Chapter 15
Erecting Barriers
The Academy annex was on the side of town furthest from the Ancient ruins. The ruins extended quite deep underground. The most recent parts were at least 8,000 years old. No one could even guess how deep or how old the rest went. Or who had been around then to build them. Penelope's histories went back very far, but they were dark and full of fell beings and barely known empires of the Underground. What of them touched the surface no one knew.
Readings showed that this region was a particular point of permeability to far off planes, which had attracted magical experimenters of every age. Possibly it had been more greatly connected in the past. Either that or else there were secrets even beyond that which the New Magic held. It was thought the great ironwood tree that formed the chimney of the forge had owed its size to its taproots reaching down into some part of the ruin and drawing the energy of that.
Lilly watched the great chimney recede as she rode one of the bark carts. It had dumped its load at the smelter and was returning to the woods. It had been a long climb down the tower and was a long walk to the annex. So she had hitched a ride with a wagon, as many did. The driver had only looked up briefly before returning its attention to the draft animals.
The great walls of the foundry passed and they entered the new city. It was bright and clean with wide roads, clear gutters, and spacious buildings. It had been designed to provide capacious living spaces to replace the original hovels. However, the local troglodytes crowded into them as dense and cramp as they had lived previously. They just preferred to occupy half the space with twice the people. But at least their sanitation was greatly improved.
The cart slowed down as it approached the city gate. Lilly hopped off, as the annex was the last thing inside the city walls. She walked up to a low sill set into the wall, pressed her hand against it, and the panel receded. As she stepped in, it reformed behind her.
The building was long and wide, and deeper than it appeared from the outside, as it was dug below the surface. She stepped in and onto a balcony that surrounded the edge. It was one, huge room, with catwalks and ladders and bulky apparatus spread across it. She felt slightly unsettled seeing it all. Much of it had been recovered from the wizard's stronghold where they had found the Ævatars. And her. She had spent her early life amongst these objects.
She walked slowly along a catwalk. Beneath was an enormous vat filled with amber liquid. Barely visible within was part of a gigantic forearm. It was a piece of the incomplete Ævatar. Glistening white tubes protruded from the unfinished ends of it. Artificial sinews and what passed for nerves in the gigantic construct. Lilly involuntarily flexed her own muscles when seeing it.
She descended a ladder and walked between the tanks. It was the most direct way to where she was going but also did not require her to look into the vats. Between them were stands of equipment. Much of it was shrouded with dust covers. Obscure forms only hinted at in the indirect light that filtered in from the high windows. Occasionally she would recognize a piece. The memories they brought were not happy ones. But they were not sad ones either. She was not sure if the lack of emotion she felt for most of her life was due to her lack of a Soul at the time, or the lack of human contact.
Passing between two tanks bigger than any so far, Lilly moved into a wider open area occupying about a third of the length of the building before the final and largest tank. None of the equipment here was shrouded and much of it was clearly of new manufacture. Before the New Magic, the crafting of magical creations was a slow and intricate process. The instruments used tended to be custom, unique and frequently embellished with arcane designs. Given the massive cost, they were built to last and were often decorative. New Magic constructs tended to be utilitarian and bare. They were created quickly and to an exacting pattern. Ornamentation would take more work than their creation, so was seldom seen.
She found Bianca seated at a bench. A length of artificial sinew was stretched between vice grips and a spring which connected to a brace above the table. Behind a sheet of material was Bianca with a look of concentration. The sinew slowly contracted and released, moving the spring and a small ribbon attached to it.
“Hello,” said Lilly, looking around the shield.
Bianca started slightly. “Hello,” she said, surprised. “I didn't hear you. Will test.”
Lilly nodded. She rapped the material with her knuckles. “Brass?”
“Just as a base,” said Bianca. “its pattern etched with copper and I'm trying different arrays of magical supplements.” The sinew moved again. “It doesn't block my Will. But I do not think it is as protective as needed for the Soul.”
“I have something new,” said Lilly. Bianca pushed her chair back, got up and stretched. “Your mother has had some success in the waste.”
“Did she solve it with quantity or quality?” asked Bianca.
“They think that they have discovered how to work out the pattern of a vortex,” said Lilly.
“Quality then,” said Bianca. “Good. That's much better than just throwing thousands of collectors at it.”
“What I thought you would find interesting is that in the course of doing so they have discovered a new technique of shielding,” said Lilly.
“Yes, that does sound interesting.” Bianca moved over to a large wax board set up and blanked it.
“I think the key was that instead of just trying to strengthen it, they used a double layer,” she sketched out a few pattern formulas. “Say, the first is 90% effective. She second doesn't have to be enormously strong since it only has to guard against 10% of the ambient force.”
Bianca chewed her thumb and nodded. “I see that you could add multiple layers if you wanted. Possibly even erect them as the need arose.” She added her own formula to the board. “This is the closest that I've tried to that. Single layer only.”
They spent an hour sketching several more formulas on the board and trying several of them in place of the shield on the bench.
“I'm impressed with how effective this is,” said Bianca. “And so obvious. It is like we're stumbling along in the dark blundering into the wonders of the universe.”
“According to Lady Gwendolyn they only had the New Magic for fourteen years before the first cataclysm,” said Lilly.
Bianca shook her head. “That's a short time from enlightenment to destruction. We're halfway there.” She circled one group of formula. “This is the best so far. However more optimal this arrangement is, the raw power needed to counter the flux from the Ævatar is prohibitive. It would need to be at least another order of magnitude more efficient.”
“I have been thinking about that,” said Lilly. “One of the things I noted when I first scanned Miasma was that I could get no reading on her Soul at all.”
“That's a fundamental property of the shield,” said Bianca. “That is the whole point of this. It's the one thing that the Ævatar operational sphere is missing.”
“Exactly,” said Lilly. “So far we've be assuming we are shielding your whole body. What if we just shield your Soul?”
“Just the Soul?” echoed Bianca. “Will that even work?”
Lilly pointed at one of the patterns in the formula. “Well, we are conforming the shield based on a pattern. The pattern of your body. If we substitute in the pattern of your Soul... the formula still seems to make sense.”
“A body is physical. A Soul is metaphysical,” said Bianca.
“The formula only cares that it is a pattern,” said Lilly.
“Let's try it,” said Bianca. She took a deep breath and started the motions to copy a pattern from her soul.
“No. Bianca,” said Lilly, reaching out and touching her hand. “Let me.”
Bianca looked at her. “Why?”
“I've suffered a dislocated Soul once before,” said Lilly. “It would be easier to fix me than you if things went wrong.”
Bianca stared at her for a while. Then she slowly nodded. “I see the
reason in what you say. Very well then.”
Lilly drew a pattern from her breast without thinking. She then carefully added the remaining elements, connected them, and created a small mana jar. She looked up to Bianca who checked her work, then nodded once. Lilly fused the mana jar to the spell which flashed into action and descended into Lilly's body.
“Gone,” said Bianca, scanning. “I see no trace of your soul.”
“I feel...” said Lilly. “Nothing.”
“Nothing?” said Bianca, slightly alarmed. “Is it gone? Detachment? No passion?”
The corners of Lilly's lips turned up. “No. Not that at all. I feel no different.”
Bianca tried to create a Soul pattern from her. Nothing registered. Bianca created a Soul net and drew it through her. It caught nothing. She drew up a copy of a previous pattern of Lilly's Soul and used that to target a spell. Nothing again.
“It works,” said Bianca.
“And minimal power needed,” said Lilly. “There's your order of magnitude improvement.”
Bianca looked up that the tank that filled the end of the room. “Let's try it out.”