The Lodestone Trilogy (Limited Edition) (The Lodestone Series) (80 page)

Keris found that she could move completely around the image, even walk into it and become a part of it if she so wished. However, when she reached out to touch one of the assembled throng, her fingers met only emptiness. She looked into their faces. They looked happy–serene, even. This must be from before the period that the people of this world referred to as the Goratha. The dark time.

She returned to the pedestal and removed the sphere. As soon as she picked it up, the yellowish light went out and the globe at the top of the column faded back to opaque white. Patris had taken up a position cross-legged on the floor a short distance away and was watching her. “Some of them are a bit…grainy,” he commented. “A few–three, if I recall correctly–don’t work at all. Hardly surprising after all this time.” She selected another sphere–a blue tinged one–and set it in the pedestal’s recess. “It seems appropriate at this time that I should remind you of the terms of our agreement,” he continued. “I did say that I wasn’t guaranteeing that you would find anything useful here.”

The area in front of her burst into illumination once more. This scene featured a fair-haired girl, all smiles, in front of a series of brightly coloured backgrounds. As she spoke, a series of objects appeared–some familiar, others strange, with symbols next to each. Keris quickly concluded that this was a child’s educational tool. She plucked it from the pedestal and the light died once more.

She activated another of the spheres and found herself looking at a succession of scenic vistas, most of which she didn’t recognise. An unseen narrator droned on in ancient. She was about to put it aside when the scene changed to one that immediately caught her attention. It was a Great Tree; whether here in the place these people called the Atarah Lowlands, or the one on the other side of the Great Barrier, near her home, she couldn’t tell. The vast trunk lifted itself up above the surrounding forest, vibrant with purple, orange and yellow foliage. Then, just as suddenly, the view shifted and she was looking down on a sparkling blue river that wound lazily across a vast plain of waving yellow grass. She shut it off.

The next sphere featured a man in a harlequin suit, talking animatedly and then playing a musical instrument. There was laughter and applause from a hidden audience. Obviously a form of popular entertainment, although the suit looked absurd to Keris and the humour was lost on her.

Other spheres were even more confusing, and some appeared to make no sense whatsoever. One showed a series of rapidly flashing images and put forth a sound so raucous that Keris concluded that it must be malfunctioning, and disconnected it immediately.

She was beginning to see what Patris was talking about. The spheres were interesting, but did not appear to offer any useful information. She could only make out snatches from the commentary. Lyall claimed to know more of the ancient tongue than she did. It was possible that he might be able to glean more from these “books”.

She was about three-quarters of the way through the collection when she came upon a sphere that was quite unlike the others. It began innocuously enough. The view was from the flat roof of a large building in the midst of a city–perhaps Kynedyr, perhaps not. The angle of sight moved upward to show a number of flying machines sailing across a cloudy sky. They were larger and more impressive than any she had encountered in her travels. One of them descended and touched down on the roof. A door opened in the side of the aircraft, and people were carried out on stretchers. The craft’s occupants, dressed in green overalls, were met by others from the building dressed in strange white suits. Their faces were grave.

The scene switched to a room of pure white walls, where many people were laid out. Masks over their faces were connected by long tubes to unknown machines. She had a closer view of one of the patients; a fair-haired girl, very like the one in the teaching sphere earlier. Her face was ravaged by some sort of wasting disease. Next to her, a couple were clinging to each other. The woman was weeping profusely. Could this be the plague that Annata spoke of, the one that had destroyed her people? And now she was seeing it happen all over again; reliving the horror.

Keris forced herself to watch to the end of the recording, then cycled through the remainder of the spheres, finding nothing of interest. She stood in silence for a while–hand over her mouth, the images of the plague victims replaying over and over in her head.

It was Patris who finally snapped her out of her reverie. “I’m sorry.”

“What?”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I should have warned you.”

She had to find the Prophet’s weapon and destroy it, or a tragedy like this will happen again. And this time, no-one might survive. She desperately needed a lead. Information. Something.

She turned slowly, taking in the pedestals, the central column, the empty vastness of the atrium. Then she looked at the small box of spheres.
All of this, for two dozen of these things?
It wasn’t possible. There must be more. It could be that these ruins had been excavated, and the other “books” removed, but as Patris had pointed out, they were useless without the pedestals, so that didn’t seem likely. Perhaps Annata’s people, knowing that they were facing disaster, had removed them for safekeeping. But if that were the case, then they still had to be somewhere. Maybe they would give her the clues she needed? Keris returned to where Patris had found the box of spheres. She placed the box back in the receptacle, then began a circuit of the atrium wall, probing the surface with her eyes and her fingertips.

Patris had strolled over and was watching her curiously. “What are you looking for?” Keris didn’t answer. He smiled without humour. “I never realised what happened to those people back then. It’s pretty awful to watch. I mean, it’s one thing to face an enemy that’s standing in front of you, but when your enemy is a disease, how do you fight a thing like that…?”

Keris wasn’t listening. She moved slowly along the wall, examining every inch. The only features were the unexplained symbols she had noted earlier, and an occasional circular depression. She pressed the wall at intervals, but no mysterious panels opened. The exercise was beginning to look futile. Patris was relating a conversation he had had with the people in Lechem about the dark time. How the survivors in this world had braved harsh conditions and terrible privations during the period following the disaster. Many had died before the recovery began. But those few, who through determination and fortitude had founded a new society, were revered almost as legends.

