She remembered a spring day when he'd found her outside of Denver, halfway to the distant mountains to the West that always seemed closer than they were. It was so hard to remember how huge those heaps of rock actually were.
Early Spring. A brisk morning, the flowers not quite open yet. She felt like one of them, a bud waiting for warmth to let something inside her blossom.
And here came her warmth, riding out along the ancient highway. “What the devil are you doing this far from Denver?” he said, after he slid off his own mount and tethered it to the same tree as her own roan.
“I'm surprised you took Silverthorn out for a ride just to find me,” she said. “I thought you could use your staff to fly out here far more quickly.”
“That?” he grunted, glancing at the staff in its holster on his gray's saddle. “You've got to be kidding. I only tried it once, to show you a swizzle could do more than irrigate a field, and it damn near killed me.”
“Oh, please,” she laughed. “I thought you looked quite dashing as you rose into the sky on a cloud of dust.”
“That's because you couldn't hear me screaming,” he said. “When I had the General's blacksmith roll that pipe for me and core it inside a wooden pole it was to give me a weapon with an unexpected punch to it, in case I got waylaid. I never intended to risk my life flying on the damned thing.”
She rolled her eyes. “You survived.”
“Only by letting it fall into a pond. Not my finest hour. I must have looked like a drowned rat. If I'd tried it a month later when the pond was frozen over, the Governor would have been annoyed to lose her only wizard.”
“Next time, try holding on closer to one end,” she advised, “and then tilt it up to ease it down vertically, tail-first. Your weight would help pull it straight again if it wavered from vertical, like a pendulum bob.”
He eyed her thoughtfully, stroking his beard. It was a scraggly thing so far, and she wished he would just listen to her and shave it off. “That might actually work,” he mused. “But it's moot. Do you have any idea how hard it is to steer? I have to constantly tweak the pathspace weave, bending it this way and that. I'm never trying that again. Too dangerous.”
“Well at least you came,” she said. “Even if you took your time about it.”
He scowled at her. “As apprentices go, you're a real piece of work, do you know that? Maybe I should let you run away. I've better things to do than chase you around the country.”
“I wasn't running away,” she muttered, turning to walk toward the trees. “Why would I do that?”
“Then what are you doing all the way out here?”
She didn't look to see if he was following her, knowing that his curiosity wouldn't let him stay behind. Stepping over a fallen branch, she led him through the trees to the little clearing where she'd spread the blanket. “I thought we could have an early lunch out and away from the 'scraper and all of Kristana's eyes and ears.”
He stalked over to the blanket. “I really should growl at you for using the governor's name so familiarly,” he said. “It's been hard enough for her holding everything together the last few years since the General died.” He eased himself down on one side of the blanket and dug into his gray robe for his pipe. “The rank and file won't hear you out here, of course, but it's not a good habit to get into, all the same.”
She bent over to retrieve the bottle of cider, but mainly to give him, as if accidentally, a good look at the way her riding breeches clung to her backside. She poured him a cup of cider and say down cross-legged facing him as she poured her own cup. “Do you really think she can fill his boots? While she's taking care of a newborn? Roberto was a strong leader, but do you think the citizens of Rado are ready for a Governor who's breastfeeding while she mulls over troop deployments and maps?”
“She's stronger than you think,” he said, sipping the cider. “If anyone can hold Rado together to face Texas, it's her. Only a fool would face a mama bear defending her own cubs.”
She bit her lip. This wasn't going well. She hadn't brought him out here to argue. “The Honcho's no fool,” she said. “But everyone is saying he'll never give up until Rado is just another part of his Lone Star Empire.” She turned and reached into the satchel to pull out a loaf of bread and the quarter wheel of cheese she'd sneaked from the kitchens.
“Perhaps not,” he agreed, loading his pipe and patting his pockets to find the everflame he always carried for it. That was a good sign that he wouldn't be hurrying her back to Denver. She knew he preferred to finish a bowl once he started. “Like his father before him, Peter Martinez is an ambitious man.” He lit the pipe and puffed on it for a moment. “He won't be happy until the whole continent is one big empire.”
“He sounds a little like you,” she said. “Don't you want to stop all the little wars too?”
“Not the same way he wants to. I have my own plan, and it doesn't involve killing half the people I want to bring together."
“Starting a school for wizards won't stop his dreams of conquest...of outdoing his father's accomplishments.” She edged closer to him. “Haven't you ever thought about just taking over, yourself? You could be king of Rado.”
He blew out a smoke ring before answering. “The last king of Rado tried to take on the Emirates and it didn't end well for him. They're a formidable enemy. Only the fact that we're so far from Dixie and a lot colder than their farmers are used to kept them from annexing Rado and putting an Emir over us.”
“Were those the only reasons? Or were they not ready to have a province so close to the Honcho?”
He considered that. “Could be. It was long before my time. But to answer your question...no, I don't want to be king of Rado. I've got more important things to do than command armies and whatnot like the General. I'm glad Kristana honored his wishes and stepped up to succeed him.”
