This is the last of the "story noses" I wrote over the summer. It's pretty much just a "info dump." The basic premise was much the same of the Velvet Night Islands -- a previous civilization has left artifacts behind. Most are just pieces of technology that the current civilization does not understand. In the story, one of the provinces is threatening civil war, though it is certain to be defeated, by the combined forces of the other provinces. So why does it seem to be pursuing this course? One suggestion is that they have uncovered a WORKING artifact from the previous civilization that will allow them to triumph. The heroes of the story set out to find this artifact, if it exists. The reason the story never got written is that I could not think of a way to, one, make it any different than a sort of intrigue/spy story -- they track down clues within the threatening province while trying to avoid capture, and two, what could this artifact be. I didn't want to do a GIANT ROBOT... I just came up short in the imaging department. I just could not come up with something to make it unique enough to bother writing.
I had several opening. In some the war had already began. But this is the only one I can find.
Note: As usual, this is a first draft, non proofread version.
Chapter
1 May 14
01
Twenty-seven books will not fill a wall of bookshelves, not even the
wall of a very cozy dormer office under the rafters of Croft Hall,
Wayscross University. This came as not a complete surprise to me. I
had hoped, however, that by artistically spreading my twenty-seven
books out across the shelves – displaying the larger volumes cover
out – I might create the impression that the shelves were more
filled than they actually were. Sadly, this proved not to be the
case. Indeed, rather than disguising my scarcity of books, it seemed
to emphasis the barrenness of the shelves – each book a lonesome
cry of despair.
Stepping back to consider my options, I sent the coat tree teetering,
saving it from crashing onto my desk with a desperate grab and an
angry curse.
'I would think, Nies, that after seven years of travel up and down
the Great Serpent you'd have accumulated enough rusty talismans,
curiosities, nicknacks, keepsakes and lightprints to fill a little
bookshelf like that,' said a once familiar voice from the open
doorway behind me.
It had been all of those seven years since I'd last heard the voice
of my best friend. Still, it had been seven years, so it was with
both eagerness, and wariness, that I spun to greet her.
'Ash!'
She hadn't changed. Not too much. She was leaning on the door-frame,
hands in the pockets of her long dark green traveling coat, with a
rather shapeless felt hat at the back of her head. She stared down
her long nose at me, took me in, and then leisurely withdrew her hand
from the coat's pocket and extended it.
I took her cool hand in my own, and then, what the blue beyond,
pulled her close and gave her a bear hug as well. She didn't resist,
and may've even tapped me on the back once or twice herself with her
free hand until I released her, to hold her at arm's length.
'It is wonderful to see you. I wrote you...'
'Six letters, I believe.'
'Five. Two to your Boulevard of Evening Blossoms address, two in care
of the Ministry of Trade, and one to Hayvale. The sixth was to your
father asking about you. He, at least, replied, if only to say that
he was unable to help since you don't keep him any better informed of
your whereabouts than I. He did, however, invite me down to Hayvale,
with or without you, and I will certainly take him up on that.
Hopefully with you. So why didn't you answer any of my letters?'
'I'm here.'
'You are indeed. I withdraw my complaint.' I said, gazing on her
fondly. '
There are not likely all that many people in the world who can gaze
on her fondly.
Ashra Bedoux, Baroness Roudorn is a hard person to be fond of. She
is tall as I, though slimmer. Her face is long, with a wide mouth
that naturally settles into a disapproving frown. She can, however,
with very little effort, twitch into a condescending sneer. Back when
I first knew her – when we were students – she often found it
necessary to make that effort. She held her head in such a way that
she could look down along her long, thin nose on you, regardless of
your height, with unspoken contempt in her green eyes half hidden
under lazy eyelids. Now, as then, she wore her chestnut colored hair
very short. In her youth she could, and often did, dress and pass
herself off as a boy, despite the fact that she holds male sex in
contempt. Or perhaps because she does. By passing herself as a boy
she may've been trying to show us what we should strive to be, given
the possibilities of our sex. All in all, many people found her to be
unpleasant and uncomfortable company. And yet, when she laughs, or
even smiles, she's almost pretty – confidential, rather than
condescending. She rarely smiles and hardly ever laughs.
