Techromancy Scrolls: Adept (2 page)

Oh, I had sort of tuned him out. “Sorry sir.” I grabbed the handles of my cart and headed out the gates, looking up to the iron gates suspended in the soaring arch above us. I turned east toward the mountains as soon as I was out. I had found a great rock outcropping just a couple miles away that had brought me luck so far.

I made sure to take a circuitous route through the Whispering Forest, mindful of other scavengers that had their eyes on me. They were probably wondering where I was finding so many relics from the Before. When I was certain I was not being followed, I turned back toward Beggar's Creek and Hawktail River that ran through the keep. They emptied into Dragontooth Lake at the west side of the village.

I grinned, this was going to be so much fun!

By mid morning I had reached a rock outcropping that I had been prospecting. I moved a bush aside to see the edge of the embossed aluminum sign that was sticking out of the ground. It was banged up and had a lot of oxidation and some pigment where there was probably paint on it in a bygone era. The raised letters read 'Gus Davis FORD'. I assumed it was the name of the village or the names of the three founders of the settlement.

Aluminum wasn't in high demand since it was the most abundant metal on the planet so I had left the sign as a marker for myself, hidden behind the bush that had grown in front of it long ago.

I pulled my crystal necklace out from inside my tunic, I noted I had another tear in the worn material I'd have to sew up when I returned home, before the weaving started to unravel. “Damn.” I held the crystal in the palm of my hand and it glowed faintly amber. I reached inside me to the reservoir of magic I had just discovered as I matured and pushed some of it into the crystal.

I blew across it and it brightened and felt alive on my palm. I could feel energy pulsing through it. I smiled and whispered to it. “Can you find me some copper please?” I started turning slowly in a circle, watching the light closely as it brightened and dimmed. Changing colors as it felt the metals I sought. Blue for steel, yellow for copper. I squinted when it turned a pale pink in one direction. It had never done that before. Was it another metal I was developing an affinity for?

I wondered for a moment how our new magics were different than the powerful wizards that came before us. There are songs and tellings of the Great Impact changing something in the fabric of space around the Earth. Something that woke up long dead magics that our predecessors didn't posses. These reawakened magics were ours.

I kept turning, then went back to where it had glowed yellow the brightest. I slung my tool bag over my shoulder and grabbed my shovel from my cart and started walking. I had to dodge around rocks, bushes and small trees near the rock outcropping. I went maybe twenty paces before the light started to dim. I backtracked until it was at its brightest, then tucked the crystal into my tunic and started digging.

I got almost three feet down when there was the thunk of metal on metal. I grinned and started quickly widening my hole and brushing off an expanse of rusted metal and something else that looked like metal but was not rusted.

It was big, like my first find that took me two trips to scavenge what I could off of it. This one had a metal emblem on the side. It read 'Mustang'. This was a metal horse? Then I remembered the pictures of the metal conveyances from my visit to the library of the scrolls.

I smiled at my discovery. They named the conveyances after swift horses. I wondered how I could get word to the scholars and Techromancers. This was a minor discovery, but every piece of information gained us more insight into the past. I took out my hammer and chisel and carefully pried the emblem off of the relic and stuffed it into my bag.

I took out my crystal and ran it over the entire length of my find and I was a little confused. There seemed to be copper everywhere in it. Then I smiled. They must have ran electricity through the entire conveyance to run all kinds of marvelous gadgets. The crystal glowed brightest near one end, by the orientation of the emblem I believed it was the front of the conveyance.

I looked closely and there seemed to be a seam. I placed my shovel blade into the seam and started prying. It took twenty minutes but I finally had pried up enough of it that something snapped, whatever was latching the metal down. With the screech of metal tearing I pushed it up and stopped breathing.

I had to blink twice. Good lord! Jackpot! There was a compartment that was stuffed with metals, machines and gadgets that had somehow been preserved fairly well. There were tons of insect nests and something had eaten away some of the casings they had used on the copper wires that seemed to go in all directions, but it was all fairly intact.

