Jebrassy tried to relax his hands. “What’s going to happen?”
“In time, you will be set free to perform your duty. But for now we need to understand what you have become. You ring like a bell, young breed—a bell that no one in this time has tolled. Your vibrations are important. But for the moment, only half of you is in my presence in any way I can measure. The other half has to become manifest—events have to catch up. Until then, we will get acquainted, and I will teach you some useful things.”
“Where is Tiadba? Is she here, or somewhere else?”
“It interests me that you already know the answer to those questions. She is not here in the tower. She was not taken back to the Tiers. Where do you think she is?”
Jebrassy hated being played with, but he didknow. “She’s in the flood channel, with the others. The marchers. I need to go to her.”
“You would do her little good. As I said, events have to catch up. You must reach your full potential, young breed—and then you will be ready to join your friends.”
CHAPTER 59
The Flood Channel
Pahtun gathered the nine breeds on the channel floor, beneath the looming double arch, and stood before them, solemnly gazing at each in turn. The trainer was at least a third again as tall as Khren, their largest.
“You are chosen because your blood urges you outward,” he began, his voice deep and sad. “But whatever your enthusiasm, you will need help in your travels and a tempering to your urges. You are inexperienced, no doubt brave, but for now—foolish.”
Perf squirmed on the sand, as if afraid everyone would look at him.
“Out there, no warden will carry you gently home if you get hurt. Out there, more than pain—worse than death. That is what the Chaos promises. Beyond the border of the real lies the greatest challenge ever faced by human beings—and in that grouping, I include even the Great Eidolons on high, damn their arrogance.”
Pahtun looked around as if this might shock them, but these breeds knew nothing of Eidolons, great or small.
He waved his long-fingered hand, and Tiadba noticed that on the tip of his sixth finger—he had six fingers and an odd thumb, mounted in the center of his palm—there was a pink flower. Patient observation, as Pahtun spoke and waved this hand some more, rewarded her with the realization that this flower was in fact a cluster of six smaller fingers—perhaps used in delicate tasks. (Though Nico later suggested they helped the Tall Ones clean their ears.)
“No one can know what you will see and experience. While there are features that are relatively fixed and can be described, even partly explained, most of what is out there is great changewith no reasonor law.Accept it. The danger is constant. Your training will never suffice. But it will have to do, for between the will of those who will things,” he pointed over his head and back a bit, high above the three isles, “and your own blood instinct, planted in you and nurtured—bravery without sense,” he took a deep breath, “you aregoing. You aretraveling. You willmarch. You have no choice. Wehave no choice.”
Tiadba spoke aloud an odd word: “Amen.” The others responded likewise, then looked at each other, dismayed.
“So, let me introduce you to the tools that might keep body and soul together out in the Chaos.” Pahtun sounded a humming, whistling note, and they stood.
The escorts guided the breeds into the silvery dome-shed.
Glistening and strange, suits hung from the walls of the shed like the casings of farm pedes, though more colorful. Of a size and shape to fit each marcher, they were shades of orange, red, blue, green, and yellow—which seemed strange if one wished to hide from things that hunted.
“These are the best that the Shapers of the Kalpa have ever been able to manufacture. Here, the generators of the city protect us—and in the Chaos, your armor will protect you, up to a point. Within these shells, the suits sustain the laws and principles that allow life, and they carry personalities as well—as one would expect from the Shapers who made them.”
“What are Shapers?” Nico asked.
“Like me,” Pahtun said, “only different. I’ve never seen one.” He did not elaborate. The trainer introduced the breeds to their suits and suggested they try them on. Tiadba knew immediately which was hers. She stroked its outer shell—smooth, orange, and cool. The armor vibrated beneath her fingers and made a small, accepting noise.
Grayne had told them a little about such things, but she had not mentioned that the armor clambered over one’s limbs and trunk with a life of its own. The suits practically put themselves on as the breeds danced and squirmed. Herza and Frinna tried to pull free and failed. Those who finished first expressed nervous amusement at the expressions of their fellows.
The helmets fell limp over their shoulders like split hoods until, at Pahtun’s command, they rose up, stiffened, and sealed airtight. Yet from within, Tiadba felt no oppressive closeness. Her breath came easily and the air seemed fresh. She felt only a slight itching at the joints, which she soon learned to ignore.
“They become a second skin,” Pahtun said, “only more subtle and talented. Your armor protects you from endless misery; it is an ancient crafting still wonderful to my eyes—and yet, it has limits. It senses any slip or slide of the rules, such as they are out there. Your armor will transform or translate sensora in the Chaos, so that you may see light and shadow, color and shape. It helps you stay rooted to something like a surface, or travel over something like a landscape—reliably enough to make progress in your journey, presumably to a destination where the Chaos is held at bay.
“The Chaos is not entirely without form or character. There is a kind of weather—some places are more transformed than others, some almost untouched. While there may seem to be, for ages at a time, a thin coating of consistency in what we observe, in truth, the rules are ever-changing. Failure to learn and adapt quickly will have terrible consequences. And so, your armor will adapt and learn, and so will you.”
Two of the escorts carried out a flat egg mounted on a slim black tripod—a portable reality generator, able to place a suspension around their entire group for several wakes.
“Within the Kalpa, the semblance of ancient reality is maintained by our generators. If your armor should weaken or fail, these smaller units may protect you for a time.”
However, surrounded by such protection, they could not make progress toward their goal. Next he introduced their weapons—never to be used recklessly or aggressively, which might attract unwanted attention. They consisted of curved, glowing blades called claves. The blades did not so much cut as accelerate change, Pahtun said. “Claves goad the Chaos—accelerate its own tendencies. The effects are unpredictable—what they strike may or may not disintegrate or cease to function.
“There are no other weapons—except your wits.”
Flight and hiding were always better choices. And so most of their training consisted of being taught how to be elusive—without any real clues, as yet, about what they would be eluding.
“Why do we not send you with vehicles—flying machines, spacecraft, transports through and over the
ground?” Pahtun asked. “There’s a law of size applicable to our generators—a scaling law. To protect more than a small group of breeds, our generators must become unwieldy. And for any generator of reasonable size, an object in the Chaos may not move much faster than you can run—for that would exceed its ability to remap. As well, moving too quickly, in too great a force, attracts vortices of contradiction and failure that we call ‘twistfolds’ and ‘enigmachrons.’ These can be awful traps. They devour and incorporate whatever they capture, armored or not, bonding it with the Chaos. You will no doubt encounter victims of such—recent, and ancient. The victims of the Typhon fade slowly. Some of the monstrosities that once were human have been studied by angelins—Chaos watchers—in the Broken Tower since before I was made.