Red Tower

They found the tower at dawn. Vafra was newly awake in the saddle, while behind them the Pashtuk refugees sang. It was a good walking song, one that paced them and kept their minds off the monotony of walking. A few minor blessings were all it took to keep their bodies moving faster than normal all night long, but their heads nodded as they moved along the narrow track. The hikers wrapped themselves in extra layers to withstand the early morning chill.

Their target came into view gradually, first as a dark silhouette against the stars, and then as a towering shadow against the lightening horizon. Finally, the top was lit like a giant red candle that grew downward with the rising sun.

"It has walls!" shouted some of the mounted travelers, on sighting the berm. "The mischus is thick!" A buzz of relief passed through the line. Good mischus meant food for appalons and good soil. If there was water too, then anything was possible.

There was no gate, only an opening through the berm guarded by Darius and his bulwark. The migrants turned their mounts loose in the mischus and passed through the opening, where they found a renewed plaza, its surface leveled and smoothed. Most of the school waited for them, with Rector Mika and the deans standing in front, and the rest of Nexus in ranks behind them. Disciples with bulwarks were in one group, disciples without bulwarks (most of them former healers) and priests were in another, and students were in the third.

"Welcome home, Eldest Brother Phillip!" At least they hadn't called him His Holiness.

"Thank you. It feels great to be back."

Red Tower had changed in the week Taylor had been away. There was light in the ancient windows and the smell of the morning meal being cooked. A stairway climbed the tower in cantilevered flights, but it hadn't reached the top yet.

A part of the field was plowed up for grain and vegetables, which were growing at a furious rate under the care of the disciples who constantly pushed them with the arts. A few had pushed too hard, and there were browned areas where the plants had nearly been killed by too much spirit. There was a trick to accelerating growth to such an insane degree, and not every student had learned to be efficient enough to carry it off without burning the crops.

"It looks like you've kept busy while I was away." Muted laughter rippled through the hundred who were gathered. "I look forward to seeing your progress so far. We have some new residents: tablas, gardeners, and craftspeople who can help us find our way in our new home, and their families. Do what you can to make them feel welcome. They're on loan from Pashtuk, so let's learn everything we can from them."

Taylor sent the families off with Kasryn to see their lodgings in the tower. Vafra was given over to the school, where he was instantly surrounded by children older than him, eager to help him pick a bed, get something to eat, and get to his first class. "First lesson is always in the mirror room. You'll be so swayed! There's nothing else like it in the world!"

Anisca and Riculta had taken the gardeners across the plaza into the mischus-covered garden. "The grain crops will come in a few weeks," she was saying, "then you can plant it as you see fit. Until then, there's the other half of the garden." The gardeners were doing the same as Riculta had done, digging a small hole into the garden to feel around in the soil. Taylor wanted to be with them, listen in on their conversation, but he didn't have the time. He had one day to rest and take reports, then he and Ben were going out again.

"You five get some rest," he told his guards, "I'll be fine here." Taylor left his saddle and most of his things to be put away by others (one of the advantages of being Eldest Brother) but kept a long case for himself. It had an inertia that didn't match its weight. If it wasn't for his enhancements, the case would be difficult to move. Once moving, it would be difficult to stop. Rector Mika kept pace with Taylor as he carefully wrangled the awkward object up to his second-floor quarters and workshop.

"There's little to report that you haven't heard on the link," said the old priest. "The new candidates should arrive over the next few days, with a caravan's worth of supplies. Taking the Satomen's appalons was a good move."

"That was mostly Iraj's work. He's used to leading long trains of them." They passed through his quarters, and then through a door that was invisible to everyone except Taylor and his followers, rendered secure through the Sanctuary prayer. "I'm pretty sure he instigated the rescue to get his favorite animal back."

