The man who admitted them nodded but didn’t speak. He was dressed like an ordinary worker, and was presumably a Resistance man. Caldason hadn’t seen him before, and Karr made no introductions.
‘Would you be good enough to let them know we’re here?’ Karr asked.
The man nodded again and pointed to an open door. They went through it and found themselves in a dusty, neglected room containing not much more than a worn table and a couple of chairs. The window was shuttered, and light came from a few candles.
‘It shouldn’t be long,’ Karr explained. ‘They have to be reasonably sure it isn’t dangerous.’
Caldason raised a quizzical eyebrow at that, but Karr didn’t elaborate.
A moment later the man came back and beckoned them. They were taken along a corridor to another door. This opened onto a staircase that snaked to the cellar, and they were left to make their own way down.
The cellar was quite large and brightly lit by a number of glamour lamps. There were two men and a woman there, all in their middle or late years, and all dressed in the blue
ceremonial robes favoured by Covenant. Karr exchanged greetings with them, but again no names were offered. In one corner a wooden rail had been set up around a sizeable hole. It looked deep.
‘May we approach?’ Karr asked one of the blue-robed figures.
The man nodded. ‘But with care. And be ready to draw back if we tell you.’
‘I understand. Come on, Reeth.’
They approached the hole.
‘I think you’ll find this familiar,’ Karr reckoned.
The pit was deeper than the height of a tall man, and its sides were smooth. At its bottom a small pond of a substance resembling quicksilver had formed. The liquid flowed in from a cavity on one side of the excavation and out again through a similar recess on the opposite side. The silvery pool was agitated. It swirled and bubbled, and kaleidoscopic, varicoloured patterns played across its glistening surface, not unlike oil on water. Waves of intense cold rolled off it, though the cellar itself somehow maintained a normal temperature.
‘Remember what the sorcerers call it?’ Karr said. ‘Magic’s chariot. This was exposed when the owners of the house were extending the cellar. Like the channel we saw exposed by lightning, this one’s unusually close to the surface. Anyway, fortunately for us, the people who lived here are sympathetic to our cause and got word to us. We moved them out and took over the place.’
‘Fortunate? How is this of any use to the Resistance?’
‘It could be of immense value, if a theory our friends in Covenant have proves correct. But I’ll let them explain it.’ He called over the man who had just spoken to them.
The Covenant member wasted no time on a preamble. ‘For years we’ve suspected that the energy lines have a number of functions. Well, more than suspected; we’ve grown sure
of it, based on the extensive research we’ve undertaken on the Founders. One possibility in particular has long intrigued us: we think the energy lines can be used as a communication network.’
Caldason had been staring into the pit, transfixed by the shifting patterns. Now he looked up.
‘I don’t pretend to understand all the esoteric details,’ Karr admitted, ‘but it makes sense. We know the grid is everywhere; it almost certainly covers the whole world. It’s not beyond the bounds of reason to imagine feeding in a message of some sort at one point and having it come out at another.’
‘Nor would it necessarily take too much time to transmit,’ the Covenant man went on. ‘There’s every reason to believe it could carry information almost instantly.’
‘You really believe that’s possible?’ Caldason remarked.
‘For the Founders, entirely possible. From what we’ve learnt, it could have been one of their minor miracles.’
‘Think of it,’ Karr enthused; ‘the ability to send and receive messages anywhere in the world, providing you’re near a line. Which, of course, everyone is.’
‘And
you
could use it that way?’ Caldason asked.
‘That’s probably a way off, to be honest,’ the sorcerer replied.
‘But Covenant’s made a discovery,’ Karr added. ‘It seems somebody’s already employing it for that purpose.’
‘Let’s get this straight,’ Caldason said. ‘These channels, the energy lines, are like…’ he groped for a parallel ‘…a network of rivers. And if you have a boat, you could go anywhere in it.’
The sorcerer smiled. ‘That’s rather well put. Except the boat would move faster than any wind could drive it.’
‘But you’re saying someone’s already using this network for sending messages?’
The Covenant man nodded.
‘It looks like it,’ Karr confirmed.
‘Who?’ Caldason wanted to know.
‘That’s the big question. But logically, it’s going to be an elite, isn’t it? Those who rule us. Whether that’s the leaders of Gath Tampoor or Rintarah, or the state on a lower level, like the government here in Bhealfa…well, it’s a moot point. But I think a resource like this, with all its potential, is probably going to be jealously guarded by the highest. It would give them such an edge.’
‘So, making use of it ourselves isn’t really an option if somebody is already using it?’
‘Right. Not much privacy. But that led us to think about another way of turning this to our advantage. If the grid’s being used to send messages, maybe we can intercept them.’
Caldason addressed the sorcerer. ‘It’s within your power to do that?’
‘In theory, yes. But it’s by no means easy.’
‘What does it involve?’
‘No disrespect, but unless you’re a practitioner of the Craft yourself-’
‘Which I’m certainly not.’
‘Then I’m not sure I could explain how we’d go about it. One way of looking at it, I suppose, although it’s a gross simplification, would be to think of that energy channel as a silken cord. The spells we’d cast would cut into it like a blade to let the information it carries bleed out. You might say we’d be hacking our way in.’
‘Reeth’s a fighting man,’ Karr revealed. ‘I can see he appreciates the comparison.’
Caldason glanced into the turbulent, freezing pit. ‘These channels are dangerous, aren’t they? The only other time we’ve seen one like this it caused havoc.’
‘Yes, potentially very dangerous,’ the sorcerer agreed. ‘But we’ve bound it with a number of powerful containment
spells. They should hold off any detrimental effects that might arise.’
‘I hope you’re right.’
‘Don’t worry, we’re confident of it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to…’
‘Of course,’ Karr told him. ‘And thank you.’
The man moved off to join his colleagues and occupied himself with something out of earshot.
Karr and Reeth turned back to the pit, their hands on the wooden rail. The liquid below carried on seething.
‘Think they’ll be able to do it?’
‘I don’t know, Reeth. But it’s a prize worth going all out for.’
Caldason made no reply. His gaze had slipped to the agitated quicksilver pool.
‘Reeth?’
He didn’t seem to hear. His knuckles were white on the charred rail.
‘
Reeth!
’
‘Hmm? Oh. Sorry.’ He shook his head, as though clearing it. ‘I was…I guess I was away with the fairies for a minute there.’
The quicksilver spring staged a minor eruption, like a scaled-down volcano about to spew lava. It spat little globules of mercury that stuck the pit’s walls, then rolled back down to the pool. An even more intense wave of
