4. N #2
The only way his elimination could possibly end with her saving herself would be if he blew himself up trying to operate too many Machina at once, and that was about as likely as the Predators all turning into fat meat-hassocks overnight.
His expertise was well known and highly valued—he and he alone could keep the Gates that connected city-states up and functioning even during a Predator attack—and he’d actually been forbidden to operate combat Machina except in extreme circumstances, to save his expertise for the entire race.
True, he had apprentices and journeymen, but none of them had that intrinsic ability for Gate tuning that he had.
It wasn’t an ultra-high-status niche, but it was one he fitted into like key into lock, and one in which it would be difficult to replace him.
She made an exasperated sound, and he realized that whatever question she had asked, had gone completely past him.
“I asked you,” she said crossly, “what your plan is. What comes next?”
He made a show of going to the solitary table in the bunker that held a few games, and diversions.
He picked up a game piece, giving him time to think.
After this morning’s tensions, the last thing he could admit was that he had launched the Probe on the spur of the moment.
He’d expected it to be gone for some time, following the string of commands he’d placed in its implanted control box.
He never expected it to depart and return in scant seconds, and he certainly hadn’t expected the first sample returned to be …
self-aware. No choice but to press ahead and hope for the best. A piece of the truth, for starters.
“Our world is dying,” he replied. “Or, to be more precise, we are dying. The monsters, the creatures, the things outside the cities grow stronger, while we wear down. The last of the cities are now the earliest founded, on the best foundations. This is all that is left.”
He glanced at her, saw her undivided attention, and the tension in her as she clenched her hands together. A distant thud amplified his point.
“It was before your time, Andaleisia, but after Aubergine went up against the Three cities Alliance, they broke the Covenant and used their actinics on elves … elves. They brought the light of the sun here, and set it upon the earth, where it blasted and seared the land,
and left it poisoned forever.”
“I know the history,” she answered, irritated. “Every seventh year learns about the Catastrophe. Aubergine fell soon after, as the other cities rose against it for violating the Covenant. Wait, you’re shaking your head. No?”
“No,” he answered. “Every student may learn that, but I was there. Maybe not in Aubergine, but I was certainly watching the entire disaster unfold.”
No point in elaborating on that, since the distance-vision scrying he’d been doing at that time had been tacitly forbidden, lest what was learned crush morale.
“And it wasn’t the Covenant that killed that city.”
He pointed upward, in the general direction of the city wall, outside the bunker.
“Until those idiots in Aubergine lit off their Great Weapons, the creatures that lived here, that we had learned to use, to hold back from our walls, even to feed on, had remained unchanged for millennia. Once they used their actinics, all that changed.
The first of the Great Predators made its appearance soon after. The Alliance of the Covenant did a lot of damage to Aubergine … that is true. But, the part they leave out is that it was one of those monstrous Predators that destroyed it … actually a big one that cracked Aubergine’s shield dome,
then let a bunch of little ones swarm in. That is what wiped out the city.”
“There are stories,” she said. “That was why they authorized you to seek a colony world?”
He nodded. “Not authorized. Ennobled and empowered. The foundation of all this.” He made a sweeping gesture that took in the Household, and the estates. “And a front row seat in all that has happened since.” He stepped closer to her, lowering his voice and forcing her to lean in to hear him.
“So, now, we are like a ship going down on an even keel, leaking evenly all along the length. Settling deeper into the water a bit at a time. Hardly even noticeable, unless you look out and see the horizon creeping ever higher upward.”
He took a deep breath. “It took awhile to find a world where there was air, water, living things, longer to set a temporary gate, and an insane amount of treasure to set up a Gate large enough to span worlds” He had his head down, talking to himself now,
forgetting for the moment her presence in the room.
“We had the Gate up. Tested it. Had it working. Low magic world, but beggars can’t be choosers. So, we looked to send through the low-magics, the ones that were little more than hands and plain labor. Clear the slums a bit, put them to good use making a new world. All that.
They were presumably used to doing without magic, they should have been just fine.”
“And?” she said, after a time once he’d paused.
