The Fourth Sage (The Circularity Saga)

by Stefan Bolz

  "Come again?"

  "It's about energy."

  When she explains to the others what she has just seen, she can see Ty's mind working, trying to connect the missing pieces.

  "So, the light beam or whatever it is can be converted into electricity by those crystal plates," he says, after she has ended. "And from the transformers, they route the current all the way to Tier Six. That way they'll have all the energy they can possibly need."

  "And the rest of us have to pay for it," Tevis says.

  "The parabolic antennas," Kiire says. "I think they're still trying to figure out how it works, how the machine functions. I personally don't believe they have a clue."

  "They have figured out how to convert the light beam into energy," Ty says.

  "True," Kiire replies.

  You should see this, Aries hears Born-of-Night think.

  Aries closes her eyes. The hawk must have landed on top of one of the two pillars next to the machine. Its proximity and sheer size makes Aries gasp. About four hundred feet below, she sees the rows of androids covering the ground. When Born-of-Night looks up, Aries can see the tower far up at the edge of the crater. Then the hawk lifts off again and dives toward the ground.

  You think that's a good idea?

  I'll be okay. Just scouting out the area a bit.

  The hawk flies across the crater and lands on one of the large antennas.

  "Now what?" Kiire asks, when Aries opens her eyes.

  "I don't know."

  "We'll have to shut it down," Ty says.

  "How would we do that?" Aries asks.

  "I don't know, but shutting it down would take away the foundation of their operation for sure."

  "No electricity, no power. Pardon the pun," Kiire says. "Maybe there's a switch somewhere."

  "I doubt that," Aries replies.

  "Whoever built this thing in the first place must have put in some kind of device to deactivate it," Kiire says.

  "This might sound strange," Mila says, "and it's probably nothing, but what if there is some sort of switch and what if it's not anything mechanical?"

  "I don't understand," Aries replies.

  Mila pulls the crumpled plastic bag from her pocket and begins to take off the tightly wrapped rubber band around it.

  "What do you have there?" Tevis says.

  Mila unwraps the plastic and pulls out a piece of charcoal. She smiles. "Always bring your tools, right?" she says. Then she begins to draw on the floor. Everyone watches quietly while Mila draws the machine in the center. Up until now, Aries has completely forgotten about the drawing Mila made back in the Forgotten Floors.

  "I'm not sure if you noticed it, but when Born-of-Night flew over the crater just now, I saw something," Mila says, while drawing a small rectangle halfway between the machine and where the slope of the crater begins.

  "What is that?" Aries asks.

  "I don't know," Mila replies. "Some sort of plate or platform. It's in the same spot you were in."

  "I was in? What do you mean?" Aries asks.

  "When I drew it the first time, you stood there, a few hundred feet away from it. About the same distance from the machine as that plate is now."

  You should hide, Aries hears Born-of-Night think. I have spotted two drones on the other side of the crater.

  "Drones," Tevis translates Max's signing.

  Mila sweeps her hands over the drawing, making it unrecognizable. They move backward and behind a large piece of stone that was at one point part of the roof structure.

  "I hope they don't use infrared," Kiire says.

  "Those rocks are magnetic, remember? And pretty thick," Ty replies. "We should be okay here for a while."

  Mila begins to draw again. This time she outlines the shape of a rectangular plate. Inside, she begins to draw symbols.

  "Amber, do any of these look familiar?" she asks.

  Amber kneels.

  "For you," she says, and points at the first two symbols.

  Mila writes the words below it.

  "If this means 'you,' then we have several more of those," Amber says.

  Mila, again, writes the word “you” under some of the other symbols.

  "Tides," Amber says. "This means 'Tides,' I think."

  "Tides?" Aries asks. "Are you sure?"

  "Yes," Amber replies. "Pretty sure."

  "Strides," Amber says, pointing at another symbol.

  "Like walking?" Kiire asks.

  "No. More like marching."

  "Right..." Kiire says. "Marching."

  "There are a few symbols missing," Amber says.

  "I know," Mila answers. "I couldn't see them all. It was too quick."

