Keepers

Taylor told J'anan he didn't mind waiting, but he had his own work to do that afternoon. If he didn't see anyone in half an hour, he would leave and the keepers could make an appointment like everyone else. She showed him to a small room near the library, deep enough into the mesa to lack windows, and left him without a light.

If that was supposed to be a test or a sign of disrespect, it was too trivial to bother him. He'd give them the half-hour he promised and then leave. Besides, he could make light — it was the first prayer any disciple learned. Once he had a pleasant nimbus of glow hovering near the ceiling, Taylor took a good look around. Calique women loved their circular meeting rooms but usually equipped them better. There should be cushions, light, and writing utensils. But if these Keepers dealt in taboos, then it was possible they memorized everything. He wouldn't put it past them to meet in the dark. He'd seen stranger things from secret societies.

Taylor circled the room, smaller than the usual chambers used by doyennes, fingers sliding against the stone wall strangely textured in thousands of little divots, his mind questing through the stone. There was a peephole hidden above head height and a watcher beyond it. Taylor ignored them and moved on. A third of the way around the room from the peephole he found a secret door, latched from the other side. He could sense a stairway went up from the other side, but the door was latched from the other side, and hinged to swing inward.

Was this an initiation chamber, where prospective Keepers were tested? Or were they just being jerks to him? If the secret door had been unlocked he would have gone inside. It was certainly within his power to shape or break the door as he pleased. Instead, he knocked on the door while looking directly at the peephole, and smiled. I see you.

Instead of forcing his way into the greater secrets beyond the hidden door, Taylor cleaned a section of the floor with prayer and settled in with his copy of Battles of Talal. The book was divided into parts: self-knowledge, politics, and war. The old Pasha had useful things to say about Mauls and their Doyennes but nothing at all about Keepers. Did the keepers come later? Or had Talal avoided writing about them out of respect for the taboos? There weren't any narrative gaps that he could tell, so the book probably hadn't been tampered with by past librarians.

The political section was especially gratifying after Taylor's own efforts to raise a new church, and had asked many of the same questions he struggled with. How do you direct the ambitious in useful ways? How do you ensure your garden is strong enough to stand but not too rigid to bend when it must? What purpose do rituals serve, and when should you discard or change them?

Calique culture was still finding its way in Talal's day, and it was greatly informed by Kashmar's constant invasions. The gardens were mostly small and days apart by appalon. Without that periodic external pressure, the desert people might have spun away from each other culturally. Every aspect of how gardens related to each other could be traced back to the threat from Kashmar.

In terms of values, Calique rejected everything Kashmar elevated. Kashmar was always led by a male Tyrant and his Princeps, Calique were governed by councils of women; Kashmar's people were disposable, Calique cared for everyone in the garden; Kashmar's princes displayed their wealth to awe the masses, Calique held most resources in common; Kashmar's towns were dependent of the capital, Calique gardens were self-sufficient; Kashmar buried their dead in elaborate tombs, Calique composted relatives for the garden; Kashmar's women married into their husbands' families, Calique men married into other gardens. Kashmar's traditions were inviolable law, Calique allowed ritualized exceptions.

Taylor's goal was to crush Kashmar so badly that they wouldn't return to the South for a hundred years. But, what would happen to Calique culture in the meantime? Would they fall apart into violent factions without a common enemy to keep them together?

For that matter, everything was going to change, starting with the ever-intensifying sun. Calique would need to change, with or without Kashmar to pressure them. But how could anyone plan for a radically different future when they couldn't see it clearly? Talal's answer was to remember one's values and let new traditions spring from there. But the Calique Taylor knew weren't very big on 'new'. They only tolerated him as a leader because of his absurd strength, and because he was willing to act enough like a Calique maul to feel familiar to them.

Value is expressed by Culture, Talal wrote, with all its rituals and ceremonies. Culture becomes Governance, which the garden-dweller must heed. Governance, if it be true, thus expresses Value. When upheaval comes to set aside old ceremonies the dwellers are lost on trackless ground and fear their Value is forever lost. What then? Preserve the ceremonies or invent them anew, as one must, but never let the ceremonial space lie empty, or else new values will settle in where the old ones used to live.

