The Madman's Bridge: FireWall Book 1

by Mark Johnson

  “Nocev, I’m able to see the —” Her throat seized. No, she didn’t need to reveal the whole truth, just part of it. “Ah, for three weeks now, since the attack, I can see the… difference in HopeWall’s energy flows. They’re different around the pavilions.”

  Nocev’s eyes widened, and her mouth opened and closed soundlessly. She clearly hadn’t expected that answer. “Like… how?” she said eventually, looking around their own pavilion.

  “There are independent vibration energy flows,” Sarra said, only altering the truth a little. “They’re acting different since the attack.”

  “Really?” said Nocev. “I hadn’t noticed anything.”

  “The flows are acting sentient, as if they’re searching for something. It’s exactly how programmed ward weaves search for intruders.”

  She hadn’t actually lied, she’d just not mentioned that the weaves were the silver sort that only she could see.

  “What’s so odd about that? Some Tower Elders probably set up their own wards because they’re nervous.”

  Sarra gripped the edge of their bench a little tighter. “No, Nocev. I don’t mean that. The vibration flows I’m seeing? It’s as if they’re programmed. Like…” she took a breath before the plunge, “nothing I’ve ever seen a mechanism make.”

  “Artefacts?” Nocev said in a hushed tone. “There are artefacts in the pavilions?”

  “Well, seeing these strange weaves got me thinking,” Sarra said, pretending she’d only just come to this realization that instant, not ten years earlier. She wrapped her arms around herself. The evening air had a little more bite, as summer wound down.

  Just days or weeks after arriving at HopeWall, Sarra had noticed the silver silhouettes, which no one else seemed to see. In short order, those programs had begun teaching her.

  “We’re told Mother Farrah brought the pavilions here from home,” Sarra continued. “From Polis Ceneph. She and her Seekers are supposed to have battled the Enemy at the Grove, when it killed Polis. But no one knows how, or what weapons she used. She wouldn’t tell.

  “The Mother wouldn’t have just left whatever ‘weapons’ she battled the Enemy with, in the Grove. If they were just simple weapons. What if the prayer pillars are holding artefacts the Mother used against the Enemy? What if she kept them because she was worried she’d need them again?”

  “That’s a bit of a far reach, Sarra.”

  “We know the Mother brought wagonloads of materials with her to build the pavilions. I’ve read records of people guessing she’d brought something special with her. But once the pavilions were finished they were so disappointingly ordinary, people forgot their conspiracy theories. I read that in the personal journals Miss has archived.

  “What if, for hundreds of years, we’ve been powering the artefacts every day during our morning progressions, when we weave into the pillars of each pavilion? And what if the pavilions are waking up, because they’re sensing some… dark agent in the Wall?” There. She’d said it.

  Nocev licked her lips. “So, you think the Mother left another layer of defense, like the BarracksWalls, but hidden? Hidden artefacts meant to detect dark agents? Sarra.” Her glance went toward HopeWall’s southern end. “If no one here knows, then maybe someone kept records back in Ceneph?”

  Sarra traced Nocev’s line of sight from their pavilion, past old tents, glowing camp stoves, and sleeping blankets. The men had been permitted the two southernmost pavilions within the Wall, and from one came the cheerful melodies of children’s songs and the welcome lure of a small fire.

  LoreKeeper Toreng might have some piece of the puzzle, indeed. But how to sneak past the Modesty Designates? Sarra stood, waiting for Nocev join her. A plan took shape.

  “Sarra, wait! How do we get down there?”

  “Follow my lead,” she said. “Make sure you look confused.”

  “Easily done,” Nocev said.

  Novices and initiates were spread out on blankets around the Commons, passing their free hours before bedtime, seeking anything resembling personal space within the crowded Wall. They hurried through the Commons, approaching the invisible boundary line. A short figure stood out from the night. One of Miss Terlent’s ‘Modesty Designates’.

  “Turn around, girls.”

