Birthright-The Technomage Archive

by B. J. Keeton

  “Okay, then. Moving on,” Roman said. The space in which the group floated began to shift around the students. Stars whirled from one side of the room to another, but as one star went right, another went left, and yet others moved in and out and up and down. The whole world as the Recruits could perceive it was in flux, and the rest of the students who had ignored Nephil’s warning about not eating breakfast vomited into space. The stars began to slow down and coalesce into a building or a ship in front of them. The group flew toward it, and just as they thought they were going to accelerate directly into the hull, they passed through it like it wasn’t even there. So this is a hologram, after all, Ceril thought. At least this part of it is.

  Now inside the structure, Ceril looked around at the translucent walls the stars had formed. The group moved through the corridors quickly, but they never took a step. The walls moved around them. If the vertigo of free floating in dead space didn’t bother Ceril, the too-fast-for-indoors speed with which they were moving through the halls wouldn’t either.

  “Pay attention to the route we are taking,” Roman said. “This is the way to the dining hall.” The group floated around a few corners and eventually came to rest in the middle of a very large room furnished with long tables and multicolored chairs. “Look up,” Roman said. They all did. The entire ceiling was a transparent dome through which they could see swirling reds turn into blues into purples—the hyperspace blur Roman had mentioned earlier. “Obviously, this is where you will eat while aboard.”

  He waved again, and the group sped up. They left the dining hall through a corridor on the opposite side of the room. The Inkwell Sigil sped around the students for a while. It whipped corridors around them so quickly—and in such rapid succession—that Ceril wondered how anyone could actually remember where to go when they were left to their own devices. He sure wouldn’t be able to find his way around. Eventually, they climbed a very steep, spiral ramp, not unlike the one in the Phase II Library. This time, however, it wasn’t lining the room’s outer walls. It could have just as easily been a staircase.

  As they circled the ramp, Roman said, “We are on our way to the dormitories now. You will each be given private quarters. You will be told which room is yours after today's orientation sessions have finished.”

  Private quarters? Ceril thought. What about Swarley? He bit his lip to stop the welling of tears in his eyes. Six years? He thought that was what Roman had said before. That the Inkwell Sigil was going to be his home for six years. He wondered how much contact with the outside world he was going to have, or with Gramps and with Swarley. They really were the only two people he cared about talking to or seeing, and he had kind of been thrown into all of this really quickly.

  He didn’t decide that he would be a Charon. He was told.

  Surely, he thought, they won’t make me go six years without talking to my Gramps or any of my friends.

  The ramp ended, and the Recruits could see ladders that led to a small walkway that allowed access to upper and lower bunks. “I’m afraid that the rooms are not luxury accommodations, but I'm sure you will find a way to make them yours.”

  Their surroundings did an almost instant 180-degree turn, and the group pitched forward down the ramp. Once at the bottom, the students found themselves flying up another, almost identical ramp.

  At the top, plants and flowers were everywhere. The air became noticeably fresher, and the ceiling was another dome that gave view of a green blur swirling above their heads. As the students watched, it shifted colors multiple times, and a few students gasped at the dancing colors. Ceril found his mouth hanging open at how beautiful it was.

  “This,” Roman said, “is the observation deck. It is one of our students' favorite places on the ship. I have a feeling that more than a little of your time will be spent here.”

  I have that feeling, too, Ceril thought. It’s so much like home. He swallowed hard and looked around at the room, and saw that it was divided into multiple tiers. Each tier had a different type of plant, almost like a theme. The very center of the observation deck was a courtyard, and Ceril saw that part of it was organized like a garden. He smiled. Maybe he would be able to study agriculture while he was here, after all.

  The transparent ship did another about-face around the students. Ceril barely noticed the route they took that brought them to a classroom. He was sure there were some turns and a ramp or two, but he would find his way around later. He was still thinking about the observation deck and the garden in the middle of it. There was just something about that place. It felt like it was important to him for some reason, like he already had a stake in it.

