Spinspace: The Space of Spins (The Metaspace Chronicles Book 2) (17 page)

Chapter 41

Kareef:
good news or bad?

“...if they leave you alone, refrain from fighting you, and offer you peace, then Allah gives you no excuse to fight them.”

– Quran 4:90

As they drew nearer to Rado, they began to hear more recent news from the West.  First, rumors of war.  Texas was going to invade Rado.  Descriptions varied, however.  Some stories spoke of an enormous army of foot soldiers, others of swarms of cavalry, and still others of great armored vehicles of the ancients, the
tanks
that he had heard of back in Dixie.

Kareef was grateful for the scraps of information that reached them, for they relieved the oppressing monotony of the journey.  If this had been some sort of grand tour, as the Emirs, may they be blessed, or their sons, sometimes made among the Emirates, they could have been proceeding at a more leisurely pace, making note of how the local peasants were employed during the Winter, observing and evaluating fortresses or potential trade routes, or investigating possible trade goods or new food crops.

But there was no time for such pursuits.  According to Qusay, they must proceed to Denver.  He told Kareef that they must arrive long before Spring.

“Why?  You don't think this School will disappear before we get there, do you?”

“Of course not.  But among the things I have been commanded to observe is how adequately they deal with snow.  If the Emirates ever extend this far, we must know how inclement weather affects their defenses.”

He understood the wisdom of that, but it was hard not to grumble at the waste of opportunities.  For the first time in his life he was outside the borders of his country, and instead of learning more about the lands outside it, he was seeing only the width of a road, and hearing little more than the rolling of their own wheels upon it.

To keep himself from going mad with boredom, he had decided to make a game of learning about the Order.  Qusay had already told him that he was not to be trained in the ways of magic until he reached Denver and Xander's School, so that his impressions would be fresh and his understanding unfiltered by layers of Sihr lore.  Very well.  He had, further, been informed that he was to know as little as possible about the magic-wielders of the Emirates, so that if captured and interrogated he could reveal little to potential adversaries of the Faithful.

But he refused to remain ignorant.  Shut in a wagon with Qusay and his wife Ateeqa for a few weeks, he would use whatever opportunities presented themselves to learn something, at least.  It gave him something to do, and allowed him to see himself as more than a mere pawn in the wider games of rulers.

The first thing he had learned was obvious: members of the Order were allowed to marry.  The fact that Qusay even mentioned the Order in front of his wife and referred to himself as protection for Kareef meant that his wife knew he was a member of it.  The way he explained his handling of the bandit leader in front of her showed that she already knew at least some of his skills.

It was comforting to know that when he took a wife he would not have to keep secrets from her.  When that time came he would have at least one person with whom he could share his fears and hopes without worry of committing indiscretions.  He filed that away in his mind and set himself to learning whatever else the Ambassador's behavior and remarks would reveal.

“One of the dangers you will face in Denver,” the older man said, as if he were reading Kareef's mind, “is foreign women.”

Kareef had to raise his eyebrows at that.  “How could they be a danger to me?  I am not going there to seek an infidel wife.”

Qusay and Ateeqa exchanged amused smiles.  “Often,” the ambassador-mage told him, “you find what you are not seeking...or it finds you.  The women of foreign  lands are no less comely than  those of the Emirates.”

He tried not to snort.  “I won't have any time to carouse.”

Once more Qusay and Ateeqa smiled at each other.  “You cannot spend all of your time eating, sleeping, and studying,” the ambassador said.  “And, truly, your observation of all things, including the Rado men and women, may prove useful someday.”

Kareef shifted his weight on the seat.  He had heard that non-Muslim women did not cover themselves enough, that the shapes of their bodies were exhibited shamelessly to invite the stares of men.  Fortunately, the women he had seen in his own country were not so ignorant.  His father was a simple landowner; he and Kareef had not been invited to the homes of the Emirs, nor  any who maintained a
harim
.   All of the women he had ever seen had been decently covered, thanks be to the Ever-Merciful!

