[Mkguild] Past Present and Future part 8

[christian okane]

Here is part 8.


*******************


   The corridor was a short one and ended in a doorway from which a soft
light beckoned. Walking through the door Misha found himself in a finely
appointed room. Every visible surface was decorated with beautiful mosaics
that time had not dimmed or changed.

   The wall closest to the doorway had decorations far different from the
rest. Instead of the figures and symbols this one had what looked to be
food. Misha stepped close to it and got a better look. In the center of the
wall were a series of six, square openings each about a foot in width and
height and about two feet  deep. The opening was just smooth sided niche
carved into the stonework.

   There seemed to be no real organization to the mural. Instead it was just
images of various types of food and drink arranged in neat rows. Some of the
images had a word or two below them in old Sueil. One showed what was
clearly a cup of some sort and the single word Hartue. Misha vaguely
recognized it as the name of some region of the Midlands but nothing else.
He ran his fingers over the image. The carved emblem glowed for a moment and
there was a click followed by the soft whirring of gears.

   They all jumped back from the wall unsure of what would come next. "You
set off a trap!" Rickkter snarled as his hands moved in the complex gestures
of a spell.

   "I don't think so," Misha sounding unsure of himself.

   One of the niches in the wall suddenly started to glow and a pleasant
chime sounded. In unison the group examined the opening and found a small
cup resting there. Misha reached out to the cup and took it. It felt warm in
his hand and was filled with a brown/green liquid that was clearly very hot.
A spicy, herbal smell rose with the steam filling Misha's nose with the
scent of sweet and exotic herbs.

   "What is it?" Caroline asked.

   Misha sniffed the liquid again and then carefully took a small sip. The
liquid was hot and tasted of a dozen different herbs and spices. "I think
it's tea."

   Charles leaned close and sniffed. "It is tea. Honlau tea. And a good
example of it too."

   Caroline turned and looked at the wall with its countless images of food
and drink. "This is a kitchen," she said with some amazement. "It dispenses
food."

   "Where does it dispense it from?" Rickkter asked. "The food has to come
from somewhere."

   Misha peered at the opening he had taken the cup from. The glow had
vanished and the small niche was again dark and empty.

   "You could touch another icon and see what happens," Charles said.

   Misha looked at the vast array of symbols for a moment before settling on
what looked to be the image of a fish over a cup. Below the cup was a Seuil
word Misha was fairly certain meant mild or tame. He touched the symbol and
the whirring noise started again. "Everyone watch a niche."

   For what seemed like ages nothing happened but he could hear the sounds
of a mechanism working somewhere. Then the niche he was looking at lit up as
the bottom slid back revealing a dark shaft leading straight down. A stone
platform rose up with a metal bowl in it. The platform came to a halt with a
soft click and the light went out.

   Picking up the bowl he found it contained small bits of fish and
vegetables floating in a brown sauce. "Fish soup. Hot and fresh."

   Rickkter reached into the niche and pushed lightly on the floor which
went down slightly. "It's a dumbwaiter carrying food from some kitchen below
us." He placed the now empty teacup in one of the niches. There was a soft
click and the bottom of the niche slowly descended from sight leaving an
dark opening. A stone slab slid out covering the small shaft leaving an
empty niche.

   "It also takes away the dirty dishes," Caroline said. "Most useful."

   Misha examined one of the niches. "I could fit into this easily in my
feral form."

   "You don't know where it goes," the otter countered. "It could lead
anywhere."

   "There's one way to find out," Misha announced cheerfully.

   "That's too dangerous," Caroline snapped.

   Misha shook his head vigorously. "I don't think so. The amber mages were
so paranoid they left nothing to chance. Also I have some wards already on
me and those offer a certain amount of protection." The Long Scout quickly
stripped out of armor and then all of his remaining clothing.

   "Watch those while I take my little trip. He concentrated for a moment
and his body shifted and started to grow smaller as it threw off all its
human like qualities. In moments a small, red fox was standing on the floor.

