by B. J. Keeton
He stalked directly toward one of the self-service stations and made himself a sandwich. The dining hall was big and round; students and faculty mingled here, but he thought the size would allow him to blend in well enough that he wouldn’t seem out of place. He chose a seat by the only window in the hall, one that made up a good quarter of the circular room’s wall. It overlooked an interior courtyard, which was perfect for Damien's needs. He sat and ate his sandwich as he surveyed the school’s basic architecture. He had to see what else had changed since he left.
Two small spires shot up from the ground of the courtyard, though he could not see how tall they were from his table. Across the courtyard, he could see Ennd’s central tower, and that's where Damien focused most of his attention. That one structure dwarfed everything else about Ennd's. That's where the Library had been once upon a time and should still remain. Instance physics were unlikely to have changed too much in recent years. Or, well, ever. No amount of renovation would be able to change the laws of the universe.
However, the renovation that the technomages had instituted would make it impossible to know which floor the entrance would be on, but he was still confident that he could find a way in. Space and location were imperative to Instancing, sure, but it was all relative. As long as the portal was in the general vicinity of the energy pocket, it would open. The portal being shifted a few stories in one way or another would not prevent access.
He finished his food, glad to have some protein in his system, and looked at the central tower a moment longer before moving away from the window and toward a corridor that hopefully led to the Library, and in turn, to Headmaster Gilbert Squalt. He casually worked his way through the crowd, nodding at people when they made eye contact—he had to be careful not to call attention to himself by seeming too anxious. He even tossed his trash in a receptacle as he passed it.
As he approached the hallway, his left hand tingled. It was not exactly painful, but it was more than just an itch. It was probably an alert, a warning. Damien assumed the sensation was caused by being too close to a restricted area access point.
So he kept walking.
As he entered the hallway, the tingling became more insistent, verging on painful, but he pushed through. If he had known a little tingling in his hand was going to be the school’s best attempt at confining him, he would have marched his way through the halls hours ago.
And then he stopped. Or more accurately, his left hand—the one containing the nanite stamp—stopped while the rest of his body kept going. He was thrown off balance and just barely managed to avoid falling completely. His body was free to move, but his left hand hung suspended in midair. He could not, with any amount of force, pull his hand any further down the hall. It was as though his wrist were a gigantic square peg trying to fit through a very tiny round hole.
Damien felt around with his right hand, and there was nothing in the air holding him. No invisible walls had clamped down on him.
He could walk backward, though. He was perfectly free to move back into the dining area. So this, he thought, is how they keep visitors in line; by putting us in invisible cages. He realized that he had spent probably the last two minutes struggling with his own left hand, and he wondered how that might have looked to anyone who was watching. He looked back toward the dining area and was pleased to see that the corridor had just begun to curve when he hit this invisible boundary. He could only see a small section of the dining hall around the curve, and there were only two tables with line of sight to him. No one was sitting at either of them. Yet.
Damien figured that with the size of the crowd in the dining hall, they would not stay unoccupied for long. He had to make a decision, and he had to make it fast. He could go back the way he came and search for another route to the central tower, or he could figure out a way to free his hand and make those tingling nanites stop restricting his access.
When he thought about his options, he realized how much being away from the Charons for so long had affected him. Ennd's was tracking his whereabouts and restricting his access with nanites and the unique signature they emitted. If there was one thing Damien Vennar understood, it was how to manipulate nanotechnology. Until his home was invaded, he had not Conjured in centuries. Most Charons would never be able to Conjure invisibility as rapidly or as effectively as he had, but like almost anything else, once you knew how to do something, the skill was rarely completely lost. Proficiency may deteriorate, yes, but with a little practice, you could easily regain whatever atrophied through inactivity.
Damien's control of nanotech was no different, and he focused his attention on the visitor's pass stamped into his hand.
The old man edged as far along the curved wall as the nanites allowed, and he dropped to his knees. His trapped hand supported much of his weight. That way, when he was finished with his purge, he would know immediately by having his hand come free.
Damien Vennar was very aware of the nanites that made up his bloodstream. At one point in his life, he could have controlled them on an almost one-by-one basis. He expected that ability to have atrophied, but he still had a very keen grasp of what was going on inside his flesh. He closed his eyes and directed his attention to finding the foreign nanites within him. He took on himself the role his immune system played on a day-to-day basis: hunting down anything foreign and destroying it. Only this time, he was searching for any nanotechnology inside him that was not a part of the self-replicating, self-repairing system coursing through his veins already.
He entered a state of meditation, as he focused almost all of his attention on eliminating the microscopic machines that were restraining him. One by one, he found the foreign bodies and destroyed them. When the very last one went offline and its signal interrupted, the old man stumbled backward. He fell onto his back and smiled. He had missed the rush that came with Conjuring.
He flexed his now-free wrist. Without the molecular stamp in his skin, he would be able to move through the halls unhindered. He made one last look toward the dining hall to make sure no one had seen him, then stood up and continued down the hallway unnoticed.