  The only illumination in the room was a large window. It colored everything in the room to match the hyperspace envelope on the other side. Right then, the whole group looked orange, then purple, then blue, then green, then yellow. Then back to orange. It kept changing every few seconds, and eventually Ceril had to force himself to tune it out so that he could hear what Roman was saying.

  “This,” Roman said, “is where the majority of your orientation will take place. Not all of it, mind you, but much of it. In fact, it is where your first class will take place. With me. We will discuss the history and origins of the Charonic Archive in roughly half an hour. Anyway, what you’ve just seen are the most important places aboard the Inkwell Sigil. Your places to eat, sleep, play, and learn. Like I said, I'm sure you'll find your way into other areas as you stay here, but if you can remember how to get to those four, your lives will be considerably easier.”

  “Also,” Roman continued, “all of this is going to take some getting used to for many of you. I’d bet that most of you had thought that the technomages were long dead, that the Charons were just stories you learned about in class. I hope you now realize that we are most certainly not dead or just stories, and that you all have a part to play in keeping it that way. If you can make it through your training, that is.”

  Roman flourished his hand, and the classroom solidified around them. The translucent walls that Ceril had been sure were holograms were hard metal under his hands and feet. The light from the window wasn’t quite as diffuse as it had been, either. That whole time they thought they had been speeding through the holographic representation of the ship, they had actually been speeding through the Inkwell Sigil itself. But how?

  Roman eased himself out of his levitation and back to his feet. He didn’t say anything else to the students, and there wasn’t any other faculty around. They had half an hour to kill before class started, and Ceril wasn’t going to waste any of it. He walked over to the window and stared out at the colored swirls that lit the room. Occasionally, he would look around at the crowd and saw so many frightened faces. At one point, he thought that he was the only one in the room with a smile on his face.

  And why wouldn’t he be smiling? He had just been given the best show of his life and let in on a secret the rest of the world had no idea about.

  If that wasn't something to smile about, then he really didn't know what was.

  ***

  The smile on Ceril’s face didn’t last long, though. Ethan Triggs saw to that.

  After all the other students had gone, Ceril still stood there and stared out the window. The swirl of colors created by hyperspace was mesmerizing, so when Ceril’s nose slammed into the window, it took him a minute to even register what happened.

  And when he did, he registered the three things:

  First, pain. Second, he was lying on the ground. Third, a large boy a few years older than Ceril was standing over him, laughing.

  “Welcome to the Sigil, noob,” the boy said. His voice was meaty, but he enunciated his words. Which to Ceril, meant the boy wasn’t stupid.

  “What the hell, man? Why did you do that?”

  The boy shrugged. “Why not?”

  “Why not?” Ceril almost shrieked. “You almost broke my nose.”

  “It’s not broken, though. You’d be bleeding if it were.” The boy put ou
t his hand, like he was offering to help Ceril to his feet.

  Ceril accepted, and when he was upright, he said, “I’m Ceril Bain.”

  “Lame,” the boy said. “I’m Ethan Triggs.”

  “Lame?” Ceril asked.

  Ethan nodded. “Your name. You’re just all-around terrible for a Recruit, aren’t you, Ceril?”

  “What’s your problem, Ethan?” Ceril said. “I was just standing here, and you come in and start insulting me. What gives?”

  Ethan shrugged. “Don’t really like Recruits, I guess. Most of you guys are idiots, most of you fail, and if you’re not enough of an idiot to fail, you get in my way and screw up my training or my missions.”

  Ceril cocked his head to the side. “What does that have to do with me?”

  Ethan shrugged again. “Who knows? You were here, so let’s just say this is my way of telling you to stay the hell out of my way.”

  Before Ceril could say anything, Ethan placed both his meaty hands on Ceril’s shoulders and pushed again. This time, the back of Ceril’s head slammed into the window, and his vision flashed. He felt himself fall to the floor again. And he heard Ethan Triggs chuckle and start to walk away.

