This is part ten of this story, adapted from an on-going
play-by-forum session of Numenera. If you haven't already, you'll want
to start at the Tears of the Gods table of contents page.
***
Previously in "Tears of the Gods"
Through a window high above the arena, two pairs of amber eyes watched the fight unfold. "They are doing well. They can fight. They have esoteries. They could be the right ones."
"I am Yimoul-Za, golthiar and blessed of the Sun," he continued, not waiting for a response from Frater Bellias. "I am willing to listen to your task, but you said all will be answered here. So, may I ask: will this task bring me nearer to finding a skyship that will bring me to the Sun?"
Syrus looked back. Where Fallside's factory had once stood, all that could be seen were streaks of dark gunk leaking down the cliff.
There was a blurring around Tempus, as if the whole area were surrounded by a dense heat haze. In his "chronal vision" he saw the nine-year-old boy, Riss, his son, now aged nineteen and trained as a glaive, preparing to set out south for Matheunis, a journey from which—Tempus somehow knew—he would never return.
"If there's anyone you should be eternally grateful to," said the redhead (voice-print confirmed: Jilandri), "it's your friends. They lugged your heavy, powered-down self around for months until they could find someone able to fix you."
***
Date: 14th Vaen in the 402nd Year of the Founding
Tempus
Tempus' first clue something was amiss was the quivering of the rodinza wine in the glass set before him. Earthquake? He looked around at the others, gathered at their usual table in the Four Spine Café, as the town around them celebrated some local holiday late into the night. Something was off about his friends, too; they were oddly... flat-looking. He frowned.
He realized his "chronal vision" was gone. He was, for the first time in a long time, limited to seeing the present moment only.
Then came another tremor, then another and another, each stronger than the previous one. Dust fell from cracked tiles in the ceiling of the café; outside in the street came the sounds of cries as a panic spread.
The earth shook violently. Across the street a needle-like spire crumpled in slow motion and collapsed into dust, engulfing many of the night-time revelers.
The café was a broad circular area beneath one of Auspar's shockingly tall, slender buildings. The building above them was held off the ground by four sturdy pillars, carved to look like spinal vertebrae. Though Tempus knew the buildings of Auspar were constructed of very lightweight materials in order to achieve the eye-catchingly tall, graceful look preferred by the local architectural style, the buildings were certainly still heavy enough that you wouldn't want one to fall on you.
From beneath his feet came a loud sound like frying strips of fatty meat. The floor of the café split open in a burst of actinic blue light, and a clawed creature with heavy chitinous armor-plates pushed up through the rift, followed by a flight of purple-and-yellow flying insects with wingspans nearly as broad as a man is tall.
Gormin was the first to his feet, bellowing a warcry as he charged one of the giant armored creatures.
The earth heaved. Gormin lost his footing and slid across the floor and fell headlong into the gaping chasm. He was gone.
Tempus hesitated, paralysed by fear as much from the loss of his chronal vision as from the loss of Gormin. The armored creature hauled itself out of the chasm and hurled its tremendous bulk bodily against a pillar.
"There must be some other way out," yelled Tlecha above the noise of battle. "Can they be drawn off by some music or scent?"
Tempus Scanned it. He could sense that the creature was intelligent, but profoundly alien, and possessed of an overwhelming urge to tunnel through the ground. He could sense also its body pulsing with unnatural energy.
The rest of the group was up and fighting by now, but the huge purple wasps were harrying them, keeping them away from the tunneler that continued to slam itself against the pillar, which crunched worryingly in response to the abuse.
The creature released its store of pent-up energy. Lightning arced out from its mandibles, felling Kiraz and Voloidion, along with several fleeing café patrons. The sound of the crackling, spitting lightning was the source of the "frying meat" sound, Tempus realized.
Tempus knew it was hopeless and turned to flee himself. He caught sight of the moon, half-full, hanging in the sky as he reached the edge of the suspended building's shadow.
With a deafening roar, the pillars gave way and the building came down.
Tempus Far-Stepped away as far as he could, into the cold night air. He was aware, in the back of his mind, that he was alone now, again. His friends were gone—crushed beneath countless tons of broken flowstone, twisted metal, and other debris. But he couldn't think about that right now. The whole city was crashing down around him. Nowhere was safe. He Far-Stepped from one precarious perch to the next, trying to reach stable ground.
A second tunneling creature burst up from the earth, its body crackling with stored lightning. Before Tempus could react, the creature released its energy, catching him fully with the blast.
His final thought was of his family, forever lost in time.
***
Date: 8th Vaen in the 402nd Year of the Founding
The sound of shattering glass snapped Tempus back into the present moment. He looked down. His hand bled, and there were fragments of glass on the floor, twinkling amidst his spilled wine. By Kronos, that was too real—not a glimmer of future possibility, but an uncontrolled journey to the actual future.
Tempus looked around at his friends, gathered once more around their usual table at the Four Spines. Two things were immediately obvious. First, his chronal vision had returned—he could see his friends simultaneously ageing and rejuvenating. That, at least, was back to normal. And second, judging from the expressions of nonplussed horror he saw on their faces, the temporal anomaly had not been experienced by himself alone this time. That was definitely not normal.
Yimoul-Za pushed his large, bulbous eye into Tempus' personal space. "What a vision!" exclaimed the golthiar. "Is it because of you, Tempus? Are you tearing holes in time?"
Tempus gestured discreetly for calm and looked around. It did not appear that anyone else in the café had experienced the disruption of time. How fortunate, he mused. Next time, the whole city might be catapulted days or aeons into the future or past. The possible consequences of that didn't bear thinking about.
He wrapped a cloth around the cut on his hand. Not without some hint of sadness, he noted that not all of his companions had been in the future that he saw, and some of those he'd seen in the future were not present in the present—Syrus and Kiraz both seemed to be missing. His eyes came to rest finally on Tlecha, the white-haired ultraterrestrial being who'd been pressed into service by Eighth Worlders and escaped by traveling countless millions of years into her future. It was, of course, just as likely that she was the cause of the recent temporal anomaly as he was. Or that his own proximity to her was causing some kind of instability. But, cautious about offending anyone—to say nothing of disrupting the timeline further—he held his tongue.
Jilandri, the red-headed machine specialist, spoke up. "What... was that? Let's discuss it in the square; I don't feel quite right staying in here right now." She latched onto Voloidion, the intricately crafted mechanical nano, and pulled him out of the café into the plaza outside.
