Challenges of the Deeps

by Spoor,Ryk E

  “Sorry, Vindatri. I’m not used to just standing in one spot to take what people throw at me.”

  “I would be surprised if anyone was used to it. Possibly excepting your bodyguard, who seems positively amused by your difficulty in performing this apparently simple task.”

  She glanced over to see Wu Kung laughing from his spot atop a high boulder, overlooking the meadow she and Vindatri were practicing in. “Aren’t you supposed to be ready to dive in and protect me?”

  “Not when you are training! Then it is important you get hit many times, until you know how to stop someone from hitting you!”

  She grinned and sighed. “All right, let’s try this again.”

  She braced herself, tried to focus on not moving but defending. “Ready!”

  Vindatri clenched his fist and slammed it outward, as though hammering the side of an invisible wall. “Geunate!”

  Transparent ripples in the air, the shockwaves streaked for her, hammering the grasses flat as they came. She repressed the instinctive urge to dodge, but realized too late that she had failed to focus on the word of defense—

  The impact tumbled her over and over across the meadow, skidding her through grasses, sending insectoid creatures flying or scuttling away; she finally fetched up against and partly inside a large and prickly bush.

  “Ugh,” she said, spitting out grass that had somehow ended up in her mouth, and peeling away the thorny branches. At least my uniform’s pretty good at protecting me from the minor annoyances. She suspected that if she summoned that strange robe-like uniform she’d gained upon her Ascendance, it would protect her even more, but the point of the training was, again, not to demonstrate that there was armor that could protect her. “Well, I stayed in one place!”

  “Until the concussion blast hit, yes,” Vindatri conceded. Wu Kung was busy laughing again.

  “When I succeed at this I’m going to have some more questions.”

  “By all means. I expect many questions and answers in our training. I am, myself, learning much. To salve what I suspect is a somewhat bruised pride, I can tell you that most Arena inhabitants, from almost all other species, would have a far harder time than you of standing deliberately before one such as myself and accepting the attacks directed at them.”

  Ariane didn’t doubt it; the risk-aversion that was normal in the Arena would probably make this kind of training seem even crazier than it did to the average human. “All right, let’s try this one again.”

  In succession she found herself hammered by fire (vanens), a screaming sandstorm torn from the earth itself (araga), and struck by a blast of bitter cold that left her momentarily coated with ice (zofron). The first one she had braced herself for but still found she couldn’t focus her mind and speak the word fast enough. For the second, the memory of the prior two blasts were enough to make her dodge, and the last one she managed to half-speak the word before the ice hammered her down.

  “Okay, that is it,” she said, gritting her teeth to keep them from chattering. “I know you’ve cut these things way down so they’re not killing me, but it’s really starting to piss me off.”

  “Anger is a weapon that cuts both ways,” Vindatri observed. “But there is no reason for you to be weakened during the practice.” His hands gestured outward as though welcoming a friend, and she heard an unknown word wrapped within the concept that translated as “Healing.”

  Sparkling white light enveloped her and she felt warmth spread across her skin, a tingle across her face and hands and rippling across her body. As it cleared, she realized she no longer felt cold, nor the tightness of burns across her hands and face, or the raw scrapes from the sandstorm, nor did she feel the enervation of multiple trials with apparent life-threatening powers. She felt as strong and alert as she had when she began.

  “That …is really impressive. I have to admit it is hard not to think of this as magic.”

  “Especially as there are those of us who wield the power and believe that it is, in fact, magic,” agreed Vindatri. “I do not …but I admit that I might well be wrong. Are you prepared?”

  She took a few breaths, then focused once more on her experiences training as Astrella. She could do this. So can I. I played her. I was her, in a lot of ways.

  Without warning, Vindatri’s arm slashed outward. “Kuten!”

  Ariane stood firm as the miniature tornado screamed towards her, and brought up her own arms, crossed in an “X” configuration. “Sonderan!”

