The Nullification Engine (The Alchemancer: Book Two)

by Scott Marlowe

  "I needed a break. If Cyrus really did come up with a code to turn the machine off, I'm not any closer to finding it. I've actually spent most of the day working on something else which I think— Oh! I meant to ask how you are feeling." He fumbled at his belt. "Let me perform a scan to determine if—"

  Serena batted his hand down before he'd even placed it on his encorder. She moved in close, whispering, "What are you doing? Don't take that out here."

  Her sudden action caught the attention of a few of the nearby gentry, who cast curious looks her way. She flashed them a quick smile before returning her attention to Aaron.

  "You'll embarrass both of us."

  "Sorry if I'm concerned. It's not like you care what these people think."

  "You're right, I don't care what these people think, and thank you for being concerned, but..."

  Aaron followed the direction of her gaze to her mother.

  "Did something happen?"

  "No. Yes. She found out I went to retrieve the Inferno."

  "Hmm. I think everyone knows about that."

  Even now, Aaron saw people staring their way, whispering. He was fairly certain they were not talking about him.

  "She also knows I went to visit Persimmius, though I've no idea how she found out. I swear, the woman must have spies working for her. In any case, my point about you and your scans is that I don't need any more talk getting back to my mother right now."

  Aaron agreed. But he'd his scan from moments earlier, which he told Serena about now. "Notice how sluggish everyone seems. Hardly anyone is dancing because they probably don't have the energy for it. Which is why I wanted to know how you felt. I'm...concerned."

  Serena sighed. "I know you are. I feel..." She thought about it for a moment. "I feel all right, actually. Better than before anyway."

  "Hmm. I wonder why." Aaron almost reached for his encorder again, but thought better of it when he saw the glare Serena leveled at him. Encorder or not, he still considered the possibilities. The engine was almost fully charged now, so the energy collection process had lessened while the mixture inside the core went into a final amalgamation stage. If the engine no longer drew as much elemental energy as before, then it stood to reason it wasn't drawing as much from other sources, either. Still, everyone inside the ballroom felt whatever residual drain remained. It made him wonder what he was doing standing here. The engine was entering its final phase, which meant he was almost out of time to stop it.

  "I know that look," Serena said.

  "What look?"

  "The one that says 'I need to get back to work.' You said you needed a break, didn't you? Well, you're taking one. You need to loosen up. Have a drink. Take a turn around the dance floor."

  "I'll take the drink, but I don't think I want to take any turns around—"

  "That's an excellent idea, now that I think about. You think you would have asked me already, but apparently I'm going to have to take all the first steps in this relationship."

  "What relationship? I didn't think we had—"

  "Come on, Aaron." She took his hand and, despite his resistance, he found himself dragged along with her. He thought it odd she'd such an easy time of it until he realized the source of her sudden strength.

  "Hey! That's not fair!"

  She shrugged, her magic not lessening in the slightest as she led him across the dance floor where they dodged an errant couple or two before settling in front of the orchestra. Serena waited until the musicians finished playing their current ballad before drawing the attention of the maestro to her.

  "Sir, my friend and I would like to ask if you can provide us a recommendation. Preferably something soothing, yet intimate."

  "I don't think intimate is such a good— Ow!"

  "This is our first dance together and we'd like it to be memorable."

  The maestro smiled. "Might I suggest the Love Sonnet of Peridontius? Or perhaps Hew's Hymn to the Ravant? Both are elegant, yet provide a pace most couples find conducive to, ahem, close conversation."

  Serena's face took on a look of intense thoughtfulness. "I don't know." She put her hand to her chin. "What do you think, Aaron? Do either of those sound appealing?"

  Aaron shook his head and shrugged. "I'd have to know something about them to answer that. I've never even heard of any symphonies. Well, that's not entirely true. I do know of one, but I doubt it's suitable for, ah, what you said." On a whim, he suggested it to the maestro anyway. "Do you know something called the Excelsior Pattern by Cyrus Melkor?"