The others, still looking somewhat dazed, rose and followed her out. Tempus fished out a handful of shins to leave on the table, then moved to join them.
Outside, it was lightly snowing, midday. The three-finger layer of powder covering the ground made the many light-colored spires of Auspar look like upward-thrusting icicles. A weak force-screen kept the cold and the snow out of the café. Tempus passed through the force-screen and grimaced at the bracing assault of cold.
In the future, it had been a cold night, but above freezing, and definitely not snowing. He tried to remember if there were any other clues as to when the vision would come to pass. The moon? The moon had been about half full, he was sure of that. And since today would be the night of the new moon, it meant, at a minimum, they had several days before the creatures would attack.
The light of Yimoul-Za's eye was shifting colors rapidly, a sign of distress. "All of you had the same vision? Curious. Unavoidable? But what if we avoided ever coming back to this place?" He swiveled his long, vine-like neck around, looking at the city. "Strange it is," he added.
Voloidion answered. "I... I do not know what I saw. I don't have dreams or visions... at least not in the way that—" He paused. "Not in the way that you organics conceive of the idea."
Jilandri shook her head. "That felt real, like really real, so maybe we should discuss the vision of certain death somewhere... else, maybe?"
A lattimor with reddish-brown fur stepped out through the force-screen. It was Komai-Mhek, the proprietors of the Four Spines. "You all. Why you leave suddenly? What is problem? Not like café, you talk to me to put it right. Bad for me, bad for other customers." The gruff voice and lack of concern for the niceties of grammar indicated that it was Mhek addressing them; Mhek's symbiote Komai was inactive.
Yimoul-Za answered. "Mhek! Did all of us come in together? We had an odd experience in your drinking establishment. The kind of thing that I hear happens when humans have too much to drink or when they smoke blue-spotted glansh."
The lattimor removed a pipe from a belt-pouch and started filling it with some herbaceous-smelling dried weed. "What odd experience? No odd experience in Four Spines except customers walking out."
Syrus emerged from the café just then and brushed past Komai-Mhek. "I was taking care of some...um.. business. C-came back and you g-g-gone. I- I-... I was whipping up on some wasp thingies and then poof, I was... in the b-bathroom." He looked questioningly at Tempus.
Jilandri nodded. "That sounds like what happened to me, too. Well, except the bathroom part." She turned to Tempus, eyebrows lowered. "See here! The others are all looking at you. I don't know what shenanigans you're getting up to with time, and I don't need to know. Probably make my head explode anyway. But you leave me and my friends out of it. I'd rather just die the once."
Tempus held up his hands placatingly. "I am not sure what caused the... er, vision... but what I can tell you, based on my expertise—which is considerable—is that the vision represents the real future, and it will happen unless we do something to stop it, that is, assuming we wish to stop it. The consequences of altering the time-stream are unpredictable at best, and often disastrous," he added, leaving out any mention that the vision may have been caused by his own prior manipulations of the time-stream. But that is speculation, after all; sharing it would only alarm them needlessly. He sighed and continued. "But the consequences of not altering that future, well, you saw for yourselves." He shrugged helplessly.
Mhek got his pipe lit and drew in some smoke. He closed the lowermost of his six eyes and opened his tiny uppermost eyes. Tempus knew that meant he was switching from Mhek to Komai, perhaps to better analyse the Broken Cage Company's peculiar story. Komai exhaled the pipe smoke in a series of rings.
Tempus continued. "The situation appears dire, I agree, but perhaps the collapse prevents an even larger disaster from occurring. Perhaps we need to investigate the context of the event before acting to stop it. Every event has multiple causes and countless consequences..."
He stopped. From a distance came a sound like an orchestra of steam-driven pipe-organs and random percussion accompaniment gone mad. Tempus glanced at Komai, but the latter did not seem particularly surprised or perturbed, seemingly content to spend his smoke break listening to the group's strange tale of doom and/or awaiting the arrival of the source of the odd music. The music approached, getting louder and louder, and gradually becoming wilder and more raucous. Tempus noticed that the music played continually with no breaks to indicate changes of song, yet also without repeating even a single phrase of music. Then, moving from the city's main thoroughfare into the plaza, a most extraordinary sight hove into view. A procession of gaudily decorated vehicles, some moving on their own, some drawn by aneen or other beasts, all of them bedecked in bright colours, glaringly prominent against the stark white of the snow.
A curious crowd was beginning to gather. Some had happened to be going about their business in the plaza and now turned to gawk. Others had followed the procession up the street.
The lead vehicle was on runners and appeared to be moving on its own over the snow. Most of its broad cargo area was taken up by a massive artifact, an elaborate fusion of synth and metal. The artifact sported many bell-like funnels, horns, rattles, pipes, tympanic surfaces, and other noise- and music-making mechanisms, some of which Tempus did not recognize at all. It was from this contraption that the loud music emanated.
Other wagons were various shapes and sizes, including two tall cylindrical ones shrouded in tarpaulins, each pulled by multiple aneen.
The appearance of new, unknown, functioning numenera instantly pushed the vision out of his mind. Tempus stepped away from the group, ducked into a nearby alleyway, and cast a Scan on the musical artifact.
His Scan revealed that the machine was Level 1 construct created to play orchestral music, and capable of playing two or more pieces simultaneously, yet making such a cacophony work, even make it appealing, as it was now.
Jilandri had followed him into the alley. "Hm, I'll bet they need repair work on that caravan. Maybe I can pick up some work, or at least some news," she said.
Tempus barely heard. His Scan had revealed something else unexpected: a hint of chronal vision on the musical device. Usually, his chronal vision only functioned on living, organic creatures. That he could pick up a glimpse of chronal vision from an inanimate object meant... Well, what does it mean? He had to get closer.
Riding on the front of the flat-bed vehicle that bore the music machine was a woman wearing a feathery headdress and deep-black robe with pink trim, and a man with spiky hair wearing a pink robe with black trim. As Tempus got closer he could see that both looked outdoorsy and weather-beaten despite the gaudy, impractical costumes.
