Endworlds - Nicholas Read [60]
Greed and pride had ever been the stumbling blocks of all four Ages, yet it seemed in the nearly seven thousand years of the current Age, humanity had not only repeated the errors of the past but magnified them beyond healing.
Would that she could appear and shake them from their slumber! Did they not know the fate of all rested with them? Perhaps Bøsexiéède was right, perhaps she should edict that it was time to—
She caught herself as the gold bit into her wrist, a physical warning against thoughts less than pure. Her mind had been wandering again, something she seemed to do more and more these days.
What were they debating now?
The shining strands uncoiled their grip.
Brace Kalomir Volaran of the Fae’rest Nation had the floor, resplendent in the greens and brown of his office. He was addressing the crowd, in which one of their scientists was standing as the counterpoint; always two stood when Conclave was in session, always multiple points explored, always a game to see whose words could bind the other.
“Yes, yes, I know, but the parallax drives of the Second Age were a lesser risk than this. Listen to me—” He had to shout to be heard above the din of opinions clamoring for the floor, though the scientist held his place. “—Listen to me! Just four hundred and sixty five leagues south of here in the Prime dimension—I tell you they are digging quantum tunnels. Across in their Americas they are doing the same. I bow to the science of Bath Gavul and the Institute,” Volaran made a slight nod at the scientist standing across the way, “and I understand that measurements in microns are but a scratch. But, at the quantum level such scratches are as canyons—canyons that are meant to stay closed.”
The chatter of competing voices rose again.
“The Fae’rest Nation has respect for your findings, but as custodians of the Land, I tell all within the sound of my voice that this world is in peril. Holes are being drilled, matter is sliding. It is only a matter of time before—”
“Before what? Before calamity? Before the dimensions come crashing into each other? Builders Above, give me strength to explain the physics you cannot see.” Lord Bath Gavul was a bellicose man who used his girth and drumming voice to intimidate those who opposed. In mortality his genius made him opinionated. Two hundred centuries later, many considered him infallible, he being the loudest voice to attest the fact.
Bath continued: “We know our world is made of tetrahedrons spinning in a polyhedron, a perfect sphere of geometry prone to torque, and an excess of physical, chemical and electrical discharge. Like any living body it cracks, it heals, it gives off steam.” He raised a finger in Aragenti’s direction. “I think our esteemed Hurcan is no stranger to hot air!”
Laughter rang around the chamber walls, but Aragenti was quick to hold his ground:
“The better to speak your own language, gracious Bath.”
“Exactly so,” spat the fat man, not missing a beat as the murmurs stilled, “In this perfect order there are intersecting nodes that serve to relieve energies. Call them chakras, vortices or whatever you like, they are the same in any living body, no matter it be large as a planet or small as yourself, noble Brace. What we are seeing is nothing more than the natural process of these exchanges.” He pointed at a man in the opposite gallery, who stood as Gavul sat, the line of argument neatly passed to one whose location in the room served to twist the line of debate around the Brace’s right flank.
“Lord Gavul is correct as I can attest as chief Reader in Sciences. These are natural processes, following a natural rhythm, nothing more.”
The man was slight, unassuming, and carried sheaves of papers that lent weight to his scholarly credentials even though ovalurns and thummin discs were the established devices of record.
This is an old stagecraft, observed Queen Fae’Elayen as she leaned forward to better see how this trap would be sprung.
Debate in Conclave was an art form of point and counter-point, argument and counter-argument which combatants won by