive.”

“I’m sure it’s most impressive indeed, Max,” Vi laughed again, with a sidelong glance at Felix, who was growling as she tugged at the Lamp. The fur on her back stood on end as she tugged, her meowl of frustration growing as she twitched her tail.

“Well good luck, my shift’s almost over and I’ll have to ask you to leave when I go,” Max finished as he shut the door.

Vi scurried after the cat as the door clicked shut again, pulling free the Lamp from other detritus and looking it over. More lantern than lamp, it was roughly rectangular in shape, with what looked like wax and a wick inside. He grabbed a small bit of rag and lit the end on his torch while Felix curled up next to the Lamp. Vi saw no inscriptions on it, shrugged, and lowered the rag inside, watching closely as the wick lit up. Sparks flared out of the lantern, and Vi blinked.

Felix hissed, and the noise roared in his ears. His perspective had shifted, and his cat now towered above him. A paw swatted at him, claws extended. Vi scrambled away, his furry paws unfamiliar as the cat crouched and prepared to pounce. He squeaked, realizing that he’d grossly mistaken what would happen to Felix’s other form if she were stabilized. The prince frantically tried to hide in the shadows away from the lamp, but he could not evade Felix’s claws.