by Clayton Wood
“No,” he replied. “It was actually a contemporary of Ampir's, a Runic named Sabin.” Kyle frowned.
“Wasn't Sabin the guy who created the Behemoths and destroyed the Ancient Empire?” he pressed. Master Banar nodded.
“Unfortunately so,” he confirmed. “But the man was a genius in his own right, and his work on finding what he called the 'void mineral'...the crystal with the highest magic acuity, one that could drain any other substance of its magic...was extraordinary.”
“Did he ever find it?”
“No,” Master Banar admitted. “Perhaps if he hadn't been so ambitious with his other pursuits, he would have had enough time to finish his work. Unfortunately, the vast majority of written works from that time were destroyed. We only have bits and pieces of what remain.” He sighed then, much as Kalibar had done when he'd contemplated the tragedy of the Ancients. Then he glanced at Kyle, giving him a rueful smile. “Is your brain full yet?”
“Kind of,” Kyle admitted.
“Well then, enough talking,” Banar decided. He sped up suddenly, shooting ahead of Kyle. He spun around as he did so, facing Kyle as he went. “Come on, I'll race you to that hill!”
Chapter 8
Kalibar paced back and forth down the length of his enormous suite, his bare feet making little noise on the magically warmed granite. He looked up, seeing Jenkins, his loyal butler, trying not to stare back at him. Kalibar was wearing the special eyepatches Erasmus had crafted for him; no doubt Jenkins was clearly unnerved by the “illusion” of his Grand Weaver staring right at him. The man had arrived moments ago to bring Kalibar his lunch, which sat steaming upon a silver tray that Jenkins held before him.
“Not now, Jenkins,” Kalibar stated, waving the tray away. Jenkins bowed.
“Would you like me to leave the tray, sire?” he inquired.
“Yes,” Kalibar answered. “...and thank you, Jenkins,” he added. His tone had been abrupt earlier; Jenkins was not the source of his frustration, and he hardly wanted to sour his relationship with the man over a misconception. Jenkins was, after all, the finest butler he'd ever had. The man had been instrumental in smoothing out the wrinkles in Kalibar's minute-to-minute existence, ensuring that Kalibar had whatever he needed...often before he realized he needed it. Such devotion to one's work was a rare quality indeed, in any walk of life. Kalibar knew that his position gave him an extraordinary power over Jenkins. He was responsible not only for his butler's employment, but for his very self-worth. A Grand Weaver's praise was as valuable to Jenkins' disposition as was his salary, and by recognizing his accomplishments, he could vastly improve Jenkins' satisfaction with his work. It was a responsibility Kalibar had seen far too many men in positions of power ignore, or worse, abuse.
Kalibar watched as the devoted butler set the tray down on a nearby table, along with a tall glass of water.
“Jenkins, what's your salary?” Kalibar inquired. The butler froze, then glanced up at Kalibar.
“Twenty-six thousand per year, your excellency,” Jenkins answered, stepping back from the table. Kalibar frowned, taken aback. He'd thought that Jenkins would have been granted a more robust salary after his recent promotion; twenty thousand was barely three times the poverty level...enough to live a moderately comfortable middle-class lifestyle, as long as the man had no children.
“Do you have children?” he pressed. Jenkins smiled, his eyes lighting up.
“Yes sire, two girls and a boy,” he answered proudly. Kalibar shook his head.
“Jenkins, you're far too good at what you do to make that little,” he replied firmly. “Money should not worry a man of your excellent qualities. I'm doubling your salary effective immediately.”
“I appreciate your generosity, your excellency, but I can't...” Jenkins protested. Kalibar raised one hand.
“No buts,” he interjected. “You must be paid in proportion to your worth. I don't know what I'd do without you,” he added with a smile. Jenkins smiled back, bowing once more.
“Thank you, sire,” he replied. “And thank you again for my promotion,” he added gratefully. Then he blinked, realizing that he was still carrying Kalibar's tray. He set it down on an end-table, then bowed to Kalibar once again. “Is there anything else you require?”
