The Archimage's Fourth Daughter

by Lyndon Hardy

  But now he knew the spell was correct. He could proceed with the grand plan. All three of the volcanoes he had chosen would be seeded, each with much more raw materials then had been in his tiny bottle. All the upwelling energies of each fiery cauldron similarly bound. Then when he did break the connections, that energy would be freed. Each volcano would erupt in a spectacular fashion. Vast quantities of solids, liquids, and most importantly dangerous gasses hurled high into the air. And as a result, after a thousand years, he would be free.

  Rising Stakes

  ASHLEY PEEKED through the doorway into her bedroom. Fig was sitting up, propped by a lace pillow — a good sign. The ambulance trip to the emergency room had been in time. A few stitches, a transfusion, whatever Briana had rubbed on the wound the next day, and then he had been released.

  Her bedroom, Ashley thought. Her bed with a man in it. How long had it been since she had seen such a sight? She wrinkled her nose. Briana had protested that substituting for some of the ingredients not easily found here on Earth would make it less effective, but what she concocted seemed far better than nothing. The tenderness had gone down around Fig’s wound with remarkable swiftness. Sweetbalm. Sweetbalm, it was called. It was well named.

  Ashley heard the refrigerator door slam. Maurice had made himself right at home. He was in the kitchen making sandwiches for everyone. She shook her head in disbelief as she pondered everything that had happened. Yesterday, she had given Jake her address, ushered the other three out and then sat through a boring two-hour final debriefing. USX, her two-decade career — that all now like a half-forgotten dream, as if it never existed.

  Now, her life centered on love potions, seeing into the future, dancing imps, and aliens from another planet. And strangely, as she thought about it, there was no longer any regret, no bitterness about what had happened at USX. She was alive and energized. Still in the first few pages, but how could anyone resist the new story that was unfolding.

  Fig hobbled out of bed, leaning on Briana for support. Without any words between any of them, the quintet convened in Ashley’s living room. Danish modern seating around a low glass table accommodated them all. An obligatory watercolor by a local artist hung over a fireplace that was never used. The view of the Pacific was breathtaking, but no one chose to watch. The glow of excitement from what Fig and Briana had discovered wrapped around them like a warm blanket.

  “The puzzle is not completely solved.” Fig looked directly at Ashley when they were settled. “What was the purpose for the RFP?”

  “How to use the special gas transfer tanks safely,” she answered. “We talked about that at your interview.”

  “Any kind of gas?”

  “Well, no, only simple cylinders with a strong enough valve on top is fine for most. The ones that USX builds are for the Mark 50 torpedo — for sulfur hexafluoride.”

  “Sulfur hexafluoride! SF6. That’s dangerous stuff,” Fig said. “It is a greenhouse gas. Much more dangerous than CO2.”

  “Yes,” Ashley said. “Usually used for squelching breakdowns in high power line transformers. Because of its properties, many regulations and monitoring of its use. For the Mark 50, it is heated and provides the torpedo’s propulsion.”

  “Sulfur hexafluoride,” Fig mumbled aloud. “Made from sulfur and fluorine and nothing else. Happens spontaneously when the two mix together.”

  “How do you know all of this? Jake asked. “I thought you studied physics, not chemistry.”

  The others looked at Jake startled. He appeared to be coming out of his shell.

  “These digs are nice,” Jake continued. “Reminds me of what I had before my father…”

  “Double undergraduate major,” Fig shrugged.

  “CO2 isn’t toxic,” Jake protested. “Even I know that. It’s part of the air we breathe.”

  “Not toxic, dangerous,” Fig said. “Dangerous in terms of what it does in causing global warming. One pound of SF6 in the air does the same damage as several thousand pounds of carbon dioxide.”

  Fig’s eyes suddenly widened. “Holy tomatoes!” he exclaimed. “It is better to be rich and handsome than sick and unlucky!”

  “What?” Briana said. “What?”

