Goblinopolis, The Tol Chronicles, Book 1

by Robert G. Ferrell

  There was poverty and misery here as well, of course, but it was carefully hidden away from tourists and business executives in very strictly enforced ghettoes behind massive stone walls topped with gay foliage. The inhabitants were virtually prisoners in their own shabby neighborhoods; their comings and goings regulated by edict enforcement officers to minimize the negative impact they had on income-producing visitors, especially those from other continents who wanted to establish lucrative trade agreements with Tragacanthan firms headquartered on the ‘Platinum Coast,’ as it was self-billed.

  The Ferroc Osta Duber was built in the same style as every other public building in Cladimil, only on a grander scale and with more attention to small architectural details. It was raised on a cliff overlooking a truly world-class panorama of the Noorprid, with the requisite complement of rolling waves, wheeling sea avians, and cavorting marine mammals seemingly on continuous duty. Dendrash, the Osta Magineer, had made it one of his agenda items to better accommodate visitors to the Duber. There were regular tours conducted from an elegant visitor center with a nice restaurant and easy access to the carriage station.

  Boogla would have thoroughly enjoyed doing the tourist thing, but she had duties to discharge. Because of Cladimil’s importance as a manufacturing center and major port for trade with the far western nation of Solemadrina, Ferroc Osta was of critical strategic importance to Tragacanth. His Majesty had a fairly extensive laundry list of topics he wanted Boogla to cover with Dendrash, and their meeting took most of the day. Dendrash was businesslike but not without a sense of humor. He and Boogla got along better than she had anticipated.

  Just before dusk Boogla finally had the opportunity to stroll the kilometer-long boardwalk paralleling the beach behind the Duber complex. The salt air and warmth were very relaxing, and made it easy to see why so many people wanted to retire here. She had an excellent evening repast of seafood stew and tender bumpershoots wilted in karsi oil, accompanied by a vintage silverplum wine. It was only with great reluctance that Boogla boarded her private carriage for Ferroc Norda at midnight. She would definitely have to visit Cladimil again when she had more time to appreciate its delights.

  The rail line to Dresmak threaded its way somewhat precariously through fifty kilometers of narrow opening between mountains known as Krubber Pass. The railway alternated between steep canyon walls and vertigo-inducing bridges with nothing but air on both sides down to the rock-strewn cirque far below. Boogla decided that since she was going to be keeping her eyes shut for the next couple of hours anyway, she might as well take a long nap. She did briefly bring herself to look down as they passed over the source of the mighty Mernal River. Here it was just a spring-fed trickle, augmented by melting snow and ice in the spring. Hard to believe this was the beginning of the kilometer-wide monster that eventually emptied into Myndrythyl Bay, carrying hundreds of thousands of tonnes of alluvium and fifty meter-wide cargo barges with it.

  Dresmak was not an unattractive place, but compared with the sun-splashed splendor of Cladimil it was positively uninspiring from Boogla’s perspective. The predominant building substrate here was granite—the nearby Masrons provided a wealth of easily-quarried raw material—and this lent the architecture an austere, classical feeling.

  The city was laid out in very logical fashion, predictable and precise. The Duber and city government buildings were set in a circular complex at the geographic center; the various municipal districts then expanded in exactly-placed concentric circles from this nexus like ripples on a pond, somewhat in the Lumbos model but with none of the freeform style. The Dresmak Mayoral pram that brought Boogla from the carriage station to the Duber took her past stately mansions, row after row of brick and stone townhouses, and a plethora of meticulously maintained parks and other public spaces.

  Imber-ol, the Norda Magineer, was equally august, at least on the surface. Once he and Boogla were sequestered in the Magineer’s Sanctum, however, he loosened up a bit, even joking now and then as they went over the King’s agenda. Once they’d covered Aspet’s topics, Imber-ol offered Boogla a drink of some excellent, difficult to acquire brandy that she couldn’t refuse. He led her down into his quite impressive libations cellar and locked the door behind him. This put her on guard, but he quickly reassured her that his intentions were not evil. “There is a project underway here,” he said to her as they wound their way down the stone stairs carved from the living rock itself, “known only to a select few. Indeed, I am not aware if, or to what extent, even His Majesty has been briefed, in truth.”

  “What manner of ‘project’ are you referring to?”

  “To answer that, I’ll have to give you some arcanophysical theory background. If you already know this I apologize in advance; please be patient and consider it a refresher in that event.”

  Boogla nodded.

  “We’ve known since the time of the Archmage Ezcariel that a careful synergy of reflection spells could non-invasively extract a complete psychic clone of a person, which could then be stored in a properly prepared arcane crystal for a number of years before it began to degenerate due to entropic mutation. Within the last decade we’ve also been able to generate a complete genetic clone of that person. Both of these advances are generally known throughout the magineering community. What is not known, however, is that the process for magically overlaying the psychic template onto the cloned organism has been perfected.”

  Boogla gasped. “You mean you’ve figured out how to create an exact clone of a person, memories and all?”

