Spinspace: The Space of Spins (The Metaspace Chronicles Book 2) (13 page)

Chapter 31

Kareef:
“the ink of scholars”

“The ink of scholars is more precious than the blood of martyrs.”

– Muhammad

At first he had been stunned to learn the Ambassador Qusay was a member of the Order of Sihr, but the more he thought about it, the more sense it made.  From what little he knew – he, who was now as entangled in the affairs of the order as much as he could be without having the black robe itself – the Order was vital to the security of the Emirates, and so who better than one of their own to be the first to know what was going on in a potential enemy.

Watching the man read and talk to his wife  Ateeqa, he wondered if the man had any misgivings about traveling to Denver.  “You say they would not send me without protection, Ambassador.  Are we then to expect violence, that I would need protection at a school?”

“As long as you are alive, there is the danger of violence,” said Qusay.  “But we do not seek it.”

“I believe you are a truthful man.  Burt I have heard it said that members of the Order are sometimes sent on missions of pruning.”

“I am only a humble Ambassador, Kareef.  I am charged with protecting you, it is true,  in case of violence, until such time as you can fend for yourself.  But that is second to my main mission of establishing formal diplomatic relations with Rado and the new Union.”

“Forgive me for doubting you, Ambassador...but sending a member of the Order would seem to imply an expectation of the likelihood of violence.”

Qusay regarded him.  “Is it not written,” he said, “ that the ink of scholars outweighs the blood of martyrs?”

“I have heard that,” admitted Kareef.  “But I have also heard from Mullahs that this saying is considered by some to be a weak
Hadith
.”

“There are differing opinions,” Qusay admitted.   “But I think it has some merit in your case.  You are sent to Denver, to the Xander School, to learn.  I am not to interfere unless some angry person offers violence.  Believe me, I hope that does not happen, because I would rather not have to act in any way that would lead them to see us as another
invasion
.”

“But...can you not teach me something to start me on the path of learning what I am going there to learn?”

“Of course.” Qusay gazed out the window.  Snow-covered fields drifted by in silence for a minute.  “But I am forbidden to do so except in emergencies.  The whole point in sending you to this school is to see if they know anything we do not.  When you have learned all they can teach you, and return, you can be taught anything you need to know that they have not given you.”

“Do you really think this Xander knows anything the Order doesn't?” 
Surely the order has been in existence far longer than this wizard in Denver.  What could he possibly know that we don't?

“I have no idea, Kareef..  That's the whole point of your
Hajj
.  Surely you understand this.  There are many members who wish they could be going instead of you.”

“Then why don't they?  They are better prepared, surely, to discern what little Xander might know...”

Qusay closed his eyes and shook his head.  Kareef got the feeling that the man was trying not to laugh out loud.  “They are better prepared, and more grown into their power than you.  So yes, maybe they could easily see where his methods differ.  But you have to understand this, Kareef.  Those who have the gift of magic, and have developed it, can recognize each other without a word.  If the order sent one of its magi to the school Xander would know them.”

“Would that be so bad?”

“Think, Kareef!  We would prefer to learn more of them than they know of us.  And the most significant thing they could learn is that we
already have
our own magic users.  We would prefer not to disclose such a thing. This is why you are sent without training.  We want you to present yourself as a merely
potential
wizard. None of the more trained members of the Order could pull this off.  They are not entirely happy about it, but you are the one for this task, this
Hajj
.”

He scowled.  “But that means that I...”

“...will be the only member of the Order not trained by the order but by others.  Yes.  But this is not a bad thing.  It will make you unique.”

“A misfit, you mean.  I'll have nothing in common with the other members but my Faith and the name.  And the black robe, if I ever get it.”

“Oh, you'll get it.”

“Will I?  What if the Xander School rejects me?  What then?  I'll be the only member with
no
training.”

“Kareef, listen to me.”  Qusay's eyes bored into his.  “No matter what, you are in the Order now.  If for any reason, any reason at all, Xander doesn't accept you into his school, we will train you.  You're ours for life.”

Chapter 32

Nathan
: the pursuit of peace

שלו
ם,
לרדוף אחריהם

“Seek peace and pursue it”

– Psalm 34:14

It took them two days traveling south and west to pass through the Desolation.  Like most citizens, Nathan had never had any reason to confront it before. He stared out the windows of the coach as they passed through the blasted landscape and marveled at the extent of the destruction. 

“How did this happen?”

His father did not answer for a minute.  When he spoke he did so with great deliberation.  His voice was hushed with a mix of solemnity and sadness.  “Tactical nuclear weapons.”

“What are those?”

“In the days of the Ancients there were many wars.  I am sure you have studied some of them in school.  Many ways of killing, terrible ways, were developed by the warriors of those times.  Do you remember seeing the fireworks last year in Albany?”

“Yes, they were beautiful.  But they harmed no one.”

