Eyes of the Calculor

by Sean McMullen

  sense of justice or good heart than that you displayed to me. Now, as abbot I have given orders to purge Balesha's corruption and as abbot I name you as my replacement. Either order me shot, or let me pass."

  The barrels of the guns followed Martyne as he walked to the ornamental pool in the courtyard and took a long drink. Finally he shouldered his cloth pack of dried fruit, waterskins, and bread, snaked his arms through the straps, then looked to Abbot Gerian.

  "Pin your strikers, join ranks to banish this monk," ordered the newly appointed abbot. "Depart from us, Brother Martyne. Never return."

  At that the two rows that flanked Martyne's path began chanting the Requiem Vitaren. As he walked between them nobody spoke a word of farewell or waved. He walked through the arch of the main gate, where the former abbot was still hanging, then stopped and turned. Now Gerian produced a flintlock, released the pin, cocked the striker and fired. The ball severed the rope, and the former abbot's body fell to the ground. Two monks broke ranks, stripped the body bare and flung it beside the track, just outside the gate. Nobody so much as glanced at Martyne, who was now no more part of the monastery than the body on the red sand. The gates were pushed shut, and the deep boom of their closing startled several crows into the air. One landed near the body, then cocked its head to one side and stared intently at Martyne.

  "Ah, no, thank you, he is all yours," said Martyne.

  He turned away off the track and headed south. Many days away was the paraline, but unlike earlier escapees from Balesha he had adequate provisions and no threat of pursuit.

  Kalgoorlie, Western Australica

  V3iven the dramatic circumstances of her gaining office, it was no surprise that Overmayor Jemli ordered a general mobilization of all musketeers and militias. Galley engines were sent out to all major

  centers to take control, and the bewildered librarians, officials, and citizens were not slow to accept the new overmayor's authority. Within a single day of the electrical machines burning, Jemli had sent twenty armed galley engines east along the paralines, dropping officials at each of the old beamflash towers. After crossing into the Woomeran Confederation, she pronounced that hers was an aid expedition after the catastrophe with the electrical machines, and that a council of mayors and overmayors would be called. Within eight days she had placed four thousand of her operatives all along the paralines, as far as the border with the Rochestrian Commonwealth. Here their help was politely but firmly declined.

  The passing of ten days had transformed the political scene in both the Kalgoorlie Empire and the Woomeran Confederation beyond recognition. Jemli had been elevated to become a religious leader without even being ordained, and her followers had already begun referring to her as the Prophet.

  "And as I warned you, so did it come to pass," Jemli shouted to the crowd that was hanging on her words. "I said that the Deity would send a sign if we began smashing all engines, and that sign is now with us. The Call has ceased, yes, and even the Calldeath lands are no longer the province of the aviads alone. The Deity has passed judgment upon them, He has stripped away the Call, their shield, and their armor. Engines of electrical essence He has struck down, and those abominations, the aviads, He has judged hateful in His sight. Soon He will smite the mighty band in the sky, Mirrorsun. What is a sign, except for us to act upon? If you want to go to Kalgoorlie and you see a sign which says Kalgoorlie—Fifty Miles, do you not turn down that road and prepare for a journey of fifty miles?"

  She paused, and there was a scattering of cries along the lines of "Aye" and "Yes."

  "And if you see electrical essence machines burn, then see aviads denied their protection, what do you do?"

  "Smash them, kill them!" shouted a firebrand priest from down in the crowd.

  Now catching on, the crowd echoed his words. Over and over

  again, the words rolled like waves across the plaza and down the neighboring streets. Engines and aviads were excesses of the old civilization, brought back to life after they had nearly poisoned the world itself. The Deity was giving believers a chance to prove their faith, and His voice was the voice of Jemli.

  Martyne was among the thirty thousand standing in the great square before the palace of Kalgoorlie, listening to the Overmayor's speech. Both of them were about to depart for the East, but he would be pedaling the engine that would be carrying Jemli.

