The Witches of Ne'arth (The Star Wizards Trilogy Book 2)

by Joseph Schembrie

  “And you believe that to do so,” Andra said, “he brought gifts from Earth, such as this glowing fruit.”

  “Yeah, it's just a simple biosimulant.”

  “Which is?”

  Matt drew in a breath. “On Earth, there was a community of people called biohackers, who liked to genetically engineer biological alternatives to traditional technology. It was called 'biosimulant genetic engineering,' or 'biosimulanting.' Now, you can always print stuff better and faster than you can grow it, so the technique was impractical and the biohackers did it just for fun. But on Ne'arth, you don't have printers. If my clone wanted to jump-start an industrial revolution here, he'd use biosimulants.”

  “And so, glowfruit,” Prin said. “Thus industry does not have to sleep with the sun.”

  “You said the floating spiders were not natural,” Andra said. “Do you think those are his doing also?”

  “Ivan has suggested that the spiders were made so that the sky serpents would have something to eat. Like plankton for whales.”

  “Speaking of the sky serpents,” Prin said. “I don't see how they contribute to the 'jump-starting' of an industrial revolution.”

  “I don't get that either,” Matt replied.

  Prin poked the fruit and watched it glimmer. “Your brother is remarkably talented at this engineering of genetics.”

  “Not really. The biohackers back on Earth did all the protein-folding calculations. All he had to do was carry a pocketful of seeds and eggs.” Matt shrugged. “Or less, if he had access to a seeder probe.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If he had access to a seeder probe, all he had to bring from Earth was the genetic data for the biosimulant devices. He could transmit the data from his implant, and the probe would make the seeds and eggs.”

  Prin frowned. “Matt . . . are you implying he might have allied with the Boxes?”

  “Possible. There is one thing that argues against it. Do you remember the murals that the Sisters of Wisdom commissioned for the imperial palace and Senate?”

  “I've seen the ones in the Senate. I didn't know they were in the palace as well. Go on.”

  “Well, they show that my archival clone was fighting against the Boxes.”

  “Oh yes, the War of the Mentors and the Witches.”

  “'The War of the Mentors and the Witches,'” Andra said, showing bewilderment. “You take it as common knowledge, Prin, but Hypatia never mentioned it and I never heard of it until you and Matt and Archie did so.”

  “Schools and even tutors don't teach classical mythology anymore,” Prin said, who was a decade older than Andra. “Not even as literature. Too embarrassing for our scientific age, but if you ask me, even the most outlandish myth has a hint of truth.”

  “Going back to your brother, Matt,” Andra said. “So which do you believe? That he was or was not in alliance with the Artificial Intelligences of the Boxes?”

  “I don't know,” Matt said. “The murals say he wasn't on their side, but then the murals came from the Sisters, and the Sisters seem to be full of disinformation. Uh, 'disinformation,' that's when – “

  Prin laughed. “You don't have to tell us what 'disinformation' means. My family has a long involvement with imperial politics.”

  “So we are certain we are not sure,” Andra said. “So what of Savora? Is she allied with the Boxes? Or was she your friend from Earth in disguise?”

  “She wasn't Synth. She was trying to make me think she was.”

  “You mentioned on the trip here that you thought she was trying too hard to impersonate your friend. I didn't quite follow that.”

  “I know it doesn't exactly make sense, but that's how I feel. If Synth didn't want me to know it was her, she would have changed her appearance – but Savora looked almost exactly like her. Also, Savora told me about her village, and her description was heavy on numbers – like she thought that since Synth is a mathematician, Synth would talk in numbers a lot. But Synth was always careful to avoid that.”

  “So why was Savora pretending to be your friend?”

  “Ivan and I think she was hypnotizing me.”

  “So you've stated. I still do not see what pretending to be your friend has to do with hypnosis.”

  “Well, according to Ivan, when a person is in a hypnotic trance, you still can't directly order him to do something against his own values. You've got to persuade him that your will is in his own interest. Part of Savora's hypnotic procedure must have been to try to make me believe that she was Synth, because she knew I trust Synth and would go along with a plan if I thought Synth wanted me to do it.”

