"How long till that is done?"
"At least a month until we can make a manual launch with sorcerers doing the spells. Years until it's back on full automatic. The site is a mess. Most of the tech is dead or gone. We're practically going to have to rebuild the entire complex from scratch."
"Are we allowed to fraternize with the grounders?"
"You took the Project Leader's spells, didn't you? As long as you speak the language, you can come and go as you please. My advice is to start using the language right away or the grammar and vocabulary will start to get muddled. That was my experience, anyway. Things were tense with the Mhajhkaeirii to start with, but none of them were killed or seriously hurt in the landing -- we should be thankful that none were -- so no one has any real reason to be upset. And, just like anywhere, if you have money, people are always happy to see you."
"And you have money."
Nali patted a pocket in the trousers of her coverall. "Right. I sold a toenail clipper to a man just yesterday."
"Magic items bring a high price."
"Right, again! You could live well for years just on the stuff you carry in your cosmetics pouch." She stopped and released Prim's arm, then spread her own arms wide. "We're here! What are you in the mood for? Big meal or a sample of everything? We can go simple of fancy. Your choice."
Prim looked around. While not showing any outward sign of it, she had memorized the path that Nali had led her along through the ruins as well as marking the positions and orientations of the larger intact buildings should she need to locate the market from another starting point.
The market looked like any open air market that she had ever seen in the life before, save for the odd garments of the hawkers and sellers. Most, if not all, of the clientele were people from the orbital and the primary article of trade was food -- both raw and prepared. Meats, produce, and even cakes and pies were displayed everywhere. Nearly all of it looked at least partially familiar. One thing that she immediately noticed was that all of the wares were on open display; no magical preservation or packaging of any sort was in evidence.
"Is it all safe?" She asked Nali.
"Perfectly. People that sell bad food here get fed their own garbage. But watch out for the kebabs. They're so spicy that I'm sure it will come out in your milk. Lawst might get upset with you."
Prim laughed.
"So, what will it be?"
"You are the veteran. I will follow your lead."
"Fine! This way!"
As Nali navigated her through the crowd, Prim thought about Mar.
The way that Nali had described him made her think that he had changed much since she had first met him in the life before. Then, he had been unrelenting but not hardened. Now, it seemed that he had gained both in magical power and cold determination and she could not be certain how he might react when they met again, as they inevitably must.
One thing that she did know for certain, however, was that the young wizard owed her a favor and it was time to try to collect on that debt.
FORTY-SIX
7026 by the Common Reckoning
(Thirdday, Waxing, 1st Summermoon, 1645 After the Founding of the Empire)
Tertiary Launch Site
Nali followed Bherlide up the wooden stairwell. The new treads had been laid over the broken remains of the original stone stair.
Glancing back, Bherlide saw her look. "This is just temporary. We're on the list to have masons rebuild the stone stairway, but they probably won't get around to us until next spring."
The "inn" owned by Bherlide and her family was more like a grand hotel. Including gardens and courtyards, the place covered at least three hectares. Thus far, two wings of the main building complex had been renovated.
"Oh, this is fine," Nali assured her. "These stairs are good and solid."
Bherlide grinned in undisguised pride. "My husband Lho and my sons built them and put in the door."
The proprietress turned the handle and pushed open said door, which Nali saw was solid and sturdy, but made of undecorated raw wood.
"There's new plaster and paint in all the side rooms. If you don't like the colors, we can repaint -- it'd have to be white, I'm afraid -- but you'd have to wait another four or five days to move in."
Nali stepped through the door into the large room. The walls, floor, and vaulted ceiling were the tan native stone of the ruins, but through archways to the left and right she caught sight of dark blue and light rose. The stonework looked solid and tight. At the far end, the room opened out into a semi-circular balcony with a stone railing that overlooked the large main courtyard.
Nali walked to the right archway, to sweep her eyes over the still bright walls. There was a large bed with what were no doubt a down mattress and a handmade coverlet and a matching dresser and cupboard. Sturdy rugs covered much of the floor. Quite clearly all of these had been made from natural materials, but the craftsmanship was superb.
"These colors are lovely! Did you pick them out?"
Bherlide laughed. "Just luck. Lho bought the pigments right off the dock unopened. Materials for building are in high demand these last few months."
Nali took coins from her pocket. "You said five thal a month? A thal is one of these, isn't it?"
"Yes, dear, but you should get a purse for your money and not show all your coin at once! Especially the thalars! Most folks are honest, but there's new people coming to the Monolith every day!"
It had taken Nali exactly two hours and one intermediary trade to turn her standard issue hand torch into what the briefings on the orbital had told her were thirteen thalars, twenty-six thal, and eighteen thay. It had taken only another quarter of an hour to turn a mere pittance of that into a full set of used local clothing and a stout pair of knee high boots. She had made no attempts to conceal her accent or pretend that she was not one of the "sky people," but taking steps to blend in had been almost instinctive. Bherlide had commented on her being the first "sky person" that she had met, but otherwise had seemed completely at ease with the otherworldly origin of her potential new tenant.
