by Jean Johnson
Mekha is gone, Rexei reminded herself, and shrugged defensively. “I overheard the foreign man—not an Arbran but from somewhere else—telling the priests of . . . an alternate power source. Other than draining you-know-whats dry.”
One thought of the word mage in the kingdom of Mekhana, but one rarely ever said it aloud. It was whispered that priests had ways of tracking the word, spells that could pluck it out of the wind and backtrack it to its source. No one had a spell that could penetrate and reveal the privacy of a person’s very thoughts. So while her claim made the leftenant narrow his eyes in wary puzzlement, he only mouthed the forbidden word; he did not say it aloud.
Instead, he said, “What alternate power source?”
Hoping she wasn’t making a mistake, Rexei murmured one word, “Demons.”
He stumbled back from her, shock widening his light brown eyes. Rexei felt unsettled herself; she had never seen any militia officer so quickly discomposed. They were bastions of power, authority, and in many cases cruelty. This man’s composure had been shattered, though. He stared at her, clutched at his head, stared, and turned first toward the door, then back to the rest of the room, then toward the door again, as if unable to decide what to do or where to go.
“Demons,” he whispered, no longer even looking at her. “It starts here . . . This is where it starts!”
It was her turn to frown at him. Eyes narrowed, she opened her mouth to ask—but he interrupted her, snapping his fingers and pointing at the majority of her tenement.
“Start packing!”
“What? I’m not packing!” Rexei argued, though her heart pounded with fear. She was going to pack. Her assignment from the Mages Guild be damned; she would only pack as soon as he was gone, make her report, and head for the northern hills—or maybe the southern, head to Sundara in the hopes of escaping everything. But she wasn’t about to let him know that. “I’m not going anywhere with you. I’ve done nothing wrong!”
He swung back to face her, ending his awkward pacing. “Oh, you’ve done nothing wrong, I’ll agree. But the moment the priests find out you know that, your life will be worth nothing, lad. There is only one place in this whole kingdom, or what’s left of it, where you will be safe. Trust me, their ambitions did not end with Mekha,” the leftenant warned her, pointing at her face. “And your knowledge is needed to save the whole world. Start packing.”
“Why?” she demanded.
“I’m taking you to the one place where both of us know you’ll be safe . . . though neither of us dares say why. It’s not like you have that much to pack,” he added gruffly, looking at the stark contents of her tenement room. “Now, be quick about it. The faster we get you out of here, the faster we’ll have you in the one place where they cannot get a hold of you.”
She only had the bits of furniture, such as the table, chair, cupboards, and bed, simply because they came with the room. Most tenements had at least a few basic amenities, thanks to the efforts of the Consulates representing the many, many lessees across Mekhana in negotiations with the Lessors Guild. Even the lamp, the sparker, the coal bucket, and the wood bin were borrowed, but then Rexei didn’t own a clothes chest, either; what she owned, minus two of the blankets on her bed, could fit into a single large pack that could be hefted onto her back. With her other coat missing, she could add in one of those blankets.
But she didn’t move yet. “How do I know this isn’t a trick to impress me into the militia?”
The leftenant frowned at her, then sighed heavily. “Because we’ll be headed due east, not west by southwest, and that is all I can say. If you’re Rexei Longshanks, hired to pose as a Servers Guild apprentice, then you know why I cannot say.”
West by southwest was the direction of the Precinct headquarters, with its barracks and training yards. East of Heiastowne lay the Heias Dam, in a valley that had been blocked off. Its runoff powered various engines that drove the great presses and extrusion rollers of the Steelworks Guild and others. Eastward . . . was also the Vortex. The one place that could thoroughly confuse active magics and render mages too dizzy to concentrate if they weren’t keyed into the spells maintaining that sphere of instabilities.
