This ley-tower was strikingly different than most other large modern tapping facilities. From its two-story, squat base, it had a metal mast fixed atop the roof—tall, well over a hundred feet in height—which was braced all along its length, with non-conductive cable, linked to various points on the roof. At the very top of the mast, there was a sphere, which looked to be made of copper plate, molded over some sort of framework and riveted in place. And there was not a single line leading away from the facility.
“What,” Kanmi said, with great precision, standing up in the back of the vehicle, “the fuck . . . is that?”
“This is the ley-tapping facility,” one of the guides spoke up in poor Latin, turning to look over his shoulder at Kanmi. “Is new type, yes? More efficient this way. No wires!”
Kanmi’s eyes narrowed as he looked around more carefully. The earth was raw here, from where the trees had been hand-logged. Most of them were, in fact, still in a pile off to the east, waiting for a truck to carry them back out of the jungle . . . or to just rot there, and be consumed by insects from within. He studied the guards—most of them were Nahautl, from the clothing and tattoos, although a few might have been local Quecha—and most carried muskets. By the standards of the region, they were heavily armed, but while they looked alert and ready, they didn’t look to be on edge. “Matrugena, please tell me you speak Hellene.”
“Of course I do. I went to university.” Trennus’ lilting, rolling accent carried over even into Hellene.
“Praise the gods. You’re the ley-mage. Anything else unusual here that I’m not seeing?” Kanmi was now thoroughly twitchy.
Trennus stood, his head popping through the bubble Kanmi had been maintaining, swore, shielding his light-colored eyes, and then squinted as he looked around. And then frowned, and ducked back down into the vehicle to address their guides, “Who did the surveying for this site?”
“Ah . . . don’t know, dominus. Can take you to site manager, yes?”
They bumped and thumped over the broken ground to a shack built alongside the facility, where they were introduced to the building site manager, a Nahautl man with the improbable last name of Momoztli. Kanmi and Trennus had agreed in advance not to flash their Praetorian badges unless absolutely necessary, and Kanmi took pains to drop Gratian Xicohtencatl’s name before they started asking questions.
The site manager tugged at his jade earplugs, rubbed at his nose, and answered, “Yes, it’s an experimental new form of ley-platform. Gratian Xicohtencatl developed it, along with the rest of the R&D department at Nahautl Ley and Power. We’re already drawing more power than the last two facilities we tried to build, combined. In the six hundred and sixty-seven megawex range, actually.” Clear pride in the man’s tone, and Kanmi just stared at him for a long moment.
A wex, named for Aelfrid Wex, one of the inventors of the steam engine, was a unit of measurement used for both electrical current and ley-energy. It allowed people to demonstrate comparable amounts of energy in both systems, and was commonly defined as one jaso a second . . . minus any losses due to energy conversion or transfers.
“I’d like to see the survey reports,” Trennus asked, politely, but firmly, and once the manager produced the charts, the Britannian unrolled them on a long table, and began studying them, pushing his glasses up his nose periodically.
Kanmi gave Trennus a none-so-patient look. “Talk to me, Matrugena.” Back into Hellene, for limited security.
“None of this makes sense,” Trennus muttered. “I think someone made a terrible error in the placement of this facility.”
“They’re building it in the wrong spot? Someone’s ‘investors’ are going to be pissed.”
Trennus disregarded Kanmi’s joke in his agitation and switched to Latin to include the facility manager in the conversation. “The two previous plants were over here,” he jabbed a finger at the map, indicating a location to the east in the jungle, “is that correct?”
“Yes. Both were attacked by rebels and destroyed.”
“How?” Kanmi asked, bluntly. “You’ve got very well-armed guards here in your security forces. Or is that a more recent development?”