  “Yes and no. Yes, in that we could do this if we had a completely ‘empty’ adult shell into which to inject the psychic template. No, in that so far we haven’t been able to raise an organism to the adult state without any learned behaviors or memories creeping in. If the template is overlain onto any existing information, the resulting discrepancies have unpredictable and often catastrophic results for the subject. In effect, since the template is an entire psychic blueprint, there is no ‘room’ for additional, contradictory, data. Either the incoming or the existing data is destroyed during the overlay procedure, according to the laws of localized non-deterministic entropic information theory—with which you are no doubt familiar. It is not possible to predict which will survive, or what the resulting effect will be on the subject’s mental state. Another complication is that the template steadily loses integrity over time.”

  “Is there no way to simply wipe the subject clean, as it were, prior to the procedure?”

  “Not as such, no. However, we have discovered another direction from which this problem may be approached. Unlike on the physical plane, artifacts transported to The Slice are not subject to degradation, since time as we understand it does not exist there. A psychic image stored in The Slice will not degrade—or if it does, the timeframe will be eons from our point of view—so a ‘master copy’ sequestered there should allow a person to be cloned again and again and restored to the same mental state each time. A form of immortality, if you will, and a way to correct progressive mental degeneration by resetting the person’s brain to a known good state.”

  “Does anyone else know about this?”

  “We suspect so. There is a class of archmages who have transcended the physical plane through their arts and now exist primarily in The Slice, although they can yet have limited interaction with our plane from time to time. They are probably aware of this technique, although it would likely hold little more than passing interest for them. As for N’plork itself, we don’t think the magical community at large here has any knowledge of this, except perhaps as a completely theoretical thought experiment. Nothing in my long years of training hinted at it, at any rate.”

  “What happens to the memories and skills developed by the subject between the time the image is taken and the time it is restored to them?”

  “Right now, as I said, that is the limiting factor for the process that renders it currently impractical. Eventually we will learn how to wipe them clean prior
to the restoration. There is no way any of the research team can see to retain them without a high probability of driving the subject insane.”

  “If time does not pass in The Slice, are transcendent mages able to learn new skills or accumulate memories there?”

  “We honestly don’t know. There is a theory that the matrix of The Slice itself serves as a form of ‘external storage’ for the creatures that inhabit it, rendering additional neocortical function unnecessary, but that’s very difficult to corroborate. There would seem to be a bandwidth issue, as it were, in accessing those memories, but our understanding of the arcanophysical limitations, if any, of The Slice is quite limited. Oh, and one more drawback to this process: as far as we have been able to ascertain, restored clones are sterile. We believe this has to do with the role hormones play in gametogenesis during early development. A cloned genetic template does not produce new gametes unless the image is taken prior to sexual maturity.”

  “Is there nothing to be done about this?”

  “Actually, one of the most exciting sub-projects underway here at present is one which extracts partial genetic and psychic images on a periodic basis throughout the life of the subject in order to restore them sequentially and thus preserve the entirety of the subject’s biological meta-architecture.”

  “And that doesn’t encounter the overlay discrepancy problem?”

  “No, because each image is incremental to the previous: they don’t overlap, at least in theory.”

  “What about the case where some injury has triggered the brain’s plasticity to repurpose previously allocated structures?”

  “Very astute point. You have an impressively broad range of knowledge, Your Excellency. The same plasticity that allows the brain to rewire itself to bypass an injury may work to our benefit—or against us. At this juncture we simply don’t know.”

  “I see. Well, please keep us informed as to your progress. I will provide you with the private Royal Encryption keys before I leave; they make use of one-time pads that rotate every morning. A special messenger will deliver a new set once a month.”

  “Thank you, Your Excellency. May I presume that some Royal funding will be made available to us as well? So far we have made due with Duber research and development monies, but they are inadequate to fund the various projects over the long term.”

  “I will need to speak with His Majesty concerning this; I don’t think He will have any reservations about backing this project fully, however.”

  The carriage trip back to Goblinopolis traversed the vast northern woodlands. Hundreds of thousands of hectares of old growth forest resided here in pristine glory. Rumors abounded of many species of undiscovered wildlife and, as with other less well-explored areas of Tragacanth a few old legends persisted of unknown sentients. The vast area bounded by Dresmak, the Mernal River, and the Kopyrewt rain forest was relatively poorly charted, despite its proximity to two of Tragacanth’s major urban centers. Kopyrewt was easily accessible by water, and harbored a great treasure trove of economically-important trees and herbs, so it was far better explored in comparison with the neighboring forest lands.

  There was a movement afoot in Lumbos to have portions of Kopyrewt declared a national preserve before some unique species were lost forever due to habitat destruction, but so far it had failed to attract much attention in the capitol. Environmentalism was rather a new phenomenon in Goblin culture, although some of the other less thoroughly urbanized races had championed like causes for many years.

  It was late in the evening when Boogla’s carriage finally pulled into Loca Station. She left her escort at the entrance to the Royal Staff housing, thanked them, climbed the steps of her townhouse tiredly, greeted her servants and tumbled into bed. A good night’s sleep was just what she needed after her grand tour of Tragacanth. As she drifted off into slumber she reflected on the differences and similarities between hacking and diplomacy. Hacking, she decided at length, was a lot easier.

