Waking Olympus (The Singers of the Dark Book 1) (37 page)

Her head was spinning. The world was dark and silent, she rolled over to the edge to look down into the courtyard, the soldiers were picking themselves up, but the Bethorese were running away erratically in panic. She pulled herself to her feet, she had no idea if she was wounded, she didn't care. She looked over the edge of the battlement into the Snake. Here and there fires lit the scene. It was not a place for the living, it was like the underworld. Only death dwelt down there. Broken carts, broken bodies, a smoldering scene worse than the horror stories her Nan would tell her. Gradually, her hearing started to come back; there was the sound of roaring fire, the wounded, and a ringing in her ears, but no fighting.

The glow of the ship was now lighting up smoke clouds around and above the Castle making it look like a scene from Hell. Mikel cut the red glow off and turned on some simple external lights that extruded on command from the
skin
of the ship.

"Zeus, I have decided to reduce my neural link connection. It will be in basic communications mode for most of the time. No direct memory connections. I don't want it to reshape my thinking too much."

That may be the best decision you have made. We shall see.

Even via link Zeus boomed like a god.

They landed outside of the Castle just in front of the Mouth of the Snake, the ship floating above the edge of the rampart leading down to the desert. He walked over and past bodies, broken and burned; smoldering wooden equipment; burnt ground crunching underfoot or squelching mixed with blood. He tried to remember the carpet of green when he first came here but it was another time and another world it seemed. The stench was appalling, it smelled of burnt meat like some nether world where he would one day be punished for his sins against Life.

He walked past the shattered and burning remnants of the Castle gates. There were fires in the city. To his left and right, bright hot flames, a continuous roar. This was not the result of his attack. Castle had been about to fall. His face flushed in the roaring, yellow pulsing heat. The work of Bethor catapults or fire arrows he guessed. Someone approached him, a shimmering black shape against the flames. He didn't even recognize her at first. It was Tei. She was covered in blood, dust and soot.

She hugged him sobbing. She cried and wailed. He looked past her. The Library was in flames. Her parents house no longer existed. There were many dead in the streets. She stopped sobbing and looked at Mikel.

"It may not look like it, but we won." He said. It didn’t feel like victory.

"I can't find my family and we lost the Library. So many people and things lost. So many books." She looked around and saw something and started running to some people. Mikel knew they were family. But not all of them, the mother was missing, perhaps others.

“Mikel?” Maria, the Librarian, was standing at his right. Soot covered, her t-shirt covered in ash and blood, a deep gash in her upper right arm, blood dripping from her hand, a far away look, in shock, her voice weak. “Tell Tei that we got the most valuable things into the deep tunnels.”

“Maria! Your arm, you’re injured.” He sat her down, tore a strip from his outer shirt and wrapped it around the wound. It needed to be cleaned but blood loss was the first concern. He held her face in his hand and stared into her eyes, faked the most authoritative look he could imagine. “Your arm is badly hurt. I’ve stopped the blood flow but you need to see a Healer.” He saw soldiers, probably from the other strongholds, now entering the city, including Healers wearing the red and white star; he waved one over.

Maria seemed to notice nothing.

"Maria, I met Zeus." She slowly turned to face him, smiled weakly.

"You're sweet, just like Ray.
Zeus
, yes, that would make a great tale, you'll have to tell me all about it."

He made sure she was sitting down, she was rambling, likely in shock. The medic came over and started attending to her immediately, crowding him out of the way. He wanted to help but now it was the turn of others, and he knew in that moment that these people were his people as much as his friends in Lind — they were brothers and sisters now.

Tei was still with her family. He needed somewhere to think, to get a grip on all of this. He walked past the incoming soldiers, ignoring the urgent commands that were organizing bucket brigades and fire fighting squads. He looked back and saw the medic standing, but he couldn't see Maria, she must have been taken to safety. He continued on out past the broken gate, past the dead, to the lip of the Snake. Looking out into the black, silent, unknowable desert. The perfect metaphor for his ignorance. But for now there was victory and the joy of being alive. He smiled.