Momoztli tugged at his ears, nervously. “First platform, I didn’t work on. I’m told it was less well-guarded; this was ten years ago, before the guerillas became quite as prevalent. It was burned to the ground, overnight. Pure arson, just . . . alcohol poured on the floor and a lit match.” The Nahautl man shrugged, and leaned back in his chair, his back resting against a metal cabinet filled with circuit boards designed for monitoring the flow of ley-energies. Along one wall was a bank of analog meters and dials, their needles all vibrating slightly. “I did work the second site. We hadn’t even finished building it when the rebels came, five years ago. Shot ten of our security men, tied all of us engineers up, and set the building on fire.” His expression, for all his relaxed pose, was taut. “I was just as glad to hear we weren’t going to build on the same damned ground again.”
“What’s the rebels’ problem with the ley-platforms?” Kanmi asked, eying Trennus as the man continued to mutter under his breath in indecipherable Gallic, flipping through the maps in what looked like total agitation.
“The platforms are part of the Nahautl empire,” Momoztli said, putting his feet up on the table, forcing Trennus to move around him. “You know, and I know, that ley-power comes from Rome. The rebels don’t even care about Rome, except that the garrisons get out and try to chase them down periodically for disturbing the peace. They just don’t want any part of Nahautl down here. Nevermind that they’ve lived under the rule of the tlatoani for what . . . eh . . . five hundred, six hundred years now?” The man sounded disgusted. “You can’t reason with people like that.”
Kanmi grimaced. Part of him understood the perspective. His people had been under Rome’s boot for nineteen hundred years, give or take a decade or so. And Carthage, destroyed in the Punic Wars and rebuilt by Rome, still gave a token tribute in silver, every year, to its conquerors. “I serve Rome, and I do so willingly and loyally, but sometimes I wonder what the world would be like without Roman armies all across the world, Roman ideas in our minds, Roman words in our mouth, Roman coins in our pockets.” He shrugged, tossing it out there, just to see if any of the other men in the shack would, later, perhaps approach him for sounding as if he were open to other ideas. “That being said, sometimes all the reasons people give for doing things are really just excuses.” He looked at Trennus. “You’re going to be a while with that, aren’t you?”
“Yes. Probably. I’m also going to want to get outside and walk the ground.” Trennus sounded preoccupied.
Kanmi sighed, and looked at Momoztli. “How about if you take me on a tour of the inside of the facility? I’m going to want to use my own meters, and get a look at how you have this whole thing set up.” He managed a grin. “I went to school with Xicohtencatl. University of Athens. I’m not out to steal his patents. I just want to be able to ask him a few intelligent questions when we get back to Tenochtitlan.”
For the next two hours, Kanmi clambered all up and down and through the low building, taking measurements at various stations, and jotting them down in a small foolscap notebook with a fountain pen. The problem was, every time he plugged his meter in, he got numbers that didn’t make sense to him. This plant was putting out enough energy to power a mid-sized city. The Tholberg coils in the lower levels were huge, and churning with power, behind their shielding, and he drew a rough sketch of the facility in his notebook, frowning slightly. Again, he’d visited a number of these facilities in his career, and he’d never seen this many Tholberg coils in one place before. They were the brainstorm of Niels Tholberg, an eccentric Gothic inventor who’d lived at the same time as Thomas Mauritus, and who’d engaged in a vigorous, overseas debate with the inventor from Novo Gaul, about . . . everything, really. The nature of ley-power, the nature of electricity, methods of transmitting both, methods of transforming each into useable current.
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br /> Finally, he stepped out of the swelteringly hot building, and back out into the equally sticky, humid, jungle air, and slapped a mosquito away from his arm, without thinking. He caught one of the guards by the arm, and asked, “Matrugena? The Pict? Where did he go?”
“That way, Master Eshmunazar.”
Kanmi trotted off, and found Trennus, his braided hair soaked with sweat, and mud up to his knees, near the edge of the forest, where there was a tall fence, intended to keep out intruders. There were a couple of guards nearby, probably to keep Matrugena from being targeted by any rebels who might be out in the jungle. Kanmi lifted his head and scanned the trees, all too aware of the fact that, five feet back of the fence line, the greenery became an impenetrable wall. He sighed, and gave in to his own paranoia, allowing a gravitic wave to pulse out from him . . . sliding out through the area around him in a sphere. Bouncing back off of trees and rocks and the weapons of the guards with hard pings, and from their softer bodies with a quieter sensation as it reflected back to him. It was his own personal version of radar, and Kanmi exhaled when he’d determined that there was no one within about fifty yards of them besides the guards. “What have you got?” he asked, again, in Hellene.