The room was often dubbed the Black Sanctuary, Taylor's private workshop. His many tools and experiments were there, and long tables to work on. There was a second chamber within, behind a secret door whose seams were disguised as decorative trim. The lock was a complicated affair requiring seven magnets to open, each one precisely placed. The magnets lived across the room, metal disks stacked and stuck together innocuously in a box with other small parts. Only Mika and a few others knew about the double-secret door and how to place the magnets to unlock it. Of course, Taylor could open it with a thought.

Beyond the secret door was a treasure room. Inset hand pulls hinted at the drawers lining the room from ankle level to chest height. If he were to open them he'd find ingots of precious metals, mobeen alloy, base metals (even a little iron), chunks of abrasive-grade minerals like corundum, and hundreds of precious spirit gems. Ironically the most valuable items, the gemstones, were synthesized from the least valuable abrasive minerals. Purifying such ores, doping them with the correct metals, and then crystallizing them was how Nexus made gems that could hold spirit. If he wanted to, Taylor could make as much money as he wanted by manufacturing and selling conventional gems until the markets crashed.

Above the ranks of drawers were display shelves fronted with glass. These were his trophies, early samples of everything he had created or "invented" in this world so far: varieties of glass, the first youngmeter, first microscope, first telescope, first link, several types of paper, movable type, inks, porcelain, and first printings of all the treatises on natural law published by Nexus Press so far.

The treasure room had another secret, hidden behind the blank far wall. Open certain drawers, keep certain others closed, press a secret button, and another secret door would open. Inside was a shallow cabinet containing two items on individual shelves: a book and a titanium ring.

A system of magic required an origin, a defining grimoire. It held not only the spells (or songs or symbols or specialized language or however the system expressed magic) but also defined the underlying rules of the system. If the body of practitioners grew large enough the origin became redundant. If a magic system died out from a lack of practitioners one could, in theory, resurrect a dead system by finding its origin. In scripture, the Chosen One had destroyed the Unity's first origin for reasons Taylor still didn't understand. Enclave created a second one, hundreds of years later, but its precise whereabouts were unknown; probably somewhere on Enclave's campus. The hierarch probably knew where.

Taylor opened the case he was carrying and removed the guitar inside (a gift from Lavradio's king) to hang next to the other two origins. The hidden Book of Prayers was the origin of Nexus's Spiritual Arts, a literal grimoire. It was the reason why Nexus could anoint disciples without interference from Enclave. Taylor's "rather nice" guitar was the origin of Prayer Songs like the new Mari's Friends compost tune.

The ring was composed of thin layers of concentric titanium, micro-etched with symbols for controlling magic: the Inscription Arts. Since many such schematics were composed in circles, the ring shape seemed appropriate to Taylor when he started. In practice, micro-etching proofs and definitions onto a curved, hyper-realized titanium surface was a lot less convenient than writing in a book or playing a song on a guitar. Of the three systems, the Inscription Arts had the fewest current users but held the most potential to change the world.

All of the origins were unnaturally present in the world. Their mass had strange inertia, and Taylor doubted they could be destroyed by any conventional means.

Taylor started closing things. "Do we need anything from the vault?"

Mika read from a list, "two bars of manganese, one ingot silver, seven class-one gemstones …," and they counted out metal and gems as he went down the list. The gems were for student or disciple use. The other materials were destined for Farr and his daughter Lilian, Nexus's only practitioners of Inscription Arts besides Taylor. They packed the goods into shallow trays for carrying, updated records, and closed the vault.

"You have no other meetings today," Mika told him, "but you should be seen before you take off again. Visit the classrooms, check on people's work, let them know you appreciate them."

"Loyalty requires maintenance. You sound like Anisca."

"Her better aspects must be rubbing off on you," Mika said approvingly.

"Anisca has no better parts," said Taylor. The jibe was meant to be glib; after he felt remorseful.

Taylor cleaned himself up and changed clothes. He ditched the heavy armor and went with a simple gambeson, desert robe, and his trusty sword. With the trays of materials under one arm he bounded down the stairs, passed along the warming avenue until he reached the students' wing, and climbed three flights to the Hall of Mirrors. As he hoped, he found Vafra having his first lesson. The boy stood in front of a mirror which showed him in a different light. His reflection had the same mousy ears and the same small stature but appeared to burn with a red and silver flame.

