The Spark

by David Drake

  The spindle seemed complete: there was no suggestion of missing knobs or bits at the crystalline level, but neither was there any hint of life, of function, in the piece. I saw no connection between the two pieces, though Guntram obviously did.

  The pieces blurred. I’d never seen that happen. It brought me out of my trance as suddenly as if somebody’d poured the water bucket over me. Gasping, I jerked upright.

  “Oh!” I said. Guntram was holding the spindle within the hollow tube.

  “Pal, I apologize,” Guntram said. His hands didn’t move from the two pieces. “I shouldn’t have done that without warning you first. I’m truly sorry.”

  “Sir, it’s my fault,” I said, though I guess it really wasn’t. It was how I felt, though. “I’ve never had the workpiece move while I was in it, that’s all. There’s never anybody around when I’m working, you see.”

  I raised my hand. “Now, keep holding them like that,” I said. “I’ll go back in.”

  Guntram nodded and I did that, just dipping in lightly. I hadn’t been sure that’d be easy after the surprise, but it was.

  The connection was obvious when I saw the spindle nested within the tube. The pieces were throbbing with power now, but the interior of the tube was a featureless blur. I couldn’t see the structure which had kept the spindle in place when the object was complete. Was it a fluid? Even a gas, I suppose, if the pressure was high enough.

  I came out and grinned ruefully at Guntram. “It’s pretty obvious,” I said. “Now that you’ve shown me. But what’s the missing element?”

  “Any of the noble metals would do,” Guntram said. “Gold is probably the simplest. Can your neighbor’s wife replace a button for me?”

  “Phoebe?” I said, pulling out the coin I’d kept for luck. Having gold—or anyway, a mix of gold and silver—was about the best luck I could imagine right now. “Sure. Are you missing one?”

  Guntram clipped off the top button of his tunic, then used the same small knife to peel away the leather covering. The gold core gleamed in the late afternoon light.

  “I brought a variety of trace elements with me,” he said, handing me the bare metal core. “Things that I wasn’t sure you’d have access to on Beune. Gold was an obvious one, of course.”

  “Ah, we could use my coin?” I said, but Guntram shook his head. I was just as glad, frankly; though like Gervaise getting the table, I’d have given up the coin if I needed to. “I don’t know what pattern to use, though.”

  “I’ve seen these before,” said Guntram. “Do you think you can complete the exterior structure if I build the interior matrix?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Yes, sure. I’ve got everything I need for that. It’ll take me several hours, though. Do you want to start now?”

  The two artifacts made a weapon. I was eager to get at it, but I also knew I was already peckish and that wouldn’t help my concentration when I worked on the piece. I wondered what I had to eat in the house.

  “What I would like to do now,” Guntram said, “is to have a real dinner. I took the liberty of asking your neighbors if they would feed us both tonight about this time. I said I would compensate them, though they seemed more excited just to have a visitor from Dun Add.”

  “Gervaise and Phoebe are about as nice as you could find,” I said. “On Beune or anywhere else. And I’m glad you thought ahead to what we were going to be doing for food, because I sure didn’t.”

  I got up and offered Guntram a hand to help. My stomach growled.

  “Let’s go take them up on the offer before it gets dark,” I said.

  * * *

  “Here they come!” three of Gervaise’s children shouted together as me and Guntram came into sight along the path. They were waiting by the oak that’d been the boundary between Gervaise’s tract and my own. Now it was all his, but he—or Phoebe—must’ve told the kids to stay clear of what’d been my house now that I’d come back. “They’re coming! They’re coming!”

  “Do you get this whenever you go outside Dun Add?” I said quietly to Guntram.

  “I rarely leave Dun Add,” said Guntram. “Indeed, most of my time is spent in my quarters there.”

  He looked at me. “Besides, people don’t pay attention to an old man in a gray robe in most places,” he said. “Nor should they.”

  Gervaise and his wife stood to either side of their door. The three boys were beside him, the two girls beside Phoebe, who was holding their infant.

  We don’t get many visitors on Beune; Gervaise and Phoebe were making the most of Guntram. And of me, I suppose. I think of myself as just a farmer, but I’ve always been different from my neighbors. I was even different from Dad and Mom.

