‘We must find out who did it.’ Lynella stated without leaving room for questions. ‘The monastery hadn’t been started and anyway the power of their machine couldn’t begin to compare with this.’
‘It would have been a war between mages.’ He cautiously placed a hand on the back of one of the chairs, keeping well clear of the corpse slumped to the other side. ‘Probably around the time of the final battle at the source and the compact. It would have been a battle like the ones Maria describes, almost everybody on both sides died.’
Lynella knew that this was wrong. ‘This was done after the compact.’ She replied simply. ‘Nothing like this was built in the kingdoms and if they had been able to build one they would have, and they would have used it in the final wars. There was no war between mages when this was destroyed.’
‘So, who was fighting?’ Paul asked. The signs of a battle were plain to see.
‘The Mages were fighting the only power that was stronger than they were.’ She replied, sounding sure of her facts but also distressed by them. ‘They fought each-other until the compact rescued them from oblivion but then they fought their God and died. The God survived, but the mages died.’
Paul felt the superiority of his background in a society based on machines which depended on scientific principles which had been analysed and understood. His God was not a medieval character who could be challenged. His God was conveniently distanced and sanitised. He held onto some fairly archaic ideas of the nature of evil but nothing like this.
Lynella sensed the size of the gap between their cultures. ‘I saw the personality of your power.’
He looked completely blank and she smiled at him.
‘You helped me down at the door. I see now you don’t even know you did it.’
‘What are you talking about? You can do the magic. I’m the one who does the machines.’
She walked over to one of the chairs. Lifting the heavy gold crown, she found that the decomposed head started to come away with it. She pushed it out, casually letting it fall on the floor. Paul felt nausea rising inside him. He shuddered back as she moved towards him. She ignored him, placing the band on his head. One of its jewels rested firmly against his forehead. The last thing he saw before collapsing was her smile as her own jewel glowed.
Regaining consciousness, he saw her again, differently. He was aware of images around him. Strangely unfamiliar. He knew what they were. This world existed in parallel to the other world, rather than dreams which take the semblance of being the only reality. Cautiously he found that he could interact with his surroundings. He inspected the room. He saw the table and then the objects around it in this new perspective. Lynella was where he had seen her in the real world. Her expression was unsmiling but, at the same time, her mind was open. For the first time he saw her belong. She was alone, waiting patiently for him to be ready to follow her.
He reached out to her to find out what had happened. She explained how she had used the runes on the table as a gateway to a network and then reached out to draw him in. Looking again he was able to see his own body slumped down, his head to one side, his arms draped on the table and only the wings of the chair preventing him from falling. He tied to rush over to it, but his movement was slow and uncertain. Then he saw his chest moving, breathing, slow but steady.
‘That is not death’. He voice was distant but frighteningly clear. ‘Your thinking is still in that world’.
She encouraged him to go to the threshold of the gateway to satisfy himself that he was free to go back. But she knew he would not want to leave until he had explored. Some of the pathways reached out in the other direction further into the network.
She waited as he tried to see what he could do in this new reality. He found that he could touch her. Brushing her sleeve, he saw it move in this reality but not in the other world. Remembering what she had done in the monastery, he saw a small ring on the table and found that he was able to move it in both worlds. He knew that if he had been able to see the ring he could have moved it without entering this world and, with practice, controlled its movement. The network would enable him to project that power at a distance and, like the computer networks he knew, to communicate.
She led him through pathways around the tower. Some of them were damaged but all were passable. In an instant they travelled to the top of the pylon and back. When he fell behind she slowed down and helped him, drawing his jewel towards hers. Every time she sensed it she realised how much stronger it was than hers. She realised that, without it, he would have no more power than she had had as a child.
They went down to the sea and looked at the mechanisms under the dock. They returned to the gold ring at the table. For all of the damage it had taken, it was still immensely powerful. From this point he could begin to understand the purpose of the machine. It was part of a link that connected the source to another point. They could not tell what was at that other point. It was a point of exit. It could enter hyperspace to come out elsewhere in the universe. He could follow this, but he saw that she was trying to lead him beyond this understanding. To understand where it would go if the power was even greater. Far greater than the power of the Atlanta. She knew his limits. She knew not to lead him to the point of destruction.
On the way back down, he tried to help with the lift, but his exhaustion was such that she could only just feel him there.
8
The shape of the island, which concentrated the natural flow into the mouth of the cavern, brought with it a vast amount of sea life. Adam quickly arranged nets over the side of the ship which provided an ample supply of edible fish. The nets also conveniently trapped quantities of driftwood to augment their dwindling supplies of cooking fuel. The following morning Lynella was sufficiently recovered to take Angus and Adam up with them in the lift to the surface of the island. Realising that the chamber that they had been in previously had no outside exits; she guessed correctly that she should go to the floor above it.
