Penumbra book eight of t.., p.1
Penumbra: Book Eight of the Nightlord Series, page 1
Nightlord
Penumbra
by
Garon Whited
Copyright © 2023 by Garon Whited.
Cover Art: “Spire” by R. Beaconsfield (rbeaconsfield@hotmail.com)
ISBN: 9602876000019
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
This is probably a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Other Books by Garon Whited:
Dragonhunters
LUNA
Nightlord, Book One: Sunset
Nightlord, Book Two: Shadows
Nightlord, Book Three: Orb
Nightlord, Book Four: Knightfall
Nightlord, Book Five: VOID
Nightlord, Book Six: Mobius
Nightlord, Book Seven: Fugue
Phoebe’s Tale:
From His Shadow
Into the Light
Short Stories:
An Arabian Night: Nazin’s Dream
Clockwork
Dragonhunt
Ship’s Log: Vacuum Cleaver
The Power
The Ways of Cats
“Since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved.”
― Niccolo Machiavelli, “The Prince”
Fresh Start
Wow. Okay. So, it’s been a while. When was the last time I really sat down to write in a diary? Mostly, it’s been lab notes and experiment write-ups. This feels weird, putting down whatever I think or feel. Where’s the structure? Where’s the math? What’s this “grammar” thing, and will I be arrested by stormtroopers if I don’t use it perfectly? Correction: They don’t have a snowtrooper’s chance in hell of arresting me, but will they try?
I’m starting up the diary again because I’ve spent long enough as a Mad Scientist in his Hidden Laboratory. It’s time to leave the Voidstations and go out into the worlds. It’s time to come out of my study-shell and hatch into a person again.
I’m not sure about this “being a person” thing. I’m out of practice.
Am I starting in the right spot? Probably not. Let me go back a few days and get a running start. Bear with me.
Final Experiment
I donned my helmet-hood and tugged my gloves firmly into place. Time to summon a new test subject. It’s like opening presents at Christmas—hostile, potentially lethal presents, but still with the capacity to delight. What might I find? Anything new and unusual in the component parts? A new mystery in how it was put together? Fresh insight into the functions and operations of its anatomy?
The three shimmering rings pulsed as the first circuits closed. A haze filled the volume of the sphere, spreading inward from the rings, and the interior grew murky. I could feel Bronze in the metal all around me, at one with the Flatstation, ready to act if things got out of hand again.
I’d have to check my lab notes to remember how long it’s been since the last accident. Maybe I should get one of those signs. “This Laboratory has been Accident-Free for X Days.” There were times when it was “Zero Days.” Possibly with a space underneath it saying, “And what did we learn?” I could put the list of incidents there. The things I think of once it’s too late! Oh, well.
Keeping track of days could be a problem, though. There are no days on the Voidstations. The closest thing I have to a calendar is my regular reminder to eat a bug. I’ve lost track of how many of those I’ve done, too. Or I prefer not to think about them. In retrospect, I should have included a counter.
I squeezed the safety handle against the grip to unlock the main lever. It doesn’t need a safety handle, but it looks good and it keeps me from dying horribly if I make another klutzy mistake. Which, I suppose, means it does need a safety handle.
I drew the main lever back and more circuits closed, casting my micro-gate line into the deep waters. A low thrum came from the rings. The space in there was about to be a space somewhere else. The only question was what sort of fish was about to be snatched out of the ether and into the holding tank.
I didn’t always get something. Grabbing living things can be tricky. They don’t generally know what’s happening. Animals, for instance, might bolt when they sense something strange. Many of them freeze until they identify the threat. Humans can be similar, but they’re more likely to move to a window or wander around to look, which moves them out of the targeted shift-space. Unless the shift-space is huge, of course.
But angels… they’re aware of things. They sense what’s happening, I think, and they avoid being taken. My first dozen attempts got nothing.
I worked around this by utilizing a two-stage fishing process. The first stage puts a tiny sphere of chaos energy somewhere near a random angel. This doesn’t blind the angel, but it does hide what’s going on. Essentially, it’s an angel-oriented fishing lure. It’s bait. When the angel investigates, the system cycles and brings back a larger, surrounding space—hopefully with an angel inside it.
I tried it with flares of celestial energy instead of chaotic energy, but it didn’t work. I bat about twenty percent with my chaos energy bait. Good enough. I’m not about to try directly targeting an angel with a micro-gate, though. While I could definitely spear one, reeling it in would be the problem. I don’t like having open gates into my Flatstation. Angels might crawl through deliberately. The runaround with the micro-gate, shift-space, and the burst of chaos energy makes it unlikely an angel will figure out what’s going on. That’s key to not being incinerated by celestial forces.
The rings chimed—three identical notes disguised as a single sound. The ringing died away as the thrumming diminished, faded, and was gone.
The sphere inside the rings outshone the Sun. Lucky for me, I wear protective gear in the form of a specialized suit. It’s a lot like those silvery, fire-proof suits.
