Gathering of the Titans: The Tol Chronicles Book 2

by Robert G. Ferrell

  Tol waited until it seemed safe to do so and then stepped back on. The moving stairway carried him smoothly down, at a surprisingly rapid clip. He turned around and grinned as he watched the titans try to figure out how to address this new challenge; it was obvious none of them had ever before encountered such a mechanism. Finally Tartag took the plunge; he stepped gingerly on and was very nearly sent reeling backwards for his trouble. But, he righted himself and after a few seconds called back to the others.

  “It’s quite enjoyable and not at all difficult once you’re here. Come on!”

  The other two titans looked at each other and shrugged. First one then the other leapt on and joggled back and forth for a moment before they got the hang of it. Soon all four of them were gliding gracefully down, down, toward some unguessable destination. At least the ride was pleasant and, for the titans anyway, mildly exhilarating.

  “What do you call this contraption?” Tartag yelled down to Tol.

  “It’s a moving stairway. Some people call it a ‘stairveyor.’ It’s a bunch of steps mounted on a conveyor belt. They’re popular in cities for moving people from one floor to the next.”

  “Quite a marvelous conveyance.”

  “Yeah, I had a lot of fun riding them as a kid.”

  “How do you get back up, once you’ve gone down?”

  “They go both ways. They’ll usually put two of them side- by-side. One goes up, the other down. If they break down or lose power, they’re still perfectly good stairs.”

  “Where do you think these are taking us?”

  “I haven’t got any idea. We’re still on the track, though.”

  “How could you possibly track someone on this stair-whatever?”

  “There are faint footprints on the step two below mine. They’re too big and the wrong shape for deepdrakes, but just the right size to be titan. The stairveyor must have cycled all the way around once before we got here, and as you can see, it’s pretty dusty.”

  “You are quite a tribute to your profession, Sir Tol-u-ol. Your tracking skills are most impressive.”

  “Thanks. Comes with the territory. Often you have to get them before they get you.”

  “Yes, well, I hope no one will be trying to ‘get you’ today. Other than the deepdrakes, I mean.”

  “They’re just walking turds, really. Nasty teeth and that, but predictable and easy to out-maneuver.”

  The longest moving stairway on, or rather, in, Tragacanth was finally coming to a terminus. They could see the end scant meters ahead.

  “I don’t think that’s a very charitable characterization, in all fairness,” an odd voice chimed from the darkness below.

  Tol and the titans went on their guard, although Tol did not draw his disruptor. He was the first to come face to face with the voice, which turned out to be emanating from a deepdrake’s body. Vocal abilities aside, it was no ordinary deepdrake: it was about a quarter again larger, with more agile front legs and paws, and deeply-set eyes that shone with intelligence. Tol regarded it curiously for a moment.

  “Well, begging your pardon, but the ones we’ve encountered so far did not see fit to communicate, unless you call trying to rip us limb from limb communicating.”

  The deepdrake chuckled. “The harvesters are rather exuberant in their quest for meat, ‘tis true. However, they are not representative of deepdrakes as a species: merely a primitive derivative thereof, bred specifically for their function.”

  “I presume that you claim to be such a representative, then?” asked Tartag; by now the titans had all reached the bottom of the stairway.

  “I am indeed,” the deepdrake replied, “I am Fontaric the Voluble, Harvestlord of Dzilidonia.

  “I am Tartag, Hellehoell Ambassador to Tragacanth, and these are my companions Apoj and Eltiar,” he said, waving his arm toward the other titans. “And this,” he added, turning to Tol, “Is Sir Tol-u-ol of Sebacea, Knight of the Crimson, Special Investigator and brother to the King of Tragacanth.”

  “Welcome to you all. You have reached the outer limits of the Realm of Dzilidonia, home to Phaeon Timeskin.”

  “Thank you for the welcome, Fontaric. I’m afraid we were a little hard on your harvesters back there. We didn’t feel we had a lot of choice.”

