by B. J. Keeton
Roman and Nephil sighed in near unison. Roman said, “It's not what you did, Ceril. It's what we needed you to do. Have a seat.” He motioned to the table and sat at its head. Nephil and Ceril followed suit. Ceril felt slightly out of place at the table. He knew the faculty had respected his work before, but he had never been included in on a meeting like this. He was still a student, after all. Just an Apprentice.
“Ceril, for some time,” Roman continued, “we have known that the Inkwell Sigil was a dying vessel.”
“Dying?”
“Well, more accurately, sabotaged. We have known that one day the Instance connection we maintain with Ennd's would be severed and that we would have no way to return to Erlon. When you so visibly became a candidate for joining the Archive, we assumed that we could get you to help us when—and if—that time came because of your connection with Vennar.”
“Gramps.”
“Vennar. The man who put us in this situation to begin with,” Roman said. “But then you killed Ethan Triggs—”
“It was an accident!”
“Accident or not,” Nephil broke in, “Roman had to pull a lot of strings to keep you here. The only reason he was able to is because you are related to Damien Vennar.”
Ceril sat silently and listened. Roman spoke next.
“A few years ago—after the Triggs incident—we were able to narrow down the failure. Ceril, how much do you understand about Instancing?”
“Not as much as Saryn does, but I know a little.”
“I don’t think many people know as much as Saryn,” Roman said. “In a nutshell, Instances access pocket universes that occupy the same physical space as we do, kind of like layers in the universe. The Charons figured out how to cross the quantum membrane between them.”
Ceril nodded. “Roman, my research wasn’t on Instances or their physics. I worked with mythology, with stories.”
“I know, son. Let me explain our situation a little more. The Charons weren’t just the first ones to be able to cross into other Instances.”
“Then who was?”
“We actually created the Instances.”
“Oh,” Ceril said. “Wait. You what?”
“Not just the ability to access them, mind you, but the matter within them, too. The founders of our order were actually able to create the pocket universes you mentioned. From nothing. Through centuries of work and research, the Charons were able to guide and accelerate the creation of new universes, separated from theirs by only a thin quantum membrane.”
Ceril sat dumbfounded. “Uh-huh.”
Noticing Ceril’s confusion, Roman reached for his tablet and tapped at its screen. Immediately, a holographic projection appeared between Ceril and him. It was a globe, a map of Erlon. “At first, it was small scale. They could make and control a universe the size of a house, let's say. Then they stumbled onto Erlon's most unique feature: wells of electromagnetic energy.”
The hologram lit up in various places to indicate the electromagnetism’s locations.
“When harnessed correctly, these wells allowed the Charons to fully control the depth and breadth of these pocket universes, cultivating them to whatever specifications they wanted.” As Roman spoke, the globe began to change. Initially, small splotches of color were superimposed over part of its surface, not obscuring the projection, but exiting separately. As his explanation continued, more and more splotches appeared, only now they were larger and appearing more rapidly. “They did this for a very long time. Long enough that they eventually lost control.”
The holographic Erlon was no longer even recognizable, there were so many splotches superimposed with its image. Some were within the planet, others on the surface, while others protruded from the surface like small warts. What struck Ceril as interesting about the presentation was how each new layer was uniquely its own entity, not just a replica of Erlon’s map. Each new layer also kept touching Erlon. None existed away from it.
Roman stopped speaking and let Nephil continue the story. “When the Charons lost control, the Instances they made no longer adhered to the same space-time boundaries that they originally set. They became free-floating and impossible to track.” Roman tapped the screen of his tablet, and the superimposed layers began to disconnect from one another. Slowly, they separated and began migrating around the room. “Lots of good people died because there was no way for them to get home. And so, through a bit more research, the Charons were able to develop the portals that we use today, and those portals acted like anchors for certain regions within each Instance that shared quantum similarities.”
Lines of color began to stretch from one layer to the next, but only between the projections still connected to the original globe of Erlon. The lines acted as anchors, like Nephil said, keeping the projections from floating around the room. Those that had already escaped from Erlon’s space continued to roam unhindered.
“Like Ennd's,” Ceril said.
“Just so. But Ennd's is only one place where Instance portals exist on Erlon. Your research should tell you that there are others.”
The young man sat and thought for minute. He wished he had thought to grab his tablet as he left his quarters. “Yagh is one. So is Ternia. Ferran. And Bester.” Ceril stopped. He had just named every major center for civilization on Erlon. There were others, sure, but the populations were typically not included when discussing major civilizations. They were tribal, barbaric, and generally wanted nothing to do with the rest of the world. The young man blinked, trying to connect the dots that were slowly forming in his mind.
“And what do you infer from that, Ceril?” Roman asked.
“That…” he began slowly, “…I am in way over my head.”
The professors could not help but laugh at his remark. Roman extinguished the holographic Instance map. “Yes,” he answered. “That. But also, you should be seeing a pattern in just how influential the Charons were to the development of Erlon’s various cultures. Now, these pockets of energy were harnessed to create the Instance portals. This is precisely when the Charons went from being a simple research group to the order we have evolved into today. The portals had to be guarded, and there were many differing views as to how to maintain the Instances.”
