The tier five spell in the inscription was some sort of crafting spell. Irene took copious notes on it, including trying to exactly copy the complex final image. The symbol that Irene believed represented the tool wasn’t one she recognized. It was similar to the smelter symbol, but not exactly the same.
A tier five crafting spell meant she was back to her original theory that there was content that was ‘left over’ from previous occupants. She was moving away from that theory with her new one about inscription tiers in certain zones. This gallery was deep. It was possible no human came this far down before. Perhaps there was some truth in both theories.
If there wasn’t she was left with the hint that there was a tier five crafter running around who specialized in a craft that was related to metalworking. Maybe. Probably someone with green magic, since both the spell in the pond and this one were from the force tree. She didn’t know what to do with that. The only green magic user she had met was an archer.
Irene hefted her full pack and stepped out into the courtyard. It was about two months since she found that spell hint. Ian was away again. He said something about ‘checking on developments’. She decided to use the time he was gone to travel north and check some of the closest greens for new squares.
She stepped out into the courtyard to find Jake walking toward her carrying a toddler.
“Good morning,” she called to him. He paused and shifted the toddler. His movements revealed his love and pride in the child.
“Good morning. Where are you heading?” Jake asked politely.
“North,” Irene said. “I plan to do a quick survey of the next green. Who is this delightful one?” she asked, reaching out to play with the toddler.
“This is my son, Tyler,” Jake said. “He is my youngest.” Irene smiled at the baby. She wondered if this baby was born before or after Irene joined Redfalls. Sophia was very rarely in the square. Irene didn’t remember Sophia being pregnant. The child didn’t remind Irene of Jake at all. His overly large eyes reminded her of Ian. She shook that impression away. All babies had large eyes.
“How many children do you have?” Irene asked.
“Four,” Jake said. “Tyler here is my only son. I haven’t lost any. I’m happy I got the implant on the Speedwell. In the struggle of those early years we were spared the trauma of having to watch our children die.”
“How long did it last for you?” Irene asked.
“At least the three years the technician promised,” Jake responded. “Sophia's first pregnancy was in the fourth year.”
“Where is Sophia?” Irene asked.
“She is at the border. We have a nanny to watch the children when we are away,” Jake explained. He shot a quick glance over at the ever smaller protection crystal. “I’ve been more worried lately and decided to come check on them.” Irene looked over at the crystal herself.
“I’m going up to the next greens to see if any new squares have developed up there,” Irene explained.
“I escorted most of the dependent groups,” Jake told Irene. “I know the route back to Chicago like the back of my hand. I’ll take the children back there to regroup if the worst happens.”
“Good,” Irene said to him. “I’m glad you’ve thought about it. Sometimes I think I am the only one who worries.” Jake tilted his head at her, as if something she said puzzled him.
“I’ve always gotten the impression you aren’t worried at all,” Jake said. “You never worry about the blues.”
“Of course I’m worried about the blues,” Irene said. “I’m also worried about the reds.” Irene waved at the crystal. “Even Control doesn’t approve of our war. A migration though this square will be far more devastating than anything seen so far. If we don’t stop killing each other, that is where we are headed.”
“You think the crystal is shrinking because of the fighting?” Jake asked.
“Yes,” Irene said sharply. “The crystals at Londontown and Paris are also shrinking. Londontown’s crystal went years with no change, it didn’t start shrinking until the fighting started.”
“Does Ian know?” Jake asked.
“Of course,” Irene said. In a lowered voice Irene said, “My brother Christopher in Londontown told me before his death, so they know too. I never understood what the point of all this violence is. What exactly are we trying to win? So far all I have seen is loss.” Irene shook her head in disgust and walked away in the direction of the back door. Tyler was a little upset by Irene’s sharp words. Jake jiggled him until the baby was happy again.
Jake never understood Irene. She was always so disconnected. He heard her little speeches about how they were all children of Earth and how they should work together against the structure. He always experienced a visceral rage reaction to her suggestion they just give up on their dead. He lost a lot of good friends to the blues. He told himself she was just weak because of her family in Londontown. He never spread that information, but it was there at the back of his mind.
