As at the gathering of thrals, his words lit a flame in the reticent crowd. Scattered shouts of approval burst out. Sparc turned and motioned for Will to speak.
“You are Waymen,” Will lifted his voice. “The true masters of the Vast. And today we shall prove that once again. I will meet you when the dust has settled and the terrible relic which guards this place is destroyed and you shall have that which you deserve.”
More cries rose up from those gathered. Sparc gestured to one of the Waymen, who handed Will two large canvas pouches. It seemed like a great deal of water for two people. The whisper cannon could not be all that far.
“Waymen,” Sparc called out as Will slung the pouches over his shoulders. “This night, Tasada, treasure of the desert, eternal city of ancient wonders, shall be ours!” A cheer rang out from the army off behind them and a wave of anticipation rippled through the throng.
Will turned and headed off towards the blood rocks, Adan following.
As they drew near the black lines, Adan forgot all about the watching Waymen.
“How dangerous is this place?” he asked. “You said that many men have died here.”
“We are not in any danger. It is the oscillathes that kill, but we have bioseines. The cannons will not activate against anyone who has one.”
“What would happen if we didn’t have a bioseine?” Adan asked.
Will’s thoughts slipped away, covered by a confused jumble of emotions.
In a few more steps they would be upon the rocks. Overcome with nervousness, Adan stopped where he was. He had to know what Will was worried about.
“They’re watching us,” Will warned, his mind snapping back into focus. “It won’t be very convincing to the Waymen if the seer and his companion seem to show fear as they cross the blood rocks.” The alarming tone of Will’s thoughts nudged Adan forward again.
“But if you’re worried about the oscillathes,” Will added, “I’ll send you the information I have on them. You’ll see that we are safe.”
Bypassing the normal back and forth of mental communication, Adan received all of Will’s knowledge in one brief exchange. It would take some time to explore all of it, but from a cursory look he could tell a great deal.
The oscillathe was a weapon which emitted a wave of zoetic disruption, or evanescence. The wave only affected living matter, causing a chain reaction that would dissolve all of the attractive forces which held it together. The net effect was that anyone in the path of the wave would, in an instant, disintegrate—disappearing in a burst of vapor as the air around them rushed in to fill the sudden vacuum created by their absence. Nothing could protect someone from the wave once it was fired; it would pass through inorganic material as if it were not even there. The only warning a victim would receive that he was about to die would be the slight susurration of the air the moment before he was killed.
As Will had insisted, the weapons located in the Flats had a security protocol in place which protected anyone with a bioseine. They were designed to protect the Collective while allowing somatarchs to pass freely in and out of Oasis.
“What a terrible weapon,” Adan thought as he finished analyzing the information.
“I know. The weapons out here are military class versions. Once we hit the nidor, we’ll be within the outer limit of their range. Normally, one of them would fire at that point and destroy anyone who passed over the rocks, but it won’t do anything to us. I’ve crossed these flats before.”
Will’s thoughts jumbled together again, becoming hard to decipher. Why was he doing this again? Every time it happened, Adan was tempted to panic. He trusted Will completely. Why would he keep anything back from him?
Suddenly something slipped through Will’s thoughts, a mere impression, perhaps nothing, but Adan latched onto it.
“Someone you knew died here, didn’t they?” Adan asked, going on a hunch.
Will did not respond with any concrete thoughts, but he didn’t have to. The memory seemed to come to Adan on it’s own, as if it were too powerful for Will to suppress. Another man—no, several men—were walking in front of Will, over these same rocks, and then came a terrible whisper and they were gone. Adan could see the images as clearly as if it had just occurred. Will’s friends had disappeared without warning—and Will still had not forgiven himself for their deaths.
All of this came and went through Adan’s mind in the time it took to take a breath.
“I’m so sorry,” Adan told him.
Whatever had opened up the memory, it vanished a moment later. But Adan understood Will a little better now. It was a heavy burden he carried with him.
“Let’s keep moving,” Will urged. “We have to show the Waymen that their faith in the legends is not in vain.”
Will gave no sign he was struggling with his regrets. He put his head down and focused on what lay ahead: the ground, the sand, the next step.
Adan’s connection with Will faded into the back of his mind. The black nidor in front of him was all he could think about now. The thought that something terrible was about to happen haunted him. But as Will walked on ahead, crossing onto the rocks, nothing happened.
Adan walked up to the edge, pausing again, despite the onlooking Waymen. The smooth, reflective flows, the beauty of the deep blackness and the embedded sparkles glinted invitingly. Adan knew now that the oscillathe could not hurt him. What was he still afraid of?
Tentatively, he took his first step. The ground was smooth and hard, almost slippery, like the tunnels of the Viscera. With each new step, his fears gave way, replaced by wonder and fascination at the strange formations.
The blood rocks were only two dozen paces across. As they passed the last of them, a cheer erupted from behind.
The Waymen thrust their weapons into the air, their faces a mixture of excitement, wonder, and disbelief.
“When will they come after us?” Adan asked.
“I told them to wait until we were out of sight. It will take them at least that long to break camp and assemble for the march.”