The man with the spiky hair looked down at Tempus. "Ho friend, you like my device? Looking at you, I'm guessing that you're an inventor, a mechanician of sorts? I am but a humble showman; my flair and talent is entertaining the masses." Spiky-hair's powerful voice sounded well-acquainted with public speaking. "Wait for some time for my fair to set up in yonder square and I will then let you demonstrate my machine's marvelous properties!" He smiled and looked away, waving and calling to other people in the growing crowd.
The machine is so close. Tempus smiled and waved as well, then "accidentally" stumbled and reached his hand out to the machine to steady himself. As he came in contact with the artifact, he focused his chronal vision, attempting to probe mentally into the device's timeline. Somewhat to his surprise, this worked: the machine was alive, was named the Pieriant, and was dimly self-aware. It loved to play music and see people dancing. But it had sat alone for countless centuries in a place where no one came to dance any more. Then the man with the spiky hair arrived and promised that he would teach it the Music of the Spheres if it came with him to a particular place and played music continuously for several days. Spiky-hair and several others had removed it from its place and loaded it onto the wagon and commanded it to be silent until told otherwise. All of this Tempus saw in an instant.
A hand closed on Tempus' shoulder and firmly pulled him away from the vehicle, breaking the connection. "Please don't touch, sir." Tempus looked back at his interlocutor. A guard in billowy pink-and-charcoal pantaloons and fur-lined coat held Tempus shoulder with one massive hand and had a heavy truncheon pointed down by his side in the other. Tempus decided that now was not the time for confrontation. He relented and muttered an apology, and the guard let him go.
But internally, Tempus was soaring. Though it had been slightly draining, the effort to see into the music machine's past had worked. He decided he would call this new esotery See History.
***
Jilandri
Jilandri approached the rearmost vehicle in the strange procession, a smallish wagon being pulled by a tall man in winter furs and a tall hat. Atop the vehicle was a dark green, teardrop-shaped canvas tent festooned with light-green and yellow dots, and thin, multicolored fabric streamers, blowing in the light wind.
Perhaps the vehicle is normally numenera-driven and in need of repair, she thought. Jilandri offered the hand of greeting. "Looks like you've got quite a few vehicles here—bound to have some problems, eh? I’m a mechanic out of Wyrfall, maybe could help you out with any issues. You got a mechanic I should contact?"
"Mechanic?" the man pulling the wagon puffed. "No, we don’t need a mechanic." The man was heavily-built and perspiring. He wore spectacles and had a bushy mustache.
From inside the green tent came a woman's voice. "Why don't you tell him, Vorg? We can’t afford a mechanic; we got no shins to pay for one. How are we going to do a show if the scope's playing up?"
"If you took a turn at pulling, Shirna, I could look at it and maybe fix it."
"Me, pulling? I’m a dancer."
Jilandri smiled. "Vorg, want me to take a look at this scope? Then, if you came into some shins, you could get me back, or you could just pay me back with a referral for some work for others in the caravan."
Vorg stopped. He stooped to set the wagon's handbrake, then straightened with a groan, clutching his back.
"Would you do that? That's very kind. We used to have the manual for it, but it got lost somewhere."
"Maybe when we had to get out of Mulen in a hurry, remember?" A young woman, dressed in gaudy pink and green clothing and garish sparkly make-up, emerged from the tent. "Admit it, Vorg: you don't have a clue how the scope works."
Vorg blustered for a moment, his impressive mustache bristling indignantly, but grudgingly admitted that while he knew how to work it, he knew not how it worked. Something had gone wrong, and it wouldn't switch on anymore.
Jilandri hopped onto the wagon and ducked inside the tent, which had enough room inside for the scope and about two people. The scope was a waist-high pedestal with a semi-circular control panel boasting a few knobs and switches and a small keypad. Topping it was a metal ring, about three feet in diameter—a holographic screen, Jilandri recognized.
She popped open the back of the scope and started poking around.
The inner workings of the scope were quite strange—everything at a very miniature level, and several key systems even seemed to operate at the sub-atomic level. Certainly not Ninth World technology.
At some point Tempus joined her.
Between the two of them, it became clear that the only real issue was that the scope's power core was nearly depleted and needed replacing. Tempus, she noticed, seemed to have an almost intuitive grasp of individual subsystems' original purposes.
The scope's ring-screen lit up. Holographic red characters in the Old Navarene script hung in the air within the screen and started flashing. She looked questioningly at Tempus.
"It says, 'Danger, compression field failure imminent,'" Tempus reported.
"Ah, I don't like the sound of that! We need to power up the core and keep the compression field operating—whatever that is." Jilandri rooted frantically through her pockets and toolbags but came up with nothing suitable as a substitute power supply.
Sighing audibly, she yanked off her teleportation bracket and started to take it apart with her micro-tools, attempting to 'wire it into' the scope as a temporary power supply by aligning the crystal substructure and—she hoped—prevent the field failure.
Tempus cleared his throat. He pulled out a Shock Ring, a lightning-emitting cypher. "You know, Jilandri, this cypher holds quite a large charge, which can use to power up the core if we connect the blue anodes, and if this doesn't work, we can try and use the power source from Toorkmeyn's emitter. I've been carrying it since the Arechive and haven't found a use for it yet."
Jilandri nodded and took the Shock Ring. "Yes, I think that will be much better. Plus, the crystal alignment looks a lot more compatible."
She got to work, diving into the guts of the device and tearing through it quickly and adeptly. Tempus leaned in, pointing with a rod to that casing misaligned, this micro-switch jammed, helping to guide the repairs.
She got the Shock Ring seated and connected, but the cypher may have contained a bit too much power. With a sharp snap of electricity, the scope discharged the excess power in the form of arcs of artificial lightning, giving Tempus and Jilandri a jolt.
But after a moment, the warning letters disappeared, and the scope sat quietly humming in standby mode. Fixed. Like most ancient technology, it was almost supernaturally self-adapting to repairs.
Jilandri emerged from the tent. "Fixed now. The replacement power source is bigger than the depleted one, so the panel in the back won't close. But the scope works. Curious to see what it does."
Shirna the dancer was distracted by the approach of Yimoul-Za, making his way through the crowd. She tapped Vorg's elbow excitedly and pointed at the golthiar. "We've got some of those in the scope, haven't we? On setting two?"
Vorg stepped forward and addressed Yimoul-Za. "Honored plant-being! May I ask what is your species? I like to be accurate in my shows."
"I am a golthiar. What is this show?" He peered at them.
