Affinity for War

by Frank Morin

  Family could really make things difficult sometimes.

  As she considered the potential ramifications of her relationship with Connor, she again marveled that the two of them had fallen in love instead of becoming bitter enemies. She had been ordered to use Connor to gather information about the enemy in those critical first days around Alasdair. She had welcomed the assignment, had already been interested in learning more about him.

  No one had been more surprised than she had when their adventures had thrown them together and the relationship had grown into something special. It had taken him a while to choose the right course, but when he had, his heroic actions to save his family, his village, and her life had inspired her.

  She hated to think about everything he must have suffered at the Carraig under Shona's influence, surrounded by all of those Petralists with their intrigues and lack of honor. If only she could continue hating Shona with the pure, undefiled fury that she had for so long. In the end, Shona had let Connor go.

  Had Shona undergone the same internal transformation that she had? Was that why she wrote that infuriating letter? She still seemed intent on twisting his heart. What else was she planning?

  Verena returned to the supply box at the rear of the Swift, flipped it open, and began extracting the pitiful number of resupply blocks remaining. Had they stayed out much longer, they would have faced the serious risk of getting stranded in enemy territory.

  At the bottom of the box, she found a piece of slate. It was the stone that she had snatched up during the crazy battle against the elfonnel. She had caught it out of pure reflex as Ivor raced with her across that strange stone ceiling that had concealed the ancient city under the plain.

  She had initially planned to throw it back at the elfonnel in an attempt to help slow it down, but the stone's power had already been activated. It felt strange though, so she had held onto it, intending to study it further. During the busy days since they escaped the Carraig, she had forgotten all about it.

  "You should have left that platform on," Hamish said as he entered her workroom with Jean.

  Verena shook her head. "We need a better solution." She noticed the half-empty bottle of cream in his hand. "How did your experiment go?"

  "Pretty well. I need a cookie. You still have those stale ones?"

  She grimaced. "Help yourself."

  Eagerly, Hamish retrieved the cookies from a nearby cabinet. She wasn't sure how he had learned about that hiding place. It was the tenth one she'd used, but he always sniffed them out. She was starting to think he had developed a secret deep-sniffer mechanical.

  Hamish poured a little cream over the first cookie and waited for it to soften. "Next time I'll have to see if I can freeze it."

  "What would that accomplish?" Verena asked.

  Hamish shrugged. "I won't know until I do it."

  Verena asked Jean, "Has Hamish shown you any other parts of the compound yet?"

  She shook her head. "Only his workroom."

  "I've made sure some rooms are being prepared for you," Verena said.

  "The girls' barracks are so much nicer than the boys," Hamish said. "We just get a bunk with a lot of other guys. The girls get their own rooms. You should see Verena's. She gets a whole suite. It's like a palace."

  "So you visit Verena in her rooms a lot, do you?" Jean asked, one eyebrow raised.

  Hamish suddenly looked panicked. "No, not really. I mean I do, but it's just because we're working on projects together."

  Jean smiled. "Calm down, Hamish. I'm not worried about you, and I doubt Verena would take any grout from you anyway."

  "She does like to punch people in the face," he said with a grin.

  "Only when it's necessary," Verena said.

  "Have you heard how production is going yet?" Hamish asked before taking an enormous bite of the cookie, which definitely still looked hard and stale.

  "Not yet. Dierk said production is behind. I bet the quarries are still short on their quotas."

  "I understand that," Hamish said, sharing a knowing look with Connor. "It's easy for people who don't have to do the work to promise more will get done."

  "That worries me," Verena said. "We need a lot of power stone to create the mechanicals they're demanding for the war."

  "They're going to have to find a way to get us some," Hamish said.

  "And we need to look for ways to consume less. We used a lot on that trip to Obrion."

  "We had a lot to do."

  "I know, but we easily could have run out, especially quartzite."

  "Well we flew a lot," Hamish said with a shrug.

  "I don't think we're going to have enough quartzite to maintain that kind of burn rate."

  "If we use less, we won't be able to fly."

  "Maybe not. I've been thinking of the last time I toured the healthbed warehouse with Dierk. They were using a quartzite-assisted pulley lift to move some of the healthbeds down from a high shelf. The pulley lift was powered by a tiny piece of quartzite that looked way too small to move such a huge lift."

  "How were they doing it?" Jean asked.

  "The pulleys. The block and tackle system reduced the end weight."

  "I don't think we can use pulleys to fly," Hamish said with a frown.

  "Have you thought about asking for help?" Jean asked.

  "What kind of help?" Verena asked.

  "I would think for non-magical ideas like pulleys, and like the springs for that yanksnatcher, we need non-magical people, like carpenters or blacksmiths or other craftsmen. Have you talked with them?"

  "We use craftsmen to help build pieces of the mechanicals once we come up with the initial ideas, but they're not usually involved in research," Verena admitted.

  "Maybe they should be."

  "I like it. There are a couple people I'll talk with and invite to brainstorm ideas." Verena liked having a bright mind like Jean's around. They should have thought of that. She wondered what other oversights Jean could help identify.

  "Makes sense to me," Connor said, leaning against the bench beside Verena.