Though she knew that the big gold coins were thalars, she held one up to give the older woman the chance to be helpful. "Thalar? That's these?"
Bherlide bustled to her side and pointed in turn at the different coins spread upon Nali's palm. "The golds are thalars and that's a whole lot of money, so you should get you a lock box or even better deposit it with Master Khlosb'ihs' shipbuilders. They pay one in ten every six months, so it's a pretty good deal. The silvers are thal and it takes fifty of them to make one thalar. The copper ones are thay and it's ten thay to a thal. The bronze ones are twentypence and tenpence. The tenpence are the ones with the skyship on them. The iron ones are pennies. The pence are all minted here, so they're just good here, but you could probably swap them at even or better in Mhajhkaei or most anywhere else."
"Thanks, so much!" Nali enthused with a wide, warm smile. "So, it would be thirty thal for six months? I should probably hold on to the smaller coins. Would you mind taking a thalar for the rent?"
Bherlide pursed her lips. "Well, I could, but you could just wait and pay when you get more change. I don't like gold all that much, dear. It gives good people bad ideas. Besides, I don't think I've got enough silver to give you your change."
"Oh, well, if it's alright with you, could you just take it all? I'm going to need meals and I noticed that you have a big dining room. Would that be too much trouble?"
"No, it's no trouble at all. Most of the roomers, even the families, eat with us much of the time. How's this? Board is usually a thay a day or twenty a month for three meals and the odd snack or four. So room and board for six months with a one in ten discount for paying in advance would come to forty thal. If you want, we could do your laundry and cleaning for the last ten thal for the entire half a year."
"Oh, that would be grand!" Nali pressed one of the gold coins into the woman's hand.
"I'd best get this into the lockbox!" Bher
lide told her. "I'll be back in a bit to show you around and introduce you to everyone."
After the proprietress left, Nali strolled out onto the balcony. Other wide balconies circled the courtyard. Most supported only plants or empty chairs, but several had people reading or playing games with cards or figurines. When Nali waved, everyone smiled, called greetings, and waved back. A gaggle of children were playing some sort of game with a leather ball and sticks and several older girls and boys were washing laundry in a series of cascading stone water troughs near the spraying central fountain.
She wondered briefly how they managed to get the water pressure without magic, then turned about and started back inside.
The wizard was standing off to one side by the blue room. He had clearly chosen his entrance point to place himself out of the line of sight the tenants on the other balconies.
He did not look pleased. "Have you established contact with Mar?"
"No. There's no point in doing so. His wife and his baby are here. I've never seen a man look at a woman the way that he does her. I know for a fact that he'll never so much as glance at another woman while she's alive."
"Exactly."
Nali could not keep the frown from her face. "When?"
"Soon. Both impediments will succumb after a short illness. Mar will be distraught. He will require comfort, which you will provide."
The wizard extended a small red cylinder -- a sprite loader. She looked at it for a long moment before taking it from him.
"Inject the sprites an hour before you lie with him. They will adapt your cycle and insure that you conceive."
Not only would Zso make her a whore, he would make her a brood mare as well.
"He won't love me," she said.
"No, but he will be faithful to you and your child. He will defend you and he will follow you."
"To where?"
"Back to the real world where his duty awaits. Before this phantom future came to be."
"When?"
"When you are six months along, I will take you away. He will follow and he will save our world from destruction."
She nodded, keeping her expression blank.
"I will be watching," he told her in a bland fashion then vanished.
Bherlide hurried back in just a moment later while Nali was still lost in thought. She unobtrusively shoved the sprite loader in a pocket of her trousers.
"I meant to warn you, but it slipped my mind!"
Nali stifled a frown. "Warn me of what?"
"Why, the rooms straight across the courtyard are taken by a gang of young rakes, all of them carpenters or stonemasons or such up from Mhajhkaei for the good wages that Master Khlosb'ihs pays. As pretty as you are, if you don't watch out you'll have five or six marriage proposals by the end of the first fortnight!"
Nali laughed. "Is that a bad thing?"
"No, not so long as you get the right proposal from the right man!" Bherlide took Nali's arm and patted her hand. "Now, being as it's Thirdday, everyone will be in this evening after shopping and whatnot. We often have a do when someone new moves in to take the sting from getting acquainted and since everyone will be here we might as well get ready for a party! There's this one young man that you just have to meet. He only stays with us for a few days each month. He's from a merchant family in Mhajhkaei and is the second officer on the skyship Periwinkle."
A notion, foolish, contrary, and in the end certainly fatal, presented itself. She could choose to continue as Zso's creature or she could end it on her own terms. "The skyships, do they go everywhere in the world?"
"Oh, yes! Lhwoer was just telling us this morning that his next voyage is to Szillarn..."
FORTY-SEVEN
7026 by the Common Reckoning
(Thirdday, Waxing, 1st Summermoon, 1645 After the Founding of the Empire)
Tertiary Launch Site
Walis ran to find the Project Leader the very moment the results were confirmed. He made good time as he raced through the vacant tunnels and chambers; today being some sort of religious holiday, all of the local workers were at home or burning incense or marching down their streets banging drums and tambourines.
