by Frank Morin
Why hadn’t their pumice saved them?
Many other people, most of whom were scrambling toward the exit, cried out in pain and fell to the ground with bloody wounds from the indiscriminate spray of stone. Hamish blasted himself above the storm with a brief but powerful gust from his thrusters.
Encircled within white-hot flames, Mister Two managed to deflect the deadly spray of stones. He dove forward, propelled by fire so hot that Hamish felt the heat fifty feet away. He flashed across the distance to the queen, who still lay prone on the floor, and slammed into her, driving a long dagger into the center of her chest.
He stabbed her again and rose to his knees above her. As he ripped the knife out of her chest in another spray of blood, he shouted, “Tainted blood to purge!”
Those words seemed important to him, but Hamish willed him to strike one more time and remove her head. Maybe that would kill her.
Mister Two leaned forward to strike a third time, but the blow abruptly stopped with the knife still poised high over his head.
Then he slowly toppled to the floor. High Lord Dougal’s blade rasped against bone as it slid free of his side. Hamish had not even seen Dougal move, but he’d slipped the narrow blade between Mister Two’s ribs, straight to his heart.
High Lord Dougal dropped to the floor beside his queen and cried, “I’m so sorry, my liege. Know that I avenged your death.”
The throne room fell silent, so Hamish clearly heard the queen’s response as he settled back toward the floor.
She spoke in an annoyed tone. “Stop being so melodramatic, Dougal. Be so kind as to position my arm back into place so I can heal myself.”
Hamish gaped, more shocked by that matter-of-fact statement than anything else he had witnessed. Could she really heal from such horrific injuries? Blood and gore drenched the floor all around, although it no longer gushed from her ghastly wounds.
He readied another missile. Maybe she was distracted enough for this one to work. He imagined the diorite exploding her head. No way she’d outlive that.
But suddenly Student Eighteen appeared, leaping the gap in the floor, and landing on his back. Her weight drove them down through the opening in the floor before he could compensate.
As he increased thruster, she slapped him on the side of the helmet. “Are you daft? Dive! We need to get out of here.”
She was right. She was also shaking so hard as she clung to him that he felt it right though his suit. Hamish pivoted in midair and dove down the waterfall. Within seconds, the waters sprouted dozens of tentacle-like arms that whipped out and grasped at them.
Hamish banked and turned, dodging with every bit of agility his suit offered. Student Eighteen shrieked with fear as she clung to him. Impossibly, they avoided those deadly watery arms.
She shouted into his ear, “I’m tapping pumice. She can’t sense me. My proximity to you must be helping to shield you too, but get us out of here!”
So Hamish used another diorite missile to blast through the bank of windows shielding the main atrium from the waterfall. He erupted through the cloud of glass, then cut to the left to avoid the horizontal waterfall that the queen threw after them. She might not be able to sense them, but that explosion wasn’t the most subtle use of diorite he’d ever tried.
The water swept everyone in the atrium off their feet in a screaming, tumbling tide, but Hamish and Student Eighteen were already gone. They swept out through the speedcaravan tunnel, raced across the city under full power, and dropped over the edge of the cliff where the Hawk was tethered. Hamish activated the thrusters of the Hawk almost before Aifric slashed the tether line, and they rocketed away as fast as the nimble little craft could go.
The air buffeted them from every side in a sudden storm. The sky darkened and rain lashed out in blinding sheets. If not for their safety harnesses, they would have smashed themselves to pieces against the Hawk’s shielding.
“She can sense the Hawk with air,” Hamish shouted as he fought the controls.
“Must fly faster,” she said in a remarkably calm voice, gripping the sides of her seat with a white-knuckled intensity. She’d switched back to Aifric, but tears still dripped down her cheeks. She did not seem aware of them.
“I am.” He angled downward, sacrificing altitude for speed, and the little craft shot down along the mountain, far too close for his liking. With the right gusts of wind, the queen could dash them to pieces against the rocks.
“Give me a piece of pumice!” Hamish shouted.
She pressed a small piece of the remarkably light stone into his hands. He’d played with pumice all his life, but he’d only ever licked it once. Pumice dust made him sneeze terribly, so he’d never trusted it.
Hamish felt into the stone with his Builder senses and sure enough, he felt the crack that held its power in check.
Hamish wasn’t sure what it would do, but the storm was quickly rising in intensity and they needed something. He had enough blind coal to escape one or two crashes, but that would not be enough to elude the queen’s wrath.
Hamish threw wide the release rate on the pumice.
Every mechanical stopped, and the Hawk plummeted straight down.
Aifric screamed as the Hawk fell like a rock along the cliff face. Even though the storm still raged all around, they fell in complete, eerie silence.
After the first stomach-flipping lurch, Hamish ignored the view outside, his entire focus on the many stones accessible through his Builder senses. Pumice slid along those senses, like little bubbles trickling out his nostril. For several terrifying seconds, he felt nothing else. It was like all the thrusters and other power stones had simply fallen away.
“What are you doing?” Aifric shrieked. She clutched her seat and looked like she was deciding whether to throw up on him or switch to Student Eighteen and murder him in his seat.
