Ascent of the Aliomenti (20 page)

The project took several months to complete, and included time spent building a return system for the water used to turn the aboveground, gear-powering wheel. The teams put the wooden shield up to block any water from entering the aqueduct system after collection by the Wheel, essentially turning the water off at the source. While the water was shut down, they built a shutoff valve, the equivalent of the water shield for the aqueduct. The valve was a door hinged so that it could be pushed open into the flowing water, the open end diverting water from the main spur into the side spur. The valve did not open far; it was widely agreed that they did not want to see the flow of water to the village slow significantly to turn the wheel powering the gears Will had designed.

The only issue they identified was with the leather band used to transfer the movement of the above-ground wheel to the below-ground gear. The band wore down and frayed through, and Will realized that the friction in the wood caused by the constant turning was wearing through the leather. Rather than see this as a setback, the tanners and metal smiths saw it as an opportunity to improve upon Will’s original design immediately.

Their solution was simple and elegant. They created a linked chain which ran between the axles of the two wheels, and added teeth to the axles to catch the chain links as the wheels turned, mimicking the interlocking and turning action of the gears themselves. With the transference problem among the secondary water wheel and the primary gear resolved, the gear system became operational.

There was an unexpected benefit in creating the underground gear system. When those able to teleport into the bunker reported the significant advantages they enjoyed in their craft work from using the new system, they motivated those who hadn’t yet mastered the skill of teleportation to ramp up their efforts to build their Energy stores. Everyone wanted to use the new tools.

The villagers devised multiple innovations utilizing the gear system once it was available. If they put the first horizontal wheel on a rolling cart, they could slide it in and out of interlocking contact with the vertical wheel directly powered by the flowing water. It wasn’t a perfect system, though; they snapped several teeth off both wheels with their first attempts. Their solution was a hinged door on the bottom of the spur aqueduct that fed the gear-powering water wheel, which included a rope attached to the door mechanism. When they wished to stop the gears, they pulled the rope down, and the water would spill directly into the return system, rather than onto the paddles used to turn the wheel. It was, in effect, an off switch, and it worked quite well. When the water stopped flowing, the first gear wheel stopped turning, and they could move the first horizontal wheel in and out at their leisure.

The carpenters, who used the gears to power their lathes for creating chair and table legs, realized that they could attach a smaller lathe-turning vertical wheel to the initial horizontal wheel. The combination of sizes resulted in a lathe that turned much, much faster than the water could power on its own. The additional lathe speed further improved both the quality of their goods and the speed of production. This innovation was copied, and they developed a series of wheels of all different sizes that those using the gear system could mix and match to create the speed and turn angle they desired. Potters, for instance, would use a combination of wheels to produce a slower turning wheel for molding clay.

Scheduling use of the gears became problematic. More villagers developed the ability to teleport into the bunker, more crafts identified means of using the gears to accelerate their work, and eventually the demands for the gears surpassed the time available. Villagers began to work during late evening and overnight hours. Someone suggested that they have a lottery to determine which time slots each person would get, in order to split the burden of late night hours equally.

Will strongly argued against that idea. Arthur smirked.

As the scheduling problems worsened, it was decided that the best solution was to revisit the plans to build additional bunkers outfitted with gear systems. Given the demands, they’d need several, and the water demands for powering those systems would fully tap the water supply generated by the original Wheel. With the village continuing to grow, they needed to supply
more
water to the village, not less.

That meant they’d need to build a second Ealdor River-powered Wheel.

The second Wheel, unlike the first, would not provide any water to the village. Rather, it would do nothing but supply water to a series of gear-turning wheels sitting atop separate, smaller bunkers. Each bunker would be for the exclusive use of a single professional craft, and time within the bunker would be scheduled by a leader chosen by the practitioners of that craft. The other professions would continue to use the larger community bunker for work until their specific bunkers were complete.

Adam chuckled as this decision was made. “Looks like we’ll get to use your gears to stir up concrete after all, Will.”

Will smiled. “It seems that was inevitable.”

Adam nodded. “The village continues to grow, we continue to produce more and more goods, and we’re getting more efficient at it. At some point, we’re going to need to make a major decision.”

“What’s that?”

“We may need to start a new settlement.”

Will was startled. Though he’d known the Aliomenti Headquarters were based on a small, private island in the Bermuda Triangle, he hadn’t thought what might prompt movement away from the original village. They seemed content here, and moving was not something Will had considered. But it made sense. They were running out of room for people to do what they most wanted to do, and their continual building outside the privacy and isolation provided by the forest increased the likelihood that someone from the outside would notice. As it was, Will was surprised that no one had sailed by on the Ealdor and spotted the Wheel turning; if they had, there was no mention of it made during their travels to trade. Perhaps there were a mere handful of sailboats or barges in this era and region of the world. Those who left the confines of the forest found roads nearby they could travel upon to reach distant towns and cities. That meant others must travel those routes as well. Yet their innovations had never been spotted, at least not that Will could discern.

They built the secondary Wheel first, running the new aqueduct at a modest downward slope for several hundred yards along the shoreline, until the aqueduct fed water back into the river. They then commenced digging operations on the second mini-bunker, angling the hole so that the long ends angled away from the river, and in short order had the next structure completed. They built a spur off the main aqueduct trunk to feed a portion of water across the aboveground wheel used to power the gear system below. Given the proximity to the river, they didn’t create an entire return system. Instead, they built a slanted structure to funnel water back into the river directly.