  "There are two more that I... know. They are over here." Amber points to the end of the third row.

  "What do they say?" Mila asks.

  "They say..." Amber's voice cracks when she looks at the others. This is visibly difficult for her. "They say 'death and pain.'”

  "Uhhh, nice," Kiire says. "Sorry. I didn't mean to. Sorry."

  Ty smiles at him briefly.

  "That's all I've got. So far," Amber says. "There are two more symbols I don't understand and then there are a couple more missing ones.”

  "So far we have, 'For you, tides, you, you, strides, you, you, death, pain, you and you,’" Kiire says.

  "Whatever this means, it doesn't look that good for whoever the 'you' is," Aries says.

  Max puts his hand on Aries’s shoulder. Then he signs.

  "It could mean plural, not singular," Tevis translates.

  "Yes, but we don't all fit onto the plate," Aries replies. "And the fact that that there is an engraved plate on the ground doesn't mean anything. What does this have to do with the machine and trying to turn it off?"

  "It might not have anything to do with it," Tevis says. "But you know, we have all been in this... we have all come this far not because of any facts. We trusted... something, ourselves, you, the hawk. Based solely on facts, we should all be dead by any reasonable measure."

  Aries casts her eyes down. She is suddenly filled with shame for doubting them, doubting that all of them together can't do something, however small it might be.

  "Aries, do you remember the fluctuations we encountered?" Ty asks.

  "Yes, sure."

  "They didn't make much sense to me then and they don't make much sense to me now, but they were there and the reading on the oscilloscope was correct.

  "What r-r-reading?" Jeremiah asks.

  "We had a faulty reading in one of the server units a few weeks back. It suggested that something completely out of the ordinary had happened."

  "What was it?" Jeremiah's face has lit up since Ty mentioned the fluctuations.

  "We don't know what it was, but the anomaly suggested that for less than a hundredth of a millisecond, the electricity going through that server was flowing backward. In time."

  "No way!" Kiire says, looking at Aries. "Why didn't you tell me?"

  "I didn't think it was important," Aries replies.

  "Jiedj Vidchkin," Tevis says.

  "Come again?" Ty replies.

  "Jiedj Vidchkin," Tevis says. "Anomaly."

  "That's what you said when you first saw the hawk," Aries says.

  "Yes."

  "The anomaly is what questions the norm," Tevis translates Max's signing. "Not sure where I heard it, but it makes sense now."

  "I'm not so sure what each of them has to do with the other," Aries says.

  "Maybe nothing," Ty says.

  "And maybe everything," Kiire replies.

  His words hang in front of Aries like a sword.

  I'm doing another swoop, Aries hears Born-of-Night think.

  Be careful! she urges.

  When Aries closes her eyes, Born-of-Night lifts off and flies diagonally across the large lake to the east of the tower. From there she glides around the pillar and straight toward the machine.

  Looking at it through the hawk's eyes, Aries can feel an almost
gravitational pull coming from it.

  What is it you want from me? she asks in her thoughts. Immediately afterward, she realizes how silly this is. Asking a machine what it wants seems preposterous.

  What if it's not? she hears Max think. What if it's not a machine?

  What else can it be? Aries replies. It has mechanical, moving parts.

  So do we. I'm just saying.

  I don't think they're activated, Aries hears the hawk think, as she crosses above the androids and the plate and lands inside one of the ruins closest to the center.

  "I got it," Mila says.

  Aries opens her eyes. Amber and Mila kneel in front of the rectangular shape on the floor.

  "'When,'" Amber says, as she points to one of the symbols. "And over there, it should say 'shall' or 'will.’"

  Mila writes the words under the symbols.

  "This should say 'stand' and here I think it says 'turning.’”

  "'For you who stand here... turning tides,'" Aries says. "'Your...' What's that word?"

  "Not sure," Amber says. "But it looks like 'adversary.'"

  "Foe?" Kiire says. "Enemy. Opponent."

  "This here could mean 'at' or 'on,’" Amber says. "And I haven't come across any articles in this language so we can just insert them."

