Of Machines & Magics

by Adele Abbot

  The dim red cloud began to collapse in on itself. The worlds became blurs as they moved and spun through astronomical distances in seconds. When the shifting stopped, the sun was a cold hard point of light at the center, the moonless Earth, which by chance, had stopped farthest from them, reflected a tiny gleam of off-white light.

  “What temperature would there be on the Earth?”

  “Three degrees,” sang the musical warble of the little automaton. “Three degrees above the ultimate chill.”

  “It need not happen, you said.”

  “No,” said Calistrope. “It need not. The world can be made to spiral back towards the center . To its old orbit or closer if needs be, so the sun will continue to warm it.”

  Somta Pantel frowned. “What you say is true. When the sun grew old before its time and began to wax, the Earth was pushed out beyond Sadtun to save it. Doubtless, it could be sent back again.”

  “It could be done?”

  “I don’t doubt it. The engines must be restarted, the direction computed and thrust applied. Pim, how much thrust could be employed and for how long, to do what we have been discussing?”

  “I cannot perform the computation so quickly nor alone.”

  “I will have it done, my friends. Come back in… how long Pim?”

  “Fifty thousand seconds.”

  “Fifty—how long is that in hours?” Ponderos asked. “Or days.”

  “About fourteen hours. Come back after your next sleep,” advised Pantel.

  Calistrope stood up. “Thank you for considering what we had to say.”

  “Not at all, gentlemen. It is an interesting idea, it has captured my attention.”

  Calistrope noticed Pantel’s eyes again. There was the same silvery flicker between his eyelids that characterized the automata and his left hand, the Mage noticed, was made of the same many segmented fingers which the little mechanicals employed. As Somta Pantel aged he was replacing those parts which wore out with mechanical prostheses.

  “Did you create these automata?” he asked.

  Pantel smiled. “Indeed, yes. This community was built by them many years ago now. Without them, it would be just a primitive little hill fort, like many you see.”

  “And the power used here; the lights, the heating, water…”

  “Is galvanic. We drilled a deep well with a very clever machine. Water from the river falls to the hot rocks far below.”

  “And rises as steam to turn the machines which make your power.”

  “You know about this?” Pantel was surprised.

  “I have read about it. Conducted a few experiments even. The steam generation, the principal, is said to be used in the water and air regeneration plants of course but galvanism, on this scale, it is a great achievement.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Also, I presume the hot water in the houses, the water washing the streets—these are, so to speak, by-products?”

  “Exactly.”

  “And the mechanicals, they are powered by galvanic fluxes? I take it you made them.”

  “Every word is true,” he said then to the automaton he referred to as Pim: “Pim, will you show these gentlemen out? I have to think about the problem they have set me.”

  Calistrope, Ponderos and Roli explored the small town. They took a light meal at a cafe which also served interesting liqueurs, an armorer sharpened their swords on a carborundum wheel, a map maker showed them maps on which Peronsade was shown but Schune was not—at least not at the location that the ants had marked.

  Then it was time for a larger meal and since they were more refreshed than before, they stayed in the dining room of the Gad Fly as tables were rearranged and a small stage assembled.

  The Gad Fly provided entertainment for its patrons.

  The first performance was given by a conjuror, a talented young man who had an obvious following among the somewhat older women of the town. He made jewelry disappear and found it in unlikely places on the persons of the more mature ladies among the audience. While watching him carefully Calistrope absent-mindedly made a bowl of green cherries fade slowly away; Roli found the cherries later, in the left hand pocket of his tunic. They never did find where the bowl went to.

  After the conjurer came a musician. Diamante, he called himself and he played a tall narrow harp with a round sound box between his feet. Diamante’s voice might have benefited from some training but the solos he played on his harp were the stuff of sheer fantasy. The man was simply lost to the world when he played, the end of each melody coming unexpectedly and leaving him as startled as his audience.

  At length they retired to bed and were called early the next morning by a wake-up boy with a list of times and room numbers. Following breakfast, they made their way once more to the house of the roboticist.

