> I’m sure it will come as no surprise to most when I say that we saw wonders during our time at the Sanctum. Such things are to be expected in the abode of a vinesavai. Finding out that I had mistakenly used a priceless artifact as a plate several days prior, however - I will freely admit that it caught me a bit unprepared.
>
> - Tasjadre Ra Novo, Jesa Sagoja: Zhetam Asade
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Inhale, exhale. Jesse sat in a corner of the vast control room with his back against the window, listening to the roar of the waterfall through the glass. Goresje’s bared sword rested across his lap. One hand lay lightly on its hilt, and in the other he held the asolan. The coin emitted a soft warmth, and as he let that hand touch the cool flat of the blade Jesse had the odd impression of heat passing through his hand towards the metal.
Inhale, exhale. His mind wouldn’t settle. Holding the sword unnerved him, a primal itch of fear that told him to take his hand away from its grip. Jesse’s memories of the escape from Sjatel were hazy - an impression of noise, terror, dust, then a blinding burst of light. Bitter and black cold gnawing up his arm. Then nothing.
Inhale, exhale. He forced himself to grasp the sword firmly, feeling his skin press into contact with it. There was no lightning here, no danger. The sword had not harmed him in the days leading up to the attack at Sjatel despite repeated usage and training. There was no reason to fear it now.
Inhale, exhale. It was an effort keeping his hand from unclenching. He didn’t believe his own lie, the sword was different compared to before. It was seething, dynamic under its still exterior like the metal hid a raging glacial river within - cold, always cold. The slow chill crept into his hands where he touched it, seeped into his thighs where it lay across his legs. Only the warmth of the asolan stemmed its spread. He could actually feel it pulsing out from his hand, rushing to confront the advancing frost.
It wasn’t entirely successful, however. He forced himself to remain still as tendrils of ice seemed to snake through his veins, coiling around the bones of his right arm. There was a purposeful nature to their movement, guidance and direction that was not his own. They looped, twisted, pulled tight.
Jesse opened his eyes.
He was in the room once more, sitting on the bed with the sword across his lap. It was dimly-lit this time, a few qim burning in strands near the head of the bed. The window was tightly shut and the shade drawn, heavy wooden blackout slats that formed a solid barrier over the opening.
“Hello, Jesse,” the bright-eyed woman said, stepping out from a patch of shadow in the corner. She smiled at him, but there was a tired, drawn aspect to her appearance. “I didn’t expect you to take up the sword again so quickly.”
Jesse shook his head, laying it aside on the bed. “Neither did I,” he said. “Hello… should I call you Maja?”
Her smile wavered a bit, and she sat down beside him. “It doesn’t feel quite right,” she said. “That’s not my name.” She laughed softly. “Maybe I don’t have one yet, like the Aesvain. But… no, ‘Maja’ wouldn’t be right. Whatever I may have started with, it was just a seed. You gave far more. If I’m anyone, I am you. Your name would be more appropriate than hers.”
“That’s not going to work,” he said, smiling at her. “It’s too confusing. Jessica?”
She made a face, and Jesse laughed. “Yeah, I’m not a fan either. Heard that joke one too many times on the playground. How about just Jes?”
“Jes… works,” she said, smiling back. “It’s a part of you, but not all. I think that fits a bit better.” Her eyes flicked past him for a moment, then returned. “How are you feeling?”
Jesse raised an eyebrow. “You can’t tell?” he asked.
“It’s polite to ask,” she retorted. “There’s no point to having a conversation if I’m just reading your end of it. And yes, while I can see most everything - there’s no focus, definition, contrast. It’s just everything. Which parts of it you choose to say, how you say it, why you say it - that’s much more important.”
“Then I feel fine,” Jesse said. “How are you holding up? You look a bit tired.” Her smile faltered a bit, and her eyes darted past him once more. Jesse frowned and turned to look towards the window, finding nothing there. “Is something wrong?” he asked.
“It’s fine,” she said. “It doesn’t seem to affect you the same way, but for me being here in the Sanctum is… overstimulating.”
A thin flicker of light slipped through the cracks in the shade, drawing Jesse’s eye. He got up and walked closer, examining the window. Behind him, he heard Jes get up and walk to the back of the room.
