“COLLECT A SAMPLE OF HIS BLOOD,” ONE OF THEM SAID.“It is time to test our latest discovery.”
The harsh words awakened Xanthus. As he came around, he found himself in the same room where he had been interrogated twice before. Azure bands again bound him to a simple chair. A glowing light shone down on him from overhead, its stark beacon the only reprieve from the darkness. Although he was weak, Xanthus had yet to be harmed. Their faces bathed in shadow, twelvePon Q’tar clerics again sat at a table across from him.
Xanthus watched with fear as a cleric pointed at him. With his powers gone, he could do nothing but wait for the agonizing pain. But this time the suffering never came. Instead he felt a slight tingling in one wrist, nothing more.
Xanthus looked down to see that he had been bound to the chair with his right wrist upturned. He watched a painless incision form to release a single drop of his endowed blood. The incision closed. As the azure blood drop hovered to a place between him and the clerics, it smoothly evolved into his blood signature.
The male cleric who had spoken seemed to be in charge. Peering through the gloom, Xanthus watched him move his index finger slightly. At once the blood signature obeyed and floated closer to the clerics’ table.
“Watch as I bring the needed spell,” the lead cleric told the others. “The theory behind the nautilus effect is vastly complex,” the cleric added. “Behold.”
At once a series of Old Eutracian symbols and numbers started materializing in midair. They swirled about the room for several moments before silently arranging themselves into a horizontally aligned formula. Xanthus tried to decipher it, but he soon realized that its complexities went far beyond his knowledge. Then the formula aligned itself vertically, and the symbol at the line’s top revolved several times, twisting the formula into a tight spiral.
Looking closer, he saw that the numbers and symbols had an unusual thickness about them. This formula’s configuration was different from every other he had seen. Not only did it carry a vertical orientation, but it seemed to also have a physical, three-dimensional substance about it.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” the lead cleric asked his fellows. “What you see is the product of more than a decade of work by our best Heretic researchers. It couldn’t have come at a better time.”
The lead cleric pointed at Xanthus’ blood signature. It obediently came to rest on the formula’s top, then started winding down its length, leaving a blood trail as it went. When it reached the end it stopped.
At once the formula lost its spiral shape, then started curling from the bottom upward, securing Xanthus’ blood signature tightly at its center. As it finished winding up, its numbers and symbols vanished.
In their places, outward-facing chambers appeared. Spiraling tightly in a clockwise direction, they looked like those shown if a nautilus mollusk had been cut in half lengthwise. But unlike a naturally occurring nautilus, this one had grown to over two meters across, and held hundreds of individual compartments. The spiraling compartments grew in size as they radiated outward from the nautilus’s center. Each compartment held brilliantly colored patterns, like those viewed in a kaleidoscope. As it hovered in the air, its outer shell glowed.
“I give you the nautilus effect,” the lead cleric said. “From this day forward, no one of endowed blood will be able to hide his or her memories from us-even if those memories have been altered by the craft.”
“Breathtaking,” one of the female clerics said.
“Indeed,” the lead cleric answered. “Like the sea mollusk, this shell is separated into a series of progressively larger compartments. With the nautilus effect, each successive compartment holds not an ever-growing sea creature, but an ever-growing number of memories, taken directly from the subject’s blood. The physical similarity between the naturally occurring mollusk and the nautilus effect is strictly coincidental. Still it makes for a good comparison, hence the name.
“The subject’s earliest memories are at the nautilus’s center,” the cleric added. “Because there are fewer retrievable memories available from one’s formative years, the chambers near the center are the smallest. Succeeding chambers grow in size as the subject ages and ever more memories are created and retained in the subconscious. Because these memory chambers arise from one’s blood rather than one’s mind, our researchers doubt that they can be tampered with. Should Xanthus’ memories gleaned in this manner prove different from those we found while searching his mind in the traditional way, we will know that trickery is afoot.”
“How are these closeted memories shown?” another of thePon Q’tar women asked. Xanthus could tell that she remained skeptical, despite the wonder hovering before her.
“As is the case with the vast variety of Forestallment formulas, an index spell will be needed,” the lead cleric answered. “Our researchers say it should be finished soon, and that it will rely on chronology and subject matter. For example, should one wish to see a subject’s adolescent memories relating to his father, the index will select the appropriate time frame from the subject’s life, then search for images showing the subject’s father. Then the index will sift though the scenes until the requested memory is found. Even without an index, I can give you a nonspecific demonstration here and now. I have but to select a memory chamber, then call forth one of its thousands of scenes.”
Xanthus had become so entranced that he had almost forgotten his dire situation. If what they said was true, the gleaming chambers held his entire life’s story. But which part was it about to show?
