“Oh, that makes it so much better. You really don’t want to. . . wait. Asha suggested this?” Absolute ire in his tone as Eshmunazar sat up now, himself, and Minori found somewhere else to look, even in the dark. “What did she say? Exactly?”
“Something about having similar resonances and matching them, so everyone else would see it and hear it.” The words emerged reluctantly from her lips. It had made perfect sense when Asha had spoken with her. But then, Asha was so beautiful it was hard to think around her.
“Oh, gods damn it. Matrugena and I are going to have a talk. He said she wasn’t going to . . .” A pause as Kanmi found the light, switched it on, and told her, his voice suddenly much gentler, “I don’t think she meant it quite that way, doctor. Asha doesn’t see a lot of distinctions between different types of love,” Minori caught motion out of the corner of her eye, as if he were rubbing at his face, “And if she sees someone hurting, her first instinct is to join with them to make them feel better. It’s how she heals. She . . . de-corporealizes and gets inside someone’s body and fixes it. If we were all spirits, she’d. . . probably just join essences with someone to say hello.”
Minori felt foolish, suddenly. The warmth radiating from Asha had been . . . heavily compelling. Her own mouth had been dry, and she would probably have said yes to anything at that moment in time. “So . . . she didn’t mean. . . ?”
“No, she probably actually did mean ‘have relations,’ as you put it so charmingly. But she probably. . . gods. Please keep in mind, that this is Asha talking. . . “ Kanmi’s voice was strangled. “so she probably meant ‘you two would be wonderful together if you’d get along better, and yes, you should bind and bargain with each other and exchange life-essences like little furry bunnies.’” He actually mimicked the inflections of the spirit’s cheerful mental voice, raising the pitch of his own in mockery. And Minori raised her hands to her face and just laughed, helplessly, for a long moment. “Now,” Kanmi said, in a tone of resignation, “I have to go across the hall and kill my best friend. Excuse me while I find a pair of pants.”
“No, no, no! Then he’ll know—”
“As if he doesn’t already.“
“Oh, gods.”
“Precisely my point.”
The subsequent days had gone much better. Kanmi’s body language had been much more relaxed, among other things, which had let her relax. Surprising, all the things that the subconscious controlled; when he held himself like a clenched fist, ready to strike, she pulled away from him, and so did other people. Minori could see the change in how people reacted to them as they entered the various ley facilities. They each received hand-clasps, but they weren’t getting the uneasy glances of the day before, as people had tried to sort out, even at the instinctive level, what body language was telling them. As such, they started getting answers.
Unfortunately, they weren’t the answers that they wanted or needed. “Oh, no. This facility was built in 1950,” one site supervisor told her, tugging at an earlobe filled with a Nahautl-style earplug. This particular facility was thirteen thousand feet up a mountainside, and the wind shrieked and howled past the windows of the supervisor’s office. “Absolutely, you can take a look around. You’ll find we’re properly up to code. We can’t bury the cables here, because of how rugged the terrain is, so everything has to be transmitted by wires on poles, down the mountainside.”
“Can I take a look at your ley-surveys?” Minori asked.
“Sure. We’re not in the best location, but we couldn’t go higher on the mountain. The peak is considered a holy site. Sacrifices used to be offered there to the huaca of the mountain itself.” The Tawantinsuyu man in front of them shrugged a little. Like a lot of his workers, he wore coveralls inside the facility, and they all had heavy cloaks of fur and alpaca wool ready to go if they needed to step outside. “We’d get better efficiency up there, but no one wants to disturb someplace that was sanctified, even if it was a long time ago.”
Minori exchanged a quick glance with Kanmi. She’d have thought that if this facility were involved at all, that they’d have planted it as close to the old sacrifice site as possible. “If you think you’ll be all right alone here, Min,” Kanmi said, putting a hand to the small of her back, and rubbing a little through her gray coveralls, “I think I might like to have a look at your Tholberg coils, Master Anyas. I’m really quite fascinated by some of the newer designs.”
“Oh, we don’t use Tholberg coils here. Straight transformers, I’m afraid.”