Being this close to it, I didn't need my crystal anymore. I could taste all the metal and a huge concentration of copper. I blinked when I saw it. It looked to be an fairly intact electric motor! I've seen these before, the Techromancers called them alternators. They use them in things like the street light chains from this morning.

It was in such great shape, they wouldn't need to use much magic potential to get it operational again. I could probably get an entire gold coin for this alone! I pulled out my flexible steel braided cord with wooden handles at either end, and dipped it into the little bag of crushed carbon. Diamond dust. Then I looped it under the support and started sawing.

Twenty minutes later it broke free and I quickly sat on the top of the conveyance and pulled my brush out of my bag and started cleaning it. It was in better shape than I thought. Whatever coated the hundreds of copper windings inside of it hadn't decayed. The orangeish red coating looked intact.

I looked out of the pit to be sure I couldn't be observed then I pulled my magics to me. I had just started learning I could do this. I let the power flow through my hand and into the alternator. Dirt and debris started falling out of it. I watched as the oxidation on the metals started fading, peeling back the revenges of time and decay. I had to keep this a secret. It was like the Techromancers could do. Only nobles could be Techromancers and they'd throw me in the stockade if they ever learned I was anything more than a sensitive.

When I did all I could, it was obvious it would need more than I was currently capable of to finish the job, but I could get more money for it in this condition. I flicked the flywheel with my finger and it started to spin fairly freely, where it hadn't at all when I pulled it out. I quickly dropped the thing when I got shocked. I had been surprised, not hurt. Electricity seemed to like me. I had been holding it with my hand on the terminal and I was definitely grounded sitting on a metal beast.

I laughed. It worked! It could already generate electricity in the rough condition it was in. I was surely going to get mom's medicine with it! I looked around in the compartment and started yanking out copper wires by the handful, stuffing them into my burlap sack on top of the alternator. This was like the find of a lifetime.

I found a couple more devices that looked like small electric motors. How had the wizards made them so small? I pried them out and placed them in the bag. I could spend a week just here, salvaging all the wire and steel. I'd have to break the bigger pieces up, I had plenty of crushed diamond dust for my wire saw, carbon was extremely plentiful.

I saw something in another compartment farther back from this one, the roof of the conveyance hadn't been entirely crushed. I reached in to something glinting inside and yanked a couple times. With a snapping sound I pulled it free. I looked at it. It appeared to be glass, with that material that wasn't metal, surrounding it. I wiped it on my tunic to clean off the grime then gasped.

It was a mirror! The finest of silver smiths must have polished it and covered it with glass, because it was the clearest oblong shaped mirror I had ever seen. I looked at my face in it and smiled at the girl covered in dirt from all my digging. I stuck my tongue out at her and giggled. I could get some good money from a lord or lady for such a well crafted mirror.

I ate some goat's cheese and some chicken jerky, and drank from my canteen. Then I noted Father Sol's position in the sky. “Damn!” I pushed the sheet of metal back over the compartment then jumped on it a few times to move it back in place then I grabbed my shovel and started filling the hole again.

An hour later, I was exhausted. But I sprinkled twigs and grass over my excavation then marked it with a stone so I could find it quickly when I next returned. I put my tools and my bounty on my cart and started quickly making my way back down toward the village.

I hadn't gone two hundred yards when I heard horses making their way through the forest to the river. I had thought it to be the knights returning from patrol but froze when eight men dressed in bearskins, riding horses decked out in matching furs, came trotting out into the open. Marauders!

The leader paused when he saw me and he smiled. His teeth had been filed to sharp points and were rotting. He made a motion with his head and the men surrounded me with their horses. They were all pulling clubs and swords. The leader pulled out what looked like the jawbone of an ass that had sharp metal teeth embedded into the leading edge.

He spoke in the guttural language of the Outsiders, it was a mashup of English, Mountain Gypsy, and Welsh. I had learned it from the woodcutter, Corrick, who had befriended mother eight years ago. He had courted her for a year until he didn't return one day. I liked the man, he made me think that that is what it was like to have a father. The night patrol returned the following morning to inform us that marauders had raided the logging camp and all were lost.

