Ascent of the Aliomenti (13 page)

Arthur had, at Will’s request, traveled around and found a handful of metal workers, and the men had been at work creating thin metal rods. Though Will was no expert in concrete construction techniques, he knew that metal spikes called re-bar were part of the poured mix, providing material the concrete could adhere to for added strength. It was too much to ask these men to build wood forms so perfectly aligned that they could connect them via re-bar, however.

Will collected an initial batch of the individual spikes from the metal workers and walked over to those hauling the concrete up the ladders. “Let’s pause for a moment. We need to add these first.”

The workers gave him a look reminiscent of those he’d received during the mounting of the Wheel, when he’d realized the structure was being loaded backwards. The journeymen, however, merely grumbled and walked off to drink water, leaving Will to alternate dropping the spikes in vertically and horizontally. With the journeymen otherwise occupied, he used Energy to properly align the spikes into a lattice with the forms, and forced the structure down into the still-liquid concrete. Satisfied that he’d accomplished something worthwhile, he climbed back down.

Will found Adam and Arthur joining the men near the well, where they were using the winch and bucket to retrieve water. The men had seen the aqueduct system in operation, but found the delivery system so strange that they refused to drink water collected from it, preferring instead to draw water directly from the well. All of them stood around, chatting. The men were pleased; they were being paid well for their work in constructing the wall, and the unusual building material was something many relished experiencing. The work would be grueling, and they’d already agreed to rotate chores every hour or so. Arthur would be joining Adam in transporting concrete for deposit within the forms, as the first batch proved that the mixture worked as expected.

Adam walked over to him. “I’m guessing this would progress more quickly if we built more forms.”

Will glanced at him. “Possibly. It looks to be working well right now, but I’d rather build one section at a time. If we find a flaw, if the mix doesn’t harden enough, if there are air pockets... I’d rather have to redo one section, not the entire wall.”

Arthur glared at Adam, and Will recognized the agony of agreeing with an adversary. “We’re going to lose a lot of time waiting for the first section to harden before we decide if this material works.”

“Sometimes, Arthur, you simply need to be patient. Rushing something can produce far worse results, and far more rework, than simply working through everything with patience.” Will flicked his eyes toward the overhead aqueduct system, and Arthur muttered under his breath.

“But...” Adam and Arthur both looked toward him. “I think it’s correct to say that we should know if the mix works with this first section. If we’re satisfied, then we can ramp up the production schedule. So... I agree. Let’s construct more of the forms, but we won’t use them right away. Once we’re convinced the first section is strong, then we’ll set up larger sections of wall forms and really crank up the production of the concrete.” He paused, looking thoughtful.

“I already recognize that look,” Adam said. He waved his hands at the men. “Pay attention, men. When Will looks like that... he’s going to think of something impossible that proves to be so simple in the end that you wonder why you didn’t think of it.”

The men laughed, and Will grinned. “Nothing yet, Adam. Just wondering what
else
we can build once the wall system is done. But there’s time enough to worry about that.”

That was a partial truth. Will had wanted to perfect the concrete, and the strategically important walls provided the ideal opportunity to do so. They’d torn out the remnants of the previous walls still embedded in the ground, dug trenches several feet deep around the revised perimeter of the villages, and started preparing the forms, a series of tasks that had taken several weeks. Will had “experimented” with the formula for concrete using material available to him, with the proper formula provided via his paper scroll computer. Will suspected that knowing the correct formula for a material with little or no usage in much of the world in the eleventh century would be suspicious, and so he’d just speculated about the potential of a mix of water and gravel as a building material. The trick had been to create the cement mix that would cause the mixture to solidify into something strong and stable as it dried. He’d very publicly tried many incorrect mixtures before following the recipe on the computer exactly.

He still wasn’t certain he’d gotten it exactly right, and was genuinely worried that the wall would collapse when they pulled the forms away. Would the walls withstand brisk winds that whipped through the dense forest? Would they handle the expansion and contraction that came with changing temperatures?

Will didn’t know the answers to those questions, but he recognized that Arthur and Adam were correct. They couldn’t simply build a small section and wait weeks to see the effects. They’d soon lose any momentum with the journeymen, who might take the latest scheduled payment and decide to move on to the next job. They needed to make a quick judgment on the first section, and either tear it down or move on to building the rest of the wall.

“The problem,” Will murmured, speaking in a low voice only Adam and Arthur could hear, “is that we cannot expect to keep this group around long enough to
re
build the walls.”

“We can always... encourage the walls to finish drying more quickly than they otherwise might,” Arthur suggested. He glanced at Adam.

Adam smirked. “I’m game. Unless someone has huge concerns about this approach being somehow... unethical.” He offered a pointed glare in Will’s direction.

Will rolled his eyes. “My concern is hardly one of ethics. I”m not sure how artificially drying this wall will affect it. We need to make sure it dries from the
inside
first.”

Adam nodded. “I think we can handle that. Let’s reconvene after the men retire for the evening, then, and make sure we’re able to pull the forms off in the morning.” He chuckled. “Then we can figure out how to make the concrete faster.”

Will smirked back. “Patience is essential here, just like with Arthur’s project.”

