The noon sun beat down upon the blinding white salt flats with unbending desert intensity, heating the hard-packed bitter salt crust until shimmering mirages danced along the northern horizon.
Three miles north of the Red Mesa, the open plain was fully deserted, offering a clear three-space-folding proving ground five miles across.
Arthur Vance stood beside the mobile lab wagon, his sleeves rolled above his elbows, his tactical monocle clicked down over his left eye. Resting on the folding steel table before him was a heavy, lead-lined vault box pulled out from Keith Mercer’s private quarters. A military-spec holding chamber holding three fist-sized, uncut solar aether crystals of Grade-One purity, reclaimed from the High Judge’s private reserves.
Beside the table, perched atop a stone-hard cedar stump, was Pip.
The little raptor’s ruby-and-gold plumage was trembling with intense, high-hum striking force. His sharp ruby eyes were locked onto the glowing crystals with hungry, avian hunger, his nares clicking in a nonstop, high-pitched whistle that sounded like a steam whistle on a high-pressure locomotive.
“Patience, Drill Sergeant,” Arthur murmured with a quiet smile. He used a set of non-magnetic brass tongs to transfer the first solar crystal into an agate mortar.
With a heavy bronze pestle, Arthur ground the dense crystal into an ultra-fine, shimmering golden powder. He mixed the powdered aether with three drops of refined royal honey from the nomad stores and two ounces of cooled bitter pine-resin infusion to prevent gastric ulceration during rapid absorption.
