Nathan's eyes were really wide now. “You mean when I tried to make the air move, I was tightening the weave, and that concentrated the energy? That's why it got hotter?”
“Exactly right."
For a moment nobody said anything.
“Isn't this great?” Xander said. “You're learning from me, but I'm learning from you, too. Before we came together to make this School, I knew three kinds of psionic engineering – three kinds of magic: pathspace, spinspace, and tonespace. And I actually thought that was a lot to know.”
He took a breath. “But now we know even more. We know that the kind you're exposed to growing up is the kind you will find easiest to learn. And now, we also know, because of what Kareef and Nathan showed us, that all three kinds are related – that similar weaves can be used to manipulate any of them. I think that's more than anyone on Earth has ever known before.”
He looked at them again, one by one, before continuing. “I believe,” he said at last, “that if the Ancients had known this two centuries ago, there would have been no Fall of civilization. We would have trained people to keep it going – to refresh the alien weaves and keep the Gifts working. But now that we are learning these things, we can make things better. We really will change the world.”
Chapter 7
Jeffrey: A Life Eremetical
“Courage isn't having the strength to go on – it is going on when you don't have strength.”
– Napoléon Bonaparte
He had not merely entered into a new phase of his life. It was as if he had moved to a foreign country. He still had his memories, his hope and plans. But everything else had changed.
For starters, the monastery of St. Avory's did not fly the flag of the Lone Star Empire, or any other flag, for that matter. The people who lived there did not seem to be big on displays or ornamentation. There were paintings on some of the walls, and some of the monks had done elaborate and beautiful carvings in wood on some of the doors and benches. But these were the exceptions. Most walls and surfaces were plain and empty.
He wondered if they valued simplicity for its own sake. It wasn't as if they didn't have enough spare time to do artwork. But apart from crucifixes or an occasional painting the walls were unadorned. The exception to this was the front door, which had a peculiar symbol carved into the ancient wood and filled with red paint:
When Jeffrey asked Marcus about it, he learned it was the coat-of-arms of the Carthusian Order. Below it, in letters also carved into the wood, he could make out a phrase in Latin...
“Stat crux dum volvitur orbis”
...which Marcus translated as “The Cross is steady while the World is turning.” This told Jeffrey they were fairly set in their ways. You could call this stubbornness, or you could call it dedication. He gathered that the Fall of civilization had not bothered them much.
Apart from the monks who had brought him here, he did not see many people moving about. When he asked Marcus about this, he learned a bit more about the inhabitants.
“We currently have eighteen choir monks and twelve lay brothers,” Marcus told him.
“They do a lot of singing?”
Marcus smiled patiently. “No, they are under vows of silence. It is a term from tradition. You will not see any of the choir monks while we are here, Excellency.”
“What, I'm off-limits?”
Marcus shook his head. “You won't see them because they stay in their cells, engaged in work, contemplation, and prayer.” He led Jeffrey down a corridor as they spoke.
“What about when they get hungry?”
“Their meals are brought to them by the lay monks.” Marcus showed him a curious chamber set into the wall by one of the doors. He explain that it was called a “turn” because it was designed to pivot in place, allowing items placed in it to be taken into the room without opening the cell door.
“Even prisoners get to see their jailers,” he remarked, remembering when he had visited Lester, Xander's apprentice, in the prison in Dallas.
“They are not prisoners, Excellency. Their solitude is voluntary, and the doors are not locked. In case of an emergency or fire they can leave at any time.”
“Still, to be confined to a single room...”
“They have more space than you imagine, Excellency." Marcus opened a door to an unoccupied cell and showed him the interior. Stairs led up to another room on the second floor, and a back door led into a high-walled individual garden. Despite being called a cell, it was not as bad as he'd thought. There were probably a lot of commoners who would have thought it better than their own quarters: a relatively comfortable austerity.
“Am I supposed to stay in one of these?”
“You could sleep in the dormitory with the lay monks, Excellency, if you wished. But there would be less privacy and still no conversation, for they are also under silence, so I thought maybe you would prefer having your own space. You can have your meals brought to you via the turn, or you can join the lay monks in the communal dining hall.”
“This will be fine, thank you. And you can stop calling me Excellency. It might draw too much attention.” He was about to say just call me brother Jeffrey but he stopped short of that, reminding himself that he was a guest of the Order, not a member.
“As you wish...Jeffrey.”
“What about visitors? Any chance the junta could send someone around looking for me here?"
Marcus shook his head. “There are no visitors. Unlike some Orders, the Carthusian does not have guest houses or facilities for temporary religious retreats. The only people to come here are those intending to join as postulants. You are the sole exception.”
You mean, other than you, thought Jeffrey, but he said nothing.
“If this cell is acceptable, Jeffrey, then with your permission I shall go and arrange for your dinner and a set of plain robes in case you want to go among the brethren.”
Marcus left, closing the door behind him. It shut with a click, which at first felt ominous, but Jeffrey could see for himself there was no lock on the door. Now what? He climbed the stairs to the upper room and looked it over.
