by Lee Bond
So.
Sa Candall had spent an hour in N’Chalez’ presence and that hour had given him the ability to –perhaps, hopefully, just the once- to come up with a weapon that no man or woman or Offworlder had dreamed of in thirty thousand years.
The necessity of looking into Herrig and any other Latelians N’Chalez had spent more than five minutes grew paramount.
Candall picked an address at random, missing the exchange between his two hosts. For preference, he was picking one far enough away that the initial surge of quantum entanglement held enough ‘power’ in it to do enough ‘damage’, but that was it; theoretically, the further the address, the greater the substrate interference, the more comprehensive the destruction. The sorrowful man explained this, adding, “Because I sure as shit don’t want anything blowing up. Out there? Fine. In here, no.”
Fenris gestured grandly at the AI sphere. It was a precious commodity, yet having a weapon capable of shutting down the enemies artificial intelligence was worth the price. Its loss would be inestimable, but so too would the gains be high if Candall’s weapon actually worked. “By all means, sa, ‘fire’ away.”
Candall took aim at the glinting metal sphere and hit the ‘send’ button, bracing himself for an impact that never came. He dropped his arm a second later, staring woefully at the AI sphere, which wasn’t doing anything but sitting there. “I don’t understand.”
“Fantastic.” Fenris snapped. “I do so love having my time w…”
The AI sphere, steel-VII wrapped around thousands of kilometers of nearly-uncertain synthetic diamond fiber optics and connected to a tiny, impossible kernel of solidified extra-dimensionality, erupted in a fury of metallic shards, razor sharp wires that flashed in and out of existence. A blaze of brilliant sapphire energy tore through the ceiling, shattering tiles and plunging them all into darkness. Emergency flood lights came on line just in time for the three nonplussed Latelians to witness an implosion that pulled all but the furthest bits of detonated sphere back to the epicenter.
There was a brief, high-pitched noise none had heard before, then everything AI-sphere related simply… vanished.
Debris from the shattered ceiling rained down around where the podium had once been.
“Well.” Ute commented wryly once his brain started working again. “I don’t think we’re going to want to use that against the Hungryfish.”
Fenris stared critically at the mess. No, they wouldn’t want to use that against a vessel sporting Hand of Glory missiles. Leastways, not vessels inside Latelyspace. The handheld version of the Q-Gun Candall was staring at with perversely loving eyes might not have enough power to punch through the shield surrounding their system, but the gigantic ones might. Oh, the destruction they’d cause against Trinity Itself! “What address did you use, sa? How far away was the Q-Comm you were attempting to reach?”
Candall checked the Q-Gun readouts. “Four … no … five Galaxies away.”
Fenris looked to Ute, who shrugged. Quantum Comtech had originated in Trinityspace alone. “Perhaps … perhaps that was too far. As I understand it, these machines generate a large and directed energy to get the signal going.” Fenris gestured, and another sphere rose up out of the ground. “Try something closer to home.”
“Do either of you know the address for the Q-Comm array on Hospitalis?” Candall asked, looking from man to man, face flushed with excitement. Once they narrowed down the strength of the signal to the point where it would temporarily shut an AI down without causing it to erupt like a warhead, Hungryfish would be his.
And then Shane Markson would have his revenge.
***
“And that, my young friend, is the tale of Tobias, the Learned Troll.” Chevy proclaimed the end of his story with a grand flourish.
“More like the long-winded ramblings of an old man trying to make stuff up as he goes on about it.” Dom retorted with a snort. “A learned troll? Please. That’s the sort of thing you tell a wee lad as you’re camping, sort of thing. First, trolls is an ancient thing to begin with. Sure, accordin’ to Book they could talk, how else was they to demand their tribute? But one doing maths and talking like a proper person? Hain’t true. Second, what reason could a troll have for doin’ all that?”
Chevy put a hand across his metal-plated chest. “Upon my honor, Dominic, the tale is as true as the Gentlemanly Bolt-Neck.”