“No, thank you, Jenkins,” Kalibar replied. Jenkins nodded, then turned about, leaving the room as quickly as he'd come. Kalibar watched the butler go, then sighed. He resumed his pacing, leaving the steaming tray on the end-table. The meal was almost certainly delicious – Jenkins and his assistant Greg had grilled Kalibar extensively on his food preferences, and had never failed to deliver a culinary masterpiece with every meal – but Kalibar was too distracted to enjoy even the tastiest of delicacies. No one had yet been implicated in the prison break earlier that morning. Even so, he had a good idea of who was ultimately responsible.
He stopped his pacing, closing his eyes.
The children from the Arena had been there, of course. And Kalibar's guards had just informed him that they too had vanished from the prison. While the children might not have had any useful information about Xanos or the Chosen, now the Empire would never know. And worse yet, the Council would be outraged at the loss. Even with a narrow advantage over Goran in the Council, their meetings had become increasingly difficult. If Kalibar and Erasmus lost just one of the Councilmen's support, they would lose their majority, and be rendered effectively powerless.
And that, he knew, would force them to invoke the Right of Dictatorship.
He sighed in frustration, resuming his pacing. The nerve of the enemy, to walk right into Stridon and completely nullify any benefit his raid of the Arena had conferred! It was a show of strength as much as anything else, he knew. Xanos was sending them a message, telling them that even their victories were ultimately futile.
Kalibar stopped pacing, walking toward one end of the spacious room. The walls and ceiling were made of huge sheets of magically-reinforced glass – glass that acted as a one-way mirror, allowing Kalibar to see out, but no one to see in. To people on the outside, his room was a giant crystalline pyramid, sparkling like a gem in the sunlight. He had, as a result, a breathtaking view of the southern half of the city. He walked to the transparent wall, placing both palms on the smooth, cool glass, staring down at the city below. From here, he could see the commercial district, hundreds of squat, rectangular buildings flanking the winding city streets. Innumerable blue and red squares littered the streets and flat roofs of the buildings, landing zones for citizens wearing jumpsuits, allowing anyone to leap from rooftop to rooftop, or rooftop to street. It was possible for a man to traverse the entire city without touching the ground, and the fact that rooftops were usable space for pedestrians had made Stridon different than any other city in the Empire. Rooftops had gardens, pools, and sometimes even storefronts for various peddlers. Every inch of the city was usable space, all because of recent advances in runic technology. Kalibar could only imagine what the city must have looked like in Ancient times, over two thousand years ago. Their runic technology had been far more advanced, with flying vehicles, weapons that shot deadly beams of energy, and even entire buildings that levitated high above the ground.
Kalibar gazed at the cityscape below, knowing that he would never live long enough to see such a spectacle...the re-creation of the Ancient Empire. He'd read nearly every book that existed on the Ancients, devouring the texts in his youth, fascinated to the point of obsession. He'd read all of the Ancient biographies of the giants of those times...Renval, Sabin, Gogan, Ampir. How many times had he wondered what the Empire would look like if Sabin and Ampir hadn't betrayed their people, setting civilization back two thousand years?
It was a futile line of thinking, Kalibar knew. His whole life had been devoted to slowly rebuilding what Ampir and Sabin had destroyed.
He sighed, taking his palms off of the glass wall in front of him, then stepping backward. He reached up with the same hand, gazing at his pink, wrinkled flesh. He'd near
ly forgotten that, just a few hours ago, he'd been living in a world of pure darkness. How quickly the mind adapted...he was already having a hard time remembering what it was like to be blind. He flexed his fingers, marveling at the faint blue rays emanating from the magic rings on his fingers.
What a remarkable gift, he thought.
A sudden boom rocked the Tower, making the glass windows vibrate. Kalibar frowned, looking beyond the transparent panels, down at the buildings far below.
