by F. C. Reed
“Meginstrum Bay,” Janil said. He returned wearing a hideous bright orange jumpsuit, and his blond hair dripped as he ruffled a small towel through it. “It’s our lab. And we pulled you through a sourceway right into it. Damn thing opened right in front of us.”
“The travel through a sourceway is not an everyday thing,” began Kharius. “Or an every month, year, or lifetime thing.” He took up a position in front of the still stunned Amalia. A small disk the size of his palm floated around the side of her face. She recoiled, then resented the pain that followed the sudden movement of her head.
“It’s a wonder the aethersphere allowed for such a blatant disregard for the equated measures law,” Janil said in a serious tone. “What happened here just poo-poohed all over that law, which now becomes a theory again.” He shook his head. “Trans-dimensional sourceway creation. So esoteric and secretive.” He peeked his head around Amalia to make eye contact with Ryna. “It still begs the question: how in the hells did you create one that would allow for her to go through?” he said gesturing to Amalia. “Conceptually, theoretically, practically, literally, figuratively, hypothetically, and whatever else that ends in -ly, this should never have been possible.”
“Now’s not the time,” Ryna replied with a sharp glance. “Is the mark removed?”
“Of course,” Janil chirped with a slight chuckle. He walked up next to Kharius and hugged him around the shoulder from the side. “She is only in the company of the two most brilliant of alchemical mechineers in all the nine planes of the aethersphere.”
“She must equalize,” Kharius said, trying to shrug Janil’s arm off his shoulder. “The aether up here is enough of a difference in concentration that she would stumble about throwing her sick on everyone and everything if not allowed to balance the various streams of aether first.”
“And I, for one, do not want to have that experience shared with anyone else,” said Janil.
Kharius shoved Janil away with his elbow as he finished up the scans.
“About how long does she need?” asked Ryna.
“Perhaps an hour. Maybe less,” Kharius replied.
“Fifty-six minutes, seven seconds,” Janil said, glancing at something on his wrist resembling a watch. “She is the Red Lioness after all. I just didn’t expect her to be so—
Janil tapped his chin as he pretended to think of a word. Then he side-glanced at Kharius and made a gesture with his hands that suggested something tiny.
“Small?” Amalia offered as she glared at him. “You realize I can hear you, right?”
“Actually, I was going for short. Well, with, you know,” he said as he gestured with his head in Strann’s direction. “Your heavily muscled six-foot-four giant of an ancestral line here. And that’s short for an Itaran. No offense, General.”
“None taken,” General Strann said. “I assume she will be okay here in the meantime?” She gestured for Kharius to join her.
Music to Amalia’s ears. She wanted to poke around and explore. As soon as the ground moved a little less, and her head felt clearer, she would do just that.
“Excellent. I guess now’s as good a time as any to get fitted for that breastplate cover. I am probably not keen on finding myself up here again anytime soon.”
Ryna walked with Kharius toward the exit. When they were out of earshot, she pulled in close to him and spoke low.
Janil pretended not to notice while he kept his head low and fiddled with something that made him look focused and intentional. “Don’t look over there,” he said to Amalia under his breath. “But what in the gods’ names could they be discussing? Always whispering, those two. Always tittering about something they don’t want old Janil to hear.”
Amalia didn’t respond, but she did watch them conversing out of the corner of her eye. A pointed finger. General Strann giving clear instructions she wanted him to understand. A nod from Kharius, and she was gone.
Amalia felt it natural to turn and watch her go. She had somehow expected to feel at least a little hesitant, anxious, or even fearful after her experience with the attack at her home, being whisked away into a new realm, secret conversations, and a pair of weird, mismatched lab partners, one of whom seemed to be a little envious of the other. Most curious was the fact that she felt nothing but comfort and confidence.
“So,” Amalia began, the churn in her stomach finally receding to a mild case of bubble-guts. “Who are you guys?” She thought a conversation might ease the queasiness and some of her general curiosity.
“I am Doctor Kharius il Naeran. Alchemical mechineer in service of the primus,” he said with some prominence. “And this,” pointing to the other, “is Janil tor Naeran, my twin brother.”
“Doctor? So you’re a doctor now? I didn’t realize we were playing make believe,” Janil mused. “Where did your degree come from? A box of honey cracker crisps, no doubt,” he snorted, still grinning.
Kharius glared at him with a clenched jaw.
“And we know who you are,” Janil continued, gesturing in Amalia’s direction. “It’s a shame right now you don’t know yourself.”
“Twins?” She looked them over. Janil wore a pair of goggles just above his eyes. and his tousled blond hair stuck out over and under the straps like a tuft of grass growing around the base of a fence. He appeared three or four years older than Amalia herself.
The bright orange jumpsuit seemed too big for his small, wiry frame. She watched as he strapped on a belt bristling with bobbles and doohickeys and strange tools, so she took it to be a tool belt. What caught her eye was that attached to the belt over each hip rested a long-barreled pistol, the likes of which she had never seen. The barrel’s chambers glowed a greenish-blue, and she swore she could hear a faint hum escape the pistols in a single monotonous vibration.
