The Wizard from Earth (22 page)

The residence of Archimedes, Chief Scientist of Rome, was square in perimeter and three stories tall.  The interior was a courtyard.  Most of the rooms on the second and third floors seemed to be workshops or for storage.  Jaros showed them a room on the second floor and said without looking at Matt, “This will be your quarters once we move out the junk and debris.”

“That's not junk and debris,” Archimedes said.  “It's an important project.”

“You haven't been in here for five years.”  Jaros leaned over the railing and called to a servant.  “Gwinol!  Bring the measuring tape!  We've clothes to make!”

“Hold on that,” Archimedes said.  “We have a tour to complete first.”

Archimedes and Matt descended the stairs to the courtyard.  Another stairway in the courtyard led to a well-lit basement.  The shelves were crammed with books.  Some were mechanically printed, others hand-written.  Scrolls were rare.

"My library," Archimedes said.  "Personally I believe I have finest private collection in all of Rome, though a few of my visitors have expressed disappointment at the lack of pornography."

Matt randomly pulled a book from a shelf.  It was written in Standard.  The words 'voltage' and 'current' jumped from the text, and when he turned the page, he himself jumped when he saw the schematic diagram. 

"Where did you get this?" Matt said, restraining the excitement from his voice. 

"That one?  Oh, I have correspondence with several book merchants in the various cities of the known world.  Hard to say where any particular book comes from.  Why, is that drawing of significance to you?"

"It's for a radio circuit."

“Is that something you have in Seattle?”

"Used to."  Matt carefully replaced the book.  He thought of how he'd yet to see an electric light, let alone a radio, anywhere on Ne'arth.  "Would the knowledge in that book be something that came from the, uh, mentors?"

Archimedes froze at the word, then sighed.  "Ah, the mentors.   It's been a long time since we've heard from them.  But tell me, Matt."

". . . Yes?"

"You're named after the Star Child, but what do you know of the ancient legends?"

Matt thought back to the story book he'd seen at Fish Lake.  "I know the story about The Box That Everything Came In."

“Yes, well, around here such things aren't taken seriously.  I have a different attitude, however.  I believe, based on experience, there is much scientific wisdom in the teachings of the mentors.  Of course, their histories of Aereoth are purely allegorical.”

“Of course,” Matt said.

Archimedes headed for the steps.  “There is time before supper to show you a bit of the city.”

Matt followed Archimedes across the courtyard to venture once more onto the streets of the Rome of Ne'arth.  He tried not to think of the boy he had rescued from the mine flood.  There was nothing he could do for him or any other prisoner of Rome.  Yet. 

25.

On a sunny morning several days later, Valarion stood in the shadows of the southern sun deck of the imperial palace and watched Emperor Hadron sitting at his table overlooking the city.  The Emperor's fingers were fumbling as he attempted to peel an orange, and his face was ashen and contorted.

"I know you're there," Hadron called breathlessly.  "Come on out." 

Valarion emerged from the shade and smiled.  "I thank you for taking me on such short notice."

In fact, Valarion had been back from Britan for some time.  Hadron normally would have summoned Valarion to private inner chambers the moment Valarion had stepped into Rome.  Valarion had not been eager to discuss his frustrations in Britan with the Emperor, but the delay in confrontation had been unnerving.  Finally, it was the General who asked to see Hadron.

Hadron said, "I should let you know that I don't hold it against you that things didn't go well in Britan.  I know from my own field experience, these things are tricky.  And it's not as if it was my idea to be there.  The Sisters push the Senate, the Senate pushes me.  In order to maintain peace I have to go along with war."

Valarion waited to be offered a seat.  Hadron was concentrating on the orange.

"May I sit, sir?"

"Course you can sit.  Course you can."

Valarion sat and waited.  The Emperor seemed to have forgotten about him in the struggle with the orange. 

“You seem to be having trouble there,” Valarion remarked.

“I hate oranges, but have to eat them on my physician’s orders.  Did you know my urine has turned blue?  Sign of not eating enough fruit, he says.”

Valarion knew what else it was a sign of, but kept silent.

Hadron rambled on, “Burdens of office, I suppose, but these days I'm always tired.”

Valarion looked sympathetic, but inwardly he knew that the clear-thinking Hadron of old would have been leery to confess weakness before a rival.  

At last the peel gave way.  Clumsily the Emperor separated the slices.  He extended one toward Valarion, which Valarion eyed warily but accepted with a bow.  He nibbled while trying not to think what  Archimedes had taught about germs.

Valarion hesitated, then said, "There are matters concerning the campaign which I wish to bring to your attention."

"Well, can you trot them out?"

"I believe the campaign was disrupted."