  “It is done,” Somta Pantel told them. “Come, watch.”

  In the hall with the orrery, they sat once more and Pim made the model solar system follow its calculations. The Earth swung along its path, turning so that one face only confronted the misshapen sun. Gradually its velocity was slowed; as its primary shrank, so it fell slowly inwards, spiraling past first Sadtun and then Marr. Finally, it took up a stable orbit around the sun, which was now a dirty white point at the system center .

  “Four hundred and twenty eight thousand years, Calistrope. In approximate terms, the Earth will have to be slowed by three leagues a second.”

  “So it can be done.”

  “I don’t see how. To bring about this change would require the same amount of energy that the sun squanders in something like one hundred days.”

  “But the engines—it was done before!”

  “True. Spread over almost half a million old years, it is possible to handle that sort of energy, but no one knows where these engines are. Nor can I see where so much energy can be found.”

  “But the engines are here. Surely? You said—”

  “No, Sir. They are not. I did not.”

  “No,” Calistrope thought back over what had been discussed. “You didn’t. I inferred—wrongly. We mistakenly thought Peronsade to be the place where these engines are. Well, we must continue our journey.”

  Ponderos visited the boot makers.

  “Oh yes, Sir,” said the boot maker, inspecting the receipt. “Ready at the sixteenth hour. Tomorrow.”

  “Today,” said Ponderos quietly.

  “But—”

  “Today. Now.”

  “But I cannot make them while you wait.”

  “What have you ready? In stock?”

  “Well. How do feel about red leather?”

  “No. It’s not my color.”

  The boot maker opened a floor-to-ceiling cupboard filled with footwear. “Blue? Purple? No, I suppose not.” The pile of boots behind him grew as he sorted through the cupboard’s contents. “Aha. Green? A very dark green?”

  “Not black?”

  “No. I have no black ones.”

  “Very well.”

  The companions were let down the side of the cliff. On the bridge, the two mechanicals lifted their hands. “Fare you well,” said one.

  “Thank you,” Calistrope replied and they resumed their journey.

  At one point a distant vista was visible. The valley was very broad here with the river divided and subdivided into countless channels of racing waters. At the farthest reach of the eye and dwarfed by distance, a solitary mountain thrust upward from beyond the horizon.

  Calistrope pointed. “Schune,” he averred. “The City of Schune is built upon the slopes of that mountain or perhaps in the foothills, we need not be obsessed with exactness for the moment but that is our destination.”

  “Unless the map lies to us,” Ponderos was thinking of the journey which still lay ahead, a journey which he had been convinced until a few hours ago, was over. He was presently in a gloomy mood.

  The remark irritated Calistrope for the sight—however distant—of their destination had cheered him and here was his
friend pouring ice-water on his enthusiasm. “Ponderos, I am tempted to believe you were born a paranoid.”

  “Oh no,” Ponderos replied with a shake of his head. “It is a habit I have learned from careful observation. In circumstances such as these, it is a most healthy attitude.”

  “Nonsense,” Calistrope admonished. “The weather is fine, the view exhilarating. Look at these fine blooms along the wayside.”

  “Flowers? Bah!” Ponderos sneered as he walked on, leaving Calistrope bending over a stand of blood-red blooms growing at the top of leafless rods behind him. “My stomach rumbles, Calistrope! I have just pampered it with fine foods and great wines, and now it protests at what is to come. There are times when I wish I was back in Sachavescu! There is small eating place in a cellar hard by Bart’s, do you remember it?”

  “Well…” Calistrope began as he straightened up. He felt a tug at his collar and shoulders. His coat tightened under the armpits, his feet left the ground.

  “They baked calamares in a black sauce made of the squid’s own ink,” Ponderos continued without a backwards glance. “That was a dish worth waiting for! I took it rarely so it would never become too commonplace to me.”

  There was a sigh of wind over membranes, and then the feel of wings dipping and thrusting. Calistrope looked up at the underside of the huge moth which was bearing him up and away from his comrades.”