Some of those spells prevented anyone from even talking about the fact there was more to the Heias Dam than power generation. Yes, she did know what he was talking about, and what he wasn’t able to talk about. The spells involved, enriched with generations of paranoia, prevented anything from being even hinted at in the presence of a priest or a priest sympathizer. To be questioned about it by a priest would cause complete amnesia regarding the secrets hidden behind the dam, or so she had been warned.
She didn’t know what the leftenant meant by, It starts here. This is where it starts. But she did know he was right about the priests’ reactions if they ever realized she knew about the demon-summoning thing. Because even without Mekha, they could band together, summon a powerful demon, and use the siphoned energies to power their own magics. If demons truly were superior to mages as a source, then the sheer level of power that could be siphoned from them was not a pleasant thought.
“Fine. But one hint of the wrong direction, and I’ll react badly,” she threatened, letting the implication sound as if she would attack him or steal his motorhorse and run. She’d run, but the most Rexei would do to him and the other militiaman would be to put them to sleep with a simple spell. A second one to make them forget they had ever met her, and she would be on her way with neither man the wiser. It was an escape plan that she already knew worked on priests, never mind non-mages. She’d been forced to test it on three in the past.
The leftenant flicked his hand at her meager belongings. “Hurry up, then. Don’t dawdle.”
Edging around him, she crossed to the cupboard built into the wall next to the bed. Pulling out her travel pack as well as her clothes, she stuffed them inside, added in the basket of crocheting needles and soft balls of wool that sat near the hearth, then stuffed in as many blankets as she could.
As she worked, the leftenant crouched in front of her hearth and used the tongs to nudge apart the coals. Once that was done, he replaced the grate. “Your lease will have to expire, but I’ll see you’re compensated for the refund lost. We don’t want rumors that you’ve fled to get out, so as far as your fellow tenants will know, you’ll just vanish.”
“If I’m to walk out of town, I should go at night, when I’m less likely to be recognized,” Rexei pointed out.
“You won’t walk,” he countered.
She looked at him. “And being dragged out of here on a militia motorhorse isn’t going to cause people to talk?”
“You’ll not walk all the way,” he amended. “Head for the east gate. As soon as I’ve dropped off my corporal, I’ll come back and pick you up. I should make it back by the time you’re less than a quarter-mile from the city.”
Crossing back to the cooking cupboards, she pulled out a leather sack and stuffed in her bag of crushed oats for porridge, a waxed round of cheese, a waxed paper packet of dried fruit slices, and a bag of mixed beans. The sausage end she stuffed into a half loaf of bread, wrapped it in a kerchief, and put it into her coat pocket.
“Once we get where we’re going, leftenant,” Rexei found herself stating as she swung around to face him, “I am going to question you thoroughly about how you know about what we are not talking about.”
That caused him to quirk one of his brows, but the leftenant merely gave her a slight half-mocking bow. “As you wish, Sub-Consul. Though it will become apparent if you’ll simply be quiet and watch.”
He headed for the door. Rexei discovered she had one more question. “Hey.”
He turned to face her. “Yes?”
“You got a name?” she asked. “Or should I just call you Leftenant? Somehow I don’t think they’ll be all that friendly toward your title.”
“It’s my rank, not my title, and t
hey already know about it. But they mostly call me Rogen Tallnose when I’m there. Try to refrain from any jokes about the family name while you’re there,” he added dryly. “Be a good guest, Longshanks, and you’ll be treated well. Remember that.”
He walked out the door before she could do more than frown in confusion. The leftenant was roughly average in height, maybe a tiny bit taller, but by no means the tallest man in town. Nor was his nose particularly “tall” in appearance, though it was a little longer and pointier than average. Unable to think of a reason to make fun of his name, Rexei fished out the sausage and bread and gnawed on it, then remembered belatedly to pull out her waterskin and fill it from the keg that fed the washstand. The splashing water competed with the rumble of the motorhorse starting up.