"Of course it was disrupted.  A damn star fell from the sky.  How often does that happen?"

Valarion sat back.  "You heard of that."

"Everyone in the legions saw it and now they've told everyone in Rome.  I've been trying so hard to keep superstition from tearing apart the city, and now this!  Too many are taking it as an omen that we should not be in Britan, but I'm sure it's only a natural phenomenon."

"I believe the disruption was intentional."

Hadron put down the orange and stared.  "I never thought you were one for the divine view."

"I believe the disruptor is a mortal."

Hadron stopped with the orange.  It rolled off the table onto the ground.  Hadron picked it up.  Valarion inwardly cringed as Hadron started chewing slices again.

"This isn't going to be about Archimedes, is it?" Hadron asked with his mouth full.

A servant girl appeared, bearing a bowl of biscuits.  She avoided eye contact, as servant girls must, but Valarion was not sparing in his inspection, though it was entirely professional.  He observed her gait, her general body shape and size.  He had also seen glimpses of the face beneath the veil of the girl that Inoldia had brought to the island of the witches, and knew this was the same.  As the servant girl retreated silently, Valarion eyed the bowl, then looked at the emperor's dilated pupils. 

The fools!
he thought.

Hadron sighed and said, "It IS about Archimedes.  Well, I don't know what it is between you two.  I had him as tutor just as you did, and what was the problem?  When I was young, yes, I hated seeing him at the door of our house every week with his bag of books to read and recite, but all in all I feel a better person for being drilled in math and science.  Don't you?"

Valarion knew that as the eldest child of the most prominent family in Rome, Hadron had been groomed for the emperorship by doting parents.  Hadron had no idea of how harsh the world was even a step below his rung.  

"If Archimedes had confined himself to tutoring," Valarion replied, "I would not have cause to protest.  Up to now, true, his intervention in internal politics has been confined to sniping at the Sisters on public occasions.  But now he has gone unforgivably far –  he has taken to physically attacking our legions!" 

"You're blaming him for the falling star, are you?"

"Yes, I'm blaming him for the star.  My Emperor, our legions were closing in on the army of the rebels like fingers of a clenching fist.  We had them all but cornered!  Then something drops from the sky and all our plans are scattered with the escaping rebels.  As I watched, I asked two questions:  'Who could do this?' and 'Who gains?'  The answers to both questions are the same name."

"This accusation is not something you openly raised in your report to the Senate.  Indeed, I was under the impression from your Senate report that the battle was a smashing victory.”

"As you know, public opinion has to be shaped.  One must take care of what is said in public."

"And so you accuse him privately, before me.  But how do you explain that someone you've referred to as 'a mere tinkerer' can cause a star to fall from the sky?"

"Well, is there another maker of fireworks in all of Rome as adept?"

"Here now, Mardu.  Fireworks are no explanation!  Something that amounts to a few sparks in the sky here in Rome does not explain battle-hardened legionnaires babbling in Britan about a 'hammer of the sky lords.'"

"You know how field reports are exaggerated."

"I know that every field report from a soldier close enough to see what actually happened is full of amazement and terror.  A flaming ball that rent the sky!  An explosion that shook the earth and heaved upward a mountain's worth of rock!  Fortunately most of our soldiers were too far away to get a good look, or two of our best legions might have lost heart and deserted on the spot.  This was truly a star that fell from the heavens, not a bucket of hot coals tossed by a catapult.  What conceivable device could have caused a load of such size to fall from so high in the sky?"

Valarion knew exactly what kind of device could do so:  the one that Archimedes was secretly working on.  But he was not inclined to illuminate Hadron on that.  Instead, he replied: 

"Well, then, do you not see the improbability?  How do you explain its position and timing?"

"I don't.  Sometimes a coincidence is just a coincidence.  Seeing the world in that light is how I got to where I am today."

You got to where you are because your family is Patrician
, Valarion thought.  It didn't occur to Valarion that having a victorious general as a father had made his life easier too. 

Hadron reached for a biscuit.  He offered one to Valarion.  This time, Valarion shook his head. 

Valarion improvised,  "Perhaps . . . perhaps it was a tank of steaming water, what is called a 'boiler.'  Archimedes must have somehow gained knowledge of the plan of attack, and buried a boiler at the key point.  A catapult then launches bucket of coals to make it seem like a star is falling from the sky, and then the boiler releases its steam for the explosion when the bucket hits the ground.  Naturally, we assume that the star caused the explosion, and in our imaginations it inflates – "

"Enough," Hadron said.  "Now you're assuming that Archimedes would not only know of the deployment of our legions, but in order to have placed the 'boiler' properly, he would also have had to have known in advance the movements of the rebel army.  And how, Valarion, would he have known of that?"

