Spinspace: The Space of Spins (The Metaspace Chronicles Book 2) (31 page)

Chapter 81

Carolyn
: new developments

“Ability hits the mark where presumption overshoots and diffidence falls short.”

– Golda Meir

The rays of the rising sun shot though the trees like spears of honey, making their little picnic as warm as a summer day. 
Odd, that, because yesterday it was still early March,
she thought. 
Not even Spring.

Lester had brought a bottle of wine with the sandwiches.  “isn't it a little early in the day for wine,” she said, hoping it hadn't cost him too much.

“I'm hoping for a reason to celebrate,” he said.

“What, because I can make
swizzles
now?  Because – “

“Not that, he said, pulling a balled-up handkerchief out of an inner pocket of his gray robe.  He handed it to her, as if expecting her to unwrap something.  Okay.

She picked it up by one corner and lifted the fabric, letting it unroll.  Sunlight flashed off something that dropped into her other hand.  It was a gold ring.  Her heart leaped as she stared at the circle of yellow metal.

“It was my father's,” he said.  “I wanted to give you my mother's but she's still wearing it.  I hope it isn't too massive for you.”

She smiled at him.  “Isn't there a question you want to ask?”

“You know there is,” he said, echoing her smile.  Then his look became earnest.  “Carolyn, “ he said, “will --”

“Will you get up?”  Someone was shaking her. 

She groaned as she opened her eyes.  Only a dream.  But a nice one.  “What is is?” 

Esteban had his hand on her shoulder.  When he saw her eyes open, he stopped shaking her.  “We need you out in the main room.”

She rubbed her eyes.  “Why?”

“Come on!”  He turned and trotted out of her room.

Everyone but Xander was standing around.  “What's this all about?” said Kaleb.

Lester ignored him and turned to her.  She shivered at the feel of his fingers on her arm as he drew her closer to him to whisper in her ear.  “Go get Xander.  He needs to see this, but I have to stay and guard the stairwell.”

She wanted to stop and ask what he was talking about, but the look in his eyes silenced her.  Something big was up.  It was the work of less than a minute to zip down the stairs and out into the floor that held Xander and Lester's quarters and the storerooms.  She banged on his door.  “Xander!  Are you awake?”

After a moment she heard him growl.  “I am now.  What is it?”

“Lester says they need you up on the student floor right away to see something.”

Presently the door opened and he appeared in his black robe.  “I hope you didn't run down those damned stairs to get me,” he grumbled, as he followed her back to the stairwell.

When they emerged onto the floor Lester face facing four chairs that held Kaleb, Esteban, Kareef, and Nathan.  At the sound of the door opening he spun to face them.  “You're not going to believe this.  He turned back to the students.  “Show them.”

Nathan was the first to stand.  He held out his pipe and everyone stared as the end began to glow like the tip of a branding iron.  He wiped his forehead, and gazed at the pipe, and after a few moments the glow cooled and it became frosty, dripping fog.

“I'm not entirely sure how I'm doing it,” he said, as if embarrassed by his accomplishment.  “Whatever it is, I can control the, the
icetorch
weave.”

“You're manipulating
tonespace
” Xander said, clearly shocked.  “And I've never seen anyone do it that way before.  Ever.  I've never gotten an apprentice that far, or even myself.  I can make everflames and coldboxes, sure, but not with the same weave.  This
icetorch
of yours is something new.  I don't even know if the Tourists had it.”

Kareef cleared his thought, and all eyes swung to him.  “Whatever he's doing is beyond me.  But I did figure
this
out.”  He set his own length of pipe down, holding it in place, and then released it.

Slowly at first, then picking up speed, the pipe rolled toward Carolyn and Xander, passing Lester by a foot or so.  Then Kareef stretched out his hand toward it it and grimaced.

The pipe slowed to a stop, and then reversed, rolling back to Kareef's feet.  The slithering of his robe as he bent to pick it up again was the only sound in the room as she stared at it with the others.