“You can open it,” she said, resignation in her voice. “Just… lower the shade when you’re done. I don’t like looking at it.”
Jesse pulled on the shade, and as the slats began to rise streams of harsh light flowed between them. The air outside was hot, stifling. His eyes watered with the sudden intensity of it, but he kept pulling until the view was clear.
There was no harbor, no Ce Raedhil past or present spread before him. There was no sky overhead. The window looked out to a vast abyss that stretched interminably away - but it was not an empty void. Vast, glittering pillars of light stretched up and down to infinity, while rivers of fire wove between them in intricate flows that shifted from moment to moment. A web of rippling lightning spread high overhead, flowing in ceaseless torrents that split and merged, churned and roiled.
It was hypnotic, dizzying. Space stretched away into too many directions, angles and curves that his mind refused to recognize. Jesse’s eyes blurred as he looked at it. A wave of vertigo crashed into him and he gripped the sill to keep from toppling over. Blindly, he fumbled for the shade, finding it only when cool fingers twined with his own and guided his hand to the cord. Jes helped him lower it once more and guided him back to the bed.
“I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have suggested that you look,” she apologized, helping him sit. “You didn’t notice it at all before, so I didn’t think it would affect you that strongly.”
“What is that?” he gasped, rubbing at his eyes. They stung like he had been staring into the sun, and he felt the beginnings of a headache spiking through his temples. His hand came away from his face smeared with blood, and Jes handed him a cloth - tears of blood trickled from his eyes, wetting his cheeks and dropping onto the bedspread. He blotted at them with the cloth, heart still pounding from what he had seen.
“In the short time since my birth, I’ve seen many things,” Jes said quietly. “I saw what lurks inside the silent ones, the wrath that drives them. I’ve seen the cold halls within the sword.” She looked back towards the window and shivered. “I was scared, diminished in their presence. But I have never felt terror as I did when I regained myself after Sjatel and awoke within Maja. Naked, screaming, exposed beneath that.”
Her lip quavered, and she shook her head. “I know that you and your friends see Maja as a machine, like something from your home. She may be that, on some level.” Jes looked him in the eye, and her voice went hard. “But machine or not, Jesse, it doesn’t change what she is. She’s powerful. The Sjocelym were not wrong to treat her as a god, even if they didn’t understand her.”
Jesse nodded dazedly, taken aback by the passion in her voice. “Do you think we’re in danger?” he asked.
She hesitated before speaking. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “Maja is powerful, but so is what comes for us from Asu Saqarid. She may be the only option available.” Jes paused again, looking toward the window. “And she did save our lives, back in Sjatel.”
“Wait, what?” Jesse said, blinking. “When did she do that?”
“When you used the sword at the gateway,” she replied. “You raised it up, you told me to pay the price. I did.” She looked askance at the sword where it lay on the blood-spattered bedcover. The drops that had fallen on it had turned to rust-red powder. “It ate us, Jesse. I could feel it drinking up everything that we were, but just before we were extinguished Maja gave it the balance of what we owed. Sated it so that we weren’t entirely consumed.”
The sensation of black cold creeping up his arm returned, and Jesse shivered. “That seems like a friendly act to me,” he said.
Jes shook her head emphatically. “You can’t force her into labels like that,” she said. “Maja is too much for words. Something as simple as ‘friendly’ or ‘hostile’ can’t describe her thoughts.” She grabbed Jesse’s hand, heedless of the blood still smearing his fingers. “I am mostly like you, partly like her. You should not think of her the same way you think of me. She is timeless and vast, and despite her human mask she resembles you very little.”
“So you think we shouldn’t help her lift the limitations?” Jesse asked.
“As I said, you may not have a choice,” she replied. She placed her hands on either side of his head, and as Jesse blinked away the last of the blurriness he saw that her eyes were shining. “Just remember the words at the heart of my soul. The barred door is both obstacle and protection.”
She leaned in and kissed his forehead gently. “Open them with care, Jesse.”
Jesse’s eyes snapped open to find Jackie and Gusje staring at him, hovering uncertainly near where he sat. Gusje was staring wide-eyed at him.