  His look back at the other musicians indicated he clearly did not.

  The oldest musician amongst the troupe stood up with his large, stringed instrument balanced before him and asked, "Perhaps the young sire refers to C. Melka's Excelsia? It is a very old ballad. I'd venture few musicians have heard of it, let alone played it. I doubt very much these modern instruments would do it justice, but we certainly can try if it is agreeable to the gentleman and the lady?" He bowed, tilting his head as he looked at them expectantly.

  It sounded fine to Aaron, though Serena pointed out one potential problem.

  "I'm afraid I've never heard of the Excelsia, and since I'm sure I'll be the one leading, how am I to dance to it?"

  The man straightened. "The movements are very much the same as some other, more well-known symphonies." He rattled off the names of several. "The movements for those were actually adopted from the Excelsia. In fact, if you like, we would be happy to play one of those."

  "Now those names sound familiar," Serena said. "I think if one of those fits the bill, then it'll do just fine."

  "No," Aaron said. All eyes turned to him. "I think you should play the Excelsia." Aaron looked from the musicians to Serena and back again. "Please?"

  "Very well," the older musician said, as he gestured at his fellows to lean in for a brief conference to coordinate their play.

  Aaron ignored Serena's questioning stare as he waited for them to begin. He'd the inkling of a suspicion, but it seemed too good to be true. As they began to play, Aaron found the music surprisingly pleasant. He wasn't sure what he had been expecting, but certainly nothing so melodious or in harmony. He lowered his head, focusing on the sound of the musicians and not their movements.

  "Aaron, what—?"

  "Shh!" Aaron said. He blocked out everything else except the tones. Music was nothing more than mathematics, and while he'd not studied the subject specifically, he knew frequency harmonics better than anyone. It came down to assigning values to the different tones and seeing if a pattern emerged. Serena realized this too, for a quick glance showed her nodding in time with the rhythm. Harmonics had certain applications in sorcery as well, and so he considered her analysis as important as his. After a minute, he realized Cyrus had not put the code into the music. He said as much to Serena, with more than a hint of disappointment in his voice.

  "It was a stretch, anyway," he said, "and maybe too much to ask."

  Serena shook off her own disappointment and extended her hand to him. "Shall we dance?"

  Though not in the mood, Aaron took her hand in his and allowed her to take him to the center of the dance floor with no magic involved this time. Though sparse with revelers, this new tune did attract some others, including Emily, who'd paired up with a tall, handsome boy. Each couple seemed to recognize enough of the ballad to fit the appropriate style of dance to it. Serena lifted her arms, waiting for Aaron to take her hands in his. Aaron, who studied the foot movement of the other couples, didn't notice until she slapped him on the arm.

  "Don't worry about that right now," Serena said, taking his hands in hers as she positioned herself a foot from him with one of his hands joined with hers and the other placed on her shoulder. "Let me lead. No, don't look down. Look at me. Look into my eyes if you need something to focus on."

  Aaron didn't have any problem with that.

  "Now, back, and swivel," she said, leading him in the prescribed movement. From that point, she issued additional ins
tructions, which he followed, though he found it hard to focus on her voice when every bit of his attention was wrapped up in the depths of her eyes. It was inevitable he stepped on her toes. The first time wasn't so bad. But the second elicited a sharp cry of pain from her.

  "Sorry!"

  "It's all right," she said, still wincing. "You need to focus more. You look like you're in a daze."

  "I'm just a little tired."

  "Humph. I doubt that."

  They started over. Back, swivel, half-step right, round quarter turn, forward two steps, round again, then once more back. Aaron expected the same pattern again, but instead the sequence changed. Forward, half-step left, half turn, back a step, round three quarters, then back. Aaron was getting dizzy. The next sequence was different still, with two additional steps and a full turn which finally undid Aaron's patience for dancing, something he hadn't really wanted to do in the first place.

  "This is utter chaos!" he said, dropping Serena's hand and pulling his other from her shoulder.

