10. N #2
Triana hadn’t really been asked about this portion of her adventure yet, so he had already proceeded past where her information would prove helpful.
He took several of the spider-legs and wrapped them together using a piece of cloth, then wrapped one end in more material from the seat. The cloth and seating material stank when burned, and put off a noxious black smoke. It would not burn for very long, but it was what he had.
He held his makeshift torch out and away from his body.
He caught a whiff of the black smoke it emitted and felt it sear his throat.
“This way,” he said to the Probe, even though the rod made the verbal order quite unnecessary.
He led it well away from the Gate and the increasingly distant light of the fire, coughing heavily as he tried to clear the stuff out of his lungs.
The light proved serviceable enough, and he found he could replenish the fuel as he walked.
He and the Probe made their way in a meandering fashion between large wrecked mass carriers, around a pool of something unpleasant that had dripped from one of the wagons, and across the floor of the cave,
until they approached what seemed to be a natural crevasse near to one side of the natural wall where the wall and floor came together.
He knew little about caves, but suspected this might be where water might drain out.
He tried to push the torch far enough into the crevasse to see how deep it went, then swore as a movement of fresh air blew black smoke back into his face.
He nearly dropped the torch, and bent over hacking and wheezing, as he worked to clear his eyes and breathing.
He saw a rock in the torchlight, picked it up, and tossed it into the crevasse.
He heard a series of satisfying clatters as it bounced down.
He couldn’t really see, but it sounded large enough to climb through.
Perhaps a larger hole here might yield a way to explore the source of the air, and to walk into the breeze to find an exit.
He used the torch to examine the contours of the crevasse, careful to keep it away from the inlet, where the fresh air came in.
He shone the light around, trying to see if he could widen the inlet enough to slip through.
He concluded it might be possible, but the rock’s clatter as it fell suggested distance, and he had no equipment to climb back up.
The torch had nearly burned down again, and guttered as it used up the last remnants of the wagon cloth and seating from the wagon.
He found more for fuel to burn. The exploration of the cave lifted a weight from his shoulders, and he felt his fear recede as he led the Probe back away from the crevasse.
He had wondered whether he was a physical coward, and now he had his answer.
No. He explored this cave on his own, in spite of its risks and dangers.
The long-dead spider whose leg he used for a torch suggested offspring that might view him as prey.
Yet, he hadn’t shirked or held back. He had taken great personal risks making the foray to Triana’s world with no guards, protection, or weapons.
Could a coward have done all that? He thought not.
The fresh air seemed a good sign, air flowing in had to flow out again, so there would be an exit at some point.
He smiled. All he had to do was follow the slight shift of air, and it would take him to where the air made its way out.
The smoke would serve as a marker, and he could follow its trace to the way out.
It took some to put it into practice, and his main problem proved to be having too much smoke.
Still, in time, he worked out how to make a small flame using a scrap of seat-cloth, and could follow the wafting smoke as it drifted on the faint breeze.
The Probe followed as he worked his way across the rough ground, following the trail to the cave’s exit. He had moved most of the way along the length of the cave. He wasn’t sure about the exact distance but knew he had come several hundred paces along the cavern floor.
A wall of rock reared up in the torchlight, a massive fall that looked to have brought down the entire mountainside and blocked the entrance. I was trying much too hard. No need for all the work finding the fresh air source. Just head down the Gate ramp and walk straight until you hit rock.
He worked his way around the last piles of strewn debris to reach the cave mouth.
His closer look confirmed his earlier assessment.
The fall appeared reasonably fresh, with bright freshly broken rock shining up in the torchlight.
He presumed that Triana had entered the cave before the rockfall had sealed it, unless there was another entrance he had missed.
If so, that puts the rockfall only a couple of weeks back.
He shone his torch across the surface of the rock.
They certainly looked to be the product of a recent fall.
It looked like the mountain really had slid down, blocking the mouth.
He whistled, and listened to the echo, trying to get a sense of the space.
It felt vast. One tiny sliver of light, high up, suggested there might be a pathway out.
