An Exemplar Education

Seth Delocke’s footsteps echoed lightly off the academy’s stone floors with the gentle tap of leather soles. The unobtrusive sound spent only a moment visiting the hallowed halls before disappearing quietly into the darkness. Ahead of him, the clank of Exemplar Larkspur’s boots thundered forward into the depths like a herald announcing his triumphant return. They plunged deep into the structure, past iron doors and empty barracks little more than prison cells. Seth lit the phosphorescent patch on his gauntlet and held it high as they descended ever further down twisting passageways.

“In my school days, they called this the dungeon,” said Larkspur, and he looked back with a wry grin. “Though when properly lit it doesn’t have quite this level of charm.”

They entered a long wide hall with many doors. The architecture here was as elegant and expressive as any decorations on the outside walls. Baroquely adorned arches marked the length of the hall in 20 meter stretches, while columns of stone lined the walls in between. Larkspur strode to a large metal panel embedded in the wall and pulled the bolts from a small hatch at chest level.

Seth watched through the gloom as the Exemplar withdrew something from his sleeve and opened his hand. He was holding a tiny net of copper wires strung between his fingers by rings of dull silver metal. Tiny sparks flitted along wires and a low hum filled the air. Quickly he pressed his hand against the contacts behind the metal hatch.

The hum intensified, and Seth imagined the hall stirring as if from a great slumber. Bluish green light began to fill every arch as ancient filaments sprang to life. Larkspur pulled his hand away and a momentary blue flash filled the chamber, and then settled into a healthy glow. Seth extinguished his chemical lamp.

“Ether batteries. That should be enough power to serve us while we look around. Come.”

The Exemplar began an extensive tour of the many rooms where the technologists achieved their first historic successes. Seth was able to see the first vapor chambers, the first steam boiler, the first of the metallurgy laboratories that forged the towering struts of the citadel. Each chamber had greater and greater wonders to show, far beyond the simple history lesson Seth had sought in coming here. Here were the raw materials of the Imperial age, the foundation of the city above them.

Larkspur lent his own expansive commentary to each, revealing facts and details that Seth wondered any other simple student would ever hear about the early days of the Technologists. As the tour continued, Seth realized that Larkspur was building toward a climax.

They came to a wide door closed with heavy bars, which Larkspur lifted with something just shy of a flourish. He gestured for Seth to enter.

It was not the largest room by far, but the most complex, and the best maintained. There were tanks lining the walls. Vats would be a more appropriate term. Giant glass vials of green liquid, illuminated from behind by the same chemical lamps that filled the rest of the laboratory. Crude tubes and hoses of rubber and steel bands snaked about them, all feeding into some arcane filter mechanism. Rust and grime lay in sickly layers on the metal grating that ran the length of the room, but the vats themselves were perfectly, almost pathologically clean. Hovering in each vat was a body.

Seth choked back a lump in his throat. The bodies were not human. At least, not entirely. The first, directly to his left, had the short feline snout skull of the cat people, the Kait, that were driven from the city in the last decade. There were the large reptilian bodies of the barbaric Tsaaur to the right, and in a place of honor at the back of the chamber, the unmistakable winged form of an Avian.

The young technologist boggled. He knew that each of these creatures was an enemy of the state, an enemy of the Emperor’s glorious human empire. He had even assumed that they had met the wrath of the Exemplar’s technological power during the Purge, but that knowledge had not prepared him for the raw sight before him. There were no medical tools here – no beds or life-saving equipment – only the cold clinical artifacts of research. These souls had been test subjects.

Seth turned to Larkspur to find that the Exemplar had been watching him carefully the whole time. Judging him?

“Is this a test?”

“Do you think you need to be tested? Do you detect some weakness within yourself that must be identified and rooted out?” Larkspur looked at him pointedly.

Seth paused. He looked again at the Avian remains floating in the tank, emerald specks of decayed flesh suspended in solution about the frail form. It was elegant – complex yet simple in design. The Avians were legends, thought to be angels of a higher power by the more provincial citizens of the Empire. To see one here in the Exemplar’s keep was at once both fascinating and sacrilegious – an intoxicating fusion of wonderment and revulsion.

The clatter of Larkspur’s footsteps shook the glass tanks and the liquid inside, casting glowing ripples across the walls of the lab.

“I show you this place for your own benefit, not for mine.” said Larkspur as he approached his student. “We are called to perform great and terrible tasks for our people, Mr. Delocke, and those tasks are often unpleasant. These creatures you see before you are unfortunate casualties of our great destiny.”

“‘The will of the Empire is the will of humanity,’” quoted Seth. “‘and the will of humanity drives us to greatness.’” He recalled the phrase as automatically as a flower turns to the morning sun.

Larkspur nodded. “We are the agents of that will, Mr. Delocke. We must be willing to sacrifice to attain it. You are the most promising student in a decade, and you must be certain of this sacrifice we ask of you. If you have any reservations, then walk away now. Go home. Manage your father’s estate or buy a merchant ship. Take a wife, build a homestead, pay your yearly tribute. Live a mundane life free of the concerns of the Exemplar. Take off that training gauntlet and cast it aside.”

The facility’s ether batteries ran down. With a distant fading whine, the two men were left in darkness. Seth sucked in a breath.

“Or replace it with something better.”

There was a clicking sound, and Larkspur’s face suddenly appeared out of the darkness. He extended his hand, and a glowing blue ball of lightning emerged from it. It crackled with power, and tiny bolts of energy leapt up and down the mechanical apparatus on his arm. Seth felt the charged air pull at his skin. The effect – the raw physical display of force and the technical finesse involved – was intimately compelling.

“This is the power of the Exemplar, and the destiny of the Empire of Tarsis. Are you prepared to take up the sword for it? Are you prepared to be an ally of humanity?”

Seth Delocke needed no convincing. Every moment of his training had prepared him for this charge.

“Yes sir.”

Larkspur grinned. And the enemies of humanity looked on with dead eyes.