– Tao Te Ching, the Book of the Way, by Lao Tse
Trent had a regular customer in Aurora, so when they came south on the old highway 25 of the Ancients he turned left short of Denver and circled clockwise around the capital to stop at Aurora before heading in.
Kaleb was unprepared for the wave of homesickness that swept over him as he gazed West toward Denver. It was so much like being on the Pacific shore looking East toward Angeles. The same motif predominated: a rubble pile of the gods, elongated cuboid mushrooms of glass and steel and stone...with a snow-covered mountain range behind it.
It struck him that it nearly looked as if he traveled a long way to end up where he'd begun....except that instead of an ocean at his back he had the eastern half of the continent behind him.
At Aurora some men were loading some of Trent's hemp rope onto another caravan. He climbed out to watch them, and then had to ask. “Where's it going?”
One looked at him curiously. “New Israel.”
Oh? “What do they do with it?”
The man shrugged. “Who cares, as long as they buy it?”
Trent interrupted this line of questioning. “unless you want to walk into Denver,” he said, “you'd better get back in yer wagon.”
Kaleb frowned but obeyed. He had barely gotten settled back in his seat when the wagon lurched and began moving again.
They pulled onto old highway 70 and turned west into the old city. Pressed against his window, Kaleb saw a patchwork quilt of decayed and still-standing structures. The outer layers of small houses and stores seemed to be temporary housing for farmers when bringing in crops. Now, in the crisp air of a late Winter afternoon, most were as vacant as discarded cocoons.
As they penetrated deeper into the city he began to see mounted sentries wielding crossbows. The reasons for this became clear in a few blocks, when he saw signs of recent destruction. According to the Queen, Texas had tried to invade but the incursion had been stopped. From what he could see, it was not likely to be forgotten for quite some time. Old buildings that had weathered two centuries since the fall of the Ancient civilization were gutted, their blown-open fronts garnished with drifts of fresh snow.
As they made their final turn he caught sight of what could only be the tanks from Dallas. Six of them, line up head to tail as if in caravan. An inch or two of snow was melting off them.
The wagons stopped. Watching, he was surprised at how little rope was unloaded here. He pushed the wagon door open and jumped down, nearly falling on his butt as his feet skidded on a huge patch of ice.
“Well, yer here,” Trent informed him. Any message you want to leave me for the Queen?”
“You're not staying in Denver?”
Trent spat a gob of used chewing tobacco into the snow. “I try not to linger in war zones,” he said.
“But they say the war is over, that Rado has an alliance with Texas now.”
“Yeah,” said Trent. “That's what they say. Good luck to yer.” He trudged back to his boss's cabin and climbed back in. The wagons rolled away, and Kaleb found himself left standing in the middle of the street on that square patch of ice, accompanied only by four spools of rope.
The creak of hinges pulled his head around to see double doors at the base of one of the 'scrapers opening. Eight men emerged and marched toward him. They paired upon the four spools and began dragging them across the ice toward the doors.
“Um...hello?” he ventured.
One of the pairs halted and peered at him. “Who are you?” the older of the two asked.
“I'm Kaleb,” he said. “I've come to join the new school.”
Something changed in the man's expression. Kaleb was not certain it was an improvement. “Another one, eh? Well, come in and we'll send word for someone to come down for you.”
As the man and his partner began dragging their spool toward the doors, Kaleb tried not to look impatient. But he couldn't help asking. “Can't I just go up and find them by myself?”
The man didn't turn his head this time to answer. “As you might have gathered from the tanks and demolished buildings down the block, we're not too fond of surprise visitors.” He was silent for a moment, then added: “The Governor is well protected. It would be better for your health if you let them know you're here instead of barging up.”
As he followed them, Kaleb was acutely aware of the heavy ring in his pocket. But he decided that putting it on now would only draw attention to it. It could wait.
They passed inside the building and hauled the rope to a corner of the stables. Somewhere a horse snorted. “What do you use the rope for, anyway?”
One of the younger men grinned at him. “Hanging people who ask too many questions.”
He paled, but the older man shook his head. “Don't let Harvey scare you, youngster. We do hang people here, but not often and not for curiosity. And not without a fair trial. Her Excellency is very firm about that.” He indicated a wooden bench against a wall. “Set yourself down and take a load off. I'll send word upstairs.”
Chapter 48
Xander: inflexible domains
“Difficulties mastered are opportunities won.”
– Winston Churchill
He set down the old engineering textbook when he heard the knock. “Yes?” Damnation! With all that was going on, it was getting hard to have a moment to himself to catch up on his reading.
Lester came in with some metal in his hands. “I came across something I don't understand,” he said.
“If you're lucky, that will never stop happening,” Xander told him. “That puzzled feeling, the realization that there's something you don't know, it's the beginning of all important learning. What is it this time?”
“I was practicing my spinspace manipulation as you suggested, making metal magnetic and demagnetizing it, then I found a piece that doesn't want to let go of being a magnet.”
Xander looked at the two pieces in the boy's hands. One was a smooth cylinder of soft iron, but the other looked like the broken-off handle of a sword. “Ah,” he said.