  The whirlwind ran headlong into an invisible barrier, a wall of absolute force that barred its passage, disrupted its swirling currents, and turned it to a breath of harmless wind. In the same moment, Ariane felt that same momentary sensation of elevation, of observing not just this event from this one perspective, but the Arena and beyond, from within and without herself at the same time.

  “Magnificent!” Vindatri shouted. “That was what we sought, Captain! Well it is to be able to send forth destruction, but one must needs also be able to ward against such attacks.”

  She felt herself smiling like an idiot, both with triumph and relief. “Well, thank you. I’m glad I was able to pull it off!”

  “I had no doubt that you would, in time. My question was whether you would surprise me again, as Orphan promised you would.”

  “And did I?”

  A hint of a smile under the hood. “You did indeed, despite the fact that I have been revising my estimates of your capability upward. I was certain that you would not succeed in an effective block until tomorrow, at the earliest. So a rest, now, and ask questions. You will of course need more practice—I expect you will take many more hard lessons before such a shield becomes swift and instinctive, as it must be to be truly useful—but you have had quite a triumph.”

  “Great.” She sat down and pulled out a jerky stick and bit into it. “So tell me …where do these words come from? I mean, is everyone limited to the …well, effects that are known to their masters, or do people invent their own?”

  “A most penetrating question. Many of them are, as you say, handed down through the generations, from master to pupil and thence to theirs. But the repertoire of an individual can be quite different from that of others of their discipline. The Faith claim to discover more of the powers, the ‘blessings of the Voidbuilders,’ through meditation and inspiration. If you have the cynical interpretation of things, then the Arena favors the existence of the Faith and thus plays the part of their deities, imparting occasional tidbits of control code to them as needed.

  “Shadeweavers research ancient records, especially searching for hints of words that may be Voidbuilder in origin (for those with the same material and realistic perceptions), or that may be remnants of other powerful wizards’ work (for those who believe in the magic).

  “And all of us sometimes attempt to combine the words we know, or test the variation of pronunciation or even the changing of words while focusing upon desired effects. The latter is rarely effective, but when it does work the individual is rewarded with knowledge of a capability that others do not have.”

  “So it is possible to just invent one on your own. The system isn’t locked down and inflexible.”

  “If it is a mere—pardon me for the term—mechanism, it is quite flexible and tolerant. Presumably the …clearance, so to speak, granted by the ritual is something very advanced, permitting the user to do many things forbidden to the ordinary inhabitants of the Arena.”

  She considered. “So tell me something: if someone like you wanted to, could you do something like make a nuclear power plant or an AI work in the Arena?”

  Vindatri considered. “I believe that would be possible. I have never attempted to do so, nor do I know of any who have, but I think that it would be within the power of an Initiate Guide or Shadeweaver of sufficient skill and knowledge.”

  So the Minds were probably right, she thought. Their all-or-nothing attempt to abduct her and learn about the powers locked within her had been likely to give t
hem just the advantage they had wanted.

  Vindatri had been studying her with a speculative air. “I sense something more than mere intellectual interest. Is this a subject that actually has come up in some way?”

  Vaguely she thought she should consider not answering, but she heard her voice replying, “Well …yes. A while ago the Blessed To Serve basically abducted me, and it seemed their plan was to bring me to the Minds, who would try to release and then study the power locked inside me by the Shadeweavers and the Faith. If it hadn’t been for Orphan, DuQuesne, and Simon—and Wu—they’d have gotten away with it, too.”

  “A fortunate thing that they did not! I do not care at all for the thought of the Minds of the Blessed able to function within the Arena.”

  “Gives me the cold chills, actually. It worked out okay, but that was a close call.”

  She noticed Sun Wu Kung was oddly quiet, but Vindatri spoke before she could think about what that might mean.

  “I of course know Orphan, and have begun to know your friends DuQuesne and Wu Kung, but I know little of this ‘Simon.’ You have mentioned him before, and the way you speak of him seems to indicate he is someone of importance.”

