Etherwalker

by Cameron Dayton

  “My line is as guilty as any other. My father’s father—the one who wrote the law banning your Nahuati blades—he built the walls around Babel. He sealed off the tunnels. He began the deliberate ‘cleansing’ of this tower, an act I have spent my life trying to correct.

  “So to answer your question, Enoch, my alchemists are the few men and women bright and daring enough to open the ancient books I have been able to save. They are the few willing to risk the fires of an Eighth Hunt, the fearful sparks of which are simmering in the streets above us even now. They are the ones who have helped me rebuild the network of Units you may have seen connected throughout Babel. And they are the ones who are helping me bring my tower back to life.”

  King Nyraud turned to Enoch and waved his Huntsmen to move on down the tunnel. When they were out of earshot, the king leaned close to Enoch. His dark eyes were suddenly ferocious. Enoch took a step back, and Mesha tightened her grip at his shoulder.

  Is this the infamous Hunter’s Gaze that Old Noach talked about? The look that could freeze a manticore to the ground?

  “Will you help me restore Babel to glory, Enoch? Will you help me light the first torch to turn back this Dark Age?”

  Enoch didn’t know what to say. He did feel as though his feet were stuck to the floor. Is this what he was meant to do? Master Gershom’s dying words came to his mind.

  “I . . . I have to go north, Milord. I have to go to Tenocht.”

  Rather than souring at this news, Nyraud’s expression brightened. The king raised his hands in the air.

  “Well, of course! Any Pensanden would have to go to Tenocht when he reached the apex of his power. It is the greatest of the Old Cities, the key to opening up all that has been closed.

  “Enoch, all I am asking is for you to stay with me until you reach that apex. Allow me to help you, to train you, until you come into your abilities. And then I swear I will personally carry you to Tenocht on my shoulders!”

  The king was so animated, his face so lively, that Enoch had to laugh.

  He is excited about this—and the excitement is infectious. No wonder his Huntsmen are so loyal to their king. He lets them feel connected to his ambitions, shares the vision he desires so ferociously that they can’t help but want it, too.

  This is leadership.

  “There is one more thing I wanted to ask you, Enoch. Something I thought could wait until later . . . but now is a better time than anything I could have planned.”

  “I am at your service, King Nyraud.”

  “Yes, well, I was hoping you would be willing to be something more.”

  Enoch didn’t understand. He furrowed his brow.

  “Milord?”

  “I want you to be my son, Enoch. You are an orphan, correct? You haven’t been overly talkative concerning your past, but I have been able to put some clues together. I am the Hunter King, you know?”

  He knows I’m a shepherd.

  Nyraud raised an eyebrow. He took Enoch’s silence as a cue to continue.

  “You are obviously of royal descent.”

  Oh. Oh no. Master Gershom hinted at this. I haven’t . . . I couldn’t dare to hope. How did the king track me beyond Midian?

  “Your Pensanden blood, however, could be traced through hundreds of possible lines—lines which have thinned through the centuries but resisted extinction, resisted the finality of the Hunt. Time and time again the Serpent has sent the coldmen, has had the world cleared of your kind. And time and time again, your people resurface and try to retake their thrones, to resume control of things. It is in your very bones, the desire to rule. This is what scared people, almost more than your breaking of the world. This is what fueled the Sixth Hunt. And much of the Seventh.

  “We thought those lines were finally severed in the Seventh Hunt. It came to a close around the time you were born, Enoch, as the last three families with legitimate claim to Pensanden lineage were burned from Tenocht.”

  Mesha shifted on Enoch’s shoulders. She sensed his tension.

  “No, none of those families left record of your birth. Obviously. We wouldn’t be speaking now, would we?”

  Enoch nodded mutely. He had learned more about his past in the last few minutes than in an entire sixteen years of patient yearning.

  Well, my possible past, at least.

  The king continued.

