It seemed like an illusion, it was not the prophet. It was more familiar, less threatening. Paul was with her. She sensed his shock as he recognised her. Wondering if she was talking with a ghost, she sent an image of the room and the rocks at the door. He was drawing her forwards, up the main pathway and, leading from it to a scarcely discernible track to one side. She wondered if this was just some elaborate trap that was feeding itself from her imagination, but she went on. They came out in a room with a large round table in it and she was being told to wait, holding her presence in the device in the table. She waited, not knowing if it was real but desperately trying to maintain the link through the fragile network. Suddenly she felt a powerful shock and wondered if it was a trap. Then energy was pouring down towards her and she realised that her jewel had been placed in the device.
22
Paul was in the circular room at the top of the tower. It resembled a smaller version of those in the pylons. The decoration was minimal. The table in front of him had rings set into it and only the occasional pattern of runes where the creators had been unable to leave it with no trace of the elegance of form which was such an integral part of their civilisation. However, in this case, even the functional elements were smaller than those he had seen before. This tower was just an outlying fortification for the great fortress in the mountain behind it. That fortress was full of dragons and, among them, was Lynella.
He had not been sure if he had really met her as he had frantically searched the pathways for traces that might show where she was. When he placed her jewel in the recess in the very centre of the table he had not dared hope for a sign. The flash of brilliant white light as the energy poured from it had briefly stunned him before he recovered and chased in to find her.
They were a mile apart, but together. The miles of optical cables on Atlanta could send sounds and images but this was something more. It was a link to their minds through the rings in the golden inlay in the tables in front of them. He had no idea what the network linking the tables was made of. It just was, and he could travel along it, and now he must.
They rushed off to explore together. The original trap now looked clear and simple; and they were soon past it and into the great machine in the core of the mountain. But he drew her back. However much she could use her jewel; he knew that her body was still trapped and fading fast.
They finally stopped to talk. She described her journey into the mountain and showed him how she was imprisoned. She showed him how they would be able to lever the rocks away to free her and, while trying not to seem too desperate, she asked him to hurry. But then he started showing images to her. He moved straight to their fight with the dragons and showed them fleeing to the tower. Now they were inside and secure, but he showed her what could be seen from the high windows. Hundreds of dragons had gathered at the tower and more seemed to be arriving all the time. Smarting from their defeat they looked determined to even the score. She asked him if he still had his gun, but he explained, they had guns but few bullets, nowhere near enough to fight the army of dragons.
‘This mountain is a weapon.’ The words came through to Paul with such strength that he wondered for an instant whether it was human speech from someone else in the room. He asked how she knew. The reply came stronger still, proud, forceful and distant.
‘Do not ask questions. I know. Follow me.’
Paul was shocked and confused. ‘Who is that?’ He asked. ‘Is that still you Lynella, are you all right?’
There was a delay of some seconds before he heard the much softer voice he knew. ‘Yes, it’s me. Suddenly I know so much. It came to my memory. I know all the pathways around the mountain. I can take you to the biggest rings at the lowest levels that draw energy from the core. I can show you where the pylons were made. I can take you to the galleries where the colony ships are made. I can show you where they were launched from for the exodus.’ Paul noticed a slight bitterness in her voice as she said this, but he did not interrupt as she continued. ‘I can show you the close-range weapons in the outer galleries’.
‘What can they do?’ he asked, picturing the dragons outside the tower.
The view changed. He was looking down on the plain from an observation tower high up the mountain. He could see the cultivated fields around the village and, as the image moved across he saw the tower where he was. But there were no dragons. The line of sight kept moving and now he saw the city and realised why he had not seen dragons by his tower. The harbour was full of ships, even twenty miles away, the tall masts stood out against the blue sea beyond. He wanted to ask a question, but the image was still moving. He saw a glimpse of a brass telescope on a ledge and then he was looking through it, hunting for movement in the forest. It scanned back and forth trying to follow paths through the trees. Off to one side, he saw movement. There was a blinding flash. The telescope swung away wildly. The holder staggered back. The image slowly focussed back on where the movement had been. Over a small area, the trees and scrub were burning fiercely. In the centre, there were charred bodies. Paul looked carefully to see the shape of dragons. He realised that he was looking at something different. He was looking at the corpses of a group of people. He felt sick and tried to look away, but the image would not move.
‘Who were they?’ he asked.
‘The Lord Mage of the eagle and his personal guard.’ She replied, in a cold voice.
‘How can you know these things. How did you form those images from so long ago?’
‘I have that memory, it was given to me by God. Let me show you how useful my enlightenment will be. I shall show you the other weapons.’
Paul had little time to worry about what was happening to Lynella. Once again, he was looking out from the top of the mountain but this time the scene was quite different. A battle was in progress. An army of hundreds of men was moving in, overpowering defenders who were trying to hold the road. The attackers had occupied a tower and their archers were shooting from the upper levels with devastating effect against the men below them. He knew that this had been the last line of defence; the mountain would surely soon fall. He saw the men in heavy armour below him so clearly, he could hear the clash of swords and smell the sweat and blood as they fell.
