The Witches of Ne'arth (The Star Wizards Trilogy Book 2) (3 page)

“What is the 'template?'” she asked.

“The template is the one whom you refer to as the Star Child.”

Lachela bolted awake. 

The morning was bright and the dream was a fading memory, one that she did not want to remember.  She got out of bed, changed into her ordinary work dress, and got in line for pre-breakfast chore assignment.  She was sent to the well.  She pumped water into the bucket until the bucket was full, and carried the bucket up the hill to the orphanage. 

Arms straining, she frowned at the bucket and thought,
I wish it wasn't so heavy
.

A moment later, she stopped and looked down at the bucket.  It was still full of water, yet it felt empty.

She resumed walking.  At the orphanage gate, a breeze picked up, chilling her through the thin smock.  She shivered and thought,
I wish it wasn't so cold
.

Two steps later, she halted and gaped at a bush.  The branches were waving furiously in the breeze, yet she felt as warm as she did on mornings when the air was becalmed.

Inside the dining hall, as she ate breakfast alone, she noticed that the other girls were staring at her.  She assumed that it was because news had spread that she had been sent to the Residence the night before. 

She took a spoonful of porridge and swallowed. 
I wish it tasted better.
  And then it did.

Lachela paused, thoughtful.  She looked at the girls and thought,
I wish they would stop staring. 
But they continued to do so.

The Power only controls my attitudes
, she thought. 

The priests and nuns had often taught that one was as happy as one made one's mind to be.  Lachela had never found that to be true . . . until now.

After breakfast, she went to the washroom.  She dipped her hands in the washbowl, and noticed the scar on her thumb that she'd borne for ages was missing.  The Captain's bite on her shoulder was completely healed also. 

She raised her eyes to the mirror – and met the face of a stranger.  Only, it was her.

Only, it was not. 

The wart on her nose was gone.  Her skin had always been rough and blemished, but now it was smooth and clear.  The mottling on her cheek . . . it was as if she'd never had the pox.

Then she remembered the strange sensation that she'd felt while chewing breakfast, yet had dismissed as only her imagination.  On suspicion, she opened her mouth.  Her front teeth, which she had lost last year in a beating by a priest, had grown back. 
Overnight.
  All her teeth were straight and unstained.

Lachela became aware that the girls were yet stealing glances.  Now she understood why.  She had always been plain, but the young woman in the mirror was – pretty.

Am I still in dream?
  Lachela had little time to contemplate.  With every day there were chores, always more chores, and then at the end of the day came chapel. 

The priest presiding the chapel service for vespers was Father Brinteth.  He was among the oldest priests at the monastery and one of the most soft-spoken, who was known among the orphans for his kindness.  Even so, after service Lachela hesitated in coming to him.  He was halfway across the graveyard before she intercepted him alone. 

“Father, may I have your advice on a matter?”

“Yes, my child.”  He rubbed his thick spectacles.  “Your name is Lakila, isn't it?”

Lachela let it pass.  “I remember a lesson taught in sermon, about spirits that speak to men.  I – I know of a girl, who . . . who . . . . “

“. . . Who is having a spirit speak to her?”  Father Brinteth's expression darkened.  “Oh dear.  I hope it is only her imagination.”

“It is . . . sinful?”

“Worse than sinful. 
Demonic.
  You see, if she indeed is in communication with a spirit, it is likely to be a demon, a vile supernatural entity known as a 'mentor,' who intends nothing but evil for your friend.”

“But she says it is not doing her any harm.  It is helping her in fact.”

“That is only a trick to gain her confidence.  Tell your friend not to address the spirit, and above all not to engage it in conversation.”  He shook his head emphatically.  “Otherwise, if she listens, the demon will utilize his enticements to persuade her in false teaching which most certainly would endanger her soul.” 

“I see,” she said, taking care to keep her voice as flat as possible.

The priest patted her shoulder and ambled off.  Lachela stood in the dusk for long minutes, then returned to the dormitory.  She went to the washroom and stared at the mirror, realizing for the first time that her vision had become perfect.   

Demon trickery,
she thought.
 
But what if she tricked back, by pretending to fall for the demon's tricks?

She knew she was at the most important decision point in her brief life.  Either heed Father Brinteth, and resume her life as a drudge at the Abbey.  Or interact with the demon, and risk Perdition.  She had no idea what Perdition was like, except that it sounded more interesting than the Abbey.

