Pathspace: The Space of Paths (14 page)

“
How do you do it so
well?”

Those beloved hazel eyes regarded her. “Can
you be more specific?” He smiled in gentle humor. “I do many things
well.”

“
Yes you do. But how do
you manage to deflect advice you know is wrong … without alienating
the people who work for you?”

The General stroked the
side of her face. “Never let people tell you their jobs. As the
leader,
you
will decided what they
work on. If they know what they're talking about, listen. If they
don't, you listen, thank them for the advice, then forget
it.”

Remembering, she wished she had asked one
more question. What do you do with someone whose ambition exceeds
their ability?

As they rode north, he thought about his
conversation with Cardinal Esperanza. There were so many questions
bubbling up in his mind about it that he was surprised he could
stay in the saddle.

First, why hadn't the man seemed surprised
at all about the assassination? Was that because he had a part in
it? Esperanza didn't strike him as a violent type, but one thing
was obvious. They did have something in common, as the man in red
had suggested. Both of them were waiting for their chance at power.
Had the cardinal expedited his? He seemed awfully sure that he
would be elected to succeed poor Rodrigo.

Which brought up the second question. How
was he so certain of election? The cardinal was not much older than
Jeffrey. Didn't the College of Cardinals usually pick someone
older? He was chagrined to admit that he knew very little of the
inner workings of the TCC. For all he knew, many of the senior
leadership of the Church were younger men these days. But
Esperanza's certainty had been very convincing.

Up ahead, Brutus signaled for a halt. Time
to rest the horses and grab some chow.

He supposed he ought to be grateful that
Commander Glock had been detailed to lead this foray, but he'd
never liked Brutus, and he was fairly certain the feeling was
mutual.

Jeffrey swung down off his horse and dug
into the saddlebag for some jerky. His thoughts strayed back to the
cardinal. If he hadn't actually
planned
the assassination,
he was certainly unsurprised by it. Therefore he had been in the
loop. Whoever had killed Rodrigo must have decided that Enrique
would be more agreeable to whatever they had planned.

He stopped for a moment, struck by another
possibility. Could his father have been the one behind it? Whatever
made the hole in Rodrigo's skull had come sideways across the
chamber – the Honcho had been in zero danger. After a moment,
thought, he discarded that line of reasoning. His father had been
getting along with the current Pontiff just fine, from what he'd
observed during their audience. Rodrigo had appeared perfectly
willing to accept the need for alien shortcuts. He'd listened to
reason. There was nothing to indicate the Honcho had felt more
extreme methods were required. Unless he'd given the order before
the audience even began. “How far are we from the border,
Commander?” he asked Brutus

The older man took a bite of his own jerky
before answering. “We won't see action before tomorrow,” he said.
“Probably tomorrow afternoon.” He took a swig from his canteen and
recapped it, eying Jeffrey. “Don't worry, we'll keep you safe.”

Jeffrey bristled. “You're in charge, I get
that. But how am I supposed to get any useful experience if I just
hide behind your men when we have to fight?”

“Well now, that is a problem,” Brutus
admitted. “But before we solve it, maybe you can tell me how I keep
my job if the heir to the throne gets hurt on my watch?”

“I have no intention of getting hurt,
Commander.”

“Swell. Because I have no intention of
facing a firing squad.” He spat out a piece of gristle. “Get back
to your horse.”

Xander:
“weave the wind”

The lad was progressing nicely, if
gradually. Soon he could be relied upon to survive most
confrontations, if only by concealing himself. Sometimes, Xander
was hard put to repress his envy.
If only I'd had the benefit of
a mentor half as good for me as I am being to him. How much more
might I have accomplished by now?
But such thoughts were
useless. And gods knew he didn't want the lad to have to learn as
slowly as he himself had. There was no time for it.