Vorg nodded and smiled. "Very good, a... golthiar, is it? Golthiar." He looked thoughtful. "Golthiar, golthiar. Gaze at the... majestic golthiar? Noble golthiar? Let's go with 'noble'." He gestured to Shirna and produced an ocarina-like musical instrument from his coat. He played a merry tune that Shirna danced to, although the sound of the Pieriant mostly overpowered his piping.
He then leapt onto the wagon. His hat lit up as he called out: "Come, ONE and ALL! See the WONDERS of the WORLD! MARVEL at what the scope can SHOW you! GASP at the WONDERS you will SEE! SHUDDER at the loathsome BEASTS revealed by the magic of the SCOPE! GAZE in flabbergastment at the MAJESTY of the noble GOLTHIAR! Only one shin each. Next show starts shortly."
He grinned at Shirna and rubbed his hands together. "Oh, we are going to make some big money over the next few days."
She pouted. "Days! Can't we go somewhere warm?"
Curious onlookers were starting to queue up to have a turn looking in the scope.
Jilandri clapped Vorg on the shoulder. "That there was on the house. Heading out now, but I expect you to work just as hard getting my name out there to the rest of the carnies as you are now raising money. You just let them know Jilandri... and Tempus," she added, looking over at the latter, "are dab hands at fixing vehicles and devices, both, and will be around tomorrow. I need the work!"
***
Date: 9th Vaen in the 402nd Year of the Founding
Tempus
The day dawned bright and clear, with temperatures well below freezing. The streets had iced over during the night; many pedestrians used skates to move around. By their demonstrated skill they were accustomed to this situation.
The Pieriant had played its music all through the night, still never repeating itself. Even so, Tempus was able to get a good night's sleep. It's not as if it were controlling my mind.
Komai greeted the group as they arrived at the Four Spines for breakfast and accompanied them to their usual table. "Good for business this is," he said, jerking his chin in the general direction of the traveling circus. "Tell us, did you find out how long they are staying? We might need more waiting staff."
Gormin nodded. "They say they hope to stay a few days, perhaps longer. I'm a bit surprised they plan to travel through all this," gesturing vaguely at the ice outside.
Komai called their orders through to the kitchen then returned to the table to chat. "We are surprised; this travelling fair is... small. We were in Milave once and saw Ossam's Traveling Menagerie and Soaring Circus. That was a true, true sight. A hundred performers, a marquee that seated a thousand people, an ever-varied show that ran for hours—a true, true sight. For the Spines, though, we must not turn down business, in whatever form it comes."
Outside, the Pieriant still played and people gathered to dance even if they had no money for the other attractions. The people seemed able to leave when they had had enough. It's not like the music is controlling their minds, thought Tempus.
A male human stumbled through the force-screen into the Four Spines. He wore the remains of once-fine clothes, with an eye-catching ornate topcoat of shimmering gold silster. He shuffled to a table and sat heavily. Komai served him a mug of ingtfu, which he downed in two. He called for another.
Tempus wondered what his story was. Silster was an expensive commodity, he knew. And it was quite early in the day to be tossing back something as potent as ingtfu.
Voloidion spoke up. "The organic digestive system... I still find it such a crude and almost vulgar method of energy conversion, besides the fact that it's comically inefficient. Perhaps one day I can convince one of you to let me to perform an experimental vivisection on you, to see if I could possibly learn about how to improve the process? Before you all leap to volunteer, please keep it mind it's very unlikely you would survive such a procedure."
Gormin chuckled.
The group paid for their meal and went out to see the fair.
Tempus saw the Pieriant parked in front of what appeared to be a boarded-up manufactory on the other side of the plaza. Vertically, along the tall, graceful spire rising from the southeast corner of the factory was carved the words "Dzantis Silster" in characters large enough to be seen from the other side of the plaza.
People were still joining and leaving the spontaneous dancing, but it wasn't as if they were being controlled. Tempus frowned. How often had he had that reassuring thought?
He looked around. Spiky-hair and the woman in the black robe were nowhere to be seen.
A varjellen approached him, trying to get him to pay shins to fight a jiraskar supposedly contained in his tent. Tempus ignored him.
"Strange goings-on in the factory," growled a familiar voice.
Tempus turned. It was Gormin, hood pulled low so as to avoid scaring people with his hideous visage. Gormin pointed discreetly.
Through one of the boarded-up windows of the factory could be seen the faint flicker of blue actinic light. The light reminded him very much of the burst of light that had accompanied the burrowing creatures' pent-up lightning in the vision.
Gormin growled, "it may just be the cynic in me, but something is very off about this fair. Who ever heard of a fair that continues to travel and operate in the dead of winter? I think the whole thing is cover for shenanigans at this factory."
Tempus nodded. He was beginning to think the same way.
"I'll take a closer look," said Gormin. He moved discreetly toward the closed manufactory, zigzagging slowly through the crowd.
Carnie guards in their ridiculous pink-and-grey uniforms were trying to discreetly watch the boarded-up entrances to the building, but just then, Yimoul-Za stepped up to the guards and started speaking to them, gesturing animatedly. Tempus couldn't hear what was said, but decided it might provide the distraction he needed.
Maybe there is an open roof entrance. He Far-Stepped into the air, leaping over the factory's high stone facade.
As he cleared the facade, he saw that most of the roof was taken up by a huge glass skylight. Hopefully strongglass, he thought as he hurtled towards it.
Not strongglass. He crashed through the skylight and plunged into an atrium full of flowers. The thick vegetation and soft loam broke his fall somewhat, but he was knocked unconscious all the same.
When he came to, the rest of the group—less Syrus—was standing around him in the atrium.
"Are you all right?" asked Thecla.
Tempus stood and brushed himself off. He did not seem to be seriously injured, very fortunate. "All according to plan," he mumbled. The Pieriant could be heard clearly even inside the stone building.
A thought occurred to him then. "Does anyone know where Kiraz is? I do not recall seeing her since the vision. She was not at breakfast either."
The others frowned in confusion. "Kiraz?" asked Gormin.
Yimoul-Za peered closely at Tempus with his enormous eye. "Friend Tempus, have you damaged your head in your fall? Who is Kiraz?"
By Kronos, thought Tempus. No.
To be continued...