“Is that so? I’d love to see them anyway.”
Nothing here tallies with what he saw in Nahautl. Except. . . this facility has been at the epicenter of at least three minor earthquakes in the last year. So have four of the other sites we’re going to look at. Minori stared at the charts, and after taking notes for a moment, realized that she had a camera for a damned good reason, and Kanmi had gotten the manager out of the office so she could use it. So she took pictures of every document she could get her hands on in the next twenty minutes . . . going so far as to open various desk drawers and retrieve hidden files and photograph them, too. Kanmi had offered to teach her how to pick locks, as he’d done in Lutetia at her place of work. . . and Minori had demonstrated, instead, with a slightly embarrassed duck of her head, her ability to shift air pressure inside a lock, briefly solidifying it to press on all the tumblers correctly, and then twist the construct with her mind. It took a high degree of concentration, but she could do it. “Can you do it under pressure?” he’d asked. “Knowing someone could walk in at any moment?”
“I. . . have,” she admitted, with a flush. “It has the advantage of not leaving marks, and no fingerprints.”
“I am sold on this idea. And would be damned interested in learning more.” His eyes had narrowed. “Why do you know how to do this?”
“Why do you know how to pick locks?” she countered.
“Because my brothers and I were wharf-rats, and their idea of looking after me for an afternoon, when they didn’t feel like trying to drown me, usually involved finding a closed store or a locked house, and finding a way inside. They had me pick the locks because I was too young for prison. Most I’d have gotten was a public caning. They’d have gotten the galleys.” The galleys didn’t mean being chained to a bench to row a Roman ship, these days. It did, however, mean slave labor for a term of years in the Roman Legion or Navy. Never rising in rank, and usually put to work digging latrines or cleaning bilges. The worst jobs were saved for the worst offenders. Kanmi had shrugged. “They’d take alcohol. Maybe a little coin. They couldn’t fence anything fancy.” He’d given her a look. “Your turn.”
Minori had swallowed. “The Emperor had one Empress and over a dozen official concubines when I lived at the court,” she said, quietly, and looked at the ground. “All were expected to be virtuous women. No immodest or improper behavior.”
“Because that always works out well. Bored people find ways to amuse themselves.”
“Yes.” Minori said nothing more.
“And were you bored, Minori?”
“Very,” she admitted. “Getting out of the official quarters at first, was like a game. Just as it had been at home, when I didn’t want to sit down to write a boring poem that my tutor had assigned me. It got much more serious, later on. When someone else learned what I could do.” She shook her head. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“As you wish,” he’d told her, which had taken her by surprise, and he’d let the subject drop.
So, here and now, she stole information, and did it quickly and well, tucking files back into the desk drawer with gloved fingers, grateful that the weather let her wear these without question. And did the same at the next two facilities that they canvassed over the course of the day.
That night, Kanmi developed the film in their room, with the lights turned off, and the door locked to ensure that the delicate process wasn’t interrupted. Minori wrinkled her nose at the smell. “Did you find anythin
g outside the buildings?” she asked.
“No. No disturbed earth. No fresh graves. No bodies that I could detect. That being said. . . my multimeter, every time I plugged it in? Was detecting a mix of energies. Ley and Veil energies, at all of the sites.” Kanmi sounded exasperated. “Something is going on here, Minori.”
It was a measure of progress, Minori thought, that he’d actually used her given name in private, and without the mocking emphasis it normally carried. A timer went off, and he removed a print from its final chemical bath, and moved each picture from tub to tub, after hanging the newest finished sheet up to dry. It was a slow and boring process, and when he was finished, they sat down to pore over all of the maps, charts, and diagrams at greater length.
It was late when there was a tap at the door, in the pre-arranged code that the lictors used to announce themselves to each other. Kanmi opened it to admit Trennus and Asha, both of whom looked exhausted. “We have news,” Trennus told them, immediately. “It’s not good.”
