Tokus Numas (6 page)

“My sons, you are now kings of your own lands. We need to inquire more about this Mittere Ergon. It is loosely translated, if my teachings of the root language serve me, as energy sent, or it could be channelized.” He tapped his finger on his chin, lost in thought. “We should find out just how much this prophecy means to the Numas and how we may be able to leverage it to our advantage.”

The Free City was a mere concept, one that all within Spearca had thought was an unappealing idea. There was fear that this Free City would take root and spread across the lands, threatening all the kingdoms and their power. One kingdom spoke of the true nature of man, how he could achieve much if given the right place, the right environment to do so. All hail the Kingdom of Dugual, for their vision had led to this great time of technological revolution, and all we know will be forever changed.

—From
Solitary Studies of Linda Mercan
, by Linda Mercan

E
arly in the morning, before many had even cracked an egg, rains had made the cobbled street slick, created a thick mist, and had chilled the air. Vetus Sepher of Tokus Numas, a man in his late thirties, strolled toward Castle Dugual. His skin was leathered; his face was chiseled and covered by three days of dark, coarse stubble. He wore brown and black leathers, a hooded cloak, calf-high riding boots, and riding pants, and he carried a short sword strapped on his left side. Down the main street he went, escorted by guards and led by an old servant lady. She’d said her name was Lyn or Qyn; he wasn’t quite sure, so he decided on Lyn. When she’d said her name, it had come out of her mouth with strange tones of inflection, which at times seemed hard to understand.

“The queen awaits you in the inner gardens. It’s such a beautiful room; you won’t believe your eyes when you see the many flowers there,” Lyn said. “I came down as soon as I could when I heard of your arrival. I hope I have not kept you waiting long.”

“No, not long at all, miss,” Vetus Sepher said.

Lyn chuckled. “Did you hear that? He called me ‘miss.’ I’m as old as a worn-out rag.” The guards all laughed.

The massive outer wall of the city surrounded homes and businesses as well as the castle. The homes were well maintained, colored in bright blues, greens, purples, and oranges. Many were two-toned, inlayed with decorative stone and brick, and the roofs were covered in baked clay from the hills of Apalin. Even in such beautiful surroundings, Vetus Sepher’s eyes searched the area for possible signs of danger. His ears reached out for unwarranted sounds but heard only the patter of the group’s feet against the wet stone under them. His hand was near his hilt, his grip relaxed but ready to draw his sword.

“The queen told me yesterday of your coming. Did you send a message through your linkup, or was it the older ways of riders? Or perhaps you used a landline to call? We have those here. King Amerstall had them installed in our homes many years ago. I wish we had linkups. In the Free City, I hear they walk about with them, and they are as common as rays of sunlight,” she said.

Riders were used to communicate between kingdoms and religious orders. It offered added security and kept to the old traditions of paper and ink. Paper held significance in older forms of protocol. The fibrous sheets came from the bark of the papyrus plant and were mechanically turned to pulp, soaked in water, and sifted through hemp screens, where a thin layer formed. This layer was put on a press, and the water was squeezed out; then it was left to dry overnight. The next morning, the page turned yellow from the linen compound, a complex polymer of aromatic alcohols. Most of the process was still done by hand, including the churning of the press and the grinding of the bark through hand-driven machines. It was both a strenuous and a delicate process, one revered and respected. The Numas instilled this tradition into their students, having them learn the process—especially those who were to perform writing and communications tasks. Often when messages were received on parchment, the one who received it would send a message in return, along with a gift.

Vetus Sepher shifted his gaze onto windows and doors of houses they passed. Though his focus was there, he was still alert enough to the conversation to respond. “I do possess a linkup, and it’s only used when needed. To answer your inquiry, I did not use it to arrange this meeting with Her Majesty. We used a rider sent by the High Order of Tokus Numas,” he said.

