Sword of Dreams (The Reforged Trilogy) (27 page)

"Alarra is right. You must not taint yourself, princess,"
Wanni said.

Titania felt sick. Even weeping over her pictures of Anthem did not hurt this much. She lifted Alarra's chin in trembling fingers.
"Then I must send you, my sweetest girl. Wanni is too old and the others do not know a word of Aver. You must save us."

"Yes, my lady."

Wanni helped Alarra scrub the worst of the dirt from her face and combed her lovely hair into smooth golden waves. Elassu and Ferrona straightened Alarra's white feathers and offered up the finest of their shabby clothes.

When they were done, Alarra lifted her chin bravely and went out into the Axis streets. Titania watched her young handmaiden go and then dropped her face in her hands, wings shaking with the force of her sobs.

Xartasia opened her eyes and looked up at Gavriel with eyes as hard as amethyst. Alarra was seventy years dead, shot in a dirty rental room by an unhappy customer. None of this pain would matter much longer. Xartasia spread her hands.

"There are other cities on Prianus. There is Axis, as well. We will find one who remembers the Devourers," she said. It was true. It
had
to be true.

"This task would be much simpler if
you
remembered," Gavriel replied.

"I was protected by knights in glass. They died saving me."

"Speaking of all that… Lord Gavriel, I have something I need to tell you," said Arkan, almost forgotten in the fetid shadows. He stood at the counter of the ruined apartment's kitchen.

"What is it?" Gavriel's tone was clipped and curt. He was just as eager as Xartasia was to forge ahead with their plans and annoyed at the delays.

"I saw an Arcadian last night. One with black hair, just like her." Arkan pointed to Xartasia.

"Where?"

"In the mountains west of Pylos. A few of the locals heard that there was some sort of expedition and went up to take a look, to see if there was anything worth some money. They came back with some nice scientific equipment," Arkan said. "The Prians aren't big scholars, so I thought that someone else might be out there on an exploration mission or something. If it was an Alliance group, they might be a little close to us."

"Yes." Gavriel's eyes were narrowed.

"I had to take off a finger or two and bury the bodies, but the Prians told me where they found the machines. So last night, I drove up to have a look. I couldn't get close to the camp, but I saw a woman flying. The moon was bright and I caught a good look at her. She had black hair and was carrying a gun."

"Black hair," Xartasia breathed. "Cavain's mark. Did you see her face?"

"No. Like I said, I couldn't get close. She heard me coming, I think, and I turned back before she could get a look at me."

"Another Arcadian princess." Gavriel stroked his lined cheek. He raised his eyes to Xartasia's. "You always told me that you were the only one to escape the fall of the White Kingdom."

"So I believed, until I met Maeve under the graveyard," Xartasia said.

"The coincidence is too great to ignore. Either another of your family made it out…"

"Or else the interloper is my cousin herself," Xartasia finished. "Her companion in Gharib, the cold-eyed human, was Prian. Perhaps they have returned to his homeworld."

Gavriel was staring into the fire. "Maeve was a knight, wasn't she? She was there when the Devourers came through the Tamlin Waygate. Maeve cast the very spell that summoned them. No one knows more about it than she does."

"Maeve can give you what you desire. What we need."

"Korso, get a map of the city and the mountains," Gavriel instructed.

The Nihilist returned a moment later with the map. The plastic was a bit torn and melted in places, but still functional. Gavriel smoothed it across the rotten kitchen counter. A beetle with a red-flecked brown shell squirmed out from the flaking wood and dropped to the floor, crawling off in a wandering line in search of a more peaceful nest.

Gavriel crooked his fingers at Arkan. "Show me where you found them."

"Yes, Lord Gavriel. There's only one road that goes into that part of the mountains. Some of the bridges are in bad shape, but they're passable." Arkan traced a road on the map and had to stop to muffle a sneeze on his sleeve. He sniffled and continued. "The camp is here. I don't know quite how large it is, but there was more than one tent and a couple of trucks parked on this side, here."

Gavriel took the pen Korso offered and circled the location. "You have done very well. So very well, Arkan," he said.

His voice flowed like rich syrup, tempting and sweet. He held his hand out to the younger Nihilist and Arkan sank to his knees. Gavriel placed his palm on Arkan's head.

"Thank you, Lord Gavriel. Thank you," the farmer said. Gratitude shone in his wide eyes. "Danice, I'm so sorry. I just wanted you to be safe…"

Gavriel threw back his head and sang.
"Anu'aa quai eru oraiva'i na!"

It was the same charm as Xartasia had sung at Mrell. A nerve somewhere in Arkan's brain misfired. A blood vessel burst. His body convulsed, dancing in ghastly contortions as his master's spell did its work. The white of one eye bloomed with red and Arkan fell heavily, a smile on his blood-flecked lips. Gavriel was smiling, too. He knelt slowly and stroked Arkan's hair back from his face.

"It's good to give gifts to my faithful children. Korso, take his body to the pit," Gavriel ordered. He straightened and looked at Xartasia. "Now, let us go find your cousin. She and I have much to discuss."

Xartasia's eyes drifted back to the dead girl nailed to her chair. Her blood was cooling, drying and turning into a dark crust on her pale skin. "Yes, Lord Gavriel."

"One who knows her lineage is never really alone."

- Xye, Kynfarri writer (208 MA)

"This can't be right," Kemmer said again.

"There was no reason to doubt the results the first time," Xen answered. "And we've run them three times now."

"But it's just not possible. I can't publish files like… like this! I'll be laughed off Tynerion!"

Professor Xen crossed his arms over his narrow chest. Duaal swore the man was smirking, but it was hard to tell. His eyes did not change color at all. Xen might have been too professional for that.