  Fontaric laughed merrily. “No harm done. They will regenerate in due course. We are an immortal species, created to be companions of an immortal. There are exactly six hundred and sixty-six deepdrakes in existence. Once every six hundred and sixtysix years we come together for a great celebration of our species with banquets and drink in abundance. For this reason we refer to 666 as the ‘number of the feast.’”

  Fontaric’s curious story seemed to be over, so Tol spoke up. “Who is this ‘Phaeon Timeskin’?”

  “Phaeon,” Fontaric replied, “Is an eternal entity created by the same event and of the same raw ingredients as the spacetime fabric itself. He was one of many cast out in dark energy bubbles, spreading across the universe at thousands of times the speed of light, at least initially.”

  “How did such a singular entity come to be embedded in N’plork?” asked Eltiar.

  “He floated free in deep space while the first generation of stars formed and then blew themselves apart. Finally his bubble struck this nascent planet and became embedded in the molten mass. He chose to remain here while N’plork cooled and solidified around him. He has watched the rise of life on this world from the first protocell. In many ways, then, he is N’plork.”

  “Such an entity must be awe-inspiring to behold,” said Tartag, “Might we be allowed to meet and communicate with him?”

  “I believe,” came a mellifluous yet intense, almost hypnotically lyrical sound, which they realized after a moment was also a voice, from somewhere in the middle of the room, “That can be arranged. I am Phaeon Timeskin, at your service.”

  They turned to face the apparent source of the voice, but there was no one there to be seen. “Where...where are you?” Tol finally asked.

  “I am right here. I take it you all have had limited experience with brane visualization.”

  “I’m visualizing my brain downright confused right now,” answered Tol.

  “B-r-a-n-e, derived from membrane. Sections of the fabric of spacetime can be peeled off, if you will, and used to create physical objects. The brane has no intrinsic color or texture, however, so you have to train your particular optical perception mechanism in order to visualize it.” He knelt down and drew a circle on the floor. “Start at the circle and work up. I’m roughly the same height as the goblin. If you look carefully, you’ll notice that the packet of ‘thin air’ just above the circle doesn’t seem quite right. Now, concentrate on that area, move your head back and forth, and let your line of vision travel with it. At the edges on both sides you should eventually begin to build up an outline which, when filled in, will be me.”

  They stood there shaking their heads as though in collective denial as Phaeon continued.

  “You will have to assign clothing, skin color, and even features from your own minds; I have none of my own. As a result, I appear differently to each person.”

  “So, you’re some kind of personal hallucination, then?” asked Tol, who was feeling rather foolish shaking his head back and forth.

  “I’m quite real; quite tangible. I’m just made from the same pattern as the wallpaper, if you want to phrase it in that manner.”

  “Wait, I’m starting to get something!” yelled Tartag. “You look like a very short titan to me. You’re wearing an outfit similar to the ones we wore in schola. That takes me back...”

  “I see him, too!” shouted Apoj. “He’s got dark skin and white fur.”

  Soon Eltiar joined them in visualizing Phaeon. That left only Tol still in the dark.

  “I can’t help thinking this is some kind of practical joke being played on me. Do you guys really see something there?”

  “I believe,” Phaeon interjected, “Your lifelong detective skills may be work
ing against you here. You see only what makes sense for you to see; spacetime aberrations such as myself do not make sense in the classical universe your brain is trained to see and comprehend. It simply edits me out.”

  “Yeah? What do you suggest I do to up my gullibility factor, then?”

  “I suggest you look past me, to the other side of the room. Now walk in a large circle, with the circle I drew on the floor at its center. Keep your line of sight aligned with the air above the circle, but focus as far away as you can. As you rotate, at some point your brain should suddenly fill in the missing details when it realizes that the view is inconsistent.”

  Tol complied, but on the third roundabout he was about to declare the whole premise absurd when he caught a glimpse of something that he knew wasn’t there. He stopped and backtracked. The something reappeared, although in a slightly different location and orientation from the first time. It was like a cutout of a goblin that was so thin it utterly vanished when seen on edge.

