by Garon Whited
I’m glad I did. When it sprang out of the shadows at me, I interposed a vertical Firebrand, edge-on. Its own leap carried it into the blade and I helped by slicing downward, splitting its head in two almost to the neck. The fangs missed, but the rest of the body carried into me with the force of the leap, rows of claws scrabbling and scratching wildly against my armor as it died. It took a while to finish dying, but I shoved it and backed away to let it thrash around and tie itself in knots in its own good time.
Firebrand obligingly provided a bit of light while burning goo off itself. I examined the beast by swordlight. It reminded me of both a snake and a centipede. The body and head were serpentine, scaled, and heavily muscled. Along the underside were dozens of small, clawed legs. The fangs were hollow and dripped something—I didn’t test it; I simply assumed it was venom. It must have weighed two hundred pounds.
I never saw anything this size the last time I was here. Did larger creatures avoid this region because of the ants? Probably. If I’d known about the ants beforehand, I sure as hell would have.
I continued into the building with even greater caution. The thing had a den under the booking desk, but it seemed to be alone. I liked that.
The two robots were still there. They had a combination of legs and treads for negotiating any sort of terrain or obstacles. They each had four arms, two of which ended in rotary devices full of tools, the other two ending in what I can only describe as cybernetic hands.
Diogenes and I looked into them for a bit and I eventually moved them outside. A little work with a defunct car’s solar panels provided power to one. I linked Diogenes through a spell, just as a test. The thing worked, albeit a bit slowly. Diogenes reported low power levels from the ancient, dirty solar panel, which was never designed for this sort of thing.
Proof of concept.
Since they were fairly sizable and too heavy to carry, I loaded them into a dead car and started looking for a way to harness it to Bronze. Bronze punched her forehooves into the trunk area and pushed the car a few feet. Obviously, her study of motor vehicles wasn’t pointless. I got the idea and took the wheel, steering us back to the Biology building.
With some help and directions from Diogenes, I vandalized some of the computer terminals for plug-and-play components and hotwired an adapter for him. With his guidance, I connected a long extension cord to the robot and disconnected the building from the power grid. This kept the power from bleeding away into the larger system and allowed the robot to draw on power from the rooftop banks of solar panels.
With electricity going into the robot, Diogenes was in control of it and mobile—he had a body! He started working on the equivalent of wireless communications using the robot’s hands. He also sent me off to run errands.
I checked in with Sir Sarron. Still connected and still, as far as we could tell, running at a one-to-one time ratio. I considered it excellent and thanked him for what was doubtless a terribly boring duty. He saluted.
I spent the rest of the day with my monomolecular-edged sword, cutting chunks off old cars—chunks with intact solar panels—and hauling them over to the Biology building. I also swiped their battery packs. They might not work perfectly, but some of them might still hold enough of a charge to be useful.
Bronze came with me, not to actually do anything, but to make the travel portion go more quickly and to stand guard while I carved the horseless carriages. After a brief break for sunset, we started scavenging much more quickly. We came across the equivalent of a pickup truck and it improved our efficiency even more—more cargo space. I loaded the stuff into it, Bronze pushed it, and we started collecting tons of salvage.
I also had the brilliant idea to look in the Engineering building. If there were any other mobile robots—not factory-type, fixed-mount things—Engineering was probably the place to look. I was right. Four robots of various sorts were waiting for me to rescue them, so I did, as well as liberating a selection of tools and materials for Diogenes to use. I also checked the high-energy physics lab on the theory they might have a utility robot for work in radiation environments. No such luck, but it was a good thought.
While considering what else Diogenes might need in order to find, refurbish, and activate the local cloning technology, it occurred to me he might have to venture out of the Biology building for materials I hadn’t scrounged. While I might not get a car to work, Bronze and I could move them close so Diogenes could work on them. He might manage to salvage or repair parts from ten cars and get one working vehicle out of it. Failing that, he could at least take them apart and wagons for hauling things.