"You wanted first publication rights," he told the Prian lightly. Xen put his hand on Kemmer's shoulder. "Now you can tell all the worlds that you found a Waygate and that it's eight million years old. That's… what? About seven and a half million years before the earliest recorded civilization?"

Kemmer shrugged off Xen's hand and paced across the tent. It was not a very long journey. He stopped at the table where Phillip worked. Panna sat beside the chubby geologist, taking careful notes.

"It's consistent with everything Phillip's found," she said. "Even if the tests on the Waygate aren't accurate, all of the surrounding stone is between seven and ten million years old."

"Could it have been moved?" Duaal asked.

"There's no indication of that," Phillip said. "The ground's moved, but that Waygate has not."

He pointed to something on the monitor of his computer. The others gathered around to look. Duaal squinted at the lines and colors. It was a map of the mountains, but one so complex and detailed that it was indecipherable to Duaal.

"Ava and Darius helped us dig samples from every layer of stone in that ravine," Panna told them. "There's no sign that anyone has ever cut into it."

"But there are some other things," Phillip said. He tapped a key and several parts of the map turned a bright green.

"What are we looking at?" asked Duaal.

Kemmer shot him an irritated look, probably wondering what the young Hyzaari man was even doing there. In truth, Duaal was supposed to be watching over the base camp, but figured he could talk while doing his job. The scholarly discussion was only slightly more entertaining than watching the cluster of tents, but it was still better than sitting in the cold and waiting for the next skull-splitting headache.

Phillip did not care who was asking the questions. "I've been making a mineral survey of the area," he answered. "These highlighted spots are leached granite deposits."

"Half of these mountains are granite. Why am I looking at this? What's the point?" Kemmer asked.

"Have you looked at the slides I prepared?"

The Prian sighed. "No, I haven't. I've been working on the Waygate."

Phillip replaced the map with an enlarged scan from one of the slides. It was a thin slice of stone and it was full of holes, like lace. Was it supposed to look like that? Phillip pointed to a close concentration of holes.

"See these? The granite's been leached. Something's been taken out. From the shape, I suspect they were magnetite phenocrysts," he announced, pausing significantly. When no one reacted, his shoulders slumped and he blushed. "It's a form of volcanic iron."

"Iron? No one's ever found iron in these mountains," Kemmer said.

"No, they wouldn't have. It was all extracted a long time ago, probably millions of years. The remaining stone isn't very strong or stable."

The geologist brought up the map again. Duaal had a new appreciation for the large green patches. It looked like there used to be a lot of iron on Prianus.

"That's why these mountains are so unstable," Panna explained. "The bedrock is fragile because it's full of these tiny holes. A lot of them are microscopic. You can't even see them. But those quakes just crumble the stone like mycofoam."

"I doubt the Prians had the technology to do something like this millions of years ago," said Duaal. The image of ancient monkey-faced Prians trying to suck iron out of the rocks made him smirk.

"They don't have it now," Phillip said with a shake of his head. "There's no natural or mining process known that can extract iron without breaking the matrix rock."

"Leach-mines have been in use for centuries," Xen argued.

"Yes, but not like this," said Phillip. "Most leaching is done for water-soluble materials, like salts or bicarbonates. There are some acid techniques used for gold and copper."

"How's this any different?"

"Iron doesn't react the same way as either metal. No one has an acid leach that leaves the iron intact. Even if they did, there would be signs of the mining. Bore-holes, acidification of the water table. That kind of thing. Lastly, you can't leach granite."

"Why not?" Kemmer asked.

"It's too complex. Granite's made up of several other kinds of stone all mixed together. There's no one solution that can leach it that wouldn't destroy the iron."

Kemmer rubbed his chin. "So this is unique?"

"Actually, it's not. This sort of iron leach is interesting and something of a mystery – we still don't know how it happens – but I've seen it on Tynerion, Hadra, Mir, Cyrus and a hundred other planets. It's very common. We've wondered if it was done by nanites, but the leaches long predates their use, even by the Lyrans. The only thing that's a little odd here is that you've built a city on top of it. Usually when survey teams find this kind of bedrock damage, they build somewhere else or fill it in with a more stable material."

Kemmer snorted and dropped into a nearby chair. Duaal suspected that few Prian cities had the benefit of being planned by civil surveyors.

"If this is so common, then why are you telling me about it?" Kemmer asked.

"That's a good question," Panna said with a wink that made Kemmer visibly perk up. "And we've got an interesting clue: the Waygate. Some of the pieces contain iron and show no sign of being leeched. We've been able to identify a number of other materials, too. None of the types or concentrations are native to Prianus."

"I could have told you that," said Kemmer, but playfully this time. He smiled at Panna. "We knew that, didn't we? The Waygates have been found in the White Kingdom and the other rimworld kingdoms. Everything about them suggests interstellar travel and trade."

"But Maeve also told us that no one can claim to have built the Waygates," Panna reminded him. "For all we knew, Prianus might have been the origin of the gates. Maybe this is the first one."

Duaal whistled. Now
that
would be a find.

"That does not, however, seem to be the case," Xen said, speaking up for the first time in a while. "I suspect the Waygate was brought to Prianus, not created here."

"Why not?" Kemmer challenged. "Why do Ixthians always assume that humans can't manage to pick their nose without guidance from a
superior
species?"

"There are large quantities of metals and minerals in several segments not found anywhere on your planet," Xen reminded him. "It seems unlikely that the technology was developed locally."

Kemmer waggled his blond brows at the Ixthian archeologist. "The iron was removed from the bedrock by some unknown means. Mined, perhaps, by technology much finer than ours. Surely such intelligent miners probably imported the materials to make their Waygates."