25 - Access Granted

It’s achingly slow, but I appreciate that. Better slow and unseen than fast and discovered.They have to stop and become featureless parts of the landscape when I prod them and warm them to stop, whenever a dragon flies over. Perrin’s security is pretty predictable in this area. They always fly the same pattern I notice, check the same areas.  After the second time, the boys have it figured out and go still, just before I poked them. We are pillars of salt, of stone, in the talus.

Once we are forced to freeze as a massive data packet comes rumbling down the road, covered all over with spiked code, seething like infant oyuks on their parent’s backs, only these all have stingers and they look alien.  All the wrong colours.  The colours seem to designate recognition codes because the dragons swoop down and swing their heads back and forth as if scanning.  Are they smelling code?  Are they seeing code?

It’s a long while after the code has settled when Kyrus calls me from below.  “We’ve got a dome built down here.  Come on.”

It’s a hump of stone, with lava still flowing over part of it.  A blister like the bubbles of sand they domed up over us when the haboob caught up with us.  In this case protection from a flaming death instead of a flensing one.

Both Kyrus and Werfas are looking thinner, more transparent, but they’re grinning like maniacs.  So they should.  This is perfect.  Thick enough to hide any of us and they were lucky enough to find code embedded in the melted stuff.  Just chunks but it means that I’ll be able to throw up a door very quickly.

“I’ll make a door to plug this hole,” Kyrus says.  He has a handful of what looks like cooled lava and he’s drawing lava up and onto it, around and around, like icing a platter with molten rock.  He draws the stone up and around, hinging it on pins so the whole thing will pivot no matter how heavily he builds it up.  I have to admit, it’s ugly, or beautiful.  I'm not sure.  But then it’s beautiful in how he’s matched the volcano’s  rock so perfectly. It’s beautiful as it cools into these flowing colours of metal blue and black, streaks and smears of red melted and stretched into shape.

I hold Werfas’s shoulders, lending him strength from myself, from the Hive.  I can feel them somehow, outside myself.  Like humming in my ears.  They are filling me up with energy. Propolis, injected support, the taste of honey on my tongue.  I can feel the zon.  Only those who survived the journey, but Elemfias is there, on her warbird, with her armour and lance, just outside.  She’s there to back us up.  She doesn’t look a bit like she does in real life.  Here she’s young.  She’s on the other side of what I see as the chasm between the real world and the code.

There’s a puff of heat and the smell of flowers across my face and Kyrus finishes his door to hide our work-space.  I hear Elemfias yell “You can’t stay too long!”

“I know,” I whisper.  “We know.” The clock is ticking and we have to rebuild the gate before we can even try to find papa and da.

Elemfias draws on the air with her lance and it’s a gigantic clock, with a lance for a hand looming over her head, a red star blazing just over her head that the lance it ticking towards.  I don’t need the reminder.

I turn to stand up inside the bubble.  There’s a broken shadow of some steps, and a melted lintel flowing across the floor.  I clean code and Kyrus seals us almost in.  Now it’s Werfas’s job to watch that we’ve not been spotted.

Kyrus and I can rebuild this together.  Then anyone from either Lainz or Milar will be able to use it to gain access.

We join hands and together, with our free hands, draw the opposite corners of the door together, to meet in the centre.  We clasp those hands together as well and draw a straight line down the middle.  It’s plain.  It’s functional.  He and I flatten our hands and we step forward to set our palms on our sides of the split door.  There’s a flash as our deenay is encoded and the image of our palms is burned into our gateway.

*Access granted*

Kyrus grins at me and we pass a thread of ourselves into Werfas’s hands to unreel behind us whether we’re on foot or dare to fly. 

The doors fold open and we can see the odd and unsettling owner’s country, behind the massive gates he has set up.  We are going to rescue our fathers... and they will have the code we need to climb a glass mountain and steal communication from the one who has made himself a god on this planet.  You oyuck sucker.

