“Uh-oh,” the seer said. “What has happened, and what information do you seek? Does it have to do with the army?”
Dr. Walt stepped up and took the lead. “Lahim, we did not get the last artifact before Chetra Dal. He now has all three.”
“That is not good news at all, but I haven’t seen anything about it.”
“There’s more. We believe, from reading some of the records, that he has to commune with the items to use them, a process that may take a few weeks. Sam and the others will try to find him and stop him before he can use their full power. We need to know where he is.”
“Where he is?” Lahim Chode said, his pitch rising as he spoke. “I’m afraid I haven’t had any viewings that will tell me his location.”
“But Lahim,” Sam said, “you have viewed him. Was there any detail we might be able to use to find him, anything at all?”
The viewer put his hand to his chin and thought about it. “No, Sam, I don’t think there was. The viewing was inside, and I couldn’t see anything out of the windows.”
Sam’s heart dropped again. This seemed a day for disappointment. A thought popped into his mind. “What about the army? You saw several visions of them, including their travel as they were coming here. We have to assume that the army was assembled at Chetra Dal’s headquarters. It’s the logical place. Is there anything in those viewings that you could use to point us toward where his hideout might be?”
“Hmmmm,” the seer said. “Let me think.” He closed his eyes as if visualizing something. It was a good two minutes before he opened his eyes again.
“Yes, I can see their path and maybe extrapolate where they came from. I saw a massive stone fortress in the background when the army was being built and training. It is east of where the last artifact was, and south. I can’t be more specific than that. Judging by the path of the army, it should be almost directly east of Whitehall. I can’t begin to guess the distance, though. I’m afraid that’s the best I can do.”
Sam was silent, pondering what Lahim had said. He wondered if it would be enough.
“Sam.” Nalia’s voice broke the silence. “Did not Ru Wilkes, the commander of those Collectors, say that they encountered a massive fortress far to the east in their travels, one which they thought of trying to enter but decided to avoid?”
“That’s right!” Sam said. He turned to Danaba Kemp. “Danaba, could you bring Ru Wilkes here to compare notes with Lahim? Maybe we’re getting a lucky break and can actually piece the information together.”
“I know exactly where he’s at,” the general said. “I’ll send a runner right now.” He turned and left the room, breaking into a trot as soon as he cleared the doorway.
They waited for half an hour until Ru Wilkes arrived. Danaba had sent a runner and then returned to the room, so everyone chatted quietly until the ex-Collector showed up.
“Wilkes,” Danaba said.
“General,” Wilkes said, snapping to attention and saluting, fist to chest. Danaba returned the salute, looking uncomfortable and even slightly embarrassed by it.
“We would like to ask you about something you may have seen in your travels. A massive fortress hundreds of miles east of here, sitting in the middle of flat stretches of land with flat-topped hills scattered about.”
Ru Wilkes and Lahim discussed the details of what each of them had seen, and by the time they finished, everyone agreed they were talking about the same location.
“That’s great,” Sam said. “Now all we have to do is get to it.”
“We don’t have much time,” Ix put in. “You’re going to need me to skim to get there.”
Sam looked at her. He hadn’t really thought of that yet. He could get them part of the way there, from one of their ending locations when they were heading toward the last artifact, but if they were to make it in time, they would need Ix’s special ability. “I don’t know. Those traps—”
“They’re not expecting us to go to his home. There won’t be traps.”
“Maybe,” Sam said. “If there are, though, it could mean your death.”
“Listen,” the assassin said. “We don’t have much choice. If he communes with those artifacts, from what I understand, we’re all dead or enslaved anyway. I could just teleport away if it comes to him attacking the fortress, but I will not abandon any of you. So either I take the risk of being trapped now or of dying with everyone else when Chetra Dal attacks. I say we take the chance. I don’t believe they would ever expect us to go there.”
“She is correct, Sam,” Rindu said. “There is risk, but it is small. It appears to be our only means of getting there in time.”
They were right, Sam knew. “Okay. I don’t like it, but you’re right. We need to get there in time. Ru Wilkes, will you accompany us? You have been there, and you will be able to tell us if we’re on track and when we are getting close.”
The big commander eyed Danaba Kemp. Once his leader nodded, he said, “Of course. I would be happy to assist you.”
“It is all settled then,” Dr. Walt said. “We have a plan. Now, if you will excuse me, I will go and tell the delegates that we have matters in hand, at least as well as can be expected.”
“Thank you for your help, Dr. Walt,” Sam said. “We’ll leave in the morning, so if you need to talk to us, we’ll be in the keep until then. Sleeping.”
The group broke up after a few minutes of planning. Sam, Ru Wilkes, Nalia, and Ix would spend the day traveling, for as many days as necessary, and then when they got to the fortress, Sam would bring the rest of the party. As he headed off to bed, Sam hoped it would be enough, hoped they would be in time. He didn’t fall asleep for a long time, thinking about the fate of the world in his hands. If he was truly a hero of Gythe, he would have to prove it in this.
