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clear...
 You re not planning something immediate?
 Not without more evidence, Dainyl admitted.  I can t plan, though, until I
know more about Hyalt and Ta-bles. That s why I d like to know how a Table can
be turned off.
 I will teach you on one condition. That you promise never to reveal the
technique or to discuss it with anyone who does not already know.
 That s recorders and Table engineers?
 Master Table engineers.
 I agree. I hope I do not have to use it.
She smiled sadly.  That you, of all Myrmidons, have to ask, is a measure of
how desperate times indeed are. She stood.  We ll go back to the Table.
Dainyl followed Sulerya, letting her reopen the hidden door. He noted that she
added a second Talent-lock to the outer door.
 It won t stop the most Talented like you but there s no one around here that
Talented.
Dainyl opened his mouth to protest.
 Don t say a word, Submarshal. You re more Talented than most High Alectors.
 I had very little Talent, so little that I was barely ac-cepted into the
Myrmidons.
 That s one of the secrets about Talent. The truly great Talents develop late.
It s why it s easy for those in control to hold it. Those who might challenge
them can be dis-covered before their abilities are fully mature. You were
fortunate to spend so much time in the Myrmidons, where no one looked. You
would have been discovered years ago if you d been an assistant.
Dainyl wondered if his momer had known that or if she d just been disappointed
that he had showed so little Talent early on.
 The Table looks solid, Sulerya began.  It is not. The surface is mirrorlike,
but it is composed of thousands and thousands of identical tiny crystals that
hold and store energy. The genius of their design is that they are stable when
charged. They draw their energy from the world s very lifeforce. That is why
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there can never be many...
Dainyl listened, intently.
 ... the controls are within the Table itself and, after the Table is first
activated, can only be controlled by Talent...
 Is there a special key or code? asked Dainyl.
 No. The key is the combination of knowledge and Talent. A recorder also has
the advantage of knowing how to operate the Table.
 Your father is effectively a recorder, then.
 Yes. Now ... follow me with your Talent, carefully please.
Dainyl created the narrowest of Talent-probes to follow the one Sulerya had
generated.
 Do you feel the octagonal crystal there? Don t touch it, even with Talent.
 I do. .  There s a brighter octagon, tiny, really, on the under-side. If you
pulse Talent through that small octagon, the Table will go into an inert
state. It will retain power, but it cannot operate until a second, and
stronger pulse is sent. Remember, it takes a moment or two before the Table
powers down.
 That s it?
 Would you have known even to look?
Dainyl laughed.  No.
 Very few alectors have the control you have. Fewer still have the power, and
without knowledge, power, and control, nothing would happen.
 What would happen if I pulsed a lot of Talent into that octagon?
Sulerya was silent.
 I take it that means the crystal would shatter, or some-thing. Is it hard to
replace?
She shrugged, wearily.  It takes time. The Table has to be bled of residual
energy, or it will explode. The recorder can do it, or a Table engineer, but
it would be several days. Too much energy, and the majority of the crystals
would go, and anyone nearby or trying to trans-. late as well.
 In short, don t do it.
 It s a good way for most alectors to commit suicide.
Dainyl understood.  What about using the Table to cre-ate Talent-force, either
here or in the translation tubes?
 I don t recall that being a problem for you.
Dainyl waited.
 Look for the paired pink octagons. If you focus your Talent through them,
they draw on the power of the tubes themselves. That s why . . .
 Using them can upset the grid?
 That s right.
 Would you mind if I try?
 Gently please.
Dainyl concentrated, thinking about the arms he had seen in Norda. Immediately
a pair rose from the center of the Table. He d pictured an alector s arms, but
those ris-ing would have fit on a figure twice the size of the Duarch.
Quickly, he imagined a child s arms, and those before him shrank to the size
of a full-grown alector. He smiled wryly and disengaged his Talent probe from
the paired crystals. Something about the crystals ... he felt unclean. He
shook himself.
 Very effective, Submarshal.
 The crystals feel... slimy.
 I ve felt that, at times, especially if I ve used them for more than a few
moments. I don t know why, though. Neither does Father.
 What about using the Table to view events?
 Try the red diamondlike crystal and visualize a place. Not an alector,
because we don t register unless we re near a Table. It was designed not to
pick up Tal-ented individuals.
Dainyl had considered trying to locate Majer Mykel, but thought again. Sulerya
might catch that. Instead, he focused on Hyalt, the town square, trying to
recall what it had looked like in years past when he had overflown it.
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The mirror surface of the Table clouded, then filled with a swirled crimson
purple mist, before looking down on a golden marble platform set in the middle
of low walls, less than a yard high, running a hundred yards on a side, Dainyl
judged. Beyond the walls on one side ran an enternastone road, sparkling in
the mirror with silver....
 The silver means there s some Talent there, the high road in this case,
explained Sulerya.
On the other sides were simple redstone-paved streets. The platform held the
usual statue of the two Duarches, side by side on a pedestal. The space
between the low red-stone wall surrounding the pedestal and the outer wall
flanking the streets was paved as well, but with bricks, rather than stone,
and even from the height displayed by
the Table, Dainyl could tell that more than a few of those bricks were
missing.
He released the image, then decided to try for a view of the outside of
Rhelyn s headquarters.
This time, the image showed just buildings, the sepa-rate headquarters
building of redstone, standing on the flat before a sheer redstone cliff face,
from which had been carved an ornate entryway. A single cart of a small and
square design stood alone just outside a second door-way carved out of the
cliff. On the cart was a tripod and a device that looked somehow incomplete,
ending in a sil-ver haze. No alectors were visible, except in two places,
where other faint hazes of silver appeared.
 They can t be very Talented, Sulerya observed.  The Table doesn t show
anything if they really are. That de-vice on the cart it s showing Talent...
or lifeforce.
The equipment looked familiar. Dainyl swallowed. From what he recalled, it was
a miniature version of the road-building equipment he had viewed in Alustre.
He eased his Talent from the crystal, and the image vanished, the Table
surface returning to its mirror finish.
 You may need to act sooner than you thought, Sub-marshal. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]