“And it ….” He felt the tears of angry frustration well up, tried to hold them back, and closed his eyes, as the memories came flooding back.
“The scouts, colonists, expendables from all of the surviving cities … whatever term you want to use … were all lined up, ready to go. Strong force, backed with enough Machina to make a go of it, and the city came under attack. Something broke through, the idiots panicked,
and the whole damned thing came crashing down.”
He took a deep breath, trying to steady himself, and used his hand to dash away the tears that leaked out.
“The Gate collapsed?” she said, “How?”
“No,” he said. “You misunderstand. The city fell. The population heard there was a way out, and tried to flee; they rushed the Gate and we couldn’t stop them. By the time we got the World Gate shut down, so many defenders fled the walls that the Predators got through. A few of us … very few …
made it to the small transit gate we used to move supplies from the other cities that were cooperating with us.”
He stared at the floor, talking through the memories …
the shouts, the screams of the dying, the sheer horror of the city in its death throes.
And never would he reveal to her that he hadn’t made it out under his own power, that he’d been carried to safety, unconscious.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I never knew. What happened then?”
He shrugged, still staring at the floor.
He tried to make his voice as dispassionate as he could, as though relaying a report witnessed by someone else.
“I and mine ended up here. Then the king ordered the city Gate severed. The city here couldn’t hold any more. Couldn’t take on any more population. We shut the Gate and left the rest behind to die—unless they managed to retune the city Gate to some other city. I mean, they could have,
if they knew how, if one of my missing apprentices survived to help them. I don’t know. That sort of information is not what I’m privy to.”
She moved then, towards him, her arms open to take him and hold him, to try and comfort him.
He knew if she did that he would break down and weep, and he couldn’t allow that.
He held his hand up, stopping her before she could touch him.
The nightmares would come tonight, as they did each time he opened this particular box in his mind.
She stopped, a hurt expression on her face, but he was past caring.
“The Great World Gate is still there, as is the Gate on the other side, which is what I tapped into from here, to send my investigative Probe through. That unpowered Gate lies in a bunkered area under what had been my personal workshop in what remains of the city.
That sample in the guest wing is proof that at least some of the low-borns who started the panic that brought down a vibrant and beautiful city survived.”
He felt his own temper rise, the dangerous rage that came over him when the past came knocking, and caught him unawares.
He usually tried to keep it hidden. Today, he didn’t bother.
“I need to know how the low-borns, the dregs, the whatever-they-are, managed to survive, and reproduce. I want to know everything about them, and I want to know it now.”
he nearly spat the words out. “And Andaleisia, I don’t give a fat damn whether she—it—whether It tells us willingly, or on the rack, I will have what I need.”
She stepped back, confused by the fast turn of his emotions, his quick shift from calm, to distraught, to red rage. He saw the pulse jumping in her throat and she stepped back a pace, opening up the distance between them, her compassion replaced by confusion. “What are you ….”
She stopped, her eyes widening. “You’re going to open the Gate again, reattempt the colony.” She tried to keep her voice matter-of-fact, as calm as discussing the dinner menu, and failing dismally.
He cut her off. “Not attempt. Accomplish. And not a colony, we are going to take over there wholesale. We are on borrowed time. And I will see this done. There was nothing wrong with the original plan except that we allowed the wrong people to know about it. This time will be different.
Very different. Strong hands in armored gloves will be the first through. There will be layers of guards to make sure the riff-raff never get a second chance to ruin the plans of their betters. The Kings will lie if need be, telling the populace that it is more dangerous there than it is here,
and that heavily equipped groups of fighters are making runs only to bring back provisions for the rest. There will be no more mistakes when it comes to handling the scrubs. This time they will be the last through, not the first, and only if we can afford to keep the Gate open that long.”
He felt the rage boil away a little, he raised his chin and fixed her gaze with his. “I don’t repeat mistakes.”
She stood stock still for a time, then took a single deep breath. “I see.” Another of the long pauses. “Have you decided how to best extract the desired information from your … from the … in the guest wing. An interrogation room? Bright lights? Punishment-collar?”
Her tone caught his attention. “If need be.” He said grudgingly.