Still, I've seen more than my share of those rare smiles and laughs,
for as I said, she was my best friend throughout my university years.
There were even a couple of years back then, when I was in love with
her. Blame it on my youth.
I came to my senses. 'Come in, sit down… What am I thinking of?' I
said, drawing her in to my new office.
'I have no idea. However, having found you, I shall now return to my
room to sleep. It was a rough night passage from Litabay – no sleep
at all. No sleep either on the rail carriages from Southarbor. I've
taken a room at the Station Hotel. Hire some horses and pick me up
there at four. We can ride out into the countryside and dine at one
of the outlying inns.'
'I won't hear of that. I've a spare room in my digs. Let's get your
bags. You'll stay with me.'
She shook her head. 'No. We must think of your new career. Your new
colleagues will be watching you. You must choose your friends wisely.
I'm not a wise choice…'
'Bosh!'
'Trust me. There are important people in the University who will
remember me…'
'True, but they also remembered me as your boyfriend. That didn't
seem to matter.'
'I'm sure they're hoping Sunset has knocked the foolishness out of
you. You mustn't disillusion them. We'll ride in the countryside
where we can talk freely without covert glances and wagging tongues.'
I didn't think she was right, but I wasn't going to win the argument.
I never did. 'Well, we needn't hire horses. I have a new
three-wheeler. We can take it on a long drive and dine far from the
gossips. I'll pick you up at the station entrance.'
'A runabout? Was that mystery find of yours a King's Talisman that
you can afford a runabout?'
'I'll tell you all about that find as we drive. It is the better part
of seven years of unspent wages that allow me to purchase a small
runabout, a Gough and Hardinge Four.'
' Did you go native and live off a game in log huts?'
'Mostly I lived in tents. However, the Institute provides all the
necessities while you're in the field, so as long as you keep to the
field and didn't gamble or keep an expensive mistress, you needn't
touch your salary to live. I kept to the field. And now, with a free
summer and a great deal of leave owed to me, I felt a GH 4 would
allow me to get reacquainted with…'
'Civilization'
'Camalea, in any event.'
'Can you pilot a runabout?'
'I'm learning. It's not hard.'
'Never mind, I can. The station courtyard at four,' she said, and
turned to go.
'Wait, let me get my hat (it had fallen on the floor) I'll walk you
back to the station.'
She glanced back to serve me one of her sneers. 'Did nothing I said
about gossips penetrate?'
I sighed. 'You're wrong. But we won't argue. At four then.'
She nodded, and slipped into the dark corridor. I stepped to the
doorway to watch her walk down the dim lit corridor and disappear
down the stairwell. Seven years and it seemed that nothing had
changed. I was rather happy.
02
Baroness Roudorn selected me as her boyfriend five days after we had
arrived at Wayscross for our first term. We both had digs in
Tungstand Hall. She came to the univeristy to study economic history
and I, arcaneology. I'd like to think that her interest in the
economics of the Third Age (a field study that she was inventing),
and mine in the arcane remains of the Three Lost Ages was the
deciding factor, but I've never summoned the courage to ask her. I
had a feeling, and still do, that her reasons, if she had any at all,
were not very flattering, given the fact that she never made any
secret of her tastes in lovers. She'd openly walk arm in arm, hand in
hand with her girlfriends, her “sisters”, as she called them,
regardless of how she dressed for the day – as a girl or as a boy.
She once said that she needed n official boyfriend to give the
masters of the University some small comfort – they could, if they
cared to, dismiss the obvious by saying, “Be that as it may, she
does have a boyfriend, you know, so...” Of course the fact that she
was a young Avadorian Baroness may also have defused any scandal.