It would have come as a surprise to most people, but still she chose the Abbey.  For she remembered from Scripture Class:   as the priests had instructed in their allegorical lessons, the Road to Perdition was a smooth path ending in a pit of  flames.  With that vivid vision in mind, a life of scrubbing certainly seemed better than eternal torment.

Yet . . . as she started to turn away in her imagination, she noticed that the Road to Perdition was not quite as smooth as she had initially visualized.  There were dark spots on its pavement. 

This too was in the lessons.  The spots were various temptations.  A priest had once shown her Scripture Class a wall-chart-sized illustration upon which the temptations were labeled:  greed, lust, envy . . . revenge.

Revenge
, she thought, savoring the imagery of a world turned upside down. 

Revenge!  Now there was a lover to whom she would freely give her all!  Even as she burned in Hell, she would be comforted with the knowledge of victory over her oppressors.  Reflecting upon the humiliations of her life, she felt the conviction that even eternal torment would not take away the sweet taste of eternal satisfaction acquired through Revenge. 

As she recalled from the Scripture Class illustration, the spot labeled Revenge wasn't that far down the road.  With proper care, she might reach it, indulge a time in effect scrubbing it – and return safely, with barely a singe.  And why not enjoy herself along the way?     

She didn't have to hurt anybody.  She just had to live well.  She knew her oppressors enough to know that
their
greatest torment would be to see her content and immune to their power to make life miserable. 

Really, wasn't it the Wizard's Will?  Surely He did not want to make a young girl suffer misery.  Surely He understood justice.  And would He have allowed the demon to come to her and become her servant, if He had not chosen her as His instrument of justice? 

Her gaze drifted.  She stroked her frizzed hair absent-mindedly.  She lifted a few strands before her eyes.   

I wish . . . I wish it were straighter
.  

2. 

Archimedes awoke in darkness and shivered. 
So cold
, he thought, tucking the blankets to his cot. 
Never been this cold in Rome this time of year. 
He would have to talk to that new assistant – Matt, wasn't it? – about speeding up work on the rooftop weather reporting station.

His eyes fluttered open.  Through the window he viewed a dark sky with a pale band meandering across it.  He immediately sensed something was not right.  He groped for his glasses on the bed stand and scrutinized the sky. 

Just as he'd thought!  The translucent snake
was
the Milky Way.  But one could not see the Milky Way from his bedroom window, so had the planet's axis tilted while he had slept?  And because of the torch lights that burned all through the night, the city of Rome did not allow one to see the Milky Way at all.  Perhaps with the tilting of the planet, there had been an earthquake that doused the torches . . . .

He decided he would have to go to the roof and investigate.  First, though . . .
tea
.

“Gwinol!” he called.  “Make me some tea!”  There was no answer, so he called again:  “Gwinol!”

Then he caught himself. 
What am I doing?
  He had no business waking the servants at this time of night just for tea.  Maybe he was old, but he wasn't infirm, he would make it himself . . . .

In the darkness, he felt against the wall, locating the staff.  He hobbled into the hallway – and found himself under open sky.  Rome had disappeared, replaced by huts and forest beyond.

“What the – “ Archimedes began.  And then he fully awoke and remembered.

You are no longer in Rome
. 
That life is over. 
 

Breathless and aching, he leaned against the staff.  He reflected that he had made the staff as a weapon-in-disguise.  More and more often these days, he was genuinely using it to prop himself up.

Shivering and coughing, he returned to the tiny hut at Ravencall Base that was his home in West Britan.  He sat on the cot and regained his breath.  In the darkness he perceived the stove and thought about making a fire.  It seemed a lot of effort.  He threw a blanket over his shoulder and hobbled outside. 

By then the sun was lighting the eastern sky.  Silhouettes of workmen greeted:  “Morning, Archimedes.”  “Morning, Arch.”  Archimedes remembered when work crews addressed him as 'Chief Scientist.'  But that was his old life.

“Morning,” he mumbled, unable to remember their names.

As his eyes surveyed the work shops and supply huts, his memory of recent events returned with clarity.  Matt and Carrot.  Valarion, chasing them out of Rome.  The airship, which had bombed the Roman fleet and brought them to Britan.  And then . . . subsequent weeks in which he had become increasingly marginalized. 