  Serena giggled. "It really isn't, though I used to think so, too."

  "How do you even know this?"

  Serena answered in a voice very much like her mother's stern tone. "'Music and dance are first and foremost when it comes to a lady's education.' That's what my mother used to tell me, anyway. She made sure I had the primers, though I slipped off into my studies of magic often enough I never got very far with either subject. Don't worry if you're not getting it right away. This dance is considered one of the more difficult ones. It's one of the very oldest too. Probably from the era of the Excelsia. You would think someone would have simplified it, but these traditional dances never change. I guess that's why they're traditional."

  Aaron considered that. "Who thought it up?"

  Serena shrugged. "No one knows. It remains unaccredited."

  Aaron considered some more. "Could Melkor have?"

  It was Serena's turn to think. "I suppose so."

  Aaron went over the steps in his mind. They remained too unfamiliar, though. He needed to run through them again. He said as much to Serena.

  "Oh, but the music is winding down," she said.

  Aaron lifted a finger. "Wait here." He ran to the symphony and, once he had the maestro's attention, asked him to play the ballad once more. The maestro frowned at the request.

  "Sir, it is unusual to play the same concerto more than once in an evening. Certainly it is unheard of to play it immediately after it has just been performed."

  Aaron, realizing he hadn't Serena's smile to win the man over, was considering how best to convince him when Serena appeared next to him. She threw him a glance which said she had the matter in hand. She did, too. In moments, the musicians were starting up the Excelsia once more. People who were actually paying attention did exchange glances, but no one was concerned enough about the social faux pas to do anything about it. Most of the couples who hadn't wandered from the dance floor actually took up the dance once more, and there were even some additional arrivals.

  "Take me through it verbally first," Aaron said once they'd taken a position on the floor again. Serena tried, but she faltered halfway through. Her feet knew the moves best, and so they went about performing the steps straightaway. Aaron correlated each to its numeric value. Some, like when they took two steps back, equated to whole numbers. A half-turn, however, was a figure in degrees. "It's a matter of converting the values into a common system," he said, more to himself than to Serena. "The engine's input keys are octal."

  "Base-8," Serena said.

  Aaron nodded. Two was two, but a half-turn representing 180 degrees was 264 in a base-8 numeric system. Further, a quarter turn equated to 132 and a step back, 1. No, not 1, Aaron thought. An inversion, so -1.

  They completed the first sequence, oblivious to the laughter and conversation around them. Serena provided the numbers in time with their movement. Aaron did the conversions and maintained their order, which was such a trivial task for him he found his mind wandering over the purpose of the sequence as well as the Nullification Engine itself, which must stand as one of the grandest displays of magic and science ever conceived. Too bad a city with tens of thousands of people had risen up around it, else he would have let the machine run to completion, studying it every step of the way. The opportunity to truly understand its design and function would have been unparalleled. But there were boundaries, lines one did not cross. Aaron wasn't about to let everyone in Brighton die just to satisfy science's need for progress. Such progress had started five hundred years ago with the elementalists, who must have been amongst the first scientists, Aaron now realized. He wondered if something deeper had been going on when the druids had undertaken their mission to hunt them down and slay them. Were the druids truly protecting the earth? Or were they trying to hold back the tide of progress and protect their traditional way of life? Either way, their actions had extinguished the burgeoning flame of technology, thereby stalling its natural evolution for several hundreds of years. Yet, here they were now, rekindling that flame and pushing boundaries anew, with no one to stop them this time.

  Aaron halted his musings as Serena led them through the last of the sequence. She had her eyes closed, her lips mouthing the numbers, so she did not see his smile as he realized they had it. Those last numbers gave them the code to deactivate the machine. Before he realized what he was doing, Aaron planted his lips firmly upon hers. She didn't pull away, nor did she seem to mind. When he did finally disengage, she slowly opened her eyes.

  "Why did you do that?" she asked.

  "I know Melkor's code. I know how to stop the reaction."

  "Is that the only reason?"