  “Welcome to the Sigil, Recruit.”

  Chapter Five

  “Who had ever heard of a Charon before setting foot on my ship?” asked Roman, the muscled captain of the Inkwell Sigil. The room of two dozen teenagers stared ahead. Ceril and the other Recruits sat at their own desks, which were really unlike any desks at Ennd’s Academy. Instead of a blank slate, the desks were equipped with a touch-interface computer embedded in the tabletop, which projected a floating hologram they could interact with by waving their hands through any part of the display. Every single student—even the most privileged ones—gawked at the computers as he or she sat down for orientation. The technology was advanced beyond anything they had been allowed to get their hands on at Ennd’s, and that was saying a lot. Who knew about other schools? From the looks on the other Recruits’ faces, though, Ceril didn’t figure they had any more experience with it than he did.

  This was technomage stuff, and if this was what they were given access to on their first day of training, Ceril couldn’t wait to see what he would get next month, or even next year, if he lasted that long.

  Regarding Roman’s question, Ceril actually knew very little, only what Gramps had told him about the Charons. He thought about raising his hand and offering that information to Roman (that is what he insisted the Recruits call him. “There will be no titles and rank as long as you study with me”), but before he could, a girl in the front row started talking. Her hand had shot up like an old classroom pro, and her mouth had opened simultaneously. Roman had no time to give her permission to speak.

  “The Charons,” she said, then paused. “I suppose that most people called them technomages, though. Charons or technomages, either one.”

  Roman nodded and motioned for her to continue.

  “Right. The Charons began as a group of scientists. According to most of the Yaghian legends I’ve read, the founding members were tired of the way science was handled thousands of years ago. A man united the four major city-states without a war, and began calling himself the Untouchable.”

  The Untouchable? Ceril filed that one away for later.

  The girl continued her rambling, leaving him very little time for thought. “After that, those same city-states—Yagh, Ternia, Ferran, and Bester—produced a lot of myths that indicate that the Untouchable thought of himself as a spiritual man who loathed science.”

  Ceril raised his hand, and Roman pointed at him, while holding his hand up to stop the girl’s prattling. She ignored him and kept talking.

  “Because of that loathing, the legends say that some scientists thought that even though he had stopped the wars, he and his government were doing nothing to advance that unification. In fact, some of my teachers in Yagh that taught that the Untouchable actually did what he could to bury scientific discoveries.”

  Roman put his hands down and just started to nod. If he was giving up, then Ceril decided he didn’t have a chance to say anything.

  “Apparently, the Untouchable would either label scientific progress as heresy, or more often, he would take the invention and pass it off as his own connection to the divine. The Charons initially formed out of a desire to advance science and depose the Untouchable.” The girl sat back in her chair and became quiet.

  Ceril just stared at her. She seemed slightly embarrassed after her story. Her cheeks flushed red, and Ceril couldn’t help thinking she was pretty. Kind of. She might have been. If she wasn’t so annoying.

  Roman, however, nodded slightly and smiled at the girl. “Thank you, Saryn. I appreciate your enthusiasm. Some of the old Yaghian legends hold some truth, indeed. Can you tell me how long ago that happened?”

  “I'm not sure,” Saryn said.

  “Anyone?” Roman asked the class.

  Silence from the class. Roman leaned back against the wall with his arms crossed and waited. When it became clear that none of the students were going to hazard a guess, he said, “About ten thousand years ago.”

  More silence.

  He had obviously expected some kind of response from them. He started walking around the room. “Does anyone else know anything about the Charons or the technomages?”

  Ceril slowly raised his hand.

  “Yes? Ceril?”

  “My Gramps told me about them over the summer after we found a sword in the garden. It took a long time to tell, though. He’s a really good storyteller.”

  “Well, why don't you just hit the high points for us?”

  Ceril cleared his throat. “Well, he said the Charons were protectors. Or soldiers. Gramps never said anything about them being scientists. He said they went from province to province doing what they had to so the old wars wouldn't start again.”