When the lift door opened, she was struck by the total contrast to what they had seen before. Here there was a small corridor with a relatively low ceiling and a number of ordinary doors to either side. Inside the doors they found kitchens and store rooms. Although these were quite tidy, it was clear that they had been abandoned by people who did not expect to return. At the end of the corridor, they found an outside door secured with a conventional latch, and through this a short flight of steps to ground level.
The island was covered with a mixture of coarse grass and bare rock. Measuring a few hundred feet in each direction, it had a small rise in the centre with the pylon positioned at the top. There was no sign of any animal life, but vast numbers of sea birds circled above them.
‘We used to come out here occasionally to look at it.’ Adam said. ‘We knew that it was dangerous to go to the north side – boats that went there never came back.’
Angus stared at him. He continued. ‘We knew that the mages must have gone in that way because the cliffs are sheer all the way round. Since we had a mage on board, I assumed that we would get out safely.’
Lynella said nothing.
They made a quick tour of the island and confirmed what Adam had said about the cliffs. Angus commented on the lack of any catchment for rain water.
‘They catch it on the roof at the base of the pylon.’ Paul said. ‘There’s a big cistern in the top level of the building, it’s full but I don’t know if it’s drinkable.’
‘How do you know that?’ Adam asked in his usual direct manner. After a slight hesitation, Paul replied that Lynella had told him.
Back on the ship, they began to discuss how they were going to get out. They thought that if the Director was going to come after them he would probably have done so already. To be sure, they decided to set a lookout at the top of the pylon for a day or two to look for shuttles before leaving the safety of the island.
Working with Paul, Lynella explored the mechanism for getting ships out of the cave and explaine
d it to Adam and his crew. She explained how it worked and they easily located the cable which hooked onto the ship to tow them. She described the winch which was on an outcrop facing the cavern entrance and from the end of the landing stage they could just see it. They were, however, moving towards the impossible question. Having remained in the tower to work the mechanism, how was Lynella going to get onto the ship?
Angus provided the solution. A small boat would be built, not much more than a raft, just large enough for Lynella to sit in. As the King Solomon was towed across the bay a rope would be paid out and this would be used to pull the small boat across when she was in it.
Before this could be done, the critical operation was to lower the masts. With the rigging now almost entirely removed, they stood bare above the ship. They had been made from tree trunks and rested on the keel at the bottom of the hold and were now held upright by the large timbers that secured them. The designers of the ship had never intended the masts to be lowered so no provision had been made to let them move at deck level. They would therefore have to be raised vertically out of the deck before lowering. Adam was in his element. The more impossible the task, the more he drove himself relentlessly towards solving it. Angus ran around after him doing his best to interpret Adam’s gruff monosyllables, and communicate them to the teams who would be required to hold the various ropes with which the operations would be controlled.
Paul and Lynella returned to the tower. A brief second visit to the servant’s level enabled them to obtain sufficient furniture to be broken up and use to construct the small boat for Lynella’s escape. After this, they returned to the only remaining unexplored level which lay just below the other floors.
The lower level was, as expected, the accommodation for the mages. Emerging from the lift they found dark wood panelling with the ever present runic symbols forming the basis of complex patterns in it. A small open hallway with doors on the outer wall surrounded the base of the pylon. Lynella was slightly surprised to see that the doors had handles, but concluded that they must have been for the servants. On this occasion they were, however, all locked. Choosing one at random she tried to open it.
Sensing Paul trying to help her she drew confidence from him while, at the same time, helping him to see the mechanism of the lock and teaching him how to operate it. She found the experience of working in harmony with another individual almost similar to working with one of the monks’ machines, but without the underlying threat of entrapment. For the first time she sensed how lonely she had been throughout her life, as the only mage on the planet, and felt great relief that her isolation had ended.
The lock, however, did not open.
She could sense Paul’s confusion as he waited for her to decide what to do. She put in more power, thinking that the mechanism must simply have become stiff with age. Her jewels glowed but still the door did not open. She felt the now familiar surge of anger and humiliation and prepared to throw in a pulse of energy that would be sufficient to destroy the entire door if the lock would not respond. At the last moment, she sensed Paul trying to persuade her to stop and, fearing that he had seen danger, she withdrew completely.
‘All of the private cabins on the ship have different entry codes. If they didn’t, we would be continually walking into the wrong ones and nobody would have any privacy’.
She had to adjust quickly to realise that he was talking to her with normal speech and work out what he was trying to say.
He tried to explain it another way and asked. ‘What did you do differently at this door from what you would have done at any of the other doors?’
‘Nothing, what did you expect me to do?’
‘I don’t know, but they must all be different.’