Suddenly one of the nautilus’s smaller chambers glowed, and its patterned colors started whirling. Then an azure light shone from the chamber. As the light streamed into the room, a scene formed in its depths.
Xanthus did not remember the particular occasion that was being shown, but he could identify the people in it. One of them was him, around the age of nine or ten. He walked hand in hand between his paternal grandfather and grandmother. The old man’s face was kindly, weather-beaten. The woman looked slightly younger. They were strolling through a lively forum. The sun was high, the sky clear.
Xanthus was dumbfounded by what he saw. His grandparents were long dead, and had been named Aaron and Esther. He had loved them with all his heart. By that time in his life he had become an orphan, his parents killed in the seemingly never-ending War of Attrition. It had been his parents’ tragic deaths that had eventually convinced him to join the Imperial Order. As he watched the strangely familiar people walk along, he started hearing sounds come from the scene. With this last enhancement, the image took on an eerie life of its own.
The bustling forum was colorful and alive with energy. Hundreds of stalls enticed the many passersby. Each stall’s proprietor called out loudly to the shoppers, trying to get them to stop and admire his or her wares. Stern-looking Imperial Order officers strolled watchfully, looking for anyone who seemed out of place. Young Xanthus admired their golden uniforms and the short swords hanging at their hips.
Smiling, Aaron looked down at Xanthus. “Would you like a treat?” he asked.
The boy nodded eagerly. After paying for a candy, Aaron handed it to him. Xanthus placed the whole thing into his mouth. Smiling widely, he looked up at his grandmother, then-
The lead cleric waved one hand. The image vanished, and the azure light fled back into the nautilus’s compartment. The compartment’s riotous colors stopped whirling. Suddenly brought back to reality, Xanthus returned his gaze to the shroudedPon Q’tar clerics. The amazing respite into his past had been brief but welcome.
“Do you remember that day?” the lead cleric demanded. Unlike Aaron’s voice, the cleric’s held no compassion.
“No,” Xanthus answered. “But that does not mean it didn’t happen. The two elderly people were Aaron and Esther, my paternal grandparents. They raised me after my parents died in the war.”
“We know,” the cleric answered drily. Lifting a leather-bound notebook from the tabletop, he held it up for Xanthus to see. “It’s all here in your file. You were once a respected member of the Imperial Order. You even rose to become Faxon’s personal assistant. He trusted you enough to choose you to bring us theJin’Sai. But you turned traitor and let Tristan escape. What we cannot understand is why you brought him so far, only to let him go. We have spoken to Faxon. Like us, he is beside himself with anger at your betrayal.”
“And I keep telling you how wrong you are!” Xanthus protested as he angrily strained against his bonds. “I am no traitor! I saw theJin’Sai die in the red desert with my own eyes! It was not I who conjured the Borderlands! If anyone is responsible for theJin’Sai ’s death it is you!”
“Mind your tongue!” one of the female clerics shouted. “There was an army of Ones advancing-we did what we had to! How dare you question our wisdom! We are not some gaggle of low-ranking Imperial Order officers for you to berate! We are members of thePon Q’tar! Any one of us could kill you with a single thought!”
Xanthus’ mouth turned up into a sneer. “But you won’t,” he answered sarcastically. “You need to learn whether I’m telling the truth.”
The lead cleric had heard enough. “Guard!” he shouted.
Double doors immediately opened in the wall behind Xanthus’ chair. Light streamed in, hurting his eyes again. Two high-ranking Imperial Order officers quickly entered the room. The azure bands binding Xanthus disappeared.
“Take this traitor back to his hole!” the lead cleric ordered. “As punishment for his insolence he is to be denied food for the next two days.” The two officers promptly manhandled Xanthus from the room. As the doors shut behind them, the darkness returned.
“When will the index spell be ready?” one of the clerics asked.
“Within another moon,” the leader answered. “Then we will have our answers. Even so, theJin’Sai has escaped us. But if Serena succeeds, Tristan and his sister will be of little consequence.”
“We have just proven that one’s blood signature holds the entire account of its owner’s life,” he added. “Even we clerics at this table would never have believed that possible. It is often said that the eyes are the window to the soul. But after witnessing the nautilus effect, now I say that the true window to the soul is one’s blood signature, in all of its amazing splendor.”
“Do you still believe that Xanthus is a traitor?” another of them asked.
Several quiet moments passed before the lead cleric answered. “Only time will tell,” he said. “If he is, he will be killed. If not, we might find another use for him after all.”
After picking up Xanthus’ file from the table, he squired the other clerics from the room.