by T J Trapp
✽✽✽
Just before dark, Alec returned from the archives and the two compared notes.
“Your suggestion to get out for a while was a good one, Dear Consort,” Erin said. “I scouted the city today. Tomorrow, I will actively look for our riders. I suspect that there is only one place to start my search, and that is the drone training area. I dread going there, but it is where they will be.”
“Why don’t you talk to Suva about the drone training before you leave in the morning? She might give you some insight.”
“Good idea,” she said. “And you, my wizard? You spent all day lost in the archives – again.”
“There is so much in the elf archives,” Alec said. “It’s so very interesting! Science, technology, history – it’s all there, as seen by the elves.”
“Oh?” said Erin.
“Yes – the oldest records go back thousands of years – millennia really – before the elves ever came to this world. The old scrolls, of course, are fragile, but I don’t think anyone here ever looks at them. They just keep them because it is their tradition, and they are bound by tradition. And I must admit – the oldest are hard for me to read. The ink is faded and the ancient runes are hard for me to understand, but I get the gist of them.
“I found a book, even older than your Book of Queens, that tells about the origin of the elves – sort of their ‘creation myth,’ I guess – and then I found even older scrolls.”
“Older that Mother’s Book of Queens? But that was written by the First Mother, Lian, and is the oldest record in Theland!”
“Yes, but it is only a little more than five hundred years old, and the elf archives go back thousands of years.”
“So – tell me – what does their old book say?”
“It is called the Book of Times. I think it was written about two thousand years ago – maybe three thousand. It talks about ‘this time,’ and ‘the time before time.’ It says that the elves were created by an ancient race called ‘the gons,’ in ‘the time before time,’ to help the gons overcome their adversaries. I’m not sure who the adversaries were – they weren’t orbs, because the Book mentions the orbs fighting alongside the gons. The gons also created flying beasts – the ‘gra-gons’ – or what we call ‘dragons’ – as a means to fight their enemies.”
“So the elves and the dragons were both – created – at the same time?”
“It seems that way.”
“Two thousand years ago?”
“No, no – much, much longer ago than that. In ‘the time before time.’”
Erin frowned. “What else does the Book say? Who were the gons? Were they people? Did they look like us?”
“Apparently they did not look like us, because there are some references to how they used their tails in warfare. I’m not sure who the gons were, but they seem to have died out before the beginning of ‘this time,’ whenever that was. The Book of Times says that since the elves were the superior beings, at the beginning of ‘this time,’ the elves assumed their rightful position as masters of all.”
Erin snorted. “‘Rightful position!’ Hah!” She ran her fingers through her short hair. “Gons – elves – dragons – orbs – what other creatures are talked about in the Book?”
“There are a few others. There is a repeated reference to something I couldn’t translate – I could only come up with ‘hideous beast’ – that obviously was something that the elves could control and that the gons and orbs were fearful of.”
“But you said something I don’t understand,” Erin said. “Our scholars tell us that the elves say that they created the orbs to be their slaves. Does the Book of Times talk about that?”
Alec looked at her thoughtfully. “I know that the elves say that, and our scholars think that, but I am sure that is not the case. Like I said, the elves that we know and love, like Mother Suva here, want to think that they are the masters of all other beings, but their own archives say that the orbs are as ancient as the gons. So if the gons created the elves, the elves did not create the orbs.”
“I guess that makes sense,” Erin sighed. “It’s all so confusing. I know that I am part elf and part orb. So maybe I am part gon as well.”
15 – The Drone Facility
The next morning, Erin again confronted Mother Suva.
“Are you pleased with my performance as your captive?” Erin asked.
Suva snorted and answered honestly, “Hah! I am quite displeased with your performance!”
“Good! That is the answer I wanted.” Erin smiled.
After an unsatisfactory attempt to glean additional useful information from Suva, Erin made her way towards the drone training area. This time instead of walking she rode in the sedan chair. Her drones stopped and waited as she climbed out and walked towards the training area. She moved into the area with some trepidation. The urge to please the trainers that had been implanted when she was so recently banded kept trying to return to the front of her mind. She slowed her pace and waited for the urge to pass. She still walked slowly and stiffly – her damaged body wasn’t as fluid as she wished.
A clutchman approached her, and she tightened her grip on her emotions. “Mother, may I assist you?”
“Yes, you may – and be quick about it.”
“Yes, Mother. What is it that you need?”
“I need to look at your recent captures. I am involved with Mother Suva and want to see the new drones to determine if they will meet my requirements.”
The clutchman did not look pleased with Erin’s demand, but replied, “I will ask the Drone Master to give you suggestions.”
A mother wearing the familiar jumpsuit of the Drone Master came out of a building on one side of the training area and walked towards them. Erin could not tell whether or not it was the same woman who had trained her only a week or so ago; she tried very hard to quell her anxiety and revulsion.