  I grinned. Guntram’s visit might do nothing else, but it was going to convince my neighbors that I was different in a good way.

  “Mistress Phoebe,” said Guntram, bowing slightly and holding out a package in both hands. He’d remembered the name of Gervaise’s wife. “Thank you for your hospitality. Please accept this token of appreciation from an old man.”

  “Oh, what wonderful cloth,” said Phoebe. She handed the baby to her ten-year-old and unfolded the cloth wrapper carefully. “Do you want it back, sir?”

  “It’s yours,” said Guntram. “Now, hold it firmly.”

  The object was a colorless ball an inch in diameter, resting on a square base with one white side and three black. Guntram touched the white rectangle; the ball glowed, casting a clear light in all directions.

  The girls screamed; Gervaise spread his arms and backed away, shoving the boys back also. “The Adversary!” he said.

  Phoebe closed her hands over the object; light streamed through the loose net of her fingers. “Gervaise!” she shouted in a fury I’d never heard from her. “Don’t be a bigger fool than God made you! You know Pal would never bring any evil here!”

  Gervaise’s face blanked. He lowered his arms but he didn’t speak further.

  Phoebe curtseyed to Guntram. “Thank you, sir,” she said. “I’ve never seen anything so wonderful. Please forgive my husband’s surprise; he’s really not a bad man.”

  Guntram looked uncomfortable. “I’m very sorry,” he said. “I should have warned you. I assure you it’s just a bauble, nothing to do with the Adversary.”

  Guntram hadn’t told me what he planned to give her or I would’ve suggested he do it a little different. Come to think, I’d have suggested he let me handle it, probably after dinner when it was getting dark. Thanks to Phoebe, it’d worked out all right.

  “It’s wonderful,” she said firmly, opening her fingers. “How long will it burn, sir?”

  “Forever, if you want it to,” said Guntram. “Or you can turn it off by—”

  He extended his finger, catching Phoebe’s eyes; she nodded. He touched the white portion of the base again and the light went out.

  “—doing that. I thought it might be useful to you on short winter days.”

  “It’s wonderful,” Phoebe repeated. “Now, let’s all go in and eat. Gervaise, you have something to say.”

  Gervaise nodded, then bowed. “Master Guntram,” he said, “I hope you’ll honor me by sitting at my right hand. Pal, will you please face me at the foot of the table?”

  The table was stretched full length, even though the eleven- and ten-year-olds were serving it instead of eating. Gervaise carved the pork roast and loosened up considerably in the course of the evening. He even asked for the new light to be turned on at twilight; Phoebe did so with considerable ceremony, placing it on a wall shelf in place of the miniature portraits of her mother and father.

  We talked while we ate. They all wanted to hear about Dun Add, what sort of crops the folk there grew and what the women wore. Guntram knew as little about the one as the other, it seemed to me, but he was polite and sometimes I could add a little from what I’d seen.

  Then Phoebe said, “Master Guntram? Wouldn’t you say our Pal here is a fine young man?”

  Guntram looked at me in su
rprise. “Why, certainly,” he said.

  “Phoebe,” I said. “You shouldn’t—”

  “Then why hasn’t he found a girl, do you suppose?” Phoebe plowed on. “Oh, not here I mean, but in Dun Add? There must be ever so many fine ladies in Dun Add, aren’t there?”

  “This really isn’t something I know enough about to discuss,” Guntram said. I won’t say he was more embarrassed than I was—he couldn’t be—but he was sure embarrassed.

  “Phoebe—” Gervaise said, a bit of roast lifted halfway to his mouth on knife point and his eyes bulging like a startled rabbit’s.

  “I blame Ariel’s notions,” said Phoebe, paying no more attention to her husband than she had to me. “She taught the poor boy that women were as bad as poison snakes.”

  “Mistress Phoebe,” I said, “stop that!”

  I guess I’d raised my voice some, because everybody did stop. I said, “My mom was a good woman, and if she didn’t want me to grow up another Jacques the Peddler, well, that’s to the good, I think.”