  “Evening, Miss Yentas,” Sarra said politely.

  “No women south of the third row of pavilions, Initiate. I should not need to remind you.” The woman folded her arms.

  “Miss, I wanted to ask LoreKeeper Toreng something.”

  Yentas looked behind them, south to the only two pavilions provided to the men. “He’s… caterwauling for the children, Initiate. It can wait until the morrow.”

  “Begging your pardon, Miss, it can’t. I need to know if the Haseva texts of Ceneph made mention of the need for light weaves. Not typically woven light weaves, but weaves that can adapt light from one source and brighten and spread it. If it’s there in the five texts, there’ll be five forms of light dispersal, and there’ll be hints at what sort of overlays and filters we can use.”

  “I really don’t think an hour before bedtime is the right…” began Miss Yentas.

  Sarra plowed on. “If I can use those overlays in my weaving, then the bonding weaves I use can be diluted between light sources. Far enough that perhaps one weave can link a successive circuit together without the need for intermediary links through repeater stones.

  “I understand that. It’s just — ”

  “You see, if he knows what I mean, he might be able to tell me how to do it. Miss told me to ask him to explain if I couldn’t make sense of the Haseva texts themselves.”

  Yentas looked at Nocev, who shrugged and spread her hands helplessly.

  “Go on then. But I shall check with the TowerMiss, Initiate. If I find you are lying, then there are some bindings I will require you to perform.”

  “Yes Miss, thank you.”

  They left Yentas at the boundary and continued toward the eastern pavilion, which was brightly lit and full of boys and girls. Toreng sat on the opposite side of the fire from the children, the flames illuminating his face. A collection of fathers sat behind their children. There was plenty of room off to the side, near the pavilion’s edge.

  “What in all the Gods’ names did you just say?” Nocev muttered.

  “I asked if you can bind lights in rebounding weaves.” She snorted a laugh. “Of course, it’s impossible.”

  “What if she asks Miss?”

  “She won’t, she’s too lazy. And that’s my official cover story for Miss anyway, so she’ll know to cover for me.”

  “The TowerMiss telling lies for an apprentice?”

  “Right now, I’m her child, not her apprentice. Rules are totally different.”

  Nocev smiled approvingly.

  “We’ll wait over here,” said Sarra. “He’ll see us when he’s done.”

  They sat on the wooden pews with faded, peeling red paint. “What are you going to ask him?”

  “As much as I can without looking like I’ve lost my mind.”

  Nocev pursed her lips. “Yes. Sarra, about that.”

  “What?”

  “Miss Yentas knew you were thinking of her like an annoyance. An object in your way. You spoke like she was an inconvenience.”

  “She is.”

  “She only let you through because everyone knows you don’t fake your enthusiasm. She knew you wanted to test something abstract, because it’s what you do.”

  “Worked, didn’t it?”

  “For now.”

  “Oh Polis’ sake, Nocev. Out with it.”

  “You and Miss are family. She wants the best for you, and she believes in you. And she loves you.”

  “But?”

  “Your whole life is about weaving, and you’re already better than any Elder. But you’ll never be
TowerMiss.”

  Sarra almost jumped. “What?” Nocev knew she wanted to be?

  “You make new enemies on a daily basis. You’re not a politician like Miss Harient, who can balance Terlent against Miss Emment to get stuff done. You speak your mind when people disagree with you, then do what you want anyhow. You might even get kicked out of the Tower if someone else succeeds Miss Harient. Not because you deserve it, but because you’ll become leader of some faction that can’t be controlled.”

  “Did Lenfernev tell you to say that?”

  “Ma told me that before I sat the Initiate Trial. She saw the writing on the wall, and if Miss doesn’t, she’s lying to herself.”

  “Miss hasn’t ever said she wants me…” Sarra couldn’t finish her sentence.

  “You want to be TowerMiss, Sarra. That’s the most logical thing, if you never leave HopeWall. But look at the Tower Weavers, and up from them, the Tower Elders. Do you really think you’ll fit in with a Weaver’s duties and schedule? Then sit in the conference room and be treated like just another Elder?

