Lobat's Tears (II)

Anisca

Nexus spent the first night at Lobat's Tears sleeping in the Great Hall together, because it was the only room that was both clean and safe. The first thing the cadres did the next morning was clean spaces for the library, administrative offices, and Taylor's personal workshop. He promptly sealed the workshop with Sanctuary, so nobody but he and his followers could enter, and moved in. His followers went to and fro through the exclusionary zone, but Taylor himself was scarcely seen outside of classes and daily services.

Taylor saw to his own research facilities, his so-called Black Sanctuary, but didn't see to hers. Cadres worked to clear the town section by section. Riculta was granted people to help her establish crops over part of the garden, a task for which Anisca was unsuited but which she joined anyway, breaking the ground and digging up mischus until the sun was too hot to bear. Everyone retreated into the cool recess of town to wipe themselves down, eat lunch, and rest until evening.

In the afternoons she helped Lector Vizana in the library. The librarian was granted rooms adjacent to the Great Hall, on its west side, and all the stories above it. Scriptorium, reading room, stacks, and Vizana's quarters weren't nearly enough to fill it all, but her domain was expected to grow. Anisca shelved books and helped students find materials for their classes and organized some of the copying that had to be done, but it was just a way to kill time. It was too early for new research to reach them from Lavradio's Nature Society, and Taylor himself wasn't publishing anything at the moment.

Anisca tried sitting in on afternoon classes. The reading and writing classes were too basic for her and the scripture classes put her to sleep. Governance she had had enough of as a girl. There was a history session that was interesting as it included the western nations of Tenobre, an area she knew nothing about, but that class was only held twice a week.

The sessions on spirit manipulation and prayer were pointless for her since she lacked the talent, but she watched a few of them out of curiosity. She was surprised to see many of the ex-healers there. As Enclave practitioners their powers had been restricted and there was much they had never been taught. As Nexus disciples they had to catch up with their younger counterparts. They spent just as much time as the youngsters practicing in front of the spirit glasses, mirrors that showed a practitioner's spirit. They shaped, condensed, diffused, and extended their power until they could sense and handle spirit by second nature. As soon as they graduated from the mirrors there were contests, like finding an enchanted ball of silver buried in a pile of sand, or lighting lamps from a distance.

Nexus relished its games. Armed bouts between teams of disciples and bulwarks were popular, but the favorite game by far was Monster Hunt. At night, people gathered in clumps in the Great Hall around maps with tokens representing a cadre and the monsters it was hunting. One player was the hunters, the other player was the monsters, and they moved around the map and tried to kill each other. Each player held cards representing their relative strengths and special powers. Conflicts were settled by rolling dice, but the outcomes were largely determined by player decisions. The advanced players used a timer to limit their turns, which made them the most fun to watch because the game never stalled while players pondered their cards.

On the evening of the fourth day, Anisca felt a surge of hope when she was approached by Kasryn and Rector Mika. "We have good news for you, Anisca," said the priest, "The west side of town will be cleared tomorrow. You may explore it in the afternoon, and let us know which rooms you prefer."

"That's excellent news, Rector. I appreciate the cadres' hard work."

"I know the wait has been difficult, but soon you'll be back to your experiments." The old man's smile was very knowing, like he tracked all her movements and little frustrations over the last few days. "That's all for tomorrow. For tonight, Brother Phillip wants your opinion on a new game."

Anisca's smile reflexively turned from genuine (albeit practiced) to the one she kept on hand for surprises. "He's been making a new game, all this time?"

"Not all of it, no. Brother Mataba will you join us?" Mika started picking people as they walked through the Great Hall. "And Sister Thalia and Lector Vizana. Mr and Mrs Tabua! You have not yet had the pleasure, have you? Join us in my lobby." Mika gathered even more players, ten in all including himself.

They arrived in the Rector's office to the heavenly scent of brewed jota, a treat. Their precious stores of the herbal drink couldn't be restored until the trade routes reopened. Everyone was rationing their jota blends, or saving them for special occasions. Anisca has never drunk so much plain water in all her life.

A map of Tenobre was laid out on a stone table, its several realms depicted in various colors, with stacks of gaming chips nearby. Three piles of thin wooden placards sat to one side. Two more piles waited on a side table. There were twenty-sided dice, slates and chalk, and green porcelain cups ready for the jota that would keep them focused.

Why did Nexus have to play such complicated games? Monster Hunt could be fun to watch, but Anisca had a bad feeling about this new one.

"This is Game of Prelates," explained Mika. "Each of you is the head of the church for your country. You begin the game with disciples drawn from this pile, and a set amount of worshipers and gold. You draw an event card," he pointed to the tallest stack of placards, "which affects your country. Some of them are fortuitous, while others are challenges. You may spend your gold to improve your disciples, expand the faith, or help overcome challenges. The blue cards are technologies you can buy to improve various aspects of your realm. You may buy one of the face-up cards, or purchase the unknown card on top of the deck."