  She shook her head, laughing. “Importance? If it weren’t for Simon, none of us would be here.”

  “Indeed? How so?”

  “He invented the Sandrisson Drive,” she said, hearing again that strange babel of other names that echoed around the stardrive concept. “Invented it, tested it, and then assembled the crew of the Holy Grail—including me—to do a full-scale test.”

  “One of the inventors came with his invention? Rare indeed! And here, in the Arena? Does he remain a figure of importance for your Faction?”

  “He and DuQuesne are my main advisors,” she answered. And maybe more. This will be confusing when DuQuesne and I get back, but I’m sure we’ll work it out somehow.

  A very faint twinge of caution sounded from some deep, vague depths within her, warning her that there might be things about Simon she should avoid. Oh, yeah. Don’t talk about his special new talent. But other than that, I don’t think there’s anything terribly unusual to hide…

  Once more, Wu Kung was strangely silent, as she and Vindatri continued talking about Simon and the rest of her crew.

  Chapter 40

  So, does it work?

  An image appeared in his mind of a surprised and gratified Orphan. Doctor DuQuesne, it works magnificently. You have designed this to integrate well with my built-in headware—which is, I would think, rather different from your own.

  DuQuesne smiled to himself, apparently absorbed in examining structural and electronic components in a far corridor of Halintratha. I got a pretty good look at your interfaces and protocols when we were traveling together on Zounin-Ginjou the first time. Glad to know I got it right.

  And you are certain that Vindatri cannot detect this communication?

  Nothing’s certain, Orphan. But if we don’t get a real rude shock in the next few minutes, I’m willing to bet a hell of a lot that he can’t detect it unless he gets real suspicious and starts looking for something off-kilter.

  And what is the range for these communicators? At the moment, of course, we are scarcely a few meters apart.

  DuQuesne frowned absently as he noticed a particular type of structure. It struck him that there was, impossibly, something familiar about parts of Halintratha, and he couldn’t quite place it. Range? Can’t be sure in this crazy place, but I’d expect at least a thousand kilometers. Back where …well, where they originated from, they’d have gotten a lot more than that, but I’d put money down on a thousand kilometers as a minimum.

  The corridor opened up into a vast space, dark, with faint echoes diminishing into unknowable distances. Vague, hulking forms of immobile machinery and walls of armor were just visible at the edges of their lights.

  “Truly, the size of Halintratha impresses me anew with each visit,” Orphan said aloud. “I have never seen this region of it before.”

  “Not surprising. The thing’s the size of a small planet, and hollow, with decks mostly on a generally humanish size. You could spend a dozen lifetimes exploring it and never have seen a thousandth of the things it holds.”

  That conversation suddenly made him flash back to his earliest days in the Arena, stuck in the vast silent emptiness of their Sphere. My GOD, he thought, making sure the transceiver was off. My God, that’s it. Halintratha, at least this part of it …it feels like the deserted, abandoned layer of our Sphere. A huge maze of ancient machines and walls and parks and Klono-knows-what-all, hidden between the inner wall of our Harbor and the lit, “alive” layers of the Sphere that connect to the Inner and Outer Gateways.

  He looked back at the walls and their dead, enigmatic panels. Looks like the stuff we found down there, too. What does it mean, I wonder? Is Vindatri connected somehow to our system? Did he build it? Did he build this, or is this something he found?

  Once more, the Arena’s key characteristic was asserting itself: replacing every answer with about a dozen questions.

  Orphan’s transmitted voice was in his head again. How, might I ask, do these devices work?

  You can ask, but I don’t see you offering anything nearly big enough to make that question one I want to answer. Not that he could answer it, in detail. Oh, he could explain how it worked in the same terms he and Rich would’ve described it back in their Hyperion world, but here in the Arena, that description would sound like first-class bafflegab, nothing more. He just knew he could pull off those tricks here, somehow, and the communicator proved he was right.

