Forged in Fire (Destiny's Crucible Book 4)

by Olan Thorensen

  At Sea

  One consequence of both Rintala’s and Akuyun’s reports and personal accounts was that both Narthon and Fuomon searched for Amerika in the same corners of Anyar: the Krinolin continent, the lesser-known coasts of Ganolar, and the Great Ocean covering one hemisphere of Anyar. Chance encounters of enemy ships occurred off islands no one had ever visited, usually resulting in captains keeping a wary distance. On a few occasions, though, cannon fire was exchanged, and one engagement resulted in both ships vanishing. The maps of Anyar improved from records of these voyages, but searches failed to find Amerika.

  Above Anyar

  In the months following the Narthani defeat, another entity underwent changes. Whether the AI circling Anyar was sentient could be argued, but either way, it made a decision—the second one it had been obligated to make concerning the small island west of the continents. For the second time, it had observed major battles on the island. The difference this time was that the number of participants was much greater than previous. Triggered subroutines required more information, and a cloaked drone had been deployed to the island to provide more detailed data—the first time the AI had utilized that resource. Before returning to orbit, the drone, operated by a lesser AI, reported flashes of fire that its databases correlated with hydrocarbon-based incendiary devices, what appeared to be minefields, and the utilization of a hot-air balloon.

  A message was dispatched to the AI’s creators, along with relevant recordings and notification that the geosynchronous orbit of an observation satellite had been changed to allow constant direct overhead monitoring of the island. The final change in the AI’s routine reported to its creators was the intent for periodic instead of ad hoc updates on the island.

  On that island, a minor change, one that existed only for a few minutes on three occasions before reverting to previous states, occurred at several locations on Caedellium. Egg-shaped, mineral- or crystalline-appearing structures sitting with two-thirds of their oval shapes extending out of rock emitted a low hum and grew slightly warmer. A series of flickers passed from the apex to the rock base. However, no human witnessed the changes. A yellow murvor took to flight, squawking when the round surface it had landed on gave it a small shock, and a guinea pig–sized Anyarian mammal that approached to investigate a humming, turned and ran off when its hairs raised from electrostatic charges.

  Epilogue

  To others, an enigma paced the room, the click of his heels on the polished plank floor synchronized to alternate heartbeats. Yet he didn’t think of himself as an enigma but as an imposter.

  None of them knew the truth. How could they? Or maybe he was a mirage, something they wanted to exist so badly that nothing would shake their unwavering belief.

  A light appeared in the corner of his vision. He turned his head toward the source—a full moon peeking through an open window. The second moon had already set. The scent of coralin vine flowers, pungent and sweet, wafted into the room. Once he’d thought the odor alien, but now he pulled the aroma deep into his lungs, anchoring himself.

  “If I could just once see the one big moon again, the one I was born under, or smell jasmine or pines,” he whispered to the gathering early evening light. In past times, such longing had been a probing knife, though those days were gone.

  “We’ll be ready in a few minutes,” called a woman’s voice from the next room.

  “That’s fine,” he responded.

  Take all the time you want, he thought. Take forever, or go without me.

  All he had wanted when he first awoke on Anyar was to be back on Earth. Then, when he came to accept that this was going to be his life, he wanted to find a place to live out his life with a degree of security, comfort, and some meaning. The latter, he thought, would be to introduce knowledge he brought with him from Earth. The early times, when he miraculously produced ether and kerosene, both helped the people here and brought him lifestyle security.

  This Yozef Kolsko found himself with a big and growing family. Not for the first time, he wondered whether, if he had a choice, he would opt to go back to the old Joseph Colsco or remain Yozef Kolsko with all that entailed. The answer was not automatic. He had no doubt that here he made a difference, while on Earth his time would most likely have passed with little notice in the grand scheme of history. He felt satisfaction that here he could see his impact.