  "Remember that I promised you a sign, on the day that the electrical engines burned. Well, now you have your sign."

  Jemli had actually promised a sign because it seemed like the right thing for a prophet to do. The last thing she had been expecting was a real sign.

  "The Call has ceased," she repeated. "No more does the curse of the invisible allure sweep the land, no more may aviads walk free, stealing, murdering, and ravishing while we humans are insensible. We must now work to be worthy of His new blessing. Kill all aviads, destroy all engines not powered by wind, water, or muscle."

  The crowd began to chant, generally along the lines of "Kill" and "Destroy," and Jemli let them have their way for a time. Presently she raised her arms and they were silent.

  "My people, in our zeal, let us be sure to spare the innocent. Those in other mayorates must be converted to the truth, not have it forced upon them at gunpoint. To this aim I am about to leave for the eastern mayorates, to bring them the message of salvation. There I have called a great council, where I shall preach the truth."

  Martyne waved his hat in the air for the sake of appearances, but did not cheer. For him, all this was just a means of taking him east all the more swiftly.

  live galley engines rumbled out of Kalgoorlie soon after the rally was over. Thousands of cheering believers flanked the paraline as the pedalers within pushed to drive the chains and gears, and Jemli waved from the hatch above the captain's cabin in the middle engine.

  Martyne watched through the peephole beside his head until the crowds thinned and the city walls passed out of sight. Grassy, irrigated farmland presently gave way to open, scrubby forest.

  "Your first trip?" asked the navvy beside him, a burly man with a broken nose.

  "No, I came from the East by wind train, five years ago," replied Martyne.

  "Nah, I mean as a navvy."

  "Ah. Yes."

  "You look trim enough."

  "I work hard."

  "Shifts are four hours on, half break, four on. Cruise at fifteen to the hour, we do. Battle conditions, hah. All out on battle conditions. Top speed is classified. Ever been in a battle?"

  "A small one, a skirmish."

  "Yeah? Yeah, well, only veterans aboard, I forgot. I been derailed in the castellanies, four or five years ago. . . ."

  The man talked continuously for the entire shift. At the end of the second shift they were at Zanthus, over a hundred miles from Kalgoorlie, and on the edge of the Nullarbor Plain. By now night had fallen, and the navvies were changed. Inspectors went over the galley engines, checking for bombs, stowaways, and unauthorized cargo. The engines were very light and streamlined, but they were underpowered and their powerplants got tired very easily.

  Nobody noticed Martyne slip away in the darkness and hurry east along the side of the paraline. The squadron captain's whistle pierced the night, and the five galley engines began to roll forward. Martyne crouched down as they went past, then sprinted for the last engine and clung to the side. Nobody seemed to notice, but he remained still for several minutes to be sure before crawling slowly down to the coupling skirt and settling in for the night.

  It was still dark as they pulled into the Forrest railside. Martyne rolled from the coupling skirt before the train had stopped, then hurried along after it and mingled in among the fresh navvies. Martyne spent another shift pedaling until the squadron reached Maral-inga Railside. By now it was early afternoon, so there was no

  question of sprinting unseen after the squadron again. Martyne settled down to wait for the next train east.

  Overmayor Jemli was in no hurry to go on. Marali
nga was a major railside of over a thousand people, and work was already under way to restore the beamflash tower after two decades of neglect. All but the guards on the engines were called to the base of the tower, where Jemli addressed them from one of the lower balconies. The theme was again the evil of electrical machines, the cessation of the Call, and the virtues of killing aviads. The onlookers cheered more lustily than those at Kalgoorlie, more because they were in the middle of the desert and starved for entertainment than because the prophet had an inspiring message. Jemli and the administrator in charge of the tower then walked back to the platform and stood a long time in discussion. The Overmayor was a head taller than he, even though the man was the same height as Martyne. Then, to the cheers of most of the railside, the galley engines rumbled away toward the eastern horizon.