___________________
Trennus and Lassair had had been ‘scouting locations’ for Livorus’ proposed trip, and had been, therefore, taking in various cultural sites. Evaluating them, supposedly, for security purposes, because no official state visit was ever complete without some random cultural exchange. This had allowed the pair to visit a number of temples, and today, they’d been scheduled to visit the Nazca valley. “What’s the problem?” Kanmi asked, closing the door behind them, and re-warding it. “You only just now got back?”
“No, got in an hour ago, but thought you’d still be developing pictures. Besides, we really needed to eat.” Trennus carefully moved the blankets and pillows out of the way, and sat down on the couch, wondering how Kanmi’s back could take sleeping on the damned thing. It felt stiff.
I am remarkably tired, Lassair admitted. I have been practicing letting my body sleep while I remain awake, however. It is difficult, but possible. Do you think that I might be able to close the body’s eyes while the rest of you continue to do what you are bound to do?
“Sleep,” Trennus told her, kissing her forehead. “I’ll tell them what we saw today.”
Kanmi closed the doors, and re-warded them. “What did you find?”
Trennus closed his eyes, and attempted to order his thoughts. His head was spinning. “We left for Nazca around. . . nine antemeridian,” he began, slowly. “We did the ornithopter tour, and you know, we were a lot lower to the ground this time, than when we flew over on the way here. Lassair. . . shit. I’m sorry.” He hadn’t meant to say her name in front of Minori, but he was getting used to having the woman around.
I have no objections to her knowing my Name. I do not think Truthsayer will attempt to bind me with it. Lassair’s tone was sleepy, and she’d kicked off her shoes, put her feet in Trennus’ lap, and lay back with her head propped up on the arm of the couch. Tren gave her a sharp look. He’d never heard Minori Named before, and caught the look of shock on both Kanmi’s face, and the woman’s own. However, what he had to say was too important to wait on, so he shook his head, and continued, “Lassair started to feel very uncomfortable in the air over the various markings. You might remember that our original flight plan on the way in actually didn’t cross any of the major figures, but just the lines that trace the ley conduits?” Trennus opened and closed his hands a few times. “So, when we landed, we asked to do a ground tour.” He leaned back against the couch, and gently rubbed Lassair’s feet. “First thing I noticed is that the ley-lines under that valley? Every last one of them is in resonance. And I can’t explain why, because it shouldn’t be possible. . . but I think that resonance has been artificially induced.”
Kanmi and Minori’s eyes widened. “That’s not possible,” Minori objected, immediately. “Ley-lines are the macro equivalent of superstrings. We can manipulate their energies, but we can’t—”
“Add to them? Change their frequencies? Change which strings are in resonance with other strings?” Trennus replied, sharply. “I’m a ley-mage. I know what I can do with a line, and what I can’t do, and I would love to see a map if the lines tomorrow that shows me, yes, this is a natural occurrence that somehow was left out of every textbook I’ve ever studied, and it’s always been this way. I doubt that, however. I doubt it very strongly.” He exhaled. “It gets worse.”
“It gets worse than the ley-lines in a geologically unstable area being altered and possibly supercharged?” Kanmi said, linking his fingers behind his head. “Do tell.”
Trennus looked up at the ceiling, and searched for the words. The lines, Lassair said, suddenly, for him, They are binding circles. Huge ones. I brushed the edge of the moon’s crescent with my foot, and was trapped. I managed to retain human form. I have worked, very hard, at appearing mostly human. At most, god-touched, like Stormborn. I was trapped. The body’s eyes, as her body slept, didn’t open, but the spirit’s voice was anguished. And I was not the only spirit bound to that sigil. There was another inside there. She was vast and old and powerful, and she raged at being caught there. She told me her Name was Mamaquilla. Mother of moon and sea, mother of the gods of this land. Lassair’s voice was terrified.
Kanmi lunged to his feet, and started pacing around the room, stepping deftly over the pictures strewn in neat piles all over the floor. “How’d you get her out?” he demanded, turning and staring at Trennus.
