Change of Seasons

By Shiva Winters

~* Book One of the Relics and Remnants Series *~

In the third age of human space travel, vast colony ships are sent inching across the dark veil of time and space seeking out new uninhabited world where human civilization could start over and human history would carry on. But humans being the contrary force they are, do not take those first grand step into the unknown with a unified purpose and a single ideology. And many of those vessels left behind the bastion and birthplace of humanity seeking out a new Utopia, a new Eden from whatever it was their passengers found offensive. One such ship had a simple enough dream, to leave behind that solar system rife with technology and to seek out a new, untouched world, where their children and their children's children could have simpler, happier lives free from such distractions. Time passed and that ship carrying its' sleeping cargo has crossed the vast unending darkness to the very edge of what was 'known' when they left behind that now distant star system, and through the mechanized iris of an automatic camera the first pictures of their new home are taken.
But beneath the veil of the wild untamed wilderness, hiding from the sight of those cameras, and already old beyond imagining, there are secrets waiting to be discovered on that world. Another race, an alien race, had once, long before humanity ever touched the soil of that planet, had 'made something' of that planet, only to abandon it to ravages of history. Those settlers had thought to come to an untouched world, free from technology, only to discover an alien race had beaten them there. And what that alien race had left behind, was far beyond proof to how little humanity had evolved. Technologies, far in advanced of their own abilities, was scattered across the face of their new home, and because of their history and the history of the many generations of their descendants would be changed forever.
Time has passed, as that thing has a tendency to due, and history has stretched out through the ages. Humanity has managed to hold on to that reclaimed world, but it was not an easy thing, wars and conflict permeate their separate history, much of born from the strain of the settlers intentions set on a world overrun by alien technology. Many things were discovered and most have been lost through the course of that history, but humans carry on seeking out their separate lives. Talia and her siblings are born into that world where simple things tangle together with the advanced. But she is not one of those who seeks the simple life of a farmer, she has a gift for technology, a desire to learn, and a force urging her to discover all that is lost. And though she does not yet know it, destiny is calling to her through histories both known and unknown to lead her on a path that might well change everything, forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Shiva Winters
• Release date: Sep 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311329042

Shiva Winters

I know, I am supposed to come on here and give everyone some deep insight into who I am and the nature of my existence, but for all that I have been writing for better than half my life and have been publishing the results of those efforts for several years, I have not in the past nor will I likely in the future do such a thing. To be perfectly honest, I am simply and without question just not that interesting, personally or professionally, perhaps that is an assessment that is overly humble or unfair, but it's a truth that is nevertheless fundamental. In a day and in the age when seemingly everyone is all too eager to document their every personal detail and display their every passing thought, I personally can find no compelling reason to do the same. Call it a quirk, call it a choice, or call it my own personal form of crazy, but there is me living through the dull-drums of existence and there are my books which at their core are the stories I've told myself over the years, and one category is considerably more interesting to me than the other.When I first started writing, all those years ago, I didn't begin by putting words to a page for profit, or because I had delusions that one day I'd be celebrated for my efforts. I did it because it seemed like it might be a good way to pass the time, and in that moment, though I hardly understood it at that time, I found something when I wasn't looking for it. Since then, as time has passed, and I have honed my abilities, the underlying element of that moment of self-discovery hasn't truly changed, Entertainment. I don't write books because I can, I certainly don't write them for the sake of profit, though there is a glimmer of hope that one day there might be more of that. I write books because it's fun for me, it is my own strange kind of hobby and my own odd form of self-entertainment. And even if were to reach a point on some future day where the scales tip and I feel that this whole attempt to publish the results of my efforts is no longer viable, I will undoubtedly keep writing, if only for my own sake. I first published my books after a long and troubled decision making process, which ultimately weighed out marginally in the favor of the idea, that perhaps because I liked my books a great deal, that perhaps there were people in the world who would find an equal amount of joy in them. While at times there has been good reasons to doubt that belief there have been moments when that belief has proven true.I am not like most writers, that is a truth best acknowledged right up front, I don't write my books thinking to imitate another author with their pulse pounding action, high drama, or unending tension. I write the stories I find interesting, create the worlds I think are cool, to follow the characters I like, through the events that unfold in front of both them and myself as we work our way towards whatever may come. I don't plot out my novels, I don't outline the story, I don't pre-program the dialogue, and often enough even I am surprised by the end of the current chapter as things change on a whim. My books are an organic process that grow and shift, free from over-sight and restrictions and ultimately often lead to place not even I can predict. Whether those who read my books like what comes of my strange hobby is more often than not is my very last concern, and while I might feel compelled to apologize for that being the case, it doesn't or won't change the facts in the end. Each book and each series I write are a result of the page's progress through the succession of each line and paragraph, loyal only to the facts on the page and require only the input of myself as a conduit in allowing those words to progress through their natural courses. So the end results of those efforts often enough take a path not even I expected, but I for one won't and will never change that fact.My books are often strange and unexpected, I feel it is only right to acknowledge this, and there have been some in the past who have taken exception with that fact, angry that I did not meet their expectations. But I did not write my books for them, I wrote them for myself, selfish though that is, and I certainly did not publish my stories for them. Ultimately I publish my books for the small percentage of people who might read them and like them, and for the occasional bits of far flung joy I get from having people tell me how and why they enjoyed something I wrote. If you are one of those readers who starts a book with expectations and the belief that it is the writer's job to meet those expectations, please look elsewhere. But if you are one of those readers who reads simply for the joy of it, without expectations of what you might find, than I hope you will like what I have written.