His son smiled up at him and said, “Da, da.”
“That’s right, by big boy,” Jake said. “I am your Dada.” The boy giggled and reached for one of the shining brass studs on Jake's armor. The thought of the child facing a migration horrified him. What were they fighting for? Sophia and Ian were fighting for the right to rule. At one time Jake wholeheartedly agreed with them. Somewhere along the way his priorities changed. Did it matter to Tyler if Darien ruled Chicago? Did it matter to the boy if the queen ruled Londontown?
It would definitely matter if a migration hit the square. Jake cuddled his son close, as he watched Irene leave out the back door, off on her search to find a new home for the people of Redfalls. It was her attempt to do something. Jake needed to do something too. He decided he wouldn’t head back to the border. Instead he would start getting organized for a forced march back to Chicago, or to Irene’s new square, if she found one.
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Irene cast her cloaking spells and moved north at a fast pace. The conversation with Jake left her unsettled. Jake would have been surprised that it wasn’t the talk of war that shook her, but his description of his fertility implant failing at year three. Before her final exit from the Speedwell, she went up to the medical center and got a fresh fertility implant. Counting on her fingers she was pretty certain that was close to three years ago.
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With her active sex life with Ian, she was very likely to be pregnant within the year. She was thirty three years old and never seriously considered having a child. With the nanobots in her blood she didn’t think she would face any of the age related risks of pregnancy. That was some solace. Pregnant women in the structure didn’t gain extra weight or retain water. They only started showing their pregnancies late. Labor was short and any damage healed quickly within a day or two.
If a woman stayed active, like Sophia did, pregnancy became even less noticeable. That was why Irene didn’t know if Tyler was born before or after Irene arrived at the square. Irene was horrible at judging the age of children, having none of her own for comparison.
It took Irene about a week to reach her targeted green. By the time she reached it she came to terms with her approaching motherhood. She would give up traveling and do her best to give her baby a happy childhood. She would teach her little girl or boy everything she knew about engineering and magic. Perhaps when they were older, she would even take them out to the Speedwell so they could learn from the educational machines there. In her daydreams her child looked remarkably like Jake’s little boy. Irene decided that was just because Tyler was the last baby she saw and his image was in her mind. She couldn’t even recall what Sharl’s Bethany looked like, except for a generic ‘baby’.
She came out onto the green in the southeast corner. She breathed the plant scented air of the greenspace and felt her spirits lift. This war wouldn’t last. Even if the Redfalls crystal vanished, Irene and Ian could find another square. There was always Moscow in the far north. Maybe they could follow Mary’s expedition into the unknown beyond. Irene could take up a craft while caring for her child. As she traveled north along the eastern edge of the green, looking for any sign of a square, she amused herself by thinking about which craft she should try.
Her notes from The Heights were enough to get started as a tailor. She suspected many of the same spells Tom told her would work for leatherwork. She already knew how to tan skins so perhaps that was what she should do. She knew her notes on smelting were enough to get started on metalwork. She wondered if Mary ever found an anvil to try making door wedges and vent pins. Irene knew the least about woodworking. She needed to check back with the woman in Redfalls she tried to get started in the field. The fact that she knew the least about the craft sort of drew Irene to it. She knew that you could make furniture with wood, perhaps she could set up a shop selling furniture again.
A bear emerged from the underbrush, pushing his way south. Irene froze. She was under her full set of cloaking spells; camouflage, muffle, scent masking, cloak heat. She usually didn’t bother with the last two in the halls. Boars hunted by scent, so she added that when touring greens. She used cloak heat mostly at night, when animals that hunted in the dark were out. She cast it here because of the dark shadows under some of the trees. She wasn’t certain how bears tracked their prey.
She remained where she was when the bear appeared and waited. She would kill it if she was forced to. She developed an aversion to selling the leather made from their hides after seeing that hardened leather armor on the dead warrior at Londontown’s back door. She found the animals challenging at tier three. She hadn’t killed many since she reached tier four.