Remember the sign? I’ve learned a lot and, considering what a coward I am, at a surprising cost in pain, suffering, and risk.
Through my protective facemask, I could filter out and ignore most of the radiance while still making out the shape. This was a new one. I’d never caught anything of its exact species before.
It resembled a thick-bodied snake, smoothly scaled, brightly iridescent, with a glossy, almost metallic sheen. Every color I’d ever seen rippled through it, changing as it moved. Unlike a snake, it had leonine legs and paws. Now that it was confined, it displayed claws. The head was more elongated than a typical snake’s, with a resemblance to a rounded, crocodilian snout. It had rows of sharp, needle-like teeth. Feathery wings decorated it, and lots of them. There were six on each side, spread evenly along the length of its body. These shimmered like an aurora. The body ended in a long, tufted tail, busily switching back and forth in agitation.
It fixed me with its gaze and radiated an extraordinary amount of annoyance. At a guess, based on its expression and my past experiences with this situation, it was fiercely pissed off. The colors rippled along its length, seeming—or perhaps actually—moving from head to tail in a rapid series of waves.
The usual response to my capture spell is for the angel in question to be somewhat nonplused at my temerity and completely amazed by the clanging noise from my enormous brass balls. Then it gets upset. How dare a puny magic-worker presume to attempt such a thing! Even worse, how dare such a creature succeed! They hate when that happens.
I sympathize. Not enough to stop.
“What is this?” it hissed. “Explain yourself, mortal!”
I get this every time. Verbatim. It’s like they’re reading a script. And it’s not the script about “Fear not, for lo, I bring unto thee tidings of great joy,” either. To be fair, they weren’t intending to bring me anything and, once they’re in the celestrium, it isn’t joy they want to hand out.
While I studied it, it threw itself against the spherical containment barrier and banged its head. They never expect the wards to hold. Or they don’t expect the wards to hold so well. It tried a couple more times, but my wards are built to take it. They didn’t crack. By this point, they didn’t even shiver. I’ve been baking these things until they’re tougher than a dwarven battle-scone.
Direct attack having failed, it breathed celestial fire and learned something about regret; the backwash couldn’t have been pleasant. The angel scrabbled and scraped and clawed at the interior of the sphere with less effect than a kitten in a hamster ball. It writhed around, circling and swirling and coiling in the sphere. Everything it tried failed. A few not only failed, but bounced back to hurt it.
Zero days. I can be taught.
“Release me at once!” it screamed. I continued to ignore it. While it came to grips with captivity, I studied its visible structure and recorded the energy emanations. It hadn’t yet noticed there was a slight but steady drain on its energies.
In the course of my researches, I discovered silver had celestial-energy properties. It wasn’t a great conductor, but it held a pretty decent charge, kind of like other substances hold static electricity. Platinum doesn’t work so well, but it’s not useless, either. Sma
I automated the process to make thousands of possible combinations and zeroed in a damn fine conductor. I call the alloy “elysium,” because that’s my sense of humor. Elysium isn’t up to the same standard as Diogenes’ recipe for orichalcum, but he spent a lot more man-hours on it. Someday, I’ll refine it further. For the moment, elysium is a great conductor of celestial energies, but I haven’t yet developed it into a super conductor. It serves my modest needs well enough, for now.
The angels in my celestial aquarium lose energy as the celestrium siphons it off. These energies charge up enormous capacitors made up of elysium-foil layers. This energy is processed through rectifiers to destroy any sort of signature or pattern to the energies. The result is pure, undifferentiated celestial current—steady DC current, if you will—which is then grounded out.
Yes, it grounds into the Flatstation. Yes, Bronze was wearing the Flatstation. She eats an amazing variety of things these days, including heavily-processed purée d’ange. She was a celestial being for a while, so I’m not too surprised. She shares the output with Eri, my own celestial construct, strengthening it. I’ll talk about Eri later.
The angel—because it was an angel, albeit of a type I’d never captured before—settled down after a while. It wore itself out against my containment and didn’t get anywhere. This pleased me. Every time I go through this process, the barrier gets a workout and gets stronger. At this point, I’m reasonably certain no angel is capable of breaking out. It’s possible it might even contain one particular celestial entity, but I’m not ready to tackle that one yet.
I checked the time. How long did it take for this latest angel to realize it wasn’t breaking out? Quite a while. Not one of the smarter ones, I judged. If an angel with a million eyes around its rims couldn’t bust my wards, this thing didn’t have a prayer. It had to try, though. They always do. And once it calmed down, it would have leisure to notice the drain. It still might be a while.
“Why have you summoned me?” it demanded. It appeared to be breathing heavily from its exertions. Its face underwent changes of expression I couldn’t read, but I could see the energy-state colors changing on my helmet visor display. Its emotional states went through the usual series.
“What are you doing to me?” it continued. Not the sharpest angel ever stuffed in a sphere, obviously. Bright, yes. Smart, no.