Archimedes followed the crowd to the meal hut and accepted the rationed dollop of porridge.  At the meal tables h
e was given respectful glances and nods, and then the workers chatted among themselves as if he wasn't there. 

They think of me as Roman
, he thought, appreciating the irony. 

He churned the oats in the bowl. 
Every morning it's porridge
.  He'd had porridge every morning in Rome too, but it had tasted better when he had a choice.

With breakfast half-eaten, he headed north across the grounds in what was now a bright though cool morning.  The airship hangar loomed at the edge of the clearing, above the treetops.  From within came the sounds of tools, hammers clanging and saws zzz-zing.  He halted at the door, where on Steam Island the facility supervisor would have announced his presence with an urgent bark and workers would have bowed in greeting.  Now he was all but invisible.

The airship itself took most of the interior but otherwise had lost all dignity.  Gone was the cigar-shaped metallic skeleton, and so were the bomb racks and walkways.  The gondola had been removed from the envelope, which at present was reduced to a hundred meters of sagging, deflated lump. 

Archimedes shuddered at what had been done to his life's work.  He spied the latest revision drawings on the work table, and shuddered again. 

Archimedes had been appalled when he'd first seen the crews slit open the envelope and begin the modification process. 
What are you doing to my beautiful zepallion?
he had demanded. 
What it was,
was called a 'zeppelin
,' they corrected. 
Now we're making it into a blimp.  Wizard's orders.

“
Blemp
,” he said to the assistant supervisor.  “What a ridiculous name.”

“'Blimp,'” the assistant supervisor replied.

“What?”

“The word is 'blimp.'”

“That's even more ridiculous.”

“Well, according to the Wizard, that's what they called it on Earth.  Anyway, the Wizard says we should call it an 'airship.'”

“And so we do, on Wizard's orders.”

The assistant supervisor shrugged and turned away. 

Wizard's orders
, Archimedes thought.  If the Wizard said such and such, that was the end of the argument.  Even as Chief Scientist of Rome, Archimedes had never encountered the awe that the people of Britan universally accorded their 'Wonderful Wizard.'

“Carry on,” Archimedes mumbled.  No acknowledgment came, and he hobbled outside.  His eyes wandered aimlessly to a supply hut on his left that he was using as an 'office.'  He entered and cleared off the cluttered table, sat and pondered. 

Perhaps my time is over. 

What was his purpose in life now?  In Rome he had been responsible for the facilities of the imperial city.  Here, his days were about meals and the filling of chamber pots.

He got up went to the stove, and searched through the satchels behind it.  One was filled with silver, but he was in search of another treasure.  From a second satchel he produced a jug.  He uncorked and tilted.  A dribble poured out, and that was the last of his supply of Roman naval rum.  The Britanians were brewing a substitute, but it was vastly inferior in taste as it was intended only as fuel for the airship and he could hardly stomach it.  He corked the jug and put it back, returned to the table and set his head on the top and sighed. 

At least try to contribute
, he chastised himself. 

He raised his head to the stack of documents in the corner of his desk and pulled out a sheaf of papers bound together with twine.  The title read,
United States Navy K-Type Airships Pilot's Manual [Restricted]. 
He flipped past the ancient photos of blimps and read: 
EXTRACT FROM ESPIONAGE ACT.  Section 31.  Unlawfully obtaining or permitting to be obtained information effecting National Defense.***  

Very deliberately, he took a red pencil and replaced the first 'e' with 'a' in 'effecting' and, further down on the same page, the first 'i' with 'e' in 'intrusting.'  Feeling a twinge of satisfaction, he stretched his arms and yawned.  But reading always made him drowsy these days . . .
rest eyes for just a moment
. . . .

He heard the rustle of paper and realized there was someone in the hut with him. 

He opened his eyes and raised his flattened cheek from the table top.  Silhouetted against the afternoon sunlight (
How long was I asleep?
) was a blur.  He groped for his spectacles and squinted.  A pair of large wide eyes blinked back at him.  The eyes were set in a small face that had an innocuous expression and was attached to the body of a boy that Archimedes judged to be no more than fifteen.

“Who might you be?” Archimedes asked, self-consciously wiping the drool from his beard.

The boy replied, “Bok, sir.”

Archimedes found himself straightening.  It had been a long time since someone, even a child, had addressed him as 'sir.' 

“Well, I am called Archimedes, and you may address me as such, if you don't find it to be a mouthful.  If so, then 'Archie' will suffice.  So what are you doing here, Bok?”

