Broken Devices

by Karen Myers

  “Yes.” Though she wondered what the point was of removing the pain when the odds that any of them were sane after months of the drug were remote.

  “How long do you usually keep a mage under sedchabke?”

  “A day or two,” Chosmod said.

  “So, not a few months.”

  Tun Jeju spoke, “It was this or death. We had no other way to contain them.”

  “Because they had attacked you? Damaged you? Threatened you? What crime had they committed?”

  She took a deep breath to try and rein in her rage. “Perhaps they might have come willingly to you, offered to help. Like I did.”

  “We had no way to train them. We have no trained wizards in Kigali.”

  “So you just imprison them and torture them until they go mad instead.”

  “Or until we could hold this council.” Tun Jeju made no effort at apology.

  She closed her eyes for a moment at this. For the two months that Najud and Munraz had traveled with her from western sarq-Zannib, these… specimens had been suffering in ways she understood all too well.

  “Stop the drug. Leave them alone. Imprisoned if necessary for now, but awake. Let’s find out what can be salvaged.”

  “And if they choose to attack us?”

  “You mean now that you’ve given them a reason to hate you?” Najud hissed at her but she wouldn’t stop. “That’s a chance you’ll have to take. The cells are secure enough.”

  “Will you make yourself responsible for them?” Tun Jeju’s question acted like a bucket of cold water on her fury.

  She spared a moment for the vision of complications this would make in her life, but what choice did she have?

  “I will.”

  Penrys avoided Najud’s eye, certain this was not a task he wanted to accept, and who could blame him. In the company of so many wizards, she thought it prudent to avoid mind-speech with him. At least, that was the excuse she gave herself.

  While the living captives were relocated under Chosmod’s direction to individual and separated cells, she took a lantern from a guard and toured the other rows, the less “exceptional” specimens. There were a double handful of bodies, but she was ashamed to admit that she lost count as she went along.

  Eventually she stood alone in a pool of light looking at the last one, a man, who seemed to share her ethnicity—not tall, not thin, brown-haired, pale-skinned. It had been impossible to be sure without seeing his living face, but she’d marked his resemblance to one of the captive men, and of that one to herself. There’d been one dead woman, too, that she thought was such a candidate.

  There had even been an older woman that looked similar in her coloring to the teenage qahulajti that had been killed in sarq-Zannib.

  The light of two more lanterns approached, bobbing in the hands of the men who carried them—Vylkar and, at last, Najud, with Munraz.

  “They’re done,” Vylkar told her. “Time for us to go back.”

  He made no comment on her overreach of responsibility with Tun Jeju.

  Najud stood quietly and looked at her. He sighed, and then said one simple word, “How?”

  Half the weight she was carrying seem to fall away. Not “why” but “how”—he understood the “why.”

  She flashed a relieved smile at him, then shrugged. “I don’t know. Some sort of school, I guess. I hadn’t worked it out yet.”

  “Down here. In the dark. In their cells.”

  “I suppose so—don’t imagine Tun Jeju’s going to turn them loose anytime soon.”

  “All by yourself?” Vylkar asked.

  “If necessary.”

  Najud shook his head. “Each of them will likely be as strong as you are, and there are five of them.”

  “They don’t know what to do, not yet. If they did, they wouldn’t have been captured.” Or killed. Probably.

  Vylkar looked down at her from his extra foot of height. She always felt short in the company of Ellech men and women. “You were freshly arrived and willing to learn. I had some idea of how strong you were, but you never gave me reason to fear you, and the others… well, they didn’t take it seriously.

  “But these…” he waved negligently at the next row where they had entered. “They’ve been undiscovered for three or more years, doing who knows what, whatever it took to survive. The two you’ve already met, before—they’re dead. You know exactly what can happen.”

  “The Voice was an active threat,” she said, “with a small army and some sort of plan. He had to be stopped and it could only be done by other wizards. I killed him, at the end, you know.”

  “With an hand-axe. Aye, I’ve heard the tale.”

  “But the girl we found in sarq-Zannib… She was just unlucky, and damaged.”

  “And yet she killed hundreds,” Vylkar said. “And you killed her, too.”

  The silent Munraz spoke up, from behind Najud. “It wasn’t Penrys, it was me.” His voice was thick.

  Vylkar turned to stare, and Najud told him, “We had a bikraj on the hunt who wanted her, for… breeding. We will kill a qahulajti in sarq-Zannib and though there was debate about her full responsibility for the deaths that occurred, there was no doubt of the cause. Munraz did the right thing, hard as it was. It lost him his family and clan.”

  “We’re making too much of this,” Penrys said. “Look, if I were imprisoned here, right now, what could I do? I can’t make the guards march in and release me. I can’t hide from the people on the various levels so that I could escape the building. I might be able to shield myself from a search by wizards, using their methods, but I’m still vulnerable to mundane attacks. And so are they.

  “What’s the worst that can happen? They bind together and knock me down. How do they get out of their cells?”

  She felt a twinge of conscience as she spoke. She remembered, all too well, killing Vladzan after he’d given her sedchabke and then tortured her for his own amusement for the hours it took for her to purge the drug from her system, drain all his power, and then stop his heart. If she could do that, so could they. But she could defend herself, and they didn’t know their own strength. She hoped.