Avadore Provence aristocracy are notorious for their free and easy
ways in such matters so the young Baroness' flaunting of conventions
could be viewed as merely the youthful indulgence of a headstrong,
rebellious girl – a phase that would pass in time. The former
may've been true, the later almost certainly wasn't. Unless she had
changed in these seven years.
Still, somehow, despite my figurehead status, we grew close. With our
shared interest in the Lost Ages, in their artifacts and what history
could be pried out of dusty volumes written in Sumbarian, we grew to
be in fact, the best of friends. I knew her only as a boy. A
carefree, mischievous boy, who, with the self-assurance of an
Avadorian Baroness – maintained that the rules simply didn't apply
to her. She carried me off on many an ill-advised adventure during
our five years at Wayscross. Art galleries were far more enjoyable
when you had them to yourself – at midnight. The museums so much
more interesting when you could rummage through their basement
storage rooms, after closing hours. The dockland dives of Southarbor,
offered far more authentic dinja music than anywhere else. Their
questionable clientele merely added the spice that the music needed
to be fully appreciated. Or so she claimed. To this day I never hear
dinja music without a shiver snaking up my spine.
There was also a bright, far less risky side to being her pal – an
idyllic month of deep summer spent in the heart of Avadore Province
on her estate of Hayvale. Hayvale, as estates go, is quite small –
little more than a large farm, a small village, and lots of wooded
hills. But the great house was old and imposing, her father, Allader
Bedoux, the Baron Roudorn, a great but kindly, man, and her
step-mother, Contraina, a pleasant down to earth woman who was also a
most marvelous cook and the author of several highly regarded cook
books. The Baron is a famed economist, a schoolmate and close friend
of the Grand Duke of Avadore, Lord Brydane. He's as settled and
serene as his daughter is (or at least, was) wild and untamed. She,
I'm given to understand, was much like her mother at her age. She
died in a riding accident when Ashra was twelve years old. Two years
later the Baron married Contraina, who, even as the wife of a Baron,
takes a hands-on approach to preparing the meals at Hayvale. To
Ashra's great credit, and to everyone's surprise, she accepted her
step-mother without a fuss. It may've been due to the fact that
Cantraina was content to be the Baron's wife, and not his daughter's
mother. Or it may've been her cooking…. In any event, each summer
I'd spend a month roaming the countryside with Ashra, ridding,
hiking, swimming, and touring the province on horse back. I also fell
in love with her in Hayvale, adopting, for a time, the old masters'
belief that her taste in companions was just a passing fancy, as it
had seemed to be with her mother.
It took me two years to realize that wasn't the case. She made it
clear that she had no more desire to make love to a boy than I had –
she hoped. I guess it made sense, she was a boy at heart, and will
likely always be a boy at heart – a boy, but never a man. Our
friendship survived the crisis, but with no ties to bind us together
once we finished our studies, we parted ways, I for the great
continent of Sunset, to make my name digging in the ash and dirt for
the rusty fragments of the Lost Ages, and she to a post in the
Avadore Ministry of Trade. And though we have kept in touch over the
years with long, but infrequent letters, it can not overlooked how
far apart we've been these years. While I find that she's still as
dear to me as she had been, I must wait to see how life had changed
her – and me in her eyes.
03
Wayscross Rail Carriage Station and Hotel is a grey stone building,
built in perpendicular style with five stacks of bowed out windows on
either side of the wide entry arch rising four stories to dormers in
the steep-pitched roof. The central entry arch leads to the glass
roofed platforms, with a buffet and shops on the left, and the hotel
dinning room on the right. It has a busy stone paved courtyard in
front where passengers and goods are dropped off or picked up.
Arriving a bit early, I cautiously edged my runabout into the fringe
of the busy courtyard – crowded with electric and horse-drawn cabs,
delivery lorries, wagons and people, recklessly dodging the carts and
cabs. A GH 4 is a light, low-slung vehicle, two wheels forward, one
in back chain-driven by a voltaic-cell powered engine. From my low
slung seat, I could look up and see the bellies of the draft horses
staring down at me with suspicion, if not ill-concealed hostility. I
took their warning to heart and declined to press my luck by pushing
too deep into this throng.
