Antrax

10

Deep within the bowels of Castledown, far below the ruins of the city above, Antrax spun down the lines and cables that gave it passage through its realm. Traveling somewhere between the speeds of light and sound, faster than the eye could follow if the eye had been permitted to try to do so, it sped along corridors and passageways, from chamber to chamber, riding the metal threads that linked it to the kingdom it ruled. It was a presence that lacked substance and shape and could be virtually everywhere at once or nowhere at all. It was the crowning achievement of its creators in a time and a world long since dead, but it had transcended even that to become what it was.

The perfect weapon.

The ultimate protector.

Built almost three thousand years earlier, in a time when artificial intelligence was commonplace and thinking machines proliferated, it was advanced for its kind even then, a prototype created in the heat of events that culminated in the Great Wars. Skirmishes had begun already, and its creators suspected where things were heading when they first conceived of it. They were archivists and visionaries, people whose primary interest was in preserving for the future that which might otherwise be lost. Lesser minds dominated the thinking of the times; they manipulated the rules of power and politics to stir within the populace a mix of rage and frustration that eventually would consume them all. To thwart the madness that was overtaking them, the creators determined that those who would destroy what they would not concede should not be allowed to undo the progress of civilization. Antrax knew that because when it was built, the knowledge was programmed into it. It was necessary that it know the reason for its existence, because otherwise how could it understand the importance of what it was created to do?

It took years to build Antrax, and the building of it was accomplished at a great cost of lives and resources. Few of those who began the project lived to see it completed. Antrax had a sense of time, and knew that it had gained life in small increments. A bit of knowledge here, a piece of reasoning there, it expanded until it was housed in more than one place and could travel the city’s catacombs like a wraith. Aboveground, the city masked its presence and its purpose. Only a few knew that it was there, functioning. Only those few knew what it was meant to do. The Great Wars were consuming the world of the creators in a widening swath of destruction and ruin, and humankind was being changed forever. So much would be lost as a result—irreparably lost. But not what was housed within those chambers, not that which Antrax was created to preserve and with which it was entrusted. That would be protected. That would endure.

In the end, the creators simply faded away. Antrax never knew what happened to them. They gave it life, a place to reside, a domain to watch over, and a directive to follow. They set it on its course, and then they disappeared.

All but one.

That one returned a final time. He was alone and his appearance unexpected. When all else was done, and Antrax was functioning as intended, the input receptors had been closed. No further instructions were necessary. Then the last creator appeared and opened the receptors anew. He gave greetings to Antrax. They could speak to each other through the keyboards and touch screens. They could communicate as equals. He told Antrax that the worst had come to pass. Everything was lost. The world was destroyed, and civilization was in ruins. Centuries of progress had been wiped out. Art, culture, knowledge, and understanding were gone. The creators, save he alone, were destroyed. Perhaps no one was still alive anywhere in the entire world. Perhaps everyone was dead.

Antrax did not respond. It had not been built to understand human emotion; it could not sense it in the words of the creator who spoke to it. But a new directive followed, and Antrax was required to obey directives. The directive entered its memory banks through the keyboard and became a part of its consciousness. The command was clear. Those chambers, the complex, and everything housed within had been given to Antrax to ward. They must not be compromised. They must not be lost. It was not enough that Antrax watch over them and keep them safe for when the creators returned. Antrax must protect them, as well; it must combat and destroy anything that threatened them. The means for doing so was already in place, weapons and defenses both, installed in secret by the last creator himself, who knew better than his fellows what the times required. Antrax must draw from its memory banks, as it did energy from its power cells, knowledge of how those defenses and weapons worked. It must adapt that knowledge to fulfill its directive; it must extrapolate what was needed to survive. If defenses or weapons were called for, Antrax must use them. If they were not enough and others were required, Antrax must build them. If anyone tried to reclaim the chambers without entering the proper code, the intrusion must be stopped—even at the cost of lives.

The final admonishment was a direct violation of any previous programming, but the command was overriding and absolute. Causing harm to humans was permissible. Killing was allowed. Antrax was given control over its own destiny. No one must threaten its existence or interfere with its purpose and function. No one must enter into its domain without knowledge of the code. That was the new directive. That was how Antrax was reprogrammed in the final throes of the apocalypse, when the last of the creators disappeared.