"That's me?" said the astonished candidate.

"That's you." Lector Mataba's lined face broke into a smile. "Now that we've awakened your power, you're going to learn to move it. Ah! Just in time. I'll take those," Mataba took the tray of spirit stones from Taylor and handed one back to him. "Would you like to do the honors?"

"This is yours to practice with." Taylor handed Zafra the cabochon of red beryl. Cut and polished, the gem would be valuable, but Nexus left them in a semi-smooth globule state so they were less likely to be stolen. "When you outgrow it, we'll get you a better one. Now," he stood behind Varfra and put his hands on the boy's shoulders, "deep breath."

Taylor ran his hands through Zafra's fire, visible in the mirror and to Taylor's senses. Instead of touching him, the boy's spirit avoided him.

"I felt that!"

"Right? I'm pushing your spirit around with my own. You're feeling the two touching."

"Why can't I see your spirit? You can see mine."

"My control is much better than yours." They did that exercise until Zafra could feel his spirit well enough to move it himself. He could shift it left and right, make it a little bigger or smaller, but not much more.

"Hold your stone in both hands. Now push, like this." Slowly, Zafra learned to compress his spirit into the red stone. He was able to get a third of his fire stored away before he broke out in a sweat and needed a break. An excited smile looked out at Taylor through the mirror.

"A good first step." Taylor was seized by an unaccountable urge to hug the younger boy, and maybe kiss him on the forehead. He contented himself with a pat on the shoulder. "Practice every day, and I'll see you in the advanced classes."

Thank you, he signed to Mataba.

Do you see yourself in him? Mabata signed back.

As he picked up his remaining trays and turned to leave, Zafra asked, "What does your fire look like, Lector? If you let it all go, I mean. Will you show me?"

"Not in here." Taylor pointed at all the mirrors. "I might break the training hall."

The boy's head whipped around to Mataba, who nodded sagely. "He could. Hone your senses, Candidate Zafra, and you will see many wondrous things. Perhaps one of them will be our eldest brother engaged in a major work."

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The fabrication workshop was much like Taylor's own. It was even protected by the Sanctuary prayer, to limit access. Inside he found his two best craftspeople at work.

"Sir Taylor! Welcome back!"

"Good morning Madam Lilian. Sir Farr. I come bearing gifts." He hefted the trays full of metal ingots.

"On the first table, Mister President. Thank you so much!"

As far as father and daughter were concerned, the Nature Society was still operational within the bounds of their workshop, as were its rules of courtesy. The scientific organization was banned in Lavradio, but these two displayed their framed membership cards with pride. Taylor's presidential signature graced both cards.

"Anything interesting today?"

"We have a mass-producible goggle now." Lilian rushed at him with the device in her hands and strapped it to his face uninvited. The single lens covered both eyes, held in place by a leather chassis with straps of leather and a rim of soft padding. "We've solved the Overlook detection problem while keeping the lens perfectly transparent. Sapphire-titanium lens, micro-etched with selectable features: mana-spotting, infrared, starlight vision, dark vision, and magnification. It has integrated mana storage for twelve hours of use or two hours of dark vision. If we have the raw materials, we can make a hundred lenses per day with minimal supervision. You promised the chassis would be someone else's problem."

Taylor found himself looking at Lilian's magnificent whiskers at ten times magnification. He hadn't realized they were slightly alternating in color. With some initial fumbling, he figured out the controls and set the goggles to heat vision with no magnification. The room and the people in it acquired a whole new aspect.

"Beautiful. Show me the bill of materials." After a look at the list of raw materials required, Taylor ordered fifty of the lenses for the next week, and four hundred more by the end of the summer. He would have to restock on some ores after they were done with the order, and it might take him a lot longer to get the chassis made, but it was a strategic necessity taken care of.