Valarion opened his mouth, but nothing came out.  How much did Hadron suspect?  Even the supporters of the Sisters in the Senate would be disconcerted to learn the extent to which Valarion had collaborated with the Sisters.  Time to change the subject. 

"There is another matter.  The Plague has all but ceased in Britan.  And who do we know has experience in eliminating plagues here in Rome?"

"Archimedes, of course.  He said it had to do with sewers.  Did he build sewers in Britan while we weren't looking?"

Valarion was caught off guard.  Apparently, Hadron's wit still had moments of sharpness.

"Ah, well – "

"General, I for one don't give a damn as to your failure to pacify the Britanian countryside.  It's the Sisters who care, and I don't care for their mischief, and so perhaps in a way I am glad for the continued difficulties that we are experiencing there.  As long as they are entangled in Britan, perhaps they won't bother us as much in Rome.  And they are bothering us too much already in Rome.  Why, have you heard the rumors of what happened to Senator Karagas?"

"A heart attack, wasn't it, while in bed with a young lady not his spouse?"

"Not known to the public is that his family physician found traces of poison in the entrails.  And now Karagas is dead, and his cousin sits in the Senate for his family, and is much more amenable to the wishes of the Sisters.  One does not need to be tutored by Archimedes to recognize cause and effect at work."

Valarion wondered what color had been the urine of Karagas, but all he said was, “My working relationship with the Sisters has always been of the highest moral character."

"That's not what I recall of your youth."  Hadron snorted.  "Inoldia all but seduced you!"

Valarion reddened, because he knew there were two extra words in Hadron's last sentence.  And judging by Hadron's firm gaze, he suspected that Hadron knew it too.

Valarion stood abruptly.  "Perhaps I should go and accumulate more evidence before I bother you again."

Hadron pushed across the basket.  "Well, here, take some biscuits.  I insist."

Valarion accepted a kerchief full, and bowed out.  As he headed for the hall, Valarion heard:

"You may think that the bond between me and Archimedes is stronger than it is."

Valarion turned and looked blankly.

"Archimedes has crossed me at times," Hadron continued.  "Remember the Siege of Kresidala?  He refused to build a catapult of sufficient power to break their wall.  Said Kresidala wasn't our enemy."

Valarion marveled that Hadron had forgotten that Archimedes hailed from Kresidala.  But then, looking from the biscuits to the Emperor's haggard, disheveled visage, it was perhaps surprising that Hadron still had any wits about him at all. 

Hadron wobbled from the table to the rail of the deck, where a tube mounted on a tripod pointed to the sea. 

"And this, is a small version of the 'telescope' I have asked him to construct."  Hadron stooped and peered through one end.  "The other day he brought it, and said for me to watch the horizon in the morning for his departure to Palras, and he would wave.  Well, you know his sloop, the
Eureka
, how distinctive it is.  But I wasted hours looking for it.  Was he jesting at my expense, because he knows I've not been well?"

"It's hard to say."

Valarion was well aware that Palras was to the north, and before them was the southern horizon. 

Hadron stood stiff and squared his shoulders, and for a moment looked the ruler of the Empire that he was.

"Valarion, when I was a child and my father brought Archimedes into our study to tutor me, I took one look at that tall form with its long white beard and thought that here was a wizard right out of the storybooks, perhaps the Wizard of Aereoth Himself.  Archimedes taught me things about science and how the world works that few in Rome know, and he only confirmed that impression of wizardry.  Then, when I was an adult and became an officer, I brought him on my military campaigns and his advice, particularly on sieges, was invaluable, and even experienced legionnaires spoke of him with awe. 

"And when I became Emperor and appointed him Chief Scientist, he proceeded to build this city to twice its size and even more impressively at the time, keep the whole part from collapsing in on itself.  Without Archimedes, Rome would be little more than a plague-ridden, overgrown fishing village.  Instead, it is the jewel of the known world, the master of the greatest empire known to man, and Archimedes, if not the agent of transformation, is responsible for maintaining its foundation.  And so in many respects, a true wizard he is, and I know of no other man of which I would say that.  But do you know what matters most now, Valarion?"

"Sir?"

"To bear in mind that we have come to a time that is late in his day, and now Archimedes is just a harmless old man who wishes most of all to retire to his books and workshops."

Valarion smiled fixedly.  How astonishing that even the Emperor had no idea that Archimedes was hard at work on his greatest invention yet – and how in a short time it could extend Rome's power over all the Yuro Archipelago and then the whole world!

But Valarion would keep that secret to himself, and said only, "I will agree that he plays that part well, My Emperor."