Lynella stood back and patiently tried to work on the problem. The doors had numerous runes carved into them. Trying to remember what she had read in the books in the tower, she was able to recognise a few of them. They gave her some clues about the owners of the rooms, the type of power they had and, above all, the way they would fight. Gently probing the locks, she thought that she could recognise the characters from the way they were programmed but she could still not find the key to opening them. Suddenly, from behind her, she heard old hinges protesting as a door opened. Turning she saw Paul laughing at her.
He swung the door wide open and stood back for her to enter, still smiling as she walked across.
She looked back defiantly. ‘I first opened a mage lock when I was ten years old’.
‘But you couldn’t open these ones.’
Looking at him, she finally realised how he had done it. He was wearing the jewel that had belonged to one of the mages. She carefully took it from him and put it against her forehead in place of her own jewel that she had used since childhood. She was amazed how different it was, completely unfamiliar and larger and more complex than her own. She felt slightly unsafe using it, and realised that it could draw her in. Opening locks was, however, one of the simplest things a mage could do, and she could see how the perfect match between the jewel and the lock would have let her open the door with only the lightest contact.
The interior of the room was as Spartan as the chamber above it with simple heavy furniture. There was a bed, which was neatly made, and the only other furniture was a desk and chair. The only concession to decoration was a single portrait of a woman with a child. They were not wearing jewels, but from their bearing and the intensity with which the stared out of the picture they appeared to have the power to be mages.
The only item on the desk was a plain metal cylinder. Paul picked it up. ‘The two halves have been welded together.’ He observed. ‘You mages certainly have a way of doing things.’
She asked what he thought it was.
‘It looks like a message tube to me.’ He replied. ‘The metal tube might just be a way of keeping it secure, but more likely they had a way of shooting it back to the tower.’
‘Whoever lived here never had time to open it. Or perhaps he wrote it and never had time to send it. Or perhaps it was from the lady in the picture.’
They decided to open it. Lynella took great care to do this with speed and precision and Paul was duly impressed. The note largely consisted of runes, clearly written in haste but still carrying hope and power. The only word was ‘farewell’ written near the bottom, in what appeared to be a child’s handwriting.
9
They went up to the main chamber. The corpses stared at them. Paul couldn’t watch. Lynella went up to each one in turn and took their jewels. Decaying flesh fell away but she was more interested in her growing collection on the table, picking them off as if from broken dolls. She examined each in turn, choosing one which was largely translucent with flecks of gold and red. The mounting was similar to her one that the steward had given her; except that it was held in place with a gold chain rather than the simple silk cord that she was used to. It felt comfortable against her forehead. They knew that it had been created by the mages at the height of their power. She tried to take it off to go back to the one she knew, but it drew her in. Each time she thought of letting it go, it always had something new to show her. She realised that Paul was not helping. He was encouraging her to abandon the jewel that she had known since she was a child. Her resistance collapsed. She could now see how great the power of the mages had been. The pathways in the island, which had seemed complex but passable, now emerged in their true logical simplicity.
She took the necklace and bracelets from the same corpse as the jewel. They glowed in recognition. The ones she had found in the old ship in the Southern Castle were discarded on the table.
The new jewel was very different but, in one way, easier to use. Everything in it was more ordered and regular. She realised that they contained none of the natural random pathways that she was used to. They were completely artificial, far newer than hers, which had come from earth. It was as if she had been feeling her way forward in the dark and now had a lamp. She could see where to go, and
the wolves of her terror of failure would never come near her.
They entered the network to explore. Moving to the base of the pylon they found mechanisms which had seemed insignificant before, but could now be seen as distinct devices, each with its own purpose. Many of them were to defend the island. They tried to let their imagination run to picture who or what might have been able to attack it. Others controlled the systems of the tower itself to enable the mages to live in warmth and comfort. The last was the biggest. Formed by a set of rings held in a three-dimensional pattern building up towards the pylon. Its purpose was to deliver pulses of energy to the ring at the top.
‘What could fly through it?’ Paul asked. ‘Where from and where to?’
Lynella did not answer. She led the way downward. Passing the dock, the network continued down into the rock. In front of them was a portal. The end of the privacy of the tower. Beyond it they could see that the pathway continued. They approached it, hesitating at every step. It was surrounded by a device unlike any they had seen before.
They stopped.
‘It looks like a trap. We must disable it.’ Lynella said, knowing that Paul also sensed danger.
‘How do we know? How do we know it’s dangerous?’
‘Maria has read about them. She showed me what she found in the books that were in the tower. That was how I knew what this network was when we found it, and that is how I know that there are traps in it. That is how I know that the jewels that we are wearing have the power to disable it.’
Paul tried to look around, but the network was just blackness, a one-dimensional space in which one could see forwards and backwards but not to either side. In front of them there was this device, and behind there was just a glimmer of where they had come from, apart from that there was just void. It was not even black, it had no substance at all.
Ringships Page 24