I went about my business. It was going to be grumpy and shouty for quite a while as it boiled down. If I tried to transfer it and bind it now, it wouldn’t stay bound for long. Mortal flesh is like a cotton shirt to them. You can wear one for as long as you like, but they’re easy to rip off. Or, in the case of angels, burn out from within. The angel has to be drastically weakened if I want to trap one in a cloned body.
In the meantime, there was a lot to be learned by looking. I couldn’t probe it inside the thaumaturgic sphere, of course, but I always start with passive sensors before we get down to the table, the straps, the rubber gloves, and the probing.
While it continued to demand and threaten and generally make a lot of noise—very noisy, this type; I made a note—I turned toward it and asked a question. I kept my voice at a normal level, which meant the thing in the sphere couldn’t make out what I asked. This had the desired effect. It quieted and paid attention.
“What did you say?” it asked, still swimming about and lashing its tail.
“I asked what you are.”
“I am an angel!” it roared. “Have you not listened?”
“No, I only listen to answers. What sort of angel? What do you do?”
“I am of the k’al-ky-driel! We are emissaries of the dawn, the ones who awaken the birds to give thanks for a new day!”
“Okay. I was wondering.” I jotted this down. I’ve encountered a lot of angels and some—such as this one—were pretty specialized. Even this type didn’t have the same transformative effect as a sunrise. It was still hideously bright. The diminished radiance making it through the containment barrier would set me on fire, but it wasn’t about to inflict humanity on me. Weirdly enough, celestial light doesn’t have the same effect as dawn. Neither does a fusion plant. It takes both before my Chaos infestation decides to pack up and go to bed.
I’ve had quite a while to experiment. Sometimes involuntarily. Always painfully.
I opened the hatch and stepped out of the containment chamber, ignoring the resumption of angry noises. While my latest catch boiled down, I headed into the attached observation room and removed my silvery, fire-suit-style helmet. The instruments—magical, technological, and hybrids—were already recording a lot of raw data. I got to work on correlating it against my other angelic data.
There were a lot of similarities. Angels have a basic chassis, but you can bolt on a lot of interchangeable parts. That’s a bit misleading; they aren’t really modular, but they are built along the same lines. What I’ve mostly focused on is how to reduce them to pieces, then take apart the pieces. It’s a lot like taking living people apart slowly so you can study how to kill them more efficiently. Along the way, you discover ways to stick them back together. The difference is these people are energy-state beings and much more difficult to kill.
Well… not exactly. Any given manifestation isn’t hard to kill. I’ve worked out a couple of techniques over the years. Getting them to hold still for it is one of the trickier parts. It’s like the old joke about how to catch a bird. You put salt on its tail. But if you can put salt on its tail, you could catch it anyway!
I finished my initial data catalogue and left the kal-kiddiel or whatever to shrink in the wash. I whistled several bars of “Angels We Have Heard On High” as I sauntered down to another lab to check on Bronze’s project.
I did the manufacturing work, but the idea was hers. She could wear almost anything, from starships to motorcycles to horses—even Voidstations! But she had an idea for a much more versatile body.
Legos!
Okay, no, not Legos. More like nanotechnology, but Legos give the right idea. Imagine a tiny little robot, a lot like a three-dimensional octopus. It’s got metal arms projecting in all directions from a center point. When curled up, the thing is only about as big across as a human hair. These microbots can latch on to each other, hook their arms together, link up to form chains, sheets, or any other shapes. By loosening and tightening their arms, they can make those shapes flex or ripple or do almost anything Bronze wants.
Unlike science fiction nanobots, they don’t replicate themselves. They don’t build more of themselves, not even on command. They can’t, and that’s by design. They can’t eat a planet and go on to build their own starships and eat more planets. They’re building blocks, not actual robots. Complicated, expensive, metal building blocks, but in the final analysis, hunks of metal.
They’re sensitive building blocks, though, and can be controlled—much as one might control a car, or a starship, or a Flatstation—by investing them with energies and occupying them with one’s spirit. These things are individually and collectively enchanted—and don’t even get me started on what it took to automate that! Setting up an automated enchantment process is always a damnable nightmare.
But the major motivating force comes from Bronze.
At least, that was the theory. Bronze said it should work, but wasn’t sure how well she could coordinate millions of individual robots. So I got her a million microscopic robots and she’s been experimenting with them. It’s not perfect, but it does work, after a fashion. It’s an evolving process. We’re on version six of the micro-bot enchantments and version three of their physical design. I’m satisfied with the physical parameters, but I keep thinking I can upgrade the enchantments.
I can’t actually upgrade the existing enchantments in billions of microbots. I have to start over and produce new ones. Which means rebuilding the enchantments in the production plant so it can produce upgraded microbots. Every version has a long lead time, which is why there are so few versions.
Bronze, on the other hand, is entirely happy with them. She can occupy any mass of them from about a hundred kilos up to however many we have. She can animate the whole pile and assume pretty much any form she likes, as long as she’s left alone to establish the pattern and imprint it. The shape of a horse comes naturally, but anything else takes focus.