They held a lottery, with each profession getting a single entry, and Will was chosen to draw the name of the group which would get the first new private bunker. After winning, the bakers promised to use the gears to increase their production of baked goods for the village, which meant happy villagers with full bellies.

The process of building specialty bunkers continued over the next several years. As they reached the capacity limits of each Ealdor-powered water wheel, they’d build a new one for the next batch of bunkers. The production of goods within the village ceased, as every craft group used the gear-powered machinery they developed in all aspects of production. Newer residents were highly motivated to develop sufficient Energy skills to teleport, for those who could not were relegated to cleaning and maintenance work inside the village, a job none of them wanted.

With a self-sustaining, profitable village rapidly reaching its population limits, the talk of moving or developing a second location began in earnest, just as Adam had predicted. The Aliomenti village wasn’t the only location soon to see some of its population depart, though. Hope and Eva were starting to plan their migration from Healf, Hope explained, as she and Will met outside Healf’s walls prior to one of the “traveling merchant’s” visits to the city.

“We’ve been here for ten years now, and while people are pleased with the work we’ve done, it’s reached the point where we’ve run out of difficult cases to treat. If we don’t have cases like that to treat... well, people have come to see us as the miracle workers, and they don’t bother to come to see us for more basic health woes.”

“You both do amazing work,” Will said, as they walked toward the city gates. “I can see why people would specifically pick to visit you if they suffer from something unusually bad. But why would they otherwise avoid you?”

“I think there are two reasons, at least after all this time,” Hope replied. “For one thing, if they see us as the miracle workers, then they don’t want to bother us for something minor, for fear that it will keep us from treating something far more serious. And secondly, well... the others in the city who treat sickness have gotten a bit jealous of our success.”

“Story of my life,” Will said, smiling. “Let me guess. They’ve complained loudly that you’ve taken on too much of the work, they’re not getting enough work to make a living, and so they’ve used every form of pressure available to them to encourage patients to see them instead of you.”

Hope smiled back. “Right. They spell it out as if it’s for us, that they want to ensure that we can maintain availability for the most difficult cases. They don’t want the desperate to wait for treatment from us while we treat something far more minor, cases they could work and manage without much difficulty. We’ve made the point that we can shift from patient to patient without concern if the need arises, but that isn’t a message that’s heard.”

“How is the aging process going?”

“If you’re asking if we’re still aging naturally, the answer is no,” Hope replied. “I have no reason to doubt that the ambrosia fruit works as we were told. I didn’t get the impression that Ambrose was lying to us, so I have no reason to think that I’m still aging at a normal rate. I’ve... helped to make sure I look a bit older than I am.” She raised an eyebrow. “Have you shared the fruit with anyone else yet?”

He shook his head. “My research, such as it was, proved inconclusive, as you might suspect.” She looked puzzled. “I basically cut the fruit up and stared at it, as if trying to divine what type of impacts it might have. I finally decided to eat it in front of everyone else.”

Hope looked surprised. “You did? Why?”

“I was, and am, the only person there who knows the true effects of eating that fruit. I’m the only one who knows that eating that fruit is not a death sentence. Having someone else eat it without that knowledge seemed... hypocritical.” Hope winced, but nodded once. “Nobody’s asked about it since then; I suspect the idea that the fruit is some kind of poison took hold rather well.” He sighed. “But I think I’m going to need to use it soon.”

“For what reason?”

“Arthur,” Will said simply.

Hope looked troubled. “Must you?”

He nodded with regret. “He looks terrible, like a sickly, old man. It means that he’s not going to live much longer without it. And I know that he
must
live much,
much
longer. I know I have to give him the fruit, Hope. I don’t like it. I think dying at a normal age for this era is hardly a punishment, let alone murder, yet I feel like I’m guilty of something because I know how to stop it.”

She sighed. “I understand, but I wish you’d reconsider. I know that he’s still alive in the future you’ve come from. I know that I’m not an expert on how traveling through time works. But... isn’t it possible that there’s an alternate future, a better future... one where he dies of natural causes, of old age?”

Will thought about that alternative future. Arthur’s death would free them both in many ways. They’d not need to worry about Arthur discovering that she was still alive, and taking whatever action he might deem necessary upon discovery of that knowledge. There was little doubt that such action would be unpleasant for her, and probably for Will.

“I could move back home again, Will. Nobody there knows I’m supposed to be dead. They probably don’t even know I was ever
alive
. Do they?” She looked at him, her eyes searching for the answer. “They wouldn’t know me by my new name, either.”

Temptation tore at him. A lifetime – no, dozens of lifetimes – with Hope, lived without fear of discovery, lived with the knowledge that the man who authorized the attack on their home was gone. Lived with the knowledge that they’d grow to raise their children together, not torn apart by the actions of the Hunters and the Assassin. Lives spent together every day, rather than every few months, only as they were each able to sneak away.

And yet...

“If we change that, Hope... it’s possible that I’ll never get sent back in time. It’s possible that the events that brought our children to us will never come to pass. And we’ll know what’s coming, be able to prepare for it...”

He saw the tear drift slowly down her cheek, and he wasn’t sure if the crushing blow it dealt his heart would drive him to kill Arthur.

Or himself.

XVI

Gift

1032 A.D.