Of Machines & Magics (11 page)

“I’ve no idea at the moment,” said Calistrope. “Perhaps the same way we got in here, by wanting to.”

“However we do it,” said Ponderos, “it would be better to walk east from here until we come to the end of this little cosmos. Distances are not so great in here; we would save ourselves some effort.”

Calistrope raised his eyebrows. “I never thought to hear
you
advocate an easy way, my friend.”

“That tumble from the cliffs has aged me, Calistrope. While I have to favor these ribs, anyway.”

Roli grunted. “An easy way is the way to go,” he fished in his pocket and pulled out a grimy kerchief on which to wipe his greasy fingers. A shower of clear blue stones fell from the folds as he shook it out. “Hmm. Forgotten those,” Roli began to pick them up.

Calistrope waited until he had picked up every one he could find. “You’d better put them back where you found them,” he said.

Roli looked at him oddly. “Put them back? There’s a Guildmaster’s ransom here Calistrope. You should be pleased with my foresight, we’ll all be rich men when we return.”

“They’re souls Roli, not gems.”

“Come now Calistrope, They may not be sapphires but I’d thought we’d cleared all that up. Not souls again.”

Calistrope shook his head. “Whatever. They are not sapphires, Roli. Have you never seen a sapphire?”

“Of course not. A few copper flakes was the best haul I ever made.”

Calistrope fumbled in his bag and brought out a flashing blue stone which caught the mixture of silver moonlight and the magenta sunlight and threw it back in a score of different directions and blues. “That’s a sapphire. Cut, of course and polished,” he handed it to Roli who compared it with those from Turain’s palace. Reluctantly and somewhat crestfallen, he handed it back.

“Keep it,” said Calistrope and Roli was at a loss. “I can always make another.”

Eventually, Roli settled on delight as the pre-eminent emotion and dropped the other stones into the moss and short leaves.

Ponderos broke in. “Shall we go?”

“
Oh no
.” The voice was not Calistrope’s nor Roli’s but that of a sudden newcomer who’s form wavered like a coil of smoke on a still day. As they turned to regard the newcomer, the figure strengthened, grew firm, became that of a man in his middle years, a man with a thin acetic face and long somewhat unkempt hair. He was dressed in a blue robe which both matched his eyes and the blue stones which Roli had thrown away a minute or two before.

“No,” said the man again, his voice more vigorous than before. “Certainly you have done us a service but having gone this far, surely you cannot go without finishing the task you began.” What started as a threat ended almost as a plea.

“And what task is that?” asked Ponderos, a dangerous edge to his voice.

“You have freed twenty seven of us. You must free the rest who still sleep and dream the insipid fancies foisted upon us by Turain.

“And how, pray, would we do that? Hmm? Twenty-seven of you out here, how many millions of you in there?” Ponderos asked as he saw the vaporous forms of other men and women burgeoning from the fallen soul-stones. “In the Palace of Turain the God?”

“There must be a way.” The shade almost wept. “There must.”

“I can think of none,” Ponderos was cool. “Whatever we did, it would be a grain of sand on a beach. A nothing. If we labored a, er, a lifetime, it would still be nothing.”

Calistrope laid a hand on his arm. “Let us think about it Ponderos, at least. Let us sit down here and think. Perhaps there is a way,” he looked at the released soul. “Sir, what is your name? Do such as yourselves have names?”

They sat down. The shades gathered about them.

“I am Arctorius, from the Delphine.”

“And I am pleased to make your acquaintance. I am Calistrope,” Calistrope introduced the others and then turned to Roli. “Roli, have you more of the stones on your person?”

“Well, yes.”

“Then give one to our ectoplasmic friend here.”

Roli took out a green stone and offered it. Arctorius took it and looked at it. “From the Alamatera.”

“Beside the point,” said Calistrope. “The point is, that you can hold it, you have enough substance to carry the stones.”

The other nodded.

“Then each of you go back into the palace and bring out a double handful. Wait until they sublime or whatever you call it and let each one who returns bring out two handfuls. It will take a long time to—to resuscitate the many millions but it can be done and with no great effort from any of you.”

“We cannot go in there. The light will condense the souls into hard stones again. That is what it is there for.”

“The light?”

The other nodded slowly.

“Hmm. I wonder if the stones float. Roli…”

“Why?” asked Ponderos.