"Can I keep this? I'm going out again tonight."

"You can have two. Now, let's take a look at your ballista." They moved to a new table where a strange contraption of limbs, cams, and cables mounted on a gunstock waited for them. It was an entirely alien weapon to Tenobre: the compound crossbow.

"This will fire a one-hundred-gram projectile at one hundred fifty meters per second. Put an enhanced mobeen tip on that projectile, and nothing can stop it. It even cuts through tirun scales."

"Really?" Taylor's tirun brigandine had saved his life plenty of times.

"Like butter."

"And the new carapace armor I've been wearing?"

"It does a little better. You'd still die, though. These are accurate against a stationary target to eighty meters, with optics. A serious marksman can probably do better."

"How many people have been testing this?"

"Lector James, Sister Hypha, and a few hand-picked bulwarks. They're all sworn to secrecy by the light of a fragment."

"What are the issues?"

"The cables rattle. I assume you plan to fire these from inside Overlook, but a silent release would still be better. We can shave a little more weight from the stock if you want us to, but that'll affect stability. The trigger could be better. The scopes are good, but we'd like to inscribe them for different vision modes, with your permission. And then there's materials and mana."

Lilian handed him the bill of materials. There were a lot of little screws, bearings, strings, and so on, in addition to the limbs and body. It was all made of titanium and aluminum alloys. One of the huge advantages of Inscription Arts was the way it could force chemical reactions like reducing ores into metals, and shape those metals into precise forms. But all those shortcuts required mana (what the Spiritual Arts called spirit). The workshop was draining all the stones that students filled up during the day but didn't use, but it wouldn't be enough. Taylor wanted to field at least fifty of the crossbows. They would take time to build, require more material than they had, and demand a ton of mana.

"Do one more iteration and then let's talk again. Once we've opened the trade routes we'll be able to get the ores we need."

"Is it my turn yet?" Sir Farr had been waiting patiently.

"Yes father," smiled the daughter, "but remember not to take up too much of Sir Taylor's time."

"Mister President, I have some early reports from the survey teams. Look here!" Farr guided him to a large map with pins in it. "Pools of black flammable substance here. Made by black slimes, you know. White rock in crystalline formations here and here, very lightweight. Copper ore, too low grade for most uses, but perfectly suitable for our refinement system. And those old gem mines in the wadis you told us about? I'm having them all looked at. We should have plenty of new samples by the time you return from … where are you going?"

"Bitter Spring."

"Hmmm. Teams have crossed through that area but nobody has mentioned anything. Perhaps you'll have better luck. Look, here's the new astrolabe. We don't have a global clock, not yet, but you can still get a reasonable approximation using your portable timepiece. And here are sample vials for liquids: borosilicate glass inscribed to be non-reactive. Lovely little silicone stoppers that plug themselves firmly on the tops. Isn't chemistry wonderful? You must label your samples, young man: date, time, and position as accurately as you can."

"I will," laughed Taylor, taking two boxes of vials. "What about the ancient chamber?"

"Ah, that. Lector Manu hasn't finished the stairway, as I'm sure you've noticed, so we haven't been able to look for an entrance at the top as you suggested. But we've dug around the edge of it, where Chapa first found it. We found what looks like a hatch that can only be opened from the inside. There was writing on it. I made a copy here." He pulled down a sheaf of papers from a shelf and flipped to a drawing of the alleged door.

"That's not a way to get in. It's a way for waste to get out."

"How do you know?"

"Because this language is known to my people. It says 'Danger. Emergency Exhaust. Stay Clear.' Basically, if it opens it might start spewing gas everywhere and kill us all." Farr's mouth flapped open and stayed that way.

Taylor felt it was time to leave before Sir Farr's mouth could engage, and start asking all the questions that were swirling around in his overloaded mind. Taylor had questions too, but they would have to wait. The ancient vessel, or room, or whatever it was, had been there for thousands of years. It could wait until he was ready. It could wait for many years. It could even stay closed forever.

