Pathspace: The Space of Paths (6 page)

So that's what he meant by
controversial.
“The Church wouldn't like it.
They're firmly of the opinion that the Gifts of the Tourists are
demonic, you know.”

Brutus had to smile at that. “No such thing
as demons,” he said. “Fuck the Church.”

Peter eyed him. “They've
been very useful to me,” he reminded the older man. “One hand
washing the other. They keep the people in line for me.” He
fingered the letter from Kristana. “And truth be told, I want to
rebuild the old technology
without
any alien trash.”

“
That,” Brutus told him
frankly, “won't happen in your lifetime. It took a thousand years
to do it the first time. It might take half that long to do it
again, even with the old records to help us along.”

“
You've said that before,
General. But why? Like you just said, we have most of the old
records to help us avoid guessing how to do things.”

Brutus got up and began to
pace back and forth in the office.
Another dumb
habit
, Peter thought. The day was warm. If he
keeps that up he'll be sweating all over his uniform. But he said
nothing, knowing that Brutus believed it helped him
think.

“
Any blacksmith,” said
Brutus, “can flatten the end of an iron bar, temper it to the right
hardness, and put a wooden handle on it to make a screwdriver.
That's no major job. Now you have a tool to screw things together.
But it's the
screws
that are the
trouble. They made those with a special machine. We can put
together houses and tables and such with glue and wooden pegs to
hold them together, but if you want to screw things together, you
need to make a lot of screws. Well,
screw
the screws, hah, bit of a joke there. We'll weld
the metal together. But to do that you need either a torch that
burns a gas they used to call
acetylene
(or something like it), or an arc welder that uses
electricity, neither of which we have. Okay, let's say you decided
to do it with electricity. Now you have to first build a generators
to make the electricity.”

He stopped and faced Peter. “Technology
comes in layers, and you have to have the lower layers to build the
higher ones. You have to make the machines that make the machines
that make the machines. And you can't skip the steps. That's what
I'm saying. It would be like trying to climb a flight of steps
without using the bottom steps first. When the Fall happened, well,
we lost the whole staircase.”

Peter scowled. “What you're telling me is we
have the weapons of war. But it'll take a generation or two to have
fuel for them, unless unless we use the Gifts for shortcuts.”

“
Correct, Excellency. If
you want to conquer Rado, you're going to have to make the Church
unhappy in the short term. Eventually we'll have electric pumps to
get oil and factories to make whatever we want. But in the short
term, we have some well-preserved tanks and guns and armored
personnel carriers and things like that, but no fuel. We just have
to make the fuel.”

“
What about
ammunition?”

Brutus pursed his lips. “Some of it has to
have gone bad by now. But we have formulas for some of the old
propellants. We can fix the ammo.”

He thought about it. No way he would be able
to hide the use of “demonic” shortcuts from the Church for long.
They had their spies just as he did. But the leader of the Church
was a man of the world. He would see the need for bending the rules
in private, as long as they continued to pay lip service in public
to the official Church ban on using alien technology.

“
I'll talk to the
Pontiff,” he said. You get people started on identifying which
wells can still be tapped, and laying your hands on the swizzles
and everflames you need. Get me that fuel!”

This was a stupid idea. She knew it. Yet
news of his return had fired her interest, and she'd risk it one
last time. The risk of discovery and her mother's displeasure had
always been more than balanced in the past by the thrill of
observing unobserved, and now there was an extra reason for her
trespass. Her pale beauty was not without its uses. The watcher on
the roof that saw the mirror signals was young; he told her the
message before passing it downstairs.

Still, this was stupid, and she knew it. The
ventilation duct that had afforded such opportunities in the past
was not so roomy now that she had grown. Part of her wanted to
shriek at the closeness of the passage, as she wormed her way
toward the vent that looked down on the audience chamber. There was
no room to turn around! She'd have to back out the way that she had
come, all the way to where the big fan had been before part of the
ducting had been made into a swizzle. Even now, the air whispered
past her toward the vent. A thorough bath had washed away the
flowery essences she normally used for perfume.

