Chapter 16

Archer immediately pulled out the brush.

He imagined a small magical container in which time itself would stop, and painted it into existence.

The instant the box materialized, Archer grabbed it and opened it.

He tore Sol’s amulet from the socket in the mannequin’s face and placed it inside.

Archer looked at the amulet one last time.

Then he closed the magical container.

The entire crew of the warship stood watching him.

They looked at Archer, at the heavy armor blackened with soot, at the bathyscaphe, and at Worker Number Eighty-Nine climbing out of it.

“Archer,” Glimorsky said, “what are you going to do?”

The Painter looked at the people gathered on the deck.

At Prince Glimorsky.

They were all waiting for answers.

Waiting for some kind of conclusion to the operation to rescue Sol.

“Thank you, all of you, for helping me find Sol,” Archer said. “As you heard, Sol is suffering.

“I don’t know why.

“But I’m going to find out.

“And I’m going to put things right.

“I’m going to restore Sol’s mind. I’m going to restore his soul.

“Until then, Sol will remain dormant.

“I’ve placed him inside a container where he won’t experience any suffering.

“That’s all I can tell you right now.”

Unwilling to waste even a minute, Archer checked the brush.

It was half charged.

He walked over to the electrical generator on the deck and the container of blue coal that powered it.

With the brush, he erased the entire supply of blue coal.

The brush charged almost completely.

Archer imagined a portal back to Ramman—to the shipyard.

But this time, he imagined it completely differently from the portals he had created before.

There would be no stone archway.

He simply swept the brush through empty space, painting a circle as tall as a man.

The circle came alive.

A portal opened.

The shipyard appeared on the other side.

“I’m returning to Ramman,” Archer told Admiral Glimorsky. “From there, I’ll create a portal back to my own world and leave the Four Crowns.

“I’ll be gone for some time.

“Maybe months.

“Maybe years.

“Glimorsky, if you or Panfred need anything else from me or my brush, ask me now.

“You may not have another opportunity for a very long time.”

“We need nothing,” Glimorsky said.

Then he added:

“You have served us well.

“Ramman will not forget that.

“Know that there will always be a place for you here, in our world.

“Go in peace.”

Archer nodded to Glimorsky, stepped through the portal, and emerged at the A&S shipyard.

Work was in full swing.

Archer erased the portal with the brush.

Then he went to the artificial workers and ordered two hundred of the shipbuilders to assemble outside Workshop Number Three.

While his order was being carried out, Archer went to the office and retrieved the Four Crowns catalog of colonial-era technologies.

He recharged the brush with blue coal, then painted a stone portal arch between the shipyard and the harbor—an arch large enough for a flying ship to pass through.

The portal came alive.

Unlike the portal without an arch, this stone portal showed nothing within its magical field.

Archer couldn’t see where it led.

But as he created it, he had imagined a location near the hidden canyon of the Shod city.

Ten minutes later, two hundred artificial workers had assembled outside Workshop Number Three.

“We’re leaving this world,” Archer announced to them. “Your task is to board the Green Ripper and take over as its crew.

“Choose a captain from among yourselves.”

“I am the captain,” said artificial Worker Number One.

He turned toward the assembled workers and selected his officers.

Then he ordered those officers to assign the rest of the crew to their respective roles.

Within two minutes, everyone knew their position.

Ten minutes later, everyone—including Archer—was aboard the ship.

“Captain,” Archer said. “Take us through the portal and land the ship in the world on the other side.”

“Yes, sir,” the captain replied.

The Green Ripper took off.

Moving slowly just a few yards above the ground, the ship carefully approached the portal and flew through it.

An instant later, the ship and its entire crew emerged into Archer’s world.

“Take us up to a thousand feet,” Archer ordered.

The navigator obeyed.

Soon, the ship was hovering a thousand feet above the ground.

“The city is over there.”

Archer pointed.

“Land in the main square.”

When an unfamiliar flying frigate appeared above the heads of the Shod, panic swept through the city.

Some people froze where they stood.

Others prepared to fight.

Still others began to run.

Several members of the city watch nearby drew their bows and prepared to fire.

The Green Ripper landed.

Archer stepped out onto the deck.

“It’s Archer!” one of the guards shouted.

“Archer is back!

“Ring the bell!”

The artificial crew lowered a gangway from the ship onto the stone surface of the main square, and Archer descended into the city.

The bells began to ring.

People poured into the square.

None of them had ever seen a ship in their lives, let alone a flying one, and the vessel was an extraordinary sight to everyone who gathered around it.