Alice Tabua raised her hand. "How do we win?"

"You survive. When the green stack of event cards is empty we go on to the yellow, more dangerous stack. The red stack is more difficult still. I will act as referee. If you want to do something not covered by the rules then I'll consider it, and devise new rules as appropriate."

The first two rounds took a full hour to play out. Anisca was ready to quit at that point, but Mika insisted the game was important to Brother Phillip so she stayed. At least they had let her play Lavradio, and she had a good starting position: three powerful disciples and a large congregation. She had spent freely to expand the faith in her first turns because more followers meant more gold. More gold meant more disciples. Disciple deeds increased the faith. Faith increased followers.

She didn't enjoy the plethora of rules, but the saving grace of the game (for her) was it allowed for bargaining between players: they could exchange disciples, gold, and technologies. Anisca struck deals with neighbor prelates that were fair one-on-one but created unbalancing side effects. Gallia had too many monster-hunting disciples, while Moldonia had too many healers. Ullidia based its defenses primarily on fortifications built up with gold and builder disciples.

The session's turning point was triggered when the yellow event stack came into play. A cursed monster was loose in Lavradio, bigger than any they had fought so far and probably too strong for her own disciples.

"I would like to lure the monster into Gallia."

"Excuse me?" asked Vizana, who was playing for Gallia.

"We have already devised rules for luring monsters away from our cities, haven't we? You have the most hunter disciples, so I am trusting you to deal with this menace for all our sakes."

"Lend me some of yours, then."

"I can not, as they will be tapped this turn to lure the monster."

"I don't think this is the way the game is supposed to be played," complained the librarian.

"Nonetheless, there is no rule against it. Is there?" Anisca looked to Mika for confirmation.

"The Prelate of Lavradio may do as she wishes." Brother Mika's expression was exceedingly suspicious in its satisfaction, but Anisca put it out of her mind for now. She was entering the tricky middle game that would ensure her victory or doom her to defeat.

Anisca tallied her cadre's points, rolled the dice, and moved the carved monster token across the border. "We're all rooting for you, Gallia."

Gallia's turn was next, so there was no time for anyone to send help. Vizana drew a plague for her event and obtained Ullidia's promise to send healers on its turn. Then, she hurled every hunter she had at the new monster.

All but one of Gallia's hunters died. In a single stroke, Anisca eliminated most of the hunter disciples not her own. From that point onward she refused to send help to anyone else. Disciples could only cross one border during a turn and still be able to do anything, so their lopsided distribution hampered players' attempts to bargain. Populations dwindled as the faithful were eaten. Anisca put everything she had into powering up her disciples and denied help to everyone.

Anisca entered her endgame as the second stack of event cards grew short. "Gallia, you are no longer strong enough to protect your people. I ask that you resign, and transfer all your people and disciples to Lavradio."

Vizana was angry, genuinely upset. She was oblivious to how real the scenario had become. Anisca was only acting as any king or emperor would do, by looking out for her own.

"We wouldn't be in this position if you had helped us instead of dumping your monster in our backyard."

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

"The red event stack is coming for us all," said Anisca as if to offer aid, "together we must stand or else we fall apart."

"I will not," said Vizana, unwisely.

Anisca dispatched a single super-powered hunter into Gallia to kill off Vizana's disciples. Mika ruled that all technologies could be transferred to Lavradio that turn, but the populace would immigrate in groups over the next three rounds. Vizana was out, and Anisca grew stronger.

Ullidia bowed to the inevitable, which was no surprise. Kasryn was a realist and understood that she had lost. It was pointless to pretend otherwise. She negotiated in good humor for a summer house in scenic Dosal Furst, where she could enjoy her retirement. Her people flooded into Lavradio in the next three rounds.

Moldonia, played by Brother Mataba, chose to stand alone and was pleasantly surprised when Anisca didn't invade. In fact, she had all the people she could feed. Any more would be a burden.

Far to the west, in Hyskos and Mialta, Thalia and Alice played a different kind of game. They helped each other freely, sometimes with aid from Kravikas, and suffered none of East Tenobre's fractious fights. They both grew stronger as a result, but their way had a weakness.

The final stack of red events were trials, every single one: an unknown plague, crops burned up by a hostile sun, monsters big as mountains, petty would-be kings. Ullidia begged Lavradio for some of its redundant technology but had nothing it could offer in exchange, so Anisca refused. In time, Mataba's people were eaten by the monsters. Kravikas collapsed to plague and Dace was ravaged by dark arktos.