“Perhaps we could float them all out with water.”

“And where would the water come from?”

“That’s a different problem. Roli…”

“No it isn’t, Calistrope. It’s the same problem.”

“Well, there is a certain logic in what you say. Still…” Calistrope thought for some time and then grinned. “Another solution occurs. If these, er—­evaporated? If these souls can carry the soul stones, are they material enough to carry ordinary stone? Would you try it? Lift that one there, the flat one.”

Arctorius bent and took hold of the stone. He straightened up, lifted the slab.”

“Good,” said Calistrope and grinned again. “The solution then, is simple. The roof of the pyramid is formed from slabs of stone, so we lift a slab and let natural light into the palace. The natural light will resuscitate your fellows—at least, I think so. Roli?”

Roli turned, a question in his expression.

“Be so good as to take two stones and put them on the ground. Keep your hand over one of them.”

Roli did as he was bid and Calistrope put his own kerchief—considerably cleaner than Roli’s—over the lad’s hand. “Now we wait.”

They waited. A streamer of white vapor eventually curled up from the uncovered stone, the vapor darkened, took on form, color; a lovely young woman looked down at them with sparkling but puzzled eyes.

Calistrope took the square of linen off the other gem which, in due course, became a young man with an age and racial aspects similar to those of the woman.

“You see?” asked Calistrope, looking back at the main group. “Natural light. That is what brings you back to life.”

“You have a clever mind,” said the speaker for the souls.

“Indeed I have,” Calistrope replied, his grin a trifle too wolfish to be entirely trusted. “Now. I said we will lift the slabs, but the
we
was purely rhetorical.
You
will lift the slabs—although my muscular friend here, will, I am certain, be happy to lift the first one for you. Will you do that, Ponderos?”

“Naturally. Follow me, Arctorius.” Ponderos crossed to the pyramid to do as Calistrope had asked. “Your deductions were brilliant, Calistrope. As always, of course,” he said as he passed by Calistrope.

Ponderos climbed part way up the twenty degree slope and began checking the stones which faced it. He found a slab that seemed less secure than most and slowly worked it free, letting it slide down the slope to the ground. Another followed it and another. Light from within shone on his face.

“Quite enough, Ponderos,” Calistrope called, hoping that what he had seen had gone unnoticed.

Straightening up, Ponderos waved and slid down the slope, jumping over the several squares of stone that had preceded him.

“Now,” said Calistrope. “Your turn.” And as first one, then another, began to scramble up the slope, Calistrope ushered his two friends away with some urgency. “Time we left, too,” he told them.

“Calistrope, the light inside the palace is really very strong. It might swamp the daylight on the outside.”

“That is a possibility. A very real possibility and one which I have taken into account. Ponderos, I would prefer to leave quite soon.”

There was a sort of long, drawn-out ping from above them. Calistrope guessed it was the sound made by a soul being reduced to a small, hard stone.

“In fact, I wish to leave immediately.”

Roli had heard the start of the conversation and had not waited for its outcome. He was already halfway to the barrier when the sound of conversation among the reconstituted souls changed from
heated
to
enraged
. Ponderos and Calistrope lost no time in catching up with him.

At the barrier, they stood with hands against the unseen surface. “Now,
want
to get out of here with all your strength.” The crowd of souls was coming nearer. “Concentrate. All else is inconsequential.”

In the end, it was not a matter of mental muscle; rather, it was more the way in which the problem was considered. Roli was first to find the trick. Perhaps his past history of thievery helped or perhaps it was the familiar sound of angry voices in pursuit or even the combination of both which made him take the mental side-step
past
the barrier rather than
through
it.

Moments later, Calistrope and then Ponderos joined him and turned to look back through the boundary. Inside, the preserved world was as it had been when they first came upon it: a tall statue with a serene countenance, a beautiful mausoleum reflected in a placid sheet of water, a large low pyramid.

They walked parallel with the river, along the bank towards Turain’s Palace and by chance, Roli chose that moment to look back over his shoulder. He plucked wildly at Calistrope’s sleeve and then pulled Ponderos to a halt. “Look,” he gasped at last and pointed.

Little more than a chain away from them, directly in front of Al Jehan’s Mausoleum, three figures stood: a tall spare fellow in a midnight blue surcoat, a slightly shorter but much broader man and a youth. At the point where they, themselves, had first slipped through the barrier, the three others contrived to pass through also. Inside, they were visible for a few moments against the light from the placid pool, then they faded from view.