Emerging from the stairs he passed through a small entryway. The image in it of the Virgin Mary reminded him of Aria. He wondered if she had heard of the coup and his disappearance from Dallas from one of Kristana's agents.
He stepped into the room proper and surveyed it. The bed was a welcome sight; after all that time in the bottom of the cart he was feeling stiff and bruised from the jolting. He was tempted to stretch out on it immediately, but his stomach vetoed that with a growl, reminding him that dinner was on the way.
Apart from the bed, the room held a small table and a desk for reading and writing. All in all, it was a bit less Spartan than the ground floor room, which had been been completely empty and whose only redeeming feature was the back door to the garden.
Restless, he examined the desk and found it contained blank paper, two quill pens, and a corked bottle of ink. He took out a sheet of paper, intending to write something to Aria, but he was not yet settled enough for that, and so he laid the pen down and went down the stairs and stepped out into the garden.
It was getting dark. They had arrived at the charterhouse late in the afternoon, and now the stars were beginning to appear. He sat on the stone bench and wondered again about the Pope's motives. He could have been given nothing but a farewell handshake. He could have been sent further from Dallas. And he could have been handed over to Jimenez and the other junta commanders. Instead, I've been sent here. Why?
Above him, the silver sliver of a crescent Moon shed a veil of cloud layer and brightened the garden slightly. As he had many times during the flight from Dallas, he reflected on the irony of his situation. It would never have occurred to him to help the Church in any way, before or after becoming the Honcho, yet now they were helping him. The asymmetry of that brought a pang of guilt. After all his arguments with his late father about the foolishness of partnering with superstition-monger
s, of the dangers of it, who did he owe his escape to? The Church.
How would he repay this debt if he regained power?
The “garden” he sat in did not appear to be growing much at the moment, apart from a couple of bushes he did not recognize in the gloom of the evening. He supposed if he actually were a monk he would be planting flowers or vegetables, but of course he would not be staying long enough for that.
Was that a knock? He rose from the bench, reentered the lower room and opened the door, but all he saw was the back of some robed figure moving down the hallway. He shut the door. Then his stomach growled again, and he remembered about dinner.
Next to the door, the “turn” was a featureless half-cylinder of wood protruding like a half-column from the wall. He set his hand on it and found it pivoted noiselessly. After a half-revolution he was looking at the half-cylinder from the inside, and on the floor of it, about chest high from the floor, he saw a plate with a small loaf of bread, a bowl of vegetable soup, a spoon, and an apple.
He took these upstairs to the little table and tried the soup. Plain, but edible. Ravenous, he quickly finished most of it, then broke a piece off the loaf to mop up the rest.
The silence in the room was deafening. After he ate and trudged down the stairs again to put the spoon and bowl back in the turn and spun them outside, he went back up to the desk and uncorked the ink bottle to write a letter. What to say? After a bit of thought, he decided that she mainly needed to know that he was still alive. That was the most important thing. Hopefully, brother Marcus could arrange for someone to get the message to someone who had business in Rado.
Dear Aria,
By now you've heard what happened. I still think the new Union is a good idea, and I don't regret espousing it for a second. I'm safe, and I'll do my best to reclaim the power I need to help avoid another war. I just hope I'm not too late. It won't be easy.
Still thinking of you,
Jeffrey
Chapter 8
Feather: A Handful of Earth
“Hold onto what is good, even if it's a handful of earth...”
– Pueblo Prayer
Her parents were always telling her not to climb trees. “Trees are for the birds and squirrels,” they would say to her. But Feather was young and strong, and she loved to be up in the strong arms of a black oak, caressed by the wind, safe from the coyotes and bears. Her parents did not like it, but she bet they wouldn't complain if they could see her now. Below her, the white men continued to argue as they set up camp.
She did not question why they came to her woods. Everyone knew why the Duke's men came. All of her people knew what the white men came looking for. They would never find it.
She liked spying on them because they were funny. Even the titles of their leaders were funny. Duke of the Northern Forests! She suppressed a giggle. He didn't live in the forest. He certainly didn't rule it. No one ruled the forest. It was a crazy idea, like many of their ideas she had heard of. You cannot tell a tree what to do. You cannot tax it, or make laws for it to obey.
“We should have hired that guide,” one of the men below said. “Foolish to be out here with no guide.”
“You're a fool, yourself,” another grunted, as he pounded in a tent peg. “Anyone who could guide us in these woods would take our pay and lead us straight into a trap. No Amerind would betray his own people for money.”
Those are true words, she thought, lying prone on the broad branch above them. What good is the money of white men in the forest? A bear will not take money to leave you alone. Bees won't give you their honey for bits of paper and metal. Foxes won't sell you their fur, and beavers don't build their homes to earn pay. The forest doesn't care about money.
One of the men was skinning a rabbit while another struck steel to flint, chipping sparks into tinder to make a fire. The rabbit had fallen to one of their crossbows. Their crossbows were curious things. Feeble in range, compared to one of the people's bows, but you could walk around with one loaded, ready to fire at a moment's notice, which was something you couldn't do with a regular bow. A real bow took strength to draw, and skill to aim and bring down a deer from a hundred paces. But their crossbows, once drawn and loaded, could be fired by a child.