Keris stopped in mid step. There was something.
Something familiar.
Something that nagged at her from the farthest corners of her mind. It was in a different place and a different time. She stepped back from the wall, then began to retrace her steps.

Patris broke off from his soliloquy. “Have you found something?”

She ignored him, fixing her eye on the section of wall before her. Then she saw it. One of the indentations was not circular
.
It was an odd triangle, the same size and shape as…She reached into the pouch at her side and extracted a smooth flat object. She turned it over in her hand, gazing at the multicoloured workings within. It was the access module that Boxx had retrieved from the base of Annata’s machine–the device that she had used to gain access to the great globe at the top of the tower on the Eastern Plains. Could it be…? On impulse, she aligned its irregular sides to the niche in the wall and pushed it home. It was a perfect fit. Immediately it lit up with a bright yellow hue. There was a faint hum, then the light changed to crimson and a door slid open.

Patris gasped. “How did you do that?”

Keris retrieved the access module and peered into the newly revealed space beyond. It was black as pitch. There was no way of telling how deep it was or how far it extended, but she couldn’t back out now. She needed answers. Warily, she took a step across the threshold. She couldn’t make out anything of the interior. She hesitated. Patris sounded a note of alarm. “What is it?”

“I don’t know.” Keris said.

“Be careful, it might be dangerous.”

For all her distaste of Patris and the principles he stood for, Keris reluctantly had to admit that she did trust his instincts. Yet in this instance, something told her that his fears were unfounded. No-one would place a trap in a library. But more than that, why would the device Annata had entrusted her with open this particular door, unless there were something behind it that she needed to see? Thrusting her habitual caution aside, she stepped farther into the darkness. She heard the thief’s steps behind her.

There was a gentle humming sound. She whirled around just in time to see the door slide shut behind them, plunging them into total darkness. Then, just as suddenly, bright light exploded all around. Patris gave an anguished cry. Keris’ mind reeled, struggling to take in the scene before her. They were standing on a spacious patio, high above a cityscape, the like of which Keris had never seen before. Above them, huge flying machines drifted lazily across a cerulean sky, adorned with a few wisps of high cloud. In the distance, impossibly tall buildings vied with spires of white, silver and gold for dominance of the skyline. Tiny silver craft darted between them like angry insects buzzing around the stamen of an immense flower.
How did I get here?

The patio was laid out with broad-leaved trees, no more than head height; some laden with yellow and white blossoms, others with purple and green fruits. Between the trees, a slight young woman with flowing dark hair and clad in a plain dress of pure white stood with her back to them, her tail moving lazily back and forth. She turned slowly to face them and smiled warmly. “Hello, Keris,” she said simply.

Keris looked at her with disbelief for several moments before she finally found her voice. “Annata…you are Annata.”

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Chapter 22

“I am not Annata.” The young woman took a few steps toward them, stopped; then smiled again reassuringly. “I was created by Annata as a computer generated representation of her. My program consists of adaptive heuristic algorithms, keyed to her personality profile. There will be a six point three percent variance factor in the interactive responses. It’s good to see you again, Keris. How have you been?”

I must be dreaming.
This person was not Annata…and yet she was. None of it made sense. “Where am I?” Keris asked.

The figure in white laughed lightly. The sound was almost musical. “Well, I suppose there are two answers to that question. In a physical sense, you are still in the designated projection room at the city’s central archive. However, I have recreated a setting appropriate to our meeting.” She extended a small, perfect hand and swept it before her, taking in the patio area. “This is my home. I thought you would enjoy seeing the city as it was in my time. What do you think of it?”

It’s the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen in my life.
“It’s…nice,” she said.

There was that same tinkling laugh again. “Tell me, who is the other one with you?” Annata asked.

“He is called Patris,” Keris said.

Annata gave a slight bow. “Be welcome in my home, Patris. I honour those who would risk their lives to save our people.” Keris blinked. Patris said nothing. “I had this terrace planted to remind me of home. When I first came to live in the city, I fell in love with it right away. It’s so…alive. But at the same time, I found that I missed the farm where I grew up. I longed for the scent of growing things. Did you grow up in the country, Keris?”

“Yes I did,” she replied. “My childhood years were spent on the Dagmar Manse.”

“Then you’ll understand what I mean.”
Not really. My parents were indentured farm workers with too many mouths to feed. They sold me off into service the first chance they got.
“Now I can get up each morning, upload my work files for the day in my apartment; then go outside, pick a karel fruit and imagine myself strolling through the orchards near my home. Is that vanity?” Annata’s eyes twinkled. The woman was shorter than Keris. Her dark hair was only of shoulder length in contrast to Keris’ long tresses, but her face was softer, less careworn. It was the face of someone who had led a contented life–a life of privilege. Keris stifled an irrational twinge of resentment.

Keris turned to look at her surroundings. She could feel the gentle caress of the wind; smell the scent of the blossoms. This was nothing like the images produced by the spheres. They had been insubstantial, diaphanous. This was real in every sense of the word. Yet Annata had said they were still in the library building in the heart of the ruined city. She walked past the woman in white, to a balcony where she could get a better view of the huge metropolis. They were near the top of a stately tower, broad at the base and tapered at the top. Far below, wide streets were thronged with tiny people and machines, moving purposefully as if they were the city’s lifeblood. “So this is…Kynedyr?”