On one of our trips into town we also liberated some guns. We brought back quite a pile of the things, both old-fashioned bullet-throwers and ultramodern power-based versions. Again, this was with an eye to taking lots of them to pieces in order to get a few working ones. If the armored elephant or the serpentipede took it into their heads to destroy a robot, they probably could. I made it clear to Diogenes it was acceptable to defend himself and his appendages from the local wildlife. While he has some legal programming about people, pets, and property, most of it doesn’t apply here—and in Karvalen, I’m an absolute monarch. He told me it wouldn’t be a problem.
I went back to following his instructions regarding solar panels. The roof already had its solar power banks on-line and Diogenes was cleaning them with one of the bomb-disposal robots. The car-part panels we arranged on the ground and hoped nothing decided to step on them.
As morning first started to fade the curtain of night in the east, I left Diogenes to work. We had communications set up with all his robots. At this rate, he was ready to get busy establishing himself as the artificial intelligence overlord of the earth—as soon as the sun came up and gave him enough power to operate everything.
“Bring the ring gate over here when you can,” I told him. “I’d like to be able to use it for communications.”
“Will that not interfere with your use of it in conjunction with the library arch?”
“Yes, but you can take it back when I’m ready to come through.”
“Perhaps I should simply station some audiovisual equipment in the library when I begin repairs on the library systems.”
It shouldn’t be humbling when the artificial intelligence is smarter than I am. In this case, however the idea was so darn obvious, I should have thought of it.
“Yes, that’s probably best,” I replied. “I’ll call back when I can. While you need to establish yourself here in terms of power, equipment, and resources, the main objective is to study the feasibility of cloning.”
“You got it, jefe.”
“Thank you, Diogenes. Take care.”
“And good luck to you, too.”
Bronze took me back to the library. I connected the spell in the charged crystal I brought to the ring-and-arch system and mounted it on the gate’s base. It could be useful on my next trip. I would probably bring another charged crystal to swap out with it, but in case something went wrong, whatever charge it accumulated in this desert of magic might be helpful.
I shut down the power jet on the library side of the gate. It would wear itself out if left to run—it wasn’t the more complicated version that sucks up some of the power for itself. I didn’t anticipate needing a long-term power jet. Fortunately, the spell could sit indefinitely, and I would rather use it to ensure a continuous connection than let it run itself out just to build a stored charge. Next time, I’d bring a better one.
I shifted wormholes from rings to arches and watched the expanding and contracting of the view, like some strange funhouse mirrors, wobbling in and out. It settled down and we waited those extra two seconds, just to be sure, before Sir Sarron, Bronze, and I stepped through.
My transformation instantly slammed me from dead to alive, a process normally taking several minutes.
Oops. Dawn. One second, let me switch days.
Thursday, March 11th
There we go.
Sir Lorodin had the presence of mind to shut down the archway. It’s nice, having people who aren’t afraid to take initiative.
While I lay there on the floor, gasping and retching, I reflected on the difficulties of a living existence when undergoing rapid transformations. Going from alive to undead isn’t too big a deal—ridiculously uncomfortable, but it fixes itself in a few seconds. Living things, such as my daytime metabolism, take considerably longer to recover from having everything instantly jump-started. I imagine it’s like having your heart restarted with a defibrillation machine, except it’s every single organ, not just the heart, and all of them at once.
Yes, I know you can’t restart a kidney with a defibrillator. I’m being descriptive, not technical.
I also considered how lucky I was to have already hung my helmet on Bronze’s saddlehorn. The last thing I needed was to drown in my own vomit and bile because I couldn’t get a helmet off. Depressing. Humiliating.
When my limbs felt ready to cooperate and my internal equilibrium seemed better than nonexistent, I climbed up on the edge of the central pool and rested there. Sarron and Lorodin helped me up. Lorodin scooped up some water for me. I rinsed and spat twice, then swallowed some. Thank goodness the mountain started circulating fresh water through the pool after I landed in it, way back when.