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Change of Seasons

Book One of the Relics and Remnants Series

By Shiva Winters

Copyright 2014 Shiva Winters

Smashwords Edition

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Chapter Zero: The Passing Ages

The Winters clan was locally famous, and nationally infamous, it was a name that had traveled throughout the Empire, and had often in the past been a name that could rattle the pillars that held up the other great houses. Generation upon generation of their ancestors, well back into history, and even beyond the shadow of the civil war that had brought the old government of the colony's founders to its' knees, had been famous. The names of that family line, all of whom who had been important for various reasons, were in truth all but forgotten save those entries into the history books someone might dig up in a thousand years and think the connection was important. This was because the Winters' Line had fallen to its' knees and looked to fade into history, insuring that the name still on the lips of the scholars' and historians could be forgotten by those who had chuckled at that somewhat recent turning of Fate. Thirteen generations earlier, Ashton Winters had risen up from obscurity to become the most famous archaeologist inside of the Empire, his work on rediscovering the secret Ancients, their ruins and their lost technologies, had produced several books and much acclaim from the scientific community. Many hundreds of years before the ancestors of their race had crossed the vast depths of space to colonize that supposedly untouched world in order to build themselves a society free from the distractions provided by technology. But their many times great grandparents had stumbled upon the remnants of a extant alien race who had surpassed human technology by factors their minds could not have calculated, leaving behind a world riddled with technology. Discovering the relics of the Ancients, and re-discovering the knowledge that had been lost during the civil war that had shattered the society and civilization established by their ancestors, had been and perhaps always would be world rattling news. However in the case of Ashton Winters, it had provided his son with all the tools he needed to use the Ancient's technology, funding a lavish lifestyle that would carry on for generations.

For eleven generations, and a span of history filled with moments worth notation in various annuals, the Winters' name was something that had stirred up begrudging respect, incited whispered rumors, opened doors, but most of all made all people take notice. But with Talia Winters' passing it seemed as if her sudden death had forever severed that chain of history, her demise left her families' fortune, lands, prestige, and legacy in the hands of her son. Her own parents had disappeared on a distant archeological dig that condemned their two year old daughter to a life of being cared for by family friends and tutors. All of her aunts and uncles had died young, before she was even born, and she was saddled with a loveless arranged marriage and the burden of trying to keep her families' legacy and reputation from fading forever. Her only son, Tobin, was a child spoiled from birth with his every desire by his indulgent, indolent father, a man who seemingly made it his life's mission to waste away as much of the Winters' family fortune as he could. Within 10 years of his mother's death Tobin, while following his father's example, had seen to it that the family was bankrupt, its' reputation was in ruins, and Tobin himself was forced to take the action of so many who fell from places too high for them, he married for money. His wife's fortune, brought him back into his accustomed lifestyle of wild parties and sinful indulgence, disgracing his wife and in every way, as if trying to single-handedly destroy everything his ancestors' had worked for since the first years after humanity had settled on that once alien world. In some ways it was seemingly a blessing that Tobin was dead within the passing of the next decade after his marriage, leaving behind an unloved wife and son he had never concerned himself with. It was said by those who witnessed his passing, that it was as if Tobin had simply stopped, as if his body had spent out its' allotment of pleasures and death had come for him without hesitation. All that was left behind in his wake was a broken dynasty, a penniless wife, and a young heir to the ruins he had created of what had once been a highly respected family.

There were some who said that Tobin fathered his only son, Daniel, out of some kind of revenge for his wife's family's foolishness in trying to buy their way into the exalted reputation he had tried to destroy. Most who had known Tobin Winters merely assumed it had been an accident, that he wandered into his wife's bed one night rather than his current lovers. Born late to a marriage bed that long since been covered over by dust, by the time Daniel had been just opening his eyes to the world Tobin was just about to close his for the last time. Daniel Winters was only one year old when his father died, just a few days after his first birthday, born to a father who was not even a memory to his only son. Tobin had done his utter best to insure his son, his unloved wife, and his family name was ready to die along with him, leaving behind only debts in his wake, his wife's dowry long since gone. If it were not for the hereditary title, the deeded house, and the lands bestowed upon Daniel's family generations before, he might well have been cast out with his mother into the bitter cold of an uncaring winter, which would have insured the family name would forever faded from the world. Instead the widowed wife and her infant son Tobin had left behind, were forced to survive on the charity of her family's good will, the care and support of their few neighbors, and by doing whatever they could with what meager means were left to them in order to makes ends meet. Daniel grew up, for the most part, unaware of all the snickering contempt that continued to be whispered in the halls of the powerful and wealthy which had greeted his family's fall from grace with the greatest of delights. The reputation of his ancestors had been something Daniel had been content to leave rotting and buried in the past, allowing that one time famous name to be forgotten, forever.

The Winters' manor was, in part, a place even older than the Empire, the founders, and even the colony ship that had carried the settlers across the stars. Its' foundations came from the Lost Times, it had first been carved from the rocky sides of a high mountain valley by the Ancients who had once called that world their own, and who had left that valley in some ways forever changed by their passing. When that tangled warren of machinery filling the valley below and that rat's nest of tunnels and caves above it had first been discovered by the outspreading ancestors, what had been there near that high plateaued vantage point overlooking the valley below but it had been little more than that, empty tunnels. That valley had been industrialized on a scale human minds could not have comprehended, and as time passed the valley had been positively stripped of those precious metals, reforging them into the mechanisms of that worlds' second occupation, while stripping back what had been there to the very rock itself. That vast wealth of refined minerals had been gone, for the most part, a long time before Daniel had been born, carried off to the east and closer to the heart of that second civilization to inhabit that world. It had been reforged into the pillars of that civilization, one that would be later doomed to nearly crumble because of that very same strip-mined technology the Ancients had left behind. The manor itself had come later during the golden age that would follow, it was a vast sprawling complex of rooms, levels, and some manner of fortifications built upon the rocky plateau above while adopting all the tunnels and caves below. In the reclaimed valley a pastoral setting had taken shape, as the land was restored to a green place filled with growing things, and had been settled by those who were content to live on the far fringes of the outward spread of humanity, settled there into their simple lives. It was not until many generations after the founders had come to that world, that Daniel's family would be given title to the manor and a small portion of the surrounding landscape.