Talal would feel at home with Emristar's cultural philophers.

The hidden door opened and six women filed in, dressed head to toe in thick, loose robes. All except Rigieta wore masks, which was nearly pointless when Taylor could recognize two of them right away. One was the Keeper of the seed vault, and the other was an older woman he'd seen during gathering hours but never been introduced to. At least two more had visible beast traits he'd be able to pick out from a crowd. The masks were such a poor way to hide their identities, Taylor thought they might serve some other purpose.

J'anan must be some kind of acolyte of theirs. She was the first Calique woman he had met, and she was his guide in Dagono. She had been present for the debut of the Compost Song in Dagono and Taylor's elevation to Hierarch at Red Tower. The Keepers hadn't tried anything so blatant as inserting her into his life, but J'anan's presence was like a comet with an elliptical orbit, periodically passing close enough to get a good look at him.

Dahabia, on the other hand, was very much in his inner circle. J'anan could be passing through to collect information from her and the other Calique who lived in Red Tower and be the Keepers' eyes and ears in Nexus. It was a worrisome insight but not intolerable. So long as they had a common enemy, they were all on the same side. The problems would start when they didn't need him anymore.

Taylor rose and offered them the kind of spare head-nod that mauls were prone to offering their doyennes. Equals with different roles, neither of them above the other.

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Rigieta spoke for all of them "Pasha Phillip. J'anan informs us you are in possession of … concerning information."

"I assume we're talking about the ancient places, but can you be more specific?"

"We can not. Simply tell us all you know."

Taylor laughed. He shouldn't have, but he did.

"It's not wise to mock us, Little Pasha, not when you need our support. Or have you misread your Talal?"

"No, I'm sorry!" He was having a hard time controlling himself, "it's just … all I know? I could spend years … look, I was educated at lavish expense by a world that didn't burn all its history. 'All I know' is a lot. You're going to need to be a little more specific."

"Tell us all about the ancient places."

"Again, that's a lot. We have them in the world I'm from, and they've been studied for hundreds of years. Ours are about ten thousand years old, and there's several kinds. There is a common primary written language they all share, but there's evidence of numerous secondary languages among their artifacts. The prevailing theory is they were made by an alliance of different human societies … "

"Tell us about the danger posed in Sesimbra," she said impatiently.

"Don't be so touchy," Taylor shot back. "Ask a general question, get a general answer. Ask a specific question," he dug through the pile of drawings until he found the one he wanted, Ali's Rock, "and you get a picture worth a thousand words."

He passed the picture to Rigieta, who examined it under the summoned light and passed it down the line for the other Keepers. The third Keeper to examine it briefly turned her head toward their spokeswoman.

"Who made this picture, and where?" asked Rigieta.

"A disciple drew this, in one of the realms where we have disciples. And before you get angry about your taboos, let me say this vessel remains sealed. Until today, only five people had seen these pictures. Considerably more people know about the vessel's existence, but I've forbidden them from opening it. After Enclave has been dealt with, I'll reconsider the matter, but there's honestly not enough to learn from a dead facility to be worth much risk."

Another glance from a veiled Keeper to Rigieta. "Dead, you say?"

"That," he pointed at the picture being passed from one hand to the next, "is a reactor core. Machines need energy, and the ancient tech runs on mana, or what we call spirit. Reactor cores like this one create energy by fusing atoms together, and … I have no idea if you're following me when I can't see your faces. The important part here is reactors will run out of fuel and leave behind some very toxic waste products. As they die, they build this shell around them to seal in the toxic substances and radiation. Death doesn't happen all at once but the cores dwindle over time. When they reach this stage they're entirely dead."

"The shadow in the center is the core, and the rock is protective shell. And the danger is in digging out this shell?"

"Correct. It's a tempting substance, strong and tough and lightweight, yet it stops a range of dangerous energies. It's a monster to process but, if you can master it, there are too many uses to ignore. I'm not surprised Frenzio would try to mine it. Either he's making weapons, or he's trying to replace components in other machines.

