A War Dawning Ch. 00 - Prologue

Prologue

"Your father will be here soon," Drax reminded her gently and with a small smile.

Lystra looked up from her workstation just long enough to meet the gaze of the wiry, powerful man with the grizzled salt and pepper beard, balding head and the cutting dark eyes. "I'll be ready, don't worry. Well, not 'ready,' ready, but that will be soon enough, I think. I hope."

Drax gave a knowing nod. "We've spent too long on this project now to be stymied so close to the end."

"Believe me, I know." Day in and day out for years she had toiled with Drax to make sense of what had been discovered, and, only now were the fruits of that labor at hand. Indeed, she couldn't remember a time when she wasn't some degree of disheveled or exhausted from all the work even though she understood the need for it. Remnants such this from the old world were virtually unheard of finds and the chance to make use of them was rarer still "But it will be fine."

"I like your confidence, girl. Fortunately for you, so does he. He's always had a soft spot for you as with few others."

The truth of that twinkled in her eyes and pleased her no end. Indeed, he'd based the mark of those in his inner circle upon the blue in her eyes. Regardless of the type of jewelry, it marked those in Mareth's inner circle and the world was open to them in the Kingdom of Draleth as it was to no one else save the king himself. Some used the gift of the king's favor sparingly while others lived for every advantage it gave and every vice being marked as so above the law made permissible.

Lystra herself had little use for it beyond the fact that it allowed her the freedom to set her own goals, just as she had done in the here and now. For as long as she could remember puzzles intrigued her just as they had Drax, but none more so than this as it held itself out as one of the greatest puzzles in the whole of the world.

And this one was almost solved. Once it was, Mareth would have the whole of the world at his feet. Lystra knew that would please him and she lived to do so. If one performed to expectations his affections were lavish. If one had failed terribly or consistently he could turn as cold as the most bitter winter. Fortunately for her, she had never really had the opportunity to sample that aspect of his personality firsthand.

Indeed, he smiled broadly as he approached her after having glanced around the corridors and the room itself as he often did when he visited and she couldn't blame him. His royal purple coat helped make him appear all the more dashing in the way that the collar plunged sharply to contrast his ruffled, white, silk shirt against it. Behind him, two male guards took positions on either side of the entry and became statues. His smile was easy and his movements measured but fluid like a diplomat and he wore his late middle years well.

He hugged her tightly. "How is my dearest one?"

She returned the embrace warmly. "I am well. I understand you have been busy with your duties."

He gave Drax a quick glance before refocusing his attention on his dearest. "I have indeed. There are preparations to be made, and that's in addition to every other duty that a king must perform in the day when we are in the midst of war." He smiled. "You are close, I hear. Show me."

She was more than happy to lead him to the computer terminal at the bottom center of four banks of them that circled the room. On the paper thin screen itself were columns of numbers, most in orange, but some of the sequences were in yellow and green. Lystra's fingers moved animatedly from one set to the next as she spoke. "I was right in that, with what was left here to work with I had to convince both the sender and receiver to accept a new means of data compression in the information packets that will go back and forth."

She exhaled almost as an expression of pride. "It took a long time to gain something like a working understanding of the language used, but, since I'm getting signals that the machinery seems to understand some of what I'm saying, I don't think it will be long before I learn enough of the language to be able to order them as you please, Father."

"Excellent, Daughter." She continued to speak, giving him an overview of how she was able to use the facility itself to aid her. It was almost as if the designers had planned or hoped that if the military were somehow unable to continue to prosecute the war on its own, that the people could take up necessary positions to do so.

Records of an era so long ago were, at best, fragmented, but it was generally understood that those last years were a time of one insanity following another, so Lystra almost understood the notion of whatever faction so willing to do whatever to win, or at least not lose, that they would make it simple, or at least not impossible for layman to access such things. She knew that if one was desperate enough nothing was unthinkable. That she had toiled with this as she had was proof enough of that.

Mareth, for his part, listened politely while understanding little of the technicalities. He didn't have to understand the how or why of things. All he had to know was already on his mind. "So you believe we can begin our offensive now? Things will be ready by the time we have our troops in place?"

She looked at him with some bit of trepidation over the sheer amount of pressure he was placing on her. "I don't...I don't know, Father." She withered as the warmth of just moments before turned to frost.

"I mean, I believe so. I truly believe so." She gestured back to the screen. "I can show you the progress made on the problems yet to solve, but there are always things that could happen. I might come across something that I cannot solve or don't even comprehend. There are so many variables. Indeed, with the age of things I'm shocked that things still work at all. That could change tomorrow or in a few moments."