Calistrope cleared his throat and turned resolutely away and began to walk. Ponderos and then Roli followed after. They walked for an hour, passing Turain’s Palace, which stood within its shell, unaltered: plain, craggy, unadorned. Intact.

Old days came and went. The valley they traveled along—sometimes narrow, sometimes with many leagues separating the high walls—meandered onward towards the East.

Chapter 10

The mesa had actually been in view for some time, perhaps as long as an hour, before anyone noticed it. It was an ancient volcanic core rearing up from the river—in actuality, a vertical sided island, the river dividing and foaming around its base. It was black basaltic rock, the sides cracked and flawed by the freezings and thawings of a geologic age. All manner of vegetation grew in the crevices and along the ledges and at the top was a fortified community, its castellated walls forming a lighter colored crown to the conical hill.

A line which zigged and zagged down the side resolved itself into a stepped foot path. The path ended at a rickety bridge of stone bulwarks and wooden floor planks that crossed the river. One of the spans was supported by an overhead gantry of timber poles and counter-balances. A pair of dwarves stood at the bridge, ready to raise it should unwanted visitors chance by.

At the very top, a tall chimney rose above the walls, and a waft of smoke or steam rose upward until a crosswind whisked it away in tattered streamers to the north.

“This must be the place,” said Ponderos after staring at it for some time. “The map is inaccurate.”

“I cannot believe that,” Calistrope looked from his map to the water-bound hill. “We are not yet halfway to where Schune should be.”

“Is this place marked?” asked Ponderos, his finger stabbed at the map. “No, indeed it is not. Even though lesser landmarks are shown, God’s Finger for example. We passed it before coming to that place with the magic lantern, you remember?”

“Yes, yes. I remember.”

An interesting phenomenon, no more, yet that was marked, this is not and Schune is marked only as an afterthought.”

“Suppose,” said Roli quietly, “that we visit this place. If it is not Schune then we can continue; if so, then our journey is shorter than we had expected, that is all.”

Calistrope looked at Ponderos and Ponderos stared back. Ponderos was the first to smile; Calistrope, the first to speak.

“Roli is, of course, quite right. The solution is a simple one. Was I not wise to choose him as my apprentice?”

“Undeniably.”

The bridge’s rickety appearance was no more than appearance. The wooden planks were reinforced glass, the counterweighted section was operated by a small humming motor and the two dwarves which guarded the bridge were a pair of cunningly made automata which smiled and greeted them as they reached the island side.

Nor did they have to climb the forty ells to the top, a large open sided cage hung on a thick rope and wound them slowly to the top when they had all stepped inside. As the cage rose, the white foam of the river below reflected more and more of the sun’s color until it seemed a river tainted with blood. The air also grew noticeably cooler and each of them wrapped their cloak around themselves.

The cage lifted them through a square hole in an alcove of the outer wall. A stout glass-fiber trapdoor thudded closed underneath them and the cage was lowered to the ground.

“Greetings to all of you,” said a person who was obviously waiting for them. He wore bright clothes—a red jacket and yellow trousers, he smiled, bowed. “We get very few travelers here since the wasps built their nest upriver. May I inquire where you have traveled from?”

“Sachavesku,” Calistrope answered.

“From…! That is west of here, I believe. West and south.”

“Indeed it is. The nest you mentioned is gone.”

“I’m pleased to hear it. Trade has dwindled to nothing over the past generation. Come this way please.”

The man who had welcomed them clapped a wide-brimmed hat back on his head, and took them over a courtyard to where an avenue opened. Judging from its length, it ran entirely across the small township.

“The Street of Heroes,” he said with a flourish. “Along here you will find craftsmen if you need new boots or a cloak, bakers if you are hungry and an inn if you are tired—the inn also boasts an excellent dining room, fine ales and wines, too. To the left, as you go, is the shambles and to the right, the fishmongers.”

“Thank you for your welcome,” said Calistrope. “I look forward to all your town has to offer. May I know what it is called?”

“This is Peronsade,” replied their guide. “I am Mayor, official Hospitaller and Master of Banquets so I urge you to enjoy yourselves. On the other hand, I am Mayor, Prosecutor General and Jailer so beware of offending the citizenry.”