24 - I Can

I’m appalled.  We’re in the code with Werfas getting ready to hold open our line back into our own wetware and we can’t go on.  But we have to.  My papa is in there.  Kyrus’s da is in there.  Just because I’m young doesn’t mean that I’m stupid or impetuous or silly, but I’m not giving up.

“Ky... remember when the Nadumar and the Rumon ambassadors worked together in Milar?”

“You mean when they moved the earth off the school?”

“Yes.  Could you and Werfas working together do something like that?  Make it look as random as that volcano?”

“That wasn’t random.” His voice is grim.  “That was Prime going further than just flaming his enemies into rubble.”

“Wing brother.” Werfas had come in as far as we have, because we’d stopped.  He’d picked up on the trouble the instant he clapped eyes on it.  “What we need is a way of cooling that lava where it is.  See?  The code for the volcano is far enough away that a riverwall or a rainwall could be built, here.”

We’re crouched in the talus below the road, the heat from the lava flows enough to make the sweat pop up on my face and in my armpits.  Everything is peaceful, even the distant security dragons are far enough away to be slowly sweeping elegant twinkling specks in the unnaturally blue sky.  I’m starting to really dislike that colour over my head.  It’s the colour of disaster.

“So yes we can stop the lava flow but then what?”  I had to snap at someone, fair or not. “The code for the gate is denatured.  It’s destroyed.  We still won’t be able to get in.”

“But...” Kyrus sounds thoughtful.  I refrain from poking him or teasing him right this instant so I don’t distract him.  “We’d have a dome of lava rock... solid code... to work under.”

“If we had a cliner around here who could create a space for us to work.”  Werfas grinned.  “Where ever will we find such a rare and talented fellow?”

That’s our cue to poke him, both of us, just out of relief.  We might not be able to go in immediately but we’ll have a chance to see if there’s undamaged gate code under there.  Or reinstall our own.  If the lava stone code is thick enough it won’t set off the security.

“We two can do it,” says Kyrus.  That boy.  He’s looking sideways at me.  He knows I’m as good in code as he is, but he’s still trying to get all high bird and protective on me.  Lainzer.

“All right.” I say.  “I’ll reserve my strength, just in case.”

He brightens as if I’ve given him an excuse, when I’m just being honest and straightforward.  “Just in case!”

I’m going to have to kick him once we all get out of here.  I tell myself to be serious, it’s not just Lainz who don’t treat people equally, it’s all varying degrees of weird.  I want to get my papa – both of them-- out of code first.  That’s what’s important.  Focus, Hara, I tell myself.  Keep your focus.

I draw back a little bit, keeping an eye on the dragons in the distance.  In this space you never know if it’s something big, far away, or something tiny a great deal closer.  There’s no proper perspective here and the horizon changes at Perrin’s whim.

The boys join hands and close their eyes, though they don’t need to do that here.  Below I watch code melt as Werfas makes it go away, slowly, carefully, the lava flowing humps up, dams up and the cooling surface cracks and splits to show red veins bleeding.  Land shifts and subsides and a stream rises out of the rocks near us to Ky’s calling.  He nudges it over as quietly as he can, making it look like the natural reaction of code to commands from elsewhere.

The water hits the lava and disappears, too hot to even show as steam.  It will take a while for the lava and the water to cool enough to make that dome Werfas was talking about.  If I can work hidden inside the owner’s code, surely I can slap up a new gate for us all, quickly.  I can.  I know I can.

23 - The Way is Shut

“Hara?  Are you... ah.”

“I’m here.”  The code was a scattering of light in front of them, at least from his perception. There was almost nothing happening right now at Prime’s road, the glittering sharp facade of the opening program, as sealed and as imposing as ever.  The crystal dragons flanking it were quiescent, each with one paw raised showing extruded claws longer than his arms.

“Every time I’ve been here,” Hara said.  “The sky has been that weird blue.  Mariush and Dag... everybody says its the colour of the sky of the home planet.  I’m not sure I like it.”

“Yeah.  I prefer the pale blue and pink of spring, really.”