***
Previously in "Tears of the Gods"
Through a window high above the arena, two pairs of amber eyes watched the fight unfold. "They are doing well. They can fight. They have esoteries. They could be the right ones."
"I am Yimoul-Za, golthiar and blessed of the Sun," he continued, not waiting for a response from Frater Bellias. "I am willing to listen to your task, but you said all will be answered here. So, may I ask: will this task bring me nearer to finding a skyship that will bring me to the Sun?"
Syrus looked back. Where Fallside's factory had once stood, all that could be seen were streaks of dark gunk leaking down the cliff.
There was a blurring around Tempus, as if the whole area were surrounded by a dense heat haze. In his "chronal vision" he saw the nine-year-old boy, Riss, his son, now aged nineteen and trained as a glaive, preparing to set out south for Matheunis, a journey from which—Tempus somehow knew—he would never return.
Kiraz
continued the story. In Auspar, they found that the other three members
of the Broken Cage Company had all survived, though Gormin had lost his
aneen during the flight from the City of Bridges.
Along the way, they had befriended an ultraterrestrial named Thecla.
They had not had any luck finding the Shrine of the Winged God.
"If there's anyone you should be eternally grateful to," said the redhead (voice-print confirmed: Jilandri), "it's your friends. They lugged your heavy, powered-down self around for months until they could find someone able to fix you."
***
Date: 14th Vaen in the 402nd Year of the Founding
Tempus
Tempus' first clue something was amiss was the quivering of the rodinza wine in the glass set before him. Earthquake? He looked around at the others, gathered at their usual table in the Four Spine Café, as the town around them celebrated some local holiday late into the night. Something was off about his friends, too; they were oddly... flat-looking. He frowned.
He realized his "chronal vision" was gone. He was, for the first time in a long time, limited to seeing the present moment only.
Then came another tremor, then another and another, each stronger than the previous one. Dust fell from cracked tiles in the ceiling of the café; outside in the street came the sounds of cries as a panic spread.
The earth shook violently. Across the street a needle-like spire crumpled in slow motion and collapsed into dust, engulfing many of the night-time revelers.
The café was a broad circular area beneath one of Auspar's shockingly tall, slender buildings. The building above them was held off the ground by four sturdy pillars, carved to look like spinal vertebrae. Though Tempus knew the buildings of Auspar were constructed of very lightweight materials in order to achieve the eye-catchingly tall, graceful look preferred by the local architectural style, the buildings were certainly still heavy enough that you wouldn't want one to fall on you.
From beneath his feet came a loud sound like frying strips of fatty meat. The floor of the café split open in a burst of actinic blue light, and a clawed creature with heavy chitinous armor-plates pushed up through the rift, followed by a flight of purple-and-yellow flying insects with wingspans nearly as broad as a man is tall.
Gormin was the first to his feet, bellowing a warcry as he charged one of the giant armored creatures.
The earth heaved. Gormin lost his footing and slid across the floor and fell headlong into the gaping chasm. He was gone.
Tempus hesitated, paralysed by fear as much from the loss of his chronal vision as from the loss of Gormin. The armored creature hauled itself out of the chasm and hurled its tremendous bulk bodily against a pillar.
"There must be some other way out," yelled Tlecha above the noise of battle. "Can they be drawn off by some music or scent?"
Tempus Scanned it. He could sense that the creature was intelligent, but profoundly alien, and possessed of an overwhelming urge to tunnel through the ground. He could sense also its body pulsing with unnatural energy.
The rest of the group was up and fighting by now, but the huge purple wasps were harrying them, keeping them away from the tunneler that continued to slam itself against the pillar, which crunched worryingly in response to the abuse.
The creature released its store of pent-up energy. Lightning arced out from its mandibles, felling Kiraz and Voloidion, along with several fleeing café patrons. The sound of the crackling, spitting lightning was the source of the "frying meat" sound, Tempus realized.
Tempus knew it was hopeless and turned to flee himself. He caught sight of the moon, half-full, hanging in the sky as he reached the edge of the suspended building's shadow.
With a deafening roar, the pillars gave way and the building came down.
Tempus Far-Stepped away as far as he could, into the cold night air. He was aware, in the back of his mind, that he was alone now, again. His friends were gone—crushed beneath countless tons of broken flowstone, twisted metal, and other debris. But he couldn't think about that right now. The whole city was crashing down around him. Nowhere was safe. He Far-Stepped from one precarious perch to the next, trying to reach stable ground.
A second tunneling creature burst up from the earth, its body crackling with stored lightning. Before Tempus could react, the creature released its energy, catching him fully with the blast.
His final thought was of his family, forever lost in time.
***
Date: 8th Vaen in the 402nd Year of the Founding
The sound of shattering glass snapped Tempus back into the present moment. He looked down. His hand bled, and there were fragments of glass on the floor, twinkling amidst his spilled wine. By Kronos, that was too real—not a glimmer of future possibility, but an uncontrolled journey to the actual future.
Tempus looked around at his friends, gathered once more around their usual table at the Four Spines. Two things were immediately obvious. First, his chronal vision had returned—he could see his friends simultaneously ageing and rejuvenating. That, at least, was back to normal. And second, judging from the expressions of nonplussed horror he saw on their faces, the temporal anomaly had not been experienced by himself alone this time. That was definitely not normal.
Yimoul-Za pushed his large, bulbous eye into Tempus' personal space. "What a vision!" exclaimed the golthiar. "Is it because of you, Tempus? Are you tearing holes in time?"
Tempus gestured discreetly for calm and looked around. It did not appear that anyone else in the café had experienced the disruption of time. How fortunate, he mused. Next time, the whole city might be catapulted days or aeons into the future or past. The possible consequences of that didn't bear thinking about.
He wrapped a cloth around the cut on his hand. Not without some hint of sadness, he noted that not all of his companions had been in the future that he saw, and some of those he'd seen in the future were not present in the present—Syrus and Kiraz both seemed to be missing. His eyes came to rest finally on Tlecha, the white-haired ultraterrestrial being who'd been pressed into service by Eighth Worlders and escaped by traveling countless millions of years into her future. It was, of course, just as likely that she was the cause of the recent temporal anomaly as he was. Or that his own proximity to her was causing some kind of instability. But, cautious about offending anyone—to say nothing of disrupting the timeline further—he held his tongue.