The Mialta-Hyskos bond was strong, but they were too spread out. Disciples could not travel fast enough to handle all the problems. First one died, and then another, and then they dropped like flies. The west coast fell, and Mika's satisfaction grew.

Lavradio, with its dense population and overpowered disciples, was the last realm standing but even Anisca could not contend with multiple mountainous monsters and three simultaneous plagues for long. She feared her people would crumble like the others until the final card was played and the last event was handled. She ended with a few good disciples and battered people, but Lavradio survived.

Brandy was served after the game, a welcome token of home watered down a measured for taste. Outside, the silent sky would shine with stars but the interior of Nexus had good lighting thanks to their disciples. Anisca thought it strange nobody praised her play, nor congratulated her win. At first, she thought it was a case of sore sportsmanship but neither did they chide her. Instead, their conversation focused on aspects of the game itself.

"We need a tech that lets disciples travel faster," Alice said. "I've heard him say such things are possible. Mobility is our biggest problem."

"And a breeding program," her husband added. "I know he'll be against the notion, but we have to have enough disciples. Without them, nothing else will matter."

"We need incentives to work together," Kasryn said, as eyes were flicked in Anisca's direction, "or an institutional directive."

The jibe was aimed at Anisca, but she didn't mind. At least they were paying attention. "Directives make a difference till they don't," she told them. "Bad harvest makes bandits of us all. And where ambition rules, rules are optional."

The conversation went along until Mika had a stack of slates filled with their suggestions. Eventually, the guests had had enough and said goodnight. As the room was emptied Anisca stayed to ask a question.

"Is this what Brother Phillip has been working on all this time? A game? Is this the wisest use of his talents and his time?"

"It's only one of many things he's been working on. But don't think of it as just a game," said the Rector, "but a thought experiment. What choices will the future church face? What kinds of tech will make a difference? How should the church be structured? I'm surprised we haven't seen you in Governance, where we argue over all these topics endlessly. The largest argument we've had to date is whether Nexus should have a lone authority, or if the prelates should be wholly independent. Tonight you made a powerful case for the advantages of central power."

It sounded much more interesting than the tutors she endured when she was a girl. "It sounds like I've been missing the best classes. Thank you for including me tonight." She wasn't thankful; she was tired. But one did not request a favor on the heels of rudeness (excepting when it helped).

"In our exploration of the western town tomorrow, could I have the aid of a disciple? Or any practitioner. Just in case we run into snakes or mobs of scorpions."

"A reasonable precaution. I'll assign a student who knows Proof Against Poison,"

❖ ❖ ❖

Anisca's helper was a student, a girl about nine years old named Chapa. She looked half-asleep on her feet and it was no wonder: students trained in the early mornings with spirit manipulation and physical conditioning, then spent their spirit all day long. Every practitioner exhausted their store of spirit in the morning, recovered what they could in the middle of the day, then used themselves up again. There was plenty of work to spend their spirit on too, jobs like preparing the garden, planting crops, cleaning rooms, and clearing the animals out of town. Somewhere among those chores they also had to attend classes.

The town's new map told Anisca about the promising areas. There were long storerooms that hadn't yet been claimed for any other purpose, and rooms on the first floor ideal for her office. Chapa lit spirit lanterns and prayed Proof Against Poison over them in case they encountered wildlife. Chapa was armed with an arts-hardened dagger of stone, Riculta a staff, and Anisca a thin blade of bronze. Thus equipped, they entered the western part of Lobat's Tears.

The ground-level offices were grand enough that Anisca wished she could have had one, but the storerooms on that level were a disappointment, far too narrow. When she asked Chapa if she could merge some of the adjoining storerooms she demurred to the opinion of Mistress Manu, the Lector of Architecture.

"It might collapse," she said sullenly as if she were being asked for the unreasonable. She aimed her lantern upward and pointed at the arched ceiling. "Mistress Manu says these rooms are arched so the rock above us doesn't cave in. If you knock out the wall …"

"That's very wise," said Anisca. "Let's try going up."

The second level was less grand but more promising. There was more office space, the back storerooms were wider and tall enough for her needs, and the stairs were not too steep. Soil and water had to travel up while plants and waste and other things would travel down. It was a start, but she required twice the space.

"Can you look into the rock here," she asked Chapa, "and see if it could be excavated?"

"Um … no?"

Anisca favored the girl with a smile, one that chilled recipients with its displeasure. Chapa cracked almost instantly.

"I can tell you if it's weird back there, but I can't tell you what it's made of or how strong it is." The displeasure continued until the girl remembered her manners. "Miss Anisca."

"Anything you can tell me would be useful."

Chapa put her lantern on the floor to free her hands, which she placed on the wall at the end of the corridor. It was the deepest point of the western wing, but there was lots of bluff beyond it, plenty of room to expand.