“We shall bear all this in mind. Thank you Sir.”

The Mayor left them and they walked along the street which had small trees planted in tubs along both sides of its length.

“Well, it’s a pleasant enough place,” Calistrope looked forward and back, to right and left. “But not Schune.”

“How can you say that? Perhaps the old name is forgotten and has been supplanted,” Ponderos shook his head. “We must make inquiries before we can be certain.”

They began to walk. The Street was long enough for only a handful of heroes though there were no signs anywhere to tell them which heroes were honored. A few minutes later they came abreast of the side streets. Their noses confirmed the trades to right and left—the smell of flesh and the smell of fish, respectively.

A little further on, they came to the Inn: a tall building of four stories and two gables with a frontage as wide as two small shops. Land was clearly at a premium in a place like Peronsade, presumably it cost far less to build upward than outward.

They turned into the doorway where a counter of polished planks of black hawthorn confronted them, a white glass bell was the only item on the counter. Calistrope tapped it with a fingernail, a clear mellow note rang out and instantly a figure appeared.

“Ha. Good day gentlemen,” said the Mayor. “Permit me to introduce myself: Lang Wonethop, Landlord of the
Gad fly
. May I offer you bed and board?”

“Board,” said Calistrope.

“Bed,” replied Roli.

“Board and bed,” said Ponderos. “In that order.”

“Very well, Sir. A copper sequin each, if you please and if you wish to stay longer, I can provide an abatement on the tariff. As to board, a main meal will be served at the eighteenth hour or light refreshment at once. I might add that all beverages—and they are all excellent—are brewed here, under my supervision. Wines as well, of course. Fermented from selected fruits of the neighborhood.”

“How long is it to the eighteenth hour?” Ponderos asked.

“Aha, travelers. Easy to become out of touch with the clock. Now, it stands at a third before seventeen. A little over an hour to dinner time.”

They chose rooms on the highest floor for the view afforded by the windows. A view of the valley and the racing waters which lay ahead of them. “Think,” said Calistrope, throwing open the window, “if we had wings like wasps, how easy to fly along there.”

“I have heard this before, it makes no more sense now than it did before,” grumbled Ponderos. “I am going to bathe in the hot tub in my room then eat myself into a daze. How, in the name of Fate, do they get hot water up here? Eh?”

This was only one of the many mysteries of Peronsade. There were the constant streams of water that ran along the gutters in every street, the lights which lined the pavements to relieve the gloom on cloudy days and more lights fixed to the ceilings of the corridors and on the staircases.

The dining room took up most of the ground floor with a kitchen occupying a walled-off corner and a pantry and storehouse. A beer cellar—they discovered later—was in a basement level below street level.

The ceiling was made of roughly adzed boards supported on great beams as thick as a man’s waist. The unshaped trunks of nine great trees supported the inn, founded on the rock floor of the basement and extending upward to the roof beams above. Generations of diners’ exhalations and the steamy fumes from their dinners had stained the woodwork a rich dark brown which flavored the very air with pungencies from a thousand different dishes.

Narrow windows along front and back let in red light though the high buildings on either side of the streets outside reduced this to a glimmer and a dozen globes had been fixed to the ceiling to augment this with a creamy light.

The companions perused the menus and ate nuts and dried beans and drank tiny glasses of appetizing liqueurs before deciding on their food.

The meal was excellent. Following a soup course—a bowl of thick vegetable broth flavored with chopped anchovies—they ordered the main course. As usual, Calistrope made a capricious selection of dishes: nuts marinated in vinegar, preserved eggs, leeks boiled in salt water and a bottle of wine dry enough to pucker the lips on the hobgoblin’s effigy carved into the wooden cornice above him.

Ponderos went for bulk, three tenderly baked crabs in a piquant sauce and a mound of sliced and roasted turnips with fried beans. Roli ordered a panful of shrimp and a plate of red watercress. Both he and Ponderos had a jug of sweet beer.

“Now that,” said Ponderos twenty minutes later, “was what I call real food. I shall keep these shells to use for plates on our travels hereafter.”

“Then, you are persuaded that this is not the place our maps call Schune?”

“Not at all. Our travels will include a return to Sachavesku surely?” a man-shaped automaton had come to the table. “… Ah yes?”

