“They did. But she got the swizzles working again.”
“Did she now? Sounds like she's learned some of the same things as me. Does she have apprentices to pass her learning on to?”
“No,” said Kaleb. “She's not interested in training potential competitors. Knowledge is power, and Queen Rochelle doesn't believe in sharing power. But I only know about Angeles. There might be people learning magic in Francisco and the Northern Forests.”
“Knowledge should be shared,” said Xander. “If we don't pass it down to the next generation, they have to learn the same things over and over. Progress comes from accumulation.”
By the time they reached the floors of the School he was exhausted and drenched in his own sweat. Xander was tired too, but seemed nowhere near as drained. They paused in the stairwell doorway and the wizard conjured up a breeze to dry him. When Kaleb asked, Xander explained it as a simple “swizzle weave” of something called pathspace.
“I thought you had to have a pipe for the swizzle effect.”
“Only if you want it to last a long time. It's a matter of the pathspace geometry. You can make a swizzle in water or air with an imaginary circle, but it fades quickly. When you anchor it in a metal ring or pipe, however, you can make it last for decades.”
That explained how the Queen had been able to get and keep so many of the Ancient irrigation swizzles working. He found himself wondering who knew more magic, Rochelle or Xander.
Dry but still exhausted, he stepped onto the fifty-first floor and looked around. There seemed to be no one around but them. When he moved forward, however, he bumped something soft.
A young woman suddenly appeared next to him. “Sorry,” she said. “I was practicing my invisibility weave and couldn't see you.”
“This is Kaleb, a new student,” said Xander. “Kaleb, meet Carolyn She joined only a little while ago herself.”
“And you've already learned how to be invisible?”
“Yes, but that's all I know, so far,” she said. “It's the first thing we learn to do with pathspace, in case we run into people who hate wizards.”
Xander turned to her. “Would you introduce him to the others and get him settled? I need to go ask Kristana something before I forget. Oh, I'm sorry, this is Kurt. He's going to be helping us out.”
When Xander went back down the stairwell, Kaleb watched him go, shaking his head. “I don't know how he does it,” he said. “I feel like I could fall asleep just by lying down.”
“It was the same with me my first day,” Carolyn told him, explaining about Denver's altitude. When she finished he felt less like a weakling and more like an ignoramus. Being here was like climbing up one of Californ's mountains! But apparently his body would adjust. “I might need a nap before dinner.”
She introduced him to Esteban, who was trying to make an apple invisible, and Lester, who was doing something with pieces of metal. “You'll be sharing a room with Esteban,” she said. “We have enough rooms for everyone to have their own room, but Xander said we should get used to doubling up now so we don't have to adjust when we have more students.”
The room was neither large nor small. It had a window opposite the doorway and beds against the other two walls. Kaleb collapsed on the bed and stretched out, glad to be off his legs at last.
Before he could let himself fall asleep, however, there was something he had to do. As Carolyn and Esteban went back to their practice, he pulled the ring of blue metal out of his pocket and slipped it on his finger.
At first, nothing happened. He thought about the Queen. I'm here at last, he thought. But why did you want me to wear this ring?
Then he heard something in his head that nearly made him fall off the bed:
So that I can communicate with you, the Queen said. Now take the ring off until tomorrow night.
Chapter 50
Kareef” “for those who have insight”
“Truly, in these things is indeed a lesson for those who have insight.”
– Quran 24:44
It had to happen eventually and it did. Midway through Okla they stopped outside one of the old cities called Tulsa. The days had been growing warmer and instead of snow a icy rain had turned the accumulated snow to slush. By the time they had the horses watered and fed and were ready to continue, the temperature had dropped, freezing the lead wagon's wheels to the road.
“Now what?” Kareef asked the ambassador. “Do we have to stay here until tomorrow?”
Qusay smiled. “If Allah wills it,” he said. “But let's see if we can do something.”
Kareef climbed out of the wagon with the older man and had a look at the wheels. Two of the outriders were already dismounting to push at the back of the wagon while the horses snorted and strained.
“I think if we add two more strong backs we'll be out of this,” said Qusay. He braced his feet as best he could and leaned into the back of the wagon, and Kareef imitated him.
At first nothing happened. Then there was a sharp CRACK! and the wheels were free. Kareef could not swear to it, but he though he saw the rear wheels apparently turning by themselves for a moment, before they stopped.
“Well, there you are,” said Qusay. “Not as hard as we thought. The slush underneath must not have all frozen yet.”
They climbed back into the wagon and the caravan began to move forward again. “How did that just happen?” he asked the ambassador.
Qusay shrugged. “Maybe we were just lucky.”
“Or maybe you made the wheels turn hard enough to break the hold of the ice?”
Qusay grinned and quoted the Book: “Truly, in these things is indeed a lesson for those who have insight.”
Kareef just shook his head. What lesson can I learn from this? He thought back to the incident with the bandits. Qusay had said he twisted arteries shut temporarily to knock people out. This time he had made wagon wheels turn.