  “Global warming!” Fig almost shouted. “The exiles want to heat up the Earth. Heat the entire planet up enough so they can merely walk out of their prisons into the open air. Not wait and see if we get our act together.”

  “Some claim global warming is not of great concern,” Jake said. “Perhaps a few degrees in decades, no more.”

  “No! No! That is not the point.” Fig was frantic now. “The exiles do not want to raise the Earth’s temperature a few more degrees over years and years. They want to raise it, I don’t know how much, but probably a lot. And not over decades or centuries. They want to raise it now!

  “If enough SF6were released into the air at one time, we… humanity would not be able to do anything about it. There is no way to get the stuff back once it is circulating in the atmosphere. Within a year, the air temperature would rise. Crops would fail throughout the world. Everyone would starve.”

  “The USX technical assistance,” Fig rattled on as fast as he could speak. “I bet they want to transport SF6 all over the world. To many places around the Earth so it can be put into the atmosphere everywhere.”

  Fig suddenly was silent. No one else spoke. Everyone is trying to make sense of what Fig was saying. Ashley felt the possibility of new, beckoning horizons fade away. She stared at Fig. He did not look like he was suddenly going to shout ‘April Fool.’ He was not clowning around.

  “Still, an awful lot of the gas would be required,” Fig said after a moment. “There probably isn’t enough raw sulfur and fluorine available from any mining site to make all the chemical that would be needed. The atmosphere is a big place. It would be a tremendous enterprise.”

  He smiled sheepishly. “Sorry, folks,” he said. “False alarm. I do get carried away sometimes. After all, what do you call a boomerang that does come back?”

  Briana shook her head. “No, Fig. You may not be wrong,” she said softly. “The masters from my home have talked about it for years. A theoretical possibility for us, but no more. No one could come up with an incantation powerful enough to control the energy needed to operate on such a microscopic level. But the exiles… The exiles’ skill in the arts is more advanced than ours. The magic portal is an example. They might have figured out how to make, what do you say, a catalyst. Yes, a thaumaturgical catalyst.”

  Again, no one else spoke.

  “Where is there both a lot of raw sulfur and fluorine around the world?” Briana asked.

  “Well, I guess in volcanoes,” Fig said. “But probably there is not enough in one to mine commercially. And the heat of the eruption would break down compounds like SF6 into lighter ones.”

  “The exiles would only need a small quantity of SF6 transported to a volcano with high sulfur and fluorine content,” Briana rebutted. “The craft of thaumaturgy could be used to self-catalyze the production of more once a sufficiently large seed of it is there.”

  “Catalyze? How do you know anything about such a thing as a catalyst?” Fig asked.

  “When I searched on the internet, I followed many false trails.” Briana shrugged.

  “Briana, this is not only a task to prove your worth to your father.” Fig’s face resumed the mask of panic. His eyes opened even wider. “The fate of the entire world is at stake! Don’t you get it? These exiles not only want to get out of their prison. They want the world to be theirs. We will be gone.

  “We got to tell about this. Alert the authorities. This has to be stopped before it gets started. Before it is too late.”

  Ashley watched Jake shake off the last of his lethargy. “Yeah,” he said. “The cops, the army, the UN. Everybody.”

  “Wait a moment,” Ashley shouted above the other competing voices. “That is what we must do, but it won’t be easy. What exactly are we going to say? Do y
ou have any idea of how slowly governments move? Will performing Briana’s tricks with the little imp be enough to convince anyone of the bigger problem?”

  “The exiles would be alerted before governments could act,” Briana agreed. “If they really are able to use the crafts now, no country on this earth would prevail against them.” She pulled at her loose curl. “We are the ones to assume responsibility.”

  Briana’s eyes took on a glow. A broad smile filled her face. “A quest to save an entire world. A tale worthy of the sagas. Convincing proof for my father and all the others. Yes! Yes!”

  “Nonsense,” Jake said. “There are hundreds of these guys, right? We are only five, and sure enough, none of us is an Energy Ranger. We don’t have super powers. This isn’t a comic book. Let’s tell who we have to — now.”