  “Ponderos!” he called, his voice weak with surprise.

  Chapter 11

  Calistrope’s heart pounded and his breath came in short gasps; vital seconds came and went before the shock abated. He cried out and more time passed before either of his friends thought to look upward. At last, they finally spied him—a black silhouette against the sun’s magenta sprawl.

  Calistrope could see them pointing and gesticulating. Perhaps Ponderos attempted some magic but with no effect—the ether was as empty and as flat as stale beer.

  The moth’s huge wings—an ell or more in length—beat steadily, the ground dropped away, Ponderos and Roli were minuscule smudges, smudges with pale dots for faces. Then Calistrope was alone, hanging by the shoulders of his coat beneath the insect. The air sighed past him, growing thinner and the hum from the creature’s tracheal bellows deepened.

  Soon the cold began to eat into Calistrope’s body and his autonomic systems closed down one by one, conserving heat and energy. The last to go was vision, a black space which swallowed the last of consciousness.

  The great expanses of dirty snow glittering with a hundred shades of dark vermilion went unseen as the moth rose above the continental edge. Here was the litter of eons: crumbling mounds which had once been ancient cities, wandering furrows ploughed by long-dried rivers, great blocks of ice shining like monolithic rubies. Far to the southeast was the sugar loaf shape of a mountain with its tell-tale plume of vapor, clear in the thin air: Schune, where the world’s engines were.

  The moth, struggling a little with the weight of its prize, flew parallel with the rift until it reached a place where one of the old rivers had once poured over the continental edge, a hanging valley notched deep into the southern wall. The moth relaxed its efforts and lost height, gliding into the high valley with no more than a twitch of wings.

  As the air thickened, Calistrope revived and began to shiver violently. He recalled his predicament and looked down in time to see the greater rift disappear as they swept into the breach cut into the southern wall. The floor of the new valley sped by beneath his boots; a silver watercourse wound along its length with great cushions of moss and pockets of brush and small trees to either side.

  Where they had entered the valley, the walls were half a league apart at the top, narrowing to a chain or so where the river leapt into space. The moth headed up the valley which closed in rapidly, its sides becoming rocky and precipitous, lined with cracks and fissures. The insect slowed and dropped towards one of these, alighting clumsily on a ledge before a narrow entrance, it dragged its catch inside. Calistrope was still half frozen and numb, incapable of movement, he could do nothing when he was lifted and suspended from a rocky projection by a cord around his chest.

  He hung there, turning slowly as the insect backed away to inspect its work. With a tremendous effort, Calistrope raised his arms and fumbled awkwardly with the silk cord securing him. The movement alarmed the moth and it reared up, with its forelegs it clasped Calistrope’s body to it, he felt the creature’s ovipositor slide forward. In a fit of revulsion, despite the cold and stiffness, the Mage found the energy to writhe in the stick-like embrace.

  The insect clung to him, legs hooked into the clothes below his arms, its wings vibrating to maintain balance. The long sharp tube sought for purchase, found it, thrust, plunged home. Calistrope knew total horror as he felt the pressure against his side, felt the pulse of eggs being expelled.

  The moth shuddered with the ecstasy of procreation and the tube was retracted. One last task—Calistrope’s body was made to spin, silk threads jetted from the moth’s clustered spinnerets and wrapped him from chest to ankles. The moth left him to hang, twisting first one way then the other.

  Calistrope felt physically sick. Somewhere inside him a cluster of eggs nestled, a few days from now, ravenous grubs would hatch and feast upon his insides. His end would be indescribable, a hollowed out husk filled with wriggling worms. Merciful oblivion overtook the Mage; his mind, unable to contemplate such a revolting fate, such stark horror, simply withdrew.