The members of the city council arrived as well.

Archer walked toward them.

“Greetings,” he said.

“Archer,” said the elderly Master of Coin. “Welcome back.”

“How are things in the city and the new settlements?” Archer asked.

“Overall, everything is going well,” the old man replied. “There’s nothing that requires your intervention.”

“Good,” Archer said. “Has Anka returned?”

“Yes,” the Master of Coin replied. “She returned about two months ago and has been actively involved in the life and governance of the city ever since.”

“Archer!”

He heard Anka’s voice.

Archer turned.

There she was.

She was running toward him.

He walked to meet her.

They threw their arms around each other and held on tightly.

“Welcome back,” she said.

“Anka, I missed you.”

“I missed you too,” she said. “I’m so glad you’re here again.”

Anka smiled.

Archer closed his eyes and simply held her.

They remained that way for almost a minute.

Anka was the first to let go.

But Archer continued holding her.

“Archer,” she asked, “is everything all right?”

He finally released her.

There were tears in his eyes.

“No, Anka.

“We lost Sol.”

The members of the city council gathered around the round table with Archer and Anka.

Archer told them the entire story of his time with Sol in the world of the Four Crowns.

When he finished, Anka asked to see Sol.

Archer took out the magical box and handed it to her.

She opened it.

For a while, Anka simply stared at the amulet.

It was blackened with soot and deformed where parts of it had partially melted.

She covered her mouth with one hand.

“Poor Sol,” she whispered.

“We’ll find a solution,” Archer said.

“No matter what it takes.”

“Archer,” Anka said. “What if the key to saving Sol is in the Four Crowns?”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“The ultrasonar,” Anka said. “You couldn’t create it yourself. The solution didn’t come from you—it came from a scientist. The smartest man in Ramman.

“What if it’s the same with Sol?

“What if you simply aren’t capable of finding the solution on your own?

“Wouldn’t it be better to return to Ramman and ask Galsius and their Academy of Sciences for help?”

“Yes,” Archer said. “That’s entirely possible.”

“Think about it,” she said. “They probably have some of the greatest minds in their world gathered together in one place.

“An entire team of them.

“Let them put their minds to solving this problem.

“You won’t find anything like that in our world.”

“All right,” Archer said. “That’s what we’ll do.

“Anka, will you come with me?”

“Of course I will.”

Archer painted a portal to Ramman—a portal framed by a massive stone arch—and placed it high along one edge of the canyon.

There was now a permanent passage between the world of the Shod and the world of the Four Crowns.

After returning to Ramman, Archer and Anka found Dean Galsius and told him about Sol’s condition.

Galsius said he would be happy to help, but warned Archer that the scientific method would require his participation in numerous experiments.

The dean also made it clear that success was not guaranteed.

After all, they were dealing with a magical object.

Within several days, Galsius assembled a team of thirty scientists in the main laboratory and explained the problem to them.

The scientists began by removing Sol’s amulet from the magical box.

Using a special alkaline solution, they cleaned away the soot.

The amulet’s silver surface gleamed once again.

Only then did they see the full extent of the deformation caused by the intense heat of the explosion.

Different scientists proposed different methods of repairing the damage.

Their working hypothesis was that the deformation itself was responsible for Sol’s suffering.

Some proposed mechanically restoring the face to its original shape.

Others suggested remelting the amulet’s outer layer.

Another possibility was to repair it with Archer’s brush.

They also proposed creating a magical object capable of restoring damaged objects to their original form.

And finally, they considered creating a magical artifact capable of transferring a soul from one amulet to another.

“We’re dealing with something that has never happened before in the Four Crowns,” Galsius told the assembled group of thirty scientists.

“And we’re dealing with something that is causing a living being to suffer.

“That means we must proceed with extreme caution. We cannot afford to make mistakes.

“And it’s possible we’ll have only one chance.

“So we must conduct every necessary experiment before we attempt any solution on Sol’s amulet.”

Galsius asked Archer to create several dozen magical silver amulets identical to Sol in appearance, but possessing only rudimentary consciousness.

“We need living amulets whose destruction would not constitute a crime,” the dean said. “Test subjects, essentially. By sacrificing them, we may come closer to solving Sol’s condition.”

With Galsius’s assistance, Archer created thirty such amulets.

The amulets could speak and think. They understood human language and could follow commands.

But their consciousness was extremely limited.

They were more primitive even than the artificial workers Archer and Sol had created.

The scientists began their experiments.

They took ten of the living amulets and, to establish a baseline, taught each of them the same simple poem.

