The Artifacts Of Elios (Book 1) (31 page)

“I am researching information on the infrastructure of this city,” stated Ava confidently.

“What level of infrastructure,”
queried the device?  “
Lumen Master, Lumen Mage, Glyph Master, Glyph Mage, or non-potent”

“Non-potent please,” answered Ava.

“According to the records the city of Hylye-Amahn has had all infrastructure deactivated due to relocation.  It is of note to know that the current location was recently changed and is currently equal to the precise coordinates of the former city of Valee which was destroyed. The details of the destruction of Valee and the specifics of the relocation of Hylye-Amahn are available only upon lumen master authorization.

Ava already knew this from the crash course in local history that she had received in a dream from the night before.  “
I Need keys and instruction for emergency restart of all infrastructures,” stated Ava.

“One moment please spoke the historian.  Thank you for waiting.  Students are authorized unless the Lumen Master objects,”
stated the historian then pausing.

Ava looked at Laura and Laura looked at Ava and shrugged; still nothing.  Ava was about to argue with the device when Laura rolled her eyes and addressed the historian.  “Good heavens there are no Lumen Masters here that
object; give her the keys for goodness sakes.”

A large screen appeared where the sphere had been showing directions to where several obelisks stood in a row, each with a large multifaceted glyph on each side about shoulder high. 

“Have you familiarized yourself with the location and the activation instructions?”
asked the historian.

“Yes,” replied Ava.

“
Please place your right hand on the sphere.”
  The screen was gone and the sphere was back.

Ava placed her right hand on the sphere; again a slight tingle.

“You may remove your hand.”

Ava removed her hand and saw a gol
den glyph matching the glyphs on the obelisks pulsing on her hand.

“
The key will be returned to the records center automatically once you have reactivated the requested systems”

Ava and Laura left the records center and quickly walked the several blocks to the row of obelisks.  Ava then
reached out held her right hand and placed it on the first one.  She felt a tingle in her hand and the obelisk disappeared.  Nothing was immediately apparent so she moved to the next one.  The same thing occurred as she ran through all of them; each disappearing after she completed the activation.  At last she came to the final obelisk.  Like at Yllyan the last obelisk was for the trolleys and as she activated it a trolley appeared; this time the trolley was yellow and dark blue.

Ava grabbed Laura’s hand and jumped in to the standing trolley.  Soon they were silently glided towards the street that would take them to the station.  Several chimes later Ava recognized the Station Street and followed by Laura climbed down to the street.  The
y quickly crossed the street and waited for the trolley that would take them to the Station.

While they waited there was a sound of someone behind them.  Turning they saw
a disheveled man with hollow eyes standing before them.  “Bob, is that you?” asked Laura with a puzzled look.  “Ava this is Bob Omere.  He is one of the magetechs that work with Edward.”

The pale man remained silent but had a strange animalistic look in his eyes, looking hungrily at the two women.  Laura pulled Ava behind her as the man stepped forward and reached to them before his hand could even touch the older woman it began to smolder and he jerked it back and howled with pain.

“You cannot cure this world; the seed of the Allyant has been planted.  Only a Dernier Chanson can stop the Allyant and you Elios have failed to create one in time.  The man laughed maniacally.  I hunger for your Lumen, Elios but I know I cannot have it, but I see that the neophyte has not realized hers yet and it is ripe.   I will have it for the Allyant!”  The man dove for Ava and grabbed her by the hair and arm. With a yell Ava reached out and tried to pry the man’s hands off of her but he was too strong for her.  The harder she tried to break free the stronger he became and she began to feel more weak with every struggle.  As she sank to the sidewalk she saw Laura with a brilliant glowing blue sword and watched amazed as the sword divided the man in two.  The last thing she remembered before she lost consciousness was the chime of the approaching trolley and a bright flash of strange glyphs in the air incinerating the body of her attacker. 

Ari had just finished bonding to his instructor when Roger hollered down to them that there were sails on the horizon and he had activated the cloaking glyphs and slowed them down to slow speed.

Ari called up and yelled, “All Stop”

“Before you shut down your instructor tell it you want the instructions dream when you sleep next,” Shane admonished.  “Trust me you will have a much more effective first day.”

“Schedule me for instruction dream next time I go to sleep.”  Ari said quickly then he commanded the device to take the shape of a wrist bracer like he had often seen Shane do, simultaneously he deactivated it and hurried up to the
wheelhouse.

Roger showed the representational dots of three navy schooners to the east.  “Their look outs in the mast are pretty
high up so they might have spotted us before I realized how close we were.  I hit the cloak and slowed us down; I just hope I wasn’t too late.  With any luck between us not having any sail up and the sun being in their eyes the may have missed us.”

“Shane,” barked Ari, “get to work on strengthening that rope. So we can deploy the tow.  Roger, change your course and head south and let’s see if we can get around them.”

While Roger and Shane went to work Ari studied the navigation console and the view screen.  As soon as he had the view screen pointed at the lead ship he started zooming in.  In a few seconds he was soon seeing the sailors on deck; he scrolled even closer.  He could see the men running around, officers yelling orders and the ships began to change course heading in their direction.  “They spotted us alright.”