"Things are already in motion," he said in a tone that suggested that the words came from the lips of the Goddess Herself.

Her concern spiked at the thought of tens of thousands of lives depending upon her doing something that she wasn't absolutely certain that she could do in the time left. "You shouldn't have done that," she told him anxiously.

The look he gave her for daring to speak to him in a tone that suggested she could tell him what was best literally made her recoil. Her eyes darted to the floor and she took a slight step to the right to open the distance between them. Drax caught his eye, which caused Mareth to take a breath and hold it for a few moments before releasing it.

He took her hands in his "It had to be done. Things are going badly for us, dearest one." He saw the fear in her eyes and tried to give her his strength. "We've spent these last months buying you as much time as we could to do your so very important work, but the enemies of Draleth are pushing hard upon us from all sides. It's no longer enough to hold them. We had to strike back to gain you more time, but that time threatens to slip away."

His eyes closed at the thought, turning away from the pain of the vision. We have to do all we can so that you can do what is needed." He looked deeply into her eyes. "I have faith in you. I have faith in your skill. I have faith in your resolve. The people of Draleth have faith in you because you are not only my daughter, but you are one of the greatest minds to have ever lived in the world."

She blushed and he smiled warmly. "It is so. Do not dare disagree with your Father on this."

The blush turned into a humble, awkward grin. "If you say so, Father."

"It is so, child." He tried desperately to imbue her with his own confidence. "You can do this. You have exceeded anyone's expectations, even my own admittedly high ones." His dry humor was not lost on Lystra. "If there is a stumble, you will rise to the occasion as you always have. I love you, dearest Lystra."

"I love you, Father." She hugged him, trying to take some of that confidence herself. "I will not fail our people, I swear. It will function. The war will not come to our streets."

"I know that you will prevent it." He put her to arm's length with a smile. "To that end, I will let you get back to work while I speak to Drax for a few moments."

She nodded and watched them go before she got back to work pouring over old text and symbols. Drax followed respectfully behind Mareth out into the narrow, gray corridor with its overhead lighting and pipework running the length of every corridor in this place. Some carried power, some water, and some carried compounds that Mareth had no understanding of.

The guards stayed behind in the control room as the two men drifted well out of earshot of all others. Even so, they spoke in hushed tones. "She is not wrong, Majesty." He measured his words carefully as often had to be done when one tried to point out when Mareth may have erred. "You should not have moved forward until things were more certain. She may do everything right and still the machine may not function at all, or it may function in a way that we cannot control. When all is said and done, we may only think we know what it is."

Mareth made no effort to hide his annoyance, snapping at Drax, "The nobles' knees began to buckle. They began to listen to the whispers in their own heads of failure and retribution." Having vented slightly, his tone lost some edge. It didn't hurt that he'd grudgingly admitted, at least to himself, that Drax was correct on all counts. "There were whispers that had come to me of rebellion amongst them, so it was either kill them all and risk a civil war, risk them killing me in my sleep, or act now and commit them to the path."

In hindsight, he knew shouldn't have mentioned anything to the nobles until the thing was firmly under his control. He crossed his arms, satisfied enough that the decision was made and couldn't be unmade. "Inaction was my enemy as much as the nobles whining like cunts. Giving them their jobs to do actually buys us more time than we would have had otherwise. Gaining victory with our first strike will put some steel in their spines too, if we can manage it."

"And if we can't, the time all of us have left to live will start slipping through our fingers like sand."

Mareth glanced towards the room they'd just left. "Then she becomes even more important, as does her haste." He took half a step forward as if to give the two even more privacy. "Does she speak the truth? Is she as close as she says she is?"

Drax shrugged, his eyes further conveying his wonder. "I pride myself on a keen intellect, Lord, but, even after years with her I understand precious little. She has a base of knowledge to make sense of this that I do not. Even...knowing her as I now do, I can't do much more than take her word for it. I am still but a cave-dweller faced with forged steel."

Mareth studied him, trying to glean whether or not Drax was holding back and decided that, after all this time, he wasn't likely to start now. "Stay with her, keep her working."

"Of course, Majesty," he said. "To her credit though, I'm not sure I'll have to work hard to do that. She is very driven for you and for her people."

His eyes went to and watched as she studied the words that seemed to come from nowhere to fill the sheet of metal and glass she held. "Would you expect anything less from my daughter?"

To Be Continued...