  "If we use non-magical components, can we still call them Builded mechanicals?" Hamish asked.

  "You might," Jean said, then frowned. "And can you explain why you call mechanicals Builded? You do realize that's not really a word?"

  Hamish looked to Verena. "That's what they've been called since I've been here."

  Verena nodded, "That term was coined by the first Builders as a way to differentiate what we do from the work of other craftsmen."

  Jean said, "The idea makes sense, but the word doesn't. Can't we come up with something that doesn't suggest Builders are really led by a four-year-old, hidden away here in the compound somewhere?"

  Hamish looked offended, but Connor laughed. Verena said, "The right word is important. I've never really thought about that one, though."

  "You're good at coming up with new names. Let's make up a new Builded term," Hamish suggested.

  Verena frowned. "I'm good at coming up with names for new things, not re-naming existing things."

  Jean asked, "Could we say mechanicals are Touched?"

  Hamish laughed. "Doesn't touched mean like when people are crazy?"

  "I'm liking it more and more," Jean said with a grin. "Unless you can suggest a better one."

  "How about buildering or buildered?" He grimaced. "Those are awful."

  "Yes, they are," Verena laughed.

  Jean said, "We'll have to think about it. I'm sure we'll come up with the right word eventually."

  Verena said, "Right now, I want to examine this piece of slate."

  The others trailed after her as she took the slate to an empty workbench. There she touched it with a finger and reached into it with her Builder senses.

  "By the Tallan's blessed memory," she breathed, amazed by what she felt. Someone had indeed unlocked the stone's power, but in a way she had never felt before. It was revolutionary.

  "What is it?" Hamish laughed, drawing c
loser. "You look like the king just ordered you never to punch anyone again."

  "This stone," Verena said, staring at it with wonder. "It's unique. I picked it up at the Carraig. It was part of that sunken city."

  "That place was amazing," Jean said. "I only got to see a little bit. It was such a tragedy that the elfonnel wrecked so much of it."

  Hamish placed his hand on the slate. His smile faded to a look of wonder mirroring her own. "What is this thing?"

  Before Verena could stop him, he licked it.

  "Do you mind?" she asked.

  He could have at least let her taste it first. Tasting a power stone was definitely an important part of the Builder process, but Hamish's habit of licking the stones was a little gross.

  Jean drew closer. "For the first time in my life, I'm wishing that licking rocks made sense to me."

  Neither Verena nor Hamish spoke again for a moment as they both concentrated over the slate. Subtle currents of power flowed through the stone, moving in a delicate, complex pattern unlike anything she had ever tried to craft within a mechanical before. The feeling was like a revelation from the Tallan himself, and her mind whirled as she considered how it worked.

  "This is absolutely amazing," Verena breathed. "I think we stumbled upon one of the ancient secrets from before the Tallan Wars."

  Jean said, "That sunken city was the ruin of the original capital of Obrion. I discovered that fact in my research with Evander."

  Hamish frowned. "The release rate is pretty low, but I don't see how this stone could have survived since the Tallan Wars."

  "Good point, but I still think it has." Verena closed her eyes and focused on the subtle currents again, trying to understand how the unknown Builder from days of old had harnessed that power.

  "What do you feel?" Jean asked, opening her ever-present notebook and pulling a pencil out of her pocket. "Maybe we can figure it out."

  Verena said, "Usually slate's pretty straight-forward. The stone's power pours into the earth when it makes contact. That's what raises a wallstone."

  Hamish nodded. "This is different though. If we drop this piece of stone, I don't think it'll make anything."

  She couldn't help herself. Verena turned it over then pressed the unlicked side to her lips. Slate usually tasted a bit like a garden, a garden rolled up and baked into a little cake. This stone tasted more like a handshake.

  "It's kind of friendly," Hamish said, his brow furrowed in concentration.

  "How can the stone be friendly?" Jean asked.

  "He's right," Verena said. "And I'm thinking. . ." She got a crazy idea.

  Rushing across the workroom, she picked up a piece of slate she had been preparing to use in testing a new form of moving wallstone. Now she brought that piece back to the table and placed it against the one they were studying.

  "What's that for?" Hamish asked.

  "Just exploring possibilities. Like you said, the stone feels friendly. This was just one of many stones in that plain. What if it was part of a larger construct?"

  "I've never thought of linking multiple stones at the same time," Hamish said.

  "It's sort of similar to what we do with the windriders. From the control levers, we extend our senses down to the thrusters."

  "It's not really the same, though. We're not releasing the power of the quartzite in the control levers. We just use them as a vehicle to reach the other thrusters."

  "Maybe what we've been doing is a more basic form of a similar concept."

  Verena and Hamish both touched the new piece of slate at the same time. Verena opened her Builder senses to it, and was amazed to feel the same currents of power unlocked in this new stone as she felt in the original one.

  "Wow!" Hamish exclaimed. "It activated the power of this stone too, and we didn't do anything." He glanced at Verena. "You didn't, did you?"

  "No." She loved the feeling of pure discovery.

  "How's that possible?" Jean asked.

  Verena shrugged. "I have no idea. I wouldn't have thought it was."