  He also found himself, at moments, enjoying his status and worrying about enjoying it too much. He had given up denying he was a Septarsh, which only fueled the growing legend. He had once overheard hetmen Skouks and Bultecki talking during a meeting break. Skouks commented that Yozef had finally quit denying he was a Septarsh, which showed that he truly was one. Either way, Yozef’s words would not change their minds. And who was he to say? The story was that Septarshes seldom, if ever, admitted God spoke to them and that what they believed about themselves was irrelevant. They were vessels through whom God spoke to the people. If the criterion was that the Septarsh changed the world for the better, then did he not qualify, no matter his own beliefs? Would his acting the role eventually change him so that he believed it and acted accordingly? Would he still be the same person, and would that make any difference?

  He still waited for the rest of the family. Gwyned and Elian were helping, but it was a once-in-a-generation event, and Maera and Anarynd would have everyone looking perfect—at least, to their judgment.

  He turned from the window and strode to stand before a full-length mirror framed in fine-grained kaskor wood. A stranger stared back, wearing a plain but finely tailored dark brown suit of clothes, each piece carefully made by the best of their trades on the island. Others had wanted a more ornate ensemble, but Yozef had insisted on plain. He won that fight but didn’t try to argue against the quality of the items, which would have equaled a year’s income of most island families. He couldn’t win all arguments and knew he shouldn’t try.

  He looked at the mirror again. The man in the reflection had brown hair. It had darkened in the first year after his arrival, now with only streaks of the original color left. How his hair had darkened, he didn’t know, although he assumed it was tied to what the Watchers had done to him. He saw a medium-height man with a sturdy physique—very different from his doppelganger on Earth.

  A scar ran from the edge of his forehead to above the right ear, the combination of two different wounds, one gotten at Moreland City and the other at Orosz City. He had a noticeable limp when both men turned sideways for complementary side views. They each raised one hand to gently stroke their head scars, while their other hands reached down to rub the shins below the knees.

  “Nothing we can do about the head scars,” the medicants had told him. “The limp and ache in your leg will fade with time, although you may notice them during cold and damp weather.”

  Not mentioned was the third scar, angry across his right side. The injury had healed after he nearly died. He remembered all three times: the first impact on his leg and the pain that came only later; a searing sensation as a jagged wood fragment slashed his head; and the flash of light and then darkness, awakening to agony. Scars and a limp as lifelong companions, the scars always visible and the limp and ache recurring enough for him to remember how he got them.

  At this moment, those eyes were almost . . . sad. He looked into his future, and it wasn’t what he would have planned for himself. The time at Abersford, after he initially accepted that his life would be on this alien planet and up through his marriage to Maera and when the Narthani threat forced their move, was the most contented time of his life. Even now, he often hesitated to think they were the happiest times—after all, what was happiness?

  He knew he would never regain that time. He would have been perfectly content living out his life in Abersford. His enterprises, friends, the abbey, his retreat cottage, the secret places he found west of the town and the abbey, and Maera.

  Although that fantasy was gone, he tried to hold on to a small piece of it. He had already t
old everyone that he would be going on a retreat to his cottage for two or three sixdays every year. It would be included with visits to Caernford, St. Sidryn’s, and the shops still in Abersford and to see his son Aragorn so the boy would have a connection to his father. In truth, he valued the time at the expanded cottage the most. To his discomfort, it came above the desire to see Aragorn.

  He would never finish his ledgers. His memory still held more snapshots of texts than he could write down if he worked full time the rest of his life. He had worked on his clearest memories, usually classes he had found most interesting. However, he found that if he concentrated, he could often recover textbook sections he had assumed were missing in his recall or entirely new readings he hadn’t thought part of his enhanced memory. Disconcerted, he realized only recently the sporadic nature of the recall. Text that he previously envisioned clearly now occasionally vanished, and previous gaps were suddenly filled. It worried him that the effect wasn’t constant.