  "'For you who stands here at the turning of the tides,'" Tevis says.

  Everyone grows quiet.

  “'Your enemy is on you, it...you strides,'" she continues.

  "'It comes for you in strides,'" Amber says. "And it's 'Your enemy is upon you, he comes for you in strides.'"

  "Wow. Whoever wrote this knew their meter," Kiire says.

  "This one is 'terror' or 'fear' or something similar," Amber continues.

  "'You shall ... fear... death and pain,' not so good," Kiire says.

  "This symbol here," Jeremiah points at the one before 'fear,' “I've seen before. I think it's a n-n-negation."

  "Not?" Amber asks. "'You shall not fear him,' and here is the same one before 'pain and death.' 'You shall not fear him not death and pain.'"

  "'You shall neither fear him nor your own death and pain,'" Ty says.

  "Are you sure?" Kiire says. "’Cause that sounds much different from 'you shall fear your death and pain.'"

  "Yes. I'm s-s-sure," Jeremiah says.

  "I agree. It has to. Jeremiah is right. This is a negation," Amber says. "And as such, it cannot mean 'you shall fear,' it has to mean 'you shall not fear.'"

  "So whoever built this machine tells whoever stands on this plate of stone not to be afraid?" Seth says. "Why?"

  "Maybe not to be afraid of the machine," Aries says.

  "Yes, but I think it relates to the previous sentence," Kiire says. "It means, don't fear your enemy when you stand here, even if it marches toward you."

  "What about the last sentence?" Seth asks. "'When you... open... shall you...' doesn't make much sense.”

  "This one," Amber says, "could mean something like 'for a second time' or 'repeating something.'"

  "'Again,'" Ty says. "It could mean 'again.' Just to stay with the poetic nature of this... message."

  "And the other two?" Aries asks.

  Amber shakes her head. "I have no idea."

  "Okay, let's recap," Kiire says. "'For you who stands here at the turning of the tides. Your enemy's upon you, he comes for you in strides. You shall neither fear him nor your own death and pain. When your... open ... shall ... you again.'"

  "What do we do now?" Tevis asks.

  "We should try to destroy it," Ty says. "Even though I haven’t the slightest idea how."

  "If we could get those pillars on either side to collapse," Kiire says. "The machine might stop working."

  "I don't see any way we could possibly do this," Ty replies.

  "Me neither," Kiire answers.

  "I know what to do," Aries says.

  "No, you don't," Ty answers.

  Aries exchanges a glance with him.

  "You know it's the only way," she says.

  "The only way for you to get killed," Ty answers.

  "Am I missing something here?" Seth says.

  "Aries thinks that standing on that plate down there is the only way to turn off the machine," Ty says.

  "Do you see another option?"

  "No, I don't. But that doesn't mean I'll let you blindly go down there just because some symbols tell you to do so. And even if they say what they say, it doesn't mean it's you who has to stand there. It could be any of us. Why you?"

  "Ty is right," Kiire says. "It could be anyone. It also could have happened already."

  "What do you mean?" Aries says.

  "If this is as old as we think it is, the plates could have had meaning a thousand years ago and have absolutely no connection to what's happening now."

  "Aries," Tevis says quietly. "Why do you think you should do this?"

  "It seems the only logical thing to do," Aries replies. "Based solely on the engravings on the plate, I know it doesn't make much sense and I agree with Ty, but based on what has happened in the last two weeks and where we came from and who we are and where we ended up, it seems like the most...reasonable next step."

  Aries watches herself saying those words, understanding their meaning but feeling completely removed from their impact. It is as if someone else had thought them, someone other than her. For everything inside her tells her that it’s madness to do what they suggest.

  "Let's assume for a moment that it’s true," Ty says. "And whatever this... prophecy or whatever the hell this is, tells the truth. How are we going to get you there? Cause I don't think the prophecy cares about what happens if you don't make it. It simply waits for the next guy or gal to come along."

  "The landslide doesn't care about the pebble that causes it," Aries says.

  "Come again?" Ty says.