  Martyne had no cause to complain. He was nearly four times farther east than those who had remained at Coonana with the first shift change. He began a tour of the railside. There was a small temple to a Ghan saint who was buried there, with an inscription thanking Mayor Glasken of Kalgoorlie for locating her body in the wilderness. The area near the beamflash tower was cordoned off and under guard, but the market was open for the navvies who had just arrived. Martyne bought two flintlocks with damaged stocks, then found a suitable piece of wood at the railyard and settled down to begin carving new stocks while he awaited the next commercial wind train east.

  The Central Confederation, Eastern Australica

  IVIartyne's destination was Griffith, the capital of the Central Confederation. In Griffith, on that same day, the house of Disore was in

  mourning. It had been in mourning for two months. Glin Torumasen had been away at a war with the Southmoors for that time, but with the loss of all electrical essences within the known world, the war had wound down to a general demobilization. There would, of course, be more wars in the future, but for now there was a need to adjust to the vastly degraded communications that resulted from the loss of all radios and telegraphy.

  "It was well before the Call ceased and the electrical essence devices melted," explained Harren Disore as the two men entered the bedroom. "Velesti had just passed her Dragon Yellow Librarian examinations and was walking home with her best friend, Elsile. Elsile was a Dragon Orange. With the war still raging, there were a lot of musketeers and lancers all over the city."

  "And she was attacked?" asked Torumasen. "But she must have been wearing a Dragon Librarian uniform. Surely that would have deterred them?"

  "The Dragon Librarians have lost a lot of authority in the Central Confederation over recent years. Besides, the penalty for rape is the same, whether the victim is a librarian or otherwise. Velesti wore no gun because she worked in a theological library. There was about a dozen and a half of them, mostly commoner musketeers, but three officers have been named also. She and Elsile were surrounded and gagged with so little fuss that nobody raised the alarm. They were then dragged off to a stable where they were ravished and degraded for hours. Elsile was murdered before they left. Velesti lost her mind."

  Torumasen shook his head. "She always had a slender, delicate figure, and an even more delicate disposition."

  "The experience turned her brain. Sometime before dawn the musketeers decided that they had done with them and it was time to leave. Apparently they set the stables afire and made their retreat, but luckily for my daughter, two passing lancer captains and their ladies noticed the flames. They broke in, thinking to.save trapped horses. Instead they found Velesti in the straw, clothed only in blood and excrement, and quite without wits."

  "Yet she was still able to identify her attackers?"

  "No. At that moment one of the musketeers returned to fetch a saber that he had dropped, and he was shot in the leg by one of the captains as he tried to flee. In return for the guarantee of a life sentence he sang loud and long, but his officers were well connected so the trial has gone nowhere."

  The girl was seventeen, on the high side of average height, and with long hair and a fine-boned but angular face. She lay with her eyes closed, and her brother, Reclor, was sitting on a chair beside her.

  "Rector, Fras Torumasen is here to treat Velesti," said Harren.

  His son looked up, then stood.

  "Eleven other medicians have been able to do nothing," he said grimly.

  "Then at least I can do no less," Torumasen replied.

  Reclor left, and Torumasen examined Velesti. She was completely unresisting and limp, but Harren said that she would swallow when soup was put in her mouth.

  "She has been like this since she was carried from the burning stables, and nothing has been able to stop her slow decline. Sometimes I think it would have been better if her throat had been cut, like poor Elsile's."

  Torumasen straightened. "Harren, I want to give hope, but there is none to give," he concluded. "Her pulse is weak, she barely breathes, and her eyes are unseeing."

  "Then what is to be done? Do you know anyone who can help? A doctor, edutor, sorcerer, priest?"

  "No doctor or edutor can help. As for sorcerers or priests, I am in no better position to make judgments than you. Velesti may be aware of us from deep within her head, but she is retreating from life to escape the nightmare of what was done to her. Tend her well, give her absolute security and comfort. Try to let her know that the horrors of that night will never return."

  "But we have done all that, Fras."

  "Then you are already doing all there is to be done."