“I do not need to ogle their women to learn what must be learned,” he said.

Once more, there was that silent smiling conspiracy between Qusay and his wife.  Also, they did not appear shocked when the wagon passed women walking with their heads uncovered.  Kareef found himself wondering if belonging to the Order led its members to believe they were outside the Law.  Was it possible to develop abilities most citizens did not share...and still hold to the customs and beliefs of the majority?

At the next stop Qusay came back to the wagon with the marks of concern on his face.  Kareef spoke up before Ateeqa could.  “What is it?  What did you hear?” 

“The Honcho invaded Rado.  He found a way to fuel their tanks and drive them right into the city, all the way from Texas.”

Despite the the ambassador's expression, Kareef took this as good news.  The school would be closed!  They could turn around and go back to Dixie!”

“Don't look so happy,” Qusay said, reading his expression perfectly.  “We're still going to Denver.”

“But why, sir?'

“Because Rado defeated the invasion.  Xander and his new apprentice stopped it cold.  The old Honcho died in the battle, and his son made peace with Rado.  They're allies now.”

That explained the concern.  Rado and Texas combined could be a real problem, if they turned East and invaded the Emirates.  “How could they be allies, right after an invasion of one by the other?”  Would he ever understand these people?

“I don't know,” Qusay said.  “But this makes it even more important to get to Denver.  We have to know what their intentions are, and to send word back to the Order.'

“You mean, back to the Emirs.”

Qusay glanced at him.  “Yes, them too.”

Once again, he had the feeling that maybe the Emirs were not running the Emirates.  Did the Order serve them...or the other way around? 

Chapter 42

Esteban
: fines iter, aliud intineris spatium

(“one journey ends, another journey begins”)

“It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise than for a man to hear the song of fools.”

– Ecclesiastes 7:5

He was not expecting to climb so many steps.  Back at St. Bruno's he had, of course, descended and ascended a couple of flights to the
Reconditorium Prohibitum
, which for security reasons had been located in an expanded and re-purposed wine cellar.  But that was only a couple of flights!  These stairs seemed to go on forever.

He had not had much time to gauge the size of the edifice before Aria ushered him in at the ground level.  There, as expected were guards, stables and a farrier in one corner to shoe new acquisitions and replace the occasional lost horseshoe.

She led him to a door and the interminable climb began.  After only four flights of steps Esteban was panting.  She took mercy on him thereafter and paused on every other landing.  It was a good reminder of the virtue of humility – she was not even breathing hard yet.

He apologized for slowing her down.  “I'm not used to so many steps,” he said, “but even so, I can't believe how easily I'm tiring.'

“It's the altitude,” she told him.  “Denver is a mile above sea level, so the air is thinner.  I'm used to it, but for you it's as if your lungs were suddenly smaller while the rest of your body wants just as much oxygen as they used to get.  Don't worry, you'll get used to it.  Your body will adjust by making more blood to carry more oxygen.”

“Why did the Governor choose such a tall building?” he asked.  “She couldn't have enough staff to fill the whole thing.”

“No,” she said.  “There's still some empty floors.  But she didn't choose it, the General did.  It was one of the last to be built before the Fall and so it's as well made as the Ancients could manage.  We could never build anything like this nowadays.”

They reached another landing.  “Why not?” he wheezed, trying to suck in enough air to stay alive.

“Steel,” she said.  “Scrapers like this use a lot of it to reinforce the concrete.  We can't make big enough pieces of steel for reinforcement anymore.”  As he listened, grateful for the excuse to dally on this landing to get his breath back, she explained.  Concrete was an old technology, widely used back in the time of the Romans.  They even, she told him, had discovered how to mix in some volcanic ash to make concrete that could harden underwater!

“So why do you need steel?”