  Tol decided there might be something to this after all, so he stopped walking around in circles and just concentrated. As he did, a marvelous occurrence took place: he watched in amazement as the figure of a young goblin filled in, complete in all three dimensions. He looked to be just barely a full adult, wearing one of those trendy outfits popular in the nightclub sector of Sebacea. This was, as Phaeon had explained, because his native appearance contained no relevant, useful information, as a result of which the observer’s brain had to fill it all in with bits and pieces from their own experience. Tol gawked and tried to make sense of what he was seeing.

  The entity Phaeon regarded them; concluded that they had each established some form of mental representation for him that would enable further social interaction.

  “I bid you all welcome to my home within your own,” he began, “What hospitality I have to offer is yours to enjoy.”

  A table set with all manner of delicacies and laden with exotic drink sprang invitingly into their midst from nowhere. They gaped at it. Eventually Tol shrugged and pulled out the goblin-sized chair. He was, as usual, rather peckish, now that the subject had been broached. The titans looked at one another somewhat uneasily, but at last followed suit.

  “Nice trick,” Tol observed between appreciative bites, “You must be some kind of mage, too.”

  “Mage?” their host asked, “Ah, no, I am not a magic-user. Magic draws upon the Dark Energy Continuum as a power source. I simply manipulate the spacetime fabric directly. Less overhead, as it were.”

  “How are you able to accomplish that?” asked Eltiar.

  “When you read a tale, do you visualize the story, as it unfolds, in your mind?” asked Phaeon.

  “Of course. It would be very difficult to derive any enjoyment from it otherwise.”

  “You are, in effect, manipulating that bit of the spacetime fabric that resides within your neocortex: the part of your brain where higher reasoning is located. I do the same, except as a result of my origins I can manipulate the fabric on a far grander scale. What you share amongst a few million neurons, I can bring into objective existence.”

  “Is this food imaginary?” asked Tartag, “That is; would it exist even were I not here to witness it?”

  Phaeon smiled. “Well, in fact nothing at all exists until you witness it. This is one of the foundational principles of quantum behavior. Prior to being processed by your sensory organs, events and objects are merely probabilities with a certain n-dimensional quantum causality vector associated with them.

  “Are you trying to say that if I weren’t aware of this table it wouldn’t be here?”

  “Only if nothing else was aware of it, either. Not the air, not the floor, not the light reflecting off of it, and so on. By ‘aware,’ I really mean, ‘impinged upon by’.”

  “But,” Apoj broke in, “That’s really the same as saying that it wouldn’t exist, since by definition anything that exists will impinge upon something else.”

  “Precisely so. See how it works?”

  Tol had reached his philosophical, not to mention his gastronomical, limit, so he changed the subject.

  “We’re looking for someone. A titan, to be exact. His tracks show he came through here within the last few hours. He is most likely injured. Have you seen anyone else lately?”

  Phaeon looked thoughtful. “I have seen no one, but if he is within this realm I can locate him for you.” He moved over to a wall; it transformed into a giant map covered with squiggles and brightly-colored dots, some of which on closer examination were moving slowly.

  “This map shows the position of every sentient organism in or near what you call Hellehoell,” Phaeon explained, “It works by detecting the slight distortion sentient brains produce on the enveloping spacetime fabric. We are…here.” He pointed to a spot at the lowest point of the map.

  Tol peered at it. “There’s one too few dots here to account for all of us. Unless your map doesn’t consider somebody here to be sentient.”

  “You can scarcely blame it for that,” replied a faint voice from Tol’s overjack pocket. Everyone looked at Tol, who rolled his eyes. “Ignore that. It’s an electronic heckling machine I carry around for reasons known not even to me.” The pocket chuckled.

  “I do not appear on the map,” said Phaeon, “I have no external effect on the fabric, but am rather part of it; or it of me. I blend into the background, in a manner of speaking.”