  “I’m sorry, I’m sure, Master Guntram,” Phoebe said, looking down at her plate.

  “Ariel’s sister was a wild one,” Gervaise muttered. “It may be that Ariel got a bit carried away about wild women.”

  He looked around and put on a big, false smile. “I’m thinking we could all do with a little more ale, right? I surely could!”

  We stayed longer into the night than I’d hoped to, but politeness aside I wanted to make sure the whole family was comfortable with Guntram and me before we left. Gervaise embraced me when we left, saying how lucky they were to have me for a neighbor. He’d put down quite a lot of his own ale, more than I’d ever seen him drink before. That was between him and Phoebe, but I noticed she kept refilling his wooden cup every time it got low. I guess she was of the same mind as I was.

  When we were well away from the house, Guntram said, “I apologize for not being more careful with the light, Pal.”

  “You didn’t do anything wrong, sir,” I said. “We’re just not used to the same things they are in Dun Add, is all.”

  I cleared my throat and went on, “Guntram? You said the light was just a bauble. I didn’t see very many of them in the castle when I was there, though.”

  “It’s not a big thing,” Guntram said. “But—no, they aren’t very common. Even in Dun Add. It just seemed something that would be particularly useful in, well, in Beune.”

  In the sticks, he meant. Well, he didn’t have to apologize for thinking the truth.

  “Ah, sir?” I said as we reached my house. “I suppose you’re tired and want to go to bed right away?”

  “I don’t need to,” Guntram said. As we entered, he lighted the room with another lamp like the one he’d given to Phoebe. “Did you want to get to work on the weapon immediately?”

  “Well, yes,” I said. “That is, I’d like to, but if you were tired…?”

  “I think we can finish the work before I need sleep,” he said. He was smiling broadly.

  We did finish it, with luck and the help of God, though I figured from the stars that it was within an hour of false dawn before we were done. I slept with a mind full of dancing hopes.

  * * *

  It was mid-morning before I awakened. Guntram was sitting on the stool, feeding worms to his hedgehog.

  I got up and said, “I’m wrung out. You look chipper, though.” The gossamer golden web he’d woven to fill the tube was miles more difficult than the simple crystalline repair that I’d done.

  The hedgehog, sitting on the table, wriggled his—her?—nose at me. Guntram lifted another earthworm from the basket of damp dirt which Gervaise’s boys had provided.

  “I’ve done this sort of thing more often than you have,” he said. His lips quirked. “More often than anybody has, it may be. And old men don’t need much sleep.”

  Buck had lifted his nose to table height, but I didn’t worry about what he was going to do. He never bothers animals that’re with a human being. I suspected he’d take a worm if Guntram gave him one, but the most he’d do with the hedgehog was sniff.

  The weapon lay on the tray where we’d worked on it. I’d been unwilling to touch it last night when I was so tired, but I picked it up now and dusted away the powdered silicon on my shirt sleeve.

  Guntram’s button was pitted all over, though it kept its shape. I put it on the table beside him. “Thank you, sir,” I said.

  “Go test it,” he said, nodding to the weapon. “I’ll watch from here.”

  I walked outside, leaving the door open. The weapon was light, much lighter than the mining tool I’d modified on my own. The delicacy made me doubt that it’d really work, though I didn’t say that aloud.

  The tube vibrated like the burr of a fly’s wings within my closed hand. Its controls were internal, the structure of a small patch of the tube’s wall. I pointed the output end and concentrated while I pressed my thumb on the trigger; the switch was mental as well as physical. A vivid blue line extended the length of my forearm from the electrode, hissing and crackling.

  I shut it off and turned. My mouth was open. I closed it, then squeaked, “Sir, it really works!”

  “Indeed it does,” Guntram said. “If you’d care to bring it along, it can protect us on the Road while we look for artifacts. Are you up for that this morning?”

  “Ah, sure,” I said. “But wouldn’t you like some breakfast first? I’ve got porridge we can warm, and buttermilk in the spring house.”

  “I have a converter,” Guntram said, holding up an iridescent loop. “Bring a bowl for yourself and we can eat on the Road.”