Adan stared at the men stretched out along the edge of the rocks. Death seemed to be an inescapable part of life in the Vast. Beyond all the perils this harsh world seemed to throw at them, Adan was beginning to think that men were the deadliest threat to their own existence. The raids, the conflicts, the killings—all of this was as much a part of life as the storms and the arid sands. And the oscillathe was the quintessential example of this, taking a person’s life from a distance, killing invisibly, without warning, leaving no trace they had ever existed.
“How many of them do you think will die?” Adan asked, his relief at passing the blood rocks fading with his sullen thoughts.
“I don’t know. But we can’t worry about that. Just focus on what’s ahead.”
“It just feels like we’re using them. Like the scientists did with us.”
“Remember what they are. They’re savages. And they’re using us just as much as we’re using them.”
“Is this really where their legends say that the eternal city is located?”
“Yes, some of them anyway. My guess is they probably always wondered what lay beyond these rocks and made up stories about it to tell their children. The same way they make up stories about the sand demons to explain the storms.”
“It seems like an odd coincidence, don’t you think?”
“Life is one big odd coincidence as far as I’m concerned,” Will replied.
“But Gavin believed there was something inside the storms, too. Something called an eidos.”
“Did he tell you about that?” A bitter strain ran through Will’s thoughts. But whether it was directed towards Gavin or the stories about the eidos, Adan couldn’t say. It might have been a mixture of both.
“No, I saw it in Gavin’s memories. In the extractor.”
“You searched through his memories? You never told me about that.” Will adjusted the pouches on his shoulder and glanced back at the Waymen. A few still w
atched them, but most had gone back to strike the camp.
“Why didn’t you tell me he was the one who rescued you from Oasis?” Adan asked. “You said he died.”
Hidden memories stirred in the back of Will’s mind. Regrets mingled with hurt infused with shame.
“Well, now you know,” Will replied. “I guess I just didn’t want to talk about it.”
Will’s mind shrank into the shadows at the back of his thoughts. Adan shifted the subject in an effort to draw him back out.
“His memories also contained information about a being—someone called Numinae. The Welkin seem to believe he created the universe.”
“Numinae. Yes, I learned a great deal about him from the Welkin.”
“Do you think he’s just another legend, like the Waymen tales?”
“What I believe doesn’t matter. If the Waymen and Welkin want to put their faith in those stories, that’s fine for them. You and I know what Oasis is really like. We know the reality. If Numinae was going to stop the Developers he would have. But since he seems to be otherwise occupied, it’s up to us to take matters into our own hands.”
“But Gavin knows what Oasis is like and he believes,” Adan countered.
“And look where it got him? Dead, most likely.” The shadows in Will’s mind hardened. Though they lacked any physicality, they reminded Adan of the dark rocks they had just passed over.
“Still, if he is real,” Adan went on, “I would like to know more about him. Has anyone ever actually seen him?”
“Do you know what the word ‘Welkin’ means? In their language, it means ‘dweller of the sky’. The Welkin believe that one day the veil of the sky will be lifted and the world will be forever changed. On that day we will all see Numinae at last.”
“I wonder if he lives up near the stars.”
“The Welkin say he lives in a place called the Eversky. But the only way to get there is to die. I wouldn’t be too anxious to meet him anytime soon.” Will’s mind blazed back into focus. All the negative emotions, confusion, and doubt vanished in an instant. A cold, bright, efficiency emerged in their place. “We need to spot the oscillathe as soon as it deploys. If we can do that, we should be able to keep the casualties to a minimum.”
“How are you going to disable the weapon?” Adan asked.
“With taline acid. That’s what’s in these pouches. The Waymen use it all the time to destroy ‘relics’ they find in the desert which they think might be dangerous. The acid is quite effective at what it does. It only harms metal, so it’s entirely safe to use.”
Adan stared at the pouches. They were huge, but so were the military class oscillathes. Would there be enough acid to destroy an entire cannon?
They walked on in silence until Adan happened to glance back over his shoulder. He could no longer see the Waymen. Panic gripped him as he realized that the oscillathe had to be close. But more and more time passed and still, they saw nothing.
Adan was about to ask Will if they had gotten lost when Will grabbed him by the shoulder and pointed.
“There. We passed it. It’s behind us!”
Adan turned and saw it—a giant, elongated machine on a circular platform in the middle of the Flats. It had deployed without a sound. The silvery sheen was so unmistakable Adan didn’t see how they had missed it. It had rounded channels running along its length and a large vent on one side. Circular panels along either side of the central sphere pumped in and out, faster than Adan could count. With each cycle of expansion and contraction, the long, narrow barrel shot out and then retracted.
They broke into a sprint. The cannon was at least a hundred paces away. Normally, Will would have easily outstripped Adan, but the unwieldy pouches slowed him down. Will arrived at the cannon only just ahead of him. He flung one of the containers to the ground and removed the stopper from the other.
Now that they were close enough, Adan could hear the sounds of the oscillathe over his own labored breathing. It gave off a harmless rush of air, like gentle murmuring on the wind. This was repeated rapidly, over and over again. By itself, there was nothing ominous about the sound, but it sent chills down Adan’s spine. He knew that each time he heard it, more Waymen died.