There were occasional rumors of something
that could. Each piece of the Tourist leftovers that Kristana's men
brought him gave him a chance to puzzle out more of the magic
technology, the psionic engineering of the aliens. So far he had
learned
pathspace
from the swizzles,
spinspace
from
the one
everwheel
they'd found in southern
Wyoming, and
tonespace
from the
coldboxes
and
everflames
. The
thing he had his heart set on, though, was finding the tissue
regenerator that had been the undoing of the medical industry of
the Ancients. He was hoping to learn the uses of
healspace
from it. If he could only find one and do that, he might have even
more time to do what was needed. But he hadn't. He couldn't heal
even the simplest wound, let alone undo the accumulated damages of
aging, and so the best he could do was see the Academy up and
running before he walked with his ancestors.

Just now, though, he walked in the gardens,
on his way to the rooftop. He paused to rub the leaves of a bush of
peppermint and smelled his fingers.

A flicker from up ahead caught his eye:
another failing glow-tube. Frowning, he strode up to a spot under
it and reached out with his mind to re-sculpt the tonespace around
the glass, combing the frequency distribution with deft touches
until the tube lit up again with its usual steady blue-white
radiance. Satisfied, he resumed his progress toward the staircase.
He had already passed most of the mints, but now he paused at the
planting of catnip that Aria kept for Otto. He reached out to break
off a small piece for his cat and slipped it into a pocket of his
cloak before continuing.

When he opened the door to the stairwell,
the air inside was colder than he had expected. Had Autumn slipped
by him already? Sometimes it seemed that the fewer years he had
left, the faster they slipped through his fingers. But maybe it was
well that they were nearly into Winter. Surely the Honcho would
think twice of attacking Rado when the snows made footing
treacherous and the cold sapped muscles of man and horse alike.

He emerged onto the roof and swept it with
his eyes, seeking the lookouts. The nearest one was no far. Xander
strode toward him, wrapping his cloak more closely about his aging
bones.

“Hello, Timothy,” he said. “Keeping warm,
are you?”

The lookout grinned. “That I am, sir.
Whatever you did to the perch has helped more than I can thank you
for. Last winter I almost have froze my butt to it more than
once.”

“Oh, it was nothing,” said Xander. He'd put
a faint everflame spell on the stone bench, a gentle warping of its
tonespace
so that there was always a warm spot for the man
to sit on and a warm updraft to fend off the chilly breezes up
here. It was the least he could do for the men who sat the lonely
vigils up here. “Is the city quiet?”

“As a grave, sir.” Tim turned his eyes back
toward the southern horizon as he spoke. “As it happens, I've been
expecting the latest world from the outposts any time now. I don't
need to tell you, I get nervous when they're a minute late,
considering everyone says Texas is overdue to try their luck
against us again.”

Tim eyed the water clock again. It was a
simple affair, but Xander was justly proud of his innovations.
Originally a sand hourglass, it now held oil warmed by a faint
everflame spell so that the viscosity – and the clock's accuracy –
would not be affected by the coldest blizzard. He'd had them tint
bands of transparent colors parallel to the ends, so that as the
top slowly drained by the dripping of the opaque oil, the lowest
color glowing would tell the hour. The highest part near the top of
the glass was colored red, then orange, yellow, green, blue,
indigo, violet, then red at the just above the constriction between
top and bottom halves. Each hour of the watch could be easily read
even in the darkest night by the miniature glow-tubes in the top
and bottom. When Tim reached the end of his hour watch, and the
entire rainbow red-to-red of the empty top was showing, his
replacement could just flip the thing over and start over
again.

Finding good transparent tints had occupied
the Court alchemist for the better part of a season, but everyone
agreed it was well worth the effort. When needed, eight-hour
watches could be split in half or any whole number of hours, for
that matter. The crafters were turning them out as quickly as they
could, calling it the Xander clock now. Some of them had told him
privately he should talk to the Governor about getting a royalty
for his idea – it could turn out to be a lucrative export. Xander
didn't need to glance at the clock to know sunrise was near. Blue
twilight had already lit the skyscraper. “No need to be nervous
yet,” he told Tim. “They'll be able to use the sun-mirror in a few
minutes.”