   Misha leapt nimbly into the small alcove. In his human-like form it had
seemed so small but now it felt spacious. With some effort he managed to
turn around so he could face outward. He made sure that his tail was safely
tucked under his body.

   "This doesn't seem too safe," Charles said. "Perhaps we should test it
more."

   Caroline peered into the niche. "Are you all right?" The concern in her
voice was plain to hear.

   "I'm fine," He answered.

   Suddenly Madog appeared next to the otter. "Going down!" He announced.
"Ding! Ding!"

   "See?" Misha said cheerfully. "Madog wouldn't let me do this of it was
dangerous or deadly."

   The floor beneath him gave a little jolt and then slowly started to
descend downward. "See you in few minutes dear!" Misha managed to call out
before Caroline disappeared from sight. In a few moments Misha was in total
darkness. As a fox he could see very well in darkness but not now. This
blackness was total and he couldn't see anything. All around him was total
blackness. The only indicator he had of any movement was the faint shaking
and vibrating on the floor he was laying on. 

   After what seemed like forever but was probably less than a minute the
wall in front of him vanished and a soft light flooded into the little
niche. Misha's first sight of his destination was of a set of eight,
glowing, ruby red eyes staring intently at him. The eyes were attached a
large metallic head that was attached to an even larger body. Eight spindly
legs spread out from the body. One of those legs shot out and grabbed Misha
by the front legs. With an astounding strength it pulled the fox out of the
niche.

   Misha found himself dangling in the air, held there by the grip of a
metal spider. He tried to get a better look at the creature holding him. The
fox saw a spider the size of a small dog made entirely of a dozen different
metals. He was very much reminded of Madog and Misha realized that he was
looking at a sibling of the automaton fox.

   The arachnid like automaton examined Misha for a moment as if unsure of
what to do next.

   "Volshuf," Misha ordered. That was the Seuilman word for release.

   The spider made a series of loud clicking noise and released its hold.

   The fox hit the floor with a thump. Misha willed himself to change. His
body started growing larger as it shifted to his more human like form. He
looked down at the automaton which seemed to look up at him for a moment.
Then it turned and skittered off on other errands.

   Misha looked around as he brushed the dirt and dust off of his fur. He
was in a large room that was filled with all sorts of mechanisms and
paraphernalia. Massive pipes made of metal ran from floor to ceiling. In the
center of the room were a pair of large, stone pools. Each was four feet
wide, twenty feet long and had walls three feet high. He saw a maze of pipes
leading into each pool. Everywhere he looked Misha saw pipes and all sorts
of complex machinery.

   He walked over to one of the pools and found it filled with clear water
that was hot enough that Misha had to keep a few steps back to avoid any
burns. The second tank held fish as they were clearly visible swimming
around in the murky water in spite of the fact that the water was also
boiling hot.

   Next to the second tank was a row of a dozen stone channels, each less
than a foot wide but twenty feet long.  They all had muddy brown water on
top of which was covered the leaves of a floating plant. Gently he picked up
one of the leaves and found the stem of the plant, complete with the roots.
The plants were actually growing in the water without any earth for the
roots. He gently replaced the plant into its pool.  "Amazing! I never
suspected anything like this existed."

   "It is amazing," Rickkter said.

   Misha turned to the voice and found Caroline, Rickkter and Charles
standing a short distance from him.

   "How did you get in here?" He asked.

   "Through the door," Rickkter said and pointed to the wall behind them.
There an open doorway beckoned revealing a corridor behind.

   "How did you find it?" Misha asked.

   "Silly Papa!" Madog said announcing his arrival. "If you want to come
here you take stairs! Not little chute."

   "Never mind," Misha said calmly.

   "What is all this?" Caroline asked. "It's not like any kitchen I've ever
seen before."

   "It's for the growing and preparation of food," Misha answered. "I
think."