  “Stop! All of you stop!” Ashley rose and said in the most authoritarian voice she could muster. “Let’s…” She decided abruptly. “Let’s put what to do to a vote.”

  “This has nothing to do with democracy,” Jake scowled. “Something this important isn’t decided by majority rule. One could hold out against many, and in the end, he might be the one on the side of right.”

  “As my ex-boss, Douglas says,” Ashley raised her voice even higher, “neither is it determined by the one who can put the biggest balls on the table. First a vote, and then, depending on the results, we can decide what to do next.”

  “I am destined for this,” Briana said immediately.

  “This is reality,” Fig said. “Rushing into peril succeeds only in fantasy, not here.” He looked at Briana and then away. “Sorry, my Queen. My vote is to get help. Lots of it.”

  “I apologize for letting twenty years of frustration in dealing with the government get in the way,” Ashley said. She smoothed down her jacket. “We should get help. Of course, we should. But what we should do is first get irrefutable evidence. Right now, all we have is Fig’s speculations. We don’t even know where all of the aliens are — what they plan to do next. Once we have all of that, we can tell whomever we have to.”

  “I agree we need to learn more,” Briana said. “But once we do, we should strike. The crafts can be used in a matter of mere minutes.”

  “But in any case, we need to learn more first,” Ashley said. “For now, let’s only agree to do that.”

  “No,” Briana shot back. “I know enough from reading the sagas that the performance of the warrior depends on his task. Scouting is one thing. Committing to carry through on what he has learned is quite another. We should agree on all of it now.”

  Ashley did not respond. She stared at Briana. She could almost hear the gears grinding in the young woman’s head, calculating what to do in order to have all of them agree to join her in her quest. Finally, the daughter of the Archimage stopped and looked directly at Jake. “All along, you’ve wanted something from me, haven’t you?

  Jake immediately smiled back, as if he were remembering a childhood pleasure. “And…”

  “Join me in what I must do,” Briana said softly. She coiled a finger in her hair and then slowly unwound it again. “Do so, and I will reward you with what you want,” she said at last.

  “Well, well. It sounds as if the stakes have changed,” Jake replied. He slowly scanned Briana from head to toe, stopping deliberately twice along the way. After he was done, he spoke again. “Oh, yeah. There is a payoff in this. I’m definitely in.”

  “Wait a minute!” Fig interrupted. “I am the sworn liege of the Q — ”

  “Flake off, little man.” Jake reached into his pocket, pulled out a gnarled wad of paper, and held it up for everyone to see. “If we are going to do this alone, then we will need cash, lots of it. I held onto this for a reason, and now I know why. My old man’s user name and password.” He stuck out his chest. “I am back and ready to act.”

  A silence hung in the air like a caustic smog. Both women stood their ground. Fig looked back and forth between the others. “Two to two,” he said. “Briana and Jake on one hand. Ashley and me on the other. A tie. All right, Maurice. What does the follower of the Buddha say?”

  MAURICE CLOSED the guest bedroom door behind him. If ever he needed to get insight from meditation, this was the time to do it. He settled into a comfortable posture and began the slow even breathing that was supposed to make one more aware.

  The fourth step on the Noble Eightfold Path was Right Action — no killing, no stealing, no sexual misconduct. How did that apply here?

  If everything Fig said were true, then the exiles attempt to kill all of humankind was not Right Action. But in order to deter them from doing so, would taking their lives be the correct choice for what to do? What would happen if the plot were exposed and millions, perhaps even billions of people demanded they be eliminated? On the other hand, to do nothing, merely stand by. Would not that make one as guilty of murder as would be the exiles themselves?

  Maurice groaned in irritation before he could put the intruding thought away. It always was like this. No definite answers, only more questions.

  He changed his focus. Go through the list. Stealing, what about stealing. The aliens were labeled as exiles. Did that not imply what was theirs was taken from them? Was the bounty of the Earth meant to be reparation? He sighed. Another blocked path — more questions than answers.