Chapter 30
Sam and the others met for breakfast before dawn at one of the dining halls. While they were eating, a bedraggled-looking Danaba Kemp came in for a bite to eat. He looked as if he had been up all night. He sat down heavily at the table with them.
“Danaba,” Sam said. “You look like you didn’t sleep all night. Are you okay?”
The general turned his bleary eyes to Sam. “They started attacking last night to test our defenses, starting an hour or so after I saw you last. So, yeah, I haven’t slept at all.”
“They attacked?” Nalia said. “Why were we not woken? What was the outcome?”
Danaba put his hands up as if trying to calm someone down. “It’s no worry. We didn’t wake you up because we were able to handle it. They sent some of the more agile of the creatures bounding up the path to try the walls. Some of the mutations seemed not to have bones, so while we were occupied with shooting arrows at the ones scaling the walls, the others were squeezing through the grate in the portcullis. They didn’t even make it through the gatehouse, though. They may not have had bones, but arrows killed them just like any other creature. It took a lot of arrows, but we handled it.”
“That sounds like a waste of soldiers and a waste of surprise,” Sam said. “It seems like they would have wanted to keep those abilities secret until they could use them to their fullest potential.”
Danaba looked at Sam like he had just found new respect for him. “You’re exactly right, Sam. Those are my thoughts, too. I wonder if it was a mistake or if they’re trying to manipulate us into something. Maybe they’re taking attention from something else by their ‘mistake.’ I don’t know.”
“Danaba Kemp,” Rindu said, “are your soldiers patrolling all of the walls? Are they sure that something is not happening on other parts of the cliffs?”
“We’re patrolling and making sure there is no one on the cliffs, walls, or even on the part of the buffer zone nearer the fortress. I don’t like it. Something feels off, so I’ve got them patrolling regularly with four squads that patrol in a random pattern in case someone is timing the rotation. If there’s something going on, we’ll find it.”
“That is good,” Rindu s
aid. “It sounds as if you have the matter under control.”
“I expect that we’ll learn more as the days pass,” Kemp said. “If today was any indication, they’re not going to be sitting there waiting for their leader. They’ll test us, taunt us, and try to crack us.”
Everyone was silent for a while as they ate. Danaba finished shoveling food into his mouth and stood up. “Well, folks, good luck in your travels. I, for one, am going to bed now that the excitement has died down and I have my captains watching over the keep. I’ll see you this evening when you return.”
“Attacked already,” Sam said after Danaba left. “I would have thought they’d wait for Chetra Dal to come with the artifacts. I wonder if they are just distracting us while they implement a plan or if they are testing our defenses to come up with a strategy.”
“It will become clear in the days to come,” Rindu said. “The important task for us, however, is to find him and take the artifacts from him. We must leave it to Danaba Kemp to handle the security of the fortress itself.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” Sam said. “Speaking of which, we should probably get started.”
Only Sam, Nalia, Ru Wilkes, and Ix would be traveling. Because Ix would be skimming, they had to keep the numbers small. The more jumps Ix could take in a day, the faster they would get to their destination.
“You know,” Ix said, “I could just take Ru Wilkes and we could get a lot farther each day. Half the people would mean almost twice the distance I could go before getting tired.”
Sam considered it. “I would need to be at the last stopping point each day so I could learn the area.”
“Not necessarily. I can teleport to the same location the day after just as easily as you. You would only need to learn the final destination so that you could bring everyone else.”
Sam looked at Nalia. She raised an eyebrow at him, but didn’t speak. “I won’t feel like I’m useful at all, but it does make sense. I would still want you to come back and get me at the end of each day so I could learn the endpoint location. I may need to know those places for future travel, so I don’t want to miss the opportunity.”
“We could do that,” Ix said.
Nalia nodded slightly. “Okay, I think that sounds reasonable,” Sam said. “One more thing, though. I think you should take a manu bird and only go far enough in each jump so that Ru can get to you within a day on the bird if you should run into a trap. I talked with Rindu, and the commander should be able to smash the box to release you if you should be trapped.”
“That will make it take more than twice as long as with two,” the assassin said, her brows scrunched up in irritation.
“I understand, but we have to take precautions.”
“Fine. If we don’t get there in time, you can’t blame me, though.”
“I won’t,” Sam said. “There should still be time before he communes with the artifacts.”
“We’ll leave right now.”
“Great. It will give me a chance to do some other things here at the keep. Thank you, Ix. It’ll be nice to get more distance out of traveling without you becoming so fatigued. I’ll come down to the teleport point around sunset to meet you so you can take me back to the stopping point to learn it.”
Ix nodded, and she and Ru Wilkes left to get started.
“Well, it looks like we have some extra time we didn’t think we’d have. Maybe I can get some training in. I’d also like to spend some time in the new library, the one we brought back from Kawkibon. Maybe something in there will help us.”