“Well, as Monsieur Col duBoulon is in Book,” Dom thumped his ever-precious Book with a fist, “I have no reason to doubt that story. Shame those villagers done for ‘im on their own. Wot ‘appened to them was unkind.”
“Well,” Chevy sighed, “doin’ for a King’s monster does net you a prize very nearly every single time, hey? No one told them they had to try the crude. Whole village of gearheads. They all went hellaciously mental. I was on the team as put them all down. But,” Chevy remarked firmly, “that does not mean Tobias Troll was not real. Book weren’t around when Toby was, now was it?”
Dom admitted that this was the case. “All right, then, ‘ow did your Toby Troll learn all this stuff? Can’t see a great hairy old brute with all those teeth and claws and what have you strolling up to an Estate, now can I? Nor can I see ‘im knockin’ on the door of one of the classrooms and askin’ to be taught proper English and all.”
Chevy thought back through the story he’d told. “Did I forget to mention that Tobias Troll met up with an Obsidian Golem? That they traveled for a while together and that during the course of their adventures, the Golem taught Toby much?”
Dom snorted again. “Now I know it’s fake. You are making this up as you go on. Golems hain’t friendly to themselves, let alone great shambly beasts! That’s the sort of thing that goes at the beginning of a proper fable, Chevy, not the end when people’re pokin’ holes in your story. My suggestion is you work on it for the next poor companion as has to suffer through your fanciful tales of times gone past.”
Chevy laughed and shot his partner a mock-dirty look. “Well then, my educated Book Club Regular, mayhap it’s best then if we travel along in silence for a time.”
Dominic was quite pleased with both of Chevy’s decisions from the night before. One, the Book Club Regular had been well on board with making camp and not physically inspecting the sight where the fully armored King had been brought down if for no other reason than he weren’t terrifically excited to see more of Specter’s skills in action, or of being subjected to another round of ‘How Smart am I?’ with Chevril as the only participant. The more they traveled, hunting down their elusive Specter, the smugger the old man grew as the full range of his talents were revealed.
As did his secret reliance on all the Book could reveal.
Last night, as they’d sat around their small campfire, Chevy had put forth that were it to happen, he wouldn’t mind being treated to a Bookly resurrection of the fight between Specter and King. Dom, being no fool, had handed the weighty tome over to his partner, instructing him how to use the thing properly before rolling over to go to sleep; as before, he’d had no desire to see Specter in action, even in Bookly form. For Dom, there were little difference ‘tween killing a King solo and doing for a roomful of them old grey gearheads.
Sometimes all you needed to know was that it’d happened. More than that could sometimes bring a fella’s mood all the way down into the dirt, and then what? You skulked about moaning and wailing about how Arcade City didn’t make no sense no more, as did some of his brothers of Book.
The second of Chevy’s decisions that Dom fully supported was the actual act of striking camp and sleeping through the night; moving about made it difficult for the Barnmen to track their signal down, e’en with Book, and so dossing down for the night had given them lads in Arcadia the perfect opportunity to send them the horse that grizzled old Chevril Pointillier was reluctantly astride that very moment.
Having his horse back were a wonderful thing, yes it were, and more to the point, any horse-related length issues were not a thing of the quickly
forgotten past.
Dominic clip-clopped his way alongside Chevril half-heartedly listening to an impromptu accounting of issues with his new mount.
“The saddle is all wrong. Mine were made out of leather, lad, with hand-tooled leather from Jeremiah Steadfast, him who’s been dead a long damn time. It had this sort of little thing I could rest me hand on as I rode about, hey, and pockets and all to hang stuff on. This one’s all, well, I don’t know what it is, but it’s all wrong. And the ears on this blasted mechanical horse are all off, too, ain’t they? Long as all outdoors. Them stupid Barnmen didn’t give me a steed! They give me a bunny with longer legs. And last but not least,” Chevril added bitterly, “it still isn’t my old horse.”
“Book says your new horse is at least twice as good as the old one.” Dom tried sounding helpful, but knew by the way Chevy flicked his new horse’s ears with absolute disdain he’d failed spectacularly.