  “And once again, the Pensanden have proven their tenacity. Your people are more resilient than trolls, Enoch—and I mean no offense by that. But this time it will be different. Providence has brought you here, to the one kingdom in this crude and forgotten half of the world that could support an etherwalker Prince—support and raise him hidden from the Serpent’s eye. Protect him. Perhaps provide him with a man he would be willing to call father . . .”

  King Nyraud looked straight into Enoch’s eyes. Enoch knew that the king wanted this, needed this, to be able to achieve his goal. But the king wasn’t going to force it upon him, even though he could. He would let Enoch decide.

  To choose whether I want to be a prince or go to a strange and hostile city somewhere in the north all by myself.

  I’m sorry, Master Gershom.

  “I would be honored to be your son, Milord. Honored to help you bring the tower back to life. And honored to carry this ‘torch of knowledge’ at your side.”

  The king smiled, and there was a brightness in his eyes that Enoch had never seen before. He leaned down and embraced the boy firmly. Enoch didn’t know how to respond—how does one respond to his new father?

  My father. Unbelievable.

  The king stepped back and crossed his arms.

  “Well, my son. Shall we start your training?”

  Unbelievable!

  * * * *

  The Core Unit was unlike anything Enoch had ever seen before—a breed apart from the little device Master Gershom had smuggled down from Tenocht.

  The monitor alone filled an entire half of this strange, circular room that King Nyraud had brought him to. It swam with what the king called “interim static,” a fascinating sea of white sparks and shadow. Black cables as thick as a ram’s foreleg ran from floor to ceiling behind the monitor and all along the circumference of the room. Small colored lights could be seen flashing on and off in machinery hidden behind the cables. It felt like being suspended in the night sky.

  “The actual Unit itself is relatively small,” said the king, crossing the room. “A panel, almost the size of your finger, rooted in the floor underneath the monitor. The rest of this . . . this heavy gear is for maintenance and security—protective hardware to insure that the information on this machine survives whatever hardships space travel would subject the Ark to.

  “It is this same gear which will allow you to hone your abilities without alerting the Serpent. He will not be able to track you here.”

  Enoch crossed his hands and felt the scars on each wrist.

  Will it hide me from the face that marked me? From Ketzel? Winged God or no, I don’t think I want to see that again.

  And then an exciting thought occurred to him.

  Hey, I’m Pensanden. I can see just how secure this Core Unit is, see what all of this “protective hardware” really does.

  “May I have a second, King Nyraud?”

  The king looked about to ask Enoch what he meant but caught himself.

  “Of course. You want to see if my confidence in the security of this Unit is well-founded. Are you sure you’ll be able to understand this type of tek? We haven’t even begun your lessons on circuitry and basic coding.”

  “I’ve never been trained in any of this, Milord, but I was able to detonate the mechanized bow of a coldman. I paralyzed a Silverwitch with a thought. A lot of what I do is based on instinct, on feelings I don’t have words for. I’d like to explore this Unit with my powers. I’d like to explore this room if I could. It would make me feel more confident to start training here.”

  The king had opened his mouth when Enoch mentioned the coldman. He ha
d shut it again with an audible click when Enoch mentioned the Silverwitch. King Nyraud decided to hold his comments, however, shrugging and putting his hands behind his back.

  “Proceed, Enoch.”

  “Thank you, Milord. Thank you, Father.”

  Enoch reached up to give Mesha a reassuring pat, then closed his eyes and paused. He sent his mind past the dark cables and shadowed machines, out into the bright complexity inside and through them. He gasped.

  A Pensanden built this!

  The lines of power, the swirling motes, they were all there in the patterns he had become familiar with these past few weeks living in the Ark. This entire tower was wired in a fashion both ordered and pragmatic, the patterns of any one room practically identical to those of the next. Enoch had quickly grown bored following the electricity from one disconnected light fixture to another. Maybe the Pensanden had created the tools to build the Ark, but somebody else had put it together. But the way these lines were arranged—the way they were orchestrated! Enoch wasn’t educated in much beyond swordplay and shepherding, but he recognized true art when he saw it. This was beauty, and a beauty that only he could see. It felt sacred.