A ring ship flew out from the mountain to attack the tower. Archers on the precarious wooden platforms on the iron rings shot a flight of arrows. Several of the soldiers in the tower had been taken by surprise and their bodies slumped forward. The wooden shafts embedded in their chests, blood pouring out down the stone walls. But the attackers also had ships. These came up fast, angling for position for the attack. With a single deafening crash two ships met. Their mages died. The others weaved and dodged away round the mountain.
The archers in the tower were replaced. The assault continued. A flash from the close-range weapon he had seen before seemed to stop the momentum for a moment, but soon he saw that mages in the tower had turned it back on itself. Their combined power had wrested it from the exhausted defenders. He heard a gallery explode far below and the battle with swords continued.
But now feeling began to grow, overpowering the visual images. He sensed an enormous work that had been completed just in time. With it he knew a fear based on the knowledge that this was to be the last chance. This was to be the fulfilment of their greatest work. With this they would live or die.
The flash came. At first, he thought it was similar to the one he had just seen, but then he saw the blasted stump that had been a tower seconds before. The surge of joy and power was so strong he could feel himself straining for more. The image moved to another tower, further away. Another flash and this was gone. The feeling was even stronger now, the need to destroy. The image moved to another tower and this was also reduced to a shattered ruin.
In his rational self, he suddenly realised that he was seeing the images of the mind that was controlling this ultimate weapon. The line of sight that he saw was directing the beam from the heart of the mountain.
Dest
ruction rained on the plain below him. Each time the need to kill grew stronger. The range grew longer and still towers fell. There were many other targets, the ring ships returned, and the attackers were thrown from the sky. Remnants of the army and dragons died until at last the city came into view. Virtually without thinking energy was drawn from every possible system and the most powerful beam of all was fired. Within the mountain mages collapsed and died, but the city walls stood and protected the houses beyond them. Some ships in the outer harbour burst into flames, but that was all.
The image faded leaving a void, as if the mind that had created it had obliterated all trace of what followed. Paul could scarcely detect Lynella’s presence. She seemed to have been subsumed by the God.
‘What can we do?’ He asked. ‘How much longer can you survive?’
The reply came, cold and firm. ‘We can attack the dragons.’
‘How?’
‘You can see them. You can be the eyes of the weapon.’
‘But we have no power. I know from what I saw of the abbot’s machine that it takes the power of many people to fight with a machine like this.’
Paul sensed confusion at this remark, as if she had forgotten who the abbot was. The effort of reaching into her own memory rather than drawing images from the machine brought forward Lynella’s personality, and he was relieved to hear a reply in a tone that sounded far more familiar.
‘The abbot’s machine was different. This one is far more complex. It can draw power from the planet’s field, rather than just working against it.’
‘So why did people die in the mountain when the weapon was used against the city?’ This time the reply was firm again, but it conveyed with it an overpowering grief. ‘It was too fast. The machine moved too fast. No, that’s wrong, I moved too fast. They had no time to recover from when the attack was driven back. There was no energy left in the rings, so they gave from their minds. And they died for it, for no purpose at all. I killed them.’
Paul saw confused glimpses of an image of a grand hall with the inevitable large circular table in the centre. At the table were mages in their gilded chairs with their jewels glowing but, among them, several where the light was gone. Servants had gathered around, but any who saw the faces below the lifeless jewels knew that there was no hope. Now she was talking again.
‘I know that we are weak, but we can still draw power into the base rings and then we can use it to free you from the tower. It is the only hope.’
‘But what about the dragons in the mountain?’ Paul asked. ‘Are there weapons that can drive them out?’
There was no reply, so he asked. ‘Can you drive them out the way you drove the men out from the monastery.’
By now he sensed that the two minds were working more closely because there was little delay before the reply came. ‘There are loose rings that can be used. This machine has not been used that way before because we have never had an enemy within the mountain, but it can be done.’
Lynella drove her mind far into the machine, moving quickly so Paul had no chance to urge her to show caution. Soon they were drawing power into the lowest rings. The images were with them again, practical guidance showing methods and pathways. As ancient mechanisms were brought to life, Paul sensed numerous personalities within the circuits, but the link to Lynella was through the single powerful presence from before. ‘We shall start within the mountain.’ She said. ‘And clear the filthy animals from the fine halls of our home.’
They had no way of knowing what damage they did. They were working from a knowledge of the layout of the rooms and corridors from hundreds of years before. Rings tore themselves out from machines and flew down the ancient corridors. In places, there was resistance but there was no way of knowing whether they had killed a dragon or simply broken furniture. In other places, they were stopped by solid rock and Paul felt the jolt of pain as their energy shot back into the machine. Soon every room and corridor had been traversed.