“At first I thought I was just getting tired,” Lester said. “So I had lunch and then tried again, starting with the hard piece. But it's stubborn, like it wants to stay a magnet.”
Xander smiled. “Not your fault,” he said. “It's steel.” At the look of incomprehension the younger wizard gave him, he continued. “Soft iron is easy to magnetize and demagnetize. Steel tends to hang on to the magnetism more strongly. Its domains are firmer. Kind of like the difference between working with fresh wet clay and working with clay that's begun to dry. Forging iron into steel is almost like firing clay in a kiln.”
He lifted the textbook and flipped to a page, showing the lad a picture and a cutaway drawing of an electromagnet. “The Ancient found that a coil of wire carrying electricity acts like a magnet. A convenient one, too, because you can use it to pick up some iron and then cut the current when you want to drop it again.”
He flipped to another figure. “They found that putting iron inside the coil makes it a better electromagnet, but according to this book they had to use soft iron because steel doesn't let go of the field when you turn the power off.”
“So I can't use spinspace to demagnetize steel?”
“You can, but it will be harder to do and take longer.” Xander mulled it over. “I think,” he said, “that you've discovered another good exercise for the students. When they're ready to start learning spinspace we can start them off playing with soft iron...and then switch them to steel when the soft iron gets too easy.”
He heard another knock on the door. Damn it! And now they're interrupting even my interruptions! “What is it?”
A guard poked his head in. “There's another new student downstairs, named Kaleb. Were you expecting him?”
“No,” he sighed, setting the book down. “But we need all the students we can get. I'll come down and see if he's made the trip for nothing.” He turned to Lester. “Take a break from spinspace and see ho
w that other student, Esteban, is doing on his beginning exercises with pathspace.”
“You know, we've been lucky,” Lester said. “So far no one's showed up we can't train. What do you plan to do with the ones who come with more hope than talent?”
Xander shrugged. “One problem at a time,” he said, and followed the guard to the stairwell.
“Are you going to teach everyone who shows up?” the guard, whose name he learned was Kurt, asked him while they descended the seemingly endless stairs.
“I wish we could,” Xander said. “But it's a matter of sand and topsoil. You can drop a seed anywhere, but it's a lot more likely to take root and grow if the ground is well prepared.”
“How does a person get prepared?”
Xander looked at him when they paused to catch their breath on the next landing. “How old are you, son?”
“I'll be nineteen next month. Why?'
“I don't want to get your hopes up,” Xander said. “But if you really want to become a wizard, there's a chance you might still be able to make it. Not a big chance, mind you. But a chance.”
“What do I have to do?”
“Spend more time around Gifts. The more exposure you get to swizzles and everflames and coldboxes, the more chance you have of being ready to learn how to make them. I have to tell you, though,” he went on, at the glimmer of hope in Kurt's eyes, “that it's a lot easier if you start as a child. The odds are against your becoming a powerful psionic technician if you start this late, as far as I know.”
“But there is a chance?”
“There is. If you want to risk wasting your time, I'll put in a word with the officers and get you assigned to guarding the school instead of the Governor. That way you can spend more time upstairs around the magic. Is that what you want?”
“Hell, yes!”
“I can get you transferred, but at the risk of repeating myself I have to warn you that it won't be easy and you still might not make it. No promises whatsoever, though, other than that I can get you stationed up there.”
They resumed descending. This will be easier, he thought, once we start making and distributing more Gifts to the citizens. Until then we're going to disappoint a lot of people.
“What's the matter?” Kurt asked him, seeing his grim expression.
“I was just thinking of the one's who can't qualify for training. Do us both a favor and don't tell anyone you want to be a student at the school. The older soldiers might start thinking I can teach anyone...and then they'll think I'm playing favorites when I tell them I can't.” He thought about it. “For now, I'll tell them I just need a guard and messenger. If it doesn't work out, and you're too old to pick up the talent, then no one will see you as a failed student. All right?”
When they reached the ground floor Xander closed his eyes and reached out for pathspace. Sure enough, there was the echo effect. A strong return, too. Whoever this new student was, he must have had even more exposure to the Gifts growing up than Lester did.
“Sir? Are you all right?”
He opened his eyes. “I'm fine.” He pushed open the stairwell door and the smells of the stable assaulted him: hay, dung, and leather.
It wasn't hard to spot the new student. He was the only one with nothing to do who was sitting on a bench watching everything around him as if he had never seen a stable or a skyscraper before.
“You must be Kaleb,” he said as they approached the bench. “My name is Xander, and...what are you doing?”
The boy, who seemed barely as old as Lester, had dropped to his hands and knees and touched his head to the floor. “Master, I am unworthy but – “
“Stop that right now!” Xander growled, grabbing him by his upper arms and hauling him to his feet again. “There'll be no groveling in my school, to me or anyone else, do you hear me?” Now the lad was trembling. Xander closed his eyes for a moment, willing himself to calm down. Growling at the boy would not improve the tone he was trying to set. He opened his eyes. “Let's try this again. My name is Xander. Welcome to the school, Kaleb.” He extended his hand “Where are you from?”