***
The moment when Damien Vennar sought out and destroyed the nanotechnology in his visitor’s pass, Ennd’s security system initialized. He had been noticed the moment the last nanite had been eliminated. One moment, Vennar had been in a hallway that led to the Phase II student dormitories; the next, he had disappeared from sensors, and Phase II’s defenses were activated.
Ennd's Academy rarely had a security breach. Students, faculty, and visitors were each tagged with unique molecular stamps that told sensors placed in various locations which areas of campus each person had access to. It was a system that worked and rarely malfunctioned. In fact, all simulations showed there being a zero-percent chance of a true security breach.
The administration of Ennd’s Academy had always prided themselves on being able to meld utility and aesthetics. Part of this ambition was maintaining large galleries of artwork throughout each area of the school. Many wings had themes that highlighted various artistic styles and cultures that made up the student population of the Academy.
The artwork was also the first line of defense in the event of a security breach.
The sandstone and steel walls of Phase II shook as the statues that lined its halls came to life. Jackal-headed Annuban golems rose from their thrones and stood roughly twice the height of a person. Their stone axes shimmered as the nanites that made up their structure reassembled themselves from decoration to actual weaponry. Horrith golems awakened, too, and dust fell from the falcon-headed statues, as clawed fingers flexed and wrapped around thick staves that crackled with blue-white electric current. Arcs of energy spiraled up and down the length of the weapons.
Like soldiers forming ranks, the sentries gathered in the center of the hallway as the resuscitation cycle completed. The detail did not speak. They did not interact. Once their initial systems checks were finished, they moved in unison, a s
ingle unit with a single goal: secure Ennd’s Academy.
Sensors fed the golems the last known location of their target. The Annuban and Horrith golems’ eyes flashed with power as they synced their directives and moved to intercept and eliminate Damien Vennar.
Chapter Twenty
Ceril, Chuckie, and Saryn’s plans to escape in the morning hadn’t been as easy as they had hoped. They made a few more physical attempts to escape, but those efforts were as unsuccessful as their attempts the night before. Since any actual fighting they did failed, Ceril figured that he might as well fall back on his scholar training—that’s where his heart was, anyway.
If he couldn’t defeat the guards as a solider, maybe he could learn from them as a scholar. So he developed a new plan, one based on his research on Instances.
It worked.
“The Ancestors left very specific instructions,” said one of the guards.
“What do the instructions say?” Ceril asked.
“They tell us to wait for the messiah. Very few still live who can read them, but they are there nonetheless. We trust the priests to interpret them. When we need to know more, we are told.”
“You’re placing an awful lot of trust in those priests, then.”
“It is what the Ancestors commanded.”
“Right,” Ceril said. “But what happened to your Ancestors?” He hoped his comments didn’t sound snarky to the angel in front of him. He was legitimately curious about the history of the place, and he didn’t want that ruined by misinterpreted sarcasm. That is, if the angels could even recognize sarcasm.
“We…do not know for sure. Much of the Ancestors’ legacy has been lost. We know there was an exodus from Jaronya, and since then, the cities have become ruins. Everywhere you see that is rubble, there once stood a majestic city made of out of crystal. Time transformed it into dull stone, cracked and ignored.”
“Why ignored? Why didn’t you fix them, keep them maintained?”
“We have access to very little of the magic the Ancestors used to create their cities. We do not want it, either. We are a simple people, and the priests have interpreted that none of us should seek out the Ancestors, physically or otherwise. They will return to us when we are ready to learn their ways and restore their world. The first step will be the messiah.”
“But you live here? In this rubble, these ruins?”
“The Ancestors blessed us with strong homes that would withstand the years. We also have their temples, their workplaces. Those are curated by the priests.”
“Where are the instructions written?” Ceril asked, returning to an earlier train of thought.
The angel pointed at an obelisk in the distance. “They are written.”
“What?” Ceril asked. He stood up and tried to see what was written on the obelisk. Without Conjuring to enhance his vision, he couldn’t make out anything on the stone pillar. With his concentration already split, Ceril didn’t bother. “So these instructions the priests read, they’re in public? They’re just sitting around for everyone?”
“They are not for everyone. They are for the priests.”
“Really? Because I would think something written on a sign on the side of the road wouldn’t be for the upper-class to read, interpret, and provide as missives. I’d think they were put there for everyone.”
Purple light appeared behind Ceril. The guard slammed his Flameblade onto the broken pillar beside Ceril and said, “You will not question the priests, Charon.”
Ceril leapt back, but he knew he was in no danger. The angel was just making a point. “I’m not questioning them. I mean it. I’m just saying that somewhere down the line, there’s a chance that this bit of information was mishandled. I just don’t understand why the Ancestors would leave behind a system where only a handful of people could read and understand their instructions.”
“It is not for you to understand. You are an outsider.”
“I know. I know I am. I just don’t like the idea of an entire caste of people being dominated.”