The manor and tunnels below it had been packed full of forgotten bits of wonders, artifacts, and curiosities by the previous generations of the family, as they roamed the world rediscovering the technology and remnants of that alien civilization. The Keep, as the locals had long since come to call it, was built high up along the rising stone walls of the southern escarpment, on a plateaued and terraced bit of soil and stone giving it a commanding view of the half settled valley lingering below. Those terraced fields that were a part of their family lands had long since been planted with orchards containing all manner of fruits and nuts trees. Those few staples and the mad scramble to harvest that wealth from the branches was an oft remembered boon and burden of Daniel's childhood memories. The orchards were a sweeping vista that was set several hundred feet below the main courtyard of the main house, and was often shrouded in morning fogs flowing up from the valley leaving only the house above those long hanging clouds. The Manor's vast 'backyard' was tiered and lined, walled and otherwise an engineered marvel meant to make the most of that one rocky sloped, cup-like valley, that in turn sat nearly a thousand feet above the highest hilled slopes of the gentle curved valley far below. If it wasn't for those friends and neighbors whom shared the valley, and who had always been generous in trade and quick to lend a spare hand or ten to the more difficult tasks, Daniel's family might never have survived to see another generation of the Winters' family come into that world.

Daniel had been five years old, when the manor, which he only vaguely remembered as being a hauntingly empty maze of unused rooms, was changed seemingly all at once and for all the years that followed. By that time the lawsuits, threats, and much of the snickering joy of the great houses had all but died down after his father's death, as well as leaving the Winters' line in doubt, any asset beyond the manor's borders had been seized and sold by his father's creditors, and there had been several attempts to take away everything else as well. However the laws of the Empire had prevented that, saving the Keep from being seized but had not left even enough money to keep him and his mother feed during those first and hardest of years. Daniel had not been old enough to realize how tenuous the hold on what little had been left to them had been back then, having only the basic understanding of a child. However, and by some miracle, his mother had clung to what little was left, struggling each day to keep the two of them alive, as she raised her son alone. Her side of the family had long since come to the conclusion that it had been his mother's fault she could not keep her husband from his whoring, his feasting, and his early meeting with death, and that the marriage they had forced her into was somehow her fault. It was only through the few coins her siblings had been able to spare her that his mother had kept them both alive through those most troubled of years. But unknown to both of them, with the early turning of the Fall, everything was about to change, setting a course that would one day save them from fading into history, uncared for and forgotten. The Keep sat on the only direct road to the south, a sloped and treacherous climb up over the escarpment leading right past the front gates of that nearly derelict and neglected citadel. The Julisian Pass was the fastest way to the south from the Taralino valley, crossing to those southern valleys in a half a day, which saved travelers more than a day's time. It circumvented the easier road the east, which had to travel all the way around edge of the rising stone of the escarpment before turning south. All the locals knew of course, to never travel through the Julisian pass unless the weather promised to be fair, because any rain, any storm, or even a strong wind could make that path deadly to those who traveled it.

In the fall of the fifth year of Daniel's young life, a sudden violent storm had been both, terrible news to his mother who was struggling to gather and preserve enough food from the orchards to feed them that winter, and it had also been, in so many ways, the turning wheel of fate. The afternoon sky had been as dark as night, overcast by low heavy clouds, thunder and lightning had ripped across those heavens, seemingly far too close to the windows of the Keep. So it was in so many ways a miracle they had even heard someone pounding at the front doors of the manor during the heights of that storm. No matter how unexpected, there was no way his mother would have ever been so unkind to send people out to their deaths even when 30 of them came rushing inside the darkened interior of the Manor, escaping the howling winds, pouring rains, and the promise of death from the sky. As it would turn out later those people had been any number of the migrant workers who shifted through the valleys with the changing of the seasons, and in no few ways the only hope the locals would have of harvesting their own fields before a premature frost might rot a season's work and their income on the vines. The storm lasted two days and by the time it was over, the Keep was in so many ways never going to be the same place that it had been. With more rooms and more furniture than might ever be needed his mother had discovered a way to hold poverty at bay. Those men and women, some few who had seen places Daniel hadn't ever dreamed of, many with skills a bright young boy was eager to learn, or were people who were simply willing to lend an extra hand when they could, changed everything about the course of their lives. His mother rented them rooms, gave them a place to stay through the chilled months to follow, and she gained the first coins not owed to creditors or given to her out of pity.

What had come from that first temporary arrangement had in so many ways evolved into the unique community which Daniel and later his children had grown up among. That first winter just a few of those people he had come to know had stayed through the winter, the help they and the others had lent to his mother in those orchards had provided more than enough food, and had even allowed her to turn a small profit. With the promise of more coins to help buy foods she might otherwise have called luxuries, they were more importantly the first adult company she had enjoyed since everything had come crumbling down. So it was that when the next spring came and even more people arrived seeking shelter for the days or weeks ahead, it was little wonder his mother welcomed them into her home. Soon enough people found reason to not simply move on down the road, finding steady work and a comfortable, if somewhat odd, place to call home. People still came and went with the seasons, but by the time Daniel was a boy old enough to leave the shadow of his mother's skirts there was a community of people and children his own age living at the Keep. His mother welcomed all who came and gave her no trouble, from scholars who wished to delve deep into the library, to artists looking for a few months in a pleasing pastoral setting. Even the Ronin, the whispered and rumored, mistrusted and misunderstood, people of the road, people who made their living as entertainers, craftsman, traders, and messengers, were welcomed and given shelter at the Keep. There were no doubt some who heard that his family consorted with those misunderstood, but fascinating, people and commented the Winters family could sink no lower.