“Oh, how respectful and formal. The nobles all carry linkups. Seeing them walk about, talking to someone without having to be in their home or having to be tethered to the wall is quite a fantastical thing. Though there is a new invention that frightens me to think of—the viddon, or some say ‘vee-dan.’ Why would anyone want one of those?” she said. “Baron Sirens from the north has arrived for the Numas’ induction ceremony, coming back from his trip to the Free City. I thought I’d made a simple mistake at first, hearing him talk out loud with no one else around. I let it go, dismissing it as though he were only thinking out loud. The next time, he was going on and on, talking and waving his arms about. I thought either I’d gone mad or he had gone mad. I was beside myself at first. He was talking and waving his arms about like there was someone real right in front of him. I felt it was my duty to tell the queen, for I didn’t want any harm coming to her or anyone else, for that matter. When I told Her Majesty, she laughed and told me it was a new device, a viddon. ‘An expensive trinket,’ she called it. I still don’t know how it works,” she said.

They remained moving down the street, passing by shops and getting closer to the main gates of the castle.

Vetus Sepher cleared his throat. “Advances in communication have quadrupled in the last three seasons alone. Many of the kingdoms have put considerable amounts of resources into them. But yes, the viddon was developed many years ago in the Free City. I was there in its infancy to oversee some of the requirements from Tokus Numas. There are three parts to it: a wireless microphone near the vocals concealed in a broach or surgically implanted, a speaker for the ear, which also can be implanted near the auditory canal, and a light-emitting diode, or LED, for the eye. If one doesn’t want an audio implant, the speaker can be put into an earring, but it degrades the sound quality quite a bit. Then there is the eye—a thin layer of tiny LEDs fused into a contact lens placed directly over the cornea. You’d think this would keep you from seeing out of one eye, and it does. You can’t tell, though, when the implant is turned off. When you look around and see objects, the mind compensates and allows you to see through the LEDs as if they were not there. When an image is transmitted to the LEDs, you can see the person you are speaking to,” he said.

Lyn nearly stopped, turning about with her mouth gaping open. “The eye? You let someone cut your eye? I would never do it. Not even if I had the coin.”

“It’s quite safe, I assure you,” Vetus Sepher said with a smile.

She turned back and proceeded toward the castle. “No, sir. Not me. You can keep it. I feel my eye aching now.” She chuckled.

Vetus Sepher’s nostrils filled with the fresh scent of baked bread, which enticed his stomach. His eyes caught several baker ladies standing outside with white powder on their aprons, their cheeks, and in their hair. They were on a break, watching his party pass by. He had dressed in traditional wear to blend in with the people, but at this point, his blending had been nullified by an escort of guards led by the queen’s primary servant, headed toward the castle gate. Already the women were whispering to one another, their mouths so close to one another’s ears that they might be mistaken for lovers.

The guards were listening; as they moved along, one elbowed the other to get a look at one of the younger baker ladies. She was quite a beauty—long, dark hair; big, rounded eyes; high cheekbones; and full lips. Vetus Sepher even caught himself looking at her and quickly set his eyes upon the dark spaces between buildings.

“It is getting colder by the hour, I swear,” Lyn said as she tightened her garments. “I wonder if we’ll need to wear a special protective suit one day, created to warm the body artificially, to keep us all from freezing. Can you imagine? Walking about with personal heaters in our drawers?”

The men sniggered.

Vetus Sepher smirked. “You have a wit about you. If we were to have these heaters in our drawers, we’d all suffer from rot and stench from the growth of fungi in our crotches that would cripple us from even the simplest task of walking,” he said. A low chortle passed through the men.

She glanced over at him and smiled. “Yes, it would do that.”

A group of young men had passed by on the opposite side of the street, carrying large crates of produce, causing their arms to bulge from the weight and obscure their faces. There were already too many people out this early for Vetus Sepher’s liking; any one of them could be a spy, an assassin, or, worse, a mercenary who might decide there was gain here and would act on it with no one’s direction but his own. He watched them out of the corner of his eye, searching for telltale signs of weapons, hints of who they might be under their guises. It was an old habit, one formed from seasons of training and experience. He set his mind at ease and remembered the celebration today and that the level of activity had increased for this reason.