"The main danger is radiation poisoning: that's people falling ill from exposure to the shell material and the energy it retains. The outer layers are safe, but the closer you get to the core the more toxic it becomes. If you ignore the radiation long enough to uncover the core and try to open it, things get interesting.

"Space inside the core is stretched and warped. If you break the continuity of the space fabric surrounding the core … well, it's never good. Sometimes you get an endless labyrinth that fills with monsters and has to be managed in perpetuity. Other times, the core collapses and sucks in a few square kilometers of reality before it disappears forever. One core breach gave birth to a hyper-intellgent entity that predicted the future, but all the predictions were so distant nobody could tell if they were true prophesies or if it was making everything up. Usually, a core just explodes, takes out a few mountains, and poisons the surrounding land for a few hundred years."

There were multiple veiled glances in Rigieta's direction, and it took her several seconds to sort them all out. Taylor wondered what bond the Keepers had with each other, to let them communicate so much with so little interaction.

"So the only safe course is to leave the dead cores be," she said at last.

"Or, you can send the facilities away." Taylor produced another drawing, of a hard-to-reach room within the Red Tower vessel. There was a wall full of text and the outline of two handprints. He gave the Keepers time to share the picture before he explained. "Those are instructions. Follow those steps, then put both hands on the handprints, and in about an hour the whole facility will be transported somewhere else."

"Where does it go?"

"It depends. Either into the sun for disposal, or back to the factory where they were made. This one says it'll be transported into the local sun. But facilities won't travel if the cores have been disturbed."

"You can read this?"

"Can't you?" Plenty of worlds had these same relics and had either discovered how to read them or had never forgotten. The language was ideogramic instead of phonetic, so speaking the language wasn't required to read it. On the other hand, learning the ancient script offered few clues about pronunciation.

"You know, I have a theory about this mesa. I think there used to be a terraformer here, one of the giant machines that prepare worlds for habitation. They bury themselves into solid rock and run for hundreds of years, unattended, and then send themselves home when their cores are dead. That would explain why there's an almost perfectly round hole inside a mesa. Is there anything in your hidden libraries about that?"

"We are asking the questions here," said Rigieta. "You will provide us with a dictionary for the ancient language."

"It's called Mi'iri. And I will not at this time." Taylor stepped forward and the Keepers shrank back from him, but not fast enough to prevent him from snatching the pictures away. "It'll take too long, and I have a war to win."

"Wars are uncertain. You could die."

"Then you better make sure I get the support I need. After we've won and the gardens are safe from Kashmar, we can revisit the dictionary request."

"That is not acceptable."

"Neither is your demand for information with nothing offered in return."

"The taboos are in place to protect the gardens, which you claim to be a part of. The keepers hold knowledge for future generations. It's your duty to contribute if you can."

"And I will, but not unilaterally." That didn't please the Keepers at all. Taylor didn't need Rigieta to translate the discontented set of shoulders and heads that turned away from him. "After the war, things might look very different. Let's get through this and see where we stand after. Who knows? Some of your present concerns might feel antiquated by then."

"The root of our concerns lay in Enclave's continued existence — in Unity City. But the gardens will not march to Dace for you, no matter how great your victory is against Kashmar."

Taylor had to ponder what to say. He felt like he needed to reassure the Keepers and thereby the doyennes, but he didn't want to give away his plans — or how much he knew about Enclave's plans.

"The old church is mortally wounded," he said finally. "They're too few, too weak, and they can't change. When the time comes, I won't need armies to defeat Enclave."

He put away the papers and readied himself to leave. "If I encounter more issues like this one, I'll pass them to you through J'anan. I have no desire to see the safety of my new home compromised. I'll try to contact Sesimbra to verify what we've learned, but let's not get our hopes up. Moldonia is Sesimbra's only friend, and I don't have friends in Moldonia. Also, Frenzio has tried to kill me a few times."

"How surprising," Rigieta said wryly.

"There's nothing special between us. He kills lots of people."

Before he left, he gave them homage, hands together at his lips. The Keepers were going to be a pain, but they took their responsibilities seriously and didn't seem crazy. He'd dealt with much worse.