  The guide that Savora had purchased in the book shop at Hafik lay on the hotel room table. It was open to the page that Savora had bookmarked. Prin rested his hand upon the map of the Abbey of Klun, next to the circle Savora had drawn around the Cathedral.

  “She wants you to go there,” Prin said. “That she hypnotized you tells me we should do the opposite.”

  “Oh Matt,” Andra said. “It must be a trap!”

  “Yeah,” Matt said.

  “You can't go,” Prin said. “They'll be watching for you.”

  “I still want to investigate the Abbey,” Matt said. “That's why we came.”

  Prin brightened. “How about I go there in your place? They're expecting a young man. They won't be watching for me. I'll look about and report.”

  Matt put on a smile. “That might be a good idea. Let's talk about it some more, but how about we get something to eat now? I'm starving and I can't think on an empty stomach.”

  They went downstairs to the hotel restaurant and ordered lunch. Prin asked the waiter about the Abbey and they were informed that she was not a religious person. Andra and Prin enjoyed their cooked meals after the cold ship's rations while Matt, with thoughts elsewhere, picked the bacon bits from his salad and munched thoughtfully. When they were done eating, the couple declared their intention to return to the room for a brief nap.

  Matt stretched. “If you don't mind, I'd like to go for a walk.”

  Nodding goodbyes, he went only a short distance around the corner. He hailed an open-cab coach and asked the driver, “Can you take me to the Abbey?”

  The driver assented, but apparently owing to Matt's youth wanted to see money in advance for the long trip. Knowing the local routine of monetary transaction from having observed Prin, Matt provided the driver with a few sheafs of paper currency.

  With a flick of the reins they were bumping over a road away from the airfield and inn. Soon the coach ascended into the hills. Fir trees thickly loomed on each side, blocking the view of both city and Abbey save the tip of the central spire. Matt surveyed and sighed, sat back and fidgeted.

  “Matt,” Ivan said. “You agreed with Prin that you would not go to the Abbey and that he would do so instead. Now you are going to the Abbey. It appears that you have intentionally deceived Prin and Andra. May I ask why?”

  “Savora has seen both of them,” Matt replied. “She's got an implant, she could provide drawings or even photos of us. Prin would be be spotted right away. It wouldn't have helped for him to go.”

  “You chose not to explain that to him. Why?”

  “He might have said that then no one would go to the Abbey. And we need to know what's there.”

  “You agreed that there might be a trap. Yet you are going.”

  “Savora has a surprise coming if she thinks I'm walking into this blind.”

  Pause. “Matt. Do you think it is possible that Savora's hypnotic influence has affected your judgment so as to ignore the obvious risk of going to the Abbey?”

  “You said that you cleared all hypnotic suggestions.”

  “I can reduce the impact of hypnotic influence by enabling you to become consciously aware of it, but I have no accountability for residual emotional response on a subconscious level. That is a matter for the host's judgment.”

  Before Matt could formulate a reply, the coach rounded a corner and
he gaped at something that caused him to forget what he was going to say.

  It looked like a snail – a wheel-shaped shell with a membrane flowing over the pavement. It was, however, a gastropod mollusc as big as an elephant. It was accompanied by men in work coveralls, who were setting up traffic signs and barriers and luring the creature by placing in front of it globules of what Matt took to be its food.

  As Matt's coach steered by, the creature's membrane oozed over a pothole. When it uncovered the spot, there was no longer a pothole.

  “And that,” Matt said, “is how they pave the roads around here.”

  “The roads in Britan are similar,” Ivan said. “It would seem the same technique was utilized there.”

  “More of my clone's work. Parachute spiders, sky serpents, glowfruit trees, and paving snails.”

  “Sarkassian Silk appears to be a biosimulant innovation also.”

  “Yeah. Oh, and I almost forgot. The dragon that swallowed Savora.”