“Oh, is that what Book says?” Chevy thumped the side of his new horse –which he refused to name, under any circumstances, unless directly ordered by the King himself- and listened to the heavy metallic thump. “This new ‘un, it don’t sound hardly solid enough. My last horse, why, she took a solid swipe from a King’s scepter, didn’t she just? Took it in stride and lashed out with her mighty hooves. Took that King’s head right off. This ‘un rattles like a kettle drum. Old Specter will hear me from an Estate away!”
“I am certain she did.” Dom admitted with a chortle. “And later that night, she turned into the most buxom woman this Domed world has ever seen, with a voice like a nightingale, and the two of you did lay down in the tall grass for some of that special alone time, I reckon.”
Chevy tilted his head back and laughed. It was good to have a horse of his own, even it wasn’t his old one. He’d been with that old horse nearabout as long as he’d been a proper Gearman and it’d known just as much about the tricky way Arcade City presented itself. Well, that were the past and as much as he didn’t like it, the present was the present. The new horse had –to listen to Dom, who did love new gadgetry, didn’t he just- quite a lot going for it that the old model wouldn’t have been able to use, so in all truth, Chevy would just have to wait and see if there were anything it could do to surprise him.
He weren’t holding his breath, though.
The two Gearmen crested a ridge and pulled their horses to a halt when their eyes fell upon Ickford, not fifteen miles away. They stared at it somberly.
“Ever been?” Dom asked quietly.
“Nah.” Chevy shifted his arsecheeks. The saddle was taking some getting used to. Either that or he’d gotten used to riding about on Dom’s queerly stunted stallion. “Liked to have, sure enough, as there’s things in Ickford you won’t find nowhere else, not even further in. Never found the right time, nor true enough, an actual proper reason. You?”
“No.” Dom ran a hand across Book’s gilt-edges. “The … effect those abominations has on King’s Will is more pronounced there than anywhere else in the entire City. Other Book Club Regulars have gotten close, aye, and all but their armor stops working properly.”
“They say,” Chevy squinted, then bit back a curse, wondering if his partner had seen what awaited further down the hill, “they say not even the King would go there.”
“The Regulars, that’s who say it.” Dominic nodded, amazed even still that any of his brothers would be so foolhardy, let alone half a dozen of them all at once. “When the Matrons had found out about their insane plan to map Ickford and its effect on King’s Will, well, those learned men and women had damn near lost their lives. Primrose et al had come ‘round to their barracks right off, all fire and brimstone and threatening to thrash the life out of them right there on the spot, evoking promises from each that nary a single hair on their heads would ever get into Ickford until or unless they was told by them as do the telling.
Oh and aye, those promises had been made right there on the spot. Chastised Gearmen with humble hands over hears and not a single lad or lass has ever broken that promise! Hadn’t stopped ‘em, though, from digging in, hey? From getting every single story, every bit of gossip, every lie, no it hadn’t. Agnethea is a crafty one, and as old as the hills. Legend had it she collected lost and forgotten articles of Kingtech, and there was just no telling what kind of trouble she could get up to if she were to lay hands on new technology. “They believe Agnethea built most of that awful turd of a city with her bare hands, using … using …”
Chevril nodded. “Bones of the fallen. Metaphorically. Factually, I reckon more than eighty percent of Ickford there either runs on Dark Iron in some fashion or has within its walls enough parts to build an entire legion of thoroughly Ironed up gearheads. Beyond all that, there’s them as should’ve gone inwards. They hain’t out here, sure as anything. Some of ‘em’re so steeped in Kingsblood they’re near immortal to all out this way. Reckon they’re in there as well.”
“Instinct again? Your detectiving skills once more?” Dom chided his partner. “You should hire yourself out to people, friend, and skulk about Estates and whatnot, sans armor, solving petty crimes for a living.”
“Might could do that one day still, my young and inexperienced partner.” Chevy jerked his chin. “Tell me, though, lad, do you see what I see, over yonder, fluttering her kerchief in the wind like a flag?”
Dominic followed the course of Chevy’s chin and had to bite back a curse foul enough to have their waiting visitor steamrolling her way up to them instead of waiting for them to come to her.