The only thing the two events had in common was a twisting motion. So he could at least make that happen. What else could he do?
Suddenly Kareef had another thought. “We don't need horses, do we? You can make the wagon roll all the way to Denver without them, can't you?”
The ambassador just smiled and lifted his eyebrows. “Don't you think that would attract a lot of attention?”
“So?” But he saw Qusay's point. Such flagrant use of the magic could lead to trouble. For one thing, it would advertise the presence of a magic-wielder to all who saw it. And for those who failed to make the connection, there would be temptation: who would not want to steal a magic wagon?
“What other kinds of magic do you know?”
Qusay settled himself in his seat and picked up the book he had been reading. “There is no magic, Kareef. There is only God. Allah is all in all, as the Book says. God can do anything, and if you open yourself to Him, you can see marvels accomplished.”
“And how exactly do I do that?”
“We've been over this already, Kareef. If Xander and his people cannot teach you all you need to know, the Order will. Either way you will learn, but we want to know their methods.”
Another thought occurred to him. “What if...what if they know things that the Order doesn't?”
Qusay exchanged a smile with his wife. “That,” he said, “is hardly likely. But in that event, you will be glad you made this trip, for you will become even more important to the Order. You will then be not merely a student, but a teacher.”
You mean, if I survive. Kareef's mind drifted back to an earlier line of thought. What makes some people able to do the magic, when most cannot? The ambassador's remarks implied that some found it easier to open themselves to God than others. But he couldn't see how that applied to him. He, Kareef, was no holy man. He tried to be a good Muslim, but in his heart he had the same doubts that he was sure plagued many in the Emirates.
And what of these people in Rado? They were not even Muslim! If even he had difficulty believing sometimes, how could the infidels be capable
of the same wonders as men of Islam like Qusay?
When he asked Qusay about this, the older man rolled his eyes, as if amazed at his naiveté. “If this ability does not come from studying the Quran,” he said, “then why are you so surprised that those who don't read it can still learn 'magic'? Truly, Allah the Ever-Merciful does as He wishes. If he chooses to answer those who call upon Him by a different name, can we complain?”
“We can be puzzled,” Kareef retorted, surprising himself. “We can wonder why we are Muslims when the non-Muslims are as blessed as we are without following the Prophet.”
Qusay shook his head. “Ah, to be so young again! I suspect, Kareef, that you may be surprised at all the things you will learn in the months ahead.”
Kareef gritted his teeth, but held his tongue. Only time would tell what he would learn among the infidels...and what he would not.
Chapter 51
Nathan: boredom breeds pessimism
דרך חוכמת בית בנוי,ועל ידי הבנה שהוא הקים
“Through wisdom a house is built, And by understanding it is established;”
– Proverbs 24:3
He was ready for this journey to be over. Though the prayers of his father Isaac kept the wagon warm, they could do nothing about the effects of sitting on a hard seat for mile after mile. He tried to emulate his father's patience as they rode and read, but eventually he asked: “Will we ever get there?”
Isaac laughed. “Soon,” he promised. “We are already in Kansouri. Only a few hundred more miles to go.”
A few hundred! He slapped his book shut and wished the wagon had enough room to throw it properly. “What if we get there and negotiations break down? Will we just turn around and do this all over again?” He could envision it all too easily: another grueling weeks-long trip all the way home.
His father raised an eyebrow. “I seriously doubt that anything like that will happen. The reports I've seen agree that Governor Kristana is an eminently reasonable person.”
“Whatever.” He frowned out the window as more featureless flat fields crawled by. What might have been an exciting adventure had been ground by time and routine into a mind-numbing ordeal.
His father opened another book. Nathan tried to imagine how life in Denver could be anything but dreary. There would be unfamiliar sights to see, and new people to meet. But would any of them be like him? “Does Rado have other ambassadors, from other lands? Are their families with them?”
His father looked up from his book. “I have no way of knowing that. Obviously, from this new alliance, this new Union of theirs with Texas, there should be envoys from the Lone Star Empire, at least. But I doubt that they'd bring their families to a country they were just recently at war with.”
“What am I supposed to do there all day, while you're conferring with the Governor or her advisers?”
At this, his father began to say something, then thought better of it and closed his mouth. He turned to look out his own window, as if troubled by thoughts he could not share.
Nathan frowned. What had his father been about to say? Were there further secrets to this mission?
When his father turned back from the window, his face was composed, but with a deliberate calm. “You'll find things to do,” he said. “I'm sure in the end, you'll be glad you came.”
He's hiding something, Nathan decided. It's something about me...and something he doesn't want to have to argue about all the rest of the way to Rado. So obviously it's something he expects me to disagree with. But what? Is he going to just send me back when we get there? Did he only bring me along for company?
The wagon stopped, interrupting his thoughts. “Why are we stopping?” he grumbled.
“I don't know,” said his father Isaac. “We're nowhere near a town.” He opened the door on his side. “Wait here,” he said, and was out the door before Nathan could object.