  Absolutely correct, Doctor DuQuesne; I suspect I do not possess anything valuable enough to actually pay for that secret. A subliminal impression of Orphan’s wing-snap shrug. Well, thus far we have seen no indication Vindatri has detected us.

  Yeah. He could be playing the deep, deep game and letting us pull off all these tricks while actually perfectly aware of it, but my gut says otherwise. And I’ve learned to trust that feeling.

  Doctor DuQuesne, Orphan transmitted with another, very grim, symbolic smile, there we are very much in agreement. Your instincts have been excellent, and mine have stood me in good stead. And, in this case, mine agree with you. Vindatri is volatile, as you have seen. To suddenly discover some new form of communication would surely trigger some form of reaction in him.

  “What gets me about this,” DuQuesne said, his voice echoing through the gloom, “is that it’s deserted. It looks like nothing’s working in here—maybe hasn’t been working in a thousand years. Why would you build something this size and have parts of it just gathering dust?”

  “Perhaps,” Orphan observed, gazing around and flicking his light from one towering, distant shape to another, “there were once more people living here. Though he is a lone—and I admit somewhat intimidating—figure today, perhaps there were many of his people here once.” His voice took on a melancholy note. “It does have something of the air of parts of the Liberated’s Sphere. Where once were hundreds, now only two walk—and until but a short time ago, only one, myself, had walked those halls for over a thousand years.”

  I feel the same about Vindatri. No reaction probably means we’re in the clear, at least for now. So are you going to enlighten me as to why you wanted this gizmo? Not that it’s not going to be useful, but you were the one who asked me to whip it up.

  Indeed. I have …call it a premonition, call it simply foreboding …that we may eventually find ourselves at odds with our host. I desperately hope that this will not be the case. But if it must be, I very much desire a way to discuss plans for that eventuality without doing so in front of him. An impression of an ironic raised eyebrow. Plans are usually so much more effective when your adversary is not present at the conference table.

  DuQuesne reflected that this was one of the times he didn’t like Orphan’s instincts coinciding with his own. On the other hand, Orphan’s approach was exactly correct. Hate to agree, but you’re r
ight, sooner or later we’re gonna butt heads with Vindatri, and I’m betting on sooner.

  “Or maybe like buying a real big house because one day you’ll have a family, and maybe you want a workshop, and for years you never get around to it,” he said, continuing their audible conversation.

  A genuine-sounding laugh from Orphan, with the higher-pitched buzzing overlay of the real sound clearly audible. “Why, Doctor DuQuesne, I had not yet grasped how many things our species does have in common! The Blessed—and Liberated—would recognize that sad tale of prudence becoming waste all too well.”

  Orphan’s transmitted voice was less cheerful. Your words make me most suspicious that you have a material and cogent reason to expect this conflict, not merely the native caution of your “gut,” Doctor.

  He sent the impression of a deadly smile. Nailed it in one, Orphan. I guess I’d better put you at least partly in the picture, though there’s key stuff I still ain’t planning to tell you.

  And when have I ever told you everything? I would be pleased to be given, shall we say, whatever elements of the “picture” that you feel are important at this time.

  One thing you could say for Orphan: he’d been playing the game for a long, long time, and didn’t hold it against you when you were playing the game around him. DuQuesne nodded internally. “Still,” he said out loud, “this place sure looks like it was meant for something big. Really big. What in the name of everything sensible are those machines?”

  The machines in question towered over the two like skyscrapers, enigmatic masses of contoured metal …or maybe, from the sheen, the nigh-invincible material the Arena used for construction, that Simon called CQC—coherent quark composite. DuQuesne had seen machines that big or bigger, both in his Hyperion past and in his work in the real world; the turbine generators providing power for a large part of the colony on Humanity’s Upper Sphere were easily this size. But nothing about the shape of the brooding titan structures was familiar, and their dead panels gave no hints; even the vaguely-visible symbology on the panels was unfamiliar. Bet that Simon could read it, though, he thought.