Xander regarded the two.  “Have you also solved the swizzle?”

Kareef frowned while Nathan stared at the floor.  “No, we stumbled across both of these weaves while we were working on it,” the dark-skinned Muslim said. 

“Too bad,” the old wizard said.  “But that's not important now.  What you've both done is just as good, maybe better.  You, Nathan, have discovered a
tonespace
weave, and you, Kareef, have mastered a
spinspace
one, and both without any help from a teacher.  Do you realize what this means?”

“That we can stay?” said Nathan.

“That you put on the gray robe,” said Xander.  “You all do, starting tomorrow.  As of now, you're all journeymen wizards.”

“But Kareef and I haven't made a swizzle,” Nathan pointed out.  “You said that was the test for advancement.'

“I know what I said.  And I was wrong,” Xander told him.  “I've always thought my apprentices would have to follow in my footsteps, and learn the
swizzle
, then the
everwheel
, then the
everflame
.  But I was wrong.”  He took a deep breath.  “Apparently life's not that simple.  “I'm hoping you'll all master everything we can discover, but I have to accept that you'll learn some things faster than others.”  He strode forward past her, and she watched him shake Nathan's hand, and then Kareef's.

“We're all going to change the world.  Now get some sleep.”

Chapter 82

Jeffrey
: two steps forward, three steps back

“There are only two forces in the world, the sword and the spirit.  In the long run the sword will always be conquered by the spirit.”

– Napoleon Bonaparte

The loneliest man in the in the world slipped off his scabbard, then sat on the edge of the bed and pulled off his boots.  Anyone who knew he was the ruler of the Lone Star Empire would have been surprised by the plainness of that bed.  He barely noticed; it was the price he paid for spending the night at his offices atop the skyscraper in Dallas, rather than back at the mansion on the lake.

As he sat at the foot of the bed he turned his empty eyes at his reflection in the ancient mirror on the wall he faced. 
Christ, do I really look that bad?  I'm not even thirty!

He could face the fact that his commanders and advisors were unhappy about the alliance with Rado.  He could face the fact that some of them must be plotting to replace him.  He could face the drought that had reduced the crop forecasts this year, triggering the inevitable rationing plans.  He could even face the fact that he was engaged to the heir of Rado, a woman he barely knew who never seemed to have the time to reply to his letters lately.

But facing all of these at once, that was killing him.

The face in the mirror had grown new lines around the eyes, and new creases in the forehead, as if someone had been whittling on it.  The eyes seemed dimmed, the fires of his youth fading prematurely toward twilight.  The mouth that used to know how to smile now appeared either angry or sad in repose: he was not sure which.

Well, you wanted to be Honcho.  Thanks to Xander, you got your wish.  Enjoy!

The man in the mirror did not appear to be enjoying.

Jeffrey slid open the drawer on his nightstand and withdrew a fresh sheet of paper with the Honcho's logo: crossed swords under a single star.  He made a mental note to have the logo redesigned.  In Kristana's new Union, the flag now had two stars.

He unscrewed the lid of the ink bottle and dipped his quill.

“Dear Aria,

The drought situation here is becoming severe.  I realize that your time is full these days, but if you could find the time to send us some swizzles...or a wizard who can get our own irrigation swizzles working again, it would help preserve my position, the peace, and the Union we both support.  And if you could answer my letters...”

He stopped and crumpled the paper in a fist of disgust.  Too needy!  Never show weakness.

He dipped the quill again and hesitated, trying to come up with a better opening sentence.

“Dear Aria,”

Someone pounded on the outer door of his rooms.  Damnation!Who could that be?  Sighing, he laid down the quill and stood up to stretch before striding to the door.  “Who is it?  What do you want at this hour?”

“Sergeant Carson, sir!  Want you to escape, sir.  They're coming for you!'

What was this nonsense?  He slid the bolt and wrenched the door open. 