Following an ethereal trail, he found Oyraebos on a catwalk that had been manually cranked out from the secondary maintenance corridor into Launch Tube Seven.
"Project Leader, I must speak with you at once!"
"Just a moment, Section Leader. These modulations are delicate."
Oyraebos was monitoring as two senior technicians reconstructed the spells that created a frictionless surface on this recently excavated section of the launch tube.
Walis contained his outward enthusiasm, but made no attempt to rein in his inner excitement as he idled just out of the way of the three sorcerers.
There was hope after all!
Though the wait seemed interminable, it was only a quarter of an hour before the dancing and singing was complete.
"Now, Section Leader," Oyraebos said, turning to Walis as the technicians moved on to their next project. "What is your emergency?"
"It is the wizard Mar. He is a Primary Progenitor! The probability that his seed will reproduce in kind is unity."
Oyraebos shook his head as if to clear it of a haze. "I am sorry, Section Leader. I have gone over too many calculations and tables of figures today. Please explain what you mean in more simple terms."
"Every descendant of his will produce fully Proficient offspring even unto the nth generation."
"Would not that normally be the case? We did try to recruit him as a Participant in the life before."
"Yes, but then we only had projections of his genetics. Now that he has been fully sequenced, the full potential of his superior magical heritage has been revealed! Mar's genes are magically dominant. His seed will breed true regardless of the magical potential of the mother."
"In other words, his line will remain Proficient indefinitely."
"Yes!"
"While this may certainly be significant from a research point of view, I fail to see how this knowledge would dramatically impact the goals of the Project. Mar's descendants could not multiply fast enough to reverse the general decline in the magic potential of the grounder population."
"Oh but they could, Project Leader! Being a wizard, Mar does not have the standard physical and temporal limitations on the broadcast of his genetic material. His progeny are potentially limitless. He could quite literally impregnate one thousand women at once!"
The Project Leader's brows knitted. "I am sorry, Section Leader, but I find the concept not only improbable but absurd."
"Oh, no, Project Leader. It is simple exponential growth! Each of those one thousand Proficient offspring would produce an average of six Proficient offspring who would in turn produce an average of six Proficient offspring who would in turn produce an average of six Proficient offspring who would --"
Oyraebos held up a hand. "I understand the mathematics well enough, Section Leader. My comment on absurdity was directed towards the conception that one man would willingly reproduce with one thousand women. How would he possibly keep up with all their names?"
Momentarily adrift, Walis blinked. "I was speaking in terms of a brief insemination process, rather than in terms of extended romantic entanglements."
"Men and women are not domestic animals, Section Leader. Mar is a young man of unshakable commitments. The Project's analysis of his character in the life before has been absolutely confirmed by everything that I have seen here. He will not break any commitment that he has made, including his vow of marriage, for any reason whatsoever. Even should he be convinced to consent to this fantastic scheme, something that I believe to be impossible, what of the danger of reinforcement of recessives? Given your exponential progression, at some point, his direct descendants would compose the majority of the population."
"He possesses none. No one alive today is directly related to him in any way. Because he is the child of Holders, even we of the Project who are cotempor
aneous with his origins are only distantly related to him. To use a frankly false analogy, he is almost an entirely different species from every other human on this planet. He is the key to the revival of our world and our civilization. We must convince him to restore magic to the people of our planet!"
The Project Leader shook his head. "You speak of potentials, but I am afraid that realities are all that we can expect to achieve. In future, it is possible that we will be able to integrate some of his progeny into our own Proficient lineages, but the cruel fate of the grounders is to remain forever crippled by their Deficiency."
FORTY-EIGHT
When Yhejia and Tsyl, along with a loose collection of adolescents, children, Auxiliaries and a bored legionnaire or two, went to market, Telriy brought Celly along.
Yhejia, looking for bargains and voicing her intention to make the weekly chore into an excursion, led them to the large market that had formed in the Plaza of the Blind Odalisques, which had been named for the central statuary of the once again functioning fountain. None of the irregular stubs of granite were recognizable as anything in particular, but when told the name, most people would say, "Oh! Yes, I see it now!"
The market was crowded. About of third of the shoppers were sky people, readily identifiable by their colorful and strangely cut clothing. The presence of these otherwise unremarkable people in the plaza was evidently such a commonplace event that the Mon'lithirii (a new term that many in the settlement had begun to use to identify themselves) hardly bothered to stare.
Telriy did not stare as she moved through a drifting fog of the sharp scents given off from the kiosks of the cooks, bakers, and spirits vendors along with Yhejia's herd to taste, squeeze, smell, shake, pinch, and occasionally purchase various fresh fruits, vegetables, grains, beans, spices, and meats.
But she did keep track of the sky people through the ether. All of them without exception were magicians and, from the stir they made in the background flux, extremely powerful ones. Each of them also wore jewelry and carried other items about their person that possessed strong enchantments. Much of this jewelry was identical from person to person, specifically bracelets and rings, suggesting that these magical items were standard equipment produced in large quantities.
Thief (The Key to Magic Book 7) Page 25