Still Falling: Book 1: Solstice 31 Saga (19 page)

Barcus turned.

“I left my tea in the loft.” He stood, but his smile was weaker, haunted somehow, as he went to retrieve his mug.

She dug into the food. It seemed the more she ate, the more she needed to eat. He wanted her to eat. So she would eat.

When she was finished, she placed everything in the basket tray that Barcus obviously carried everything in with and carried it out to the kitchen pavilion. It looked like they had about eight or ten inches of snow already overnight. It was falling straight down in enormous flakes. She was thankful again for the wide covered walkways.

When she got to the kitchen, water was running in the large sink there. It was more like a trough, about eight feet long and a foot-and-a-half deep at the far end. It was already full. The overflow disappeared down a grate at the far end.

She thought to herself that one of these fires would make this water hot. She would have to find out which.

Another smaller sink was also running in the indoor kitchen. She would need to scrub them both. She got the cook fires back to her satisfaction and then started one in the main fireplace of the indoor kitchen, hoping it would heat the water in the sinks. Then she followed the covered walkways across the courtyard to the stables to feed the horses and add wood to the tack room fireplace. Before she got there, she noticed the fountain was running. Water flowed from gargoyles’ mouths into the huge basin.

When she got to the tack room, the fire was already built up. She added one more log and found the horses were already fed.

Returning, she called to the loft, “Barcus there is water in the kitchen.”

“Yes. And the midden is flowing properly. And the horse trough is full and even the fountain is running, but I have no idea why it isn't freezing.”

“How?” Po asked.

“Ash has been repairing the wall, and with it, the aqueduct.”

“Aqueduct?” she asked, pronouncing each syllable carefully.

“It is the way water feeds the keep. He says we are now getting 206 liters per minute flowing to the southern half of the keep. He will likely have the wall enclosing the aqueduct completely repaired today. The battlements above will be done tomorrow.”

“I also discovered that there is some sort of air flow activated. This morning, when I went to get a bag of feed, I heard an odd sound and discovered there was air blowing into the cold forge from the back. It was blowing dust out, so I left it for later. Olias can look at it when he gets back in a few days.”

“Did you notice the covered walkways and the gatehouse courtyard are free of snow? Well, the covered walkway halfway down the stable side. To get to the other side, we would need another fire in the blacksmith shop at the far end.”

“I love magic,” Po said.

“This kind of magic is called 'excellent engineering.'“

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The Mad Monk

“The Emergency Module backup that we are analyzing began to show signs of outside tampering at this time. Data deletions. The manipulations increased.”

--Solstice 31 Incident Investigation Testimony Transcript: Emergency Module Digital Forensics Report. Independent Tech Analysis Team.

<<<>>>

Olias was amused and excited by how much he had packed into Par on this salvage run. The goats and chickens settled down eventually with the swaying motion of the ride. They were sticking to the roads mostly because it had begun to snow again. The further north they moved, the more generous the term road became. When dawn arrived, the only indication of road was the old growth trees that flanked the track they traveled in. Saplings prevailed in slowing them down like intentionally laid obstacles.

When the goats started to smell, Par activated positive ventilation and made the stench much less noticeable. It was good that the confined space of the extremely packed load held them to a tight space all the way to the back. It would make it easier to clean out later.

“Par, where do you come from? I mean, I thought you were a beast from the mountains. But now I. . .I don't know anymore.”

“I am a beast out of the mountains, Olias. At least I was. I'm so much more now. Barcus made me so. It's a magic I don't understand. I can still hear and see like before. But now I can know things, I can speak in languages. I can hear Barcus in my mind whenever he wants me too. He is powerful, and I love him.”

“You love him?” Olias asked.

“Yes.” Par paused and said, “Because I can leave whenever I want to. I only do what I want to do. He trusts me. He honors me with his trust.”

“How? How do you know?” Olias asked.

“He trusted me to look after you, his friend,” Par said.

“I'm his friend?” Olias wondered.

“What else would you be? How does he treat you? Like a slave? Like a stable boy? He eats meals with you. He gave you a Plate. He trusted me with your life.”

Olias was very thoughtful.

“Does he ever order you to do anything?”

“He always says ‘please’ to me,” Par said.

“Actually, he mostly lets me do what I want,” Olias realized.

“Did he order you on this trip?”

Olias thought about it.