When Will had returned to the village following his journey with Hope and Eva, the three men had agreed to take on one specific area of focus in the Aliomenti rebuilding effort. Adam, as the most experienced user of Energy (to Arthur’s knowledge), would focus on developing training methods for new recruits. Will, who had envisioned and directed the construction of the Wheel and water delivery system, would focus on construction, rebuilding the village to accommodate the number of residents and goods production efforts they envisioned. Arthur, who excelled at mobilizing and motivating people, would be in charge of recruiting permanent new residents. Questionable though Arthur’s motives might be, Will and Adam reasoned that their Energy skills meant Arthur couldn’t conspire against them, and the man’s gifts with words couldn’t be denied. Arthur had made periodic visits to neighboring villages and towns, seeking those with deep crafting skills, but also open-minded attitudes that could accept a life of relative isolation in return for the chance to do what few others could ever accomplish.

Arthur’s process wouldn’t pay immediate dividends, in part because they were at least a three day journey by horse from other congregations of people. Arthur suspected that he’d need multiple trips to each location to identify the best candidates, and his blossoming Energy skills would help in that regard. Arthur, as the most junior Energy practitioner, spent time between trips acting as Adam’s first pupil, an arrangement that neither man liked. Adam developed methods to gauge the volume of Energy Arthur had developed, and tested his ability to perform different tasks. As Arthur’s Energy grew, Adam was better able to assess the amount of time it took to reach the necessary Energy levels to perform tasks. Empathy required the least, then Telepathy, and then Telekinesis. Adam didn’t mention additional skills, but Arthur was enthralled at the possibilities those three abilities promised.

With the break finally over, Adam and Arthur resumed their efforts to transport the current batch of concrete to the wall forms, while Will and two of the journeymen worked on stirring up the next batch of concrete. They repeated the process, interrupted periodically by Will adding the makeshift re-bar spikes into the mix, and by nightfall, they’d completed pouring the first wall.

The workers retired for the evening, but Will, Adam, and Arthur stayed outside, explaining that they would be standing guard, just as they’d done each night since the workers arrived. Once the sounds from the former Schola building suggested the men had entered a deep state of slumber, the trio focused their Energy on the concrete, attempting to heat the mixture up from the inside, evaporating the moisture and enabling the concrete to settle and harden into its permanent form.

Once their work was complete, the men fell asleep under the stars, a wave of Energy surrounding them for warmth and protection. Will, as he had each previous night, elected to spread a protective dome of nanos around all three of them as well, resisting the temptation to use the tiny machines to nibble bite marks into the skin of the two men nearby, men who had done so much to annoy him and hurt others. He knew both must survive into the future, though, and that one of them would become a close friend. Such a relationship seemed impossible in this time.

In the morning, the journeymen they’d hired as cooks prepared their meal, and while they waited the trio led the way to the wall, making a show of testing the structure for solidity, declaring to their great surprise that it seemed solid, and announced that they’d pull the forms off as soon as they finished eating. The excitement was palpable, and everyone wolfed down their breakfast and made their way to the southernmost point in the village, the spot where the new concrete wall structure began.

They wedged iron bars between the wood forms and the concrete, levering the wood away from the wall. There was some stickiness, for the wood and concrete had adhered as the mixture had dried. Will made a note to the carpenters that they’d need to add a substance to prevent the concrete from adhering on future forms, or they’d need to recreate the wood structures each time they poured a new section due to the damage. After thirty minutes they’d pulled the wood completely off the concrete wall, which stood, shining and gray under the bright morning sunlight. Will walked over and began tapping the surface, listening for any hollow spots or any sections which remained soft, and Adam and Arthur joined as well as they circled the wall to test the structure.

At last, they assembled the eager workers before them. The trio exchanged glances, and Will turned to address the men.

He waited for the silence to become total, and then pronounced his assessment. “It worked.”

The roar was contagious, and the three men, often at odds, joined in the cheers and the back slaps of triumph as they celebrated their next technological breakthrough.

X

Planning

1022 A.D.

Once the hoopla had died down, the carpenters set to work repairing the damaged forms, coating the inside with an oily substance to prevent the concrete from adhering. The metal workers spent time sawing off the protruding ends of the re-bar spikes on the side of the wall facing he interior of the village. “I think we could use the metal spikes as a weapon of deterrence,” Will noted, when asked why they weren’t trimming the ends on the outside. “Any who try to charge or scale these walls will wish they’d done otherwise when they impale themselves.”

This was met with roars of laughter. Will wondered if they realized any of them could be the ones charging the walls in the future.

They started assembling the next batch of forms, and Will and Adam focused on preparing two mixes of concrete this time, for they were going to pour two additional sections this day. They measured out the ingredients and poured them into the giant earthenware mixing bowls they’d had a potter create, and spent the next several hours stirring the mix in a rotation. When the forms were up and the ends sealed off, they began the process of transporting the concrete mix once more, filling the forms in with the thick, soupy mixture.

As the earthenware pots were emptied, Will overheard one of the men grumbling about the need to carry the buckets of concrete from the well all the way to the southern wall.

“That’s a great point,” Will said. He clapped the man who’d made the observation on the shoulder, startling the man, who looked frightened at having been overheard. “Let’s take the time tomorrow morning to figure out a way to fix that.”

The men did just that, constructing sturdy platforms with wheels that could be moved around the interior of the village as necessary, enabling the concrete mixing to occur within a few yards of the target walls. They needed fewer men to transport the buckets in this fashion, and they had the potter – who had been aiding with the cooking and concrete stirring – start to make additional earthenware stirring pots. If they needed fewer men to transport the concrete, they could dedicate more to stirring and thereby fill an even greater number of wall sections each day.

With the the construction project operating smoothly, Arthur decided to leave on a recruiting trip. “I think I have a couple who will likely return with me this time,” Arthur said. “They were very interested in what I was talking about, and I was able to
sense
that they’d be trustworthy with our special advances.”