“Jesse!” Jackie said, looking relieved. “Oh, good, I was just about to run and get the others. Are you okay?”
He nodded and rose to his feet, feeling incredibly stiff. “I’m fine,” he replied.
Gusje gave him a skeptical look. “You’re sure?” she asked. “Maybe you’ve learned that word wrong, because I normally wouldn’t use it to describe bleeding from the eyes.”
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Jesse turned to her in puzzlement, swiping a hand across his cheek. His fingers came away stained with bloody tears.
“Oh, huh,” he said. “That’s just - um.” He scratched his head. “It’s going to take some time to explain it all.”
Jackie walked up and put her hands on his shoulders, gently pushing him back to a seated position. “Jesse. You just went into a magic sword trance and started crying blood,” she said flatly. “Tell us what’s up. We will make time.”
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It was late in the day before Jyte finally called a halt to the flow of refugees trudging down to the valley. They weren’t finished, not by a long shot, but the elevator could only hold so many at a time as it whisked them down to the facility’s lower levels. Still, more than half of the refugees had been able to make the trip to the meadow before the dimming light made the lakeside path unreasonably treacherous.
Jesse was sleeping fitfully near the dais under Jackie’s watchful eye. His adrenaline from the intense conversation with Jes had quickly faded to fatigue, and he had dozed off well before the sun set.
A distant clatter heralded Arjun’s arrival from the elevator, followed by a squad of exhausted-looking halberdiers that were carrying pieces of the truck’s solar charging array. Arjun carefully replaced the severed hand near the central pillar - as the elevator was only part of the trip between levels that required constant authentication, they had taken to keeping the hand near the activation pillar. He looked around the room until he spotted Mark huddled together with Jyte and Ajehet, beelining toward them with their gateway’s power crystal in hand.
“We weren’t able to finish charging the gate’s crystal with the light we had left,” Arjun scowled, eyeing the softly glowing prism with a critical eye. He set it down on the table they were using as a makeshift war-room. “Based on the color I would say we’re more than halfway, though. If we manually adjust the angle of the panels throughout the morning I think we can have it done by noon or so.”
Mark nodded. “Okay, that’s our outbound leg. What about return?”
“We’ve got the option of leaving the doorway open,” Ajehet pointed out. “Last two times it’d only closed when the keystone was gone. Might be we’ve got enough time not to worry about it.”
“Yeah, I don’t like that,” Mark said, frowning. “We don’t know enough about how these gateways work to count on it staying open.”
“Your charging panels have fit through the gateway before,” Jyte pointed out. “Why not just take some through? If the doorway closes we can charge the far side’s crystal and make our return.”
“If there’s enough daylight, if the skies are clear,” Mark countered. “If the outside isn’t crawling with zombies. I’m not sure what the situation on the ground is over there, but I get the feeling we’ll be happier if we keep indoors. Not to mention, we’ve already seen the trick where a magical storm blots out the sun.” He shook his head, leaning on the table. “We can’t assume the chargers will work.”
“The alternative is nothing,” Jyte noted wryly, “which is even less useful. We’ve not got a spare crystal that we can prepare ahead of time.”
“But we do have Gusje’s crystals,” Arjun mused. “Let me grab Tesu, I’ll see if there’s a way to transfer the charge between them. If there is, you can simply take a bag of charged gauntlet crystals and use them to quickly power the gateway for a return.”
“If you can get him to respond, ask him about the transcription problem!” Jackie shouted.
Arjun waved in acknowledgement, walking over to where the scriptsmith was staring transfixed at Maja’s frozen, luminous figure. Mark shot Jackie a questioning look.
“Transcription problem?” he asked.
She walked over, flashing a smile at the two Aesvain. “Something Tasja mentioned earlier,” she said. “He said that scriptsmiths can read the inscriptions on saon draim even if the text is too small to be seen. That implies that they have tools that interact with the script on other items.”
“That’s cool?” Mark said, sounding puzzled. “I thought you and Arjun looked at some of Maja’s script earlier, when we went up to start moving the refugees. You said it was small, but not too small to read. Why do we need a tool like that?”