“Reading, sir.”  Bok had the pilot's manual in front of him. 

Archimedes smiled.  “I'm always pleasantly astounded that the peasantry here knows how to read.”

“I'm not a peasant, sir.  My family lives in a fishing village.  We make sails for fishing boats.”

“Very well, Bok.  So what do you make of what you're reading?”

“I have questions, sir.”

“Well, I seem to have an opening in my schedule.  Perhaps I can provide answers.”

“Thank you, sir.”  Bok pointed to the cover.  “First, I would like to know, what is 'United States?'”

“It's an ancient country that existed on the planet Earth about a thousand years ago.”

“But this manual doesn't seem to be a thousand years old.”

“No, it was printed only a few days ago.”

Bok's eyes widened still more.  “There is a printing press here?” 

“No, no.  The Wizard – well, it may sound incredible, but what he does is eat berries for ink, and then he passes his palm over blank sheets of paper, and then something called 'Ivan' causes the words and pictures to appear on the sheets.”

Bok tilted his head. 

“I am not joking,” said Archimedes.

“I did not think you were, sir.”  Bok turned through the pages.  “I see you corrected the spelling in the excerpt from the Espionage Act.  Is there a reason an Espionage Act for the United States a thousand years ago on Earth would apply here and now to us?”

“I suppose it doesn't.  It's just I'm in the habit of, 'I see an error, I correct it.'”

Bok blinked and turned some more pages.  “These numbers in the tables of data, sir.  They appear to be in unusual units of measurement.”

“You mean, feet, inches, pounds, degrees Fahrenheit?  Yes, they're in a different system of measurement that was peculiar to that time and place on Earth.”

“I see, sir.  Are we planning to convert to this new system of measurement?”

“Other way around.  We're converting those numbers into the metric system so that we can use that document to help us to reverse-engineer the airship technology of the ancients.  Reverse-engineering is when – well, I'm not too sure myself, but it's what we're doing.”  Archimedes frowned.  “Here now, I just realized that you seem to know already that 'Earth' is the true name of 'Aereoth.'”

“Yes sir.  I've passed through a lot of villages and always ask about everything the Wizard has taught.”

“Word gets around, I suppose.  Wait . . . you say you passed through a 'lot' of villages.  Where exactly do you come from again?”

“I didn't say exactly, sir.  But it's a village called Cod Cove.  It's on the coast, sir.  Almost due south of here.”

“We are far from the coast.  You came all that way?”

“Yes sir.”

“With your family?”

A long pause.  “No sir.  By myself.”

“Bok, how old are you?”

“Nineteen, sir.”

“You don't look nineteen.”

“I am, sir.”

“Well.  As if I couldn't guess, why did you come here?”

“I saw the airship fly over the coast many weeks ago, and when I learned that it was kept at a place called Ravencall, and I came to see it.”  Bok gazed longingly at the hangar.  “But they won't let me inside.”

Archimedes pushed up from the table.  “Then let's take a tour.  I'll be your escort.”

“You'll do that for me, sir?  If you're not too busy?”

“Turns out an appointment was canceled.”

They were intercepted at the door, but then the worker saw that Bok was in the company of Archimedes.  Upon entry to the hangar, Archimedes noted that the expression of his charge was as rapturous as any religious devotee admitted into the highest shrine.  Archimedes imagined seeing the airship with the eyes of Bok:  as a magical machine of immense proportions and exotic configuration, that did the impossible.

“What's your first impression, Bok?”

“It's the biggest thing I've ever seen, sir.”

“Not quite true.  The building is bigger, is it not?” 

Bok blinked.  “I see, sir.  Humor.”

The boy went immediately to an engine housing.  He gaped through the open cowling at the piston cylinders with their tangle of tubes and wires, then rushed to the propeller blade and stroked it delicately, admiring its air-sculling curvature.

“These were spinning when I saw the ship flying above the trees that time,” he said.  “Faster than windmills, they were.  The document said they are caused to turn by 'power plants,' but I don't see any plants.”

“The word 'plant' has a different meaning in the document.  It refers to the engines.”

“Those are the machines that turn the naval rum into power, and then use the power to turn the propellers”

“More or less.” Archimedes was impressed, though.  The boy surely was far short of nineteen years physically, but intellectually his speech indicated that he was well ahead of many adults.