But his mother somewhat unintentionally gave Daniel the greatest gift of all, an education, he learned about the larger world through the people who came to share his family's home, and discovered so many things by being surround by such diversity. There was never a great deal of money, there were certainly not any luxuries, but Daniel was given a broad view of life in the Empire, and a wide range of teachers, no matter how brief they might stay. He met a cornucopia of people and learned to see things through the eyes of others, and for the disgraced son of an unlamented Lord from an infamous family, that strange upbringing was something he learned treasure as he grew into a man. His mother died too young and her passing was wept for by all who had gotten the chance to meet her in those later years, but it seemed in so many ways as if her nightmare of a marriage and her struggle to survive had drained of her life. She faded away when Daniel was only 19 and only just old enough to inherit the lands and title that was his only legacy of the family name that passed down through those forgotten generations to become his own. Her loss struck her son hard and it might well have been the end of all that she had worked for, if not for the strange kind of family she had built up around both of them during his childhood. It was for reasons far greater than money that he had continued to support the community she had gathered there, Daniel's few ventures out past the walls of his home and into the wider world had long since soured him on rejoining that larger society. He had seen first hand the hatred his family name stirred up in some and there had been only a few bright points and some few friends who had ever made it worthwhile to leave his beloved home, even just for a little while. Beyond those facts, the one woman he could see himself spending his life with, the only one to ever truly challenge him, and infuriate him, was one of the many who had traveled to and from his home.

Serina first rode past the gates of the Keep at her father's side on the bench seat of a Ronin wagon, a fiery and fierce girl unlike any girl or woman he had ever met. He would later on in life remember with a strange kind of fondness having been beaten up and half drowned in a mud puddle by that same girl, when a playful push had almost ruined a beautiful skirt. Serina claimed to have never forgotten the insult and had sworn with a burning light in her eyes, in front of her children no less, to never forgive the boy she even then called her husband. To hear those who called the Keep home for the longest, talk about those days of the past, the courtship of that pair who would become their Lord and Lady had been anything but normal, peaceful, or expected. More rivals than friends throughout their many encounters during Daniel's youth, Serina, his unlikely wife-to-be, in truth had a spirit well beyond the ability of any single man to tame, and most of the men of the caravans would never have dared her temper in order to court her. However in Daniel she found a husband who was just crazy enough to love that fire, and would never dare to change her for any reason. And Serina would admit to the giggling delight of her children, she had been smart enough to see how rare it was to find a man who wanted nothing less than disobedient wife. The nuptials were no doubt laughed about in the halls of the Great houses, since it seemed as if the legacy those men and women still feared was well and truly dead.

Tomas was born first and he had the dark haired, sharp eyed look of his mother, his dusky skin seemed already tanned from years on the road. Tomas in so many ways seemed destined to take up the place in the caravans his mother had given up in order to stay with her beloved husband and the family that shared his home. He was forever a child prone to running off and getting into trouble far from the eyes of his parents, and as a boy his eyes were forever on the distant, sometimes unseen, horizons with his thoughts anywhere but at 'home'. As was tradition for all settled Ronin, Serina's children would spend one season every year with the caravan until they were of an age to make the choice for themselves. Daniel's respect for his wife's people, her family, and those unique individuals that had frequently brightened his childhood, would never have allowed him to think to have any kind of claim over his childrens' futures, even if it concerned his first born son. It was for the best he had seen the wisdom in that tradition since it was clear almost from the start that, Tomas had the wanderlust of his mother's people. Tomas was a bright boy, certainly smarter than average, but along with the wanderlust there came a wandering attention span for things that held no interest for him. While he was a dutiful enough child, Tomas had few interests in studying anything beyond the wisdom and knowledge of those who spent their lives traveling the roads. It was just as well that he had a bright, friendly kind of personality, even as an infant, that seemed to draw in people from all around them, a useful nature for someone who might one day make his living as an entertainer and traveler.

Sana was the second born, almost a year to the day after her brother, but almost as if to prove no child could be any more different than their sibling Sana's birth was as troubled as her brother's was effortless. Sana favored the fairer tones and softer shades of her father, being of a naturally sunny disposition both in spirit and in appearance. While there were hints of her mother, most especially in the same fiery spirit that made boys and men obey when an order was issued, Daniel could not help but see his own mother most of all in his daughter's graceful limbs and her gentle nature. Sana was at least equally as clever as her brother but blissfully far better behaved, she found much the same passion inside books as her father, and they both had many fond memories of late night talks by the flames of the library fireplace. Just as Tomas seemed destined to take his mother's place in the caravans from an early age, Sana seemed equally destined to step into her father's place when he grew too old or too weary to remain the Lord of the Keep. Sana found the same great joy in the strange community formed around her family's home as her father, and found little yearning for the road beyond the yearly change in routine. She was in so many ways a father's delight, beautiful, intelligent, clever, and always dedicated to their home, their family, and the community born of that place.