  “Technically, it did not swallow her. The appropriate terminology is 'encapsulation.'”

  “There's an 'appropriate' terminology? So you know about the dragons?”

  “Encapsulating Dragons similar to the one we encountered on the island of Novasco were genetically engineered in the twenty-first century for recreational purposes. However, the popularity of encapsulating dragons became less popular in the twenty-second century, as while riding dragons bareback was not as safe, it is regarded as more 'fun.'”

  “It's weird to think what people do for fun,” Matt said. He watched the approach of the cathedral spire. “I wonder if my clone had fun creating a religion.”

  “I lack sufficient data to answer.”

  “It's creepy to think how he's different from me. He knows me, because he has all my memories from dendritic archiving. But by now, he's lived for centuries. I don't even know what a person that old would be like. Immortality was just getting started when I left Earth.”

  “At the time of our departure from Earth,” Ivan replied, “the oldest person of verifiable age was born in the mid-nineteenth century. He was a member of an expedition to Antarctica – “

  “You're talking about the guy who fell into the ice crevice and froze to death and then scientists in the twenty-first century found him and revived him. He doesn't count. Same for me – I'm centuries old, too, but you can't count all the time I was in biosuspension. What I want to know is, what is it like to be consciously alive for centuries? After you've been thinking for centuries, what's left to think?”

  “It is likely that his thoughts are similar to those of younger humans.”

  “In other words, repetitive and mundane. Ivan, that's a very depressing view of immortality.”

  “I am sorry, Matt.”

  “What about memory capacity? How do you cram centuries of memory into a human skull?”

  “According to ongoing scientific discussion at the time of our departure from Earth, it was considered likely that for a person to live centuries, he would be required to periodically cull his organically-stored memories in order to make room for new memories. The old memories would then be retained solely upon artificial substrate”

  “I've watched your telemetry of events that I don't remember, and it's like they happened to someone else. Most of his memories would be like that. I would hate that.”

  “Yes, Matt. Although they are more reliable, artificially retained memories do not include the same emotional impact as organically retained memories.”

  “If you can't remember how you feel, what's the point of living forever?”

  The trees bordering the road were increasingly towering, dark, and shaggy. Matt remembered an ancient, obscure term: old growth forest. Forests with trees that were more than a century old had become all but extinct on Earth during the rapacious environmental plundering of the twenty-first century, and had yet to recover at the time he had departed Sol System. This was the first time he had seen an old growth forest with his own eyes.

  It made the Dark Forest of Britan seem light and airy. The underbrush was impenetrable, the interior as void as a cavern. The girth of the tree trunks could encompass huts. He had thought that only redwoods grew so tall. Shadows deeper than the darkness gracefully swooped from limb to limb and Matt guessed they were bats but Ivan identified them as owls.

  Well above the tree tops loomed the central spire of the Cathedral, whose sides of glass and polished metal concentrated sunlight into a needle that blazed brighter than the sun. Matt could think of no relevant symbolism. The hundreds of meters of architecture was designed simply to awe – or intimidate.

  “We'll need to alter my appearance,” Matt subvocaled. “Grow facial hair, change eye and hair color, make me look older, whatever that takes. Oh, remember the hound that barked at Carrot when she entered the palace? Can you alter my scent too?”

  “Yes, Matt.”

  “And you'll have to remove my scent from my clothes, too.”

  “Yes, Matt. I will commence cleaning your clothing now. Please place your hands as I instruct.”

  At Ivan's direction, Matt passed his palms over his jacket, shirt, and trousers. Matt's palms came away with grime, which he shook off over the side of the coach. About the time he was finished, he felt a tingling on his chin and upper lip. Yes – what was a disguise without a beard and mustache?

  The transformation was completed before the coach arrived. Matt sat up as the incline leveled and their horse slowed. The road widened and straightened. Ahead, perpendicular to the road, was a wall made of a row of old-growth tree trunks bound side to side, their bark still attached. Not strong enough to withstand a siege, but good enough to keep casual trespassers out and determined prisoners in.

