by Garon Whited
It would take a while, but it was probably worth it. I set up an earth-moving spell and a quarrying spell. Someday soon, there would be a hole through this ridge, stacked chock-full of cut stone for construction. Handy for building a fortification at the mouth of the tunnel. I call it a win-win.
We went around the valley, then, seeing where a man might get in or out without climbing gear. In each place, I started the process to make it more difficult. Some places just needed a bit of smoothing out to make them impassable. Others needed more material work—a slope reversed into an overhang, or a slope steepened enough to be uninviting, or a ledge eroded away.
None of it would make the valley perimeter into a castle wall, but it would limit entrance and exits to someone prepared to go mountain climbing—a very different thing than marching a company of soldiers. And anyone prepared to scale sheer cliff faces would make short work of a castle wall, anyway. Keeping out an army is actually much simpler than keeping out one man. I ought to know. I’ve done my share of one-man invasions where an army couldn’t have gone.
We didn’t finish, of course. There was far too much valley and not enough daylight. When the sun got low, we went back to the tower and I grumbled about a lack of sanitation again. The new cistern is in progress. The underground water feed from the river is in progress. Everything is in progress. I won’t have a working kitchen, bathroom, running water, spare dungeons, or anything. At least, not really. Not until they grow enough. It’s annoying. I can look at my spell’s design module and see where it doesn’t match the existing structure. I can almost see the things growing. I simply have to be patient.
I sweated and stank and was patient.
After my cleanup routine, I wanted to go out again for the evening, but there were other things, more power-intensive things that needed doing. The western ridge-wall wasn’t the highest priority. Building defenses is good, but when you have a known enemy, keeping tabs on them—and occasionally putting a knife in their ear—is also important.
So I adjusted my weather spells again, making sure everything was on track for tomorrow. I did some more scouting in my mirror, checking the various approaches to the valley and planning a bit on how to make them less approachable.
Then I got down to serious business.
The glowing gloves of nothing made me seriously think about more enchanted objects to reduce my more obvious magical activities. Scouting the valley for access points made me miss my sand table. Mirror communications reminded me I need more of them. And the design on a wizard’s wand made me seriously consider making my own. Not my toolkit of specialized wands, which were still, or would someday be, in Apocalyptica, but a personal one.
One of the nicer things about having extra-universal lairs is the way they tend to sit quietly and wait. I popped over to zombie world and scavenged a whole lot of mirrors, for example. I also drew on a lot of the accumulated charge in that lair’s power crystals to pay for the trip. I also did a quick run through my pet pyramid, checking it over and switching out charged crystals for depleted ones—the charged crystals would come back with me!
While there, I had a thought. The pyramid was, in addition to being an emergency lair, a magical power production unit. What if it used any excess power to make another version of itself? It could grow another pyramid—a small one, budding off of a corner, for example—and feed it vital energy, making it grow into a duplicate. It ought to work rather well, actually, since the pyramid was growing and changing using vital force. The tower or keep in Tauta was changing due to architectural spells, rather like a balloon in a box. As we add more air to the balloon, it takes on the shape of the box. The pyramid, on the other hand, was constructed—if that’s not the wrong term—in a more organic fashion. It could evolve and adapt to circumstances, if necessary.
I liked my idea for a backup lair or two, in case I was wrong about the asteroid’s impact point in this particular world. Or, more likely, serve as backups in case something decided to blast this one to smithereens.
Come to think of it, if something did show up looking for me, would it be a good idea to have some distractions and diversions? Maybe a couple of small tunnels behind concealed doors? A pair of hidden emergency bunkers, like storm shelters, perhaps? Something shows up, hammers on the pyramid until it cracks, goes rummaging through the rubble, finds the now-collapsed tunnels, hunts down the emergency shelters, and sees the smoking remains of what might have been gates…
What does it do then? Keep looking around? Or does it swear in some celestial (or infernal) language and go back to looking through the universes for me? I don’t know, but the diversion couldn’t hurt. I told the pyramid what I wanted and it obligingly started growing a pair of pseudopod-like tunnels.
Making another pyramid or two—these without the distraction shelters—would also involve a replication subroutine in the solar conversion panels, but since they already had one, it would be more of a tweak than a whole new piece of programming. The energy conversion for vital force would have to self-replicate, too. And the pyramid—or pyramids—would have to absorb copper and other metals from the soil, possibly even send out feelers to seek out the minerals needed for a replication, but I’m familiar with how the mountain does it…
If and when the pyramid replicates, where do I want them? I need to nail that down now. If a thousand years go by while I’m not looking, it’s a thousand years they could have been slowly swimming to their destinations. For now, how about they just move as far away from each other as possible? That should maximize the chances of survival in the event of asteroid impact or celestial Armageddon. With them spread out, someone would have to search—or destroy—the whole world to get them all.