“Your grandfather had his own unique views of things, if I may say so,” Roman continued, “since he considered the project to be his baby.”
Again, Ceril could do nothing but blink and say, “What?”
“Your grandfather, Ceril, is quite old. We all are, actually. We’re not quite as old as he is, but we’ve still had a good run. The Rites help us a great deal in maintaining our health. We'll get back to that later. Right now, time is of the essence.”
A professor that Ceril did not know chimed in from across the table. “Long story, short: About four thousand years ago, Vennar—your Gramps—did something to the Instance network that caused it to expand rapidly, breaking away from our control. We don't know precisely what it was. What we do know is that your grandfather was creating Instances that he never registered with the Archive, and that by doing so, he weakened the stability of the entire network. He said that he was doing work that had to be done, and that people deserved to know about it. He said that we, as an order, were—how did he put it?—living like gods while the rest of the world licks our boots.”
“Sounds like him,” Ceril said.
“The Charons became divided, then, into three factions. One side fought to hide the portals from the rest of Erlon. They wanted to stop playing gods and bury the knowledge that the Archive ever existed. If you can imagine, they were the smallest group. The second group thought that making the Instances and other Charonic technology public knowledge would help unite Erlon’s city-states, while the third group felt that the order was doing good work—divine work, really—and that the status quo should be maintained.” The professor leaned back again and rapped his fingers against his chair.
“I didn’t know any of that,” Ceril said. “But how doe
s this involve me?”
Professor Nephil answered, “First of all, your grandfather was the leader of one of the factions.”
Ceril’s eyes lit up. Nephil continued, “He fought harder than almost anyone I knew, too. He truly believed that the world would be a better place if the technomages were no longer seen as different. He believed that our technology and science should no longer be seen as magic by the people of Erlon, that we should no longer be technomages. Your grandfather wanted us just to be just scientists again and for our magic to become ordinary again. Vennar hated the word magic, but so many people used the term that most of us actually started to believe that’s what it was.”
“That makes sense,” Ceril said. “So what happened?”
“To put it bluntly, your grandfather lost. He fought hard, like I said, but in the end, there were too many people who felt the old ways were the best ways. Thousands of years had passed, and things had been working well. Then about…five hundred years ago, I think, your Gramps destabilized the Instance network. We have been able to manage for quite a while, but eventually, entropy takes over. We knew our measures would fail. That’s where you come in.”
“Why don't you just reconnect?” asked Ceril. “If we're in the same space, there should just be a membrane or something separating us, right? So if we can repair the portal or figure out just what the original Charons did to break through the Instances, we can get back to Ennd's and be on our way.”
“It's not that simple,” Roman said. “We…no longer occupy the same space as Ennd's. Hyperspace is unique in that it tricks the network into thinking that we are still in the same space as long as the Instance portal remains active. Since the whole ship was enveloped by hyperspace, that part of the universe remained relative to Ennd’s. For all intents and purposes, we were still in the same space as Ennd’s. We were just moving that particular pocket of space.”
Ceril just stared at Roman. “What?”
“Think of hyperspace as a mini-Instance, I guess. An Instance within an Instance.”
Ceril stared blankly at him. Hadn’t Saryn mentioned something like that earlier? He had soaked up way too much information to keep everything straight. He wished that he had a way to replay the whole conversation over again a few times.
“As long as we stayed connected, kept energy transferring between us and Erlon, there was a portal. As long as there was a portal, we were able to draw on Erlon's wells of electromagnetism to power the Sigil. When Vennar’s plan finally won out, the connection dropped, and we lost the ability to break through the quantum membrane back to Ennd's.”
“Oh,” Ceril said. “Saryn told me some of this today as we came here.”
Nephil smiled. “That young lady is eons ahead of her time.”
“So I gather,” Ceril said. “I still don’t get why you’re telling me this, though. If we can't get back to Erlon, I can't get to Gramps, and if we’re out as far as you’re implying, how can there be any connection between an Instance out here and Erlon, anyway? And what do the terrorists have to do with all this?”
“That’s for you to find out. For many reasons, you are uniquely suited for this task, Ceril. You will need to talk to people, read up on local customs, and see if you can find any indication that the Instances in this part of space are connected to Erlon. We think that somehow the Untouchable has resources in these Instances—these connections—and your initial mission was to locate those connections and see just how he and his terrorists were accessing them from Erlon. There’s no reason why you can’t work on the practical application of the theory while you’re there, is there? We’ve been thinking that if we can find connection points between Instances, the connections that the Charons lost control of long ago, we can work our way through the network until we get home.”
“Okay, look,” Ceril said, “I may be out of line, but you’re going to have to tell me what’s so important about this guy. I saw the video initially, heard all the rumors, but I want to know why you are all dumping the history of the Archive on me and telling me it’s so that I can find a way to track the Untouchable all the way back to Erlon from who-knows-where. So what gives?”