There, in the distance – right in the center of the commercial district – a massive cloud of dust and smoke rose above a large building. It was Stridon Central Bank, the headquarters for the wealthiest banking company in the Empire. As he watched, its stone walls collapsed inward on all sides, the roof breaking apart and falling downward. Massive chunks of stone shattered as they converged in the center of the building, forming a crude sphere. Debris sucked into the sphere, nearby carriages and people sliding across the street and flying upward into that vortex. Everything that was sucked into its vacuum was torn apart near its center, then shoved outward, only to be sucked back in again. The sphere undulated for a few moments, the fragments of stone and wood getting smaller and smaller as they were torn asunder, and then the whole thing suddenly collapsed, hunks of rubble dropping straight down onto the street below. A massive cloud of dust shot up with the impact, and seconds later, another shockwave rattled the Tower. Kalibar stared at the expanding cloud of gray, at the pile of rubble below it, in disbelief.
The bank had been utterly destroyed.
Kalibar heard the high-pitched emergency alarm, and turned around, spotting Jax and Erasmus behind the transparent front door. Kalibar walked up to the door, opening it...but not before he remembered that he wasn't supposed to be able to see.
“What the hell is going on?” he asked as Erasmus rushed into the room. Jax followed him in, along with a few elite guards. Kalibar closed the door behind them, activating its defensive wards.
“Stridon Central Bank has been attacked,” Erasmus stated grimly. “You heard the shockwaves?”
“I...yes, I did,” he replied. “I want my Battle-Weavers mobilized. Jax, get me High Weaver Urson.” Jax nodded, go to the communication half-globe, activating it. He turned to one of the elite guards. “Debrief the captain of the elite guard, have his men seal the Tower. No one comes in, no one goes out. No one is to come in or out of the Gate Shield either, except for my Battle-Weavers.” The guard nodded, rushing out of the room. He turned to another guard. “I want the captain of the city guard. Tell him to set a perimeter around the bank,” Kalibar demanded. “We need to protect the people from the wreckage.”
“Agreed,” Erasmus piped in. “If this is an isolated attack – a terrorist attack – we'll need disaster crews in after the area is declared safe. We'll need medical teams to separate the dead from the wounded, the dying from the well. I'll contact the governor.”
“Good idea,” Kalibar stated. Erasmus turned about, replacing Jax at the communication orb. Jax walked back to Kalibar.
“Battle Weavers are conducting aerial surveillance,” Jax stated. “They'll move in to neutralize any further attacks.”
“Thank you,” Kalibar replied. “I want High Weaver Urson here as soon as possible,” he added. Urson was the commander of the Battle-Weavers, second-in-command to Kalibar himself...and despite his relatively young age, one of the finest tacticians in the Empire. Jax nodded silently. Erasmus came back from the communication orb.
“The governor's courier is coming,” he informed. “I'll have him organize mobile medical units. We'll set up evaluation and treatment tents beyond the perimeter of the attack, and set up carriages to bring seriously wounded victims to our hospitals.”
“Good,” Kalibar replied. Then he shook his head. “This feels like a terrorist attack,” he muttered. “They're trying to turn our own people against us, by playing on their fears. First the prisoners, now this...some of the wealthiest citizens in Stridon had their fortunes tied up in that bank.”
“Myself included,” Jax stated with a sigh. “It's a good thing I'm so close to death that I don't give a damn.”
“I doubt others will be so understanding,” Kalibar muttered. “We'll have to help finance the rebuilding of the bank, and guarantee our citizens that their fortunes will be preserved.”
“Agreed,” Jax replied. “And we need to prove that Xanos is responsible for this,” he added. “But if he is, I don't see how we can stop him.”
“We always knew this was a losing battle,” Kalibar muttered. Erasmus snorted.
“Well, the damn Council isn't exactly making our jobs any easier,” he interjected. “Present company excluded,” he added hastily. Jax sighed.
“The government was designed for inertia,” he admitted. “Not for this kind of situation.”
“The founders did anticipate this,” Kalibar countered. Jax's eyes narrowed.
“You mean the Right of Dictatorship,” he stated warily. “There's no turning back from that, Kalibar. You know what they'll do to you if you go down that path.”
“It's starting to look like it's our only remaining option, Jax.”
“Give me some time,” Jax requested, suddenly looking even older than his seventy-two years. “Let me speak to Goran and his followers...make them see reason. Leave the Right of Dictatorship off the table,” he insisted. “If you invoke it, you will be hanged, Kalibar.”