When her uncooked supper was halfway eaten, she wrapped it up and stuffed it back into her pocket, then took herself outside and to the far end of the balcony where the refreshers were located. As she came back, she checked the alleyway. No sign of a motorhorse, so she ducked into her tenement, hefted her packs, and stepped out again. A quick look around showed her an empty balcony and no one in sight across the narrow street, so she placed the key along the upper edge of the doorframe once the room was locked.
With that taken care of, she hefted the pack so it sat more comfortably and headed down the stairs. Choosing a path that would get her out of the north gate of the city, she started walking. After three blocks, though, just as she passed the mouth of an alley, the sudden rumble of a motorhorse coming to life startled her. A quick glance to her right showed the leftenant on the machine, with no sign of the operator from earlier.
Rexei glared at him. Releasing the stopper pedal briefly, he coasted up next to her, then stilled the rumbling mount. “This isn’t the way to the east.”
“Any fool would head east right away. I know better when expecting pursuit,” she shot back.
For a moment, his mouth twisted wryly. Leftenant Tallnose tipped his head at the street she stood on, then at the second saddle position on his motorhorse. “I had a feeling you’d bolt, so I sent the corporal back on foot and picked your most likely route in this maze of streets. Get on. We’ll head north, then swing around east.”
For a second, she wanted to rest, to enspell him and run. But the Vortex was the safest place for her, and a motorhorse was considerably faster than a shank’s mare. Since she didn’t want to spend all night marching on foot in an inadequate coat while the temperatures dropped, she moved over to the side of his bike and awkwardly climbed aboard. Not because she was unfamiliar with motorhorses—no one reached journeyman status in the Messengers Guild without learning how to operate one of the machines—but because her belongings coupled with the greater height of the rear seat made climbing into place a bit awkward.
She managed, though. Tucking her gloved hands into his belt for security, she tightened her legs on the machine’s flanks and held on, balancing with each turn and twist in their path as they got under way. The last light of the sun glowed peach where it touched the city walls by the time they rumbled out of the north gate. He continued north for a mile, too, but she wasn’t too alarmed; in fact, when he slowed the motorhorse at the crossroads and turned right, she relaxed, leaning gently into the curve with him so the wheeled, mechanical beast wouldn’t slip or skid.
Once on the road that would connect with others headed eastward, he shifted a couple of levers and increased the fuel mix in the engine. Rexei wasn’t completely sure of how such things worked; the Engines Guild was one of many she had yet to apprentice in, never mind master. She did know just enough to be able to tell the engine sounded like it was in excellent shape. Good enough that the leftenant increased their speed once they were on the straightest stretch of the road, until she was grateful to huddle behind his leather-clad back, though the wind still whipped around him, chilling her where it blew through her felted outer clothes.
The trip by motorhorse took only a fraction of the time it would have taken her to walk the five miles on foot. If it weren’t for the heat of the engine seeping through the metal flanks of the motorhorse, she would have been as cold from the wind caused by their speed as she would have been from the longer journey at a shank’s mare pace. Even the pack on her back helped somewhat, but her arms were stiff and numb by the time he carefully guided the vehicle up the winding road that mounted the side of the northern hill and turned it onto the crystal-lit curve that formed the top of the Heias Dam. By then, they were so close that the water cascading over the spillway was louder than the motorhorse engine.
The dam was one of the few structures still extant that had been crafted in part by magic. Over three hundred years old—and rumored to be from a time before Mekha had turned rapacious—the runes that imbued it with the power to self-seal any developing cracks drew their power down from the aether via large crystals on the ends of tall iron poles. During thunderstorms, those crystals attracted and transformed lightning into the magic necessary to prevent even a minor failure.
It was also rumored that the priesthood had been considering a similar system in their temples, but storms were difficult to conjure, even more difficult to turn electric, and without magic, they were too unpredictable and infrequent to make such a use practical for anything other than the slowest, most long-term spells. Such as repairing the Heias Dam. Right now, there were no storms in the clouds drifting in patches over the near black sky, and what few stars shone through their gaps could not compete with the glow of the crystals.