  “So, that’s us?” The titans seemed truly besotted by the idea that they were represented by those little blotches. They began to walk around in the room, watching the map as their dots got relocated. Tol was not similarly fascinated by his own dot, but he was by another nearby blob. He traced the passages from their current position to that of the dot of interest, then walked over to a matching position on the wall, shrugged, and passed straight through. None of the titans noticed at first.

  Tol wasn’t sure why, but somehow he knew that he would be able to walk through the seemingly solid stone wall without hindrance: he didn’t even flinch. Behind the wall was a rather fetching hallway lined with polished granite and lit by tasteful soft pink radiance emanating from hidden recesses along the ceiling. Complex filigree patterns were picked out in gold leaf in a series of panels along each wall. Despite magmatic heat radiating from the surrounding stones, the air flowing down the corridor was cool, dry, and fragrant.

  After a hundred meters of level travel with side hallways branching off every so often, the passage abruptly assumed a positive grade, gradually increasing until it took considerable effort for Tol to continue. He persevered, stopping every so often to catch his breath and massage his tired leg muscles. Not only did the passageway slope upward, it had taken to spiraling quite tightly to the left. As it climbed, it gradually lost the polished marble walls and other artifice. There had been no spoor from his quarry in some time, but Tol remained confident that he was still on the right trail, based on what he’d seen on Phaeon’s map. He realized he hadn’t told the others where he was going, but he wasn’t about to retrace his steps now. They’d figure it out eventually.

  Finally the grade decreased substantially and the corridor he had been following opened out into what appeared to be a natural, active cave system. It hit Tol that he’d spent an inordinate amount of time lately underground. He suddenly longed to see sunlight and quaff a laden breeze off the meat-packing plant on the southern edge of Sebacea. Great. Now he was hungry again, as well.

  He came to an intersection of sorts, where roughly-hewn passages led off in several directions. Tol studied the floor, walls, and cave formations for a sign he’d almost given up on spotting before a glint of something shiny on the floor caught his eye. He picked it up; it was a mineral layer inside a broken stalagmite reflecting in the dim light of the caverns. Searching around, Tol found the formation it had come from and inspection convinced him it had been broken off recently. Not iron-clad proof that his quarry had passed this way, but a clue nonetheless.

  A few me
ters away he found much more substantial spoor: wet footprints from shoes that had passed through a water puddle on the floor in the last few minutes. He had almost caught up with the elusive fugitive. For someone who’d presumably been injured in a collapse, he sure was difficult to track.

  Tol followed the prints for as far as they held out, then extrapolated that they led to a niche high up on the wall, accessible via a series of hand and foot-holds carved into the rock face. In full stealth mode he crept up the wall, pausing just below the rim of the niche to catch his breath. When he felt ready, Tol leapt up into the niche and was surprised to find a young adult titan cowering in a corner.

  “Please. I don’t want to go back. Don’t make me go back!” the titan wailed, pitiably.

  “Easy there, youngster,” Tol answered, in a soothing voice. “Nobody’s gonna make you do anything. Are you the one who was trapped by the collapse back there?”

  “I wasn’t trapped. I ran away when it happened.”

  “But your beacon was activated.”

  “I ripped it off and tossed it down a crevice, to throw off any pursuit.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t want to be a slave anymore.”

  “What do mean, ‘a slave’?”

  “I am a half-breed. My mother was a troll who was raped by my father. Titans are rabid racial purists; half-breeds are considered abominations and forced into slavery.”

  “I didn’t know that. What’ll you do now?”

  “If I can escape, I will travel to my mother’s family in Aspolia. We have corresponded, and they seem willing to accept me for who I am.”

  “I’ll get you out of here, kid. Slavery is contrary to Tragacanthan edict.”

  “You are a true benefactor. How may I call you, master?”

  “Don’t you be calling anybody ‘master.’ That’s part of your problem, right there. My name is Tol. What’s yours?”