The Doktor's Spyglass

Chapter 14.4

She had left him the necklace, dropped in a pile of chain on the corner of his work table. A gesture heavy with meaning, only one aspect of which Key recognized: he could now continue his work.

When he had the battery set up, he placed the elekstone pendant in a small, shallow dish of copper, which he connected to two miniature electrodes. He connected one of those in turn to one of the larger cables connected to his battery, leaving the last connection broken for the moment.

Standing back from his table, he sighed slightly, unable to contain the anxious feeling that he was standing on a precipice. Part of it was the possibility that running electricity through the pendant would destroy the stone, thus ruining a terribly expensive possession of his best and only friend. But far greater than that was the concern that he may not be able to get his hands on another piece of elekstone anytime soon. He chewed his lip in consternation, both surprised and slightly annoyed that Seffa's feelings had come into the equation at all. There was a time when it wouldn't have occurred to him.

There was also a time when Key wouldn't have acknowledged, even to himself, the fact that he didn't clearly understand what he was about to do. A time when he wouldn't have cared. But now, even as he prepared to do it nonetheless, the number of unknown variables loomed in his mind.

For the first time, he regretted never indulging his father's wish for him to spend more time at one of his manufactories. Valkin would likely have put him through his paces before ever allowing him near something so precious, and so interesting to Key, as an elekstone generator, but it might have been worth it in the end.

The great manufactories, those owned by men like Valkin Helg and his class of new aristocratic industrialists, all had at least one elekstone dynamo running as a primary or secondary source of power for their businesses. For some, it was small enough that a significant amount of traditional steam power was still required to run daily operations. They kept it as a mark of honor more than anything else, a symbol of the quality of their process and the notability of their firm.

In Oridos, elekstone was prestige. Elekstone was power, in every sense of the word.

It was the great manufacturers, like Valkin Helg, the titans of the Forge, who ran plants driven solely by elekstone, a power source that, when used correctly, provided energy at a rate and efficiency that made the coal dug out of mountain seams and the more ancient wind turbines seem quaint and primitive. It was the substance itself that gave off power, and it did it without chemical transformation. You didn't burn it, or melt it, or convert it to vapor: you merely tapped into it as one might a battery like Key's own, and a fresh supply of brilliant energy pulsed from it without limit or apparent end.

A world built on elekstone would be a world of dreams, capable of any feat the human mind could imagine. Unfortunately for the ancient and holy city of Oridos, however, the supply would never meet the demand.

The method of tapping elekstone for power was not secret, precisely, but neither was it common knowledge, and it was complex enough that it required first hand instruction—for most—or at least observation—for someone like Key—in order to replicate. His father had denied him that opportunity—or, rather, offered it at a price he wasn't willing to pay.

He'd taken it upon himself to recreate the process on his own, with only a handful of facts and a long list of suppositions to aid him. It was a dangerous prospect, and he knew it.

Elekstone was infamously tough, difficult to shatter, impossible to work like metal. But it was susceptible to improper electrical stimulation, and if current was passed through it in the wrong manner, or in the wrong amplitude, it was known to become inert.