The bear wandered by. It didn’t give any indication it sensed her. She moved on. She saw a bear or two on her last visit to this green. It was an indication that the structure did get harder to the north, but the transition to harder animals was much slower than to the south.
She passed two green entrances on the east wall, but no squares, before reaching the north wall. She turned west to follow it. She spent the night in a tree, using her rope to secure herself and her belongings as she slept.
She killed a squirrel in the night that managed to find her in the tree. She skinned it in the morning and roasted it for breakfast. She added fresh fruit collected from a nearby bush. As she traveled west, she filled one of her gathering bags with fruit and another with tubers. She knew she was lingering in the Green when she barely reached the western wall by nightfall. She roasted her tubers for dinner and snacked on the green leaves of a lettuce plant. She was near another exit from the green, but she chose to climb a tree for the night.
Although her sleep was always more interrupted by animals in a tree, she preferred it to staying in secured rooms. There was something about being high up and seeing danger coming, that soothed her. When she stayed alone in a secured room, she was forced to blindly open the door the next morning. Nine times out of ten there was something waiting for her.
It was still early in the day when she found the square. It was in the southwest corner of the green. Its entrance was even with the green’s floor, which made its appearance identical to Londontown. Entering the square, Irene found a square that was a mirror image of Londontown. The training yards opened on the right to the courtyard. The darkened shops around the courtyard didn’t even look odd to Irene after seeing the same in Redfalls. The ceiling was high overhead, displaying a large number of balconies from apartments above.
It was a large square, bigger than Redfalls. There was no hint of dirt or dust on anything. Floating high above the courtyard was a crystal. It was high enough up that Irene found its size difficult to judge. She would need a ladder to reach it. It looked like it was about sixteen inches in height and a foot in diameter. That would put it near the size Ellen described the Redfalls crystal being upon its discovery.
The elevation of the crystals in squares varied just as their size did. She hadn’t seen a crystal this high before. If you were the first person to touch a crystal in a rest it gave a discovery payout. Irene assumed the same thing was true of square crystals. Looking up at the high crystal she wondered if it didn’t do something else. That high elevation made her think the crystal was telling her, ‘Don’t touch me unless you really mean it.’ Perhaps no one should touch it until the fighting was done.
With that thought in mind, Irene retraced her steps into the green. She turned the corner and headed back to the entrance she entered the green by. She picked up her pace. She wanted to get back to Redfalls and discuss this discovery with Ian. Hopefully he was back from ‘checking developments’ by now.
She made the return trip faster than the trip out since she was motivated now. She arrived at Redfalls to find Ian not back yet. It took her some time, but she tracked down Jake in an upper apartment.
Following her directions she knocked on an apartment door. A woman she did not recognize opened the door. A rather large number of children were running around the apartment behind her.
“Is Jake here?” she asked.
“Just a second,” the woman replied, she carefully closed the door to keep a crawling infant from escaping the apartment, leaving Irene waiting in the hall. Only a moment or two later, Jake opened the door and joined Irene in the hall, closing the door on the chaos inside.
“Irene, this is a surprise. What can I do for you?”
“I thought you said you had four children,” Irene couldn’t stop herself from commenting.
“They aren’t all mine,” Jake responded. “This is our nanny’s place.”
“Oh,” Irene replied. Not having children obviously left her ignorant about how parenting was handled in the structure. “I wanted to tell you that I found a new square,” Irene said. “It’s in the southwest corner of a green north of here. It took me a week to get there, so I don’t think a large group could make it in under two.”
“Did you tell Ian?” Jake asked.
“Not yet,” Irene said. “I will when he gets back. I don’t know how long a square lasts if it isn’t settled. I found a prospective square a few years ago on a ruined green. It was gone when I went looking for it more recently. This square has a crystal, so I would think it would last longer. Perhaps we don’t want to settle it too soon.”
“Why?” Jake asked.
“If we settle it with the war still on, its crystal might start shrinking too,” Irene explained.