“Working on it!” he cried. He was tempted to shutter the pumice, but if he did that, the queen would shred them in seconds.
If he didn’t, they’d splatter at the base of the cliff almost as fast.
He could still feel the power stones in his suit. So he could grab Aifric and try flying out into the storm and leave the Hawk to crash, but they’d die just as fast.
“I hate grumpy old ladies,” he muttered as he tried for the tenth time to reconnect to the thrusters.
And suddenly there they were, like little vortexes in his mind. He had no idea what changed, or why the connection was back, but he didn’t have time to question it. With a shout of triumph, he activated the puking dooms on the underside of the Hawk at the same time he activated the lift and directional thrusters.
The stones all activated together, the sound like the roaring of a hundred nuall hunting cats, and their descent slowed, the pressure driving them down into their seats. He adjusted thrusters to angle them away, then activated the push thrusters, changing their downward speed to horizontal and shooting away from the cliff.
They knifed through the storm, with lightning and rain and misty clouds splitting around them, and somehow not quite touching them. Thunder pealed all around, but they flew through absolute calm.
Hamish exchanged an amazed look with Aifric, who pushed her wildly bedraggled hair away from her face.
“Will the pumice last long enough to escape this storm?” Aifric asked in a soft voice as the Hawk accelerated through the eerily calm, stormy skies.
“I think so.” Hamish grinned at her. “This is amazing. I bet I could sneak right up on Kilian and surprise him so bad, he’d jump right out of his socks.”
She smiled at the mental image, then asked, “How long do you think you’d outlive that prank?”
61
The Only Thing Better Than One Big Discovery is Two
With Dierk hovering expectantly nearby, Jean secured a sample of mold on a clear dish over a piece of glowing limestone. She then slid both into position. The newest near-vision goggles, now secured onto a stable platform, actually looked like a serious research
device. No doubt Verena would come up with a proper name for it when she awakened.
Healer Karlmann shifted his chair closer to the table, his expression eager. “Today perhaps we begin the journey of finally understanding the diseases we’ve fought for so many generations.”
Jean exchanged an excited glance with Dierk and said, “I sincerely hope so.”
Karlmann peered through the soft, leather viewports, and Jean said, “You can adjust the focus with this little knob. It moves the platform tiny degrees.” She showed him how to manipulate it.
“Ah, that’s better,” he said after a moment.
Dierk looked pleased. “I figured it would allow for more consistent analysis and easier duplication of tests if the settings could be adjusted mechanically.”
“Brilliant thinking,” Karlmann said softly, his eyes pressed to the viewports, his wispy hair settling for once to complete stillness as he focused. “This is remarkable. I never imagined we could ever see its structure so clearly.”
Jean agreed. She’d studied several samples of the mold. Each was a little different, and each time she peered into the viewports, she’d felt like an explorer entering a brand new world. “I tried looking at a piece of infected skin too. Although I saw amazing detail of the skin itself, I didn’t get a good view of the disease.”
Karlmann finally pulled his gaze from the viewports, his expression thoughtful. “Why do you suppose that is?”
“I’m not sure yet. I’ve seen some things that I haven’t identified yet, but it’s possible some things are still too small for us to make out.”
“It’s hard to imagine things that small,” Dierk said. “We’re already magnifying the view over five hundred times.”
“We might need to go deeper,” Jean insisted.
“How much more can this setup allow?” Karlmann asked, gesturing at the device.
“I’m not sure yet. I’ve got an entire Althing research team testing different samples. They’re so excited to catalog tiny materials and chemical samples, they’re working on it day and night. They’ll help us document our findings and confirm the maximum effective magnification we can achieve with this approach. Now that we understand the basic principles, adaptations usually come more quickly.”
Karlmann rose to unsteady feet and pulled her into a warm embrace. He smelled faintly of the cleaning solutions the Water Moccasins used while cleaning the hospital. He kissed her forehead and smiled. “I am proud of you, my dear. I doubt we yet understand the importance of the work we do here today, and I thank you for leading us into areas of research I was convinced were impossible.”
Jean felt deeply moved by his words and thrilled that he appreciated their work. She expected many important breakthroughs were now on the horizon. It was like standing in a vast cavern with a single candle lighting her way. She sensed there was so much more to discover, and she vowed to figure out how to illuminate the entire area for all to see.
“Thank you, Karlmann. I wanted you to be among the first to see it.”
“I would like to participate in the research with your team,” he said eagerly.
“We’d be honored to have you.”
Dierk added, “We’re already working on additional devices. I plan to have one installed in your office so you can collaborate without having to cross the town ten times a day.”
“Thank you.” Karlmann chuckled. “I’m not as young as I like to think I am.”
Jean escorted him to the exit of the manor house and arranged for a soldier to escort him back to the hospital. It was cold outside, but no longer snowing. Wrapped in his enormous fur coat, with a thick hat pulled low over his face, and a scarf wrapped tight around his neck, the old man still looked frail, and she silently wished him a safe journey home.
Bruno waited in her office when she returned. “How did mold test go?” he asked in his rapidly improving Obrioner.
She beamed. “Amazing! We’re making almost as much progress as the Juggernaut teams.”