The man before me was taunting me, “What have we here? A lost morsel. What should we do with you young one? I bet my men can think of something before we roast you on a spit over the fire.” He rode past me, letting his weapon drift lazily past my head, I saw some of my brunette hair drift to the ground, telling me the teeth on his weapon were razor sharp. I stiffened. I don't know why I wasn't panicking. Or maybe I did. I wouldn't give them the satisfaction of seeing me cower before I died, and no man would ever use me. Mother told me to always be strong.

I pushed the jawbone away from me and stood tall and replied in his tongue, surprising him, “Your men would have to kill me before they had their way, I'd bite off their manhood. I hope my flesh poisons you all when you eat me.”

He started laughing and the other men joined in. “A scrappy one are you? That sharp tongue will look awfully good on my necklace.” He pulled up a string of rotted looking jerky that was around his neck. I realized that they were tongues. I started shaking. So much for not showing fear.

Two men dismounted and started walking toward me from either side. One was pulling his furs away to expose his manhood. No, no, no. A fire ignited inside me and I grabbed my shovel and swung it at the man in one quick movement. I almost vomited as the blade hit him in the crotch, leaving a bloody mess where his manhood had been moments before. I was appalled, but the mounted men were all laughing.

The man I struck screamed in agony and fell to the ground grasping his crotch, his life's blood flowing out from between his fingers. I spun to the second man and held the bloodied shovel toward him. He looked at his comrade on the ground, me, then the shovel. He growled and reached out quickly, taking me by surprise, and he yanked the shovel from my hand and threw it to the ground.

He raised his club and I closed my eyes. At least they weren't going to defile me. I heard the thundering of hooves and a woman's commanding voice yelling out, “Hold!” My eyes snapped open as Lady Celeste and Sir Bowyn burst into the open, their mighty steed's muscles rippling along their flanks as they charged the marauders, swords drawn.

In one swift motion, Lady Celeste hopped up onto her saddle, and continuing the motion, was somehow vaulting into the air, arcing over the mounted men and landed in front of me in a slide. Her blade, crackling with energy, continued it's arc downward, cleaving the man in two and embedding into the ground.

Sir Bowyn was engaging two men. Swinging his non powered steel blade smoothly from side to side. Deflecting blows from both mounted opponents. The other four dismounted and charged the Lady, circling around us.

I glanced at her, her eyes blazing a blinding green and her arms crackled with power. She was smiling at the men as she did this leg over leg side stepping, around me, her blade stretched out. Like she were designating her reach. I realized she was. She was telling these men that it was a circle of death that they could step into if they dared.

I glanced at her face and she looked down at me for a moment and she winked again. She keeps doing that to me. I was able to contain my fear. I made myself as small as I could to give her as much room as she needed to fight. Damn it, if she didn't have me here in need of protection, she wouldn't have let them surround her. I was worthless and endangering her.

Suddenly she was in motion, she must have read something in the men I didn't see. They were all attacking at once, and time seemed to slow down. She was moving like a dancer. Her blade making sweeping strikes that seemed to be both deflecting weapon strikes and keeping the men at a distance.

There were three clangs and a thud. I looked toward the thud and a man dropped to his knees grasping a bloody stump. His hand and club lay on the ground in front of him. He yowled in pain and anger. Then I heard another thud and he fell face first on the ground, a knife in his back.

I looked to where Sir Bowyn was still fighting his two mounted marauders one hand outstretched, he had thrown the knife. He nodded at Lady Celeste and she nodded back. They were two against eight and it seemed like they had the marauders outmatched. I was channeling my fear and turning it into anger that there was nothing I could do to help.

I was suddenly feeling things all around me. I could taste metals beneath our feet. A horse cried out in pain and one of the mounted riders went down under it. Crushing him. The three men on foot were circling us, looking for an opening. The leader, I'll call him Jawbone... Jawbone was smiling just like the Lady knight was.