Trennus lifted his head; he’d burned, sure enough, pink circles surrounding his eyes and a stripe of red down his nose. “I have no idea what this facility is running on,” he said, cutting a glance at the guards. “but it’s not ley-power. They’re also being somewhat careful not to let me near the west side of the property. I can feel something buried in the earth there, but I can’t get a good read on it.”
“What do you mean, it’s not ley?” Kanmi had his own confusing readings from his multimeter, but he wanted to hear this directly from a ley specialist.
Trennus folded his arms across his chest. “I mean, their original location, four miles east of here, was right atop a ley-line that was in perfect resonance with a line directly above it, in the air. It’s a rare formation, but perfectly viable. This design, with the low building and the odd mast? I could see it working in that location.” He shrugged. “There isn’t a ley-line here to tap, Eshmunazar. The closest is that original one they built on, four miles from here. Close enough that I can work with it, but so far away, that a ley-tap positioned here shouldn’t work. And I don’t care how experimental it is.” He looked up at the facility’s tower, and shook his head. “To top it off? It doesn’t feel like ley-power to me. I can’t bend this or shape this.”
“I know what you mean. I’d say it feels like electricity, except my multimeter doesn’t even register it on the electrical settings.” Kanmi grimaced. “It detects as magical force, but yes, it doesn’t feel like ley-power. Or even sorcery.”
“If I had to put my finger on it, I’d say it feels like a major spirit, working with Veil energies. Except I’ve never felt anything this powerful before.” Trennus shook his head, sweat trickling down his cheeks and into his light beard. He frowned. “See if you can convince them to let you around to the western side. Can you use that gravitic pulse of yours like ground-penetrating radar?”
“Not with any degree of definition. I can tell you if something is buried there that’s a contiguous mass that’s denser or less dense than its surroundings.”
“Please do. I have a really bad feeling about this place. My spirits are . . . agitated here.”
Kanmi nodded, and went back to the main facility. A short conversation with Momoztli convinced the manager to walk him around the property, personally, as Kanmi took pictures of the walls and the mast. And, on the western wall, he unleashed another gravitic pulse, expecting to find something denser than its surroundings. Something mechanical.
As it happened, he found something less dense, in places. As soft, in places, as the bodies of the guards around him, with a harder interior. Again, similar to the guards. Also, about the same size as a man.
Kanmi kept his face still, and chatted lightly with Momoztli for another half-hour about the structure of the mast, the composition of the copper sphere atop it—“Oh, it’s just an iron latticework, with copper sheeting over it, no, there’s nothing else inside of it, besides cables,”—and then got back into their vehicle to start their long trip back to Tikal proper. Kanmi re-established the protective bubble over the open top of the motorcar, and leaned back in his seat, every jolt and bump hitting his already-abused spine like a prizefighter. And didn’t say anything, even in Hellene, on the way back, just sorted through his notes, and kept an eye on their guards . . . guides. Just in case.
They were dropped off back at their hotel, and Trennus, pulling at the shirt he’d completely sweated through, commented, in the lobby, dryly, “I’m going to drink half my own bodyweight in water—”
“Don’t. Beer’s safer here.”
“They don’t boil it?”
“I wouldn’t trust it, this far south of Tenochtitlan.” He snickered. “I boil it myself, just to make sure. Beer, or let me boil the water for you, if you can’t manage it yourself.”
“Eh. Fire, heat, thermodynamics . . . not a specialty.” Trennus grimaced.
“Clean up, we’ll brief the propraetor, and we’ll get fluids in you. No sense dying of heatstroke here.”
“I wonder if the gift-shop . . . such as it is . . . has some sort of ointment for the burns.”
“You need to start carrying an umbrella. Or buy suncream.”
“I never remember that the stuff exists. It only came on the market a few years ago.”