Kharius appeared to be somewhere in his fifties. His blond hair hung long and smooth over his shoulders, easily reaching past his collar, and sported faint streaks of white. The collar on his shirt stood up as if dipped and dried in starch, and a leather vest hugged at his slender torso.
He wore square-framed glasses and sported a thick, neatly trimmed blond beard. On his right hip was also a silver pistol awash with greenish-blue aftereffects. But unlike Janil, on his left hip hung a black leather-bound book, held in place with two buckle straps around its midpoint.
Amalia stated the other obvious point. “You don’t look like twins at all. You don’t even look like you were born in the same generation.”
“Long story,” both said in unison.
“My brother decided that we looked far too similar,” Kharius said. “We are identical twins, believe it or not. So identical in physiology that it was difficult at first to prove to the Imperium we were not clones. Given to their zealous crusade and all that, and to avoid being gaffled up and dragged off by the Imperium goon squad, never to be seen or heard from again, we decided to change our appearances.”
“It really was Kharius’ idea, so I’m just a casualty,” Janil reminded him.
“Whatever. Anyway, we… experimented with some things,” Kharius said hesitantly.
“And the result was?” Amalia asked.
“Him.” Kharius pointed to Janil, who acknowledged the attention with a funny little salute. “I look the way we both should look,” Kharius explained. “Along the way, he de-aged somehow. Still haven’t figured that bit out. But in the process it seems to have defragmented his brain. The earlier part of his memory was wiped clean. I’d be a billionaire a hundred times over right now, except no one wants to be younger with less than half their memory.”
“Ah, don’t listen to him. It made me smarter! I got style and class.” He turned and mimicked the serious glare that Kharius always seemed to give him. “And I have a sense of humor, unlike Captain Bristlebeard here.”
“And you also can’t remember past the last three years of your life,” Kharius replied.
“Details, details,” Janil dismissed him. “I can still do what needs doi
ng, mind you.”
“What do you do, exactly?” Amalia asked.
Janil gestured around the mech lab, waving his arms and spinning in a circle. “We do this.”
Amalia raised an eyebrow. “What is this?” She did her best to imitate his arm waiving presentation.
Kharius helped her from the table and she tested her equilibrium before taking any steps.
“We are resident experts in four key areas: alchemy, engineering, mechanics, and aether.” Kharius ticked a finger in the air as he listed the possibilities. “We combine. We infuse. Meld. Siphon. Build. Deconstruct and reconstruct. You name it, and it’s done. Or a reasonable proximity thereof.”
“I know what everything else is but aether,” Amalia said. “I’ve heard it mentioned before, but that’s all it’s been before now. Just a word.” She made the statement even though most of the gadgets and machinery scattered about the room had more of her attention. “Is it like magic or something?”
“Aether,” Janil offered with a gesture of grandeur, “is everything.”
Amalia turned and pursed her lips at him.
“It’s what makes matter matter, space spacious, and time temporal,” Janil said.
“Clever, but that doesn’t help,” she said, folding her arms at her chest.
Kharius joined her in the center of the room. “It’s difficult to explain the scientific process, but it’s a relatively simple concept, if that makes any sense. I’ll show you.”
He led her over to a section of the mech lab emblazoned in caution signs and warning reds and screaming yellows. Two lanes established by three metal walls with a waist-high table set inside each lane. Target dummies made of wood lined the wall at the far end of the range. “Take a sponge and dunk it in a bucket of water. What happens?” Kharius said.
“The sponge draws in the water and holds it.”
“Right. And if you were to squeeze that same sponge?” he asked.
“The water drains out,” Amalia said.
“Exactly. Aether works with the same concept in mind.” Kharius pulled his pistol from the holster and thumbed it on. The blue after effects intensified and the faint hum became more pronounced.
“Have a good look.” He held the pistol sidelong at Amalia’s eye level.
“What am I looking for?” She strained her eyes over the blue glowing pistol until she saw it. A shimmer, like a heat glare, drifted into the shaft at the barrel.
“The sponge, which in this case is the power gun, draws in the water, which is aether.” Kharius said, turning towards the target. He aimed the pistol and fired. A blue-white arc of lightning jumped from the barrel with an audible crack-snap. The target shook violently as the bolts of lightning crawled over it, causing the target to smoke and splinter off around the edges. “I’ve just squeezed the sponge.”
“I see,” Amalia replied. “That’s amazing. Does everything work the same way?”
“More or less.” Kharius clicked something over on the pistol. This time it shot a crackling red beam that left a sprinkle of reddish orange embers in its path. The slug hit the target with a thump. A second later, a miniature explosion tore most of the target dummy apart, and threw the bits and pieces against the wall behind it.
“So to review, draw in aether. Manipulate the properties to suit your task, and then squeeze the sponge, so to speak. For this,” he gestured to the pistol after clicking over the safety, “it’s a matter of speeding up the compressed aether using an electronebular charge threaded with an opposite charge of the aether being used. What we like to call radical recombination. There are other ways to do this, and not with so much complicated science.”
Amalia nodded, pretending to understand. “So anyone and everyone can do this aether manipulation?”