"There's barely enough air back here," Riculta told her. "If we dig deeper then we have to figure something out. Some kind of fan, maybe, or an air shaft. You could ask Lilian for advice as a fellow researcher, or Lector Manu."

"We will likely have to consult with both of them." Anisca didn't mind if there were problems as long as she was allowed to work on them. It was idleness that bothered her, the wasted weeks and days where she couldn't make any kind of progress, that made her temper flare.

"Miss Anisca? There's spirit-hardened stone under her." Chapa was pointing at the wall. "And then a different kind of stone behind that."

"That qualifies as weird," Riculta mumbled.

"Can you make a hole through the hardened stone and see what's under it?"

"We should tell Brother Phillip. We're supposed to report anything strange."

"And we will report it," she assured the student, "but you're supposed to be helping me today. I need to know what kind of stone is underneath, so we know if we can dig through it or not. That will give us something substantial to report. It could be a very interesting discovery. He'll be happy to know about it." Taylor was highly respected in Nexus, which was natural since he founded the organization, but the younger students worshiped him. Anisca could get them to do anything in his name.

Thus assured, Chapa set to work on the stone wall. After a full minute of concentration, there was a sound like a giant cracker getting crushed underfoot. A perfect circle, one meter wide, crumbled and tumbled in tiny bits to a heap on the floor. Chapa sat beside the pile of broken sandstone, sweaty and out of breath. She had broken through thirty centimeters of sandstone and several more of disciple-hardened rock.

What she revealed was smooth gray stone, very different from the surrounding material, without seam or wrinkle or trace of human hands. Anisca touched the surface, newly exposed and yet familiar to her, the same gray stuff that lined the old abandoned chambers under the royal palace. Scripture said that people lived underground to escape the sun. Enclave claimed they were rejecting god, but Nexus said they were in hiding from the harsh phase of the sun. Nearly every major city had such ruins and Enclave had ransacked them all, carted away anything the ancients left behind, and destroyed all the records. But here was a place that hadn't been touched in at least a hundred years. If it was sealed before Alignment, when Enclave held the first of many purges, then it would be untouched. It could be a perfectly preserved dwelling of the ancients.

"When you've rested, poke a small hole through this. Just enough for us to shine a light through it."

Chapa shook her head. "It's empty past there. I felt it while I was working. There's a chamber. We have to report it before we do anything."

"You can't do it?"

"I didn't say that! But we're supposed to tell someone in charge when we find something that might be dangerous."

"I am in charge," Anisca reminded her. "Anyway, it's just a room. I've seen others like it." When the child didn't budge she put on her most confident expression, the one that told people things were a certain way and shouldn't be questioned. "I take full responsibility. Tonight, we'll have something amazing to report to Brother Phillip, won't we?"

Chapa was unsure, and even Riculta looked worried, but neither of them could say no to her. Riculta because she was employed by Anisca, and Chapa because she lacked the will. Anisca got her way like she was used to. After days of not getting anything she wanted it felt so, so good.

The student tiredly got to her feet and went to work on the stone. Instead of breaking it all at once, she dug at it with her stone sword. She softened the gray stone a little at a time then pushed her sword point into it, and spun it like a drill. She made good progress until they discovered her sword wasn't nearly long enough. She had to toss it aside to make a better tool from shattered sandstone, a two-meter-long bar with a diamond cross-section and sharp edges, condensed and hardened until it was a finger wide. After that feat, she had to rest again. Anisca didn't mind, given the progress the girl had made.

While they waited for Chapa's spirit to recover, Anisca handed out ceramic bottles of the amazingly pure water unique to Nexus. She pulled food from her pack, purloined leftovers from breakfast, and handed it around. She lent her linen fan to Riculta, to cool Chapa with. These were no idle acts of generosity: loyalty could be built from little bricks of gratitude.

Chapa's new tool made quick work of the ancient wall. (Anisca was certain that was what they had found.) The length was almost perfect, and sunk to the handle just as Chapa broke through the other side. With a twist and a sudden jerk, her bar was free. Cold air blew through the hole she had made, a welcome wind on their sweaty faces. It didn't smell of anything, and that was good news. Even if it was poisonous, Chapa's prayer would protect them.

Chapa sat on the floor again, off to the side, to take another well-deserved rest. Anisca took up her lantern in one shaking hand and shone its beam into the hole Chapa had made, but the hole was too deep to see anything clearly, made more difficult by the air blowing through it. There appeared to be a large open space on the other side, and a surface with bright yellow and orange stripes. The hole needed to be bigger, much bigger. Her breath was heavy with excitement, thrilled with the discovery to come.

She turned to Chapa, to ask how soon she could expand the peephole…