It was alone for a long time after that. No one came to try to find it. No one even ventured close. In the ruins of the city, nothing moved. Not humans, animals, insects, or birds. The air was hazy and thick with debris, and nothing lived within its gloom. Antrax kept its vigil over the catacombs it had been set to guard. It warded them carefully, speeding down its lines of communication, through its myriad halls and chambers, into its memory banks and energy cells, all across its kingdom. Always watching. For a very long time, it had no need to do so; there was nothing outside to watch for. There was nothing but wasteland.

Sometimes, it wondered why it was guarding the underground chambers. It had been told what was housed there, but it did not understand why that held such importance for the creators. Some of it, yes. Some of it was obvious. Mostly, it was a puzzle. Antrax had been programmed to solve the puzzles that confronted it, and so it sought a solution to that one. It consulted its memory banks for help and got none. Its memory banks were vast, but the information stored there was not always useful. Words could be vague and confusing, especially when lacking a context into which to put them. Mathematics and engineering provided the most familiar and useful concepts, for Antrax had been built and programmed from them. Yet other words were only strings of symbols that meant nothing to it. Pictures and drawings confounded it. Vast amounts of the information it had been given seemed pointless, so much so that as its knowledge and sense of self-sufficiency grew, it even questioned the programming choices of the creators.

But the directive was immutable. Everything housed within the catacombs was precious. No part of it must be disturbed. No piece must be lost. Everything must be saved for when the creators came to reclaim it.

Yet when would that time come? Antrax had a vague memory of a blueprint for such a time, but the directive of the last creator had blurred and finally erased the specifics. There seemed to be no rules for when the catacombs should be opened up again. Or to whom. The catacombs it warded must be left inviolate, must be protected and preserved, must be kept hidden and safe.

Forever.

When the first of the four-legged creatures wandered into the ruins, years after the last of the creators had vanished, Antrax was ready. It had probed its memory banks for the details of the defenses and weapons that had been given to it, and it used them. Lasers effortlessly cut apart many of the intruders. Metal sentries and fighting units chased down the rest. The four-legged creatures were no challenge, but they gave Antrax a chance to test its ability to fulfill its directive.

Later, humans tried to venture into the ruins, as well, to explore the collapsed chambers and crumbling passageways, even to find their way underground. None of them had the code. Antrax destroyed them all. Yet others returned from time to time, some of them becoming recognizable by their look and feel, some of them persistent in their efforts. Like ants, they tunneled and burrowed, little annoyances that refused to be chased away for more than a short time. Even the lasers and probes failed to discourage them. Antrax began to explore other solutions. It found interesting possibilities in its memory banks and experimented with them. The wronks proved the most successful. Something about revisiting the dead was especially frightening to humans.

They gave it a name. Antrax. They took it from their own language. Antrax had no idea what it meant. Nor did it care to know. What mattered was that they knew it was there. That was enough to accomplish what was needed. The humans began to avoid the ruins. They no longer spent time searching for entrances into the catacombs beneath.

But Antrax had grown fond of its wronks, which it adapted to serve other needs. It continued to harvest humans for the parts that the wronks needed. It continued to experiment. The humans were no longer intruders; they were prey.

It was the failure of the first energy cell that prompted Antrax to explore the larger world. There were three such cells, vast capacitors that drew their energy from the sun and fed it into the receptors so that Antrax could function. The cells were meant to last forever, so long as there was sun and light. But everything has a finite life, even components that are built to last forever, especially when those components are overworked. Antrax had evolved in its time as guardian of the catacombs. Its commitments to its directive had multiplied, and its hunger had grown. It needed more fuel than anticipated by its creators. Its cells were being drained of energy more quickly than the sun could replenish them. Perhaps it was the strain of maintaining the lasers and probes and wronks. Perhaps the efficiency of the cells had been grossly overestimated to begin with. Whatever the case, Antrax was losing power.

It decided that another source of energy must be found.

It acted quickly. It sent its probes in search of such a source, far out into the world, beyond what Antrax knew. The probes were not meant to return, only to send the information they acquired. They did as they were programmed to do, and while most places were empty of human life and of the sources of energy Antrax required, one place showed promise. It was across the sea to the east, a land in which humans had survived the Great Wars. Theirs was a rudimentary civilization in many ways, but there were possibilities to be explored. The Old World had changed and Mankind had evolved. The sciences of the past were barely in evidence. Instead, there was a new kind of science. Elements of that science were able to generate power far greater than that which sustained Antrax. The elements could be found in weapons and talismans borne by the descendants of his creators. But genetics and training had infused a few of those men and women with the elements of power, so that in some the power was generated from within.