“People all over the aetherverse have the potential,” Janil offered. “Some can move mountains, while others can barely move their bowels. You, I would guess, are in the former category. None can manipulate the sphere like you can, apparently.”
Amalia nodded again, wondering exactly what he meant by that. “Reminds me of the force in Star Wars,” she commented.
Kharius grinned. “I guess it does. Never thought about it like that, but I can see the similarities.”
Amalia turned toward him, unable to hide the surprise in her face. “You know about Star Wars?”
Janil joined them from seemingly out of nowhere. “We are huge, geek level, diehard fans.”
A knowing grin eased itself across Kharius’ face. “Han did shoot first, by the way.”
“Not in the do-overs. We talked about this,” Janil snapped, pointing an accusing finger at his brother. “But anyway,” he said, returning his attention to Amalia, “the force works a little differently. With aether and the sphere, the relationship is much more complex. We compel and direct the aether according to the properties we need. There are eight streams of aether, each with its own unique properties. It’s how super humans and beings on other planes become super. They know how to manipulate the aether that surrounds them.”
Amalia laughed. “Superhumans aren’t real.”
Kharius nodded back at her. “You’d like to think so.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Amalia muttered.
“Another key aspect to the aether and its channels is that, unlike the force, it isn’t everywhere, and in some places only in limited supply. You may find yourself needing to access a channel of aether that is not flowing through your location. Or is being canceled out by its counter-aether, which is rare, but still possible.”
He walked to a lowered metal shutter and pressed the control button which raised it, the sound akin to that of a garage door ratcheting open. The window opened into the day, revealing a near breathtaking view of a massive crater near the foot of a jagged mountain ridge, bathed in the blue glow of iridescent light and crawling with tendrils of electric energy. The scene looked as though a giant happened by and excavated a portion of a mountain with an ice cream scoop. A sharp and tinny smell seemingly linked itself to one actually viewing the crater. Before she saw the perfectly hemispherical blue divot in the earth, there was no ozone-like smell.
Amalia gasped, her eyes growing huge and round. “What in the world is that?” She stepped up to the window for a better look.
Kharius pointed. “That happens when aether is pushed out of alignment. One of the many possibilities when the rules of astral physics are broken. Aether manipulation can be very dangerous, especially if it is not controlled. It turns out this aether business is more science than magic. More science than science fiction, but a little bit of them all.”
The doors at the far end of the lab hissed open. Ryna rushed in at a brisk pace, looking more than a little worried. Her armor caught the blue light of the crater and played across the curves and folds, like a reflection in water. “How is she?”
“Much better,” replied Kharius, turning toward the general. “I think she’s adjusted pretty well in this short period.” He checked the bio-diagnostic scanalyzer that linked to Amalia’s vital signs one more time and nodded in approval.
“Good. I’ve just received word she is to meet with the council, and the primus.” She held out a hand towards Amalia. “We should go. They’re expecting us.”
“What’s happening?” Amalia asked as they left the mech lab.
“A formal presentation to the five commanders called by the Sky Marshal,” she hissed. “How she found out you were here so quickly is a matter worth investigating.”
Amalia tried her best to read General Strann’s expression. Unlike Nana, General Strann proved to be nearly unreadable, and that gave her pause. “That bad, huh?” Amalia asked.
Ryna half-smiled. “Could be worse. I wanted to introduce you to the five under more stable and less politically motivated circumstances, but this will have to do. Come on.”
Chapter Seventeen
The sizeable room held all the ambiance of a throne room. At one end sat a heavy chair, its red cu
shions set deep into a polished mahogany wood. The chair was empty as was the entire hall. Immaculate marble floors, polished to a glassy shine, reflected their surrounding scenery, shapes and colors perfectly mirrored in their surfaces.
Amalia wondered how long they would be and how long this would take. A mild contraction of her stomach muscles, complete with tiny, gurgling roars, reminded her of skipped meals and a recently emptied stomach. She also wondered about the context of the meeting, and why her presence was necessary. She had many more questions, and there would never be an end to what she had to learn about this place, its people, and their mission, and to a lesser extent, her mission.
Most of her current knowledge still needed decryption for all its clarity, but now was not the time for solving puzzles. She remembered what her grandmother said to her before all of this started: there is so much to know, most of which you will learn with time. Perhaps now was just the beginning.
The huge double doors, wrought with iron designs inlaid into the heavy wood, screeched and groaned open on hinges who were intent on letting everyone know how much they protested the weight of the ancient wood and iron upon them. Two rows of men and women marched into the hall in neat columns. As they approached, Amalia shuffled off to the side and out of their way.
The soldiers split their formation, one row filtering to the left of the room, and the other to the right. They positioned themselves along the front of the white decorated banisters that ran the full length of the hall. A moment passed before they turned in unison to face the interior.
They wore sleek, spartan black uniforms with the red accents she had grown accustomed to seeing, the high collars encircling their necks. Swords hung from one hip and what looked like a stubby shotgun hung from the other. She eyed them for a moment, mulling over the feeling that these soldiers seemed different. There was a discipline about them that she had not seen in previous soldiers. There was also an intimidation factor that was new to them as well. She considered herself intimidated.