Red Queen

by Jolie Jaquinta

  Chapter 27

  Common Ground

  Late that evening Eadwyn walked back across the town. The stars were shining brightly but for a black swath obscured by the smoke of the forge. Its roar formed an ever present bass line to the symphony of insects. Very few people were out at this hour. The heavy military presence in the outpost obviated the need for a night watch.

  Her boots echoed as she walked the hard stone of the streets, opulent by the standards of anywhere else. A single carved stone formed the sidewalk, gutter and street. Most of the place had been constructed, virtually overnight, by magic. It was Scioni's first stronghold from when he left Romitu, until he returned. Although remote geographically, the presence of a permanent gate kept it important, politically.

  Eadwyn stopped at the ruins, as she often did. There was the one place here that was not magically developed. It was empty and desolate. The tumbled stone's weathered surface showed veins and swirls that looked organic, as if grown in place as their city was. Elfish. Grey Elfish. When looked at from above, it bore the unmistakable layout of a tri-form arch, as did their own gates. Seldom mentioned, this was the feature of Iron Tree that warranted the interest in the location. And the Elfish ruins, ancient by their standards, were but the latest of a wide variety of others going back millennia. This place was rich with magical energy. And each succeeding generation made use of it in their own way. Some even thought that the ironwood tree that grew so large as to form the natural chimney of the forge had tapped into that power itself. So even the native Troglodytes made use of it unknowingly.

  She caught herself drifting as she leaned on the perimeter fence. It had been a long day, and a longer night. She pulled her fatigue duty clothes about her more tightly and headed to her quarters. Being a combat mage, she was automatically an officer and rated personal quarters. Even so, she missed barracks life and elected to have her quarters in the most crowded part of the city. Although it was late, the smell of Troglodyte cooking and the sound of music drifted out of different dwellings. They may have lived in this forest for generations, but they originated underground and had no trace of circadian rhythm. It was no more, or less, alien to her than the human district, resurrected as she was from a bygone age.

  What she did not expect was to find a cloaked figure lurking on her doorstop. She slowed her approach and paused, collecting her consciousness. “Friend or foe?” she asked, when she had assumed a relaxed, ready stance.

  The figure looked up, pulled back his grey hood, and laughed. “It's OK. I'm with the government.”

  “Moss”, she said, with a trace of annoyance. “Why lurkest thou on my doorstep at this time of night?”

  He stepped aside, bowed, and motioned her to the door. “Well, I lurked here earlier, but you were not to be found.”

  She opened the door and moved into the apartment. He followed in behind and closed the door. The place was small and utilitarian. A shelf on one wall held the only personal ornaments in the place; several abstract figures of dogs. She looked at Moss with an unwelcome stare.

  “I bring mead, victuals, and conversation” he announced, in something closer to her dialect. He reached into his cloak and brought out a bottle of amber liquid, a wooden board with some smoked fish on it, a lump of cheese, a bowl of fruit, and a lit candle. He smiled and bowed again.

  “Why should I wish converse with you?” Eadwyn asked, unmoved.

  “Because”, he said, lifting a finger, “I wish to talk about a subject you are most expert in.”

  “This is nay about demons then?”

  He looked oddly at her. “Hmm. That seems an odd question. I guess I should check in with my... my wife's daughter to see what has been playing out of late. I miss so much, out in the waste.” He smiled and sat. “But, no. Not demons. Let us talk of vortices.”

  Since he seemed to not be leaving any time soon, Eadwyn sat opposite him, her hands folded across her chest. “The hour is late.”

  “And I certainly would not be disturbing you at such an inconvenient time unless I thought that you would really want to hear what I had to say.” She snorted. “So, as you know, and disagree with, I'm all fired up about greening the waste; making the deserts bloom; and all that.” He gestured expansively. “It's not that it's hard. Each plant contains within it the pattern of its older self. A growth spell is pretty trivial. What's hard is doing it efficiently. There's a lot of waste. And not nearly enough mana given our differences in how we feel it should be applied.”

  “You would not be thinking of using vortices for energy!” she said, alarmed.

  He held up his hand. “I understand your concern. Raw, untapped, random magical energy.” He shook his head. “As you know there were experiments. The results were... disturbing.”

  “They gave the army a right merry chase for a few weeks”, she growled.

  “A useful live training exercise”, he said with amusement. “But, agreed, not one worth repeating.” She looked sternly at him. He beamed a smile at her and stood. In front of one wall he traced out a diamond pattern, with a line emerging from each point. The upper and lower lines he colored blue, the left and right ones red. The sides of the diamond he colored green, with arrows on each side pointing to the rightmost side. He made a revealing gesture with his hands, and sat once more.

  “What is this?” she asked.

  “It's a pattern”, he said. “So, those green bits, Chapter 3 of the first book of the Biblica Hexapla. They are simple mana polarizers. They restrict the ebb of mana to a single orientation. The little arrows indicate which way. The red lines represent a line of lay pulled from a vortex, randomly orientated and oscillating, broken by this pattern of four polarizers. The blue line, then, is a cross lay line, of constructed magical energy.”

  Eadwyn froze, staring intently at the diagram. Her eyes traced out the hypothetical mana flow. No matter how contorted the flow along the red line, as long as the polarizers were strong enough to stop a surge of backflow, the flow along the blue line would be constant and regular. She looked at him wide eyed. “Who told thou this?”

  Moss laughed. “It came out of my own little head.” He looked up in slight embarrassment. “All right, I know there's quite a lot of company in my little head. But I think it was dealing on such a small scale... Did you know”, he said suddenly, “that there are plants and animals so small that you can't even see them without enhanced sight?” He picked up a grape. “Right here, there are jungles, and herds and an amazing variety of life, breathing, fighting, reproducing...” he shook his head. “It quite puts you off your food. I'm not digressing”, he said to her annoyed look. “This is what I've been dealing with. Capturing the patterns of these small menageries. Trying to replicate this as a more efficient means of promoting life. And it does work”, he said, holding up his finger. “But it has had me thinking on this fundamental scale. Then... it just came to me.”

  “Hast thou tried it?” she asked, eager despite herself.

  Moss shook his head no. “I think I'd want the army on standby, just in case”, he said smiling. “And, I would be most comfortable if you were there. You have the most knowledge of anyone on vortices. You could bring one near enough to do a small test, and banish it when complete. It would just make it more of a controlled test.”

  She nodded, and reached for the cheese. “They have just piled more duty upon me. When did thou think?”

  “The waste isn't going anywhere. I can wait. But, I wouldn't persuade you on that alone. I know you disagree and I respect that. But I think you can see this has other applications.” He continued candidly, “In all honesty, if successful, there is going to be disagreement on the applications of this. Having a critic of mine participate in the validation of it will hopefully focus the discussion on the merits of the technique, not the larger political argument.”

  She met his eyes for a moment, and then nodded once. Turning back, she stared intently at the diagram. “A vortex characteristic is powerful random spikes. Would it no
take as much strength to contain as to produce?”

  “Well”, said Moss, reaching up to the diagram again. “I was thinking that if the polarizers were powered directly by the cleansed flow”, he drew some connectivity from the blue back to the green lines, “they could respond directly to the total power flow. When flow was high, they would be strong, when flow was low, they would need external input.”

  The conversation continued for some hours.