  "It's nothing," Aries says.

  "We would need to create a diversion," Kiire says. "Lure some if not most of the androids away from the plate and machine so Aries can get there safely."

  "This is insanity," Ty says. "We don't even know what we're doing. We have no business even thinking that this is possible. I'm not going to stand here and plan someone's death!" Ty shouts those last words. Aries can see the anger in his eyes. But behind it, she can also see the pain.

  "I know you want to protect me," she replies. "And I hope you know how much this means to me. And I love you... for that."

  Her eyes sting suddenly and she doesn't know where the tears come from.

  "But there's no other way. We can't wait here forever. They'll find us eventually. We don't have food or water. We can't go back to where we came from. From now on, all we can do... all we can do, is go forward. To wherever that might be. It may be our death, I realize that. But we're dead anyway. We were dead when we started this. We just didn't know it. I never thought that going all the way really meant going all the way. But this is it. It's our path and we must walk it. Somehow, we have to get to that plate and do what it told us to do. If there's another option, please tell me, because I'd be happy to not do what must be done—"

  There's a drone. Born-of-Night's thought interrupts her. Aries closes her eyes. When the hawk flies out of her hiding spot and toward one of the antennas, Aries sees it: the drone hovers at the foot of the sloped crater walls about three hundred feet above the city and below the tower. Slowly, it moves upward.

  I can take her, she hears Born-of-Night think.

  No, Aries replies. It's too dangerous. Another electric shock could kill you.

  "A drone is coming our way," Aries says, when she opens her eyes. "It's right below the tower."

  Ty is the first to react. "Grab some rocks and get ready. So much for a plan."

  They hear the low humming sound of the magnetic propulsion system before they see it. Then it hovers into view—a dark silhouette against the bright background. This one is slightly bigger than the others.

  "Now!" Ty cries out. He steps out from behind the cover and th
rows a rock toward the drone. The others do the same. Two of the rocks hit it but this doesn't seem to have an effect on it. In fact, now it turns and its sensors move toward their corner.

  "Take cover!" Seth cries. A blue fireball explodes in front of the stones. Then another one, and a third after that. The sound is deafening. She sees Max and Sam exchanging a glance. Max pushes off the ground and runs across the open area toward a large rock on the other side. The sensors of the drone follow him. Another fireball explodes, sweeping Max off his feet. He lands behind the rocks.

  "Max!" Aries cries out. Just when she is about to run over to him, Sam gets up and throws his rock—a huge jagged piece of the wall—toward the drone. It hits it right in the center. It hovers there, then it drops onto the floor, turning a few times around its own axis and then stops. Aries runs over to Max, who’s sitting and shaking his head.

  "You okay?" she asks when she reaches him.

  I think so.

  "We gotta go!" Ty says. "Now!"

  Aries helps Max to his feet and they run down the stairs.

  "If we can make it down into the city, it'll be much harder for them to catch us," Kiire says.

  "Do you remember that first larger building on the left side just below the tower? If we get separated, we'll meet there."

  They run through the tunnel and toward the opening.

  Another drone is moving toward you, Aries hears Born-of-Night think. If you make a right when you get out and circle the tower on the left side, you might be able to avoid it. At least for a while.

  "Go right at the end," Aries yells to Seth, who is the first to reach the opening.

  Once outside, they run past the tower and toward the edge of the slope.

  "We should spread out," Ty says. "Not as easy to find a target when we're not together."

  Seth and Mila arrive at the edge and disappear over it. Amber, Jeremiah, and C.J. are next. Kiire, Sam, Tevis, and Ty are right in front of Max and Aries. The slope isn't all that steep and consists mainly of small, loose rocks. Once in a while, larger pieces jut out of the ground, dangerous obstacles on their way down. About halfway between them and the bottom of the slope stands a large parabolic antenna.

  "Try to make it there!" Ty shouts. He and Tevis hold hands as they navigate the rocky ground.

  "You're gonna be okay?" Aries asks them.

  "They'll be fine," Sam says. "I'll take care of them. Not to worry."