Still, this was stupid. All it would take
was a particle of dust, and one incautious sneeze to betray her
presence to those she wished to spy upon. Against this possibility,
she'd plugged her nostrils with bits of cloth. But nothing was ever
certain.

At last she reached the vent and breathed a
mental sigh of relief. The part of her that hated the closeness of
the duct about her grown body could finally be distracted by the
sights and sounds from the other side of the slotted panel..

As always, the view was excellent; the vent
was behind and above the Governor's desk. Although the room was not
small, she always brought with her a pocket telescope her mother
had given her when she was just a girl. Naturally, she'd never
disclosed the uses to which this instrument was put in the
ventilation ducts of the old 'scraper.

There was, she remembered, another duct
opposite this one on the far side of the chamber, from which she
could, if she wished, observe her mother's face during meetings.
But that was far less interesting. Who would want to watch the
backs of the heads of the visitors, when one could see their fear,
greed, consternation, anger, relief, and all the other fleeting
expressions engendered by an audience with the Governor of Rado?
Good times.

There had been times when she had been
afraid herself, had feared that her mother's wolfhounds would be
present and alert the others to her unseen presence. But they were
rarely present at audiences. Though well trained, they were, at
even the best of times, prone to growl at the approach of an
unfamiliar servitor approaching Her Excellency to refill a goblet
or bring some document for scrutiny. Though such interruptions were
often useful for intimidating certain visitors, they were more
often annoying. The dogs usually spent these intervals chained in
the staircases on guard duty.

Cautiously, avoiding the faintest clink of
lens against metal, she swiveled the old scope to survey the
chamber as best she could. There was no sign of the canines.
Unfortunately, there was no sign either of those she sought. With
difficulty, she suppressed a sigh of impatience.

Finally, there was the sound of the door
opening. Eagerly, she pressed her eye to the telescope and turned
it toward the far end of the chamber.

Xander strode into the room. She had to
smile at the way his nonchalance transformed the guards escorting
him from captors into an honor guard, an impromptu entourage. Close
behind him was a stranger, a rather nondescript young man with fair
hair and blue eyes in peasant clothing. He bore a look of watchful
alertness, clearly ill at ease but trying to hide it. He looked to
be near her own age, and his frame had only begun to fill out with
the muscles of adulthood.

Her mother looked up from the documents she
was studying. “Back so soon, Xander? Sometimes I wonder why you
take the trouble to leave us at all.”

Xander grinned and shrugged. “It takes as
long as it takes, Excellency, and not one moment longer. I must
apologize for the lateness of the hour. I had thought to ride back
before midnight, but my new associate is not accustomed to the
saddle.”

“I trust you'll rectify that deficiency. So
this is the new one, eh?”

“I'm afraid so. Your Excellency, I have the
honor to present Lester, of Inverness. Lester, meet Kristana
D'Arcy, the Governor of Colorado.”

The boy stepped forward. His bow was not
graceful, but at least he was trying to be respectful. “Your
Excellency, this is an unexpected honor. I am not entirely sure why
I am here, at all.”

There was a slight echo from all the hard
surfaces in the room, but his words carried clearly to Aria's ears,
as did her mother's answering chuckle.

“Oh dear,” said the Governor. “Surely my
wizard has explained the situation?”

“I have begun to, Your Excellency,” said
Xander. “However, since he is … not familiar with matters of State,
additional explanation will doubtless be required to fully acquaint
him with his new responsibilities.”

You mean, he has no clue what has
happened to him.
Hidden behind the grille, Aria closed her eyes
for a moment. Truly, she didn't know whether to pity or envy the
boy. If she were permitted to wager, she would have bet that Xander
had neglected to mention what had become of his previous
apprentices.