  Hamish grinned. "I think we're going to learn a lot from this thing."

  Verena nodded, exulting in that feeling of excitement she always felt when working on developing new mechanicals. It rivaled those wondrous first days when she had first discovered her Builder gift. A sudden idea struck Verena like one of those rare punches from Hamish that landed solidly when they trained together.

  "This is it! This is the key that I've been needing."

  "For what?" Jean asked.

  Verena laughed. "The key to making non-Builder flight possible."

  Chapter Sixteen

  "The full measure of the wind is tested only when the mountain tempts the heights, but the treasure of a whisper is most precious over the scent of a fresh-baked cookie."

  ~Connor

  "Say that again," Connor asked.

  "I've been trying to figure out if it's possible to modify a windrider for a non-Builder to fly it," Verena said, looking ready to burst with excitement.

  "Is that possible?" Jean asked, pencil poised over her notebook.

  "I don't think it is," Hamish said.

  "It might be now." Verena gestured at the piece of slate from the Carraig. "I had no idea how to attempt it before. Now I do."

  The inner door of the workroom opened and Kilian entered. "You all look very studious today."

  Verena presented the piece of slate with a flourish. "We made an incredible discovery."

  "So you finally figured out how to make that exploding wallstone?" Kilian asked, looking like he wasn't sure that would be a good thing.

  Jean grimaced. "Oh, that sounds terrible."

  "This war is going to be terrible, unless we find a way to stop it," Hamish said.

  "Forget about the exploding wallstone," Verena said, making a dismissive gesture. "I picked this up at the Carraig."

  Kilian leaned closer. "What's special about it?"

  Hamish said, "It uses a higher form of Builder powers we don't think anyone has seen since the Age of Discovery."

  Jean glanced at her notes. "The stone is prepared in such a way that other pieces of slate placed beside this one are linked to it, like when people join arms in the challenge pull during the Sogail."

  Connor added, "It was part of the false ground protecting that hidden city. The entire plain was shielded, making the Sentry students think it was built on solid bedrock so they didn't try to pry into what was concealed underneath."

  Hamish snapped his fingers. "Brilliant. I felt that subtle shielding, but wasn't sure why it was present. It makes sense now."

  "I always wondered how the plain was shielded all the time," Connor said. "Not even Evander could maintain a shield that big all day, every day."

  Verena's eyes widened and she said, "So that's why the stone is still active. Like you said, this stone couldn't possibly have been activated all those years ago. Its power would be spent by now."

  "Of course," Hamish said. "All Evander needed to do was replace exhausted stones."

  Verena was nodding as he spoke, and Connor loved to see how her eyes sparkled when she was so excited about her work. "With how the power in these stones are builded, the replacement blocks would be linked in and maintain the shield without the need of a Builder."

  "My sister was a clever one," Kilian muttered with a wistful smile. "I never understood a tenth of what she told me she was doing."

  With that far-off look in his eye, he didn't seem to notice everyone staring.

  "Now might be a good time to tell us about your sister," Connor suggested, trying to make the request sound casual, despite how eager he was to learn more.

  Kilian blinked, as if just realizing what he had said. He gave them a wry smile. "With so much happening now that echoes all the way back to those dark days, perhaps it is time to share a few things with you."

  Connor dropped into a nearby chair, and Verena leaned against him, one arm draped over his shoulders. Sitting together like that, he hope
d Kilian took his time.

  "My sister was Kirstin, the first Builder."

  Verena look thunderstruck. "But she was the daughter of the original King Triath and Queen Dreokt."

  Kilian nodded. "She was wonderful. And you are more like her than you imagine."

  "You're the original prince of Obrion?" Jean asked, her expression awestruck.

  Kilian chuckled. "It's been a very long time since I've answered to that title."

  Connor tried to work his open jaw back to the closed position as his thoughts raced. Kilian had lived for over three hundred years. He had seen the Obrion empire at its height of glory, had lived through the Tallan Wars, which had ripped the empire apart. And Connor had been thinking his own life was hard.

  "Why did your mother kill all the Builders and order the Great Purge if your sister was the first Builder?" Verena asked.

  Kilian's eyes reflected an ancient sorrow. "Like you, my sister often got caught up in Builder invention frenzies. She invented the speedcaravan and most of the original builded mechanicals."

  Jean frowned and muttered to herself, "Need a new word."

  Kilian didn't seem to hear. "But she pushed the limits too far, too fast, without understanding the dangers of what she did."

  "What happened?" Hamish asked, with a rather squashed muffin seemingly forgotten halfway to his mouth.

  "I don't know exactly. She gifted to our father a new kind of builded stone, her latest invention. She was so excited for him to test it, she wouldn't tell me what it was beforehand. Whatever it was, it did something . . . bad to him. It drove him past sanity, and he raised an elfonnel. He was the one who destroyed much of our original home. You saw part of it in those ruins under the plain of the Carraig."

  Connor grimaced. Having an elfonnel attack the school when the entire army was ready had resulted in tremendous damage. He shuddered to think of the horrors of that day with such a powerful elfonnel unleashed with nobody prepared to fight it.