I was greatly relieved when I spied Ash, impeccably dressed, emerge
from shadows of the station arches. She was an elegant young man this
afternoon – brown and white shoes, white twill trousers with a
matching jacket, unbuttoned to show a bright yellow and blue stripped
sweater over a pale blue shirt with a yellow silk scarf under the
stand up collar around her neck. She had added a large pair of amber
framed and tinted glasses to her look and finished it with a flat cap
set at a rakish angle. Spying me, she picked her way though the
throng, with a haughty look of disdain on her aristocratic face.
'Slide over, I'll drive,' she said as she reached the runabout.
'I can manage.'
'I'm sure you can. Still, I'll drive. We don't have all afternoon.
Move.'
I could spend the rest of the afternoon arguing with her, and she's
still end up driving, so I moved, sliding over to the passenger side
of the narrow seat. She swung her leg over the low side panel of the
runabout and as she slipped down into the seat, she drew the other
one in. Taking the wheel in hand, she threw the runabout in reverse
and twisting about started it moving decisively backwards. And with a
few sharp warnings to unwary pedestrians, quickly extricated us from
the courtyard and out into the stream of High Street traffic. I half
turned in the cramped, or rather cozy seat, and took Ash in.
'You realize, my dear Ash,' I said as we drifted along in the mixed
horse and electric traffic of the stone paved High Street. 'That if
any of those people I'm supposed to avoid while in the company of
Baroness Roudorn should happen to see me driving out with the foppish
young man you're playing this afternoon, it will not do my reputation
any more good than seeing you as you were this morning.'
'You're wrong. It will do you a great deal of good. Oh, I suppose
that if some of your new bachelor scholar colleagues catch sight of
you driving out with a bright young man like me they may be madly
jealous. However, they'll get over it soon or later, and when they
do, I'm sure you'll find them ever so nice and chummy.'
'They're not like that at all…'
'Ha! Wait and see… You'll be one of the old boys in no time.
'I don't want to be one of the old boys.'
'That's your choice. I'm just doing what I can to help you
comfortably settle in to the cozy Wayscross academic society and make
new friends.'
'You're not. You're merely having fun. At my expense. Hopefully no
one will notice, and if they do, they won't recognize me.'
'They're noticing me,' she replied brightly, and flashed me one of
her rare smiles. 'Where to?'
'Since you commandeered the wheel, so I guess it's your choice. You
know the countryside as well as I.'
She considered our options as we left the busy High Street behind for
the long, terrace house lined, tree shaded streets, of Wayscross's
residential environs. 'The Angler's Rest?'
'Dinning in the garden along the Rhym sounds like just the ticket on
a day like this. Plus it's far enough away that we're unlikely to run
into anyone from the University on a weekday evening,' I added.
Five minutes later we put the row houses behind us and drove through
hedge boarded cottages until even they grew thinner on the ground,
leaving us only with the hedges. The white road stretched ahead of
us, bordered by tall dark green hedges that hid the countryside
beyond them from view, leaving us in a world of sunlit tree tops of
distant woods, the pale blue sky, the bright white clouds, their flat
bottoms silver grey as they sailed the sky, the purring of the wheels
and the songs of the birds. On reaching the crest of a hill, we were
rewarded with a brief glimpse of the next valley and the next hill
beyond, hazy in the mild May sunlight and soft with distance.
Occasionally the road would take us past or through the cool shadows
of a woods, fresh with new leaves. Behind us, we left a thin cloud of
white concrete and chalk dust – the main roads of Camalea are paved
with concrete gravel excavated from dead cities – the ground up
bones of the Lost Ages.
'How fast does your new toy go?' she asked, accelerated to answer her
own question.