  “Not alone.” Najud’s voice had a tone of finality that she recognized. “You will not teach them alone. Besides, they need to meet wizards that aren’t chained, and the only ones around are Tun Jeju’s guests. I doubt the Ndanum will cooperate—I was watching them while you defied Tun Jeju. But I’m here.”

  “And I’m an apprentice, a nal-jarghal like they will be,” Munraz volunteered. “I’ll help.”

  She shook her head helplessly. It was one thing to take a risk herself, but something else entirely to involve them.

  Vylkar spoke up. “I think the Rasesni might contribute, too. They have a long tradition of training mages in their temple system.”

  He smiled down at her. “You always wanted to teach, when you were in Ellech. Here’s your first class.”

  Najud added, “Tun Jeju spoke of finding ordinary people in Kigali, untrained wizards. They need teaching, too.”

  Vylkar looked at him. “A school for wizards, in Yenit Ping?”

  Najud shrugged. “Why not? They’re going to need it, now that they’ve recognized they have wizards among their people, like other nations.”

  “How will they find them?” Penrys asked. “Can’t see them sending out a message throughout the land that says ‘If you hear voices in your head, we want you.’ And how do we keep the locals from killing them out of fear? How many bodies are here? How many chains?”

  She shook her head. “The whole culture has to change. That can’t be done by one person.”

  Vylkar cocked an eyebrow at her. “Still impatient, I see. Tun Jeju has a plan. He must have, or he wouldn’t have invited all these wizards. Let’s go find out what it is.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Najud studied the Ellech party at their table, while they waited for Tun Jeju to resume the meeting. He’d wondered what Penrys’s sponsor was like, from her brief me
ntions of him.

  The relationship struck him as mildly affectionate, more like a distant uncle than a father. Vylkar had found her, when she appeared more than three years ago, and steered her into a suitable occupation at the Collegium of Wizards at Tavnastok, but Najud didn’t sense any particular partnership between them. All the work she’d done on devices and research was on her own. Must’ve been lonely, surrounded by wizards, and not quite part of them, obscure and little regarded, except for the respect accorded to her power that had earned her the ancient title of “adept” before they left her to conduct her own experiments alone.

  Lonely, perhaps, but lucky. Very lucky, considering what might have happened to her. None of those chained wizards several levels beneath them had been as lucky.

  He caught his wife’s puzzled glance and patted her hand, below the level of the table. Time enough to tell her his thoughts later, in a safer, more private place.

  Tun Jeju cleared his throat, and the small conversations around the tables subsided.

  “It’s taken us more than four months to assemble all of you together in this room, plus two months before that when we began trying to discover just what might be hiding in plain sight in our empire.

  “We have a mandate from the emperor to pursue this, but I’ll confess that we’re not sure how to do it. We would value your suggestions.”

  “Stop killing them,” Penrys said. “That would be a good start.”

  Najud winced.

  Her hand went up before the notju could defend himself. “I say that seriously, not in anger. I understand how that… slaughter you showed us might have happened, but you’re better off if they can be persuaded to come to you willingly.

  She shifted forward in her seat. “You have ordinary wizards out there,” she said, waving her hand vaguely to the west. “And these chained ones. Both should be an asset to your nation. The chained ones are new, probably unskilled—a wizard learns skills partly from others, which is why we’re good with languages—but where are the wizards these chained ones could learn from? The Voice may have met Rasesni mages, but the girl we found in sarq-Zannib met no one, and was less skilled because of it.”

  She shook her head. “I’m more worried about the ordinary wizards that have probably been living within your people for generations. Have they gone all their lives never knowing? Never meeting each other and discovering they could mind-speak? I think that unlikely. Don’t you?”

  After pausing a moment to wait for a comment, she went on. “I would expect there to be communities of wizards, doing what they could to study and teach, hiding their work from official notice. After all, if you don’t think wizards exist, why would you look for them?”

  Najud watched Tun Jeju who listened to her without changing his polite attentive expression. The rest of his staff was less successful concealing their uneasiness.

  “So,” she said, “where can they hide? In the temples? As scholars? In particular professions, like healers? You know your people far better that I do, notju-chi—where would they be? They’re not like these chained ones, scattered and lost and three years old. They’d have been able to move or congregate.”

  “Once you’ve found them, you have to persuade them to come out of hiding. If you want wizards now, after all this time, you have to make it safe for them. Recruit them. Have them find the others, and start educating them. Make them part of your nation, valuable people. You’re going to need them, because these chained wizards are a different matter altogether.”

  Tun Jeju finally interposed some questions. “How many could there be?”

  Penrys snorted. “Najud, how many Zannib are bikrajab?”

  “Perhaps one in a hundred or two,” he replied.

  “Mpeowake, how many are wizards, sanctioned or otherwise, in Ndant?” Penrys asked.

  “That sounds about right.”

  “Vylkar?”

  He pursed his lips. “Not quite so many. If half of them come to the Collegium at some point in their lives… One in four hundred would be my first estimate.”