On his way out Taylor pushed a huge amount of spirit into the lab's mana stack. The stack was like a spirit gem but a thousand times bigger, made of thick layers of red crystalline plates. Taylor had recovered a similar device from an ancient war machine and learned a lot of interesting things from it. Now they had a powerful mana stack to run their fabrication workshop. All the filled gems students dropped off were placed in the circle inscribed on the top plate of the stack. Their spirit/mana was siphoned into the stack and the stones returned to circulation. When the workshop needed power it drew from the stack, via silver-lined channels running along the walls. The channels ended in sockets. Differently inscribed connectors could pull different amounts of mana from the stack, to feed the workshop's various needs: smelting ores, creating alloys, shaping materials, analyzing unknown substances, etching, cutting, lathing, and so on.

"Mister President, how do you know the ancient language?" Farr's question caught Taylor on the threshold of the lab's Sanctuary effect. It was too strange an answer to say out loud, and the answer raised too many questions that had even stranger answers.

"It's a long story," he said finally and escaped.

Taylor visited other departments before the mid-day rest, trailed by a thirtyish bulwark with arms covered in wiry brown fur; not as a guard, but as an errand-runner. He had been sent by Mika in case Taylor needed anything, and caught up to him outside the workshop.

They went on together, from place to place, touching base with almost everyone.

Taylor learned the Pashtuk gardeners had brought a massive selection of seeds with them and were planting them in Red Tower's garden. They had opened their precious seed bank for the strangers, and that more than anything convinced him of their gratitude. Anisca had thanked them sincerely (or with her most sincere face, which was as sincere as she could be) and promised Red Tower would replace the seeds when the new plants matured.

The gate guards were suffering under the blazing sun with nothing but an insufficient awning to shade them. They had trained a comically large set of binoculars (another Nexus "invention") on a distant scalp of desert-colored cloth propped up to shelter a man and his mount. The man was too obscured by shadow and rising desert heat to identify, but the appalon was easier to make out. "I do believe that is Iraj and his favorite animal," Taylor told them. "If it is Iraj, and he comes visiting, let him in to see me after the resting period." Taylor put a blessing on the watch to ease their shift before escaping into the tower's cooling walls.

Advanced practitioner classes were going well. Brothers Montague and Mataba had both mastered silent prayer and were teaching the skill to others. Taylor expressed his pleasure at that development and left them to it.

The tablas were attempting to teach the abacus to a room full of administrators, but they would only speak to the women. The men were left on their own, to learn from nearby female students. Even Rector Mika was there, copying his moves from Kasryn. Taylor observed for a few minutes, smiled in praise for everyone's hard work, and moved on.

He climbed stairs to the upper levels, to the deeply recessed suites set aside for families. Fathers were putting their children down early for the mid-day nap. "If we can get them to sit still for a few minutes, they'll feel how tired they are. But they're very excited to be in a new place."

"Do they like music?" he asked the fathers and sent the bulwark to fetch his nickleharp. He hadn't played in a while, except to engrave a compost song into the fabric of the world, but now his hands were wishing for an instrument.

They talked while they waited. Most of the men had skills that would be of little use until something came out of the garden. They were weavers, coir threshers, builders, and the like. But they were strong enough to work under the direction of gardeners, and that was useful right now. Two of them had enough spirit to be a song leader, and at least one was willing to train as a bulwark. It wasn't clear how all of them would fit into Nexus but they were willing to work at anything, and that was enough.

When the nickleharp arrived Taylor laid it on his lap, tuned it, and ran his bow across the strings in long slow melodies as he imagined the vast red Kravikas desert. The children listened to the first song with rapt attention and crashed into slumber during the second.

These people had nothing but the clothes on their backs, a few large mattresses, and each other. Their wealth was their children, sleeping in a pile with the larger ones on the outside and the little ones in the middle, boys and girls together.

That was how most people slept in Tenobre: together. When the fathers laid down they would likely do the same.