  He smiled. “Prospecting for artifacts is completely new to me, and I’m rather excited.”

  * * *

  I didn’t argue with Guntram, not with what I owed him in all sorts of ways, but there isn’t anything exciting about looking for Ancient hardware. Sometimes the currents of the Waste throw pieces right up at the edge of the Road. Anybody can see it there.

  Mostly, though, it’s more like picking your way through a swamp and wriggling your bare feet for the stones that you want. Instead of a swamp, it was the Waste.

  I took Guntram up the Road to the first node in the direction of Leamington. Leamington was a good three days away—more like four at the speed Guntram travelled—but we weren’t trying to get there. If anything, there was less in Leamington than there was on Beune, and there wasn’t even a decent inn on the way.

  The node was just a dollop of Here, less than an acre. The trees were sumac and winged elm, mostly; useless for timber. They’d make a fire or poles to tie a windbreak to if you needed it, but Beune was only a couple hours away so nobody needed to camp here if they knew the region.

  I pointed to a couple lichen-fuzzed outcrops near the edge of the Waste. “If you line those rocks up,” I said, “and walk out about what feels like ten feet into the Waste, you’re in a spot where I find stuff pretty much every time I go out. Now, is your guide, your hedgehog, all right in the Waste?”

  “I believe so,” Guntram said, “and I’ve stepped into the Waste also; but not often, and not going so far as you’re describing. It was more for the experience, you see.”

  He coughed into his free hand; the hedgehog was in the crook of his left arm. “Will I be going alone, Pal?” he said. I won’t say he sounded afraid, but there was a degree of care in his tone.

  “Not if things work out,” I said, grinning. “But if something happens and we get separated, I want you to be able to get back on the Road and home. All right?”

  Guntram smiled. “I’m glad to hear that,” he said. The tone of his voice now made me think that maybe I could’ve said that he’d sounded afraid.

  “Now just stick close,” I said. “All we’re doing is showing you what it’s like, then we’ll go back to Beune.”

  I slipped into Buck’s viewpoint; we walked into the Waste. Guntram was right behind me when I stepped off the Road.

  The Waste doesn’t have a feel, e
xcept that your body starts getting warm as soon as you’re in it and the more you do, the warmer you get. I’ve seen people who were lucky to get back to the Road—or to Here. It stands to reason that there’s some who weren’t so lucky and their bodies are still in the Waste.

  I wonder if they rot or they just hang there, like in a block of ice? I wonder if Guntram knows? I couldn’t ask till we were back on the Road.

  I was using Buck’s eyes. We were following a crack in the streaky gray, not a thing really but…well, sort of like a fold that caught light a little different on one side than the other. Except there was no light either, just shades that Buck’s mind painted onto nothingness.

  I couldn’t see Buck this way, but on my third step the outside of my left leg brushed his fur and I stopped. He knew where we were going.

  I squatted down and swept my hands out slowly to my sides. I didn’t really expect to find something on the first try and maybe nothing in the whole trip, but hanged if I didn’t: my left hand brushed a piece the size of my fist.

  Guntram touched my shoulder from behind.

  This was the first time I’d taken somebody else into the Waste; I’ll tell you, I jumped. There’s bad things here, and the first thing I thought was that the mate of the Shade I’d killed had tracked me down.

  Which made me feel like a dummy, though nobody but me knew what’d gone through my mind. Oh, well.

  I turned Guntram’s palm up with my right hand, then brought the piece around in my other and put it into his hand. I touched Buck’s shoulder. He turned, giving me a look at Guntram for the first time: a man-high pillar of gray like a slumping snowman. We padded together back onto the node.

  “That was easier than I’d feared it would be,” Guntram said, wiping his forehead with his sleeve before taking a closer look at the object we’d found. He looked at me sharply and added, “Pal, it wouldn’t have been easy without your presence. Thank you.”

  I thought about Guntram quickly repairing the weapon he’d found in my collection of odds and ends. “I’ve done more of this sort of thing than you have,” I said with a grin. “Also, we were lucky. Pieces crop up here pretty regularly, but that doesn’t mean I find something right off the bat. And a good-sized one, too.”