Chapter Thirty – Blood driven compass
“Ventian’s are a strange bunch,” commented Fake with a stack of books and journals under his belt.
“I don’t want to read anymore,” sighed Andin rubbing his eyes.
“Let’s take a break.”
“Let us.”
They stood and headed for the surface. The sun had set but a few streaks of its light still muscled out some of the stars. “Not as late as I thought it was,” commented Fake.
“Time slows when you are mindlessly reading notes about diseases,” groaned Andin. Fake tossed rocks down the mountainside.
“I think it’s interesting; something so small can kill a mortal.”
“Lots of things can kill mortals.”
“What can kill an immortal?” inquired Fake.
“That’s an important question.”
“Whenever we get to Garruk let’s just chop him up and toss him over the edge of the plane.”
Andin looked at Fake and said, “Not a bad idea.”
Fake stood up and stretched, “You ready?”
Andin followed suit, “Yep.”
They headed back into the shrine, cautiously feeling for the invisible door. Brol had reassembled himself and was floating in the antechamber. “Go back to sleep,” commanded Andin. Brol acknowledged and returned to his quarters.
“You don’t think he can help?” asked Fake.
“Normally, the Glials are very helpful; but not without his brain,” answered the fire prince.
They sat back down in the lab. The evening turned into early morning as the boys slowly unearthed the purpose of the laboratory. “They weren’t trying to make a new plague; they were looking for a cure for their own,” realized Andin. “The Ventians are plagued?” said Fake curiously. “Yes, and death magic is the only way to keep it from killing you,” explained Andin.
“Well that explains why it’s here in Rosewood; what better way to quarantine than to simply move off of your home plane,” reasoned Fake.
“Their strategy is what’s interesting, and why we were so confused at first. They thought they could stop it by combining the energies of the other elemental planes, planes who aren’t plagued. I thought they were separate research notes jumbled together, but they are all aimed at the same goal,” said Andin.
Fake furrowed his brow, “Half the stuff I’ve been reading has been about navigation systems and comparisons of geography pre- and post-Sundering. I think elemental energy was only a piece of it. This stack here is all about these ‘probes’ they sent out guided by something they called ‘origin samples’ but in the diagrams it just looked like chunks of meat.”
“Probes?” asked Andin.
“Here, take a look,” motioned Fake.
Andin scanned the probe diagram. “Here, see this big prism? It’s used to store energy, but prisms are like leaky buckets, it needs to be used quickly,” His fingers traced along the diagram, “This main channel sends the energy to this… well it’s an exhaust; one big one and four small ones on pivots.” Andin looked up a Fake a little confused, “I think it’s supposed to fly.”
“Would that work?” asked Fake.
“Well, no, it’s too small.”
Fake elaborated, “These few pages say they’ve launched quite a few. For some reason they were unable to retrieve any. Here are the drawings of the observed trajectories the probes took from here.” Fake handed Andin a large folded sheet of paper covered with curving dotted lines. Andin couldn’t take his eyes off of it.
“Where were they launching these from?” asked Andin sounding worried.
“I’m not sure; the diagram doesn’t look anything like Rosewood,” answered the illusionist.
Andin walked to the opposite wall of the lab lined with metal cabinets. One set of doors was different from the others. “Why didn’t we check before,” said Andin as he angrily opened the doors. Behind which was a small metal box suspended by cables.
Fake sided up to his friend and looked down the gap between the box and the shaft, “That’s a long way down.”
“It goes all the way down,” said Andin.
“To the bottom of the plane?” asked Fake.
“To the bottom,” said the fire prince. There were operating instructions next to the prism that powered the lift. Andin filled it with magical energy and stepped inside. The prince cut two stones from the wall and gripped them tightly, “Be ready if it falls; it’s centuries old,” he warned.
Fake stepped inside and Andin threw the lever. The lift descended for ten minutes before stopping. “This doesn’t look like the bottom,” said Fake looking around the small cave they had stopped in.
“It can’t make it in one run, it’s too far; these stops have prisms I need to charge,” explained Andin as he exited and filled the next prism.
The lift stopped four more times before finally reaching the bottom of the plane. A metal catwalk suspended from the rocky base of Rosewood was all that separated them from the infinite void. The air was thin and the two had trouble breathing. They stood in awe of the scene; neither had ever seen the bottom of a plane before.
Fake looked up in wonder at the enormous floating rock above that was Rosewood Thicket, “Here we are; two tiny beings hanging beneath the mass we call Rosewood – puts things into perspective doesn’t it?” Andin just stared not knowing what to say. The sun gave the plane above them a beautiful halo; they drank in the sight.
