Glory Season

"But—" she complained, before being lifted into the arms of a massive sailor, who turned and ran, leaving crimson blemishes behind him on the cold stone floor.

What followed was a blur of shaking, wild turns, and sudden reverses. Yet, combined with pain and fear and loss came a strange sensation, one she had not experienced since infancy — of being carried and cared for by someone much larger. Despite knowing countless ways men were as frail as women — and sometimes, much frailer — it came as a kind of solace to feel engulfed by such gentleness and power. It coaxed a deep part of her to let go. Amid a headlong plunge through eerie corridors, chased by despair, Maia wept for her sister, for the brave sailors, and herself.

The passage seemed to stretch on and on, at times descending like a ramp, at others climbing. They mounted a steep, narrow stair where some men had to duck their heads and others lagged behind. Sounds of pursuit, which had faded a while back, now grew closer once more. At the top, the diminished band of fugitives found another metal door. Several men laid down their wounded comrades and formed one last rear guard, vowing to hold on while Maia, her bearer, the doctor, and the cabin boy hurried ahead.

What's the point? Maia thought miserably. The men seemed to believe in her ability to work miracles, but in truth, what had she accomplished? This "escape route" was intrinsically no good if the foe could follow. Most likely, all she had done was lead the reavers straight to Renna.

Her original thought was that she had found a secret path to the old defense warrens, which the Council in Caria had kept preserved for millennia. Now Maia knew they had traveled much too far, no doubt threading narrow stone bridges through one after another of the Dragon's Teeth comprising the Jellicoe cluster. Except for Renna, they might be the first humans to tread these halls since the great banishment, after the Age of Kings.

They heard no more clamor at their rear. The last detachment must still be holding out at their barricade. Upon coming to a flat stretch, Maia insisted that the panting sailor let her down. Gingerly, she put weight on her knee, which throbbed, but deigned to let her walk. The sailor expressed willingness should she need help again. "We'll see," Maia said, patting his huge forearm and hobbled ahead.

Soon they came to another set of doors. On pushing through, the group stopped, staring.

A vast chamber stretched ahead, taller than the temple in Lanargh, wide as a warehouse. She marveled that the entire spire-mountain must be hollow. Maia's eyes couldn't take it all in at once, only by stages.

To the right, a series of semicircular bays had been gouged out of the rock, ranging from ten to fifty meters across, each containing jumbled mechanisms or piles of stacked crates. But it was the wall to the left that drew them, in awe. It appeared to consist of a single machine, stretching the entire length of the chamber, consisting of a numbing combination of metals and strange substances embedded in stone, plus crystalline forms like the huge, dimly flickering entity she and Brod had glimpsed, back in the Defense Center. At intervals along its length, there were what appeared to be doors, though not shaped for the passage of people. Maia guessed they were meant for the entry or egress of materials, and speculated as much to the doctor.

The old man nodded. "It must be … We all thought it lost. The council had it. Or else it was destroyed."

"What?" Maia asked, drawn by the man's reverential tone. "What was lost?"

"The Former," he whispered, as if afraid of disturbing a dream. "Jellicoe Former."

Maia shook her head. "What's a former?"

As they walked, the doctor looked at her, struggling for words. "A former . . . makes things! It can make anything!"

"You mean like an autofactory? Where they produce, radios and—"

He shrugged. "The Council keeps some lesser ones runnin', so as to not to forget how. But legends tell of another, the Great Former, run by the folk of Jellicoe."

Blinking, Maia grasped his implication. "Men made this?"

"Not men, as such. The Old Guardians. Men an' women. All banished after the Kings' revolt, even though the Guardians had nothin' to do with macho traitors.

"The Council an' Temple were scared, see. Scared of such power. Used the Kings as an excuse to send ever'one away from Jellicoe an' the other places. We always thought Caria kept the tools, for themselves."

"They did, some of them." And Maia spoke briefly of the Defense Center, elsewhere in this honeycombed isle, maintained by specialized clans.

"Just as we thought," the doctor said moodily. "But seems they never found this!"