   Charles looked at the complexity around him. "All of it?"

   "All of it," Misha responded. "Not only does it prepare and cook food
they also grow the ingredients, fish, vegetables, lettuces, spices and all."

   "Why all this?" Caroline asked and waved her arms about the room and its
complex automatons and mechanisms. "With a valley filled with prime farmland
and many willing farmers land they created all this."

   "You're forgetting who the Amber mages were," Rickkter commented. "Their
whole existence involved automatons. Everything had to involve it. Even
something as simple as making a cup of tea."

   "And remember what Bolva said of their paranoia," Charles added. "Getting
food from the valley meant trusting an outsider. Someone who wasn't a member
of the order."

   "The road up to this place had been destroyed so completely that no one
realized it had ever been there," Rickkter said slowly. "My assumption was
that it was done by those who attacked the fortress at the time of its
destruction."

   Misha nodded his head. "That makes sense. Bolva would want all access to
the place removed so no one could find it accidentally."

   "But what if it was done by the order itself?" The raccoon asked. "To
disguise this place so completely would have taken a great expenditure of
magic and effort."

   "So why leave something as obvious as a road leading straight to it?"
Charles said. "They destroyed the lower parts of the road."

   "How did they get down to the valley?" Caroline asked. "Even Bolva had to
climb up here and not fly."

   "Why would they want to leave the fortress?" Rickkter answered slowly.
"Everything they wanted was here. Even the food."

   "All these wonders and they kept it to themselves. I can understand why
Bolva hates them," Caroline commented. "I'm starting to dislike them
myself."

   "How much of this do you understand?" Charles asked as he looked at the
wonders all around him.

   "I can make a guess at what some of the things here do," Misha responded.
He pointed to a large, squat, oval shaped machine sitting in one corner.
"That is some sort of pump probably pulling water up from a really deep
well."

   "Do you know how the pump actually works?" Caroline asked.

   Misha shook his head. "Not the slightest clue."

   "A person could spend their entire life just studying this room and its
contents," Rickkter commented as he examined a long counter-like affair that
seemed to have a top made of a rubber material.

   "Someday I will study this in detail," the fox commented. "But for today
we'll just look around but touch nothing. There is an automaton here so
beware."

   "An active one?" Charles asked as he looked around. "What did it look
like?"

   "It was a very large spider," the fox answered. "He seemed more upset
that I was in his niche instead of the dirty dishes he was expecting."

   "Did it speak?" Rickkter asked.

   The fox gave a shake of the head. "I don't think it was as intelligent as
Madog or Omega. It certainly didn't seem to care who I was."

   "At least it wasn't hostile," Charles commented.

   "The wards I placed on all of us helped," Misha said.

   "Good!" Charles said and examined the inked symbol on his palm.

   "Caroline," Misha asked. "Go back up to the hall and touch one of the
images. I'll stay here and watch what happens."

   "All right!" Caroline said. Then she made her way out of the room.

   A minute or so passed in silence as they waited for her to make her way
upstairs. There was a soft chime and the room lit up as light streamed down
from above. The automaton spider appeared suddenly scuttling along a wall as
easily as a real arachnid taking no note of the strangers who now graced its
home. It reached the fish pool and clung to the edge peering down into the
murky water.

   Another spider appeared and leapt easily from the wall to another of the
pools. Without any real problem it stepped out onto the water and skittered
across it with the ease of a water bug. It stopped at one of the floating
plants and carefully plucked a dozen leaves from it. Then it raced off to
another type of plant a few rows over and plucked a few more leaves.

   A third spider appeared from some dark corner carrying a large bowl which
it carefully placed on the rubber topped counter. Then it spun around and
raced off.

   "Just how many of those spiders are there?" Rickkter asked.

   "No idea but each seems to have one specific task that it does," Misha
responded.