‘It is done.’ The cold voice was strong now, but even as it said this, a spark of other knowledge appeared to dispute it. The presence was clearly bemused and drew back as six rings were gathered into one place and their deadly pattern was woven as it had been in the monastery. First two of them began to orbit around each other and then the others were added, each to a new orbit. As the system began to rotate Paul sensed the curiosity of the presence in the machine. When the pattern began to move, and its lethal efficiency was shown he sensed respect. He could also tell that Lynella was using her control of it to guide it so that, where possible, it drove the dragons out rather than trapping and killing them.
They had done their work. The rooms in the mountain fell silent; but far below them the power was continuing to build. One after another the great machines began to hum with energy until the pulses radiated throughout the core.
23
Paul sensed loss as he withdrew from the machine, a temporary farewell to the mind inside it. Soon he was out, the contact broken. He hurried down to his companions. His explanations given, not waiting for questions, he went straight back up to watch through the windows. He waited until he saw the shattered column of dragons appear along the road from the mountain. As they came closer he saw how effective the rings had been. Some had blood pouring from wounds, one had a front leg missing and another seemed to have lost its entire tail. Seeing them, the dragons at the tower appeared to falter, but soon there were horsemen among them and they held firm. He looked carefully and found a group of standing well clear of the tower.
In the network again, he soon regained contact. Near the top of the mountain a massive metal door slid open for the first time in three hundred years. The signal was sent, and the blast shook the ground. For a moment he was blinded but then he saw only scorched remains where dragons and men had been. He felt an urge to fire again, but his rational self knew what this would do to Lynella, so he watched in silence as the terrified army below him turned to flee towards the village.
Suddenly he heard a noise. He knew that he should know what it was but as hard as he tried he could not place it. There was an explosion and the tower shook. He heard breaking glass and shouts of terror from below him. The roaring fading now and then coming back. It was a hydrogen jet, he knew it now. He looked up to see a shuttle banking in a turn high over the mountain. Instantly he sent the signal again and the weapon fired. The fuel tanks exploded, tearing the machine apart in mid-flight. The fireball of burning debris fell to the ground and he realised he had fired too quickly. He tried to ask Lynella if she was hurt.
The reply was totally alien to him ‘What are you asking?’
‘Who ARE you?’
‘I am Tiana. I am the prophet. Who are you?’
His confusion and terror grew through a long silence. He was distracted. Below him his companions were moving out towards the mountain. He had no way to warn them about what they might find. But he himself had no way to know what was there. Unless he asked.
‘What will my companions find in your mountain? Will they find Lynella?
‘So that is her name. Lynella, who came through my traps to find me after all this time. What does she look like?’
The attempt at conversation only increased Paul’s sense of terror.
‘LET HER GO’ He almost shouted out loud as he sent the demand ‘SHE MAY BE DYING’.
‘I did not trap her.’ Tiana replied. ‘She came in of her own free will. She spent her energy freely for you’.
‘But she never meant to stay. She never meant to give so much’.
Paul made an offer. ‘If I show you who Lynella is will you at least show me who you are and what you want? We shall give you anything we can if you will help us rescue her.’ As an afterthought, he added that he would also show who he was.
The offer was accepted, and he projected images of Lynella as he liked to think of her, laughing, walking, running in the halls of her Southern castle and the fields around it. He showed a glimpse of her using her power t
o light a room but was asked for more sight of the open air and the sky. He insisted on some information in return.
Tiana was keen to tell her story while he was prepared to listen. The images he saw were constructed with detail which showed years of rehearsal. He could feel the emotion running through them.
New images appeared. Paul knew that the battle for the mountain would not wait, but his entire exchange with Tiana would only take a few seconds of the time of the outside world and it might give him an understanding that would help. He even thought that he might find God in the way Tiana had; and he should do this because he might die before reaching safety.
He was looking out over a brightly lit hall packed with rows of mages wearing fine clothes and their jewels. From his viewpoint, there could be no doubt that he was above them, this was the leader looking down on her subjects. They were angry. Their pride would not let them shout or speak out of turn, but their expressions could not be mistaken. Looking at the front row he saw the same faces he had seen in the mountain after the weapon had been used against the city and the village. Among them there were empty chairs, each with a jewel taken from the dead. An elderly man was standing and in measured tones he was saying that she could no longer be accepted as their leader. For what she had done she could not even be accepted among them. The images became less clear as he continued to speak; at times her concentration was broken by the terror of what was being described. By using the assembled power of the other mages in the community she was to be forced to do what all mages dreaded. She was to have her mind driven so far into their machine that she could never escape. She was banished to the void between the living and the dead.
From this point, he realised that the images changed and were now seen through the eyes of others and shown to her by their contact with the machine. He could see the passage of time as some of the faces he recognised grew older. He also sensed a feeling that they were concealing something from her. They were sustaining her physical body but not letting her find out what they were doing. He saw the images they gave her, but they became increasingly mundane, and he sensed the growing tension as they refused to show her their work.
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