“He says he’s a Rindge. His people live in villages at the foot of those mountains behind him. They’re native to this area, been here for centuries. They’re hunters, and he’s part of a hunting party that stumbled on us during the night.” He glanced at Tamis. “You were right. He’s not alone. There are other Rindge with him. I don’t know how many, but I’d guess they’re all around us.”
“Ask him if he’s seen anyone else besides us,” Tamis suggested.
Panax spoke a few words and listened to the other’s reply. “He says he hasn’t seen anyone. He wants to know what we’re doing here.”
There was another exchange. Panax told the Rindge they had come to search for a treasure in the ruins of the city. The Rindge grew animated, punctuating his words with gestures and grunts. He said there wasn’t any treasure, the city was very dangerous, and metal beasts would hunt them and fire would burn their eyes out. The city had eyes everywhere, and nothing came or went without being seen, except for the Rindge, who knew how to stay hidden.
Quentin and Tamis exchanged a quick glance. “How do the Rindge hide from the creepers?” she asked Panax.
The Dwarf repeated the question and listened intently to the answer. Confused, he made the Rindge repeat it. While they spoke, other Rindge appeared out of the trees, just faces at first in the dim light, then bodies, as well, materializing one after the other, ringing the little company. Quentin glanced around uneasily. They were vastly outnumbered and very much cut off from any chance of flight. He resisted the urge to put his hand on his sword; relying on weapons for help would be foolish.
Panax cleared his throat. “He says the Rindge are a part of the land and know how to disappear into it. Nothing can find them if they keep careful watch, even at the edges of the city. He says they never go into the ruins themselves. He wants to know why we did.”
Tamis laughed softly. “Good question. Ask him what it is they’re hunting.”
The Rindge, tall and rawboned, listened and nodded slowly as Panax spoke. Then he replied at length. The Dwarf waited until he was finished, and glanced over his shoulder. “I’m not sure I’m getting all this. Maybe I’ve got it wrong. I almost hope I do. He says they’re hunting creepers, that they’re setting traps for them. Apparently the traps are to discourage the creepers from hunting them. He says the creepers harvest the Rindge for body parts, that they use pieces of the Rindge to make something called wronks. Wronks look like them and us, but are made of metal and human parts both. I can’t quite figure it out. The Rindge are pretty frightened of them, whatever they are. This one says that by taking pieces of you, the wronks steal your soul so that you can never really die.”
Tamis frowned. “What does that mean?”
Panax shook his head. He spoke to the Rindge again, then glanced at the Tracker and shrugged. “I can’t make it out.”
“Ask him who controls the wronks and the creepers and the fire,” she said.
“Ask him who lives under the city,” Quentin added.
Panax turned back to the Rindge and repeated the questions in the strange, harsh Dwarf dialect. The Rindge listened carefully. All about them, the other Rindge pressed close, exchanging hurried glances. The air was charged with fear and rage, and the Highlander could feel the tension in the air.
When the Dwarf was finished, the Rindge to whom he had been speaking straightened, looked past them toward the ruins, and spoke a single word.
“Antrax.”
10
Deep within the bowels of Castledown, far below the ruins of the city above, Antrax spun down the lines and cables that gave it passage through its realm. Traveling somewhere between the speeds of light and sound, faster than the eye could follow if the eye had been permitted to try to do so, it sped along corridors and passageways, from chamber to chamber, riding the metal threads that linked it to the kingdom it ruled. It was a presence that lacked substance and shape and could be virtually everywhere at once or nowhere at all. It was the crowning achievement of its creators in a time and a world long since dead, but it had transcended even that to become what it was.
The perfect weapon.
The ultimate protector.
Built almost three thousand years earlier, in a time when artificial intelligence was commonplace and thinking machines proliferated, it was advanced for its kind even then, a prototype created in the heat of events that culminated in the Great Wars. Skirmishes had begun already, and its creators suspected where things were heading when they first conceived of it. They were archivists and visionaries, people whose primary interest was in preserving for the future that which might otherwise be lost. Lesser minds dominated the thinking of the times; they manipulated the rules of power and politics to stir within the populace a mix of rage and frustration that eventually would consume them all. To thwart the madness that was overtaking them, the creators determined that those who would destroy what they would not concede should not be allowed to undo the progress of civilization. Antrax knew that because when it was built, the knowledge was programmed into it. It was necessary that it know the reason for its existence, because otherwise how could it understand the importance of what it was created to do?
It took years to build Antrax, and the building of it was accomplished at a great cost of lives and resources. Few of those who began the project lived to see it completed. Antrax had a sense of time, and knew that it had gained life in small increments. A bit of knowledge here, a piece of reasoning there, it expanded until it was housed in more than one place and could travel the city’s catacombs like a wraith. Aboveground, the city masked its presence and its purpose. Only a few knew that it was there, functioning. Only those few knew what it was meant to do. The Great Wars were consuming the world of the creators in a widening swath of destruction and ruin, and humankind was being changed forever. So much would be lost as a result—irreparably lost. But not what was housed within those chambers, not that which Antrax was created to preserve and with which it was entrusted. That would be protected. That would endure.
In the end, the creators simply faded away. Antrax never knew what happened to them. They gave it life, a place to reside, a domain to watch over, and a directive to follow. They set it on its course, and then they disappeared.
All but one.
That one returned a final time. He was alone and his appearance unexpected. When all else was done, and Antrax was functioning as intended, the input receptors had been closed. No further instructions were necessary. Then the last creator appeared and opened the receptors anew. He gave greetings to Antrax. They could speak to each other through the keyboards and touch screens. They could communicate as equals. He told Antrax that the worst had come to pass. Everything was lost. The world was destroyed, and civilization was in ruins. Centuries of progress had been wiped out. Art, culture, knowledge, and understanding were gone. The creators, save he alone, were destroyed. Perhaps no one was still alive anywhere in the entire world. Perhaps everyone was dead.
Antrax did not respond. It had not been built to understand human emotion; it could not sense it in the words of the creator who spoke to it. But a new directive followed, and Antrax was required to obey directives. The directive entered its memory banks through the keyboard and became a part of its consciousness. The command was clear. Those chambers, the complex, and everything housed within had been given to Antrax to ward. They must not be compromised. They must not be lost. It was not enough that Antrax watch over them and keep them safe for when the creators returned. Antrax must protect them, as well; it must combat and destroy anything that threatened them. The means for doing so was already in place, weapons and defenses both, installed in secret by the last creator himself, who knew better than his fellows what the times required. Antrax must draw from its memory banks, as it did energy from its power cells, knowledge of how those defenses and weapons worked. It must adapt that knowledge to fulfill its directive; it must extrapolate what was needed to survive. If defenses or weapons were called for, Antrax must use them. If they were not enough and others were required, Antrax must build them. If anyone tried to reclaim the chambers without entering the proper code, the intrusion must be stopped—even at the cost of lives.