'They say it has a top speed of 30 to 35 miles per hour. But unless
you want to walk home from The Angler's Rest tonight, you'd best keep
it at 20.'
'Not much better than walking…'
'A great deal better than walking. You can put 200 miles on without
charging, if you keep it at 20. And it will get you home.'
'The Angler's Rest isn't more than 25 miles…'
'Are you in such a great hurry to eat, my dear?' I asked, staring at
the road ahead as the hedges started flashing by with rather alarming
rapidity. I'd traveled this fast before, on the carriageline of
course, and in bigger, more substantial vehicles of the Baron's as
well – with Ash at the wheel. We hadn't ended up dead in a ditch.
But it had always seemed rather touch and go. More touch and go than
I'd prefer. It still did.
She sighed and slowed down – after having shoved the accelerator
pedal to the floor board. As we drifted down to 20, she asked, 'Now
tell me about your great find. The one you alluded to in your last
letter from Sunset. Reading between the lines it sounded like you'd
found an Iron Giant or a King's Relic, or even, working wizard's
talisman? It has be one of those, given your great reluctance to say
anything more than tantalizing hints about it.'
'Well, I didn't want to say too much until we had secured it. In the
wilds of Sunset, you can't be sure what your rivals will do for a
possibly intact First Age relic.'
'That's what you found?'
'Ash, this must stay strictly between us. Even though the relic is
here in the Institute’s Wayscross warehouse, we don't want word to
get out.. You know how it is. Find something too important and
certain people get interested….'
'Like the King.'
'Like the King. Right now, it certainly doesn't meet the King's Find
criteria. But it's hard to defy the King if he or his agents should
take an interest in it, so it's better to keep things quiet for now.'
'We're all the King's men,' she said sarcastically.
'Right. And it will be his if it is his by right,' I replied. The
kings of the 19 Provence of Andareia have laid claim to any working
Lost Age relic or magical device that should be uncovered. It is
extremely unlikely than any such relics or devices exist, since the
First Age, known in myths and folklore as the Age of Iron Gods lies
some 40,000 years in the past and the Second Age, the Age of Iron
Wizards, lies more than 35,000 years in the past. I've spent more
than a decade studying the science of arcaneology, and for the last
seven years overseeing arcaneology digs on First and Second Age sites
in Sunset, and so can say with a fair amount of certainly that
finding anything more than crumpled, corroded metal amongst rubble
fields of concrete or patters of rust and impressions of decayed
components in the ash is an extremely rare occurrence. That I chanced
upon one artifact that may be at least partially intact, was the
break of a lifetime, my ticket to, if not fame, notoriety within the
arcaneolgist community.
'So what is it you've found that you are hiding from the King?' she
asked with a sidelong glance. 'You secret is safe with me.'
'I don't know. And may never know. But what makes it so special is
that the vast majority of First Age finds, the metal appears to be
largely free of corrosion. Rather than trying to reconstruct an
artifact from the patters and layers of rust in the ash, we may have
the artifact complete. And, if the metal enclosures are intact, we
may be able to study the so-called talismanic parts of a First Age
relic.'
'How can you be sure it's not just some Third Age machine? If it is
intact, that would seem to be the most likely explanation.'
I shook my head, 'No, it is embedded deep in Fist Age ash. I suspect
that it has been buried under the glaciers, frozen in permafrost
these many eons, to have preserved it so well.'
The Third Age peaked a mere 2,000 years ago, and we are still living
in its embers. There are those who claim that Andareia is the
beginning of the Fourth Age, but in reality, we are, at best, Third
Age point five, or the Northern Third Age. The Third Age was a
southern and eastern continent phenomena, and what is not Andareia
was an agricultural colony of the vast Sumbarain Empire, one of the
great powers of the Third Age. The Sumbarian Empire has long since
decayed into dozens of small, sleepy, agricultural based, nations,
like Sumbara itself, much of its Third Age scientific and industrial
wonders lost.
'So how did you come across it?'
'Luck mostly.