  He struggled to find an hour a day to write—too often failing. He told himself he had already transferred or written down enough to push Anyar science centuries ahead of where it would have been, yet that didn’t seem to satisfy him. The personal ledgers were another matter. After describing how he came to Anyar, they turned into a detailed diary. Someday it would be an invaluable record of these years—once it was translated.

  He had four sets of ledgers. For science, there was his memory recall of texts—in English. These he translated into a second set in Caedelli. A third set was his diary, and the fourth set consisted of facts about, and the history of, humans on Earth. No one on Anyar would know the contents of the English sets in his lifetime. He had also worked on an English-Caedelli grammar and dictionary—enough that once others had access, they would be able to translate the unbelievable tale of how the mysterious Yozef Kolsko was in reality an otherwise unremarkable chemistry graduate student from a planet called Earth somewhere else in the galaxy. He would attempt to pass on the journals to someone to keep them safe. He’d tried and failed, yet, to come up with criteria to reveal them.

  More voices. Soon they would come for him. He looked deep into the eyes in the mirror, eyes that could hold anyone’s focus: a rare pale color that in different lights changed chameleon-like among shades of blue, gray, and sometimes an unidentifiable hue, unsettling the object of their attention. Not that he realized the effect.

  He remembered himself as young, with an unassuming form, a confident pleased-with-himself manner, a secure and comfortable future, and no urge for noble commitments. A man who knew his place in life and was content. In contrast, while the man in the mirror might appear young, a closer look belied the impression. Not that the face was older, merely more lived. A determined face, a face with responsibilities, with resignation, with apprehension, a face foreseeing an unchosen future.

  The man standing before the mirror remembered who he had been, while part of the man in the mirror longed for the same, someone with a quiet, unexciting life. Someone without monumental responsibilities. A different life from that of the man in the mirror, a man who had seen much, accomplished much, and lived thirty years in the last five. He was a man who knew his life would not be quiet. It would be a meaningful life, one with joys and darkness, a life of making a difference, but also a life of burdens as heavy as a mountain. Both men recognized an irrevocable moment; after today, there would be no turning back. The parting smile needed no words because the men knew they would not see each other again. A smile of melancholy farewell. As they stared at each other, the man before the mirror morphed until the two men became one. He shifted his shoulders to adjust the new suit of clothes.

  Voices again. The women’s voices he recognized, one in particular. She and others had told him this day was stirring, exhilarating, inspirational, and other words holding no weight for him. They were words he didn’t want to hear, words whispering “duty,” even if not voiced. She chided him for behaving as if it were an appointment to have his teeth pulled. In her annoyed remonstrations, she would never understand the depth of his reluctance. His acceptance would never be matched by any yearning for what others assumed for him—or themselves.

  The relatively few pieces of his attire meant that he was the first to be ready. Maera and Anarynd would take considerably more time, both for themselves and to supervise readying the four children. In addition to their three, Aragorn would be there. Bronwyn and her entire family had traveled from Abersford for the occasion—along with tens of thousands from all over the island.

  Not nearly as many had come to Orosz City for the event as had been sheltered there during the invasion, but those who were here were concentrated in a natural bowl that had been specifically developed as an outdoor amphitheater for the occasion. Yozef had visited the site the previous day, curious about where the event would take place. He saw enough torches to account for a small forest and enough kerosene lanterns to light every building in Orosz City. At the center stood three twenty-foot-tall menorah-shaped bronze structures made from captured Narthani cannon. Each menorah had twenty-one large lanterns—a lantern for each clan. Yozef had voiced disappointment about losing the cannon, but the objects were intended to be historical artifacts that would travel to each clan on a rotation.

  Yozef had attempted to dampen the ceremonial plans, but he accepted the recognition needed for such a major change in Caedellium culture. Maera had told him so, along with Anarynd, Culich, Rhaedri, Sistian, on and on—and of course, Carnigan several times.