“Because - look, we’re after a single line of script from Tija, right?” she asked. “One line. Do you know what else we found when we looked at the script? There’s tons of it. All of those spaces that we couldn’t figure out the purpose of, the hallways that lead nowhere and rooms that fold in on themselves - they’re just there to provide more surface area for her script, like the folds in your brain. I don’t know exactly how much we’re talking about here, but I’m guessing it’s on the order of several square kilometers of dense text.”
“Damn, that’s going to make finding it next to impossible,” Mark muttered. “I was hoping we could be in and out in a couple of hours, tops. We know Tija’s sanctum was compromised by the attack on Tinem Aesvai, so it’s definitely not secure.”
Jackie shook her head. “Right now that’s just not possible,” she said. “Especially since Tesu is the only one of us that has any previous experience working with the writing system they use for scripting. The rest of the country uses Aejha specifically because Jala is way too complex and intricate for daily use, and even that is easier than Tam - which is what all of her script is written in. Mark, this just isn’t a project that can be done in a couple of hours.”
He sighed, scratching his head. “Well, shit,” he muttered. “What are we talking about, days?”
“Months,” Jackie sighed. “Maybe years, if I’m being honest.”
“We don’t have months, Jack,” Mark objected. “I don’t know what rotation they had the guards on, but I can’t imagine we’ll be able to keep fooling them for that long. They’ll come up at some point, and we’ll lose access to the gate even if we hide in the secure section of the facility. We’ll be cut off.”
“I know!” Jackie retorted, drawing startled looks from Jyte and Ajehet. “I’m not trying to ask for time, I’m just saying that it’s next to impossible with the tools we have. The folks who built this place didn’t do it in a matter of hours, and they probably had tools that make anything we could get our hands on look about as advanced as a pointy stick by comparison.”
She threw her hands in the air, frustrated. “It’s ridiculous, talking about working with code without-”
Jackie paused, looking startled, then walked away from the table.
“Jack?” Mark called out. “What’s up?”
“We need a computer,” she shouted back, walking toward the large pile of boxes that had been piled against one side of the control room. Most of the gear salvaged from the truck was there, and it took her only a few minutes to find what she was looking for. She turned and walked back to the table, a grin on her face and the broken tablet in her hand.
“We also,” she said smugly, “just so happen to be the only people in the world who own one.”
“A broken one,” Mark pointed out. “Jesse was tinkering with the damn thing for days and couldn’t get it to work. Plus, we don’t have an outlet for the charger now that the truck is gone.”
Jackie nodded. “But we have the solar panels. Mark, if we could just use this to take photos of all the script we would be able to scan through it at our leisure. It would still take time, but we wouldn’t be dependent on access to the gate. Unless Tesu’s got something stowed up his ass that can help, it’s worth taking another - whoa!”
Jackie jumped in surprise as Maja appeared directly beside her, eyes fixed on the tablet. She made no attempt at her usual neutral expression, intense focus radiating from every line of her face.
“Um, hi,” Jackie said, taking an involuntary step backwards. “Wow. I guess we can put you down as interested in electronics, huh?”
Maja slowly lifted her gaze from the tablet to stare at Jackie, then shifted her eyes to where Gusje sat looking out the windows.
“...right,” Jackie said, clearing her throat. “Hey, Gusje!” she shouted, waving across the room. “Your friend wants to chat!”
Gusje jogged over, looking surprised to find Maja standing off the dais. “What happened?” she asked. Arjun likewise stood up and walked back to the group, curious about the commotion.
Jackie held up the tablet, noting how Maja shifted to track its motion. “Our friend here seems very interested in this tablet, and we need to fix it if we’re going to help her out. Can you ask her to, um.” She paused, thinking. “Well, she wanted to speak. Let’s start by asking what she thinks about it.”
“Maja, can you tell us about the thing in Jackie’s hand?” Gusje asked.
The luminous figure cocked her head to the side, her attention flickering to Gusje for the barest of moments before snapping back onto the tablet. “It is an unfamiliar piece of technology,” she said. “It has a recognizable internal power source, illumination capabilities…”
She moved closer, her eyes glittering with unrestrained interest. “It has highly intricate construction. It appears to possess the capability to execute rapid instructions and store a very large amount of information.”