They sneaked around the massive rock that forced the road around it.  Once around the rock Prime Gate would be at the end of the massive statue lined road.  The land that had been Secundus and Tertius gates were now at the bottom of a cliff that grew deeper every time Prime decided his country wasn’t isolate enough.

“Zon Elemfias says that the Milari remember this as a plain... a watered valley, not this craggy mountainside.”

“Armadad said that Prime is building himself a mountain to be the home of the God.  He’s nuts.”

“Yes.  What I want to know is how he persuaded all his people to follow him in the first place.”

Kyrus nodded and they left the road above with its gates and linings of statues and scrambled down the mountainside to Tertius Gate, or the rubble over it, and stopped in shock.  It was melted shut. A volcano had appeared under Secundus and lava had run over both destroyed gates.

 
**

Dag sat in her cottage and sifted and spun code through her mental fingers, the strands pulling out from the tangled mass she’d last harvested.

### ... secret war on... ###...the ice has blasted a crack through here, and a lake ### ### ###... the bees have settled in the canyon and we’re ####d... ### we have water and honey and bee larva and raghnall and birds... ### Gregori don’t trust Perrin so much ### ## #######o kill us all, don’t you see?  At least he’s going to try.

I need to build fail-safes and back doors.  Not just two or three.  Perrin is a devious bastard. Look under the dragon’s egg first.  T##en...

She searched the hank of code on her distaff.  It had been tangled, burned, the ends melted, some could be brushed out, saved, made sense of.  But this was important.  If her son was to go into the owner’s country he needed his access codes.  All of them.  The main gate for the Tertius CEO was the most vulnerable.  Who knew if Prime... Perrin...  if, or when, Perrin would just decide that that whole section of code should go, rather than dance on the graves of those he saw as his enemies?

## ## ## back #### ##e ## ### colour o# #he sky ## ###  The rest was gibberish.

**

“There’s no way in.  How do we get in?” If he could have been, Kyrus would have been panting. “How do they get out?  We have to get a line of code through there somehow, but that will just melt it into gibberish the instant it touches!”

“I... have codes but I can’t use them for here.  We’d have to somehow fool Prime’s Gate to get in and I don’t have that skill.  I’m not sure anyone of us has that skill.” They threw their arms around each other and, hidden in the shadow of Prime’s triumphal archway above, stood shaking, looking at the ruins of code at the bottom of the cliff road, where lava still ran, flowing to engulf and melt the land.

22 - He's Still Your Wing-Brother

Kyrus was tremendously glad the zardukar had set up couches in the High Bedroom, instead of the throne room, so the last thing he saw wasn’t his dad’s empty body.  It was too much like a fetch for his taste. He’d had enough of thinking his da was dead already.  We’re coming to get you back, da.  Hang on and we’ll throw you a line. That’s all they needed to do.  Two things.  Find them.  Then throw them a line out of the gate.

*You aren’t there to fight off security programs, you aren’t there to haul them out mentally.  They’re safe and hiding, we’re certain.  It was what we planned.  If we truly wanted Prime to know we are here we’d just smash in with all the power we’ve got and grab them out.*  That was Shashi, still flat on her back, her baby asleep on her chest.  She would be helping them without physically being there.

*We’re nowhere near ready for him to know about us.*

*Homa’s asleep now.  I’m ready to help you.* That was Mariush, His old Radiance’s last concubine.

*Good.* Werfas settled into his chair, right on the edge of the balcony overlooking the canyon.  His presence was solid and grounded as the rock the city was built on. Kyrus had to look away, feeling guilty that he couldn’t return the feelings his wing-brother had for him.  He’d slept with men, as a Basin rat, but it didn’t mean that was what he preferred. 

Hara, next to him, poked him with a finger.  “He’s still your friend.  Quit acting as if he’s covered in boils!” She hissed at him, barely audible under the hum of the bees.

He jumped as if her finger were a pin.  “Sorry.”  He smiled at her then at Wer.  “I’m wool gathering.”  Wer wasn’t acting any different.  He wasn’t being pushy at all.  I trust him.  He’s my wing-brother and if he’s attracted to me, he’s grown up enough to live with it.