Then a voice spoke clearly inside his head, above the distant roar of the fires and din of shouted commands.

Hello to anyone listening. This is the Raymond Tans. I have received transmissions indicating neural links may again be active.
It said in a now familiar accent.

"This is Mikel Peres of the Center in Lind. I am now located in Tanten. I can hear you Raymond Tans. We need your help."

I need additional information. The battle against the Tyranny ships was 673 Earth years ago. I have had no contact since shortly after that time. This ship was placed in geostationary orbit shortly after the battle, until required. I knew about the strategy for the preservation of civilization. The creation of the Center and the Library at Tanten. But I have no information about what happened after contact was lost.

Through the gates Mikel could see crowds fleeing the Castle, stopping for a while, awed by the floating silver ship, a silent hallucination reflecting distorted images of flames and streaming masses of people. Not like something out of legend but the very legends made real. Beyond that people reuniting or wailing, the sound blending into a heartrending cry. Tei hugging her family against the bright hot glare of the fires. He went back to talking to the
Raymond Tans
.

"It appears humans only now survive in Western Arva. The major powers are Lind, or The Center, if you will; the Empire of Bethor and its vassal cities on the Plain; Tanten in the desert, where I am now located. I am from Lind, a Wizard, or scientist I guess you would call me. Bethor has plans of conquest. We have just fought a major battle against an army of Bethor, the fires are still burning. Tanten was almost lost. I have made a new pact with Zeus, who has built a ship for me. That's about it."

He needed to know more about what happened. Perhaps there would be a clue or an insight about what to do next.

“Tell me about the Center and Tanten."

You have been very busy. A pity we could not meet when I was alive.

As for your request, after the battle against the three Dawn Ships one surviving enemy ship escaped and destroyed most human centers of civilization, including Earth. It was eventually defeated by Earth forces at great cost. I returned to Neti but civilization here was in an odd state. The survivors in the Cities did not want to talk to me. They were in denial. Those who wanted to rebuild were in the minority, they calculated that the Cities would fall apart within a century or two so they planned alternate places to retain the essence of their society. They had no fab machines; those were knocked out by massive EMPs in the Plains and I did not have that capability.

"In Sydney we found a functioning battle unit. There were indications they once had working equipment."

The enemy EMPs were mostly confined to the Plains. Xanadu was closer to the main defenses of Olympus, which initially protected it. But it appeared to have been hit by a later round of fusion or conversion bombs.

There was a pause, such a human way of returning to the topic, it was hard to believe he was talking to a machine, though perhaps the problem was with his understanding of the word
machine
.

The scientists and engineers, and many artists, oddly enough, went to the Oceanic Research Center, which was a research base on the remote island of Lindisfarne, they believed that would protect them from the upheavals.

"It did," he said.

The other group wanted to protect the knowledge directly by establishing a library server at Tanten, they had hopes of establishing an old style internet among the cities. It was hoped that if either one survived people could rebuild. Though they had different philosophies. The Center was more focused on preserving the Scientific Method and the living process of exploration, research and application, whereas Tanten was aimed at scholarship and preservation of knowledge. In hindsight they needed each other. I don't know about a 'Bethor', is that the town that Benthic Corp was setting up on the shores of Pennit Crater?

“I believe it was. Back to what you were saying about the Center and Tanten. In some ways their goals are opposed, one is about exploration and thinking in new ways, which explains the artists, who we get along with very well, the other is about remembering the past; maybe the planners understood that it needed two Centers not one. However, it appears Tanten has lost a lot of its library, though they have spread copies of works about."

I am a Library Ship. An irony that is not lost on me.

“That is the second or third time someone has said that but I still don't understand it.”