  Chapter Twenty-One:

  Aggravating Assault

  Tol was grateful for the plethora of stone formations protruding at odd angles from the walls, ceiling, and floor of the caverns. They gave him plenty of easy cover. He followed Pyfox and his cronies by dodging from stalagmite to pillar to column; after a few minutes his clothes were wet and a little slimy from the thin coating of water on the living formations. Pyfox headed up a short, broad stairway and into a smallish chamber off to one side of the hallway at the top. Tol followed using his three decades of surveillance skill and sandwiched himself between two troll-sized boulders to watch. Pyfox stood in front of a carved wooden table on which sat a large crystalline sphere and thrice chanted some phrase Tol couldn’t quite make out. At the very last word of the third repetition the sphere glowed with a rosy radiance. It seemed to enlarge as the light grew more intense, until the sphere itself took up half the room. Tol didn’t know what to make of this, so he just made himself as small and inconspicuous as possible and waited.

  The giant sphere shimmered impressively for a few seconds, then a ghostly figure appeared within it and an ethereal, distinctly unpleasant rasp of a voice infested the small chamber like a dread disease.

  “Pyfox, my loyal servant. Have you positioned your minions for the final assault?”

  “Yes, Your Eminence. All of the Marker attack portals have been established and the mageslaves controlling them await my command.”

  “Excellent. You may proceed at will. Be certain to adhere to the attack pattern as planned.”

  • * • * • * •

  Ballop’ril, wrapped in a rich scarlet robe emblazoned with mystic symbols, stood on a marvelously carved dais cut from some mystical bluish stone that seemed to glow from within. Prond knelt before him, with the others forming a semicircle about three meters out. The Archmage held in one hand a beautifully embroidered green sash and in the other an unadorned black orb of indeterminate composition that fit neatly in his gnarled palm. Prond was dressed in a simple white tunic with a thin silver chain around his waist.

  Ballop’ril addressed the assemblage.

  “Today we induct a new acolyte into the elite circle of mages. Prond has agreed to take on the sash of the Mage’s Apprentice and to serve under my tutelage for so long as the relationship is mutually agreeable.”

  He stepped forward and bid Prond stand, then tied the sash around his waist.

  “This orb,” he said, holding it up for all to see, “Is a magical energy sink mages formally refer to as a speculum arcanis. The orb may be invoked only by you, Prond, once we fuse it to your corolla integumenta—that’s the magical aura that surrounds all of us—and you may then use it to draw magical essence, or manna, from The Slice and store it for future use.”

  He held the orb to Prond’s forehead, raised his other hand palm up, and uttered an incantation. The orb began to glow, which progressed through yellow-orange-red, then all the color drained out of it and into Prond’s forehead, briefly illuminating him from within down to the shoulders. Prond stepped back and staggered, but quickly regained his composure. He held the orb up and it glowed with a golden radiance that grew in intensity until a bright throbbing arc leapt out, the leading edge of which poured into an invisible tear in the fabric of the air itself. The orb began to accumulate manna as if it were literally being filled through a hole in the top.

  At approximately the halfway mark the arc suddenly oscillated wildly then faded. Prond looked at Ballop’ril, puzzled. Ballop’ril put one hand on either side of his head and went into a mystic trance while everyone else looked on in concern. After a few moments he came out of it. The rocky floor beneath them began to rumble. They braced themselves; it was obvious the mountain was on the move again.

  “We must hasten to Astflanar. The Slice is under attack.”

  It took about half an hour for the mountain to reach its destination moving at top speed. It was noisy and difficult to walk about during the journey, so the crew just found places to hang on without trying to
converse over the din. Ballop’ril sat cross-legged in a trance, doing whatever it was archmages did at times like this. Prond in his new sash stood nearby, clutching the now inoperative orb and trying not to feel awkward and superfluous.

  There was one final spasm of grinding and thumping, then all fell silent. Ballop’ril returned from his spiritual sojourn and stood up.

  “Come.”

  He strode off into a small crevice in the wall. The rest followed somewhat hesitantly. They traversed a narrow but passable corridor for quite a while, until they came at last to what appeared to be the end of the line: a wall of very solid-looking unbroken rock. Ballop’ril stood there studying it for a moment, then raised one hand in a tight fist. He held the position for a few seconds, and then abruptly his fingers sprang open. The solid wall in front of them melted away like smoke dissipating in a sudden breeze. Ballop’ril strode through and motioned for the others to follow.

  “Neat trick,” Kurg muttered.

  After only a few meters they came to a wide spot in the corridor. Ballop’ril halted and turned to address them.

  “We have passed from my sanctuary mountain into the interior of Mount Astflanar. We are headed for a chamber deep in the bowels of the mountain where a puppet of the evil transcendent mage Namni is even now orchestrating a devastating attack on The Slice, or more accurately, on the portals that allow magic to flow from The Slice to the physical plane. As we approach the lair of the puppet Pyfox the path will be increasingly heavily fortified with magical traps. It is absolutely imperative for your safety that you follow my instructions to the letter. Any disregard may prove fatal. Are you all clear on that point?”