He lay back on his couch and looked at the ceiling, still feeling pleasantly relaxed, and he didn’t jump when Wer reached to take his hand on one side, and Hara on the other. 

Above, the honeycomb patterns of the balcony glittered.  They'd originally been lines etched in plain stone, and the bees had built up a comb of wax and rose-coloured honey, with flashes of blue and green inside, where a gemstone wheel turned quietly to do its work.

The scent of the balcony flowers was soothing, as they’d been chosen by great-grand da.  He resolutely closed his eyes and, clinging hard to his two best friends in the world, slid quietly, softly, silently, into the code.

Family Day

Hello everyone, sorry for the lack of warning.  Today is officially a stat holiday in Canada so I won't be posting other than this notice.

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Stay warm and safe today, don't lose bits of extremities in the snow, even if it is only -11C!

 

21 - Do You Need Me?

*Emergency* *PRIORITY* *EMERGENCY!*

Dukir put a hand to his head, not having to feign a headache, the blast of information from his daughter hurting him quite enough.  Rather like having a spike driven into one ear. His hostess set her relish tray down next to the chai pot.  “Are you all right, Nas... um Giori?”

“Oh... oh, I’m so sorry, Buris... Nasera... I was just struck with a sudden headache.”

He let his eyes squinch shut as another wave of emergency information rolled through his head.  *Shashi... oh, my pardon, Amardad... please drop the volume, you are loud enough that code is about to burst from my nose.* He smacked himself mentally.  That was the fussy old guy he was playing.  *What’s wrong?*

“I... am so sorry, Nasera Buris, I simply cannot take chai with you at the moment.  I must lay my poor, aching head down,” he said out loud.

She fussed at him.  “Oh, certainly, certainly Naser.  Oh, of course.”  Her mother squinted at him over a page from their lin that she was reading, but didn’t say anything.

He clambered up to his hostel bed, set in human sized honeycombs in built up blocks on the flat delta, formed out of orange/red rock.  He would have preferred to be underground somewhere but there was no decent underground here.   

*His Radiance and his husband are lost in code.* Amardad sent, flat and to the point.  *They went in with what we thought was sufficient backing but the security systems reacted much more aggressively than when His former Radiance went in, for some reason.  We cannot find any evidence that Prime is actively hunting us.  The ice has not resumed falling.  The kraganzh, his wing-brother and his lover, the Milari children, are going in to find and fetch their parents.*

*The children?  Are there no teachers or zon left?*

*The zon all say they cannot access Tertius Gate.  They have attempted this with your daughter’s assistance but they just do not have the correct access keys.  They say that their access’s to the owner’s country were thoroughly destroyed centuries ago and they have been working with me and my students to try and help them rebuild without alerting Prime.  But that is probably the work of years.  If I could just go in and set things up openly it would be a few days work.*

*But you must not risk our disclosure.*

*We may have access to the owner’s country through the Naduman Gates, but they are refusing to answer our questions about it.*

*Stubborn bird-brains.*

*Indeed.*

*Is Shashi still down?*

*Sleeping.  We sent the children to ground themselves as thoroughly as they can before venturing into danger.  I will have Werfas set clines around them so that if things start to go wrong, they’ll be pulled out.  His Radiance and the Surdeniliarch--*

*Pushed it to their limits, of course.* He thought back at her.   

*As they do, thinking that surely they are invincible.*

*You would think their experiences with war would have convinced them otherwise, my friend.*

*Amardad... you’re solid as rock.  Do you need me in the mix?*

*I’m solid enough to have hidden from you all for years! No.  I think that for what we need to do you should continue working your long-term plan.  Perhaps his Radiance will reconsider all these direct approaches, once we get him out.*

*Once he’s back behind his eyes.  Yes.* He could almost feel her smile.  *We will.  This time or next.  They have several days before we’re truly in trouble.*

*So did you have to blast me with an emergency code like that?*

*You set the original force and intensity.*

*Of course.  You would have to remind me.  Keep me in the saddle.*

*I will. Amardad out.*