   The first spider at the fish pool plunged its head into the water and
when it pulled it up again a fish was impaled in the dagger sized fangs. The
spider dropped its head into the water with the fish still in its grip.
After a few moments the automaton pulled its head free. The fish was still
there but Misha noticed it had changed visibly. He peered closely at it.
"The fish has been cooked!"

   Rickkter touched the side of the pool near the top and pulled his hand
quickly. Then he touched the side close to the bottom. "The water is boiling
at the top but cool near the bottom. Interesting. They catch and cook the
fish at the same time."

   The automaton spider leapt the ten feet between itself and the counter
easily, the fish still in its grasp. It placed the fish onto the counter and
then turned and vanished into a dark corner. There was a soft splash and
Misha turned to the sound. The spider that had been harvesting among the
floating plants leapt onto the counter and dropped a bundle of greens;
leaves, shoots and the like. Then it too departed.

   Two more spiders appeared and raced along the countertop to where all the
food was laid out. Misha noticed that the front legs of this automatons were
tipped with an impressively large and sharp blade. The two raced over to the
food and started slicing and chopping everything. They worked with
astounding speed and in moments the fish was reduced to a small pile of
bones, scales and guts. All the meat was deftly dropped into the waiting
bowl along with the now finely chopped vegetables and spices. Misha stepped
close to the counter and the smell of cooked fish came to his nose. He
peered into the bowl. "Fish stew."

   Yet another spider raced along the counter and stopped just short of
Misha and the bowl. It looked at the fox scout with its glittering eyes and
chittered softly. Misha took a step backwards "Sorry. Didn't mean to get in
the way."  The metal spider moved forward and gently scooped up the bowl. A
short jump took it to a stone column in which was the niche Misha had
traveled down in. The bowl was placed in the opening and slowly rose out of
sight.

  The two spiders quickly vanished, replaced by another that scooped up the
remaining bones, scales and other remains. These the creature carried across
the room and dropped them into the top of a small, stone column about four
feet high. there was a loud grinding noise and after a moment a brown-gray
paste came out of a small hole in the bottom. The spider scooped up this
paste and raced over to the fish pool. The paste was dumped into the pool
and quickly settled to the bottom.

   "Nothing goes to waste," Misha muttered.

   Caroline appeared in the doorway of the room holding the bowl that had
just left headed upwards. "All this effort and automata for a simple bowl of
fish stew." She walked over and placed the empty bowl in the niche in the
column. A metallic spider raced down the column, grabbed the bowl and raced
back out of sight before anyone could react. The otter took a step backward
and looked up at the ceiling. "This is like a place in some fantastic
story."

   "This is all automata," Misha says. "That's plain to see but it's
literally centuries ahead of what we know now. Once. I heard a tale from a
time so long ago that humans didn't even know how to work metal. All they
had was wood, stone and bone. I feel like one of those ancient humans
confronted suddenly by something as complex and modern as a trebuchet or one
of my clocks."

   "What are you going to do with all of this?" Charles asked.

   "Nothing," came the answer. "At least for the near future. I've no idea
where to even start studying this. It will have to wait till some future
date."


**********************


   The two cheetahs spotted a figure up ahead. The person was walking slowly
down the hallway. Edmund wrapped a hand around the hilt of his sword for a
moment before he recognized the new arrival. "Nest!" Edmund exclaimed. "It's
good to see you!" He walked up to the lion. "How are you faring?"

   The mage looked dirty and a little tattered and worn but otherwise all
right. "I am all right. I had a little altercation underground but it was
nothing I couldn't deal with," he said sounding more calm then he actually
felt.

   "What happened?" Stealth queried. "What did you fight?"

   "I encountered, " Nestorius said and paused. "Something unpleasant."

   "Unpleasant?" Stealth responded. "You mean something nasty that wanted
you dead."

   The mage nodded. "That sums it up succinctly."

   "What was it?" The paladin questioned.

   "I don't know but it's dead now. I've grown weary of exploring dark
places," the noble lion commented. "Let's get back into the sunlight."

End part 8


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