A dream, or what the dreamer thought was one, had brought the first of the Great War survivors to Antrax thirty years before. Of those, only one was useful. Now that one, supplied with a map that revealed the existence of the catacombs and their contents, had lured others. What had value for the creators would have value for their descendants, whether Antrax comprehended the nature of that value or not. Examined and measured on the islands that Antrax had established as testing grounds through probes dispatched years earlier, subjected to attacks by creatures and spirits no ordinary human could hope to overcome, a few had shown themselves more powerful than their fellows and were therefore suitable for culling. Three at least had come into the ruins overhead, and perhaps more waited without. Antrax would use them as it had used the one thirty years earlier, as components essential to its continued existence, necessary sacrifices to its directive. The creator had been specific. The lives of humans were expendable. It was Antrax who must survive.

Deep within the corridors and chambers of its domain, Antrax slowed its spinning passage and paused to take inventory of those it would use to feed it.

One was momentarily beyond its reach, although a special wronk was being constructed to hunt it down.

The second was already on his way.

But it was the third that interested Antrax most. That one had actually penetrated all the way into the catacombs. It had bypassed the code at the tower door. It was not a creator, one of the expected ones, but it had resources and incredible inner power. Antrax could not determine the source of its power, only its measure. What mattered was that there was enough of it to sustain Antrax for decades to come, perhaps for centuries, limited only by the capacity of the available storage units.

Already Antrax was gathering and converting that power, drawing it from the intruder without his realizing, leeching it away bit by bit. It seemed to replenish itself, so the leeching was not yet detrimental to the intruder’s health. But that could change. Antrax would have to monitor it closely. Reaching out with its sensors to take the necessary readings, it took a moment to do so, finding the intruder still working hard in his futile effort to escape.

The Druid known as Walker, who, in a time before he lost his arm and found his destiny, had been called both Walker Boh and Dark Uncle, was seeking his way yet again. He stood in one of the myriad passageways of Castledown and tried to understand what he was doing wrong. His stomach roiled and his head ached. Something was amiss. Even without knowing what it was, he could feel it as surely as he could feel the discomfort in his body. All of his efforts to outdistance his pursuers had failed. All of his attempts to escape had led to nothing.

Behind him in the near darkness of the corridors and chambers, invisible for the moment, but there nevertheless, the creepers hunted him. He had fled them from the moment he had dropped through the floor of the black tower and spiraled down a chute into these lower depths. They had found him at once, and he had fought them off and escaped. But everywhere he turned, everywhere he went, they were waiting. Castledown was full of them, prowling the depths in such numbers that Walker could not see how an army could stand against them, let alone a single man. Yet he would do so, for as long as he was able, for as long as his strength allowed it.

What baffled him, in his desperate flight, was how unendingly similar everything was. Corridors and rooms without number, all empty of anything other than machinery built into the walls and lines of power that fed those machines, all of them the same. Nothing was different about any of them; nothing suggested the presence of the treasure he sought. There were no hidden doorways or secret passages, no concealing panels behind which or under which or above which a treasure might lie. He could detect nothing of what he was certain was there. He knew what he was looking for. Unlike the others who had come searching for it, save perhaps the Ilse Witch, he knew exactly what it was that he must find.

Unless it was all a clever lie, created by the mapmaker to lure and trap him.

Yet he had discarded that possibility long ago. The knowledge contained in those symbols and markings was more revealing than the mapmaker had intended. Unwittingly, perhaps, the mapmaker had given away a truth it did not fully understand.

That Castledown was a trap had been obvious almost from the beginning, and the reason for that trap became clear after their experiences on the islands of Flay Creech, Shatterstone, and Mephitic. What lived within Castledown wanted their magic. What it wanted the magic for, what purpose it intended for its use, remained a mystery. Walker was not even clear as yet as to whether his adversary was looking for a specific form of magic. It might be seeking only another wielder for the missing Elfstones, someone to take Kael Elessedil’s place. It might be looking for something more.

Whatever the case, it had used the castaway and the map as bait, the keys as lures, the islands as testing grounds, the spirits and creatures on those islands as measuring sticks, and its victims’ curiosity and persistence as goads. The keys they had struggled so hard to obtain were worthless in any real sense, of course. He still carried them within his robes, but had long since discarded the possibility that they would prove useful. They were lures and nothing more. But the map, notwithstanding its maker’s belief that it, too, was only bait, was invaluable.

