Ascent of the Aliomenti (15 page)

XI

Heat

1025 A.D.

Three years later.

“You can’t seriously think that’s going to work.”

Will laughed. “Arthur, why would you think it won’t work? Everything else has.”

Arthur scowled. “It just seems so... strange.”

“Strange? This from a man who started teleporting last week?”

“That’s strange, too. It terrifies me. What if I start to teleport... and I don’t reappear?”

Will couldn’t resist a smirk, and slapped Arthur on the back. “Don’t tease me like that, Arthur.”

Adam, who walked by at that moment, couldn’t help but laugh out loud.

The concrete walls gleamed around them. They’d made it a point to keep the walls scrubbed down on the inside, a symbol of the high expectations and demands they placed upon themselves. It was a task delegated to their newest residents, the neophytes, those with minimal Energy stores and training. They’d practice projecting Energy, a precursor of telekinesis and other Energy skills, by blasting dirt and debris off the walls.

The village had grown over the past three years, since the days when they’d brought in journeymen to help frame the concrete walls they’d ostensibly use to secure themselves from outside attack. The walls were not there for physical security, however. They served to hide the true secrets of the Aliomenti, secrets that extended beyond the strange, stone-like material that formed many of buildings in the village.

Will pointed to the dirt. “We’ve established that warmer air moves up, not down.” He gestured toward the large residence building dominating the southern third of the village. “That’s why we pipe the hot air in through the bottom floor, and then let it rise up to the top.”

“Right, I get that,” Arthur replied. “But why would you even want to heat the common walkways? Or create a space where the earth remains warm during the winter?”

“We don’t want to lose out on the opportunity to produce goods during the winter,” Will replied. “When we’ve visited other cities with our goods, they’ve always been desperate for anything of quality as the snows start to melt. We usually have a bit, simply because we produce items more quickly than other cities or villages do. If we can actually produce throughout the winter, we’d have a tremendous storehouse of goods to sell and plenty of highly motivated people looking to buy.”

That part was true. Most cities and villages in this area of the world went into a human equivalent of hibernation from November through March. Bitter cold and heavy snowfall prevented any type of travel and limited the ability of anyone to farm or produce any goods for trade. If the Aliomenti could be the sole exception to that rule, they could make even greater profits through trading than they’d ever generated in the past.

“And,” Will added, “keeping the grounds warm will melt the snows before they can accumulate, and we’ll be able to move around far more easily than we do today. The warmth should enable our master craftsmen to continue working regardless of the outside temperature or snowfall.”

Arthur shrugged, a mannerism he adopted when uncertain of how to attack another’s idea. “And why do we need to have the winter garden?”

Will had postulated the idea several months earlier. They had to finish harvests in October and store sufficient grain and vegetables to last the village for four months or more, until the snows melted, the grounds thawed, and they could plant new crops. Will suggested his “heated walkway” idea, and added that doing so would provide a small amount of “farm” space within the walls, earth that never froze and therefore would enable them to grow their most important crops year-round. The zirple root and morange berries were well-known at this point, and Will wanted to add some “decorative” trees as well to add some color inside the walls. Those decorative trees would be the ambrosia. And if they structured it correctly, they could continue to grow a modest variety and quantity of vegetables to supplement that which was stored in their silos.

They’d need to enhance their food production efforts in any way they could, for their numbers continued to grow. They’d made it a rule to recruit ten new members each year, and thus far the experiment had produced an overwhelmingly male population. Arthur’s original twenty had grown to fifty now, and there were only five women in the midst. Will suspected Arthur’s open misogyny would cause problems, and he was proved correct.

After a number of fights over disagreements around companionship, an inevitable consequence of the numbers and ratios of people in the village, Arthur finally relented. He agreed to look to add more women to his recruiting trips the following year, though it was clear he didn’t consider it important, whether for companionship, the variety of viewpoints, or the skilled craftswomen they could add to their team.

“It gets complicated when there are so few women around,” Adam complained. “Nine men want to kill the tenth, for he’s the one the woman wants.”

Arthur looked disinterested. “We have to focus on bringing in the best craftspeople and farmers and potential Energy students,” he replied. “I’ll bring women when I find those who are capable of meeting those requirements.”

“It’s not that difficult, Arthur, unless you’re trying to ignore what’s in front of you,” Will replied, his tone more scathing than he’d intended. “The women were a critical part of our initial population, were our best at Trading and metalwork and—“

“And look at where
that
got us,” Arthur hissed. “Let me repeat: I’ll grow the village head count with the best people. And yes, Will, I will ensure that I am not excluding women.”

Adam’s original comment had struck a chord with Will, for it reminded him that it had been nearly three months since he’d talked with Hope. They’d both made tremendous strides in their Energy development, and were able to meet in person after each of them made multiple teleportation hops. They found a small town where they could enjoy a long dinner together, sharing the events of their daily lives, and enjoying the stories of a place each would prefer to call home, if only to be with the other.

It wasn’t possible for them to meet in the Aliomenti village. Arthur believed Hope and Eva dead at the hands of the original Aliomenti, and neither trusted Arthur not to try to correct the error should he ever discover it. They’d only be free of that concern when either Arthur, or the two of them, were dead. Since Will knew all of them were still alive ten centuries hence, they reasoned that the only option available was for Hope and Eva to stay far away from the Aliomenti.