“Do you have time to inspect the work?”
She nodded, grabbed her coat, and joined him in the hall. The enormous blacksmith towered over her as they walked toward the exit, and he insisted on walking half a step behind. She knew it was a sign of respect, something more people were insisting on around her. It was immensely annoying.
She wasn’t nobility, no matter what titles Lord Eberhard bestowed upon her. Of course, Bruno insisted he was just giving her enough room so he didn’t knock her into a wall by accident. He did have a point, so she didn’t complain.
“Do you have the reports about the sound levels of the new thruster configurations on the Storm?” she asked. They’d rebuilt the original fast-flying craft, reshaping the body, adding newer, longer wings than they’d used on the Hawk. They’d reconfigured the thrusters to test whether it was possible to improve flight performance without losing any of the Storm’s impressive speed.
Bruno nodded and shifted to Grandurian. Some of the technical details were still beyond his Obrioner skills. “Using clusters of smaller thrusters instead of the larger ones for liftoff, hovering, and landing is showing excellent performance and nearly a thirty percent reduction in wind noise. The larger thrusters still perform best for high-altitude, fast travel.”
She frowned as she considered the report. “Not as good as I’d hoped. If they have to approach an enemy position at night, they’ll still make too much noise.”
“The team is still testing, but this was Verena’s specialty.”
Jean sighed. “I know. We need her. We need Hamish.” She needed Hamish, felt his absence more every day. He and Verena possessed unrivaled intuitive brilliance which could accelerate so many of their research projects. Even more than that, she longed to fly with Hamish, feel his strong arms around her, and savor the incredible happiness she always felt in his presence.
“We’ll keep working on it,” Bruno promised.
She placed a hand on his arm. “I know. We’ll get there, but I keep feeling like we don’t have much time. I’ll keep chewing on the problem. How do you reduce noise levels in your smithy? Or are there techniques used for insulating homes from storms that we might adapt for quieting flight noises?”
“That’s a good question. Smithies are loud, but I’ll ask Artur about insulation techniques and get back to you.”
“Thanks.”
They exited the manor house and headed across town. Jean breathed deep the cold, clear air, and enjoyed the picturesque town. She loved Grandurian architecture. The steeply pitched roofs included ornate gables, and the exposed timber design of some of the structures appealed to her. The brighter colors used for the doors, window shutters, and even some of the walls helped keep the town feeling festive, even in the depths of winter.
On the western outskirts of town, they entered one of the large Builder workshop barns. Most of the enormous main floor was filled with different teams, working in cramped open areas. They were surrounded by piles of materials, tables covered in designs, and racks of equipment and partially-completed mechanicals.
Jean loved the smell. As she ascended a ladder up to an observation catwalk twenty feet up the wall, she breathed deep the scent of fresh-cut lumber, hot steel, broken stone, and dozens of other scents that mixed together into the unique smell of Builder creativity. The area thrummed with energy, and she smiled as she surveyed the workroom, notebook in hand. From that vantage, it looked like a beehive of activity. Builders and craftsmen and workers swarmed in little vortexes of energy around each of their projects.
The framework of the Juggernaut was nearly complete, a complex skeleton of steel that would support the outer shell as well as house all of the weapons, thrusters, and other components being developed. When completed, the Juggernaut would span over twelve feet in diameter. With Hamish strapped into the middle, it would transform into a giant wrecking ball of destruction. She couldn’t wait to see his face when he saw their progress.
Dierk arrived and rushed up to join
her, looking excited. He held a small piece of obsidian in his hand, roughly carved into the shape of a Sentry tower. She recognized it as a piece that Gisela had been working on before she left for Althing.
Dierk held up the little sculpted stone, as if it were an incredible treasure, even though it was far from finished. Gisela had mentioned that she had done enough work on it to amplify the vortex found in that little piece of stone three or four times. That was impressive, but less than half of the magnification she would achieve with the finished product.
Dierk exclaimed, “I’ve discovered something amazing. I’ve been experimenting with quickening this obsidian.”
“I’m surprised you’re spending time with that.”
Most of the other power stones created measurable, useful effects when quickened, but obsidian was a strange stone. It did not act like the others. When quickened, it did nothing.
Dierk said, “Most obsidian is still pretty useless, but this one, this one is a whole different matter. When I quicken this sculpted stone, I can sense other pieces of quickened obsidian in the vicinity. I almost missed it because we don’t really use obsidian yet, but I noticed the effect when I was checking on the production of Karlmann’s near-vision goggle. Somehow this allows me to link to the other quickened obsidian remotely.”
That was fascinating and unexpected, but did not seem to represent anything useful, and unfortunately Jean did not have time for anything that wasn’t useful.
Dierk continued. “What makes this find important is that when I place those other pieces of quickened obsidian next to other power stones, I can link to those power stones too, as if I was touching them.”
“What?” Jean gasped, immediately grasping the profound ramifications of that discovery. Ideas began crowding in faster than she could jot them down in her notebook.
Builders could trigger incredible mechanicals, but only when they could touch the stones. Until now. “Dierk, this is amazing! We could remotely activate mechanicals!”