“Greetings,” the mother said. “Welcome to the Drone Domestication Facility.”
Erin acknowledged her greeting and returned it. “I am involved with Mother Suva. I talked to her this morning and have come to look at the captive drones. Mother Suva is not happy with some of her current captives. She said she is very displeased. I am here to select some more drones.”
The mother sensed that everything Erin had said was true and nodded. “Mother, we appreciate Mother Suva’s need for additional drones. However, we have only three hundred and seven drones in training here at the Facility. We were expecting to receive almost a thousand. We intended to cull all the way down that river valley on the evening-side of our mountains, but injuries to the dragon caused us to cut the cull short.”
River valley? They were going to go all the way through Theland to the River Ryn with their cull? That’s almost all the way to Freedom City!
With some difficulty, Erin controlled her emotions. “Injuries to the dragon. Indeed. I did not know that it had been injured.”
“Only slightly.” Erin sensed that the Drone Master was being only partially truthful.
“Oh?” Erin said, arching a brow, indicating that she knew the Drone Master was withholding information.
“Oh, you will find out anyway. The scaly cur! It was injured in some kind of fight at one of the villages just on the other side of our mountains! How it allowed itself to be engaged in a battle is anyone’s guess!” The woman spat, then continued with her diatribe. “That dragon is a weakling! And old! The slightest discomfort and it stops working. Just sits down, curls up, and acts as if its fire has gone out. Hmmpf!”
“Oh,” Erin said.
“And so, without the dragon, they did not continue the cull. The cull mother just gave up! She quit! She should have continued! How am I supposed to supply New Haven with enough drones if they do not give me the raw materials? I can’t go out there and collect orbs on my own! The cull mother should have continued the cull even without the dragon. Ha! But – can you believe – she said she needed more mothers to assist her! Ha! More
mothers!”
The Drone Master, breathing heavily, crossed her arms and hissed. After a moment she regained her composure. “Mother Suva’s project is so important,” she said, changing her tone and looking closely at Erin. “We need to have our coercer mothers be able to control the dragon instead of waiting for the protector mothers to just sit back and coax that lazy lizard into action. We need to be able to get more work out of that big bag of hot air! Then maybe we will be able to get enough orbs when we do culls.”
“Oh,” said Erin.
“Yes! Our culls are falling short! Everyone is going to be unhappy when they find out how short of new drones we are!” She snorted. “I can’t train new drones if the cull mothers do not give me orbs!” She shook her head in anger.
“But I suppose you’ve heard all that before. I know that you would agree with me, as does Mother Suva.”
Erin did not answer, but nodded slightly. I guess you can’t make drones unless you have orbs, she thought.
“Anyway, I digress with my opinions.”
“Yes. About the drones …”
“The Disca has said that Mother Suva’s task is a priority. I have been instructed to supply her with drones if she has needs.” The Drone Master motioned to a nearby drone. “My head training drone will show you what we have. If you need me, have it fetch me.” The mother walked off, leaving Erin with the drone.
Erin motioned to the head drone, and he led her to the open area with the training pens. Each pen held a drone-in-training; some were still naked, but most were wearing a simple, loose-fitting tunic, kneeling in the familiar drone-training posture, heads down and eyes averted. Most were men. Erin walked slowly down the rows of captives with the head training drone following discretely a few paces behind.
“How long have these … animals … been here?” she asked the head training drone.
“Mother, these drones are progressing well with their training,” the drone replied. “It takes at least a full passage of the five moons to complete the training; most of this crop has already completed the first set of lessons and earned the reward of wearing tunics. Some of them will be completely obedient in a few more days and will be ready to be segregated for more advanced training. Some of the slow ones are requiring more intense training. If we weren’t short of drones, we would have already sent them off to be used as fodder for the dragon.”
Erin did not hurry but strolled slowly past the pens. She looked closely at each figure as she passed; the hunched, shorn captives looked very much like one another, and their downturned faces were hard to see. The drone recruits all tried their very best to kneel properly in the presence of Erin and not look up.
She stopped in front of a pen and gave a second close look at the naked man within. Then, turning to the lead drone, she commanded, “I am thirsty. Get me some water.”
The lead drone hurried off to task another drone with the request, and as soon as Erin could see that he was out of sight, she bent over the man in the pen.
“Reuben! Reuben!” she whispered in the Theland language. “Is that you?”
“Mother, I am a drone,” the man said in Dronish, looking at her feet. “I strive to serve and obey.”
“Reuben, you were a Theland rider. Don’t you recall your name?”
“Mother, that was my name. Now I have no name. I only desire to serve.”
Erin was silent for some time. “That is good. You are doing well. Do not punish yourself for this conversation,” she added sadly.
A drone bustled up with a tray and the water she had requested. Remembering to not thank him, she nonetheless was grateful for the drink. Again accompanied by the head training drone, she continued to walk along the rows of pens, occasionally noting the person in one of the pens.