Talia was the last to be born and in so many ways her birth was an ill-portent on so many things, born nearly six years after her siblings, her conception was a surprise to most everyone, especially a father who had thought the days of diapers were behind him. Conceived on the road during a dazzling summer filled with crowds of happy people and long moments of quiet with his beloved wife at his side, Talia came into the world at the least opportune moment. Born during a violent winter storm that cut them off from the aid of the local doctor, Talia was named for her grandmother whose portrait watched over her great-granddaughter's birth during the height of that storm. There were a few who played with the poetry and that touch of the irony of having a Winters' born in winter, but it seemed as if in many ways Talia's conception and birth might well have been touched by Fate. Those concerns would come later but for much of Talia's youngest days there was something of a great debate among their friends and family as too whom Talia took after more. With their first two children it had seemed entirely obvious from the start, so the mysterious qualities of Talia's dark blue-black hair and violet toned eyes had some even laying wagers as to her nature. But it seemed merely part and parcel of what had baffled so many through so many years, Talia was the one who surprised them all, when they least expected it, during the most bitter winter any of them could remember a few weeks before her fifth birthday. That was a year when there had been few coins to be made, and the weather had been more fierce than any of the elders could remember, and that was, of course, when the Keep's juggernaut of heating system had failed. For three of the most bitter days to be lived inside those walls, the windows frosted over and everyone traveled through the corridors in heaped mounds of blankets and clothes waiting bitterly for the storm to die off so a Servicer could be sent for from the south. However on the fourth morning, rather inexplicably, the most blissful sensation woke them from their beds in the early hours of the morning, that of heat emanating from those formerly cold appliances and vents. Upon an incredulous investigation Talia was discovered in the bowels of the Keep, still dressed in her bed clothes, covered practically head to toe in grease and dirt, clutching a formerly forgotten heirloom set of tools, while standing triumphantly over a now working heating system. If her parentage was not certain on both sides, Daniel might almost have wondered that day, and during all the days that followed, if his wife had sought the comfort of another man's bed. As it was Talia's arrival into the world seemed as if it was an ill-portent, a disaster in the making for all the things Daniel had tried to leave forgotten. The Servicer who came later after the storm had passed, brought with him his granddaughter and a woeful tale of the last place he had thought to hang his hat for the winter. It was his knowledge that later proved that Talia had bypassed the broken heating core of the disabled furnace and then connected it to its' neighbor and used that still working half to bring both back into a semblance working order. The Servicer's fees for those crucial repairs was minus his room and board for the winter ahead, and had come with the suggestion he was not adverse to sharing his limited knowledge of machines with a bright young student.

Perhaps it was because Talia answered so many things that bitter season, while prompting a billion questions in the wake of her debut, after the settling of so many wagers. But for whatever the reason Katia's entrance into their lives seemed almost to happen as quiet as could be, while Daniel and Serina were still reeling from the events that had swirled around their youngest child's fifth birthday. Katia's arrival was if anything more unexpected than Talia's, even though the facts seemed entirely forgotten as quickly as they had happened. Talia was six and a half years old when she had gone off for a spring traveling deep into the southern valley's with the caravan, as was the tradition. By that time, her ability to understand technology was already threatening to spiral out of any semblance of control, and promised to be something that would rattle the foundations of the family's forgotten legacy. It was in the craggy rocks of the jagged southern mountain passes that Talia wandered off one evening searching the hill sides and broken trails while her mother was off cooking and her siblings were involved with the other children. She was found late the next morning more than a mile down a path no one suspected was there, accompanied by a white haired girl approximately her age. Dressed in rags and as dirty as Talia, who had a harrowing tale of woe and regrets, as well as a bump on the head and a blank spot in her memory, the strange girl who accompanied her neither spoke nor seemed to have an origin anyone could explain. The local herdsman had long since moved to the southern hills where the grazing was good, and what few souls that called those lonely harsh regions home had heard no word of missing children. Talia's rescue of that girl had no explanation anyone could offer, and his family's adoption of that mysterious orphan was complete long before Daniel had heard word of those events when his wife and children returned to him in the first weeks of summer.

Talia, for all that there were many children her age at both the Keep and traveling with the caravans, was in many ways an odd child, she was most often found alone, and Sana was one of the few older children she would seemingly tolerate. But all at once, Serina had later told him, it was as if their daughter had been normal all along, it was as if Talia had seized that lost little girl's hand somewhere on that mountain side and from that moment forward the two of them were inseparable. Talia had always been a quiet child, giving little fuss and not often moved to talking, so much so that both parents had worried about her early on. But with Katia by her side, Talia suddenly became a talkative child, even if most of what was being said was whispered to the girl who never strayed far from her side. That young foundling, who had seemingly no sense of understanding or memory, was a child ill suited to the burdens of the road, and it was seemingly fitting that Talia was the one to pick her name. Daniel's wife and children returned from that long journey with his youngest child cemented to her new sister's side, and being a relatively clever man he had simply nodded his head and let the women in his life have their way. By the end of the two years to follow, it was in so many ways as if Katia had always been there, and most had forgotten she was not fully one of the Winters children. In truth Katia and Talia looked enough alike to be siblings, perhaps even a set off-color twins, her white hair and golden eyes as a strange but a wonderful foil for Talia's distinctive looks. The pair was never to be found far apart from one another, and even had the same gift with technology, so by the time Tomas was nearly of age all manner of strange robotic creations had been resurrected and seen scrambling about the halls and the family lands.

Daniel had long ago come to the conclusion to let his family's history rot away, his own experiences far outside the walls of his family's home had taught him the harsh realities of the world and the even harsher truths of the politics of the great houses. And for a time he had almost been allowed believe that such a thing might be possible, because neither of his eldest children had never dared to show even a glimmer of that legacy etched into them. But with Talia, and later Katia, it seemed as if their family name and the infamy that came along with it, would never again be allowed to fade into history. What those two could do with a pile of scrap parts, some simple tools, and time, were the kinds of things that would have made even the most famous of their ancestors stop and take notice. It was a talent that only seemed to grow more unexpected and ground breaking with each passing year of his youngest children's lives, and one day soon he was afraid that he wouldn't be the only one who noticed. For all that Daniel had spent his life letting the past be forgotten, there were many he would call his friends out there in the wider world who had long ago made it clear that his family's name may have been tarnished, but it had never been forgotten. There were many among the great houses whose family's position and fortunes depended on the reclaimed technologies of both the Ancients and the ancestors, all of whom still feared the coming of another Winters. This was because so many of his ancestors had been known for both their brilliance and for their generosity, the first quality had made them famous, the second quality had made them enemies. The Great Houses depended upon secrets, in so many ways, secrets about their rivals, secrets about their technologies, secrets about their industries, and most of all keeping those secrets theirs alone. If another Winters' came upon the scene, one who could reveal things about the Ancient's technology lost to them since the fall of the Sages and the end of the civil war, one who might well give away those advantages to competing houses, there was no way to be certain the Great houses would not strike out a weakened house before it could start to rise again. Daniel often noted in letters to his friends and allies, that never could their be a more proud father who was more terrified by the source of that pride.