Jilandri, the red-headed machine specialist, spoke up. "What... was that? Let's discuss it in the square; I don't feel quite right staying in here right now." She latched onto Voloidion, the intricately crafted mechanical nano, and pulled him out of the café into the plaza outside.
The others, still looking somewhat dazed, rose and followed her out. Tempus fished out a handful of shins to leave on the table, then moved to join them.
Outside, it was lightly snowing, midday. The three-finger layer of powder covering the ground made the many light-colored spires of Auspar look like upward-thrusting icicles. A weak force-screen kept the cold and the snow out of the café. Tempus passed through the force-screen and grimaced at the bracing assault of cold.
In the future, it had been a cold night, but above freezing, and definitely not snowing. He tried to remember if there were any other clues as to when the vision would come to pass. The moon? The moon had been about half full, he was sure of that. And since today would be the night of the new moon, it meant, at a minimum, they had several days before the creatures would attack.
The light of Yimoul-Za's eye was shifting colors rapidly, a sign of distress. "All of you had the same vision? Curious. Unavoidable? But what if we avoided ever coming back to this place?" He swiveled his long, vine-like neck around, looking at the city. "Strange it is," he added.
Voloidion answered. "I... I do not know what I saw. I don't have dreams or visions... at least not in the way that—" He paused. "Not in the way that you organics conceive of the idea."
Jilandri shook her head. "That felt real, like really real, so maybe we should discuss the vision of certain death somewhere... else, maybe?"
A lattimor with reddish-brown fur stepped out through the force-screen. It was Komai-Mhek, the proprietors of the Four Spines. "You all. Why you leave suddenly? What is problem? Not like café, you talk to me to put it right. Bad for me, bad for other customers." The gruff voice and lack of concern for the niceties of grammar indicated that it was Mhek addressing them; Mhek's symbiote Komai was inactive.
Yimoul-Za answered. "Mhek! Did all of us come in together? We had an odd experience in your drinking establishment. The kind of thing that I hear happens when humans have too much to drink or when they smoke blue-spotted glansh."
The lattimor removed a pipe from a belt-pouch and started filling it with some herbaceous-smelling dried weed. "What odd experience? No odd experience in Four Spines except customers walking out."
Syrus emerged from the café just then and brushed past Komai-Mhek. "I was taking care of some...um.. business. C-came back and you g-g-gone. I- I-... I was whipping up on some wasp thingies and then poof, I was... in the b-bathroom." He looked questioningly at Tempus.
Jilandri nodded. "That sounds like what happened to me, too. Well, except the bathroom part." She turned to Tempus, eyebrows lowered. "See here! The others are all looking at you. I don't know what shenanigans you're getting up to with time, and I don't need to know. Probably make my head explode anyway. But you leave me and my friends out of it. I'd rather just die the once."
Tempus held up his hands placatingly. "I am not sure what caused the... er, vision... but what I can tell you, based on my expertise—which is considerable—is that the vision represents the real future, and it will happen unless we do something to stop it, that is, assuming we wish to stop it. The consequences of altering the time-stream are unpredictable at best, and often disastrous," he added, leaving out any mention that the vision may have been caused by his own prior manipulations of the time-stream. But that is speculation, after all; sharing it would only alarm them needlessly. He sighed and continued. "But the consequences of not altering that future, well, you saw for yourselves." He shrugged helplessly.
Mhek got his pipe lit and drew in some smoke. He closed the lowermost of his six eyes and opened his tiny uppermost eyes. Tempus knew that meant he was switching from Mhek to Komai, perhaps to better analyse the Broken Cage Company's peculiar story. Komai exhaled the pipe smoke in a series of rings.
Tempus continued. "The situation appears dire, I agree, but perhaps the collapse prevents an even larger disaster from occurring. Perhaps we need to investigate the context of the event before acting to stop it. Every event has multiple causes and countless consequences..."
He stopped. From a distance came a sound like an orchestra of steam-driven pipe-organs and random percussion accompaniment gone mad. Tempus glanced at Komai, but the latter did not seem particularly surprised or perturbed, seemingly content to spend his smoke break listening to the group's strange tale of doom and/or awaiting the arrival of the source of the odd music. The music approached, getting louder and louder, and gradually becoming wilder and more raucous. Tempus noticed that the music played continually with no breaks to indicate changes of song, yet also without repeating even a single phrase of music. Then, moving from the city's main thoroughfare into the plaza, a most extraordinary sight hove into view. A procession of gaudily decorated vehicles, some moving on their own, some drawn by aneen or other beasts, all of them bedecked in bright colours, glaringly prominent against the stark white of the snow.
A curious crowd was beginning to gather. Some had happened to be going about their business in the plaza and now turned to gawk. Others had followed the procession up the street.
The lead vehicle was on runners and appeared to be moving on its own over the snow. Most of its broad cargo area was taken up by a massive artifact, an elaborate fusion of synth and metal. The artifact sported many bell-like funnels, horns, rattles, pipes, tympanic surfaces, and other noise- and music-making mechanisms, some of which Tempus did not recognize at all. It was from this contraption that the loud music emanated.
Other wagons were various shapes and sizes, including two tall cylindrical ones shrouded in tarpaulins, each pulled by multiple aneen.
The appearance of new, unknown, functioning numenera instantly pushed the vision out of his mind. Tempus stepped away from the group, ducked into a nearby alleyway, and cast a Scan on the musical artifact.
His Scan revealed that the machine was Level 1 construct created to play orchestral music, and capable of playing two or more pieces simultaneously, yet making such a cacophony work, even make it appealing, as it was now.
Jilandri had followed him into the alley. "Hm, I'll bet they need repair work on that caravan. Maybe I can pick up some work, or at least some news," she said.
Tempus barely heard. His Scan had revealed something else unexpected: a hint of chronal vision on the musical device. Usually, his chronal vision only functioned on living, organic creatures. That he could pick up a glimpse of chronal vision from an inanimate object meant... Well, what does it mean? He had to get closer.
Riding on the front of the flat-bed vehicle that bore the music machine was a woman wearing a feathery headdress and deep-black robe with pink trim, and a man with spiky hair wearing a pink robe with black trim. As Tempus got closer he could see that both looked outdoorsy and weather-beaten despite the gaudy, impractical costumes.