The amulets memorized it easily and could recite it on command.

The scientists also conducted brief interviews with the amulets to establish basic psychological profiles.

Then they began deforming the amulets by partially melting them.

Afterward, the scientists tested whether the amulets could still recite the poem and compared their answers to the questions from the earlier psychological interviews.

The results were clear.

Melting an amulet negatively affected its consciousness, cognitive abilities, and psychological state.

The more severely an amulet was melted, the greater the deterioration of its mind.

Any deformation made it impossible for an amulet to reproduce the control poem correctly.

Some could remember only fragments.

Others recited it incorrectly.

Still others invented entirely new poems.

But one element was still missing.

The suffering.

Not one of the partially melted amulets reported being in torment.

The scientists proposed several theories.

One possibility was that Sol had experienced more than simple melting—more than exposure to extreme heat.

He had been subjected to chemical combustion.

“The thing is,” one of the scientists explained, “warships use engines powered by irinium—what we commonly call blue coal.

“A powdered mixture containing irinium is also used as a propellant for cannons. That’s why cannon fire produces blue smoke and green flames.

“And we know that irinium is mildly radioactive.

“There’s a reason stokers and gunners live, on average, about ten years less than people in professions that don’t involve exposure to irinium.

“The detonation of your ship was most likely chemical in nature rather than purely physical.

“If that’s true, irinium radiation would have irradiated everything around it, including the wreckage.

“Unfortunately, we haven’t had a functioning dosimeter capable of measuring radiation for more than a thousand years, so there’s no way for us to know for certain.

“But we can recreate the conditions under which Sol was melted.

“We can expose the next ten amulets to chemical combustion involving blue coal.”

“Or I could paint you a dosimeter with my brush,” Archer said.

They brought Archer an ancient, nonfunctioning dosimeter.

He examined it from every angle, formed a clear image of it in his mind, and painted a new device with the brush.

The new dosimeter worked.

The scientists measured the radiation levels of every melted amulet, including Sol.

Sol’s amulet was heavily irradiated.

The others were not.

All that remained was to irradiate the other amulets and determine whether exposure to irinium was responsible for the suffering.

For this experiment, the scientists had to use a specialized laboratory far outside the city—an underground bunker designed for maximum isolation.

Specialists in chemical combustion and experts in explosives were brought in.

The research team conducted a series of small explosions using blue coal, exposing the test amulets to varying levels of radiation.

When the amulets were returned to the main laboratory, the scientists began waking them.

“Amulet Number Twenty-Five, wake up.”

The amulet opened the eyes in its misshapen face.

Immediately, its features twisted even further into an expression of agony.

“What can I...” the amulet struggled to say. “Do for you...?”

“Tell me,” the scientist said. “Are you experiencing discomfort or suffering?”

The amulet burst into hysterical laughter.

Then something like a spasm of pain forced it to stop.

“Yes,” it said.

“I’m suffering.

“I’m suffering terribly.”

“All right. You may shut down,” the scientist said.

Every amulet exposed to irinium showed signs of suffering.

Those subjected to the highest levels of radiation screamed or moaned.

Those exposed to the lowest levels complained of a strange discomfort.

“We have two sets of experiments left to conduct,” Galsius explained.

“The first involves restoring the amulet’s face to its original shape through mechanical, thermal, or magical means.

“The second involves removing the irinium particles from the irradiated silver.

“The first will be considerably easier than the second, because we know nothing about how to cleanse a material of irinium radiation.

“It’s possible that a magical solution is the only option available to us.”

Jewelers were brought in to restore the melted amulets to their original form.

Some of the amulets’ faces were repaired through mechanical pressure.

Others were simply melted and reshaped into their original form.

Neither group could recite the control poem they had learned before being damaged.

But they could learn new poems and recite them successfully.

Psychological testing also showed that the restored amulets possessed normal basic patterns of behavior and thought, but remembered only fragments of who they had been before they were melted.

In other words, the amulets had undergone a transformation of personality:

From their original state, to degeneration, and then to regeneration.

Further experiments showed that mechanical restoration preserved more memories of the past than melting and reshaping the face.

At the scientists’ request, Archer also used the brush to erase the melted faces of several amulets and paint new, undamaged ones in their place.

The result was the same as with the jewelers’ restoration.

Normal functioning returned.

But only fragments of the past remained.

In some cases, the amulets retained no memories of their previous selves at all.

The experimental phase was nearing its end.

All that remained were the conclusions.

And the most important conclusion was this:

There was no known way to bring the old Sol back.