Roman and Nephil looked at one another, then Roman shrugged. Nephil must have understood what he meant, because he immediately reached forward and placed his palm on the conference table. The tabletop shifted and began to project a video into the air. It was the same video that Ceril had seen six years ago, the first time he had heard of the terrorists.
“I’ve seen this before.”
“I’m sure you have, Ceril, but there is a little more to it now. The past six years have been rather eventful, and we have done our best to keep the students aboard the Inkwell Sigil from being affected too much by the events.”
“What do you mean eventful?” Ceril asked, even though he couldn’t take his eyes off the video. He cringed as the terrorist impaled the mother and her child with a Flameblade.
Nephil leaned forward and rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes. He looked at Ceril and blinked them clear. “I’m not sure how to say this, Ceril, but…” His voice trailed off and Roman picked up where he left off.
“What Nephil is trying to say is…” Roman cleared his throat. “Have you noticed in the past few years how few students have been recruited from places other than Ennd’s?”
“I hadn’t really thought about it.”
“Well, two years ago, this happened.” Roman nodded at Nephil, and the projection changed from the video Ceril had seen into an aerial view of a desert. From the look of it, somewhere in Yagh. The camera flew toward a structure near the horizon, and as the structure grew closer, Ceril could see that it was badly damaged. At first, all he could see was fire coming from windows, and as the image focused, he could see rubble from where whole sections of the building were broken and caving in.
“I don’t know what I’m looking at.”
“That was Cernt Academy.”
“You can’t be serious. That’s where Saryn went, isn’t it?”
Nephil nodded. “It was, yes. Attacks from the Untouchable and his terrorists began to slowly ramp up after the initial one on the playground.” He manipulated the table again, and clips began to cycle in the air. Newsreel footage, talking-head clips, and more homemade video clips assailed Ceril. He saw people dying from almost every angle imaginable, and each new clip seemed to up the ante. The videos ranged from small, solo attacks on pedestrians to larger groups of terrorists with Flameblades attacking sporting events and other gatherings, until eventually, the feed began to show buildings blowing up.
“The attacks seemed to culminate with the fall of Cernt Academy.” Nephil swallowed, then said, “A lot of people died there, Ceril. A lot of Charons, but more importantly, a lot of innocent kids and teachers not associated with the Archive.”
“We never thought they would attack one of the Academies,” Roman said.
Ceril was speechless. “Does Saryn know?”
Roman and Nephil looked at each other. “No,” they said together. Then Nephil continued, “And no other students on board know, either. Like we said, we’ve done a good bit of filtering what information from Erlon makes it onboard these past few years.”
“You mean censoring,” Ceril said. “She should know—Saryn. So should everyone else.”
“And they will,” Roman said. “Eventually. Now is not the best time to drop this kind of bombshell on them.”
“No, you’re right,” Ceril said. “The best time would have been two years ago when it happened.” He crossed his arms to indicate his part of that conversation was over.
“You may be right,” Nephil said. “But that’s neither here nor there. The point in showing you this is to let you know how dire things have become on Erlon. Like I said, we thought that was the culmination of their return. They effectively took out a whole Academy, and we still haven’t been regain control. Now, the attacks are ramping up again, and they seem to be following the same pattern they did
six years ago, only faster. If we’re right, then we’re due for another major attack within the next few months.”
“Where?”
“We have to assume it’s going to be Ferahgo Academy in Bester,” Roman said.
“And not Ennd’s?” asked Ceril.
“We like to think that Ennd’s is too fortified for them. It makes more tactical sense to wipe out Ferahgo first, so we’re working on reinforcing it.”
“That doesn’t mean a lot, apparently.”
Roman glared at Ceril, who shrugged his shoulders and said, “What? If they’re able to take out Cernt so easily, then maybe they’re even worse than we thought.” He paused.
The professor smiled. “We haven’t been able to track them down on Erlon despite our best efforts, which makes us think there are storehouses, safe houses, something in Instances somewhere that will give us the information we need. Or at least, like we said, some connection to the Untouchable that we may be missing.”
“And my thesis research,” Ceril said, and he clicked his tongue, “deals solely with making connections and piecing unrelated things together.”
“Smart boy,” Nephil said. “If everything goes according to plan, you and your team will be able to not only stabilize the Instance network, but also locate the Untouchable and help stop his attacks.”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Not so much,” Nephil said.
“If that’s the case,” said Ceril. “when do I start, and who's going with me?” The young man looked around the room expectantly.
“None of us, actually, I'm afraid,” Bryt said. “We will be needed here, for crowd control and to work on new solutions in case this hypothesis proves to be a dead end.”
“What kind of Instances exist out here, anyway? What am I getting myself into? I'm used to fairly cushy places. No one's ever trusted me enough to send me anywhere else.” There was malice in Ceril’s voice and every one of the professors felt it. They had treated him differently than other students since Ethan Triggs was murdered.