“If the Council decides to hang me for saving my people,” Kalibar replied, “I'll put the damn noose around my neck myself.”
“Give me some time,” Jax repeated. Then he turned away, walking out of the suite. Kalibar watched the old man leave, then sighed, glancing back at the cityscape beyond the suite's massive, transparent walls. He knew that his citizens would be in shock for some time. They would still believe that the government would protect them. That this disruption in their lives would be the last, and life would return to normal soon. But when the attacks didn't stop, when it became clear that the Empire was powerless against this new enemy, the lofty ideals of the Empire would succumb to the sheer instinct to survive. The citizens of Stridon would submit to Xanos, offering Kalibar's head to the enemy themselves if it meant they would be spared.
He'd seen it happen before. Had used the tactic himself against his enemies long ago, much to his mentor Marcus's dismay.
If Kalibar didn't find a way out of this mess, Xanos wouldn't need overwhelming power or an army of Death Weavers to defeat him. With a few well-placed attacks, and a little patience, the Empire would end up destroying itself.
Chapter 9
Kyle sped along in his gravity boots, following Master Banar as he flew between some trees, over a mile from the Tower. The going was slow, requiring a great deal of concentration to steer around each tree. That was the point, of course; Master Banar was teaching Kyle finer control over his gravity boots. At first, Kyle smacked into more than one tree, but eventually he managed to avoid the obstacles. It was an exhausting exercise, at least mentally. Eventually Master Banar stopped in mid-air, rotating to face Kyle.
“Getting tired?” he asked with a grin. Kyle nodded. “All right, fly up above the treetops,” he ordered. Then the Runic flew upward through the air, dodging branches as he went. Higher and higher he soared, until at last he stopped a dozen feet above the tallest tree.
Kyle gulped, staring up at his instructor. He'd always had a healthy respect for gravity, particularly the way in which that most unforgiving of forces could pull you down to your death if you dared to defy it. But Master Banar was insistent, gesturing for Kyle to levitate upward. Kyle gathered his courage, then streamed magic gently into his left boot. Upward he rose, the ground shrinking below him.
“Careful!” Master Banar warned. Kyle stopped his magic stream, halting in mid-air. Looking up, he saw that there was a large tree branch right above his head. He went around it, then rose up until he was level with Master Banar.
“Sorry,” Kyle told Banar.
“No problem,” he replied. “We need to protect that precious brain of yours,” he added with a grin, ruffling Kyle's hair playfully. “Alright, time for more learning! Where were we?”
“Uh, magic vacuity?”
“Right,” Banar stated. “Crystals pull magic into them unless they're full, and the emptier a crystal is, the hungrier they are for magic around them.”
“And my brain has crystals that can pull magic out of just about anything,” Kyle added. Banar nodded.
“So we assume. Now, no one can pull magic out of your mind,” he explained. “...at least not without great difficulty. But you can pull magic from other parts of peoples' bodies.”
“Like what?” Kyle asked.
“Like their bones,” Master Banar answered. “Bones are made of minerals, and they're good at storing magic. Magic flows from the brain and into the skull bones, filling them up until they're saturated. Some magic is leaked into the surrounding air. This is the magic you can sense coming from Weavers and Runics.”
“How can I use the magic in my bones?” Kyle pressed.
“It's used automatically,” Master Banar answered. “When the stores within your brain are depleted, magic streams from the nearest bones – those of your skull – to the brain. That's why Sabin assumed that the brain must contain small amounts of his 'void mineral.' When the magic in the skull starts to get used up, magic from the next nearest bones – the spine – streams to the skull, and so forth. The opposite happens when you use up all of the magic in your body.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well,” Banar answered, “...when you use up every last bit of magic in your bones, magic still gets produced in your brain. However, remember that, the emptier a mineral, the greater its magic vacuity. Bone has a high vacuity, so when its completely empty of magic, the vacuum is quite powerful. In fact, it’s so powerful that it's almost impossible to keep much magic within the brain, at least at first. As magic continues to get produced, the bones fill up...first the skull, then the upper spine, and so forth. Once the skull is filled again, using magic is easier.”