“Some of these are women – females,” she said to the head drone.
“Yes, Mother. Yes, they are. Our breeding program has fallen behind, so the Drone Master has told us to not kill all the females as we would normally do. But do not worry,” he added hastily. “We would never send a female to be a household drone!”
It took quite a lot of time for Erin to review all of the three hundred and seven incipient drones. The Drone Master had disappeared – Off training drones, I suppose, thought Erin – and there seemed to be no exit protocol, so she left the lead drone and walked out of the front entrance of the facility, mentally reviewing the locations of her riders and the few people she could identify from Pome.
✽✽✽
“I could spend years looking at the archives,” Alec said, sitting with Erin at the ornate dining table in their chambers. “They’re absolutely fascinating!”
“Yes – orbs and gons. But have you learned anything … useful?” asked Erin.
“Enough to try to get us out of here,” said Alec, feeling slightly crestfallen. “What success did you have in finding the riders?”
“I found many of my riders in the drone training area. I guess their drone training is not quite complete. It takes a full turn of the moons, and they haven’t been there quite that long. I also saw some of the Pomite villagers. I recognized the elder whom we spoke to, before we encountered the dragon. But I do not know what most of the villagers look like, and there must be many from other villages as well, or from Gott, so I don’t know which ones we need to rescue.” She sighed. “They collected over three hundred people in that last cull. I guess we will have to mount an attack on the drone training area, figure out which ones are our people, free them, and leave the rest behind. Although I hate to leave anyone to that horrid fate.” She shuddered. “Then we will have to find a way to get our people out of New Haven, past the croplands, through the obscuring field, out of the elf lands, across the mountains, and home. Simple.”
“I have studied the obscuring field,” Alec said thoughtfully. “It is described in detail in the archives. It is a formidable defensive field powered by dark energy – apparently the elves’ main line of defense for this city. We felt the field when we passed through it. The field is debilitating to anyone who is not wearing a special bracelet that is aligned with the oscillations of the field. The elves can change the oscillations at will, so old bracelets do not work. It will be very difficult to get bracelets for all of our people. I think the best chance is to turn off the power to the obscuring field and then make a run for it before they notice it is not operating.”
He drummed his fingers on the table. “I think I can turn it off without anybody seeing me. If we move quickly, we should be able to get everyone beyond the field zone before the elves notice it is off.” He thought a bit more. “Of course, once they notice it is off, they will be able to restart it. We need to be across the field by then.”
“How will you do this, oh Great Wizard?” Erin asked.
“I think I know where the controller is. The obscuring field seems to be controlled from a building that I have seen drones go in and out of. I know how the field works, so if I can get into the building, I should be able to turn it off without any drone noticing what I have done.”
“That solves how we get through the obscuring field,” Erin said. “If we can reach it. But to get our people out of the Drone Domestication Facility we will need weapons.”
“Weapons.”
“Yes, we will need enough weapons to attack the training facility, and I need to get my strength back enough to lead the attack,” stated Erin, throwing her head back.
“Do I need to remind you that at the moment, our entire attack force consists of you and me?” Alec asked gently.
Erin sighed. “We only have clutchmen’s swords and spears. Not really the weapons that I prefer to use,” she said forlornly.
“Maybe there is another way. Maybe there is a better way to free our people instead of attacking the training area,” Alec mused. “Perhaps we could use a little deception instead of the direct approach. I think another talk with our captive mother is in order.”
16 – The Mother’s Rod
Erin and Al
ec walked across the back courtyard to the dungeon where Mother Suva was chained. A house drone had brought her food and a small pan of water and placed them on the floor near her. As they entered the cell, she was staring glumly at the drone food, poking it with her finger. They watched as she reluctantly ate it and slurped water from her cupped hands.
“Acknowledge me,” Erin said to the mother, after waiting a few minutes.
Mother Suva crawled over to Erin’s feet. “Greetings,” she said.
“Talk to me,” Erin said. “Can you request addition drones from the Drone Master?”
“Of course. I can ask her for more drones if I need them.”
“If you had many more drones, dozens of them, where would you put them? There is only room for about twenty drones here in your storehouse.”
“The Disca assigned one of the old warehouses to me for my use. It will hold as many drones as I need.”
“Where is it?” Erin asked.
“Near here. I don’t know. My drones know where.”
Erin looked at the filthy woman in front of her. “I may have other uses for the drones. Tell me how to undo the drone training.”
Mother Suva sat back and stared at Erin. She looked shocked. “Undo the training?”
“You heard me. How does one undo the drone training?”
“But if you undid the training, then … then … then the drones would no longer be drones! They would be useless!”
“Tell me!” Erin demanded.
“Well, I don’t know. I am not a Drone Master.”
“Get back on your knees!” Erin gave Mother Suva a small dose of pain and the kneeling woman winced. “Tell me!”