Jackie blinked. “Wow, that’s - really impressive, actually. She must be able to see the internals on a small scale.”
“And she’s intuited their function perfectly,” Arjun observed. “Can she tell us why it won’t turn on?”
Gusje repeated the question, and Maja cocked her head once more. “There are several areas where small cracks have appeared on internal components. These cracks are interrupting several structures that appear critical to the device’s function.”
“Damn,” Arjun cursed. “I was hoping it was a simple loose connection, but if the internals are broken I can’t see how we could fix that here.”
Jackie stepped forward and laid a hand on Arjun’s shoulder, an excited look on her face. “Gusje,” she said, handing the other woman the tablet. “Ask her if she can fix it.”
Gusje looked down at the inert tablet, then proffered it to Maja. “Can you repair it?” she asked.
Maja’s eyes flashed. “The predefined scope allows restoration of Sanctum structures only,” she said. “Modifications to outside items are not within the scope.”
“But you could fix it, aside from that?” Gusje asked.
“Yes,” she responded. “The cracked portions could be rejoined.”
“Ask her what she means by ‘Sanctum structures’,” Jackie said.
“All functional and nonfunctional portions of the building, as well as functional contents such as fixtures and tools,” Maja replied when Gusje had relayed the question. Arjun grinned and smacked the table, then motioned everyone closer.
“That’s our in,” he said. “I think she’s got something in mind, and I think I know what it is. Now, Gusje - here’s what you’re going to say next…”
They huddled for a few seconds longer before Gusje straightened up and turned to Maja, holding out the tablet. “Maja,” she said. “As Caretaker I require a tool that can capture, store and display massive amounts of script in order to fulfill my duties. This tablet is my tool, but it is not currently functioning. Can you repair it so that I can serve my function?”
Maja gave her a small, triumphant nod. “That action,” she said, “falls within the predefined scope.”
Tendrils of glowing light wove around the tablet, pulling it gently from Gusje’s hands to hang suspended in midair. Maja cocked her head and the tablet burst into its constituent components, hovering apart from each other while maintaining their relative positions. The expression on her face was one of delight, joy, and intense satisfaction.
“Whoa,” Mark said, his eyes wide. Jyte and Ajehet were staring with expressions of bewilderment, while Tesu stood some distance away in a nearly catatonic state of awe.
The fiery tendrils caressed the tablet’s internals before they were pushed back together with a firm series of clicks. Jackie laughed in excitement as the screen lit up, only to frown moments later as it displayed an empty red battery indicator before winking out once more.
“The power source is depleted,” Maja murmured. “It will be necessary to replenish it.” She twirled a finger. Far overhead, the black stone of the ceiling flowed like water, a globule detaching to drop neatly into her outstretched hand. The mass of stone twisted and stretched until it was a thin plate, then flew up to wrap around the rear of the hovering tablet.
Flickers of dull light skittered across the stone as script appeared in neat lines, hundreds of characters looping and whorling together. Gusje yelped in surprise as a charge crystal floated up from her bag to socket neatly into the back of the stone casing. There was a barely perceptible hum, and the tablet’s screen turned on once more.
Maja reached up to pluck it from the air and handed it back to Gusje. “Your tool,” she said, smiling conspiratorially. “As described, Caretaker.”
“Holy shit,” Jackie sputtered, looking stunned. “I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t that.”
In Gusje’s hands, the tablet finished its startup sequence and flashed to the main screen, showing a grid of icons over an abstract blue background. Maja did not move from where she stood, but her focus on the tablet was intense enough that it seemed to almost shimmer the air. Gusje goggled at the screen, startled by the light and motion. “What is this thing?” she asked, holding it as far away from her as her arms would reach.
Jackie laughed and took it from her, happily swiping through the installed applications. “Ahh, I’ve missed this,” she said, popping open the camera to check the image. There was a momentary blur as the lens adjusted, and a crystal-clear image of the room appeared on the screen. Jackie tapped to the front camera, shifting it to show Gusje an image of her own shocked face.
“Now we’re even,” Jackie said, snapping a photo of the two of them. “You have your magic, after all. Now we’ve got a little bit of ours.”