The half-size humanoid shape was made of dull, copper colored glass with silver eyeballs and long, jointed, metallic fingers. “Would the gentlemen care for puddings or refreshing drinks?” There was no mouth to speak with but words trilled from a cone-shaped orifice at the top of the spherical head. It was dressed in sober white and dark brown clothes, as self-effacing and as deferent as the most expert of waiters.

“Pudding,” Ponderos spoke before anyone else could utter a word. “What is there?”

“Rice flavored with brandy pears in cold sauce suet dumplings in plum sauce biscuits of almond…”

“Dumplings,” Ponderos cut off the unpunctuated recital as soon as he caught the word
dumplings
. “ Dumplings in plum sauce.”

“As you wish Sir what of the other two gentlemen please.”

“Another beer,” Roli said.

“What refreshing drinks are there?” asked Calistrope.

“Green tea, persimmon tea with butter roasted bean, tea sour plantain, tea hot lemon and infusion of nettles with pepper and green apple…”

“Bean tea.” Had Ponderos and Roli laid bets, both would have lost their stake. Bean tea, they would have thought, could not have stood a chance against sour plantain or even pepper-nettle tea.

When the servitor returned with their orders—exactly right, balanced on a tray and each offered to exactly the right person—Calistrope asked it about Peronsade.

“Has the town always had this name?”

“I have heard no other spoken of.”

“Do you know of a city called Schune?”

“I have not heard of such a place.”

“Is there anywhere here in Peronsade from where the world can be moved?” Ponderos asked, a trifle bleary after his vast meal. He belched. “Pardon.”

“Of course,” replied the mechanical servitor.

Calistrope’s jaw dropped, Ponderos shot him a glance of triumph.

“Whereabouts is this place?”

“At the residence of Somta Pantel.”

“Thank you,” said Ponderos and began to ladle thick cream over his bowl of dumplings and plum sauce. When the automaton had gone, he grinned at Calistrope. “You may congratulate me at your convenience.”

“Well, yes. My congratulations, Ponderos. I did not imagine it to be so simple.”

“You must learn that not everything is difficult, Calistrope,” Ponderos finished his dumplings and put down his spoon. “Now, I am off to my bed, after a meal of these proportions, my digestion works best in a horizontal position.”

Calistrope found an opportunity to speak again to the servitor about finding the home of Somta Pantel.

“Ask any of us,” it said, eyes sparkling in the dimness. “All of us know all of us know whatever the others do.”

The companions slept, woke, took breakfast. They stood on the street outside the
Gad Fly.

“So, we go to talk to this Somta Pantel?” Roli asked.

“In due course Roli. Our host said we could have new boots made if we needed them. Mine,” Ponderos lifted his right foot to show how the heel was worn away, “are almost finished.”

Calistrope looked along the street in both directions, pointed. “There is a boot maker,” he pointed up the street where, above a narrow window, a wooden sign had been cut in the shape of a high boot.
Bunda Freng
it said and underneath in small red lettering:
high quality footwear.

They crossed the narrow roadway and while Ponderos went inside to be measured and to pay, Calistrope and Roli wandered along in front of the shops. Without exception, all were narrow fronted with living accommodation above on one or two stories. Here and there, gratings in the paved sidewalks showed where cellars had been dug out to provide extra space.

Ponderos rejoined them. “They will be ready at the sixteenth hour,” he told them and showed them his receipt: an oblong of green cardboard with the number
16
written in red ink. They continued along the street, looking in windows which displayed everything from artwork to vegetables, books to wines. A steady stream of townsfolk passed them or overtook them. Most spared a moment to nod or to say a word of greeting, even to gesture at a wine merchant and comment on the day’s prices or to look at the sky and mention the possibility of rain.

“Rain?” asked Ponderos after the last observation. He looked up and felt a spot of moisture on his face. “The fellow’s right?”

“It was a woman,” Roli pointed out.

“Then she’s right. Where is it coming from? The sky is cloudless.”

“The vapor from that chimney must be steam,” said Calistrope, nodding to the tallest building of Peronsade. If the weather up here, or up there, for it must be fifty ells high, is cool, the town will have rain.”

“Steam?”

“Excuse me,” Calistrope spoke to one of the little mechanicals which walked purposefully along the street at intervals.

“Sir you require directions to the house of Somta Pantel.”