“I almost didn’t. I had half a dozen people shouting at me that she’d defaced a cultural artifact by walking on it, and I caught sight of an old woman, near the back. . . very formal clothing, all high-quality alpaca cloth and good jewelry. Just watching.” Trennus grimaced. “I didn’t want to say that Lassair was stuck in their gods-be-damned spirit trap, so I reached for the ley-energies in the ground. Gods.” He shuddered a little. He didn’t want to say it, but having that much energy at his disposal? Flooding through him, responsive to every whim? It had been intoxicating, and he’d briefly entertained the notion of grabbing Lassair and finding a piece of ground out of sight of everyone and taking her with all the power in the valley flooding through his veins. In a sober state, he could see why that might not be a good idea. Lassair tended to see sex as an exchange of energies, and the sheets on his bed were almost inevitably scorched here and there as a result. He might not survive the process if he participated while linked into a power line like that.
At the time, prudence hadn’t been what had stopped him. Having to deal with the damned trap and the onlookers had. “I broke the edge of the line,” Trennus said, shrugging. It had only required a whisper of power, really. “Carefully. Just. . . smoothed it out while they were all shouting. Lassair stepped out, and I put the line back where it was.”
The other one came out of the binding with me. She fled. She said she had been bound there for most of two cycles of this world around the sun. That the humans had begged one of her god-born to invoke her at this the new crescent idol, built in her honor on the valley floor. . . and when she arrived, she was bound to that representation. Sealed into the lines. . . not just by the sigil, but with all of her Names and with the ley-energy of the valley. Lassair sounded frantic. They said she was powerful enough to keep. What that meant, she did not know. Then she called me sister, and fled.
Trennus rubbed at his face again. “So, once we got them to stop arguing and stop yelling at her for having defaced the site, we got moving again. Had to go through the whole tour, with them watching her like a hawk. And I ran a few tests at every one of the lines that we came to. Sar. . . my other bound spirit? She wouldn’t manifest. She almost wouldn't come to me at all." That had deeply disturbed him. He'd seen Saraid for the first time when he was six years old. He'd entered into a first binding arrangement with her just after Senecita's death, when he was eighteen. She'd been . . . extremely quiet, even quiescent, for the past five years. They were still bound. But something was wrong, and he wasn't sure what. "I guess she saw what had happened to Lassair.” Trennus exhaled. “She wouldn't manifest. But she s
aid that she'd shield me. So, I reached into every circle. . . very carefully, and with Sa. . . my other spirit overlapping me. That gave me a buffer in case the symbols were. . . occupied.”
“Were they?” Minori asked, her voice very quiet.
“Gods, yes. They were. A couple of them were so powerful, Saraid was terrified. I . . . didn’t catch many Names.” Trennus’ hands were shaking now, and he didn’t even realize he’d said Saraid’s Name for a moment, then swore under his breath. Saraid won't thank me for that. But Lassair calls Minori Truthsayer. Which . . . sounds familiar, for some reason, but . . . at the moment, none of that matters. “Kanmi. . . they’ve bound dozens of powerful spirits. Ones at least on par with that efreet Erida summoned back in Judea. And at least one god. Maybe more. I. . . think they’re actually being deliberately bled into the ley-lines.” Trennus rubbed at his face. “There are a couple of buildings there that we couldn’t get into, including a tower near the center of the valley, next to the tourist station. There might be equipment in there.”
There was a moment of silence. Even though they all had the information from the Nahautl incident of five years ago at their disposal, this was on an entirely different scale.
“So that’s what’s. . . empowering the ley-lines.” Minori considered it for a moment. “I don’t understand why. Even if they decided to go regularize their existing patchwork electrical and ley grid entirely onto ley. . . there’s more than enough energy in a properly designed ley-system to run a country. Why bother to do this?”
“We’re missing pieces,” Kanmi said, and picked up the photographs that he and Minori had been poring over before the other pair had arrived. “It’s . . . gods. Four antemeridian in Rome. We’re calling this in, but we need to give it a few hours. I’ll make sure we’re not listened in on, on this end, anyway.” He gave Trennus a piercing look. “Do you think they knew that Lassair’s a spirit?”
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