Would it be worthwhile to build a Firmament spell somewhere out in the void? Make a pocket of stability out in the formless chaos and keep adding material to it until it was big enough to be a place to hide? Big enough to not be casually eaten, too? It would need a reactor to power the Firmament spell, plus some life-support equipment for safety, but, if it’s out in the void, a reactor accident doesn’t risk a whole world. Not a big one, anyway.
That’s for later. Much later. For now, pyramids!
I spent a couple of minutes starting the self-replication process with my pet pyramid. No matter what, it’ll take a long time to achieve results. At least in the Cretaceous world, I can let it run for years—two, or two million—and evaluate it later. I considered enchanting a room in the pyramid to act as a shift-booth, but I didn’t have time. The sun was about to come up there and I didn’t want to get caught.
Back in Tauta with my loot, I went down to the dungeon to tap the local resources. I wasn’t surprised to find a guard on duty, but I was surprised to find a new prisoner, still in the stocks. The stocks hold the hands and feet of the prisoner while he or she sits in a niche in the wall. The niche closes up around them, leaving hands, feet, and face exposed, along with an access point directly beneath the prisoner, for obvious reasons. It takes a while, hence the stocks. I frowned inwardly, noting it also drew a fair amount of power.
“What’s he in for?” I asked the guard.
“Murder,” she replied. “He’s a miner. Killed another miner over a woman, or so I’m told.”
“Who put him here?”
“Your vidat. Cormar brought him in from the ironworks.”
“Good,” I replied, as though I knew who Cormar was. “Has he been any trouble?”
“Not since I gagged him.”
“I expect they’ll all be asleep in a bit. Anything you need down here?”
“It could be warmer.”
“I’ll take care of it. Anything else?”
“No, sir.”
I examined the dispirited prisoners and tied invisible lines of power to them. I would draw on their energies constantly through the night, restoring my own. It was a bit like having a trickle of water fill a bucket. The trickle wouldn’t put out a fire, but a bucket of water would. Then the constant trickle wo
uld eventually fill up the bucket. It’s not as harsh as working on a chain gang, perhaps, but being a prisoner in my dungeon is infinitely more boring.
Tonight, I’m enchanting a bunch of objects. Mirrors, big and small. A sand table—a full-sized one, although, perhaps, not a full-powered one just yet. A wand? Sure, let’s try it. All the miscellaneous magic I’ve probably been needing to get to and haven’t, I’m on it. Charged crystals, constant power source, and a clear idea of what I want? Yes.
I rolled up my metaphorical sleeves and prepared to go full-on “Behold the Wizard.”
Tauta, 22nd Day of Milaskir
Morning came all too quickly, but at least I got to watch it on a basic sand table. I observed Sarashda as the cold front moved in, bringing with it some mildly windy conditions and the first smattering of rainfall. Worked like a charm. There’s a lot of functionality yet to be incorporated into my current table, to say nothing of some physical upgrades, but it will do. I don’t like it being made of wood, for one thing, and I don’t like having monochrome dust. A stone slab for the sandbox and multicolored dust would suit me much better, but for now…
Leisel knocked before entering my workroom. She knuckled one eye, still yawning, while looking at the containment diagram.
“No fresh bodies?”
“Not tonight. I was busy with other things.”
She looked around the room more carefully. She gently touched a pile of small mirrors, another pile of mid-sized ones, another large one, the sand table, the gloves of glowing, and a variety of other things.
“You made all these?”
“I enchanted them, yes. I realized there were a lot of things needing doing, so I did them.”
“You missed one.”
“I did? Oh. Right. I’ll make it up to you.”
“Later. Are you sure you’re not a demon?”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t think anything human could do all this in one night.”
“Trust me, I’m not a demon.”
“A demon would say that.”
“Okay, fair point. How about you judge me on my actions and make up your own mind?”
“Now I know you’re not a demon. A demon would try to trick me to control me.”
“Also a fair point. Maybe I’m being subtle.”
“If you were a demon, you wouldn’t keep raising doubts when I’ve decided you aren’t one.”
“Maybe I’m really subtle?”
She gave a significant look. It’s almost as though she doubts I can be subtle.
“So, why all the mirrors?”
“It pains me to say we can forget about lighting the beacons to call for aid, since the mirrors can be used to talk across great distances. Assign a couple to the sentries on the western ridge, give one to the guard in charge of security at each mining camp, make sure the sentries watching the river route have one, post a couple at the bridge fort, and they can all talk to the keep, here.”
“Do you have any idea how expensive these things are?”
“Yes. They took half the night to make because there were so many of them. I saved a bundle on the enchantment by tying them together with another large mirror down in the communications room. I figure we needed another large one so we can talk to our own people without interfering with external calls.”
“That’s not—nevermind. Speaking of the watchpost.”
“Yes?”
“I’ve had some of the tailings from the mines delivered to help pave the place, but can we take some of the stones from a magic quarry out there? I’d like to fortify it more. It looks like it’s growing a tower on each side of the gateway and I’d like them to be taller. I also want the wall thicker so I can put more people on top of it and make the space behind the gate more of a tunnel.”