Chapter One: The Curious Twists of Fate

Talia!?! The voice that echoed through the distant, empty tunnels that filled the underside of the family home was their mother's, and judging by the edge of in her voice she was not pleased to have to search so far, and so deep, for them. Flicking up the magnifier arm of her goggles, Talia turned her head away from the circuit boards buried in the depths of the large machine and towards her one exit route back out of the device. Katia was there, leaning her head inside, and when their eyes met, Katia nodded her head and hurried off, back down the very high and long ladder, without a word needed between them. Talia flicked the magnifying lens back down and watched the display of her right lens zoom into the microscopic size wires buried in the massive circuit board she was repairing, a view that required her to hold her head perfectly steady and unmoving as her hands frantically worked in the cramped space. The delicate operations involved marking out the flaws of eroded wires that time had wrought in the boards with thin and delicate metal foil. Those tiny wires smaller than hairs would have to be refilled with new metal to allow the current to carry, but first one needed to know where the metal needed to be injected, refilling the cavities left by the original wires. With a practiced hand, Talia laid out the slim and fragile metal foil across certain areas, the super soft metal tore like paper tracing out the route that she had been following for untold hours trying to find the broken current wire that was keeping the machine non-functional. Already she had invested nearly two years of work into that machine, and at that time that single wire was more important than the secrecy of their project. When the flaw suddenly ended, Talia flipped up the magnifier lens and took one more look at the opening before reaching for the Fuser hanging from her tool belt, the wide glowing beam flipped on, illuminating a rectangular area beneath the beam path. With practiced movements, Talia began to slowly sweep her hand back along the circuit path as the light reacted with the foil, melting it so that it seeped into the circuit board and filling in the voids beneath the surface.

From the outside there was an echo of footsteps as their mother approached the near end of the corridor, left in almost total darkness save for the few functioning electric lights in that region of the tunnels. She was lead there by Katia's quiet steps, sounds that were barely even audible save that the silence of the surrounding region was almost so quiet one could hear their own heart beating. In truth Talia could hear her own heart beating because it was pounding in her chest as that narrow rectangular beam moved centimeter by centimeter across that board several feet across and in some ways larger than she was. Not daring to speed up, Talia followed the lines as quickly as she could, knowing that her mother would not tolerate even a moments delay once she knew where her other daughter was hidden from sight. Talia knew from long experience and without it being said, that each moment to pass was another notch off her mother's short measure of patience, since as a Ronin her mother had never liked going into the tunnels that far beneath the Keep. Despite how her life had been benefited by Talia's hobbies, Serina would no doubt object to finding her daughter deep in the interior of the massive machine that had been left buried deep within the underworld beneath the manor. Each second Talia was given after those soft steps fell silent was a minor miracle, one step closer to finishing that single task that might well be the one she had been searching for during two years of hard work and endless disappointment. Talia knew that her optimism was unfounded, that after no matter how many thousands of trips they had made into that particular cornered underside of the Keep, no matter how many days they had wasted away from other things, and despite being yelled at for hundreds of missed chores, nothing they had done had brought even the tiniest glimmer life to that forgotten corner of their home.

It was perhaps only the shadowy sight that greeted their mother's arrival that bought her those precious few seconds of leniency, because it was a sight worth a second look. Buried and forgotten in the tunnels several hundred feet below the ground floors of the main house, below even the ground level of the highest tiered cliffs of the fields and orchards. It was set deep into those deepest of tunnels some distance from everything else, and well within the rock cliffs beneath the Keep's front yard, and nearly to the outer wall that bordered the road. The chamber itself was a massive opening in the rock, and had been given by its' original creators a somewhat natural look leaving the walls and ceilings slight roughed and angled rather than perfectly smooth like most of the tunnels. It was about a hundred feet across at the widest point where the floor was set and more than a 125 feet tall, with an overall kind of oblong shape to the space. The tunnels that lead down into the chamber traveled no further into the rock, and dead ended into a raised balcony like projection that over looked the swath of flat open floor space and the massive dark bulk of that machine looming over that chamber. Two curved, carved stone stair cases lead down from either side of the railed balcony descended twenty feet to reach the main portion of the floor. There was a decided sense of a presence in that room, they had both agreed upon it at separate times, but in that belief Talia and her beloved sister were set, that standing inside that space left the distinct impression of an other worldly presence hovering over it. Their mother, of course, was far more the kind of person to lend credence to the whispers and rumors that the spirits of the ancients and the ghosts of the ancestors still lingered in those tunnels. But in those long stolen seconds Talia wondered if their mother could sense that same feeling she and Katia had experienced years ago when they first found that device, and realized what it truly was, along with everything it could mean. If they were right, they might soon prove once and for all that there was indeed a voice that had once gone silent beneath the foundations, one that might again whisper into their future. With that heartfelt thought that Talia embarked on the remaining sections of foil, her hand now tired from the stress of holding that beam steady even though she desperately wanted to race ahead.

Talia? Her mother called from within the chamber beyond the massive hollow space lending the sound a special credence despite the soft spoken word, these words came just as the beam passed over the last piece of foil and by instinct Talia slid the pulled out panel closed. With a sudden cough-like surge the whole machine jumped into life, whining, shifting, and powering up with a sudden whirring of flowing electricity that shocked all of them, but their mother most of all. Talia looked around her as the internal lighting kicked on revealing the dark crevices she had been crawling through for years in the darkness, her mind memorizing those shapes as she changed the settings on her Inspec goggles and flipped through dozens read-outs and settings. Only after she had gotten to see it, her mind and body straining to do a dozen things at once, that Talia gave into greater urges and scrambled with all possible speed and caution out through the open access hatch. As she reached the top of the crude ladder and leaned out, she turned towards the control panels lighting up brightly 80 feet below her and was instantly relieved to find that Katia was already there.