Maybe if she had one of those crossbows the elders would let them hunt with her. She wasn't a child! The blood of the moon had come to her four summers ago. Yes, she was young, but she was a woman now. And women could hunt with the men if they wished. But the men still saw her as a child. It made her want to growl.
The tinder had caught, and flames began to lick at the little sticks as the one man built up the fire slowly. Now the other man pulled out the rabbit's insides so that he could impale the meat on a stick to put it over the growing fire. Silently, Feather shook her head. So stupid! Everyone knew the organs were good food as well as the meat. You would think they would at least eat the heart, because it was meat too, but no, they cast it aside. And he didn't even bother to bury it! Foolish. It would draw ants, flies, and larger animals that could smell the blood from far away.
But even though they were stupid and funny, they were not completely blind, so she remained there hugging the arm of the tree, until darkness came. Only then did she move to another tree, and another, and finally slip to the ground and run back to tell the others that the men from the coast had come again to the forest.
As she hurried, her mind was still pondering the coming of the men. Was it by chance that they had wandered so close to the People of the Shrine? It must be so. Who would betray them to the coast-dwellers?
Chapter 9
Nathan: Intentions
“Do they not go astray who devise evil?”
– Proverbs 14:22
After Xander's lecture it was hard to fall asleep. Nathan's head buzzed with thoughts like one of the beehives on his father's farm. Were all of the varieties of magic intertwined? It seemed obvious for pathspace and spinspace, because you couldn't have rotation without matter following curved paths. But he didn't see how that could relate to the energies of tonespace.
After tossing and turning on his bed, he finally gave up the struggle and got up to finish his textbook on psychology. Padding out into the main room framed by all of the student bedrooms, he was a little surprised to see another graduate still up and practicing. “You couldn't sleep either?”
“Oh, I could have,” Kaleb said. He whirled and lit a candle on a table behind him with tonespace, then used a puff of pathspace-channeled air to snuff it, and wrenched at spinspace to twirl the wisp of smoke rising from the wick into a little funnel cloud. “But I can't afford to sleep as much as my body would like. Too much to do.”
“But you can practice anytime.” Nathan felt a stab of jealousy as he saw how quick Kaleb seemed to be getting with all three of the basic forms of metaspace. He wondered if that meant the new wizard from Cali had been exposed to more artifacts than he himself had back in New Israel.
“No, I can't. I have to leave, as soon as possible, so every minute counts.”
Nathan watched him repeat the three steps again. Seeing how Kaleb had so easily combined three kinds of magic practice into one exercise, he felt dumb for not thinking of it himself, and resolved to work on similar combo drills to sharpen his own skills. “But why?”
“Because the Queen has my family,” Kaleb reminded him. “I have to try to save them, if they're even still alive, that is. By the way, I never thanked you for helping to stop me from hurting anyone.”
“You would have done the same for me,” said Nathan, “if I'd been the one hypnotized by her. Sorry I had to set you on fire to distract you.”
“You did what you had to do,” Kaleb said. “I was lucky; I only got a few blisters from it. Could have been worse. I certainly deserved a lot worse.”
“No one thinks that! You couldn't help yourself. The Queen had you under control the whole time.”
Kaleb frowned at the floor. “I nearly killed Carolyn,” he muttered. “If she hadn't
ducked I might have crushed her skull! And then I nearly pushed her down the elevator shaft. And Kareef, I almost killed him when he rolled her out of the weave. And then you, too, when you grabbed his hands to try to stop him from falling into the elevator shaft!”
“But you didn't. And everyone knows you didn't mean to do any of it. You're too hard on yourself. Any of us could have fallen under her hypnosis, if we'd been wearing that blue ring instead of you.”
“I shouldn't have even been here,” said Kaleb. “I should have refused to make the journey to Denver. Everyone would have been safer.”
“She had your relatives,” Nathan reminded him. “I know I'd do almost anything for my family. And you had no idea how she'd use that ring to put you into a trance and force you to act against the School.”
“No, you don't understand,” said Kaleb. “When she sent me east with that caravan she told me I was going to the School to destroy it.” With an angry flash of tonespace he melted the candle into a puddle, then tried to use pathspace to reform the wax back into a cylinder. The wax rose but his weave wasn't tight enough, so the result was more of a little volcano, a cone-shaped candle instead its original form. “I knew she was going to try to destroy the school, don't you see? I knew. I just didn't know how. I didn't know she wanted me to kill people, like that poor guard.”
“All right, so you knew she was sending you to make trouble. But you didn't know how much.”
Kaleb collapsed into a chair and put his head in his hands. “I should have. I should have ditched the caravan and gotten myself lost in the hills. Or taken refuge with the Mormons in Deseret.”
“Well I'm glad you didn't. Xander needs every wizard he can get if we're going to do what he thinks we can do. He can't change the world by himself.”
Tonespace: The Space of Energy (The Metaspace Chronicles Book 3) Page 4