Chapter 52
Lester: tricks with seeing
“There are two ways to live. You can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle.”
– Albert Einstein
Balefully he surveyed the semi-conscious faces. “That is correct. The first application of pathspace we teach is invisibility, and the reason we teach it first is that hiding is often better than fighting, especially against impossible odds.”
“Are we going to fight?” Kaleb seemed alarmed. “I thought the war was over.”
“It is, but you never know when you might have to defend yourself. So we teach defense first.”
From the looks he saw, they were tired of practicing the invisibility weave. “What do we learn after that?” Esteban asked.
“After everyone here can go invisible when they need to,” he said, “you will learn how to make a swizzle.”
“That's not fair,” Carolyn objected. “What are the more advanced students supposed to do while we wait for the new students to catch up?”
“You have a choice,” he told her. “You can either work with the newer people when I'm busy, or you can try to figure out how to make a swizzle on your own.'
To her credit, she did both. For the next couple of days he saw her working with Kaleb and Esteban, and after that she began spending more time up on the roof. After a couple of days he decided to see how she was doing.
He opened the roof door quietly. Carolyn was sitting near a corner of the roof opposite from where the sentry's post. She didn't appear to have heard the door open, so he closed it quietly behind him.
After a while she made a sound of irritation and looked up from the length of pipe she was holding and saw him watching. “You need something?”
“Just wondering how you were doing.”
“Well, I'm getting nowhere, and it's annoying. It's like I know what I'm doing and I don't at the same time.”
“I know the feeling,” he said, remembering how long it had taken him to make his first swizzle.
“Do you? Then why am I wasting my time like this?”
“Because you might learn something else along the way. Maybe even something Xander and I don't know yet.”
“Like what?”
Feeling a little guilty about making her figure out the swizzle weave by herself, he picked up the pipe and wove pathspace around it to make it a telescope. “Like this,” he said. “Try looking at that building over there through it now.”
She nearly dropped the pipe. “How did you do that? It looks like I can reach out and touch it!”
He explained, showing her how pathspace could be used to gather and focus the light instead of shunting it around an object. “You don't even have to have a pipe,” he said. “But it's easier this way.”
“Why?”
“Well, because the metal helps anchor the weave.” He made another pathspace-telescope in the open air and showed her how she had to step into just the right position top see through it.” A temporary weave needs not metal,” he said, “ but if you want to swing it to look at something else you have to undo it and redo the weave every time you move. With a pipe you just leave the weave on it and move the pipe.”
“What else did you learn?”
“We'll save that for the next time you're bored. Just kidding. I'll show you more when you have the telescope weave.”
“It doesn't seem so hard,” she said. “I'll bet I have it by tomorrow. Light is easy compared to making air move.”
“According to Xander, that's because photons always move at the speed of light. You don't have to speed them up or slow them down, just change the direction of the pathspace they are following. Air is different. It has 'inertia' – whatever that is.”
He left her to it and pulled open the stairwell door. Was he doing the right thing? If Esteban or Kaleb found out he had shown her the telescope weave he'd have to show them too or it would look like favoritism. But if they all worked on telescope weaves wouldn't that distract them from the swizzle assignment? Maybe he ought to just tell them how to sculpt the
pathspace to make a swizzle and move on.
The only thing that kept him from that was his own experience. Being in a prison in Dallas had been lonely, but he had worked out the swizzle problem by himself, and he still remembered the thrill of accomplishment, the knowledge that he had solved it without any hints from Xander.
Of course he did have the hint from the guard's smoke ring. Should he finagle a way to have them see smoke rings too? He wanted them to have that feeling of accomplishment too. Sooner or later they'd have to figure out weaves on their own. For all he knew they might come up with weaves he or Xander had never thought of...but none of that might happen if he just spoon fed it to them.
It was a tricky problem. They needed to learn quickly so the school would have more teachers. But the school needed more than mere teachers. It needed explorers. Some of the graduates would have to become researchers to expand the lore.
He was so absorbed in these thoughts that by the time he realized he had lost his balance it was too late. The stairs and walls seemed to spin around him as he fell. There was a metallic clink and then his head hit something hard and everything went away for a while.
Chapter 53
Xander: safety considerations
“Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.”
– Winston Churchill
He watched Daniels as the doctor changed the bandage. “Has there been any change?”
Daniels washed his hands in a basin. “Relax. It's only been an hour since we found him. Lucky for him Carolyn had to come down for lunch.”
Lester's breathing was slow and even. “He's been up and down those stairs so many times now. Why would he fall now?”
Daniels dried his hands. “I'm surprised it hasn't happened before now. Fifty nine flights of stairs. Well, double that if you count the landings between floors, and yet no banisters and no handrails. I'm surprised there are more bloodstains on those concrete walls. How did the Ancients survive here?”
Spinspace: The Space of Spins (The Metaspace Chronicles Book 2) Page 17