Get a diagnostics readout before it goes down again! Talia told her urgently as her hands seized the topmost rungs of the pieced together ladders that extended almost 5/6ths of the distance up from the floor far below. Katia nodded as she unslung the Key Drive she wore as a pendant around her neck and plugged it into the terminal, her fingers flying across the control screens they had been unable to access until that very moment. Only barely able to hold back the urge to leap from the top of the ladder to reach those screens that much quicker, Talia scrambled down as quickly as she could. As she reached the bottom she found that their mother had descended the steps and stopped there as if in awe of the vast towering machine as it lit up and did mysterious things which made the air hum all around them. Stealing just a few more moments before they could be chased away, Talia swiftly and silently hurried past her and towards Katia who was intently focused on those screens. She was greeted silently but profoundly as Katia pulled her in hip to hip on the step stool giving them both the vantage to see all the controls and the whole screen. Both of them watched the diagnostics program roll past in the background while Katia touched various buttons to see what other things were hiding in that unseen foreground. But when that all important background ended the results were loaded into Katia's key drive, and became their main focus. 65%. Talia murmured before kissing her sister's cheek, her mind almost unable to comprehend the possibility that they had managed to bring the machine back so far from a state that was essentially dead. Katia smiled brightly, her own eyes burning with the possibilities, as she pulled up the diagrams and pointed out the two major problems. Can it make replacements? Katia nodded, Talia smiled only to immediately frown as they both snuck a look back at that figure standing in their own background, but their mother's awestruck state was unchanged despite the intervening moments. Knowing only too well that anything good or bad might take place in the next few moments, they again took advantage of her mother's surprise to add to their stolen time.

They dove away from the screens and moved with all possible speed to feed the mounds of scrap they had gathered there over the years, heavy twisted and rusted pieces of metal into the machine's intake alcove along one side. All parts of Ancient technology, all beyond repair, they had put those piles down there as a motivation to finish their most grandest dream and ambition, and by the time they had worked their way through the nearest pile Talia was more than bit winded. However her sister whose stamina had never been very good, had since escaped back to the screen and was there and ready to give her a thumbs up. The lights in the room dimmed and then went dark as the Fabricator powered up, the scrap was broken down into its' base elements and would reassembled into the completed replacement parts. Talia and Katia watched the machine's processes as it worked, bathing the intake alcove with a dim and fuzzy wall of light that made the scrap within it seemingly evaporate without either heat or even a wash of burning light. All the matter inside that small space disappeared with the span of a half dozen heartbeats, its' matter was broken down into free floating atoms, which was then separated, shifted, and sorted for temporarily storage as pure elements. As the scrap metal disappeared Talia raced around to the far side of the machine and next to Katia's side so that they could both watch what happened next. Those billions of atoms were then taken out of that suspended state pulled through the vast complicated array of parts and was, in essence, printed, atom by atom, layer by layer into a perfect replicas of the parts programmed into the core memory of the Fabricator. Those objects that would have taken thousands and thousands of hours to have created those complicated, vital parts, which almost literally appeared before their eyes, grown into being. Within only a few minutes the two parts appeared in the far alcove, the first was a massive near ton of dense metals, coiled wires, and high energy magnets, the second was seemingly innocent by comparison a tiny fragile seeming clear tube housing a series of suspended chips half floating in an airless bubble of unknown greenish liquid. These two things had in part rendered that mammoth, that juggernaut of potential industry and invention, literally dead for hundreds of years, a forgotten monument to the past and a conundrum never solved by any past generation of their family. By the time the fabrication process was over and they stole just a few moments more to return to the screens, the machine's efficiency dropped by ten percent as one or more of the old parts took a backwards slide.

Amazing. Their mother murmured as the machine dimmed and the lights came back on in the spaces around them, she had been shaken free of her frozen state, all but calling that moment of almost triumph to an end. Katia gave her 'the Look', before she moved to the alcove to look over the two parts at their mother's side, while Talia stole her last chance to upload the internal diagrams of the Fabricator into her own Key drive. She powered it down before any more flaws could unzip in the circuitry, they had gotten what they needed, and knew better than to press their luck even further. As the hum disappeared and the room's lights brightened considerably, Talia sighed, closed her eyes and silently prayed to whatever entity might be out there watching over the Clans or her family, that when she again touched those controls that it would power back on without incident. Her mind really wasn't paying attention to the soft words being drawn out of Katia by her mother's soft questions, but somewhere deep down those words registered in some part of her, so that when she finally felt calm enough to walk away she knew what was being discussed.

It was part of the original manor, mother. Talia told her officially even as Katia searched back into her own memory for the answer, after all her sister had spent far less time digging through the records, diaries, and notebooks found in a nearby hidden study and laboratory her ancestors had used for generations. Placed here by the Keep's first human owner as part of the extensive building projects he enacted to make this site habitable, but we aren't certain how long it has been broken. It's a small one, but it's a real, honest Fabricator nevertheless, just like the ones in the big cities. Her mother looked into Talia's eyes with sharp surprise, a look that was almost angry, positively glaring with the horrible punishments that would follow if Talia's words had been the least little lie. And for once Talia did not need to flinch away from that potent gaze, she met her mother's hard stare and nodded silently confirming that truth. When she did her mother's eyes grew misty, her expression twisted into one that was almost painful to see, before she turned away from them and stood a few steps closer to the stairs with her back towards them. The Ronin as a people were mistrusted anywhere they might go, subject to bigotry and anger of a people who as often as not believed only the worst anyone might have said about the Ronin. This was especially true in the biggest of cities, places where the Great Houses had the most power and influence and where the trade in technology was most often conducted. The Ronin had little to no access to even the most simple conveniences, and even the smallest of things could have made their mother's life on the road and those of her beloved people that much easier. It was easy for both of her youngest daughters to understand that their mother needed a moment to compose herself, much less contain some of the many gut reactions that day had already brought into Talia's life. So she and Katia focused on other things, not the least of those concerns which had to do with moving better than a ton of metal more than 60 feet off the floor to reach the access panel for that massive part.