They weren’t the only source of light. Brother and Sister Moons were riding the night sky, though their light was partially blocked by the clouds. On the northern hillside, Rexei and the leftenant had passed the buildings used by the Steelworks to manufacture the extra-hard, flexible metal for Mekhana’s war-machines industry. That guild ran its services every hour of the day, for it was far more difficult to restart the smelting fires from scratch than to keep them going, and too wasteful not to use up all that nighttime heat. On the southern hillside, there were only a few oil lamps and crystal lights, but those were the Guilds that had a mere building or two, not several, and they were usually only worked in the daylight hours.
Some of them were not what she had expected. The first time her work as a messenger had brought her here, Rexei had not expected to see the Tillers’ symbol—a scythe crossed with a wheat sheaf—on one of the signboards. She hadn’t expected to grow dizzy from the conflux of energies, either, but during her recovery in the outer halls of the Vortex and her subsequent induction into the never-mentioned Mages Guild, she had learned that the Heias Dam had been so well planned, its creators had even included a special set of spells and a sluice that scraped up the silt washed down to the reservoir from farther upstream.
That silt was captured, dried, and bagged by the Tillers Guild for shipment to local farms so it could be mixed in with composted manure and other forms of mulch. The Tillers—the farmers—who worked those fields spread it out to keep the ground fertile. She had grown up in the north, where the land was flat and had few trees and mines, but was rich in good farming soil. Down here near Heiastowne, the valley where the town sat was fertile enough, but most of the landscape was hilly and better suited for growing timber, grapevines, and digging ore.
But they weren’t headed for the far side of the valley. At the center point of the broad, long curve, the leftenant guided the motorhorse to the left, along a causeway out over the reservoir waters. It terminated in a roundish, almost castlelike structure. To either side of the causeway, smaller ones led to the open, semi-submerged, pipelike spillways feeding the great turbines powering each of the local buildings, but this one led to the control house.
Moonlight gleamed off the ice that had crusted the edges of the lake, cold and pale blue. Warm yellow light spilled down from the windows of the control house. The leftenant guided his motorhorse into one of the stables set aside for vehicles, but once he parked i
t and turned it off, once they were both off the saddle-fitted back, he did not lead her toward the nearest door into the stone-walled structure. Instead, he caught her wrist and pulled her toward the back of the parking stable.
Confused, Rexei followed. The tune in her head had changed the moment they drew within sight of the dam. A counterpoint melody wove itself around the first one, stabilizing her inner senses so that the swirling energies of the aether around this place would not disturb her own energies, as they had the first time. As they did to any mage who didn’t know the exact key to countering what seemed to be a natural phenomenon, but which she had been told on her first visit was a deliberately exaggerated effect. Priests did not like coming here because of that effect, which was the one thing making the Vortex a safe zone for mages.
The militia officer did something in the darkest corner of the stall . . . and part of the stone wall swung away. Beckoning her to follow, he entered the shadowed passage beyond. Hoping she wasn’t making a mistake, clinging to her knowledge that the priests hated coming to the dam and that Mekha was dead, Rexei followed him inside.
The head-sized rectangular stones quickly gave way to the smooth concrete surface that made up most of the dam. A good thing, too, for the passage turned into a spiral staircase that descended down, down, down. She expected the air to turn damp as well as cold, but it didn’t; it stayed dry and became warmer. The light coming from below grew brighter, too.
After the third turning, she could see the source, another of those odd, ceiling-embedded crystals like in the forbidden basement of the temple. It wasn’t quite as bright as daylight, but it was brighter than three oil lamps put together. It illuminated a table set at the bottom of the stairs and a man who was hastily pulling his feet off the table, replacing them with his book. Behind him lay a longish passage lined with two doors nearby, two farther down, and one at the end; the door behind him and to his right lay open and seemed to look into another curving stairwell leading down.