The man with the spiky hair looked down at Tempus. "Ho friend, you like my device? Looking at you, I'm guessing that you're an inventor, a mechanician of sorts? I am but a humble showman; my flair and talent is entertaining the masses." Spiky-hair's powerful voice sounded well-acquainted with public speaking. "Wait for some time for my fair to set up in yonder square and I will then let you demonstrate my machine's marvelous properties!" He smiled and looked away, waving and calling to other people in the growing crowd.
The machine is so close. Tempus smiled and waved as well, then "accidentally" stumbled and reached his hand out to the machine to steady himself. As he came in contact with the artifact, he focused his chronal vision, attempting to probe mentally into the device's timeline. Somewhat to his surprise, this worked: the machine was alive, was named the Pieriant, and was dimly self-aware. It loved to play music and see people dancing. But it had sat alone for countless centuries in a place where no one came to dance any more. Then the man with the spiky hair arrived and promised that he would teach it the Music of the Spheres if it came with him to a particular place and played music continuously for several days. Spiky-hair and several others had removed it from its place and loaded it onto the wagon and commanded it to be silent until told otherwise. All of this Tempus saw in an instant.
A hand closed on Tempus' shoulder and firmly pulled him away from the vehicle, breaking the connection. "Please don't touch, sir." Tempus looked back at his interlocutor. A guard in billowy pink-and-charcoal pantaloons and fur-lined coat held Tempus shoulder with one massive hand and had a heavy truncheon pointed down by his side in the other. Tempus decided that now was not the time for confrontation. He relented and muttered an apology, and the guard let him go.
But internally, Tempus was soaring. Though it had been slightly draining, the effort to see into the music machine's past had worked. He decided he would call this new esotery See History.
***
Jilandri
Jilandri approached the rearmost vehicle in the strange procession, a smallish wagon being pulled by a tall man in winter furs and a tall hat. Atop the vehicle was a dark green, teardrop-shaped canvas tent festooned with light-green and yellow dots, and thin, multicolored fabric streamers, blowing in the light wind.
Perhaps the vehicle is normally numenera-driven and in need of repair, she thought. Jilandri offered the hand of greeting. "Looks like you've got quite a few vehicles here—bound to have some problems, eh? I’m a mechanic out of Wyrfall, maybe could help you out with any issues. You got a mechanic I should contact?"
"Mechanic?" the man pulling the wagon puffed. "No, we don’t need a mechanic." The man was heavily-built and perspiring. He wore spectacles and had a bushy mustache.
From inside the green tent came a woman's voice. "Why don't you tell him, Vorg? We can’t afford a mechanic; we got no shins to pay for one. How are we going to do a show if the scope's playing up?"
"If you took a turn at pulling, Shirna, I could look at it and maybe fix it."
"Me, pulling? I’m a dancer."
Jilandri smiled. "Vorg, want me to take a look at this scope? Then, if you came into some shins, you could get me back, or you could just pay me back with a referral for some work for others in the caravan."
Vorg stopped. He stooped to set the wagon's handbrake, then straightened with a groan, clutching his back.
"Would you do that? That's very kind. We used to have the manual for it, but it got lost somewhere."
"Maybe when we had to get out of Mulen in a hurry, remember?" A young woman, dressed in gaudy pink and green clothing and garish sparkly make-up, emerged from the tent. "Admit it, Vorg: you don't have a clue how the scope works."
Vorg blustered for a moment, his impressive mustache bristling indignantly, but grudgingly admitted that while he knew how to work it, he knew not how it worked. Something had gone wrong, and it wouldn't switch on anymore.
Jilandri hopped onto the wagon and ducked inside the tent, which had enough room inside for the scope and about two people. The scope was a waist-high pedestal with a semi-circular control panel boasting a few knobs and switches and a small keypad. Topping it was a metal ring, about three feet in diameter—a holographic screen, Jilandri recognized.
She popped open the back of the scope and started poking around.
The inner workings of the scope were quite strange—everything at a very miniature level, and several key systems even seemed to operate at the sub-atomic level. Certainly not Ninth World technology.
At some point Tempus joined her.
Between the two of them, it became clear that the only real issue was that the scope's power core was nearly depleted and needed replacing. Tempus, she noticed, seemed to have an almost intuitive grasp of individual subsystems' original purposes.
The scope's ring-screen lit up. Holographic red characters in the Old Navarene script hung in the air within the screen and started flashing. She looked questioningly at Tempus.
"It says, 'Danger, compression field failure imminent,'" Tempus reported.
"Ah, I don't like the sound of that! We need to power up the core and keep the compression field operating—whatever that is." Jilandri rooted frantically through her pockets and toolbags but came up with nothing suitable as a substitute power supply.
Sighing audibly, she yanked off her teleportation bracket and started to take it apart with her micro-tools, attempting to 'wire it into' the scope as a temporary power supply by aligning the crystal substructure and—she hoped—prevent the field failure.
Tempus cleared his throat. He pulled out a Shock Ring, a lightning-emitting cypher. "You know, Jilandri, this cypher holds quite a large charge, which can use to power up the core if we connect the blue anodes, and if this doesn't work, we can try and use the power source from Toorkmeyn's emitter. I've been carrying it since the Arechive and haven't found a use for it yet."
Jilandri nodded and took the Shock Ring. "Yes, I think that will be much better. Plus, the crystal alignment looks a lot more compatible."
She got to work, diving into the guts of the device and tearing through it quickly and adeptly. Tempus leaned in, pointing with a rod to that casing misaligned, this micro-switch jammed, helping to guide the repairs.
She got the Shock Ring seated and connected, but the cypher may have contained a bit too much power. With a sharp snap of electricity, the scope discharged the excess power in the form of arcs of artificial lightning, giving Tempus and Jilandri a jolt.
But after a moment, the warning letters disappeared, and the scope sat quietly humming in standby mode. Fixed. Like most ancient technology, it was almost supernaturally self-adapting to repairs.
Jilandri emerged from the tent. "Fixed now. The replacement power source is bigger than the depleted one, so the panel in the back won't close. But the scope works. Curious to see what it does."
Shirna the dancer was distracted by the approach of Yimoul-Za, making his way through the crowd. She tapped Vorg's elbow excitedly and pointed at the golthiar. "We've got some of those in the scope, haven't we? On setting two?"
Vorg stepped forward and addressed Yimoul-Za. "Honored plant-being! May I ask what is your species? I like to be accurate in my shows."