Will poured the acid on top of the circular panels, but he did it slowly so as not to waste any of the precious liquid. The taline, which was odorless and looked like water, melted some of the housings, but the damage looked more like runny paint than wholesale destruction.
Unexpectedly, the gun jerked, knocking Will off balance and sending his pouch flying onto the ground. The precious acid dribbled onto the sand. Adan was about to grab the pouch when Will’s thoughts rushed into his mind.
“No! I’ll get it. You start in with the other one.”
Adan lunged to pick up the second pouch and remove the stopper. The bag was heavy and flopped around so that it was all he could do to keep it upright. The tightly sealed plug squirmed in his hand and would not come free.
Will retrieved the other pouch, but was still having little success. The gun swiveled back and forth. There was no way to predict what it would do next and the platform was so narrow Will had a hard time maneuvering. He sprayed the acid back and forth, no longer concerned with wasting it. Large amounts missed the mark and splattered on the ground.
Trails of smoke drifted up from where the acid landed on the pumping circular panels, but it wasn’t enough to stop or even slow the weapon down. The cannon continued firing relentlessly, its incessant whispering filling the air—death, it hissed each time it fired, death, death, death.
Finally, Adan loosened the stopper. He stumbled to the other side of the weapon and started squirting acid the same way Will was doing, trying to land as much of it as he could on the pulsating panels.
Death, death, death, the whispering continued, unabated.
Adan had emptied about half of his pouch. The oscillathe was nearly engulfed in smoke now, but it kept on firing. Death, death, death, the cannon murmured insidiously.
They had to try something different. Too much acid was going to waste. The central housing of the oscillathe was not dissolving fast enough.
A large section of corded wiring ran up the side of the column on which the cannon swiveled. Just looking at it, Adan guessed that this was probably what powered the gun’s swiveling motion, but there was nothing in the schematics about how the platform worked. The cabling was much thinner than the housing of the cannon itself. If it did what he thought, destroying it might not stop the weapon from firing, but it would at least keep the gun from swiveling and allow them to apply the acid where it needed to go.
He splashed huge amounts of acid onto the wiring. Jets of smoke shot out from the column. The metal casing protecting the cables dissolved into burning fumes. Adan almost gagged on the pungent smell.
A moment later, there was a pause in the whispering. The barrel of the cannon jerked once, then twice, letting out a final whispered sigh of defeat before it went still.
“Brilliant!” Will exclaimed, rushing to Adan’s side. “Give me the rest of your acid.”
Adan surrendered his pouch and Will mounted the platform and drained the last of its contents onto the central housing. It smoked so badly the two of them had to step away to get into the clear. The remaining cabling fell slack and the long barrel let out a metallic groan and bent towards the ground.
The whispering had been silenced.
Thirty-Four
Virid Ridge
Adan and Will sat waiting for the Waymen near the mangled wreck of the oscillathe cannon. Though destroyed, the sight of it was still unsettling. Adan wished they could move further away, but Will said they had to stay close so they wouldn’t miss the Waymen.
When the army finally appeared on the horizon, they were marching in tight formation. It was difficult at first to tell what sort of losses they might have sustained. But by the time they reached the remains of the cannon, it was painfully obvious they were not the same force which had set out fr
om beyond the blood rocks. Adan had no idea how many Waymen there had been before, but he guessed that hundreds had been ‘unmade’, as the Waymen put it, there upon the threshold of the Desiccant Flats.
The throng halted some distance away, the surviving warriors staring at the remains of the cannon restlessly, unwilling to come any closer. Will and Adan met Sparc and the other Reeves out in front of the main force.
“Greetings, seer,” Sparc said in a dry, weary voice, with nothing of his old vigor.
“It’s good to see you made it, great Reeve.” Will paused as the two of them studied each other.
“As you can see, many of our shivs returned to the dust on the blood rocks,” Sparc said.
“What happened?” Will asked cautiously.
Sparc’s face reddened in frustration. But just when it looked like he was about to respond with some sort of outburst, another of the Reeves, a short, slender man with large eyes spoke up.
“Permit me to speak, oh seer,” the man said in a husky voice.
Sparc shifted uncomfortably as the man stepped forward.
“Waymen do not like to speak of dishonor in battle, but we are in the presence of the great seer. Do you think we could hide the truth from him even if we wanted to?” the man asked Sparc.
At this point, several of the Reeves began speaking at once. A heated exchange broke out. Harsh words and curses flew freely. Things seemed to be headed towards a full-fledged brawl when Sparc finally managed to shout loud enough and long enough to quiet the rest of them.
“All right, all right!” he yelled, “Enough blood has gone into the sand already today. The throng is thin enough. For once, Lor is right. We must tell the seer what happened.”
A few Reeves cursed under their breath, but no one openly opposed what Sparc said.
Lor stepped out in front of the others. “Thank you, oh, most powerful Reeve,” he said, but from the sly look in his eyes, his words came off as patronizing. Sparc seemed to pick up on the slight, but held his tongue.
The Chronotrace Sequence- The Complete Box Set Page 24