“I don't completely understand it,” she admitted, “but it has to do with compression and tension.  Concrete is very strong under compression – trying to crush it is the same as squeezing a stone.  But long pieces of it can be snapped like a twig, because it is not so strong under tension.  So the Ancients discovered that by burying long steel reinforcement bars, called
rebar
, inside the concrete before it hardened made the finished material stronger, because steel is very strong under tension.”

“So why don't we still use
rebar
?”

“A good blacksmith can make small pieces of steel,” she said, “like swords.  But no one can make as much steel as you need to make a building like this.  The ancient steelyards needed a lot of power to melt and shape the iron.  Electricity made that kind of scale of steel working practical.  But we don't have it anymore.  So no one has tried to build anything like this in two hundred years, ever since the Fall.”

She began climbing the steps again.  He groaned mentally and followed her.  By the time they reached the next landing he realized that she had not answered his original question.  “So why did the General pick this building for his headquarters?”

“Well,” she said, “first because it's the best-built 'scraper in Denver, as I said, but also because he figured we'd eventually need all of the room, all these floors.”

“He was expecting his staff to grow that large?”

“No, she said.  “because of his Dream.”

She explained.  The General had always been determined to re-unify the continent after the fashion of the old United States.  The old capitol was on the Eastern seaboard, but if his plan succeeded, the new nucleus around it would re-form would be Rado, so the representatives from the member States would need a place to meet, and he thought it made more sense to put the new capitol in the middle of the continent, harder for an invader to reach.

“So he needed either a bunch of buildings for all of them to meet and live in, or one big one.”  She grinned.  “The general was the kind of man who thought big, so he preferred to put them all in one building.  He decided this one was big enough and so he moved in and never left.'

They stopped again for Esteban to regain his breath.  “What floor are we on now?”

She pointed to a door.  On it he saw the number 7 and groaned.  “How far are we going up?”

“Almost to the top.  My gardens are on the top five floors, and we've set aside the five floors below that for the school – floors fifty-one through fifty-five.”

“So we have forty-four floors to go?  I'll never make it.”

She looked at him and shook her head.  “Well, we can't have a new student dropping dead on his first day.  I'll take you up to the thirtieth floor, where Xander lives, and send word for him to come down and meet you there.  After dinner you can go the rest of the way up and find a place to sleep.”

He was more relieved than he could put into words to hear that he could live in the building.  A few seconds earlier he had been trying to calculate how early in the morning he would have to arise in order to make his way to the building and climb all of these stairs.  His legs were already aching.  “Thank you,” he said.  “I'll try to get used to the air and the stairs as soon as I can.”

But what if they didn't accept him? 

“What's the matter?” she asked.

“I just realized that if Xander doesn't accept me as a student, I'll have to walk all the way down again...and find someplace to wait for the next coach going South.”

“Oh, don't worry about that.  If he doesn't think you can learn the magic we can probably find a job for you, unless you want to leave.”

He concentrated on lifting one foot after another, climbing to the next landing.  How could he tell her there was nothing for him here if he couldn't be a student?  Surely His Holiness would have to be informed to send another candidate if he was not accepted.

She noted his lapse into silence.  “Why so quiet?”

“I'm just thinking about how much I want to be a student,” he said.  Guilt stabbed him at the partial truth.  How much, in this case, was zero.  He'd never asked for this.  But having been set this task by the Pontiff, he now realized that success hinged on him being able to convince Xander that he
did
want it.

By the time they reached the thirtieth floor he was ready to collapse.  By will alone he stayed on his feet when she opened the door and led him down a corridor.

She stooped by a door with a newly-painted cross on it and knocked.  After a minute it opened and a man with gray in his hair looked at them. “Yes?”

“Father,” she said, “I need to go fetch Xander for a new student.  Can you help him find something to eat while I go up?”  She turned to Esteban.  “This is Father Andrews.  He's sort of our unofficial chaplain for the school.”  Then she set off back to the stairwell, leaving him with the priest.