Taylor left to their silent thanks, given by hand signs. On the stairs, he passed the Pashtuk women coming up to join their families. To his surprise, they stepped aside for him. He wished them a good rest as he passed, but on the inside he felt gratified that someone had clued them in about who ran this place. By the time he reached his own level, Taylor felt the shame of his ungracious thoughts. Maybe Anisca was rubbing off on him, just not in a good way.

He finally found himself alone, staring at his mattress. He liked to sleep in solitude most of the time, but today his narrow mattress for one seemed too pathetic. He rolled it up and went next door, where he found Alice resting her head on Otavio's shoulder and Milo on his other side. In the room past that, he found Mila and Inez sleeping shoulder to shoulder.

Inez's eyes snapped open, took in Taylor and his rolled-up mattress, and patted the bare floor beside her. He put down his mattress next to hers and lay nearby, not quite touching but not alone.

Eldest Brother and his bulwark woke late, close to the evening meal. While his followers prepared for departure, Taylor went down to the game room. Most of the students were gathered in groups around tables strewn with the maps, counters, cards, and pawns of Monster Hunt. Some of them had gotten creative with their pawns and shaped them into proper figurines of people and monsters rendered in local sandstone. Any day now, Taylor expected to see Tenobre's first painted figurine. It was inevitable.

He took a turn around the room to see what scenarios they were playing. Most of the setups were familiar examples, drawn from the library's extensive store of hunt reports, but one table was a surprise. The scenario was considered such a secret that a screen had been set up. The only people allowed to see the game were the players themselves, and those who had already played the scenario already. Not even Taylor had been told about it, but he let himself in to watch.

The disciples' player had a single powerful disciple, no trained bulwarks, no armor, and a hundred base-level fighters and archers. He was staking out a bifurdactica den in a steep ravine. The mission brief said his victory conditions were to kill all the monsters while remaining alive and suffer fewer than ten percent casualties among the soldiers. The typical den had about thirty of the furry snake-like mammals in it. One of those would be a female about four meters long, and the remainder would be males about half as long.

The scenario's rules allowed for extensive preparation, and he was spending spirit counters generously to carve long lines of defensive platforms into the mountainside. He wisely put minor enhancements on all his fighters. Overall it looked like a sound plan, but he should have spent the absurd spirit cost required to create a fragment, and put higher-level enhancements on at least a few weapons. He probably assumed that, because a fragment wasn't in his equipment list and the brief didn't mention a cursed monster, he wouldn't need one.

Khali played for the monsters. Taylor had recruited her directly out of Enclave's school where her talents had been left to languish, and now she was a sworn disciple. All her cards were face-down and would only be revealed as monsters left their den. It was unusual: Disciples typically knew what they were facing beforehand, thanks to local hunters and survivors. Gathering such information was a regular part of proper preparation. But sometimes, nobody knew what was out there. That was the scenario's lesson.

There were three hundred males inside that cave. The female was a shocking fourteen meters long and was cursed. And, given how he had positioned his men, the disciple would lose the scenario regardless of the fight's outcome. He hadn't blocked the ravine, leaving an easy escape route for the monsters.

Taylor knew what was in the den because this was the scenario that had almost killed him in real life.

Khali was trying hard not to visibly grin in anticipation of the slaughter to come.

A priest approached him. "Eldest Brother, that Calique spear wants an audience. Iraj."

"I'll see him in the admin suite."

He felt bad about pulling Mika from his game of Prelates until he saw how it was going: everyone was cooperating beautifully. Kasryn was the current Hierarch and it looked like she would guide Tenobre to peace and safety without any issues.

Boring. Without someone to play the bad guy the game was too stable. It was supposed to be their tool for exploring a vital question: how do you achieve global success in the face of diverse motives? Everyone working happily together was too … optimistic.

On their way out, Taylor and Mika added Lectors James and Mataba. He intentionally invited only men to this meeting with Iraj. He had a feeling that doyennes and their taboos would be unwelcome.