He had little to compare against, but thought the light was at least ten times his height above the ground.
He felt an unaccustomed confidence as he walked back towards where the campfire smoldered.
It had burned down since he left. He refreshed it with more of the spider’s legs, and sat for a few minutes to rest and think.
He had done what he had come to do, but he now had a singular opportunity to explore.
He’d already learned that the vision he’d spun to the king was …
to use Lord Haldreck’s phrase … “nonoperative.”
No serried ranks of Machina waiting for Manipulators to operate them or brass bands to play during the triumphal march. He poked a stick at the fire.
Three conclusions. First and biggest … not a damned word about this excursion to anyone.
The moment that cat escaped the bag, then the pressure would mount to start using the Gate, and Haldeen’s leverage would evaporate.
The tutor’s interviews with Triana were still long on social chatter and short on precise detail, but so far Triana had described a backward world that would not survive military Machina.
One firelance could dominate … once the trivial problem of how to keep it powered had been solved. A handful might make him unstoppable.
Once Haldeen had solved the technical problems, the kings, and nobles, and soldiers would shove him aside. He would be reduced to a mere mechanic, tasked with turning the Gate on and off … just like the last time.
His trip here had whetted his desire, and the information Triana provided to the tutor gave him the advantage over everyone else, including King Alliard.
He was determined not to give that up. He wasn’t quite sure how he would accomplish his goal, but as he stood there holding the stinking torch, he felt a resolve grow.
I will conquer this place. Not Alliard. Not the nobles.
Me. In time the king and the nobles would have little to do except to sit and think about how Lord Haldeen had screwed them right and proper.
So, drag it out with “almost successes” until you figure out what to do.
He walked back to his smoldering fire by the World Gate.
He used the firelight to take a closer look at the wreckage.
The stuff in here looked old. It had been a century, give or take, since the disaster of the Gate, but Haldeen’s people built to last.
Most of this equipment looked to have been in place for centuries, and appeared much more rotted and decayed then the calendar suggested.
Perhaps there was something here that eroded metal and organics.
It might be as simple as periodic flooding, which was a cheery thought given where he sat.
He tended to doubt that … the equipment looked to have aged, and wasn’t mud-caked the way a flood would leave it.
Some piece of data that explained this discrepancy still eluded him.
He stabbed the fire with the spider leg.
His attempts to light the mage-light, and then the igniter merely confirmed that there was no ambient magic here.
Absolutely none. So, even if he had the Machina, they would have been shiny statues without any source of magic to power them.
He would have to go back to the plans and proposals to see how the colonizers had planned to crack that nut.
He smiled to himself. Ah, the good old days …
when everyone had been more parochial, when everyone had his place and stayed in it, and it had been his job to open the Gate …
and someone else’s job to figure out how to get everything to work once the colonists got here.
He felt his smile fade, and grew somber.
Most of the Gatekeepers who worked for him had been killed when the World Gate had fed back on itself; too much magic trying to push too many panicked people through, and it all came down in one scintillating rainbow-hued blast.
He closed his eyes against the tears, felt them leak out, and drew a ragged breath.
The Gate had survived, while the city hadn’t, and the Predator attack on top of the disaster spelled the end for both the project and the place where it launched. He felt himself growing maudlin from reliving that old disaster.
He stood, working to shake it off. He made a fresh torch. “C’mon,” he said to the Probe. “Let’s explore some more.”
He controlled the Probe through the control rod, but he felt alone enough that talking to it gave him a bit of comfort, something to do with his mouth, and a way to work through his thoughts.
He initially wandered, exploring the far side of the cave, away from the crevasse, and looking at the completeness of the disaster.
He started somewhat aimlessly, gathering impressions, but within a short while evolved a firmer purpose.
He began circling the central ramped platform that contained the World Gate, and slowly worked his way out, making expanding circles and surveying the wagons and other large pieces.
He took his work pad out of his satchel.
The work pad was just a few sheets of paper folded onto themselves to make a crude book.
The pad made it possible to tally what he saw, and where possible, to draw components and work backwards from form to the functions they performed.