She tore off a piece of the bread for him. “I know you don't like killing, but don't the Governor's troops prevent all the inter-clan raiding and feuding we used to have? There's more to ruling than going to war. Sometimes, being ready to fight can actually prevent a war, and save lives. Isn't that as important as starting your school? You could save more lives as a king than you'll protect as a schoolmaster.”
He bit off a mouthful of bread, and followed it with another sip from his cup. “There's more to being a ruler than keeping the peace and being ready for war. You should see all the reports and advisers the Governor has to put up with. I don't have time for all that. With your help, we can finally start the school, and you can take over some of the teaching to free up my time to investigate some of the artifacts that have been turning up.”
“I don't see why you're so obsessed with all that junk. Why study swizzles when you know how to make your own?”
“Kristana's troops aren't just finding artifacts for me,” he told her. “They sometimes find books and other records from the time of the Ancients. From what I've been able to read so far, there were many kinds of Gifts that the Tourists made for the Ancients. If I'm right, there are kinds of magic, of psionic technology, that no one has ever learned to harness."
“Other kinds of pathspace?”
“Other kinds that might need their own names. You remember that stone wheel they found that won't stop turning?”
“The one one the smith uses as a grindstone?”
“That's the one. It's an artifact, too. But whatever makes it turn is something different from pathspace. It doesn't follow a path and go anywhere – it just spins where it is. One of the books I have mentions things like it called everwheels, and I think we can learn a whole new kind of magic from it. Something I'm thinking of calling spinspace.”
“You mean, you might be able to learn how to make more everwheels?” She thought about that. “That would make a lot of smiths and armorers happy. Potters, too.”
“Not just them. The Ancients had everwheel-powered cars, so they didn't walk down streets full of horse dung.”
“But how did
they speed up and slow down? Wouldn't all the drivers have to be wizards?”
“Maybe,” he grunted, and swallowed more cider. “But there are other things we could do with spinspace. We could have mills without streams, and who knows what else? But it's only an example. There's so much we could do if I can figure out more of those artifacts. No telling how much I can learn from them But I'd have no time to do any of that or run the school, if I was stuck being a ruler.”
“I'm not saying it wouldn't be a challenge,” she said, putting her hand on his thigh. “But I'd still do it, if I were you. Sure, there'd be advisers and reports. But if you were king, you could just order changes by decree, instead of waiting for people to catch up with your knowledge and agree with you. There's no limit to what you could do...especially with the right queen by your side.”
He froze, then leaped to his feet. “Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?” You are a shy one, if you have to pretend we're not alone in order to get my hand off you. “I didn't hear anything.”
Three men young men emerged from the trees. Two held knives, one gripped a loaded crossbow, and all three were grinning a little too broadly. “Well, well, a couple of springtime snafflers. Ain't she a little young for you, granddad?”
She saw Xander's eyes narrow at the comment. “We work for the Governor,” he told them. “Get out of here unless you want trouble.”
The man with the crossbow widened his eyes in mock dismay. “Oh dear, I'm so frightened. Maybe we should leave.” He laughed. “Or maybe you should give us your money and food now, and hope that's all we take from you.”
Xander's jaw clenched. “You've no idea who you're messing with, son. I won't give you a second warning.”
“Good,” said the man, “because I hate it when fools waste my time. Hand it over quickly, before me and my boys decided to take turns with your little slut while you watch, you old pervert. Don't even try to tell me she's your daughter. I saw how she was coming on to you.”
Xander turned red. But not as red as she was seeing now. Second warning? I won't even give you a first! As quick as her temper, her mind wrenched at pathspace and one of the men's knives flew out of his hand and buried its blade in the leader's neck. As the stricken man dropped, gurgling, his crossbow bouncing off the forest floor, she wove again, a double flow this time, and the other two jerked with sickening cracks as their heads and necks tried to go in opposite directions.
Two more bodies hit the ground.
“Wait!” Xander cried, too late, then shut his eyes briefly. When he opened again them he checked the three bodies to make sure they were dead. “You didn't have to do that. We could have knocked them out and tied them up. The Governor can always use more workers in the salt mines."
“Tied them up? With what? I'm not ripping up a perfectly good blanket for idiots like that.”
“You still didn't have to kill them.”
“And they didn't have to call me a slut.”
He looked away. “We should head back,” he said finally. “There might be more bandits, this far from the city.”
“Fine.” She fought back tears as she grabbed up the blanket and satchel and stalked back to the horses.
He rode silently back to Denver with her. She didn't know how to restart the conversation. What was he thinking? Was he sorry, or glad they'd been interrupted?
That was one of the night she cried herself to sleep.
Chapter 45
Jeffrey: Taking The Next Step
“Impossible is a word to be found only in the dictionary of fools.”
– Napoléon Bonaparte
He was definitely getting better at controlling the artifacts from across the room. Every day he stroked the swizzle and the everwheels with his mind, and every day they seemed to respond a little more quickly, as if more eager to cooperate.