"I am a golthiar. What is this show?" He peered at them.
Vorg nodded and smiled. "Very good, a... golthiar, is it? Golthiar." He looked thoughtful. "Golthiar, golthiar. Gaze at the... majestic golthiar? Noble golthiar? Let's go with 'noble'." He gestured to Shirna and produced an ocarina-like musical instrument from his coat. He played a merry tune that Shirna danced to, although the sound of the Pieriant mostly overpowered his piping.
He then leapt onto the wagon. His hat lit up as he called out: "Come, ONE and ALL! See the WONDERS of the WORLD! MARVEL at what the scope can SHOW you! GASP at the WONDERS you will SEE! SHUDDER at the loathsome BEASTS revealed by the magic of the SCOPE! GAZE in flabbergastment at the MAJESTY of the noble GOLTHIAR! Only one shin each. Next show starts shortly."
He grinned at Shirna and rubbed his hands together. "Oh, we are going to make some big money over the next few days."
She pouted. "Days! Can't we go somewhere warm?"
Curious onlookers were starting to queue up to have a turn looking in the scope.
Jilandri clapped Vorg on the shoulder. "That there was on the house. Heading out now, but I expect you to work just as hard getting my name out there to the rest of the carnies as you are now raising money. You just let them know Jilandri... and Tempus," she added, looking over at the latter, "are dab hands at fixing vehicles and devices, both, and will be around tomorrow. I need the work!"
***
Date: 9th Vaen in the 402nd Year of the Founding
Tempus
The day dawned bright and clear, with temperatures well below freezing. The streets had iced over during the night; many pedestrians used skates to move around. By their demonstrated skill they were accustomed to this situation.
The Pieriant had played its music all through the night, still never repeating itself. Even so, Tempus was able to get a good night's sleep. It's not as if it were controlling my mind.
Komai greeted the group as they arrived at the Four Spines for breakfast and accompanied them to their usual table. "Good for business this is," he said, jerking his chin in the general direction of the traveling circus. "Tell us, did you find out how long they are staying? We might need more waiting staff."
Gormin nodded. "They say they hope to stay a few days, perhaps longer. I'm a bit surprised they plan to travel through all this," gesturing vaguely at the ice outside.
Komai called their orders through to the kitchen then returned to the table to chat. "We are surprised; this travelling fair is... small. We were in Milave once and saw Ossam's Traveling Menagerie and Soaring Circus. That was a true, true sight. A hundred performers, a marquee that seated a thousand people, an ever-varied show that ran for hours—a true, true sight. For the Spines, though, we must not turn down business, in whatever form it comes."
Outside, the Pieriant still played and people gathered to dance even if they had no money for the other attractions. The people seemed able to leave when they had had enough. It's not like the music is controlling their minds, thought Tempus.
A male human stumbled through the force-screen into the Four Spines. He wore the remains of once-fine clothes, with an eye-catching ornate topcoat of shimmering gold silster. He shuffled to a table and sat heavily. Komai served him a mug of ingtfu, which he downed in two. He called for another.
Tempus wondered what his story was. Silster was an expensive commodity, he knew. And it was quite early in the day to be tossing back something as potent as ingtfu.
Voloidion spoke up. "The organic digestive system... I still find it such a crude and almost vulgar method of energy conversion, besides the fact that it's comically inefficient. Perhaps one day I can convince one of you to let me to perform an experimental vivisection on you, to see if I could possibly learn about how to improve the process? Before you all leap to volunteer, please keep it mind it's very unlikely you would survive such a procedure."
Gormin chuckled.
The group paid for their meal and went out to see the fair.
Tempus saw the Pieriant parked in front of what appeared to be a boarded-up manufactory on the other side of the plaza. Vertically, along the tall, graceful spire rising from the southeast corner of the factory was carved the words "Dzantis Silster" in characters large enough to be seen from the other side of the plaza.
People were still joining and leaving the spontaneous dancing, but it wasn't as if they were being controlled. Tempus frowned. How often had he had that reassuring thought?
He looked around. Spiky-hair and the woman in the black robe were nowhere to be seen.
A varjellen approached him, trying to get him to pay shins to fight a jiraskar supposedly contained in his tent. Tempus ignored him.
"Strange goings-on in the factory," growled a familiar voice.
Tempus turned. It was Gormin, hood pulled low so as to avoid scaring people with his hideous visage. Gormin pointed discreetly.
Through one of the boarded-up windows of the factory could be seen the faint flicker of blue actinic light. The light reminded him very much of the burst of light that had accompanied the burrowing creatures' pent-up lightning in the vision.
Gormin growled, "it may just be the cynic in me, but something is very off about this fair. Who ever heard of a fair that continues to travel and operate in the dead of winter? I think the whole thing is cover for shenanigans at this factory."
Tempus nodded. He was beginning to think the same way.
"I'll take a closer look," said Gormin. He moved discreetly toward the closed manufactory, zigzagging slowly through the crowd.
Carnie guards in their ridiculous pink-and-grey uniforms were trying to discreetly watch the boarded-up entrances to the building, but just then, Yimoul-Za stepped up to the guards and started speaking to them, gesturing animatedly. Tempus couldn't hear what was said, but decided it might provide the distraction he needed.
Maybe there is an open roof entrance. He Far-Stepped into the air, leaping over the factory's high stone facade.
As he cleared the facade, he saw that most of the roof was taken up by a huge glass skylight. Hopefully strongglass, he thought as he hurtled towards it.
Not strongglass. He crashed through the skylight and plunged into an atrium full of flowers. The thick vegetation and soft loam broke his fall somewhat, but he was knocked unconscious all the same.
When he came to, the rest of the group—less Syrus—was standing around him in the atrium.
"Are you all right?" asked Thecla.
Tempus stood and brushed himself off. He did not seem to be seriously injured, very fortunate. "All according to plan," he mumbled. The Pieriant could be heard clearly even inside the stone building.
A thought occurred to him then. "Does anyone know where Kiraz is? I do not recall seeing her since the vision. She was not at breakfast either."
The others frowned in confusion. "Kiraz?" asked Gormin.
Yimoul-Za peered closely at Tempus with his enormous eye. "Friend Tempus, have you damaged your head in your fall? Who is Kiraz?"
By Kronos, thought Tempus. No.
To be continued...
Brilliant as always
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