  “Of course, you want to make the most of your abilities, Sarra. But imagine yourself being patient with whoever becomes the next Terlent, or how annoyed you’ll be at Miss Hapev wanting to spend the Tower’s vibrations on domestic mechanisms. The Elders won’t change because you’re leading them. They might get worse just to spite you.”

  Sarra didn’t know what to say. She pulled her cotton cardigan tighter around her waist. Toreng started the children in a rousing rendition of ‘The Old Grass Bucket’.

  Nocev lowered her voice. “Do you know why I’m your friend, Sarra?”

  “Because everyone else is an idiot,” Sarra said automatically.

  “No, because Miss Harient asked my mother to introduce us.”

  “She did? When?”

  “After the stories about you began. Even in Serenity we heard about the amnesiac come out of the Wastes. The starving eight-year-old girl with the dead artefacts and someone else’s blood all over her clothes. How you wouldn’t speak to anyone except Miss Harient. How you were so amazing at vibrations that the weavers used you to shame novices five years older than yourself. Miss trained my mother and, when she heard I was the best learning weaver in Serenity Territory, she brought you along on a visit. When they saw we made friends, Miss asked Ma to send me to HopeWall.”

  Sarra’s arms dropped to her sides, suddenly too heavy to hold in her lap. Miss had arranged a friendship for her? Now she thought about it, Miss had encouraged the two girls to spend time together when they visited OremWall that first time.

  “Second question. Do you know why I chose to be your friend? No, don’t make that face. Yes, everyone here is an idiot, and neither of us belong. But really? It’s because neither of us like how the Wall, or the Territories, are run. We don’t ignore problems.

  “So, trust me when I say what you need, is to make your own Tower, somewhere else. Somewhere not obsessed with village politics, where you can freely experiment. Somewhere that will allow men to train, like they do further in.”

  Like her mother, Nocev had a way of seeing to the middle of a problem.

  “Was… Was there a third question?” Sarra asked, quietly.

  “No. But Mother always tells me never to bring up ‘How Sarra Came To HopeWall’ with you. So, don’t tell her.”

  Sarra smiled, almost laughed. “It’s fine. I mean, you can ask. I don’t remember anything.”

  Nocev grinned eagerly. “So, what do you remember?”

  “Nothing.” She stroked her plait and focused on the folds of Nocev’s skirt. “Miss says she thinks my family could have been involved in mechanism trading, and that’s how I ended up with those broken artefacts. That there was a fight over them, and someone got killed.” She shrugged.

  Nocev took her hand and waited. The crickets took a moment’s break before resuming their chirping.

  “Sometimes, I think I remember emotions. Not memories, but feeling like once I was safe and happy. They fade as soon as I think of them. Then there are the moments, when I’m working at something, and I have to look around because I remember being unsafe. Miss says it’s because I’m not ready to remember. That one day it’ll all come back. And I wonder if what happened to me made me so good at weaving.

  “Nocev, sometimes I wonder if I’ll end up like Sweeper Crattas.” Sarra extended her arm toward the walkway on HopeWall’s eastern side, where a figure furiously pushed a broom in a circuit of HopeWall’s oval colonnade.

  Middle-aged and slender, the poor woman had come to HopeWall from Gods knew where years ago, talking nothing of herself and fixated on sweeping. It was not an official title, but a name — Sweeper Crattas — because that was all she ever did. Sarra didn’t know as much of mental difficulties as Miss, but if sweeping the dirt from colonnades day and night made Sweeper Crattas happy, everyone benefitted.

  “What if I end up with a bad haircut, bad breath, and instead of sweeping I obsess over vibrations and things no one else sees? If I become a spinster, energies my only interest? I’ve this horrible image in my head of life passing me by and, on my deathbed, my last words are, ‘Thank Polis I wove a lot of vibrations.’”