  Why does it feel so much like the beauty I saw in the Alaphim?

  Every element of this room worked in harmony with the elements around it. One of the most simple of these harmonies dealt with the temperature of the room, something Enoch had remarked on when they had first stepped out of the bitter cold tunnel. Seeing the choreographed movement of heat against cold, fiery motes dancing against their somber brethren, made his heart race. It was beautiful.

  The warm cables that ran behind the monitor and carried power to the entire room were woven around steel braces, sinking heat harmlessly into the metal before they got too hot. Those braces continued under the floor, where they branched out like budding ferns. The heat gathered from the cables now dissipated into the air, warming the room to a comfortable temperature even this close to the leaking coolant. Delicate sensors spaced evenly throughout the room tasted the air and adjusted the weave of cable to steel until the temperature was just right.

  And this was only the simplest of the functions.

  I could spend my entire life here.

  This thought brought Enoch back to the reality of his situation—this combined with the surety that becoming lost in tek was probably a true danger to his kind. He pulled his mind back from the intricacy of the room and tried to observe its larger, more obvious functions. Many of them were immediately clear.

  The Core Unit could monitor every facet of the Ark. It had little eyes and ears embedded in the flesh, skin, and bones of the tower.

  The Core Unit could control the mechanized elements of the Ark. Many of them were now disconnected, lost, or defunct. But not all of them. Enoch saw controls for every light, elevator, fan, and hidden doorway in the king’s estate.

  And the Core Unit could control the Ark once it began its journey to the stars. This was mostly guesswork on Enoch’s part, but what other purpose could these controls for speed and trajectory serve?

  There was so much here. Years of complexity. Odd mysteries that he could pursue endlessly—strange things like the vibrant lines of power which were hidden in the girders running all the way to the top of the tower.

  Didn’t the king say that area was inaccessible? Something is using power up there in the clouds. A lot of it.

  Enoch stored that mystery away to question the king about later. He had so many questions! What was the purpose of these giant rooms filled with water? Or this one lined with electrical coffins? How did the generator tucked into the belly of the Ark produce such an endless supply of energy? It seemed to have something to do with the lines it drew from the Ark’s sun-warmed skin. Could electricity be pulled from the air?

  Careful. I almost lost myself again. I need to pull back. Remember why I’m here.

  Drawing his focus, he began testing what King Nyraud had called the “heavy gear”—the thick cables which wound around the exterior of the room like the reeds of a basket. They were a sturdy combination of dense metal and another material, which was somehow both porous and crystalline. Like the ceramic in a dish.

  A slow electronic pulse throbbed through the cables in a random pattern of long and short beats.

  How does this protect the Unit? How will it protect me?

  Enoch pulled his mind back from the cables and into the surrounding spaces. The buzz and hum of the energy moving around the room was suddenly loud to his Pensanden senses. He moved back into the bosom of the cables, and the hum was gone.

  Ok, it seems like the material of the cables muffles interference from the outside. But what is the purpose of the pulse?

  Again, he pulled back from the cables. The ambient noise increased again, a jumble made more chaotic by the perfectly random pulsing.

  Chaotic. There is something to that.

  Enoch contracted his senses back into the cables, but this time he continued until he was inside the wiring of the rooms. Again, he had to smile at the artistry of these patterns.

  Patterns hidden to the outside by “perfectly random pulsing.” This is what hides me from any watchers. The interruption of my own patterns.

  It suddenly dawned on Enoch how the coldmen had known to find him in Midian. How that starlit face had spoken to him through the Unit.

  A Pensanden gives off a pattern, just like a Unit. Just like the one I saw inside the Silverwitch. This pattern must be amplified, broadcast whenever I use my abilities to communicate with a device as complex as a Unit. Even when I’m not using my powers!