Again, dying is easy. Rising from the dead—at least, when it happens quickly—sucks. Maybe this is similar to how Mary felt when she started having a heartbeat during the daytime. My sympathies reached back in time to her.
Sarron and Lorodin wanted to send for more help, but I nixed the idea. I don’t want a lot of traffic in and out of my private gate room. For one thing, the less traffic it sees, the less likely it is to be spotted by Johann, no matter how he keeps targeting me. Since Lorodin was still down here—obviously tired, but present—he hadn’t sent for anyone; we might as well keep the place as low-traffic as possible.
When I felt stronger, I got out of my armor—again with help—and they cast cleaning spells on everything. I wasn’t going to have transformational gunk crawl out around my neck again if I had a choice, especially while I was still nauseous. After that, both knights worked on a generalized healing spell or two for me. I hoped those would help sort out my internal troubles. I gave them a few minutes and felt them working nicely. Judging by the remains of the candle, I lay there for half an hour or so, trying to approach normal. Normal for me, anyway.
Once I felt reasonably restored—nauseous and weak, rather than retching and wrung out—I decided to have a word with the mountain. The inner surface of the room looked as though it might wind up as one big, irregular crystal. A crystal that size could hold a phenomenal charge, but it was also vulnerable to a single fracture. Crack the structure of the crystal and all the power would bleed away. A series of smaller crystals would be much better, and I let the mountain know it though a small message spell.
I wasn’t really up to it. Doing even such minor work was tiring. I obviously needed some more time to recover. Still, what doesn’t kill you at least annoys the hell out of you.
All in all, I’d say it was a successful trip.
Sarron and Lorodin switched off with a new pair of grey sashes right before lunch. I wasn’t terribly hungry, but I forced myself to numb my sense of taste and smell so I could eat. It seemed to help settle my stomach and reduce the shaky, weak feeling in all my limbs. I wondered what my blood chemistry looked like, aside from unnatural.
A little after lunchtime, I was feeling more like walking wounded than wheelchair, so checked in with Lissette and got her answering service. On the plus side, the nobles are sorting themselves out in Carrillon and the Grand Conclave—their name for it—is shaping up. On the downside, I didn’t actually get to talk to Lissette, and I get the impression this Grand Conclave is shaping up into a Huge Party.
I’m not overly pleased with the idea of a gigantic formal party, but Lissette couldn’t come to the mirror because she was in the thick of organizing it. Still, what the Queen wants, the Queen gets. I’ll have to tough it out like a good husband should. Besides, I want people to start thinking that way about the Queen. She’s supposed to get her way.
More locally, the winners of the sicaricudo tournament were recuperating in the Temple of Shadow and should be back in top form within a few hours. We may be in Carrillon tonight!
Lotar, meanwhile, was relocated from his sealed-up room in the Palace to his deep-pit room under the Hall of Justice. I went along with the detachment of Guards in charge of the transfer and endured quite a lot of his shouting, insults, and basic frothing at the mouth. The prisoner transfer was otherwise uneventful. I guess it helps to do it secretly. If you don’t announce the upcoming move, the remaining faithful don’t have much time to organize.
The wizard Haran, meanwhile, came through for me. The ranking wizards in the Guild worked night and day to get it done, but they enchanted the lid on Lotar’s new cell. Instead of a typical pivot-door, they had a thick brass grid in the shape of a circle. Across it, in a “V” shape, were two heavy bars. The ends of the V were hinges and the apex of the V had a place for a pin—or a padlock. The big circle was on the underside of the V and would fit into the floor, very much like an oversized manhole cover. The whole thing was too heavy for one man to lift even if it wasn’t locked in place.