A Library Ship is a term used by archeologists for extremely well preserved starships, usually deliberately abandoned in places that would protect them; they have the entire history and knowledge of a civilization in an easily accessible form. I, or I should say, Raymond Tans the organic, changed human civilization by his discovery of a Library Ship of the Ashan Association of civilizations. Now the ship named after him, and loaded with his personality, is itself a Library Ship. I have vast amounts of data from Earth and its colonies including transmissions from the Cities while they still had working neural link technology. What has happened is a tragedy but all is not lost.

He was out past the ruin of the Castle gates keeping the blazing heat of the fire to his back, passed underneath the prow of the
Hope
, just hanging in the air like a dream that had strayed into wakefulness to test reality. The chill desert air on his face was a harsh contrast to the tingling burn on his back. Streams of people continued far behind him now just a general blur of noise. He noticed to his right that someone was clambering up the slopes of the snake ramparts, now just a blackened smoking mound, devoid of all the defenses, as if war had prepared the ground for the peace. The figure was dirty, hard to see. It stood up and lumbered towards him. A Trader? Injured by the look, the way the left arm dangled loosely. He now saw the gray uniform. An enemy soldier? But the colors were different, he would confront him, he must see that it was time to surrender. The figure was closer, he saw the symbols of rank, then he saw the long straggling hair, the face.

She stopped about five meters from him.

"Surrender, Ms Markham. Your war is lost." He waved at the obvious floating miracle next to him.

"So. Agh!" She grimaced in pain. "You have an Ancient weapons system. How?"

"Zeus gave it to me?" He fought the urge to remind her who he was.

She acted confused. Not able to accept what he just said, as if the words had no meaning.

"No, I mean where did you get it?" She staggered.

"Zeus
personally
made it for me. Time for you to surrender, we can tend your wounds."

"So you are my nemesis then?"

"That is completely the wrong way to look at this, Liz."

"Ms Markham to you boy."
 

In a moment she leaped forward drawing a familiar blade. She lunged at him. He grabbed her forearm but her momentum pushed him back and he tripped. She fell on top of him. Even though she could only use one hand she was strong and seasoned, he was still just a junior wizard, not a soldier, not hardened at all. Both his hands were clamped on her wrist pushing her back. She bit down hard on his exposed right hand. He pulled it away, the wavy blade started to rapidly advance on him the tip penetrating his leather cuirass and his skin. Even before the pain hit, with his free hand he punched her injured left shoulder as hard as he could. He dug his thumb into an obvious wound and pushed until he could feel chipped bone. She screamed and jumped back. The blade was gone, then the pain hit him.

"I'm not ten years old this time." He said, trying to focus.

Her eyes looked down then up, searching for a memory. She stood and jumped back, stiff, awkward in a lot of pain, she was bleeding more from her wounds. He noticed another wound, bleeding on her left chest. She had been shot through a lung.

"You. But. Why?" It made no sense so he answered the question he wished she had asked, which was not about
why
but about
how
.

"I didn't need to set the world on fire to cure my hate. Neither did you. This was all your choice. Soon, I will end Bethor's rule and abolish slavery."

"Without slaves you won't be able to do anything." She sneered.

She still didn't understand. She truly was a prisoner in a cell of her own making. She looked up, focusing on the
Hope
, seeing it and then finally understanding what it meant.

"I. I only wanted to save us. Sorry, that I ..."

He saw blood on her lips. Her wounds were likely fatal if not treated immediately.

There was a thud, he knew what it meant even before his eyes confirmed it. The feather-like end of a crossbow bolt protruded from her chest. Her right hand immediately going to the two flat wooden fins splayed out like the wings of his ship. She looked down, in pain, a look like a child about to cry, a look of being cheated out of something. She dropped to her knees, a faraway look. Her head tilted back as if she was looking at the stars, one last time, and toppled backwards.

Tei was fitting another bolt to her crossbow, not the small one she had worn on her hip, this was full size. She rapidly aimed, fired, hitting the dead woman in the side of the head. Tei was shaking trying to fit another bolt, crying. Pain and anger. Mostly pain.