“Buy some, you albino polar bear. That, and a pair of smoked-glass lenses will help you in the more southerly latitudes.” They got into the elevator, and watched the brass mesh cage doors close. Kanmi leaned against the back wall with a muffled groan.
“Can we talk yet?” Tight words in Hellene.
“No. Wait till we’re in the propraetor’s room, and we’ve cleared for devices.”
“Bad?”
“Could be worse.”
They cleaned up—one didn’t go before the propraetor sweaty, muddy, and otherwise filthy—and then met again, a half hour later, outside of Livorus’ room, nodding to Ehecatl, who had guard duty that afternoon. Livorus looked up as they entered, one hand poised above his usual stack of reports and ciphers. “Yes, gentlemen? You have something to report?”
Kanmi closed the door behind them, and sent out an electrical impulse, a quick spike that would damage any delicate listening equipment, and then, lips moving silently, pulled another barrier of air over himself, Livorus, and Trennus. This one was a little different. It still allowed air itself to move through the barrier, so they wouldn’t suffocate inside of it . . . but he consciously deadened the movement of sound through it, outside of a few feet. This would, hopefully, defeat any non-electronic snooping devices. “We can talk now,” he reported, his voice tight. “We have some interesting information, yes.” He looked at Trennus. “But in answer to your foremost question, Matrugena? The reason why your spirits were disturbed at the facility was that there was a body buried under the western foundation. About the size of a man. I couldn’t tell the level of decomposition, but there’s still soft tissue remaining.” He grimaced. “Gods. I can’t tell if it was a murder victim, an accidental death that was covered up, or an actual sacrifice, but that facility was built on blood.”
“That tallies with my spirits’ reactions,” Trennus said, taking a seat as Livorus gestured each of them to a chair. “And more. That facility is not a ley-energy platform. It’s nowhere near any ley-lines, not in the ground or in the air. It’s built on solid ground, at least, but my bound spirits say it’s fouled by what’s in the earth.” He grimaced. “They recognize the area as . . . bound.” Trennus paused, exhaling. “The concepts are a little difficult to convey, but, they recognize the land itself as the territory of some other spirit, and it’s . . . demarcated by some sort of a bargain.”
“One bound in blood?” Kanmi asked, sharply.
“Possibly.” Trennus grimaced again, tugging at one of h
is braids in mild agitation. “Manifesting there would put them in danger of the attention of that other spirit, so they wouldn’t do more than whisper in my ear while we were there. I’ll ask a few more questions, see if I can get some more answers, but I can tell you this much, already: the amount of energy being produced by that platform isn’t possible just as the result of a blood-bound bargain between someone and a spirit.”
Livorus looked ready to speak, but Kanmi cleared his throat. “Ah . . . Matrugena . . . I have an answer for that,” the sorcerer said, after a moment, and pulled out his sketchbook, and flipped to the pages on which he’d drawn the Tholberg coils, over a dozen of them, large enough to stretch from floor to ceiling in the two-story building. “I don’t think this platform actually produces anything. I think it’s a receiving station.”
“Well, that’s all a ley-platform really is. It receives energy from the ley currents, and transmits them onwards. And I know I said that the structure looked like it would be better for pulling from an air-based line, but, there aren’t any there, and as I said, the energy doesn’t feel like ley . . .” Trennus trailed off, as Kanmi lifted a finger at him. “What?”
“It’s not ley. We know that. Stop thinking in those terms.” Kanmi tapped a finger against the diagrams in his notebook. Hastily sketched as they were, he thought he’d understood the purpose. “Transformers can work in both directions, right? You can both step up energy—electricity, for example—for transmission over wires, and step it back down again, for use locally. If it’s in the wrong modality, it’ll burn out whatever appliance you’re trying to power with it on the far end, so you have to step it down.” He looked at the transformers he’d sketched. “All of these, I think, are designed to step power down, Matrugena. They’re taking power from somewhere . . . the sky, for all I know . . . and bringing it down into a form that local equipment can use.”
The Valkyrie (The Saga of Edda-Earth Book 1) Page 32