“We will leave it to you then. Welcome to
Denver, Lester of Inverness.”

Oops! The audience was at an end. She should
have realized her mother wouldn't be interested in questioning a
commoner who knew little of events outside his village. Quickly,
she began backing down the duct.

It was long minutes before she reached the
fan room. Emerging in rather undignified fashion, bottom first, she
dropped to her feet and turned to dive into the intake duct that
drew air from her own quarters. If her mother dropped in on her
before retiring for the evening, it could make for an awkward
scene. Worming her way as fast as she could against the inflowing
air, she soon reached another vent and kicked it open and fell onto
her chest of drawers, nearly knocking it over. Nervously, she
turned and closed the vent with a click before clambering down off
the dresser and jumping into bed. She nearly pulled the sheets off
her mattress, so frantically did she yank them up to cover her
dusty bedclothes. She closed her eyes and let her face go slack..
And not a moment too soon! Scarcely a minute passed before she
heard someone open her door, trying to be quiet. The door closed
with a muffled click a few moments later.

In the darkness, Aria smiled
triumphantly.

“You never said you were the Governor's
wizard,” he said as they walked down the hall to the staircase. At
least some things made sense, now that he knew this.

Xander smiled. “You never asked. But of
course you couldn't have known to ask. I don't make a habit of
announcing it, unless it serves some purpose.” He reached out,
beating the guards to it, and opened the door to the stairwell.
There was an answering growl. “Oh, hush,” he said to the waiting
guard dogs, as he and Lester passed them. “You've seen both of us
before.”

“She didn't seem surprised that you ran
off,” Lester remarked. “You've done this before, haven't you?”

“Lots of times. She knows I'll always come
back, even if they don't find me. Which they usually do, since I
let them.”

“Do you always bring someone back with
you?”

“Not always. Sometimes I leave for …
different reasons,” the old man said vaguely.

They continued down the stairs in silence
for a minute. Lester had an uneasy feeling in his gut that finally
gave voice to a question. “Just how many apprentices do you have
here?”

“Including you?” Xander smiled sadly. “One,
at the moment.”

His stomach tightened. This did not sound
good at all. “Where are the others?”

“Most of them are dead, actually. It's a
dangerous occupation, being a wizard's apprentice. Not everybody
likes them. One of the first things you'll have to learn is how to
make yourself invisible. And how to defend yourself. We'll talk
about that presently, among other things.”

“Most of them are dead? What about the
others?”

“A few are gone to seek their fortunes
elsewhere. Then there's poor Ludlow, of course.” Xander stopped
four floors down from the one they had left, and opened the door
for Les. “The less said about him the better.” He led the way past
a door that read ARTIFACTS and another labeled ARCHIVES before he
opened the third, simply titled Wizard.

From his storybooks back in Inverness Les
had expected to see perhaps a room filled with such things as
serpents, magic wands, a hanging stuffed alligator, and perhaps a
couple of humans skulls topped with the bumpy pyramids of drizzled
candles.

What he saw was books. Lots of books. The
walls were covered in bookshelves, row upon row of them stretching
down one wall and across another. More books than he had ever
thought to see together at any place in his lifetime were revealed
by the light pouring into the room from the hallway.

Suddenly he found himself not regretting
being kidnapped here quite so much. “Are all these yours?” he
asked, awed. He had exactly six books in his room back in the inn.
At the thought of them a pang of homesickness passed through him,
only to be snuffed out again by the presence of all those volumes
waiting on the walls.

Xander did not appear to have heard his
question. “Otto? Otto? Where are you, devil?”

The old man waved a hand, and light flooded
the room from overhead. Les looked up, startled, and saw a glass
tube in the ceiling. A blue-white line inside the glass made him
blink at its brightness, and he looked away in time to see a
peculiar-looking cat hop down from a chair in a corner, dart around
a low wooden table, and run up to rub itself against the graying
wizard's legs.