  Torumasen bent over again and examined Velesti's throat. "Was there bruising on her neck?"

  "There was bruising all over her body, her neck included."

  "They may have tried to strangle her. Sometimes a loss of blood to the head can kill the mind while leaving the body alive."

  Like most people, Torumasen had secrets to hide. He had once been the lover of the famous hero of the Milderellen Invasion, Do-lorian, and had been with her when she had died over two decades earlier. Ten years later, Overmayor Zarvora had visited him in secret, about moving Dolorian's grave to a shrine in Rochester. Just before she left she had presented the medician with a flaccid, brown band, whose texture was rather like that of kid leather. "If ever again someone is as precious to you as Dolorian was, and is in the grip of death, put this around their neck," Zarvora had said. Now he was married with two children. He had intended to save the band for his own loved ones . . . but here was Harren, and his daughter was dying. Harren, his oldest friend. Harren, whose father had paid for Torumasen to go to university.

  "I need to do one last test," said the medician. "Can you fetch a pitcher of cold water and a facecloth?"

  As soon as Harren was out of the room Torumasen took the band from his pocket. Written on its inner surface in precise, angular letters were words in one of the ancient languages: SERIES 2 PROTOTYPE. He slipped the band around Velesti's neck and pressed the ends together. Almost at once he noticed that it was growing warm. Very warm. Velesti did not move. Within moments the band was too hot to touch. It was going to kill her! Its mechanism had probably failed in the two thousand years since it had been fashioned. He wrapped a handkerchief around his fingers and tried to tear it away, but it was changing color and melting into her skin. All that he could do was gently replace her head on the pillow. He felt for a pulse, but there was none.

  Torumasen slumped to the floor beside the bed. What else could he have expected? The device had been two thousand years old, of course it would malfunction. Velsti was dead, he had killed her. . . but at least he had been trying to help. Harren appeared at the door, holding the pitcher and a cloth.

  "Glin, what is the matter?" he asked.

  "I applied a—a medicinal band to her neck, but to no avail. She is gone."

  The pitcher fell from his hands, to smash and splash water across the carpet as Harren ran forward. He flung himself on his daughter's lifeless body, sobbing and beating the pillow with his fists. Toru-masen slowly got to his feet, then took his friend by the should
ers and drew him away from the bed.

  "Farewell, Velesti, it moved my heart to see you looking so beautiful," said the medician, gazing at the pale, gaunt, but strangely radiant face on the pillow before turning with his inconsolable friend and guiding him to the door.

  Harren's wife, their son Reclor, Velesti's maid Julica, and the groom were gathered in the parlor when the two men returned downstairs. The circle of eyes was focused on Harren, but he said nothing as Torumasen helped him to a chair.

  "Velesti is dead," the medician announced.

  Harren's wife Elene cried out, then rushed to her husband's side and flung her arms around him. Julica fell to her knees, sobbing, but Reclor merely hugged his folded arms harder against his chest while his lips tightened to a thin, sharp line. The youth wore a medium bore flintlock at his right thigh. He was still too young to go armed in public, but ever since the attack he had strapped the gun on as soon as he returned home.

  "Velesti has not suffered for many weeks," Torumasen explained. "Either through injury or revulsion, her mind probably fled to some dark corner within herself and slowly wasted away."

  "But if her mind had fled, surely it might have crept back again," sobbed Julica, her eyes glistening as she wrung her hands.

  "I have known that to happen. Folk have lain as dead for weeks, then returned to their senses for no obvious reason. Some reported that they heard their loved ones reading and talking to them, and that they journeyed toward the familiar voices through a strange and empty wasteland."

  "I have been doing just that," cried Julica.

  "But to return she had to want to return," explained the medi-cian. "I only—"

  Suddenly a piercing shriek echoed out from somewhere above them. Everyone froze for a moment, then looked to each other as if to confirm that the sound had been real. A moment later they were scrambling for the stairs.

  Velesti was on the floor beside the bed, trying to raise herself on her arms and shaking her head as if to clear it.