“No. He asked me. He said he needed my help,” Olias said. “In fact, he left all the details to me. He trusted
me
to make the decisions.”

“See. He's your friend too. Before he named me, I never had a friend before. Never knew what it was. Before his magic touched me, I never had a soul. I'm getting used to it.”

“You never had a soul? What's that like?”

“It's...cold. When you don't realize you don't have one, you're just a thing. I was just a thing with legs and instincts. Doing what was necessary. All the time. Knowing someone, having relationships and making friends were not even concepts in me. But after he brought me to life, I could see all that and more. I could feel things for the first time. I saw in him how to do it. It was wonderful and terrible and filled with so much magic. I was almost overwhelmed.”

Olias was speechless.

“Ash was my first friend, besides Barcus. But Ash is like me. His soul was fresh as well. And for a while, it was just the three of us. We were wandering, trying to find a safe place to rest. That's when we found those men killing the people of Whitlock. Barcus mourned every dead villager. It was as if they were all friends he had just not gotten to know yet. He was so angry. So sad. You see all his friends had been murdered. Everyone.”

“Is that why he saved us? Po and me?”

“He had to save you. He could not do otherwise,” Par said.

“Ash followed us that night until we reached Greenwarren didn't he?”

“Yes. We had to make sure you were safe.”

“I thought I heard him in the forest,” Olias said.

“When we saw you safely there, we went on our way. But Barcus always worried about you and Po. He used what magic he could to warn the village. Only you and Po could hear. Ash and I came as fast as we could. I am so sorry. I wish we had been faster.

“Barcus was so angry. He was so worried. We almost lost you again.”

“We're fine, Par. It's all right,” Olias reassured her.

“What I am trying to tell you is that having a name, having a soul, is not all good. When I was carrying those bodies today to the barn, all I could think was that they were two more friends I'd never get to know. It was an ache inside me when I didn't know I had an inside.

“Please don't tell Barcus I said any of this. I want to be strong for him,” Par said.

“I won't say anything,” Olias vowed.

“I tried to talk with Ash about it, but he is different than me.”

A pause fell over them.

“Want a reading lesson?” Par asked.

“Sure!”

By the time they reached Whitehall, Olias could still not spell his name.

***

It was funny to see how excited Po was about the goats. Two of them were milking goats. They were quickly settled into the paddock in front of the stables. They would spend nights in the stables with the horses. The horses even liked them. Many stables kept a goat. They had a strange calming effect on horses.

They quickly unloaded the rest of the salvage with the help of Ash.

“You have done an excellent job, Olias, better than I could have done.” Barcus slapped his shoulder, nearly toppling him.

“Thank you, Olias. Things will be easier now.” Po actually hugged him.

“When do you intend to go out again?” Barcus asked as Ash power washed Pardosa's ramp.

“I think in the morning. There is too much that will go to waste otherwise. Would it be possible for Ash to come on the next run? Some things are just too heavy for me. Plus, we could stage things so Par could make runs without me while Ash and I take the wagons for local salvage,” Olias said.

“Whatever you think best, Olias. There is a hot bath and fresh clothes ready for you,” Barcus said. His word confirmed what Par had been telling him.

“Here, I got these for you.” Olias retrieved a simple wooden box that looked like it was a small crate. He opened it.

There inside were eleven leather bound books.

Barcus accepted them as if it was a treasure chest.

“Thank you, Olias. This is really excellent.” His smile was very wide.

“Watch this,” Olias said, picking up a stick.

He carefully scratched in the soil where they stood in the courtyard, “OLIS.”

Barcus laid a hand on his shoulder. “Olias, a new world awaits.”

Po suddenly burst out, “It says Olias!” Her eyes were wide. “It means...Olias.”

Smiling when their eyes met, he looked down again and scratched in perfect block letters “Po.”

Her eyes went wide when she got it, and her hands flew to her mouth. They looked at each other and then both looked at Barcus.

He smiled mischievously. “Magic,” was all he said and walked away with the books.

Po and Olias talked about reading and the other aspects of the salvage inventory as Barcus walked to the gatehouse. On the way up to the loft, he collected the other four books and placed them all on the shelves he had there.

“We need some bookends,” Barcus said and they appeared on the salvage want list. “And we need small slate tablets for writing lessons.”

“Barcus, the Plates have that ability. I will work it into their lessons.”