As they left the dining hall, Sam felt empty, as if he had somehow lost his purpose. It was reasonable for Ix and the commander to do the traveling, but he’d been at the forefront of the search for the artifacts and the traveling for so long, it almost felt like a piece of him was missing. Shaking off the feeling, he headed for the library, determined to make a difference in other ways.
Sam spent the better part of three hours searching through records in the Kawkibon library. Though it held thousands of books, he decided to peruse the electronic files in the ancient Gythian computers.
It still amazed him that he could operate the machines without the use of any external power source, only connecting to it with his rohw and providing the energy it needed that way. However it worked, it was efficient. He didn’t even detect it draining any of his rohw, not like when he had first operated the door to the room. His mind wandered, and he imagined what it might be like to live in Gythe’s golden age.
An idea came into his head then, and he decided to try something different. He often compared his experience in his own world with the technological Gythe. He knew that science had taken a different path here, but to keep everything from being unfathomable, he tried to relate it all to what he knew.
People loved to share things in his world, they loved to do it with pictures, video, and sound. The people of Gythe couldn’t be all that different than on his world, could they?
He searched for “video” first. It wasn’t as easy as that, of course. He had never heard the word for “video” in Kasmali and didn’t know if there even was one. He tried several different things in his search, finally finding his answer when he used the phrase “moving pictures.” Of course. That was what people called them on Telani when they first came out as entertainment in the theaters. Armed with his newly found Kasmali term, he searched for videos.
One of the problems with the computer systems he had found was that they were based on the data stored in the little cylinders that fit into the holes in the computers themselves. He hadn’t found yet how to access some master index to find what information might be on which cylinder.
The racks on which the cylinders were stored had labels, but the storage tubes themselves did not. The shelves only had numbers and letters, obviously some sort of cataloguing system, but it was unintelligible to Sam.
Despite all this, he found videos on one of the storage units. The clip looked to be an audit of the work done in the research center. The camera followed the auditor as he checked records, interviewed personnel, and wrote up findings. What Sam would have done for a good cat video.
He tried other videos on the cylinder he had in the computer, but they all showed similarly boring research and work topics. Did no one in technological Gythe have any fun? Where were the jokes, where were the videos of people doing stupid things? He would have even settled for videos of scantily-clad women, though with Gythe’s standards of beauty, he thought twice about that.
With no other idea, he tried several other storage devices, taking them in order from the closest shelf. He felt guilty, like he was surfing the internet—though this was much more boring than that—but told himself if he could just figure out how the system worked, it would be invaluable for finding any information they might need. And who knew, he might stumble upon something important.
As he resolved to stop browsing, he came upon something that tickled his interest. It was a gathering of the researchers at the facility so they could listen to a report by their leader, Magry Adronis.
“So you see,” the man said, “using the techniques I have summarized, I believe it is possible to change the actual genetic structure and improve upon nature’s design.”
He was a tall man, if the comparison to the others standing near him by the podium were any indication. He was broad-shouldered with long, pale hair. He was wearing the shimmering metallic tunic he also wore in the picture hanging at the other side of the library. He seemed so familiar to Sam, especially now that he could see the man speak, could watch his gestures. He had so much charisma that sitting and listening to him made Sam anxious to get to work on whatever project was set before him. This man was a leader, through and through.
“What is that you are watching, Sam?” Nalia’s voice right next to him made him jump. He really wished she would make more noise.
“Oh, it’s just a video I found in this storage cylinder.”
“Video.” She sounded the Ka
smali words out carefully. “What is that word? I’ve never heard it.”
“Oh, it’s the Kasmali term for ‘video,’” he said, using the English word. “I found reference to it in one of the files.”
“May I watch it with you?”
“Of course,” he said, dragging a chair from a desk next to him up beside him.
She sat down and he started the video over. He had only watched thirty seconds or so of it.
“He reminds me of you,” she said, smiling at him.
He paused the video. “Me?” he said. “Why would he remind you of me? He’s a born leader, he’s charismatic, he exudes power.”
“Exactly,” she said. “He reminds me of you. He is more experienced, of course, but if you can find video from ten years before this one, I am certain he would remind even you of yourself.”
Sam looked at her. She was serious. “Really? Do you think I could be a leader like that, someone who can inspire action and make people believe in something?”
“You already are, Sam,” she said, kissing him on the cheek. “You have but to recognize it yourself. Everyone else does.”
They watched the rest of the man’s speech. It seemed to be about a new project they would embark upon. After his presentation, he allowed the audience to ask questions.
“That is odd,” Nalia said. “When the others address him, they address him by his first name, Magry. Perhaps their rules of etiquette were different in ancient times. Today, it is very disrespectful to address someone of authority by their first name.”
“It’s like that in my world, too,” Sam said, “for the most part. It has relaxed over the last few decades, though. Still, I agree. It does seem strange. Everyone obviously respects him. Maybe he insisted on being called by his first name by his team as a sign that they were close, like a family.”
“Yes, perhaps that is it,” Nalia said. “I was to tell you that my father would like to spend some time with you today. You are in need of training, apparently, and he would make sure you receive it.”
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