  The cocoon conserved the Mage’s body heat, and so from numbingly cold he grew uncomfortably hot—and in this state he awoke again with sweat streaming down his face and trickling along his limbs, torturing his nerves with its tickling. At least he could move easily now and his arms, he discovered, were still unbound. Calistrope knew hope, at least he could take his own life before the brood did it for him,

  The silk covering was quite loose, and with a little struggle, Calistrope pushed the cocoon downward until he could reach into a pocket. He drew out a small clasp knife, opened it, and began to cut. The silk strands parted easily and when he was free of the cocoon, he braced himself before cutting the cord which suspended him.

  The drop was rather less than he had expected and he landed awkwardly, spraining an ankle before rolling down a steep slope onto a pile of brittle bones and debris. Calistrope hobbled towards the cave mouth and looked out. No insect guardian, he was free to go and even though he was determined to kill himself, Calistrope preferred to do so in such a manner that his remains would not be food for grubs. Perhaps near the small river, so his body would be swept over the edge to the floor of the rift a league or more below.

  A new thought struck him. Where had the eggs been laid? Even now, warmed and with restored sensibilities, he could feel no wound. Presumably the insect secreted some sort of anesthetic, if so and if the eggs were near the surface or in some non-vital part of his body, then it might be possible for him to cut the clutch out. A risk but any risk was worth the attempt in this case.

  Calistrope stripped himself naked and with some effort, contrived to touch every bit of his skin. Nothing. No cut, no incision, no sign of violation. Puzzled and not entirely at ease with the discovery, Calistrope dressed himself and picked up his bag, still with him after all the leagues, through all the adventures the three of them had shared along the way. He slung the bag from his shoulder and there was the clink of something falling to the floor.

  The Mage stooped down and looked for whatever might have fallen. A tiny gleam caught his eye, a key! The key to his manse, tiny but imbued with surprising power. Calistrope dropped it back into his bag and discovered where the moth had deposited its eggs—in the side of the bag was a finger sized hole, within were seven round yellow-white eggs.

  With grim amusement, Calistrope limped across the cave floor and clambered down outside. He gathered dried twigs and tinder along the base of the cliffs and presently found a place to set a fire. The Mage took out a small pan from his bag, and certain condiments; the egg
s, he decided, would be best scrambled.

  Feeling surpassingly cheerful and light headed now that the awful prospect of death by ingestion had receded, Calistrope considered his future. A trickle of water dripped from a stony point on the cliff nearby, he washed his pannikin, filled it and set it to boil for tea.

  First, there was his injured ankle to take care of; he bound it and wished for the barest breath of magical power—time was the only physician for the moment.

  Second on the agenda was his future. Here, time was irrelevant, he supposed. Ponderos had a copy of the map, he and Roli would go on to complete the task. Unless he could climb down the almost sheer sides of the rift valley amazingly quickly, he would simply be left behind. However, left behind or not; he would have to take that route if it took him a week.

  Over the next day or so, Calistrope explored his surroundings. For a person of hermetic leaning, the place was idyllic. A lacework of streamlets wove their ways across the hummocky valley bottom, cascading over rocks, sliding beneath stunted alders and willows until they emptied into the main watercourse through the valley. This was almost a small river, by turns splashing over shingle and small boulders or running deep and tranquil through still pools where lazy fish sucked drowning flies from the surface.

  Patches of scrub wood—oak, alder, hazel—punctuated its course and threw shade where fat eels swam idly against the current. Fishing was easy, turning over stones exposed succulent crayfish and larvae; silver fish could be driven into the shallows and picked out of the water and eels might be taken with a basket woven of reeds and willow.

  He saw the moth which had brought him here—or its fellow—at regular intervals. The pair of them carried smaller insects or more occasionally, reptiles or a rodent, back to the cave which even now, Calistrope could not pass without a shudder. Neither of the moths showed any interest in him although he was always wary of them.

  If only man had been given wings… came the thought and took him back to the half-joking comments he had exchanged with Ponderos about training wasps to carry them. Here was the germ of an idea; could he capture one of the moths responsible for his being marooned and persuade it to return him? Calistrope imagined bridle and saddle, coercing the insect into wearing them, learning to guide it as if it were a land-bound dray-beetle.