“Fireworks are made with an ancient formula that was also called
gunpowder
.  It was the explosion of this powder that made the bullets of the Ancients fly out of their guns with such speed.  You could kill an opponent far enough away that you could not see the pain on his face when he died.”

Nathan gazed out the window as they passed another scene.  On their right the top of a hill seemed to have been bitten off.  The forest was reclaiming it, but the trees that grew there were thin and scraggly compared to the land around it.  Between them, here and there, he could make out bits of melted wreckage that once might have been part of a building.  “So this...this is the result of
gunpowder
?”

Isaac shook his head.  “I mentioned gunpowder because of the way it explodes.  An explosion is simply a massive and sudden release of heat, which makes the air move outwards with great force.  In the guns of the Ancients the force was confined to tubes of metal, so that the heated gases could only leave in one direction, pushing the bullet out in front of them.”

He bowed his head before continuing. “There are many ways to produce an explosion.  Gunpowder does it by a rapid and powerful chemical reaction.  Nuclear weapons released far more energy, and in a different way.  They came in two kinds. 
Strategic
nuclear weapons could destroy entire cities. 
Tactical
nuclear weapons were made to use against armies and fortifications.”

“I don't understand.  What is the difference?”

His father sighed.  “We remember these things in order to never repeat them. 
Strategy
refers to the larger picture of a war, to longer periods of time. 
Tactics
refers to specific actions taken in particular places and times.  Do you remember the argument between the two neighbors about water?  My
strategy
was to effect a long term situation what would remove the cause of their conflict.  There are various
tactics
I could have employed in order to accomplish this.  I could have forced one of the families to move.  I could have forced them to combine the two farms and share the land and the spring on one of them.”

“But you didn't”

“No.  I don't like to force people to do things they do not wish to do.  The
tactic
I employed was to ask God to melt some of the ice on the one man's pond so that his animals could drink.”

“I do not see the connection,” Nathan complained. 

“Strategic nuclear weapons were used to destroy the enemy's ability or will to wage war, by destroying their weapon factories in their cities. 
Tactical
nuclear weapons were to be used on the battlefield, against armies or outlying fortifications instead of cities.”

“So?”

His father looked out the window at the blasted hill.  “There was a fort there once.”

“I still don't understand.  Why would there be a battle here?  In school we were taught that this land used to all be one great nation, and that the parts of the Union were at peace with each other.”

“That was true for a long time,” his father answered.  “But when the civilization of the Ancients began to fall the Union also fell.  Local shortages caused areas to go to war with each other over things their neighbors had that they did not.”

“Like the spring the neighbors were arguing about?”

“Much more than that.  You are aware, are you not, of the geographical differences between new Israel and the lands of the Dixie Emirates?”

“Well, as I recall our lands are more mountainous, whereas theirs are flatter, on the whole.”

“That is so.  The differences in terrain carry with them differences in natural resources.  Mountains tend to be where ores for metal can be found, whereas flat land is better for farming.”

“You're saying, we fought over metals and crops?”

“That's an oversimplification but it is close enough.  We cannot eat iron, and they cannot make swords out of wheat.”

“So what happened?  Did we win?”

“In the times of the Ancients nuclear weapons were stashed in many places.  The strategic ones were much like fireworks in that they were fired from the ground in rockets.  They were stored in the ground in silos, which were mostly out in the Northwest.  Tactical nuclear weapons were stored in armories in military bases.  I don't know,” he continued, “whether they had some left from the Cold War or made new ones, but the decision was made on both sides of our conflict to seal off the region between us to stop the fighting.  Thus we made the Desolation.”

“You mean all this...this Desolation, it was a
tactic
?”

“Yes.”  Isaac shook his head.  “The strategy was to end the warring and to that end, the tactic decided upon was to render the land between ours and theirs unusable for armies.”

“I still don't understand.  We can still ride though it, as we are doing now.”

“Yes, my son.  But think of a large army, thousands or tens of thousands of soldiers.”

“Ours or theirs?”

“It doesn't matter.  Everyone needs to eat, and it is hard for an army to carry enough supplies to feed itself for a long period of time.  For thousands of years, the way war has been done has been to march through farmland, taking and eating the crops and then burning the fields to leave nothing for opposing armies.  Like a worm chewing its way through an apple.  So we got rid of the apple.”

“We destroyed
farms
?”  Nathan was horrified.  The farms and fishing fleets were all that stood between the citizens of New Israel and starvation.

“We did.  We used to just burn fields we marched through, so that next year there would be more crops again in case we needed to march through the same land again.  But the decision was made that the fighting had to end.  So we destroyed the farmlands between us with tactical nukes.  As the radiation faded, it was possible to ride though the lands in trade caravans and such, as we are doing today.  But no one works the land now, so it is no longer possible for large armies to support themselves marching through to invade either country.”

“What a terrible decision to make!”

“Yes.”  His father sighed.  “But it worked.”