The boy swallowed and took the proffered hand gingerly, as if he expected it to slap him. “Thank you, sir. I've come a long way, from Californ.”
“Have you? Well, you'll be glad to know it wasn't a wasted trip. If you want to be a wizard, we can teach you.” He glanced sideways at Kurt and saw the guard was trying not to show his envy. Poor Kurt. He's probably been in Denver for almost a year now, has only a slim chance of ever being a student, and here is a kid fresh off a caravan that I welcome in at first glance.
Kaleb seemed stunned. “Just like that? But sir, how do you know I can even learn what you teach?”
Xander smiled. “It's a wizard thing. By the time you've got some training under your belt you'll be able to do it, too. But we're wasting time. Let's get you upstairs and settled in before you have a chance to change your mind.”
Chapter 49
Kaleb: meeting the master
“The Master leads by emptying people's mind and filling their cores,
by weakening their ambition and toughening their resolve.”
– Tao Te Ching, the Book of the Way, by Lao Tse
Xander looked exactly like one of the wizards in the old storybooks he had seen in the Queen's library. Gray beard and gray eyes and a gray robe, walking with a staff that was taller than he was. Trying to overcome his shame at having already angered the wizard, he followed him and the silent guard through a door that opened into a stairwell. As they began to climb the ancient steps, the wizard began questioning him.
“Where in Californ did you come from?'
“Angeles,” he said.
“Really? From what I've heard of her, I'm surprised the Queen let you out of her power.”
“It wasn't easy,” he agreed. But even as he said those words, he found himself wanting to say others: she sent me to destroy your school! But if he admitted that, and was cast out, what would happen to his family, when the Queen learned he had failed her?
He gave Xander a brief description of his journey East with Trent's caravan. The wizard seemed particularly interested in his description of Deseret.
They stopped to catch their breath on a landing. “What did you do, back in Angeles?”
“I was the Queen's Librarian...or one of them.” After I spent years mopping up bloody bits from her angry times.
“Oh? Does she have a lot of books?”
“She does.” He managed not to say 'Master' but it was not easy. “She's been collecting them for years and years.”
“Confiscating them, no doubt. Knowledge is power. Or is her Library open to the public?”
“No,” he admitted. “It's not.”
They resumed climbing. “How did you end up being a Librarian for her?”
“When I was eight, her guards caught me reading a book my father found in one of the collapsed buildings,” he said. “When they saw I could read, that was when my life changed.”
“Changed how?”
“They took me back to my family and discovered my father was a book hoarder. He'd built up a collection of over a hundred books scavenged from the ruins.”
“Wait a second. What ruins?”
“There's been a couple of major earthquakes in Angeles since the Tourists left and civilization fell,” he said. “Some of the Ancient buildings were supposed to be protected against quake damage, but their systems must have failed after a while. A lot of Angeles looks like a giant came into the city and had a temper tantrum.”
“There's some of that here, too,” said Xander. “but I've read that Angeles is more active tectonically than Rado. So what happened when she discovered your old man was hoarding books?”
“It was a serious crime,” he said. “I thought she was going to execute him. But instead she took me from him. The price for his survival was my servitude. At first I fetched and cleaned in the palace, and later was apprenticed to her old Librarian.”
>
“What's going to happen to your father now that she knows you're gone from her service?”
“Nothing,” he said. “She killed him four years ago when her men caught him collecting books from the ruins again.”
“Sorry to hear that. But what about the rest of your family?”
“I don't know. But I had to come.” He didn't mention that he'd only made the trip because he was ordered to. Luckily, Xander seemed more interested in the Queen and the state of her region than he was in Kaleb's motivations.
“Are there any public libraries in Angeles? Our didn't survive the fires, after things went crazy in the Fall of civilization. I've even heard some people burned books to stay warm.”
“None that I know of. No one has tried to start a new library in Angeles since the Queen's anti-hoarding laws made book collecting a crime.”
Xander shook his head. “Very shortsighted of her. Does she expect her subjects to learn English from her proclamations alone? She'll end up with a population of illiterates.”
“You mean, like most places have? Can everybody in Rado read and write?”
“No,” the wizard admitted. “I wish they could, but no.”
“To be fair,” Kaleb said, “literacy isn't necessary for farming, or many other trades.”
“No, but it's handy, if you find a book about farming, to be able to read it. Civilization began with agriculture and writing. Plenty of food gave our ancestors free time, and writing let them preserve what they learned in their free time.”
“Do you have any books on farming?” he asked.
“Only one: Five Acres and Independence, by Kains and Oldfield. I bet the Queen wouldn't like that title.'
“Probably not,” Kaleb agreed. “But there's a copy in her Library. I'm probably the only one who's read it. It's about managing a small farm – and the farms outside Angeles aren't small ones.”
They stopped on another landing. “She has large farms? How does she keep them watered? It was my understanding that all the irrigation systems broke down after the Fall.”
Spinspace: The Space of Spins (The Metaspace Chronicles Book 2) Page 16