At night the signals were sent with a
glow-tube lit box with hand-operated shutters. Another of Xander's
ideas; he'd gotten it from an old book on naval vessels of the
Ancients, that had used a similar technique. But daylight was
brighter than the glow-tubes, at a distance, so the outside
surfaces of the controllable shutters on the signal box were
mirrored. All they had to do was orient it correctly to reflect the
sunlight from the East at sunrise to the north and flip the
shutters open and closed in the same old Morse.

“Ah! There he is.” A orange light flashed
three groups of five to get their attention. Xander fell silent as
the distant fellow blinked them the morning report. As the blinking
continued, he frowned.
Movement north spotted. Scouts.

Tim turned back to him after the message
ended. “Is this it, sir? Do you think their army is following the
scouts they've seen?”

“I doubt it,” said Xander. “But they could
be, for all we know. If the Honcho is planning to invade, he's
smart enough to either hit us before the snows make it hard, or
else wait for Spring.”

“By the time we spot his army,” Tim pointed
out, “they could be within a day's ride of the borderlands.”

“I know, I know.” Xander brooded on that and
came to a decision. “Stay warm, Tim. I have to go tell the
Governor. This news won't wait for the changing of the Watch. Keep
an eye peeled in case they sight more troops.” He turned on his
heel and strode off.

He had to remind himself to take the steps
carefully as he descended. Remember, your bones aren't as strong as
they used to be, you old fool. I should have implemented that
drop-chute idea a long time ago. One shaft and a good parachute
would be faster than these damned staircases! But he had delayed
working out the safety details to go out and find a new apprentice.
If they had the motors of the ancients, they could get the
building's elevators going again. But that might take many years.
In the meantime a carefully-deployed drag chute and a safety net
made of rope would have to serve. When he could take the time to
get them to set it up, that is.

His hasty footsteps ion the stairs alerted
the dogs, who raised a racket that he had no time for. “Get out of
the way!” he barked back at them, and leaped over them from the
last few steps hoping he wouldn't crack his ribs against a locked
door. As it happened, the guard was just beginning to open the door
to investigate the barking when Xander crashed into it, knocking
the door the rest of the way open and spilling both of them into
the hallway. “Sorry!” he growled at the guard, as he sprang to his
feet and dashed down the corridor to the Governor's rooms.

Kristana was just coming out of her rooms to
inspect the morning watch reliefs when he arrived panting at her
door. “Lookouts report a scouting party heading north,” he wheezed.
“I have to go check it out. The main army might not be far behind
them.”

“Take some men with you,” she advised
him.

“By the time we ride down there, they could
be burning farms in the borderlands,” he told her. “By all means,
send some men, but I can't wait for 'em. I can move faster by
myself.” He whirled and sprinted for the stairwell before she could
argue.

Jon and Edgar were murmuring something to
each other when he reached his quarters. They looked up and tried
to engage him in conversation as he brushed them aside and unlocked
the door. “No time now,” he said, as he reached for his staff.

“Is it true that your new apprentice is
going to be the one you've been looking for?” Edgar asked, anyway.
“Will he last longer than the last one?”

“He might,” said Xander. “If you keep him
safe and keep him from leaving.” His fingers closed on the staff
and he whirled and strode down the hall and out of their sight.

Entering the stairwell, he ran up the stair
again, without thinking about what would happen if he missed one.
One thing he regretted about this 'scraper was that none of the
windows opened. The ancients had worried about many things that had
not come to pass with the fall of civilization, such as chemical
and biological assaults.

When he emerged onto the roof again, he
stopped to catch his breath.
Foolish of me to run up the stairs.
I'm not a young wizard anymore.

Timothy's relief had not yet come. The guard
turned, surprised at his reappearance. “Did you forget something,
sir?”