Shane had
to turn himself invisible, and then had to feel around for the ropes.  Without common visible cues that he didn’t even realize that he used, it took a minute to undo it from both the cleat and the tow but eventually he had the rope in hand and took it below where he could make it visible and figure out how to strengthen it.

First he examined the rope and then he called up his instructor.  Thinking once again along the materials route he looked at what was available to transmute one material into another
.  After looking he found a combination of enchantments that would most likely do the trick; it was a long complex string of glyphs that would petrify the ropes strand by strand into stone.  He then could use the second enchantment that would transmute the stone into steel reserving the strands.  He would have to be very careful because in the stone state it would be extremely brittle.

He laid the coil of thick rope down in a way that it wouldn’t jostle he quickly reviewed the glyphs and while they were in his mind he added the lumen and activated them.  The Rope was instantly stone.  As quickly as he could he cast the
glyphs that would transmute the stone to steel and instantly the stone rope was now a quite unbreakable shiny steel cable twice as thick as his thumb.

The steel
cable was far too heavy to lift so Shane etched some levitation glyphs along with the invisible glyphs that would sync with the ships invisibility and he took it back up on deck.  He looped the cable through the hole designed for a rope but the cable while flexible was not flexible enough to tie a knot with it.  Using his welding glyph he pulled the end of the cable through the hole and back far enough until he was able to bend it upon its self.  Holding it together he welded the cable to its self and it was as secure as it was ever going to get, taking the other end he did the same with the cleat.  He then uncloaked the tow long enough for him to get it into the water then he cloaked it and the cable and ran back to the wheelhouse.

Making sure that the ship thrusters were off he levitated the sloop out of the water and then handed the control plate to Roger and informed Ari
of the status of the tow and he could take it as fast as he wanted to.

Ari called a course change back to east and then said, “Roger take it up to medium speed.  Let’s check the wake of that cable, Shane look up front and see if you can see any noticeable
wake.”

Shane scrambled forward and leaned over the edge.  Realizing that he was visible out on the deck of an invisible ship he hurried and cast the cloak glyphs on himself; hoping that he
hadn’t been spotted by the oncoming ships. 

The spot where the cable came out of the water was negligible but if you knew what to look for
, it was still a tell-tale sign of their presence.

After a few tense minutes they were soon well past the naval ships and due to the navigation devises they were fairly sure of the location of the island and changed the course of the levitated sloop.

Roger continued to steer with Ari directing him around various islands and ships; they brought the speed down to slow in so the cable slicing through the water was only a ripple.

“Call me if you need me for anything,” Shane said to the others I need to work on a few Ideas.

Alone in his cabin Shane connected mentally with his instructor and began following up on an idea that he had had combining the window glyphs with the coordinate information that was available from the navigation glyphs.  Conjuring up another brass plate he etched in the glyphs necessary to create the window and adjusted the frame to be made of brass.  He then added glyphs to create two miniature navigation screens.  The first he glyphed to provide the window origination location the second to provide the coordinates that could be selected to be the outside window.  He then created a third screen that could be used to see a visual of the destination that would place a marker on the destination navigation so that once you saw the spot that you wanted you could just touch the dot on destination the navigation screen and the destination.  After looking it and going through his notes he added glyphs and control lines so that he could size the windows. 

His first test was to open a small window suspended inside his cabin.  He set the origination coordinates by
zooming the dot on the navigation screen until it indicated a location on the sloop that was where his cabin door was located; he was relieved as he watched the dot continue to move with the boat.  He then used the image viewer to look out upon the rear deck of the ship.  He touched the image on the spot that he wanted the destination side of the window to appear and the coordinates instantly popped up on the destination navigation screen. He was soon dismayed as he saw that as the ship moved the dot stayed at the original plot.  After a few more tries he was finally able to link the coordinate to a visual anchor and the dot was soon following whatever he selected as a target; whether moving or stationary.  As he sat up and stretched mentally getting ready to link the targeting to the actual window location glyphs he realized that his targeting glyphs would work for an auto steering control or pilot system as well; he noted that in his book and then continued on with his current project.

After
thirty more minutes he had the windows linked to the targeting glyphs and was ready to give it a try.  Using the same beginning location of in his cabin he then selected a location at the stern, Realizing that the ship was cloaked he decided on Ari’s cabin instead so that he wouldn’t risk having something visible show up on deck.  Keeping the window small he actuated the window.  A small opening appeared near his doorway.  Looking through it he could see Ari’s cot with a note book lying on the bed.  He got up and looked around to the back of his window and was amazed that except for the border the window appeared to be truly two dimensional.  There was no thickness to it and from the rear it was invisible.  From the back he could put his hand through it and like a projection but from the front he could not penetrate the borders and his hand could reach through the window. To prove that it worked he reached through and picked up Ari’s not book and brought it through then put it back.

Thinking again he considered that they may need to look down on something
or even up to something, so he deactivated his new device and querying his instructor.  Based on the many things he had already learned he soon added a window orientation control.  Once the device was re-activated, he set it to the window orientation to horizontal and then used the target viewer to look in on Ari and Roger.  Once the target was set on the ceiling he opened a half hand square window and peeked in on the wheelhouse,