Birthright-The Technomage Archive (38 page)

“
They’re going about it the wrong way,” Damien said. “Are they Charons?”

“
From what we can tell, yes. But they aren’t sanctioned. They aren’t us. They’ve been Rited, they have Flameblades, and they know we’re here. But they aren’t us. We don’t know who these people are. When they went public, people saw magic again. The technomages weren’t just legends anymore, and places like Ennd’s were no longer artifacts being controlled by some stodgy old teachers. Whether we go public or not, the effect is the same, especially now that they have your book. Anything they didn’t know before, they do now. For all intents and purposes, they
are
Charons.”

“
What are you going to do about them?” Damien asked.

“
We’re going to fight them.”

“
Are you? In public? You’re going to completely negate the victory you all won over me, just like that?”

“
Goodness no. What, do you think just because they have made people aware of Charons that we have to go public? No, no, no. We’re going to covertly infiltrate them and destroy them from the inside. Most of the pieces are in place for us to begin our strike. I won’t deny that the theft of your book complicates matters, but it shouldn’t hinder us too badly. We should still be able to play shadowmen, as you put it, and put an end to this mess without the public knowing anything about us. We’re just waiting on Ceril to report in with his team.”

“
I don’t think I heard you correctly, Gilbert. I could have sworn I just heard you say my grandson’s name, and I have to be mistaken. You couldn’t be stupid enough to involve him in something like this.”

Squalt smiled at Damien, and for the first time, it was genuine. “Oh, Ceril is involved, old man. We haven’t had much luck on Erlon tracking down this new Untouchable. But coincidentally, Ceril is just amazing at seeing connections in myths and stories. His thesis is quite inspired. And you see, these terrorists are so fervently adhering to the way you did things once upon a time—”

“
I hardly see the connection.”

“
Oh, please, Vennar. Don’t give me that. You were a real son of a bitch, and you know it. Killing randomly might not have been your style, but the way they took down Cernt Academy? Those nanite bombs and ritual Conjurings reeked of you a world away.”

Damien huffed, but he couldn’t deny what Squalt said. He hadn’t always been the technology-hating Gramps who Ceril had grown up with.

“
Someone has to be wearing the mantle of the Untouchable and leading them, which means that anything you created once upon a time will help us find them. Plus, we do not believe there is any better agent to make those connections than Ceril.”

“
Where is he?” Damien demanded. He spread his hands out on the desk, his fingers splayed. He rested his weight on his hands, and the nanites in his blood reacted automatically to the anger rising in him. Pools of blackness formed beneath his hands.

“
Jaronya.” Squalt’s mouth barely moved as he spoke.

Chapter Twenty-seven

“
I'll be damned, Saryn. It worked.”

“
Well, yes,” Saryn said. She recalled her nanite sleeve and brushed herself clean of the purple dust she had gathered in her tuck-and-roll landing. “Why did you doubt me?”

“
Mainly because you just had me jump into a hole where I couldn't see the ground and expected me to Conjure a parachute on my way down.”

“
Details,” she said. “Where do you think Ceril is? See any sign of him?”

“
I don't see a whole lot of anything, Saryn.”

The young woman sighed. “Then get out a light, Chuckie.”

“
Yeah,” he said and began to dig through his pack. He found a small flashlight and clipped it to his shoulder. “You should have one of these, too.”

She found it in her bag and clipped it on her shoulder. “Now, do you see any sign of him?”

“
I’d place my bets on that.” Chuckie pointed to the pile of rubble in the middle of the room.

“
What?”

Chuckie continued to point. Saryn saw what he was indicating and rushed toward rubble pile yelling, “Ceril! Can you hear us? Ternia? You there? Are you hurt?”

She was still waiting on an answer when Chuckie moved over to her and began inspecting the rubble itself. It did not take him long to notice a single stone lying a little too far away from the pile. He noticed the opening its absence left in the debris. He dropped to his stomach and shined his light into the opening.

“
Ceril!” he shouted into the opening. “Boss?”

Saryn moved to stand over him and asked, “Do you see him?”

Chuckie stood. “Nah,” he said as he dusted himself. “He's not in there, alive or dead. If he was, then he got out and started walking.”

“
Why do you say that?” Saryn asked.

“
Well, first of all because he’s not here. We saw him fall in that hole.” Chuckie pointed up. “Which means, in my estimation at least, he went somewhere else.”

“
Oh,” Saryn said. “Where?”

Chuckie shined his light around. “I don't see any tracks. The dust isn't thick enough here to leave any.” He pointed at the tiled floor. “What do you make of all these symbols on the ground? Where are we, Saryn?”

She knelt to get a closer look. She traced some of the tiles with her fingertips and noted that they were smooth, despite their textured appearance. She shrugged. “Ceril's the one who would know better than I would. I don’t recognize anything from Yagh, though, which may mean they're different than the ones on that tower up there.” She tossed her head upward.

Chuckie nodded and shifted his weight, making sure that his shoulder light was still mounted firmly. “So what's the plan?”

She stood. “I suppose we should find Ceril.”

“
But we don't know where he went. Shouldn’t we just wait here for him to come back through?”

“
And if he finds a way out instead of doubling back? What then?”

Chuckie looked at her in the harsh light. “Gotcha.” He looked around. “So which way do we go?”

Saryn hesitated. She took a couple of steps in one direction, stopped, and then said, “I don't know. If you say there are no tracks, I don't think there will be any way to know for sure which way Ceril went. So we have to pick one and go with it. And hope we chose the right way.”

“
You know this is going to make us miss our audience, right? With that priest guy?”