“Perhaps you need to consider recruiting women even if you
don’t
think they’re the best candidates,” Adam said, continuing the train of thought. “We’re having quite a few arguments and fights because of the lack of women in this village; there’s no reason not to correct the problem when it’s relatively easy to do so.”

Arthur frowned. “Is the problem that we have too
few
women, or that we have too
many
? I’d suggest that the men consider traveling outside this village if they are having problems on that front, rather than try to correct the issue by degrading the pool of people here.”

Will arched an eyebrow. “The women here are wonderful. Arielle has probably progressed more quickly than any of the men here. Why would we deprive ourselves of anyone with talent like that?”

“Despite what you think, Will, the issue is that women like Arielle are an incredibly rare exception. The women in the villages I visit are rarely like that. They are too timid and too deeply trained not to think or express opinions or strive to grow. In the rare instances that they are
not
like that, they are typically the daughters of nobles, have received some type of education, and as such are far better able to accept the new reality we tell them about – and those women rarely want to leave. You may not like my opinions, but the reality is that the pool of women we can consider truly
do not
meet our standards.”

Will sighed. “I don’t like your opinions, Arthur, and that’s no secret. I’ve not been traveling much and I don’t know what the women are like in other cities and villages these days, but don’t let your opinions cloud your assessments. I still
strongly
encourage you to work on balancing our numbers here. But we need to figure out how to stop the fighting, and that’s not something you can correct overnight. Perhaps we need to schedule group visits nearby villages for a week or two at a time.”

Adam looked thoughtful. “That’s a good idea, actually. And we don’t need to promote such trips as being for just that purpose, either.
All
of the people here practice different crafts and create goods, and all could stand to visit their future customers and understand exactly what they are looking for, and why. In the process of learning better what they should build, they can deal with other concerns as well.”

Will nodded. “I think there’s a lot of merit to that point. We needn’t explain the true motivation to the men as we send them out. Simply explaining that it’s an opportunity to better learn what specific designs or colors or level of decoration are desired by customers is sufficient. If they pursue other options as well... then so be it.”

Arthur’s idea and Adam’s follow-up point were both valid and addressed the key points and areas of contention. Will wanted to make sure that such a plan was implemented and communicated to the residents as quickly as possibly.

“We should start socializing the idea. Everyone picks the group of five they’d like to travel with, and we schedule sending them out. We have enough people here to perform the daily chores even if we’re short a handful for a week at a time. Their Energy skills are improving to the point that we can accomplish far more with fewer people. Individual trips outside the village are a good thing; eventually, if only trading specialists leave, we’re going to have a lot of very powerful Energy users wondering why they’re being held prisoner inside these walls.”

Arthur’s face suggested that he wasn’t opposed to such retention methods, but he nodded his assent. They weren’t having any retention issues, though, so it was a moot point. The benefits of being part of the group were apparent long before new residents learned of and unleashed their Energy skills. The comforts and advances found in the village were too impressive to make departure a reasonable option.

They’d built the underground furnace during the previous warm season, and it had proved to be a success. It was by no means as efficient as the central heating and temperature control systems Will had grown accustomed to in the twenty-first century. But the insulation from the concrete and the warm air rising through vents in the floors had made winters far more comfortable for everyone. In fact, some had complained of being too
warm
during the cold winter weather. In one notable incident, several of those complaining of excessive warmth were seized, carried outside the walls, and tossed into heaping snow drifts, where buckets of water were dumped on them. Thankfully, the spirits in the village were high, coin purses were heavy, and bellies were full, and such frivolity was treated as nothing more than fun by all involved.

When they’d built the underground furnace, they’d originally envisioned it to serve as a secondary kiln for the potters, present and future. However, they’d built it to handle a far more massive fire and heat capacity than the one that existed above ground. Will’s concept of leaving the fires going at all times, and using the excess heat to warm the residence building during frigid winter months, was first mocked and later praised. He’d asked the metal smiths to forge the connecting bit of ductwork, which attached directly to the kiln, so that the heat could be channeled up into the building. He’d also asked them to include a second branch of ductwork heading in the opposite direction, away from the residence hall toward the main part of the village. That portion was currently sealed off, but Will now intended to make use of it.

He had the villagers dig trench lines, starting just above the underground furnace and expanding out through the village. The trench lines ran down the center of the primary walking paths, and he’d had more than a few glares sent his way as they maneuvered their way into the Shop areas. While they appreciated what he was trying to do, few seemed willing to dodge trench diggers in their workspace to achieve that vision.

They began laying the metal ductwork nearest the Shops to enable the workers to resume their work schedules as quickly as possible. With the ductwork in place near the Shops, they worked from the ends of the trenches furthest from the furnace and worked back, joining the tentacles together until a single branch ended at the furnace.

The ductwork was built in a different manner than what they’d created to carry heat into the building. In the former case, they wanted no heat to escape the ducts until it reached the residence building for distribution. For heating the walkways, they needed the heat to seep out as it traversed the length of the ductwork. They therefore built the sides and bottoms to be thicker and more insulated, while the tops of the ducts were thin. They covered the ducts with a few inches of dirt, and were finally ready to test the system.

“This should be interesting,” Arielle said. “Do you think the heat will make it all the way to the ends of the trenches?”