None of which helped Walker in his plight. He began moving along the passageways once more, probing as he did so, seeking either to escape or to find the hidden treasure. Either would give him what he needed, a way out, a weapon to use against his mysterious adversary. He wondered at the fate of those still aboveground. They would never find him. They might not even try. The destruction they had encountered might have demoralized them utterly. If he was lost, they would reason, what chance had they? He had to hope that one or two would hold the rest together, that those he counted on most to stand firm would find a way do so.

Nevertheless, he had to get back to them quickly. Time was working against him; he had to get clear of the maze.

Creepers appeared from out of the walls right in front of him. Bright bursts of Druid fire lanced from the fingers of his good arm. Bits and pieces of his attackers flew apart, and then he was rushing past their remains, finding others waiting ahead. He destroyed them, as well, still advancing, knowing they could track him by his magic, that they could determine his progress by his use of magic. The less he expended, the better. Yet he could not hide completely, not mask his passage sufficiently, no matter what he did.

He rounded a corner and found a new set of passageways. Winded and aching, he pressed his back against the cool of the metal wall and clutched at his churning stomach with his hand. The maze of chambers and corridors was disorienting. He peered ahead and then back. He had come that way before. Or another way just like it. He was traveling in circles, careening this way and that to no discernible end. His mind spun with the possibilities of what might be happening, but a new rush of creepers distracted him and forced him to stand and fight once more.

He charged into them, hurtling them aside with his magic, slamming them against the walls of the passageway and turning them into smoking, shattered heaps. Again, he broke free.

Moments later, he was alone again, a solitary fugitive in an unfamiliar world. He still didn’t feel right. It was there in his bones and in his heart. He was half a step slower in his movements, a shade duller in his thinking, off balance just enough that he wasn’t functioning as he knew he should. Why would that be? He sped through shadows and pools of light given off by smokeless lamps, trying to find an answer.

But no answer came to him. He ran on, searching for help that wasn’t there.

Antrax monitored the human a few moments longer, taking measurements. The siphon was unobstructed and strong. Power from the expenditure of the intruder’s fire surged into the converters, then into the capacitors housing the fuel on which Antrax would feed. Antrax would let the human run from the creepers awhile longer, then change the scenario to give him something else to do. The possibilities were endless. But caution was needed. The human was intelligent; he was quick to reason things out. If Antrax wasn’t careful, wasn’t subtle enough, he would see through the subterfuge. That could not be allowed to happen.

Dismissing him, Antrax spun back down the miles of power lines that wound through the passageways and chambers, feeding out its sensors as it made a quick survey of its perimeter. No boundaries had been breached. No further intruders had tried to enter. Satisfied, it switched back to the room in which the special wronk was being constructed.

Matters were progressing as expected. Surgeon probes were assembling the wronk with their customary skill and delicate touch. The parts lay spread out on gurneys, those of metal sterilized and wrapped, those of flesh and bone hooked to the life-support systems, artificial body fluids pumping steadily through arteries and veins. Already the process of joining flesh to metal and synthetics had begun, a fusing technique developed in the waning days of the Old World and perfected since by Antrax through study and experimentation. There had been failures for a long time; madness had claimed the early wronks and negated their usefulness. But eventually Antrax had found a way to control the wronk mind sufficiently that insanity was not an option. Breakdowns eventually rendered the wronks useless, but they were longer coming and less devastating when they arrived. Now and again, the damage could be repaired and the wronks put back into service. The surgeon probes were quite efficient at their work.

Through images conveyed by its sensors, Antrax studied the face of its latest subject as its head floated in the preserving fluid. The eyes stared out, shifting back and forth, searching for a way to escape, not understanding that the means for doing so had long since been stripped away. The meds, fed in through tubes that ran down its throat, kept it stable and calm. Its mouth was open, as if it were a fish feeding. It was in perfect condition.

Antrax took quick inventory of the still-unassembled parts. When it was complete, the wronk would be the most dangerous ever built, in no small part because the human from which it was being constructed was an excellent specimen with superb skills. To bring the other elements of power to bay and to overcome the humans that wielded them, it would have to be. But the technology of the Old World could accomplish anything. Antrax would have its sources of power in hand and working for its benefit before long.

Let the humans run as fast and far as they could manage, it thought. In the end, it would not matter. Castledown and its catacombs had been given to it to preserve and protect, but the world beyond, even that part so distant it was still a mystery, was not out of reach. The creators had given Antrax a directive, and there were no restrictions on the methods it could employ to fulfill it. If the power Antrax required lay elsewhere, it would find a way to bring it close. If the energy it needed must be obtained at the cost of human lives, so be it.

Antrax had been programmed to believe that nothing was more important than its survival. Nothing had happened to change that belief.