Olias helped Po distribute and organize the salvage with assistance from Ash. The heaviest items were the tools in the blacksmith shop. The day was warming again, and the snow melting. The goats were happily rooting in the snow for the easy to find grasses.

Po showed Olias that the plumbing was fixed on the south end of The Abbey. They went to see if the dorm baths were working on the west side of The Abbey yet. Water was just trickling from the six spigots into shallow puddles in the baths.

One bath would have to do for now. The roof there had a few places that were trouble as well.

Barcus spent the rest of the day carefully scanning the books in his den with Em’s help. A few BUGs positioned correctly made the job as easy as simply turning the pages.

This made them available to him on demand after that. It allowed Em to assimilate them and use the data for cross-correlation.

The first book was detailed instructions on how to make various distilled beverages from apples, everything from simple ciders to powerful straight liquors. It even had diagrams for making the stills from iron and copper.

The next book contained notes regarding animal husbandry and specific livestock breeding. It had chapters dedicated to cattle, goats and even dogs, right down to kennel designs and functions.

Another was a handwritten catalog of medicinal herbs and their properties. It had detailed, beautiful drawings of the herbs, instructions on how to dry them and even ways to preserve them as infusions in alcohol or oils.

The smallest book listed all the High Holidays of the Keepers and the various associated rituals for each.

The oldest looking one was a kind of travel guide that talked about the “Ten Greatest Cities.” That could be very handy, even if it was old information.

The next one was very thick. It was a ledger of goods and services associated with The Boar and Barrel Inn in Greenwarren. It showed everything from building materials to booze - how much they paid for goods, how much money they made and who owed them monies. The list was long.

The next handy book was about pest control for things like rats, mice, snakes and various bugs from mosquitos to horse flies.

“We need a few cats,” he casually remarked, and “cats” priority jumped on the salvage want list.

One book was very thin and contained mostly pictures of clouds and what they meant for the weather. It actually contained the phrase, “Red in the morning sailors take warning. Red at night, sailors delight.”

There were two cookbooks. One was titled “A Soup Cookery.” It contained recipes for many kinds of soups and stews. The other cookbook was about baking breads and meat pies. It actually made his mouth water, even though the pictures were not done very well.

The last two were the most interesting to him. It appeared that they were both first person fiction. One was called “A Warriors Tale” and the other “The Mad Monk.” Barcus would save these for the long winter nights that were on the way.

Closing the last book, he stood and placed it on the shelf, sliding the blocky stone up for a bookend. He rolled his shoulders and said, “Em, initial summary review.”

“Useful data for long-term. Perhaps the most useful of them all are the two works of fiction.

“The Mad Monk is about a retired High Keeper that decides to move to an isolated monastery and make wine. It says he began to dabble in dark forces and was killed when the darkness found him, destroying his monastery and all his people to the last man, woman, and child”.

“Does it say how or when it was destroyed?”

“There was an explosion followed by a horrible plague that was only stopped by the harshest winter in memory. Tens of thousands died in this story. Dates are not specific, and there is a lot of flourish and hyperbole.”

“Are there any other specific points of interest there?” Barcus asked.

“It alludes to 'dark catacombs' where this mad Keeper performed his experiments. I have come to believe that this Abbey is more than it seems. While we have been executing repairs, we have discovered a few things.”

“Like what?”

“The diameter, as previously stated, of the keep is 91.44 meters. It varies by less than a centimeter at any given point. The material of the walls is a type of cement that seems to have been poured seamlessly, solid for 1.828 meters.”

“You seem to be implying there some significance to this besides its precision.”

“You are correct. 91.44 meters is exactly 100 yards, and 1.828 meters is exactly two yards,” Em said. “The ships we have seen are of a vintage that would be consistent with an Exodus class colony ship. If that is true, those ships were equipped with eight RFUs.”

“RFUs?”

“Redoubt Fabrication Units. The early name for Makers. These were massive specialty robots that were designed to create human habitats in harsh environments. They were big machines that would use local materials to create domes, and then they would use themselves as raw material to create the interior infrastructure and support systems. They could even function autonomously in a vacuum. They were very early single task AIs.”

“Are you saying that this was once a dome?”

“RFUs were designed to make a few different configurations. A dome and a configuration known as a bowl were common. It was basically an inverted dome.”

Barcus was thinking now and looking at The Abbey diagram in his HUD.

“The Mad Monk talks about dark catacombs. If this Abbey is actually a Redoubt, there may be more below.”