The enchantment was a basic disruption spell turned into a continuous wave—not an anti-magic area, since there was plenty of magic around, but an anti-spell area. The circular portion of the lid radiated pulses of magic designed to interfere with the formation and functioning of spells. Any spell reaching directly into the pit would be affected by it. It wasn’t impossible to get a magical effect to manifest in the pit, but it would have to be something extraordinarily quick, between the spell-disrupting pulses. It was more likely someone would have to get the lid open in a mundane fashion before they could do anything magical to or around Lotar.
There’s no such thing as a perfect prison, but you can always keep improving. This was pretty good. I complimented Haran on his efforts and thanked him. He seemed relieved or pleased or both. We still haven’t sorted out whether the Wizards’ Guild is a separate organization or a branch of the Crown’s organization, but I think I’ll let Lissette sort that one out.
Lotar did not want to go down the hole. He fought and struggled and I watched him fight and struggle. He didn’t seem focused on the fight, really, but on me, shouting how I had no authority over the clergy and so on. The problem the guards faced was getting him down into the pit without harming him—a tricky operation with a deep pit and a man determined not to go quietly.
I had them hold Lotar for me. I moved behind him, put an arm around his neck despite his protests, and squeezed, compressing the arteries to the brain. It’s a tricky thing to do, but, strangely, I seem to have a talent for knowing exactly where to find large blood vessels. Weird, isn’t it?
Lotar went limp pretty quickly and I waited a few seconds to be sure. After that, they got him down the ladder in a hurry. Once they had the ladder out, I closed the brass grating myself. It was heavy, even for me, but maybe my weakened condition had something to do with it.
Success. I love success. Lotar was safely stowed away and unlikely to go anywhere. If he did, we had him on escaping custody charges, too. I made a note to mention it to the priests of the Lord of Law, just to be sure it was a crime to escape from custody. It seemed fair. If we lock you up for a crime, it’s another crime to not stay locked up.
I headed back to the mountain, whistling cheerily, knowing I would have the mountain grow stone over the metal lid to hold it in place. They would still lock it, but his prison was literally set in stone.
If you have gathered the impression I don’t like Lotar, you may be right. I don’t like his religion, but Lotar’s personal power grab is exceptionally offensive.
Of course, his religion is somewhat offensive, too, but I’m trying to minimize the theological.
Once back at
the mountain, I strolled along the halls of the palace, taking my time on my way to see Seldar. Dantos’ daughter, Caris, ran up to me and grabbed me by the knee. She’s done it a number of times, usually alone, but today she brought new friends. One was a boy about her age, with a big grin behind a layer of dirt. He didn’t grab me, but stayed right behind Caris when she did. He didn’t say anything—too shy, perhaps—but the other one, Mikkel, gave his name when asked.
I conjured a ball of light for her, as usual. She didn’t let go of me, but grabbed it one-handed, giggling. I whipped up two more and presented them to her friends. They took their toys. Mikkel remembered to bow. The nameless youngster mmediately ignored me to play with the light. Caris gnawed my knee affectionately before dashing off. The boys followed, paying more attention to the lights than to their feet.
I’ve gone through the rainbow like this with Caris and I’ve been working through various combinations, so the ball of light now cycles between two colors. It amuses her and allows me to walk without a child sitting on my foot, arms and legs locked around my lower leg. If she’s going to bring friends, I hope I’m not about to need hundreds of the things just to get from the front door to my bedroom.
Then I wondered. The interior of the mountain is exceptionally clean. Dust and dirt in the undercity tend to merge into the floor and vanish, becoming part of the mountain in a sort of geological circle of life. How did her friend get so dirty? Is it a supernatural ability of small children? It gave me a mystery to ponder on the way to see Seldar.
When I walked in, a high-ranking official from the Church of Light was in conference with him. I could tell from the fancy hat and the embroidery on the chest of his robes. It was a sun-face, rather than a fist of light, so he wasn’t (or wasn’t admitting to being) a member of the Hand.