Euphoric from the panorama and dizzy from the thin air they begrudgingly returned to work. Andin examined the rack of probes sitting quietly against the shaft of the lift. Andin lifted the probe and opened it. “That’s where they put the origin sample,” said Fake as he knelt against the catwalk.
Andin frowned, “They had a lot of samples from each plane… and not just animals. But meat is meat I suppose.” The prince pricked his finger and let a few drops of blood coat the navigation system. “What else do we need to do before we launch it?” asked Andin.
Fake read the instructions, “Hold on, I’m checking.”
With all the launch prep complete the probe was ready to launch. The prism was charged and the navigation system set. Fake pulled the activating pin and threw the probe over the rail of the catwalk. The small exhaust nodes popped loudly until the probe was pointing straight down. It would have disappeared from sight in seconds if Andin had not placed a burning marker on its shell.
“Fake you got it?” asked the fire prince.
Andin held Fake’s belt as Fake leaned over the rail with his freshly crafted telescope pointed at the probe. “It’s getting dimmer,” said the illusionist.
Andin wasn’t worried, “We’ll have to wait until it arcs back up if you lose it...”
“Gone,” said Fake flatly.
Both Fake and Andin had read and reread the trajectory chart; they made their best guess as to where the probe would resurface. “Bostil would cry,” said Andin.
“The councilman you built your bike with in Beldur?”
“Yes, he had this theory that all the planes are arranged at the edge of a sphere, Shell Theory he called it. If these charts are accurate, and we’ll know if we see the probe again, then his ideas are correct. Bostil had a hard time convincing anyone, including myself, to help with his research.”
“Why not help?” asked Fake.
Andin shrugged, “Just time; if I wasn’t training, studying, or teaching I was on government business for my father or the council. The rest of the scientific community was more or less indifferent. We all thought his logic was sound, and he is a brilliant man no doubt, but there was no obvious value in knowing the exact spatial geometry of the planes.”
“I guess a mile of the void would stop you just as easily as a thousand miles,” rationalized Fake.
“Improving our metallurgy, or researching promising branches of fire magic, and anything else that could improve our defenses from the hostile planes; those always took precedence to quests for knowledge only for the sa
ke of knowledge. Beldurians are a little too practical for that sort of thing; winter made us like that,” lamented Andin.
Fake held Andin’s chronometer and said, “Just a few more minutes now.” Fake admired the craftsmanship of the device, “You know I need to get one of these.” The illusionist gave his friend’s clock back and formed a telescope with his sand.
Andin triple checked the trajectory map, “If this is correct, and if I’m reading it correctly, it should be somewhere in this slice.” Andin waved his arm in the direction the probe should resurface.
“Okay, it should be up now, the marker will only flare once; get ready.” Both of them looked anxiously into the void. For a fraction of a second the flare Andin burned into the probe burst radiantly when the fuse expired.
“I see it!” cheered Fake.
Fake didn’t dare to move the telescope; he frantically motioned Andin to look. “There she goes; rocketing home,” Andin said with a sad smile.
Andin walked to the probe rack and put two of them into the lift. Fake watched as Andin inspected each of the probe’s navigation systems. “Let’s go,” said Andin. His mood remained melancholic the whole ride up. Fake knew how to deal with an angry Andin, but a forlorn one was new territory.
Andin left the probes in the hidden lab. He moved purposefully to the surface where he sat down on the mountainside. Fake waited before joining him. “You okay?” asked the illusionist. Andin watched the horizon and idly turned a stone between his fingers. The prince wore a look of grieving when he answered.
“It’s strange I guess, I wanted that probe to fail. But it worked, and now I have to ask you to help me do something that will make you suffer. I have to ask you to stay with me here and then follow me into Torment. I would go alone if I thought I could do it alone, but I can’t; I’m sorry I’m not strong enough yet.” Andin’s head dropped beneath his knees in shame.
Fake comforted Andin with a light airiness in his voice, “Andin, I knew the second you asked me to bury the Seed shard that we were leaving Pelagos. It was only a matter of time before you figured out a way to get to Garruk. If he has to die then we are the best shot at doing it. Besides, I don’t have anything better to do.”
Andin couldn’t have asked for a better friend, “Thanks Fake; I couldn’t do this without you.”
Fake stood up, “I know; so what now?”
Andin stood and answered, “We need to find a sample of a being from Torment.”
“P.N.A.P. should have one.”
“P.N.A.P.?”
“Pelagic Naval Applied Sciences,” answered Fake.
“Security?”
“The best.”