Sol would lose seventy-three years of memories.

“Maybe we don’t need to bring Sol back with all his memories,” Anka said.

“Maybe it’s enough just to make him whole again.

“Let him start over.

“Let him remember nothing.

“He’ll still be our Sol.

“We’ll teach him what he needs to know. We’ll remind him of everything he’s forgotten.

“And maybe someday we’ll discover how to restore all his memories.

“We simply don’t know how to do it yet.

“But in the future, I’m sure we’ll be able to do anything.

“The important thing is that he isn’t suffering. That he isn’t in pain. That he doesn’t beg us to destroy him.”

Archer tried painting various magical artifacts designed to restore living beings to normal functioning.

But either the brush refused to create them, shocking Archer with an electric discharge, or the artifacts failed to work as intended.

Archer spent four weeks inventing, painting, and testing these magical objects, continually replenishing the brush’s charge with blue coal.

After those four weeks, he finally accepted that there was no way to restore Sol completely.

Perhaps Anka was right.

Then Archer created a magical artifact of a much simpler kind.

It was a plain rod made from a chemical element of his own invention:

Anti-irinium.

The rod had one property and one property only.

It absorbed irinium radiation.

The brush offered no resistance when Archer created it.

Soon, the Painter used the rod to dramatically reduce the radiation levels in the test amulets.

When the amulets were awakened, they no longer complained.

They experienced no discomfort.

No torment.

The scientists were delighted with the result.

“I think we’re ready to regenerate Sol,” Galsius said. “We’re not going to find a better solution than this.

“We can use the anti-irinium to remove the radiation.

“Then we can have the jewelers mechanically restore the amulet’s face to its original shape.”

“All right,” Archer said.

“But after the anti-irinium—and before the jewelers—I’m going to talk to Sol.”

The scientists used the anti-irinium rod on Sol’s melted silver amulet, drawing the radiation out of it over the course of three days.

When the dosimeter finally showed only negligible radiation levels, the scientists told Archer that he could speak to Sol.

Archer called for Anka.

Together, they awakened him.

“Sol, wake up,” Archer said.

The silver amulet opened its eyes.

Its face was still twisted from the melting.

“Archer,” Sol said. “Anka.

“You’re together again.

“What... what’s happening?

“I feel strange.”

“Sol, do you remember that crazy maneuver we pulled aboard a ship called the Rimer Price?”

“Rimer Price... Rimer... Price...” Sol repeated.

“It feels like I remember it, but at the same time, I can’t...

“I can’t remember the details.

“Archer, I don’t understand.

“There’s something wrong with me.”

“Sol, listen,” Archer said. “You and I captured an enemy ship and used it to ram another enemy ship.

“We saved a lot of people by doing that. You could even say we won an entire war.

“But when we rammed the other ship, we exploded.

“I died.

“And you partially melted.

“The damage you suffered distorted your consciousness. That’s why you feel strange.

“Do you understand?”

Sol was silent.

“Sol?” Archer asked.

“Sol, can you hear us?” Anka asked.

“Yes,” Sol replied. “I understand.

“Everything makes sense now.”

“We’re going to have jewelers reshape your face back to the way it was,” Archer said. “That should help restore you.

“But unfortunately, the restoration won’t be complete.

“I’m afraid you’ll retain only... fragments of your memories.

“But your memories are the only thing you’ll lose.

“Otherwise, you’ll be whole and healthy again.

“You’ll be able to function normally.”

“I understand,” Sol said.

“Do whatever you think is necessary.”

“Sol, I don’t want to do this just because I think it’s necessary,” Archer said.

“I want to do it with your consent.”

Sol was silent.

“Sol, we want you in our lives,” Anka said.

“You’re our friend.”

“Sol, if I ever find a way to restore you completely, I’ll do it,” Archer said.

“But for now, we’ll restore what we can.”

“All right, Archer.

“You have my consent.

“Proceed.”

Archer looked at Anka.

Anka looked back at him.

“Sol,” she said, “if there’s anything you want to say before we do this, you can say it to us now.”

“No, Anka,” Sol replied. “I’m too broken to say anything worthwhile.

“My mind feels as though it’s been shattered into several pieces.

“Even this conversation is difficult for me.

“So don’t delay.

“Proceed.”

“All right, Sol,” Archer said.

“See you soon.”

Sol closed his eyes.

Archer and Anka went into the adjoining room.

Archer gave a nod, granting the jeweler permission to begin.

“Poor Sol,” Anka said.

“Yeah,” Archer replied.

And he embraced his friend.