“Go ahead,” I agreed, making a mental note to update the spell’s architectural plans. “We can stack smaller rocks from the mines around here. We’ve pretty much finished with the cut blocks for now.”
“Thank you. What’s with the table?”
“Ah!”
I showed her the sand table. I’m really quite proud of it, even if this one isn’t up to full speed. I looked at the valley, turning and adjusting it until it all fit on the table. I moved our viewpoint around the valley, showed her the western rise and explained what was happening to it, and flicked our view back to Sarashda.
“Here’s House Sarcana, or their primary estate. Now, we’re looking at it from above their scrying shield, so we can see everything as if we were flying over it. We can’t put the point of view inside, but we can look in.”
“I understand.”
“If I activate a special function, we can see the aura of their scrying shield. Note how it appears to be a perfect hemisphere.”
“I see it.”
“Now, here’s the really magical bit. If I draw a line through the hemisphere, like so, it’s called a diameter. If I do it again in other places, all the lines intersect about here, right?”
“Yes. I presume something is there?”
“It’s the center of the effect. I believe this is where their nine-faceted crystal is, generating and maintaining the anti-scrying shield.”
“It’s not in the center of the house,” she observed. “It’s a room near the back.”
“Correct. The house is off-center, mostly because these gardens at the back take up so much space.”
“So, the thing doing the shield is in that room?”
“Yes. I’m hoping I can get a line on it through a window, or get a better idea of what room it’s in.”
“You can’t see anything through the windows. They’re shuttered against the rain and wind.”
I grinned at her.
“Maybe later. In the meantime, what else do you have for me?”
“It’s too late for that, so how about breakfast? Hungry?”
“Famished.”
“Let’s go fight some people before we eat. And bring your gloves,” she added.
I was initially puzzled, but I figured it out quickly. The morning warmeet was a special event. Instead of drilling everyone, Leisel decided to hold a grand melee. Half the guards from the coal and iron camps were arrayed against the village guard contingent. With wooden weapons all around, it promised to be a straight-up fight, and, boy oh boy, it was.
The Knights of Shadow were—are? Will be?—superior in every respect. Nevertheless, there’s something to be said for brutal enthusiasm. I noticed a distinct difference in skill, as well. The women warriors were easily the more dangerous. And, since they were defending the village, the village guards successfully fought the invaders off.
Which was the point of the drill. They were practicing house-to-house fighting. Given the enthusiasm of Renata, she was all for the idea of not being kidnapped again. I wonder if she encouraged the idea or if Leisel came up with it on her own?
I stayed out of the fight, choosing to ride around the edges and observe, instead. There wasn’t a lot of command and control involved, but the locals usually relied on getting there firstest with the mostest to achieve a strategic victory. A straight-up battle was rare. Even then, they were content with simply pointing two forces at each other and waiting until someone gave up.
Banners, drums, and horns are still their preferred signaling devices, but they simply don’t use them all that much. We do need to work on that.
After the battle, I helped with the wounded. Even with wooden weapons, there are always wounded. Sprains, strains, and breaks, mostly. Nobody was missing limbs, obviously, but some of them weren’t working properly. I pulled on my glowing gloves of deception and promptly tacked a lot of bones back together.
By then, the breakfast cooks had it ready for us. We moved ourselves—carrying any wounded who didn’t need to be walking—to the mess tables. There was a lot of food on hand this morning as the breakfast crew knew in advance about the exercise. I didn’t feel bad at all about eating three times what anyone else did.
“We were expecting the traveling merchants to bring in more supplies, but we haven’t seen any for a couple of days. Can we send for a caravan, perhaps?”
“I’ll look into making a large order,” Leisel assured the head cook. “Draw up a list.”
“Yes, ma’am!” He hurried away to do it right then, which told me something about the state of our supplies.
“Leisel?”
“Hmm?”
“How much food do we have? How many days, I mean.”
“I don’t know. It’ll be some time before a crop comes in. Until then, we need regular shipments. We can slaughter the animals we have and hunt some more if we have to.”
“For how long?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Find out, please. I need to look at the road and see if someone’s interfering with our merchants.”
“Naskarl!”
“Probably.”
She abandoned the remains of her breakfast and hurried after the cook.
I found the problem, but it took me longer than I like to admit.
As one heads out of the valley, along the road, one comes to the fortification at our end of the bridge. Cross the bridge and you’re officially outside our territory. The road then runs through mountainous forest for quite a way—I didn’t dig tunnels through the mountains to make it a straight line. I didn’t have the time and energy for it. Once out of the mountains, or almost, the terrain becomes more cooperative. The hills have more wide and level places to either side. There are good campsites along this stretch between the mountains and Spogeyzer. I’d like to claim credit for the foresight of providing campsites for caravans and other merchants, but it just worked out that way.
I sent a scrying sensor flying along the road to check for anything unusual. I didn’t find anything too strange, but I did see a trio of wagons headed away from us, all loaded with supplies. Since I was already suspicious, this made me even more so. I went back and forth along the road, scanning intently the road and both sides. I still didn’t find anything.