  Okay, sexual misconduct? He knew it meant more than only physical action. But it was oh so hard to keep his thoughts away from women. Briana — what a bright shining star. What a delight to be around her, soaking in her enthusiasm and exuberant drive. And now, Ashley. A more mature woman to be sure, but one secure in her own sexuality. What would be the…

  Maurice halted the way his thoughts were going. He had a decision to make. If the others all agree to abide with the majority, then the burden of choosing correctly was entirely on his shoulders.

  One of his feet began to fall asleep. His crotch began to itch. Distracting bits of conversation from the living room filtered through the walls.

  He increased the focus on his breathing. Otherwise, he would start drifting out of control. Too much of the outside world was crowding in.

  Ignore those things! No, that was not right. Accept them. They are part of what is. Perhaps, this was a true test, he thought. Not a simple exercise to decide whether to eat out or order in tonight, but something that could determine the fate of the entire planet. He felt a twinge of panic, but then surprisingly, he was able to push it away. If indeed he could decide this and then be at peace with whatever the decision was, then, finally, finally, he would be walking the Eightfold Path.

  Five minutes, then ten… time drifted away.

  ASHLEY AND the others turned their eyes on Maurice as he emerged from the bedroom an hour later.

  “We act ourselves,” he said simply. “Buddha says we shall not kill. Asimov says that we cannot allow harm to come to another human through our own inaction.”

  “We all agree on that,” Fig said. “The question is whether or not we should do something entirely on our own once we figure out what is to be done.”

  “Yes,” Maurice agreed. “And Robert Frost says, ‘I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.’“

  “Briana has stated the truth of it,” he continued. “If we involve others — many others — the exiles will inevitably hear of it far too soon. They will use their magic before we can act. The risk of involving more is too great. To succeed, we must take the path less traveled by.”

  “The fate of the world decided by a hundred-year-old poem?” Fig snorted. “You’re mouthing platitudes. Gimme a break!”

  But no one else spoke.

  “Well, that settles it,” Briana said. She then looked at Ashley and smiled. “I could not help but noticing when I looked into your freezer. Would anyone else also like some ice cream?”

  The Warehouse

  “I CAN’T say enough how much I appreciate what you are doing for me, Mr. Angus,” the woman
standing in front of him said. “I’ve been deposited away in care facilities all my life, just waiting until finally I wither and die. It is a shame really.”

  “You have expressed your gratitude already more than once.” Angus stirred uncomfortably in the chair. Keeping a civil and polite tone with one of the inferior natives was quite hard to maintain. “You do not need to remind me each time we discuss the tasks for the day.”

  He had given the woman several hours of instruction, and now he could feel the first icy fingers of cold beginning to creep in through the aerogel insulation. Besides, he was hungry. The leafy greens delivery each day that his new assistant had arranged mostly went right through him.

  “I can’t help myself, Mr. Angus,” Ursula Price continued. “I am so very grateful. Not charity, but a job, an actual job! I am the envy of my little clique in the assisted living center. Picked up in the morning and driven directly here. Then returned safely when the day is done. Doing the same work as someone with sight. And call me Ursula. Ms. Price is far too formal. Do you have a first name as well?”

  Angus studied Ursula for a moment. Except for Oscar and the two cabbies, he had never seen any other humans up close. In the caverns, Dinton joked that despite all of the newspapers he had scanned, he could not tell them apart. That well could be true for the males, but the females did seem slightly different. This one was shorter than any of those three men and much more slender. Stark white hair. Rather than eye-blinking garb, she wore a simple dress of gray with a like-hued belt pulled tight around the waist. Made sense, he supposed. She did not have any need for color.

  “The agency recommended you very highly, Ms.… ah, Ursula,” Angus said. “And I must confess that I didn’t know that such things as Braille keyboards and Read Aloud for pdf files existed. I wanted to try the experiment, and… and to my… delight, you are working out very well.”

  “But one last thing.” He paused. “This is a little delicate, but I wonder…”