Yah, I know. Talia agreed with her sister's beautifully gruesome grimace after they had both taken a moment to study the problem from below, Katia giggled quietly at her as if unconcerned the next moment. Talia made a face in return as she stepped backwards a few steps and peered towards the panel that contained the old energy core as she measured out those distances inside her head. Maybe a series of arms along the wall and some pulleys attached to the ceiling. Talia suggested a moment later with several jabs of her finger and them twisted circles up beyond the end of the ladder, Katia nodded and traced out the lines with her hands, echoing Talia's thoughts.

Tomorrow... Her mother murmured softly as she recovered suddenly and without any real warning, but even as Talia's mind leapt eagerly forward towards that real moment of triumph potentially awaiting ahead, she knew better than to argue since she had stolen more extra minutes that day than dreamed possible on any other. Dinner is waiting.. Talia looked up into her mother's eyes questioningly, her mother somehow lacked the determined and usually perturbed expression that made it impossible to argue with her. For a moment or two she considered begging for more time, the computer processor sitting nearby tempting her with the open panel up the ladder. However before she could do that, a force in her life even greater than her mother's stepped in, quite literally, as Katia crossed the few steps to her side and took Talia's hand, and that notion faded quickly away.

All right. Talia relented and felt oddly rewarded when Katia kissed her cheek before she hurried across the space to the long unrolled leather tool bundle resting on one of the stone shelves that lined the wall, which was quickly put back into order and closed up for the night. Talia was somewhat surprised when her mother gently kissed her forehead just as Katia returned with the bundled weight of tools clutched it in her arms. Their mother then made some ill-tempered comment about the dirty state of her children, which made her sister giggle, both knowing full well they were consigned to the bath well ahead of the thought of food making Talia's stomach chew at her back bone. But that kiss was much more of a reward because she was dirty, so Katia and Talia followed their mother from the room with only a few pleading backwards looks and with silent promises to return first thing the next morning. Only after that point when that sight was impossible to see did Talia turn to the evening ahead emptying her improvised leather tool belt, everything but the Inspec glasses were returned into Katia's keeping. They had both agreed long ago that the tools were Katia's and the glasses were Talia's, it was an arrangement that had worked out well in the years they had worked and lived together, as it had insured nothing would ever get lost. The glasses were soon pushed up off the bridge of Talia's nose and resettled along the cloth bandana that was tied around her short hair which was no doubt covered in a centuries worth of dust and dirt. Despite being one of their ancestors' many artifacts, the glasses fit snugly around her skull as if they had been designed for her and despite being an antique they worked better than the few modern sets she had encountered. Sensing their deactivation, the magnifying lens flipped away and the arm folded away inside arm of the thick frame, and would soon look like little more than a somewhat clunky pair of goggles to a person's passing glance.

No wonder you two have been coming home so filthy. Their mother made a face of disgust at the sparsely lit dirty hallways they were now crossing through, winding and weaving towards the nearest stair case leading back to the surface. It was a wonder their mother had even found them down there, and Talia instantly suspected that her eldest sister might have been whispering secrets again, she as far as Talia knew was the only one to know where the two of them had been working. Those deepest of tunnels had certainly suffered through time, spider webs clung to everything and the dust in the air was thick, the floors were coated in dirt and the walls were grimy. In places damp pools lined the floor where the water had seeped in over many years, and the air was hardly perfumed much less pleasant to the senses. Neither Talia and Katia paid their surroundings much attention, as was often the case, but her mother's comments often enough involved the next moment of bossing around the nearest child into some character building chore. Some had said that Talia first creations, referring to the machines that cleaned the manor, had been made solely to free her from that most hated chore of cleaning, and those rumors were absolutely correct. Even though it taken them two years, at long last Talia and Katia had been freed from housecleaning, though not safe from chores entirely, and had been instead left them in charge of maintaining the vast armies of robots that now roamed the manor and the grounds. Even now their armies were moving around and above them, giving the two of them those most precious moments of freedom during each of those past days, moments they had invested in trying to achieve that day of triumph that seemed so much closer now. Their robotic minions were outside filling the cisterns that irrigated the fields, they were tending to the house, they were dancing about in the branches of the orchards insuring the harvest to come, they were cleaning the house, and maintaining the lawns. Talia could almost feel the day when she would be free of chores entirely tickling at her grip, that sweetest day when nothing her mother might say after a chanced comment could take either of them from what they loved, because they would have a robot to do those things for them.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

Once they were out of the cellars, Serina was able to breath a sigh of relief as she returned to the orderly world above ground. She was now being trailed by some growing distance by her two youngest children, who, as they often did, had slipped into conspiring whispers in her wake, no doubt deep into ambitious plans for the next day. It would have served no one any good for the Lady of that House, and the defacto leader and ruler of that community to show how much the tunnels beneath her home disturbed her deep down. As a Ronin, she had lived the first half of her life never more than ten steps from the sight of a clear sky, so to be so far cut off from the sky, fresh air, much less light was something hated for good reason. More than once she had wondered how her youngest could spend so long down below in that tangled twisting maze of tunnels, much less how any of her children could tolerate days and years playing childhood games of hide and seek in those same tunnels. It had taken many years for Serina to adjust to not be able to see changing scenery every day, but her love of the community gathered at the manor was often more than enough to fill her days,