“Bollocks.” Dom whispered from the side of his mouth. “Has there ever been a Matron this far out?”
“Not to my knowledge, no.” Chevy tapped the pommel of his saddle thoughtfully. “If memory serves…”
“And it always does.” Dom couldn’t help himself. He was just so pleased to’ve had a full night’s rest that his humor was on the rise.
“If memory serves,” Chevril continued, “Matrons were quite clear that they couldn’t risk leaving Arcadia for any length of time. The whole lot of them are needed to keep the Platinum King right where he’s at. Thus, we, the Gearmen, do gallop about hither and yon throughout the whole of Arcade City.” The older Gearman had his thoughts on the Matrons’ claims, and it had less to do with them needing to remain within Arcadia’s walls to monitor the damnable metal monstrosity penned up in that central square and more to do with King’s Will being so much weaker the further outward you went.
“Aye, that’s near word for word.” Dominic grabbed his helm and made to put it on. “Shall we?”
“Don’t bother with the helmet, Dominic, the Matron down there, I reckon she prefers to see our faces when she talks.” Chevril kneed his horse to action, prompting Dominic to do the same, jouncing and a bit before settling into a proper canter.
It didn’t take long for them to get to the awaiting Matron, and as they pulled up to the robotic Matron, Dominic wanted to both hang his head and turn his horse about and go back the way they’d come, riding fast and furious all the way to Sliver Hills, if need be.
Mistress Primrose. One of course ‘twould be her as ventured this far out. Weren’t no other Mistress as was crazy enough.
Both men steeled themselves for a trying time.
“Cooee, boys!” Mistress Primrose fluttered her brightly colored kerchief once or twice more before stuffing it up a sweater sleeve. Such bright boys, these two, to have made such a long journey through the wilderness of Arcade City. She was so proud of them. She smiled brilliantly at them, steam dribbling from the corners of her mouth. “Gearman Pointillier, I am glad to see that our gift to you arrived with all due haste.”
Chevy bowed from atop his horse. “A wonderful horse, Mistress. I thank the Matrons from the bottom of my heart. Though…”
“Come, boys, please, off those great steamy beasts. Would you have an old woman crane her neck up so high?” Primrose backed off a bit so the Gearmen could do as they were told.
Chevy and Dom both kept a
watchful eye on their Mistress as they swung smoothly off their horses; whenever Primrose was about, you did as though were surrounded on all sides by the worst a King could offer.
When they dismounted, she flicked a hand at the two robotic steeds and they cantered away.
Not there was anything they could do should the rather large robotic woman take it upon herself to do … well, the sorts of things Mistress Primrose was wont to do from time to time.
“We done anything wrong?” Dom whispered out the side of his mouth once he stood beside his comrade. Primrose. His head was full of stories about Primrose, and the garden she kept.
“Nowt I’m aware of, friend.” Chevril straightened his longcoat. Always best to keep up appearances. “We done our best in hunting down our quarry.”
Primrose let the boys stew for a moment in their own juices, enjoying as she did seeing Gearmen get hot under the collar. She knew these two in particular very well. Young Dominic Breton, great leader of the so-called Book Club Regulars, brilliant in his own way, able to make his Book sing and dance a pretty tune. Unable to work with any other Gearman save Chevril Pointillier for over-long, who was a living legend, even to the Matrons themselves; near on a thousand years old, he was, his armor nearly a part of him, smart and crafty and so self-reliant that his name came up quite a bit when the Matrons got to talking over tea and biscuits. Chevril commanded respect from the other Gearmen the way Matrons insisted upon it. He’d been everywhere in Arcade City, had done terribly impressive things.
Truth be told, both boys were at the top of their respective ladders, and if they loathed being out here in the wilderness with the geared savages and the hordes of ravening beasts chewing up regular folks, they never said. They did what came naturally.
Primrose clickety-clacked a smile on her face. She flicked a hand and the horses scattered further away still. Best not to have aught as were said picked up by them great steeds, as Barnmen did listen in to what their creations heard when they got bored. “It does an old woman good to see her boys. It really does.”