  The gate was wide enough to admit two lanes of road. The sentries were armed with rifles but gave routine nods to the flow of carriages and wagons that passed in. However, they diligently halted and searched the wagons that were leaving. Thinking ahead for escape, Matt noted that it was easier to get in than out.

  “Hypermode standby,” he said.

  Over the entrance arched a metal sign with raised gilded lettering:

  THE MATT WAS HERE. THE MATT WILL COME AGAIN.

  “I can't believe he did this,” Matt subvocaled. “It's humiliating. I want to curl into a ball.”

  The coach's horse pranced upon a long straight lane, whose view of the rest of the Abbey was blocked by paralleling hedges. These were an ordinary, literally garden-variety hedges, but they made Matt think of the Monstrous Hedge, which made him think again of Carrot and imagine what could be happening to her. She could be facing mortal danger, while he was browsing book shops and sight-seeing cathedrals. She was in search of the most important artifact on the planet, while he seemed to be chasing an unhinged egomaniac.

  The path curved and widened into a field filled with other vehicles that were disgorging and accepting passengers. Matt knew it was a parking lot because they used to have them on Earth. The coach pulled alongside the curb and Matt disembarked. As he paid his fare, he received a confused stare from the driver, who probably wondered how his passenger had boarded as a clean-shaven black-haired youth and was exiting as a bearded redheaded man. Matt tipped him extra, and there were no questions.

  Matt followed the crowd down the hedged pathways, categorizing people by dress. Those in coveralls would be workers, those dressed like pedestrians on the streets of Hafik were probably tourists. Those dressed in immaculate and uncomfortable formal clothing who were keeping their heads bowed and voices low would be . . . The Devout.

  They were, he thought, as subdued as cats soaked in an hour of rain.

  Most ominous of all, were throngs of men in robes of brown and black. They held their heads up and glared sternly, forbidding all doubt of their divine selection.

  The path entered a small courtyard and circled around a statue on a pedestal. A thrice life-size, full-bodied figure in bronze glared westward. Matt did not recognize the features of the b
earded face until he noticed the sidelong glances that he was receiving from the others in the crowd.

  The crowd flowed around the statue, exiting the courtyard through a gap in the hedges at the other end. The path ended and the crowd collected before the steps of the Cathedral.

  “Matt,” Ivan said. “Your biometric readings indicate extreme discomfort. Are you experiencing psychological stress?”

  “You could say that,” Matt replied stoically.

  From the front, the Cathedral was a wall of stone with pinnacles and ledges, level after level decorated by statues of dragons and sky serpents and gargoyle-like creatures that Matt hoped didn't actually exist. Wedge-shaped windows tinted in dark colors were clustered in circular arrangements like petals of giant flowers. The massive pillars of the support columns appeared capable of withstanding a tsunami.

  The crowd clustered before the steps, dwarfed by the immensity of the edifice. The murmur of conversation had become muted. Some stared, others took pictures, and Matt felt sheepish.

  Don't look at me. I didn't have anything to do with this.

  The crowd coagulated into a line the extended up the steps. At the top was a chalkboard with a message: NEXT TOUR AT 3:00. Matt consulted the Ne'arthian local-time chronometer displayed in the lower right corner of his vision. Fifteen minutes to wait.

  “I have scanned the vicinity for potential dangers,” Ivan said. “There appear to be only two guards. They are armed with inaccurate kinetic hand weapons. I have identified potential escape routes.”

  “Good,” Matt mumbled, lost in thought.

  “Matt. Is there anything you would like me to do at this time?”

  “I don't know. Look for clues.”

  “What kind of clues should I look for?”

  “Clues for the whereabouts of my clone.”

  “The statue in the adjacent courtyard bears physical features that strikingly resemble your own. It is possible that it portrays your archival clone.”

  “Yeah. That means he was here a long time ago. We need something more recent.”

  “I will continue my olfactory scans. However, the presence of a large number of persons in the immediate vicinity is rendering it difficult to identify a particular scent.”