  No, it wasn't. "Because I wanted to."

  She leaned into him, resting her face against his chest.

  Neither of them said anything more as the Excelsia ended. The room didn't fall into silence, though, as the greeting trumpet sounded once more. The announcement of the latest guest followed.

  "May I present Lord Persimmius Falconian of Brighton. Sorcerer, Mysteriarch, and..."

  Serena looked up. Aaron met her stare for one moment before she looked in the direction of the entry. But too many people stood in the way. The murmur of conversation hanging over the room subsided very little as few recognized or heard the name. But the first few glances thrown toward the great doors and the whispers accompanying them were infectious as the pallor of silence swept over the crowd at an ever-growing pace. The herald's final announcement brought an immediate hush to any sounds remaining.

  "And Pyromancer."

  Serena's grip on Aaron's hand tightened.

  "What's wrong?" Aaron asked.

  She just shook her head and, with his hand in hers, moved to find a better view of the entrance. Aaron went along with her until the red flash of his encorder at his belt stopped them both.

  "What does it mean?" Serena asked.

  Aaron reviewed the reading twice before answering. "The machine is activating. But it shouldn't. It's not ready yet." He shook his head, looking at the encorder again. "I have to get down there."

  "Go," Serena said.

  "Are you sure?"

  "Yes, nothing I can't handle. Use one of the side doors when you leave."

  Aaron nodded, releasing her hand. He started to go, but then came back and, leaning in, kissed her on the cheek. "Be careful."

  Serena smiled, as if trying to make light of the situation. The expression faded and turned grave far too quickly. "You be careful too."

  Aaron slipped through the crowd. All the while, the numbers of Melkor's aversion sequence cycled over and over in his mind.

  24. Revenge

  LIKE A TRIUMPHANT KING RETURNING from battle, Persimmius walked into the ballroom with arms raised and face beaming. At his approach, the crowd parted, allowing him to walk all the way to the dance floor's center before he stopped. He spun around, taking in the myriad expressions gaping or staring at him.

  "Well," Persimmius said. "By the look
s on your faces, I can tell you all remember me. Good! I was worried my name no longer carried any weight in this miserable, gods-forsaken city."

  Dressed in a fine white suit, with plush purple tie, frilled cuffs, and a gold sash, his hair was trimmed, neat, and combed back, and his goatee oiled and pointed just like of old.

  A rumbling started in the crowd, coming from the direction of the throne. The people closest to the pyromancer parted and out popped Lord Chamberlain Marcel.

  "What is the meaning of this?" he said, drawing himself up as his gaze narrowed at the wizard. "Why are you here, Persimmius?"

  Persimmius bowed, low and long. "It is good to see you too, Lord Chamberlain. I wonder... Where is Lord Phillip? I so very much want the earl in attendance for this. I would have, of course, preferred Lord Nicholas, but his son will do. Where is the young earl?"

  "Lord Phillip is on his way, but you'll have been thrown out long before his arrival. Guards!"

  Palace guards in formal dress were in attendance inside the ballroom as well as out. They'd maintained their stations up until now, but came running as the lord chamberlain called for them. Their arrival was delayed as guests struggled to get out of their way.

  "I'll have you removed and—"

  Persimmius lifted a finger and the lord chamberlain's words degraded into a choking slur.

  "That's better," Persimmius said. "You! Guards! No need to come any closer. In another minute you're going to have your hands full standing right where you are. In fact, you should probably turn about and make ready."

  The pyromancer's words confused them enough that they stopped.

  "Now, to business, for we're on a tight clock, my friends. The lord chamberlain has asked a question and I shall answer it. He asks why I am here. In short, I have come to exact my revenge upon each and every one of you." From his white coat, Persimmius took out a small, flat metal box, with brass keys and dials upon its face. He held it up for all to see. "This, my friends, is a remote detonator. Observe!" He pressed one of the buttons. At first, nothing happened. Then, everyone in the room heard the distant, faraway sound.