  Enoch was suddenly glad he hadn’t used any of the Units he had seen in Babel.

  Rictus was right. The Serpent, or whoever it is that controls the blackspawn, must have ears constantly listening for that pattern. Listening for me.

  Ketzel does, too.

  Neither thought was very comforting. Enoch, however, felt like this Core Unit would be safe for him to use.

  It was, after all, built by a Pensanden.

  He pushed his mind back into the tek around him, this time searching for the Unit itself. Just as the king had said, it was under the floor. The lines of power woven through this little machine were infinitely complex. Unraveling this would take even more time, and King Nyraud had been patient while he searched. So Enoch retracted his mind from the room and opened his eyes. The king was still standing with his arms behind his back. Mesha had fallen asleep.

  “It seems safe, Milord. I’m ready to proceed.”

  The king looked up and nodded. A long moment passed. Enoch realized that the king was waiting for him to initiate the Core Unit.

  Maybe he has a little too much confidence in my abilities.

  “There aren’t any keys attached, Milord. I’m not familiar with this type of machine. How do I direct the Unit?”

  King Nyraud responded by stepping up to the monitor and placing his hand against the smooth surface. The static immediately coalesced into pure blackness. A thin line traced around the king’s hand and then flowed into words on the screen. Nyraud stepped away from the monitor with a flourish.

  Enoch smiled—now he recognized this.

  ::What shall we do today?

  The air in front of Enoch shimmered and glowed. Suddenly there was a row of keys floating at his waist.

  Keys made of light! This explains the system of projection bulbs and lenses I noticed in the ceiling. The Unit uses its eyes to read my finger movements and translates them into letters.

  “You can use those,” said the king, obviously enjoying Enoch’s amazement, “or you can speak to the Unit directly.”

  Speak?

  Why not? A Unit spoke to me once.

  Enoch leaned forward and smiled.

  “Teach me to be a Pensanden.”

  The screen went black and then flashed to life, the entire surface suddenly filled with tiny letters of bright white text. Enoch squinted—there had to be thousands of topics. And each topic appeared
to be followed by hundreds of sub-topics. This was going to take years.

  A larger message in friendly yellow script appeared in front of the imposing data.

  ::Where would you like to begin?

  Okay, let’s just take this one little bit at a time.

  “How about my powers? Why is it that I can see these tiny moving parts, these lines of energy, inside of mechanical objects? How is it that I can move them without using my hands?”

  The text began to move on the screen, gradually increasing in size. It felt like diving into a pond of letters, with the outermost text spilling off the edges. Finally the screen had settled on a reasonable block of text that could be comfortably read from where Enoch was standing.

  ::Elementary Physics.

  King Nyraud chuckled and stepped forward. He put a hand on Enoch’s shoulder.

  “I think that I’m going to leave you two alone for now—this is fairly basic stuff, and should arm you with the vocabulary you need to understand the Pensanden powers. I’ll leave four of my Huntsmen at the door while you study, and they will escort you back to your chamber when you’ve finished.”

  “Oh. Okay. Thank you for bringing me here, Milord.”

  “Learn what you can, Enoch. I’ve got a feeling we may not have as much time as we think we do. Certainly not as much as we would like.”

  With a wave, the king was through the door. Enoch could hear him giving instructions to the men outside, heard the grumbles from those chosen to stay in the cold tunnel waiting for him to learn “elementary physics.”

  The next two hours flew by, and Enoch lost himself in the new yet familiar world of “electrons” and “weak and strong forces.” Mesha grew bored of her perch on his unmoving neck, and she patrolled the room for a while, sniffing at the base of every cable with feline suspicion. Satisfied that the area was safe, she went and scratched at the steel door, persisting until Enoch finally broke away from the monitor to let her out to beg fish from the Huntsmen.