Carson saluted with a bloody hand, then shoved him back into the rooms and slammed and bolted the door again.  “Sorry, sir.  I hope you have an emergency exit, because they've already overcome the guards on the first ten floors.  Lt. Lassiter sent me up to warn you while his men stayed behind to try to hold them off on the twelfth floor.  But I wouldn't count on it, sir.”

“Who is it?  Who's coming.”  But a pit opened up in his stomach.  He could guess the names even before Carson ticked them off on his fingers.

“Vaco, Anderson, Karlota, Jiminez...it's most of the senior commanders, sir.”

“I'm not surprised,” he said.  He wasn't.  All contemporaries of the late Commander Brutus, and hardly better.  If anything, he should be surprised that it had taken them all this long to be ready to move.

As much as he'd wanted to believe he had finally sold everyone on the advantages of the new Union, the access to Rado's mines and tools, and the ability to use Rado gold to expand the army for more conquests, there were plenty who thought they could get all of the same advantages at the point of a sword, without negotiation or compromise.

He buckled his sword belt back on.  Oh, they'd been clever.  They'd pretended to be won over, grumbling but conceding the value of uniting the two countries.  And all the while, he was certain now, they'd been planning to follow through on his father's plan: unification by conquest.

“Sir, you've got to hurry!  They have axes – the door won't hold them back for more than a minute.”

“I know that.”  No time to change into a fresh uniform.  He was just lucky they hadn't caught him in his underwear, fast asleep.  He drew his boots on and picked up his hat.  The man in the mirror still looked unhappy, but at least he was an unhappy soldier.  He straightened the hat.  “Come on.”

He led a mystified Carson into the Honcho's bathroom.
My bathroom,
he reminded himself.  It was nearly as large as the bedroom, thanks to the huge tub with its integral fireplace to heat the water that flowed down from the rooftop reservoir.

He yanked at the second sink.  With a squeaky grinding of concealed hinges it swung away from the wall, taking with it the mirror and a section of wall.  In the revealed space, a concealed staircase loomed out of darkness.  Few knew that it had saved the lives of two Honchos in the last hundred years.

Carson's face sagged with relief when he saw the secret stairwell, but it tightened again with dismay when Jeffrey charged
up
the stairs.  “Sir!  You'll be trapped on the roof, if that's where it goes.”

Jeffrey didn't even turn his head to answer.  “Follow me, if you want to live through this.”

I can't believe it's been twenty years since Dad showed me this.  But the cobwebs believed.  He slid his jeweled sword out of the scabbard and lifted it in front of his face to keep the old webs out of his eyes.

Here and there a blackened bulb poked out of the wall into the narrow space, souvenirs of the time when some rich Ancient had occupied the top three floors of the building.  Somewhere there must be a light switch for the electricity that used to power them.

They emerged onto the roof of the tallest building in Dallas.  On any other night he would have stopped to appreciate the view.  Nighttime always hid the dirt of the city and the thousands of oil lanterns and candles turned it into a glittering sight to nourish the soul.

Not tonight, though.  If he bothered to crane his neck to look over the edge of the roof he would probably see a river of torches surrounding the skyscraper.

“Sir, I closed the secret door again but we both know they'll find it soon!  Why didn't you head
down
the stairs?  What can we do up
here?
”

Jeffrey didn't  turn around.  “We can do
this
,” he growled, picking up a length of chain (forged two centuries ago) from a pile.  A ring of metal big enough to put his hand through dangled from each end of the chain.  He tossed it to Carson, picked up another, and then kicked the rest of the pile over the edge of the roof.  He hoped it landed on someone.

Without bothering to see if Carson was watching, Jeffrey strode to the far corner of the roof where an ancient antenna loomed next to a heliograph.  In a second he had swung one end of the chain over a black-painted cable thicker than his thumb that stretched down and out into the darkness.

“I hope you're not afraid of heights,” he said.  Then he checked his sword belt, grabbed both of the rings and leaped off the edge of the roof.