Gray light between the buildings allowed him to peer into the crevices, seeking out unwanted silhouettes. He also spied a place he might go if he needed to take cover. As a fighter, he had learned to relax his muscles to conserve energy, yet he was tense. Perhaps he was overthinking things this morning when there was nothing to be concerned about.

Upon approaching the doors, Lyn said, “It’s about time. I’m certain to catch a cold if I stay out here any longer with no one to warm me.” She glanced over at Vetus Sepher. There was some laughter in her voice.

Vetus Sepher gave no notice.

The castle’s structure spoke of majesty; long lines across the front, towering circular fortifications, and arched windows stretched upward in grand fashion. The city itself paled in comparison, and the village outside the walls didn’t even measure. The doors, as tall as forty-eight hands, were made of iron and wood and were five times as wide as they were high. Large brown beams outlined the door, along with more large beams that intersected in the middle. Stones encircled the intersection. The right two quadrants of the circle were enameled red, and the left two quadrants were white marble. It was representative of the two great houses merged through purification and bloodshed: blood spilled in the great feud between the Duguals and the Earls. In the end, the house of Dugual prevailed. The great King Cane of Dugual, the last conqueror, decided to bring their families together through marriages between the two houses and bring their war to an end.

Three buzzing optics examined the group, taking images. It made one wonder just how deep their scans went, and if the guards kept photos for themselves to make light of people’s figures when they had nothing better to do. Even with such technology, there were ways to deceive; if it were x-rays, one could use material to absorb the photons in some areas while allowing them to pass through other areas. Photon-absorbing and photon-reflecting material could be used to conceal weapons or contraband from those who were searching for it. If it were taking a collection of images—to examine and discern what people held on their person—that, too, could be thwarted by adding in additional padding around one’s waist to compensate for the overall measures of the body comparative to what items might be under their clothing.

The doors automatically opened, making no sound despite their massive weight. Lyn guided the group through the doors and down a dim corridor. “Ah, that’s better. It gets warmer the farther we go,” she said, shaking off the chill. They came to a large, circular room that was open from above; along the far side, a staircase led up and up, spiraling around the entire room’s high walls all the way to the top. Around the sides were assorted entryways; some were permanently open, while others were closed off by heavy wooden doors. The doors went around the entire room, apparently alternating one open entryway and one closed entryway, and so on.

There were four main sections to the castle branching from the center. The main sections were the great hall and where the royals assembled. Court was held through the door directly across the room. All the way toward the back of the great hall was the internal garden room. The living areas were in the left spoke along with a kitchen, library, study, and guest quarters. The right spoke led to the ballroom, a good distance away, which also had its own kitchen for service. Outside, behind the castle, was an exterior building for the guards and another building for the stables. Vetus Sepher knew all aspects of the castle’s layout in the event he needed to make an escape with Petro. His eyes swept down the corridor and to the sides, and then he glanced behind, where two guards now followed.

“
Achoo
.” Lyn covered her mouth and nose.

“On the morn,” Vetus Sepher said. He fixed his mind on meeting the queen, knowing he could handle any possible threat that might emerge.

“Thank you.” Lyn took out a handkerchief, dabbed her nose in three quick blots, and put it back in her pocket.

Across the room and down the corridor they went toward the great hall, the court, and assembly room.

“The gardens are not much farther now,” Lyn said.

“Miss, where is His Majesty?” Vetus Sepher asked. He should have been here—but he’d heard intelligence state that the king left the castle and had not returned. It did concern him somewhat, for today was a challenging time for them all. Already he’d received word that the Father had attacked King Offing, and even Castle Dugual was on alert from the extra guards who seemed to be posted throughout the interior. The other indicators were the extra guards that had come out to escort him inside, the scanning at the door took that longer in his mind, and King Amerstall not being here, raised different questions.