She closed her eyes. “Yeah. I know. There's nothing we can do about it, though.”

“
We can hope the priest is forgiving. That’s kind of what they do, right?”

“
On Erlon, at least. I’m not so sure if that’s the case here. I think our best bet is that we convince him that we actually are their messiahs somehow and don't deserve to be killed.”

“
There's always that,” Chuckie said. “So which way? You pick.”

Saryn shuffled her light around. “I think there's a wall over there. We can follow it.” She moved toward the wall. “We can follow this and see where it leads us.”

“
You got it, New Boss,” Chuckie said and moved in front of Saryn. “I’ll take point. Gotta protect you from any danger out there, you know.”

Saryn rolled her eyes and followed him into the darkness.

***

“
I don't know,” Ceril said, leaning back in the chair.

“
I am not sure I follow. You are in the Archive, which is a designated research facility. Your authorization and identity as a Charon has been verified. How do you not know your purpose for coming?”

Ceril was silent. He watched the hologram. It reminded him in many ways of the elevator attendants at Ennd's. The technomages had installed and left behind computerized personalities to make interacting with academy systems feel more organic. None of the systems at Ennd's had visual representations, though. They were voice-only. If this were a technomage facility of some kind, it was a lot more advanced than anything he was used to.

As Ceril watched the hologram, he began to be unnerved. He thought it was because he knew that it was a holographic representation of a person instead of being an actual person. Aside from the periodic flickering, he was unable to find any discernible differences between the image in front of him and a real human. There was no glowing aura that generally indicated holograms. Ceril could not find a point of origin for the projection, even though he looked all around for any projectors that traced the image's movements. For all intents and purposes, the hologram was a perfect representation of a person.

It even blinked and breathed. As it waited for Ceril to answer, he could see its chest rising and falling. That really bothered Ceril.

Despite his technologically spare upbringing, Ceril was used to technology, especially since coming on board the
Inkwell Sigil
, but the familiarity of the holographic man and his simulated life were almost too much for him.

When he was finally ready to speak to the unnatural man, he said, “I need to know where my authorization came from.”

“
You are authorized under order number PX1-767.”

“
Which means?”

“
That you have complete access to any information contained within the Archive.”

“
Who initiated the order that gave my authentication?” Ceril asked. He was beginning to get irritated at the machine's doubletalk and evasion of his questions.

“
The order has been standing since the Archive's completion and subsequent initialization. There was no individual responsible for the order.”

“
Of course there wasn't,” Ceril said.

“
May I answer another question?” the hologram asked.

“
What are you called?”

“
I am the Archive.”

Ceril pursed his lips and rolled his eyes. “What is the purpose of this Archive?”

“
This facility was created to collect and store all information pertinent to the Charonic Archive.”

“
Like a history? Or just a database?”

“
The history of the Charonic order is contained within the database.”

“
Can you summarize it for me?” Ceril asked.

“
I can, Charon. However, I warn you that even in its synopsized format, the information you are requesting would take approximately four hundred thirteen years to present with simultaneous visual and auditory information. I suggest against it.”

“
So do I,” Ceril said. “What exactly happened just now?”

“
I answered your question.”

“
No, not that. When the lights came on. I know this place is the Archive, but was it shut down?”

“
The Archive has not been accessed for many years. Protocols indicate that when not in use, the Archive be put to minimal power consumption.”

“
Did you record my entry?”

“
Yes,” the Archive said. “Your entry was designated an intrusion initially, which is why the Archive system did not activate for you. Your presence in the research chamber, however, prompted authorization that could not be performed without returning the system to a functioning state.”

“
Okay,” Ceril said as he leaned forward on the desk. “The ground kind of fell away while I was walking. I had no idea this Archive was here.”

“
Interesting,” said the Archive.

“
What can you tell me about the city above us?”

“
Meshin was constructed above the Archive to protect it and served as the Charons’ capitol on Jaronya. The city was the last to fall in the Charons’ civil war. The Archive has not been accessed since the city fell. I am afraid that the Archive's data is incomplete because the recording towers were destroyed during the war.”

Ceril listened intently. A war between Charons? Neither Roman nor anyone else had ever even mentioned that. “What can you tell me about the people who live in the city now?”

“
I’m sorry; the data you requested is unavailable. Please refine your search parameters or understand that the Archive's information is limited on that subject.”

His brow furrowed, and he said, “Do you have any information about a culture of winged men living in Jaronya today?”

“
I am sorry. The Archive does not have any information on that subject. The last known inhabitants of Meshin were killed in a biological attack that destroyed any organic material it came into contact with. There were no subsequent attempts at settling in the city.”

“
Well, someone's living there now,” Ceril said. “Big purple men with wings who call themselves Jaronya.”

The hologram responded in an uneven—and disturbingly human—voice. “I do not doubt your information, Charon. Please understand the Archive's ability to collect information is limited without the relay towers. Any information that would have been processed after their destruction has been impossible even to collect.”

Ceril nodded. The broken story the Jaronya had told him earlier lined up pretty well with what the Archive said. The guard had mentioned there was infighting between cities, whereas the Archive said there was all-out war between factions in the Charons.

“
What can you tell me about the writing on the buildings outside?”

“
The engravings on the highest buildings of Meshin were meant as guideposts for Charonic civilization. They were written in a language all Charons would understand, devised from the syntax and symbology from the order’s home Instance. When Meshin was created, its primary function was to protect the Archive. Its secondary function was to point the way to enlightenment. The inscriptions on the buildings were tools used by Charons to instruct new initiates of their order in understanding the importance of knowledge and remembrance.”