  Sarra let out a long breath. “Is the Tower what I want, or is it all I know? And the way it’s changing, I don’t know if I want to be TowerMiss. Miss can’t say it, but the way she speaks about other things in HopeWall, she knows the men aren’t leaving. Once Pilgrimage is over they’re here to stay.

  “And HopeWall is the only home I know. And there’s nowhere else like it, if I want to do high-level weaving.”

  “Men, Sarra? Children?”

  “Yes, I want… I want it all, Nocev. At some point, I’d like to learn what sort of man I want, and eventually find one. I want to travel further in and see how the Sumadans live, and to travel back to see what was Ceneph. I want to spend years seeing the world the Gods made and, when I’m done, I’d like some screaming babies. And, Nocev, I want to control the Tower’s vibrations and make them do things no one in HopeWall thought possible.”

  Nocev patted her leg. “You know, if you leave the Tower to explore and do other things, you’ll learn a whole lot more about all those questions. You can always come back and rejoin the Tower. And if they don’t let you in, if they make you run the Weaver’s Trial and start climbing from the bottom again… it means they wanted to control you more than teach you.”

  “Lenfernev again?”

  “Word-for-word.”

  Sarra let her gaze drift back to the Tower. Whenever she and Miss had visited OremWall cluster, she’d enjoyed it. Nocev’s family were funny and kind. It was one of the better clusters out that way.

  “When pilgrimage is over,” she said, “I’m going to ask Miss for a transfer to OremWall.”

  Nocev squeaked with joy and squeezed her.

  12

  The old man bowed elaborately, his long gray hair falling past his shoulders.

  “Mistresses Sarra and Nocev. Both well, I trust.” Toreng’s smile made Sarra feel a little lighter. Growing up, she’d always ensured her duties were complete, so as not to miss his lore lessons.

  “Yes, thank you, Toreng. The dorms are cramped, but we’ll be fine.” She hadn’t spoken to Toreng since the men moved in, she realized. “What’s it like down here?”

  “I’m fine, thank you. I have a closet to myself, though others have not found the same luxury. Rooms built for two are inhabited by four, and those who object sleep in tents.” He gestured to the pyramidal shapes scattered about the Wall’s southern end. “The more guards sent on forage the better. Cramp too many men together and they’ll scrap like cadvers.”

  She sat next to him on the bench. Propriety dictated she sit at a LoreKeeper’s feet, though he’d never demanded that of her. If Harient was like an adoptive grandmother, then Toreng was the closest thing to a grandfather. N
ocev sat next to Sarra.

  His small campfires always comforted her, though she wondered where he managed to get the wood.

  “You’ll be all right then, Toreng?”

  “Never worry about me, child.”

  “How long do you think this’ll last?” she said, pointing to the invisible ‘manline’ dividing the northern six pavilions from the southern two.

  He looked out to the boundary line. “Systems tend toward simplicity, girls. Complex vibration weaves find shortcuts to the same purpose. Languages simplify over time. And laws that people don’t see as useful tend not to be enforced.

  “Don’t mistake me. The beatings Terlent is handing out to husbands who touch their wives are effective. But how long until a group of ten men decide to kiss ten women at the manline, and all are taken for sentencing? The women will leave with their husbands and sons, taking their novice and initiate daughters.

  “The sentence will miraculously go from beatings to hard labor. Then, from hard labor to token penances. And the process will continue.” He swung out his hands in a flicking gesture. “And from there? I suspect the dividing line between Tower and Wall will become contentious.”

  Toreng claimed to be the only Cenephan LoreKeeper left in the world. Even the ‘ghosts’ turned up to watch him speak. They paid an unusually large amount of attention to him, though he gave no indication he saw them. There they were now, vague silver outlines, hovering near, ducking in and out of reality, spinning around the pavilion in ever-widening circles, patrolling and searching for something.

  “When you and Miss Harient left home, Toreng, how much was left of it?”

  Not the first time he’d been asked that question, she would wager.