  Ceril shifted in his seat as he spoke. He hated talking in front of people.

  “Thank you, Ceril. Now can you tell me how long ago this was?”

  “No idea, sir. Ten thousand years?”

  Roman laughed. “I see what you did there. Anyone else?”

  Ceril sheepishly raised his hand again.

  “Yes, Ceril?” Roman asked.

  “My roommate at Ennd’s showed me a video with some people in it. They said they were Charons. And I think that maybe the Charons might have been bad people. Sir.”

  Roman smiled. “Well, thank you for that vote of confidence, my friend.”

  The classroom chuckled.

  I didn’t mean—” Ceril began.

  “I know, Ceril,” Roman said. “I don't like to think of myself as the bad guy, either.” Roman spread his arms out and gestured at the whole class. “So tell me which of these stories is correct? Here we are, aboard a technomage ship, speeding through hyperspace. We are both nowhere near Erlon and still right beside it. Each one of you have been specially chosen based on test scores, faculty recommendations, and,” Roman looked directly at Ceril, “other more extraordinary qualifications.”

  Ceril gulped.

  “So obviously there is some truth in some of these stories,” Roman continued. “But which ones?”

  No one raised a hand.

  “No one?”

  Saryn fidgeted in her chair. She looked uncomfortable to Ceril. Obviously, she wasn’t used to being unable to offer a correct answer. Ceril had no idea which of the stories was true, either. He only knew that the contradictory tales existed and that they all had to be at least partially true. He wouldn’t be sitting here if they weren’t.

  Around the room, the other students were just as confused as Saryn. How could any of them know the truth? In most places on Erlon, records went back a century or two at most. And that was well after the last war had ended.

  Roman walked to the front of the room and over to the window. He put both of his palms on the glass. His head dropped, and to Ceril, he looked like he was praying. When Roman spoke, h
is words were quick, terse, and far sterner than he had sounded with the students yet. “No one can tell me which legends about technomages are true? Really? You are the best and brightest students on Erlon, and not one of you can tell me which of these stories is correct? No one will even guess?”

  A boy two chairs down from Ceril raised his hand.

  Without turning around, Roman said, “Yes, Barty?”

  The boy said something that Ceril couldn’t hear.

  “Louder, son,” Roman said.

  A second try: “Not to be rude, sir, but how could we know? I mean, back in Ferran, we don’t even know why it’s called Ferran. It just is. Maybe they know that kind of thing in Ternia or Yagh, but Professor Kline said last year that some stories are just lost and gone.”

  “And what does that have to do what Saryn and Ceril said?”

  Barty hesitated. “I guess that we can’t know, sir. I thought that’s why we’re here. To learn that kind of stuff.”

  Roman turned from the window and faced the class. He was frowning. “I suppose you're right. Who here agrees with Barty?”

  A couple of hands went up slowly—not above the students’ shoulders, though, in case they might need to hide their responses quickly.

  “I see,” Roman said. “Well, let me just tell you. Barty's right. There really is no way you could know which story is correct.”

  Barty beamed in his chair and sat a little straighter. Ceril felt good for the kid. He seemed like the kind of boy who didn’t get that kind of praise terribly often.

  “But so is Saryn,” the teacher continued. “And so are Ceril and his grandfather. All the stories are true.”

  Saryn couldn't take it anymore. Her hand shot up, but once again, she started talking before she was called on. “But how is that possible, sir? How? They contradict each other! They can’t be true if they all tell a different story.”

  “They're all true,” Roman explained, “because they all have that one seed in them that ties them to the past. Nothing is completely true. They all have bits of fantasy and myth in them. Ten thousand years will do that to just about anything, right? But Barty is right. You are in this classroom because you need to know the full truth. And before your time aboard this ship is finished, you’re going to know as much of it as anyone else in the world; more than most people, actually. How does that sound?”