  Penrys had only to look at Chosmod. “One in two hundred in Dzongphan or on the plains, fewer in the high hills,” he said.

  “How many people are there in Kigali, notju-chi? Divide by two hundred for an approximation.” Penrys clearly relished the startled realization on Tun Jeju’s face.

  “It’s like saying, how many are musicians, or quick with numbers, or fast on their feet. It’s a family trait, like any other.”

  Vylkar glowered briefly at Penrys before interceding. “It’s not likely to be that bad, notju-chi. Not everyone who has a turn for drawing becomes an artist. Just because they have a skill doesn’t mean they want to develop it. Only half the wizards in Ellech work in the profession, doing research or teaching others.”

  Penrys looked at Tun Jeju unrepentant. “So divide that first number you thought of by two or three. Or ten. Feel any better?”

  Najud kicked her, under the table.

  She took a breath. “Look, I’m sorry to be abrasive about this, but it’s going to take big actions to change this situation, and years. Many years. You must have thousands of people out there who’ve been hiding what they are all their lives. You’ll have to make them trust you, and you’ll have to make it worthwhile for them to expose themselves. You’ll have to make the rest of the people trust them, unless you want a disaster like the one below ground here.”

  “Imperial decree,” Tun Jeju said. “We thought we could arrange an imperial decree of welcome to our wizards and a blanket pardon for any past… irregularities in their actions to preserve their own safety.”

  Penrys nodded. “That’s a good start. You’ll want to recruit some yourself, so you’ll know what to expect.” She paused for effect. “Think what good spies they’d make.”

  Najud admired her deadpan expression while struggling to suppress a snort. That’s what the two of them had been suspected of, by Tun Jeju, just a few months ago.

  Tun Jeju ignored the gibe and spoke to Vylkar. “Ndant and Zannib train wizards by apprenticeship. The Rasesni, by recruitment into the temple schools. How is it done in Ellech?”

  “We have a diverse system, notju-chi. Apprenticeship for many, but also regional schools, and the national research academy, for students and permanent scholars. From what I know of Kigali, I think that might suit your needs as a structure.”

  “I’ll speak more with you about this.” Tun Jeju turned his attention back to Penrys. “And the chained wizards?”

  “On the one hand, they’re wizards like the others and need to be trained. That’s fundamental. They’re stronger, and some of them may be dangerous. But you’ve got to stop killing them just because they exist.”

  She took a breath and looked around the tables at the other foreign guests. “All of you have reported missing wizards, except us, for sarq-Zannib, and we just don’t know. Have any of your missing wizards re-appeared in chains?”

  Mpeowake shook her head. “We haven’t checked yet. We need the lists and descriptions of… all of that.” She waved her hand delicately to the levels below them.

  In response to a gesture from Tun Jeju, one of his men laid a roll of papyrus sheets tied with a red ribbon in front of the leader of each party.

  As he moved around the tables, Tun Jeju said, “This is all the information we have about each… person below. Can you read Kigali characters?”

  At least one head nodded in each group.

  “Where are they coming from? Who’s making them?” Penrys’s words grated out between her teeth. “Did it only happen once, more than three years ago, or have there been others, before or since? Do we know all the nations they belong to?

  “And most importantly, why? What’s the point? What were we… they before? Are some of them your missing wizards? Were all of them wizards before they were chained?”

  Najud watched her face take on an analytical look that he recognized. “And why are they different from each other? What are all the pos
sibilities? There were surprises down there for me.”

  Tun Jeju said, “You’ll begin your investigations of that, and whatever training you deem appropriate, tomorrow morning. It will take that long for the drug to wear off, I’m told.”

  “They’ll need food, clothing…”

  “Tell Gen Jongto here what you need, and he’ll provide it. You are not to move them from that level nor let them travel beyond the entrance—I hold you responsible for them, and the guards have their orders.”

  She nodded. “It’s a start. Let’s find out how many of them are still sane.”

  In the end, all the tasks were distributed. The Ndant delegation would focus on trying to identify their own among the chained wizards, especially the living one among the five.

  The two Rasesni lingered with Tun Jeju’s team and the three men from Ellech to consider organization and infrastructure for identifying and training the assumed crypto-wizards.

  Penrys was put in charge of everything to do with the chained wizards, both the dead and the living, with the resources of Imperial Security to draw upon, and she was still shaking her head at the magnitude of the task when she left at the end of the day with her husband and their apprentice. Zep Pangwit was their guide out of the building, sour-faced with the prospect of more time spent with foreigners.

  They stopped outside the building when they reached street level and debated their next steps. She’d asked Najud if he wanted to stay with the group organizing the education of the wizards, and he’d shaken his head. “Our methods are different, and suitable for the Zannib, if not Kigali. I’m interested in what they’ll come up with, but I don’t need to be there.”

  “But you liked organizing the Rasesni mages in Gonglik.”

  “They were already wizards—this was advanced work for them. What they’re working on up there…” He cocked his head back at the building. “That’s elementary school. The wizards they find might surprise them, of course—maybe they’re not all that untrained. Maybe they’ve already got hidden schools. They won’t know until they start making themselves known.”