“We are not…dominated, as you say. Our people are free, and we look to the priest for guidance. We are not constrained or forced to do anything but live our lives, outsider. We exist to serve the Ancestors, and we await their return.”
“If you say so,” Ceril said. “How many priests are there? How many of…you are there?” Ceril didn’t actually know what to call the giant purple angel people.
“There is one priest in the Meshin temple. I do not know about the other temples. They are far, and we do not travel there. The priest has given us the Ancestors’ warning about venturing too far from Meshin. The last war left many places uninhabitable.”
Ceril’s shoulders dropped. He rested against the pillar. “What…last war?”
“It was well before my life began. The priest at Meshin is the only one alive today who witnessed the other cities die. There was no food or livable space. Meshin, however, was safe. The Ancestors built the city in the mountains for that kind of protection, made the valley we are in to surround their city. Other than the houses, though, only the temple still stands.” He pointed into the distance. Ceril could see a large structure rising from the horizon, a single spire amid the rubble. Surrounded by the broken towers and ruins in which Ceril and his team found themselves, the shining, purple temple was both ominous and awesome.
“I still don't understand what this has to do with us,” Ceril said.
“Then you are blind.”
“Maybe,” Ceril admitted. “But answer me this: what happens when something happens to the priest, when he dies? What then?”
The creature’s purple brow furrowed. “When our priest dies, another will assume the position. The Ancestors are very clear that those with magic hold the keys.”
“The keys?”
“I say again, you are blind, outsider.”
***
Earlier that day, Ceril had been able to Conjure a makeshift communication device that allowed him to actually speak and converse with the angels that inhabited this Instance. Saryn and Chuckie, on the other hand, could not.
Ceril had no idea why his Conjuring was more finely tuned than the others—he had a delicate hand with the nanite skins, always had. He was able to control individual nanites to do multiple tasks at once, which was a skill that Roman had once told him came “once in a blue moon.” Whatever that meant.
So, while Ceril and his guardian angel discussed things, Saryn and Chuckie watched from within their open-air cage.
Saryn leaned over to Chuckie and said, “Do you have any idea what they're saying?”
“None. It's kind of pissing me off. I tried to do what Ceril said with the nanites, but it never worked. You?”
“No on both counts. I could get the shell of the thing on my face like he said, but after that, it might as well have been a costume. It worked not even a little.”
“Well,” Chuckie said, “let's hope he's not completely screwing us here. I don't have to tell you that I don't think our fearless leader is so fearless. Or all that good at leading.”
“Give him some slack,” Saryn said. “He's doing the best he can in a bad situation. You and I got briefed and agreed to these as our Rites. Which meant we defer to him, whether we like it or not.”
“I'll defer, that's fine, but I'm not going to let him get me killed while he goes and has a powwow without us.”
“You think he is going to be the one to get us killed? After what you pulled on our way here?” There was no way these guards were just going to overlook the fact that they had killed their initial captors.
“It was his plan, Saryn, and you agreed to it, too. Don’t blame me just because I have the biggest guns.” Chuckie paused and watched Ceril for a moment. “I just hope he knows what he's doing. One way or another, these guys have to know what's up.”
“Yes, it was his plan. And it worked. For a while, at least.”
“A while? And yet, here we are.”
Saryn frowned. “Y
es, here we are. Lucky to be alive, by my count. After we murdered two of them.”
“Again, Saryn, not my call.”
“No, it wasn't. It wasn't mine, either, but at least I take responsibility for what I did.”
“Following orders,” Chuckie said.
“Ignorant bastard,” Saryn said and turned back to listen to Ceril and the Jaronya talk. It was more productive to listen to clicks, chitters, and whistles than to argue with Chuckie Tidwell.
They eventually broke their conversation for a recess, and Ceril came back to sit with his group. The Jaronya guard walked gracefully away, holding itself in perfect posture the whole time.
When it was far enough away, Chuckie said, “Well?”
“Where do you want me to start?” Ceril answered.
“Did they know anything about Swinton and Harlo?” Saryn asked.
“I didn’t ask.”
“Why not?” Chuckie demanded.
“Because I figured that if they have managed to stay clear of the angels up to this point, I wouldn’t be doing them any good by verifying that they’re out there. They might have seen them when we were taken, but maybe not. If not, then it’s better if we don’t even ask. I’m sure if they were taken, they would be dropped right here with us, anyway.”
“Makes sense,” Chuckie conceded.
“Thanks. For all we know, they’re trying to make their way to us. We’ll try to meet up with them when we can, if we can. We have to worry about ourselves and trust them to take care of themselves for now.”
“Yeah, good point,” Saryn said. “Where are we?”
“They call it Meshin. I think it used to be their capitol. They claim to be descendants of some long-gone race they call the Ancestors, who they worship like gods. Over the years—I take it to be thousands—the cities have fallen into ruin.”
Chuckie looked up. “This is their capitol? We don't even have a roof!”