He wrestled with the idea of telling Marcus about what was happening. Ever since the monk had been ready to use a swizzle gun on Jimenez from their hidden corridor alongside the Pontiff's audience chamber, Jeffrey had been certain the Church knew more about the artifacts than they were telling. They had, after all, maintained a secret warehouse somewhere in the city, from which had come the Gifts his father had needed for his refinery project.
But stockpiling the banned alien tech was one thing. Becoming more intimately acquainted with it was something else. Were the caretakers of this stuff merely hiding it...or had some of them learned how to replicate the swizzles etc. as Xander had up in Denver? He wished he knew. It would help resolve his indecision about disclosing his own growing connection.
As it turned out, his questions were answered (and fresh ones inspired) the next day when Marcus came down the steps into the cellarium. “I see you've been making progress.”
Jeffrey looked up from the paper he had been trying to write something, anything on. He flushed. “Not as much as you wanted, though. Most of these things are still as much of a mystery to me as they are to you.”
Marcus seated himself across the table from him and smiled. “That's not what I meant. You're beginning to achieve more of a...rapport with them, aren't you?”
Jeffrey swallowed and followed Marcus's gaze over to the wall, where one of the everwheels was still turning. He'd forgotten to turn that one off. He reached out automatically with his mind to counter-stroke it...and felt an odd sensation, almost as if Marcus were an artifact himself. It was like a mental echo, and once he sensed it, it was impossible to ignore. “What do you mean?”
Marcus arched his eyebrows. “Come now, Excellency. By now you have sensed it. When one begins to get...a feel for this alien technology, it changes you. New possibilities open up for you. One of them is the ability to sense the presence of others with the ability. I can now sense that your ability is beginning to grow, and from the strength of my perception I am quite sure that you can sense the 'magic' connection in me as well.”
Busted. In a way, it was a relief to not have to lie about it to him. “You're right. I can make the swizzle and the everwheels work without touching them now. You don't seem very surprised about it. Are there many of you in the Order who can do this?”
Marcus glanced at the swizzle lying on the table. Suddenly it hissed into life and slid across the surface of the table like an arrow or a darting fish, and he caught it. The hissing died away. “Not as many as you might think,” he said, looking at it. “And all of who can do this – control them from a distance – are monks who spent some time in the Reconditorium Prohibitum when they were younger.”
“Is that what you call the secret Gifts warehouse?”
“Indeed. At first we thought it was a fluke, but when more than one of us had the same...experience, we began to think that exposure to the artifacts encouraged the growth of the ability.”
“You mean, this isn't an accident, is it?” he realized out loud. “You put me down here to see if it would happen to me, too. Didn't you?”
Marcus nodded. “All of the prior cases were with younger men. We wanted to see if it could work with an adult.”
Jeffrey's eyes narrowed. “Why me? Why didn't you just bring one of the adult monks down here?”
“You have to remember,” Marcus said, “that until recently, the official Church position was that these Gifts are demonic. They were sequestered to prevent them from infecting people with their potentially evil influence. It was the feeling of His Holiness's predecessors that they were made by sorcery, which has long been considered a dangerous practice.”
“But I'm no sorcerer! And what is so evil about a pipe that makes wind, or a wheel that turns by itself?” Jeffrey snorted. “Besides, if demons could make them, then why would we need aliens to come here and do it?”
“People always fear what they don't understand,” Marcus reminded him. “There are some in the Church who feel that references to demons are merely vestiges of superstition that should be eliminated from Church lore.” He paused. “In that regard, your point about the Tourists
is a good one. Why would God or Satan send demons to Earth if they were already here? But there is another school of thought, one which holds that the Enemy's greatest weapon is our disbelief in the very existence of the Enemy.”
“So if the Pope didn't want to risk infecting more of his followers, why try it with me?” Understanding dawned. “This was the plan even before you brought me here, wasn't it? You could have sent me anywhere for sanctuary, but you brought me here.”
“There is no point in denying it, Excellency.”
“But again, why me? He knows I'm not really Catholic.”
“I do not pretend to be privy to all of His Holiness's considerations,” said Marcus. “But some of the factors are apparent.” He began to tick them off on his fingers. “First, it's obvious that he prefers to hope for a restoration of your rule as Honcho, rather than to accept the uncertain future of an Empire ruled by struggling pretenders. The current situation could all too easily degenerate into civil war – an internal conflict that might tear the Empire apart and leave it a tempting target for opportunistic invaders.”
“And an invasion might reduce his region of influence, if someone conquered part of Texas. Or even force the Vatican to relocate to Mexico, or even further South.”
“Correct. Second, we know, as you point out, that your outlook is entirely secular. This adds to your value as a test subject. It removes any religious bias you might otherwise have that could make you either unwilling to participate, or cloud your observations with spiritual digressions.”
“Have you had that problem with your warehouse caretakers?”
“Yes, in a few cases. Some feared they were risking possession, while others were tempted to think of themselves as special...as being chosen for some holy mission.”
“So you wanted to try a skeptic instead.” Jeffrey nearly laughed. Who would have thought that his history of hostility toward the Church would make him ideal for their schemes?
Tonespace: The Space of Energy (The Metaspace Chronicles Book 3) Page 18