  The same people and a third of the hetmen had countered his hesitancy in accepting. After it was first proposed, he’d refused outright, but he finally became resigned to the arguments from all members of the now-lapsed War Council, other hetmen, the Fuomi leaders, Maera and Anarynd, and the cruelest betrayal—Carnigan. His own preferences ended up being shunted so far into the background, he struggled to find them.

  When everyone was ready, they would take a carriage to the amphitheater, escorted by representatives and banners of every clan. At the amphitheater, a program would commence with speeches, music, and, at the end, the formal recognition of Yozef Kolsko, Paramount Hetman of Caedellium, a step above all clan hetmen, and leader of eight hundred thousand people whose language he didn’t speak five years ago, with the potential to push the entire planet’s civilization centuries ahead.

  No one had defined exactly what were the duties and powers of the office and the title. He remembered seeing a PBS series about the Adams family—presidents, not ghouls. John Adams was the first vice president and presided over the Senate. As here, there were no rules or traditions to guide the new Senate. Adams either made them up as they went along or insisted the members make decisions that became powers and traditions. Yozef knew that he would be doing the same. His stock with the Caedelli and the hetmen was such that at least for some time, he could probably dictate traditions that would last. He would have to be careful and not take advantage of the opportunity to be frivolous. Not that he felt jolly at all that he could foresee. Call it intuition. Call it intelligent extrapolation. Call it clairvoyance. Call it pessimism. Whatever it was, he thought he could see into his future.

  He had so much to do! Not just his journals and all the ongoing projects. How he would accomplish everything he wished would be difficult on Caedellium with the island’s current or projected infrastructure. Steam engines, railroads, wire and wireless telegraph, a real chemical industry, pushing scientific and medical knowledge as fast as the people of Anyar could absorb it, and carefully edging the Caedelli and others toward social and political reforms. He would do what he could to spread knowledge beyond Caedellium, both to advance the entire planet and to make the island a less attractive target. The Narthani were not the only potential people to worry about. Yozef had not spent as much time with Gaya, the Landoliner, as he wanted, but from what he learned, the Landolin political entities, while among the most cultured on Anyar, had a superiority complex and ruthlessness just below a smoother sur
face. Then there was the Iraquinik Confederation, an alliance of feudal nations that might have been a serious threat to the rest of Anyar if their attention didn’t focus on the Narthani.

  His ruminations were interrupted when the rest of the family flowed into the main hall. Maera and Anarynd wore identical dresses of two shades of green with white trimmings. They knew green was his favorite color and had dressed the same to emphasize their unity as his wives. The children were carried by nurses to prevent the mothers from having their carefully crafted appearances disturbed—an affectation neither of them would have normally considered, except for the importance of the occasion.

  Questions. There would always be questions: Did all this really happen? Am I insane? Has it been nothing more than a dream? A nightmare? Who am I? Do I even exist? Will there ever be answers? Who really are the Watchers? Will I ever encounter them again? Will I find more clues about the other aliens that transplanted Earth life forms to Anyar? Have I seen the last of the Narthani? Was being cast among the Caedelli serendipity? What if I had been found on a shore of Narthon or somewhere else on Anyar? If it’s all been real, were there other survivors, and what happened to them? Are there transplanted humans on other planets? Will I ever be able to reveal where I came from? A wry smile followed the questions, and a gentle shake of head attested to his expectation. He doubted there would be many answers.

  Again, not for the first time, he smiled at himself. He knew such internal dialogues would continue the rest of his life. He would always feel a degree of sadness about never quite fitting his roles. But such reservations aside, it would be a good life. He would accomplish much. Caedellium would prosper, and he would leave children who would pass on the nano-elements the Watchers had given him to save him after the plane collision. Someday his journals would be translated, and the people of Anyar would learn of their unsuspected place in the universe. The Narthani were still out there, believing in their destiny to rule the entire planet—something would have to be done about them. He had universities to build, journals to write, island clans to mold into a unified structure, a family—it was going to be a busy life.