by Alex Sapegin
Putting all the pieces together logically, Andy concluded that the Free Mages’ Guild was a heavily veiled state structure, a tamed trade union. True, the Guild was politically strong, but not independent. The Informants, the Secret Chancellery and the Royal Mages’ Guild kept all the bosses’ movements from the Free Mages under a watchful eye. In return, the royal higher-ups gave the Free Mages’ Guild significant privileges and the illusion of autonomy. The Royal Mages’ Guild’s double subordination did not allow any single one of the higher government officers to grow too strong. Bulldog fights under the rug—that was commonplace. Olli I’s successors had really set things up well: they concentrated all branches of power in their hands and declared their adherence to the principle of equal rights for mages, but only under the above-listed circumstances.
Time flew by unnoticed while Andy was reading and thinking over the charters. There were thirty minutes left until the workout. Slipping in and out of the store as quick as a wink, he then showed up to Berg’s gym. Ignoring Timur and Rigaud, who glanced at one another mysteriously, he quickly got changed and ran out to warm up.
The fact that he was now wearing a guild’s badge didn’t change a thing, except that his mentor’s vine staff got a little weightier and seemed a little sharper. Today the warm-up part of the lesson was much longer and harder. Berg made him run around the courtyard with a fifty-pound weight on his shoulders ten times. Then sent him to spar with Brig while wearing weight bracelets on his wrists and ankles. After such an intense warm-up, the sparring was a lot more fun. The end of his sword was quivering like a bunny’s tail and Andy had to make use of his astral “relative.”
In the evening, after a grueling workout and intense sparring with Brig, once Andy had showered, he was taken into custody of Rigaud and Timur and forcibly led to “The Blue bookworm,” under guard by. They took his vine staff from him and threatened him with a fatal beating should he refuse to obey. When the three of them entered the restaurant’s main dining room, they were met with the loud cry of a dozen voices. All Andys freshmen friends and even slight acquaintances were here (excluding the Rauu). Rigaud had organized a whole party committee led by Frida. Oh, thanks, guys! You guessed it! What can I say? They then had a happy feast; light young wine was flowing like a river. They made the hors d’oeuvres disappear as fast as the waiters could bring them. Everyone was young and still growing; no one suffered from a lack of appetite, especially when someone else was footing the bill! Kerr, in whose honor the party was held, refused to let them sponsor the party and took all the expenses for the food and drink on himself. (Talk about burning the candle at both ends—it was his second wild night out in a row!) Frida’s company heated one’s blood nicely.
As usual, they didn’t make it back by eleven. The School gates had been closed. Opening the window with a loud creak, the guard was presented with a universal entrance document—a three liter bottle of wine. Grumbling for show, the guard eventually went ahead and opened the gates a crack. The speed with which the young people slid through their narrow slot rivaled that of river loaches and lampreys, hiding in the mud. Forty seconds later the square in front of the School was empty. The bottle of wine disappeared towards the guards’ barracks even faster. The gates were locked and barricaded with a strong beam of wood. Happy sounds could be heard from the guards’ room—apparently, the fellow’s companions approved. The guard detail on duty wasn’t able to take part in the merriment that was beginning in the barracks, but each of them would get a half a silver crown and would be able to have a great next evening out in the city. Drinking on duty was sheer folly; you could lose your head for it. They had made a deal in order to be sure the gate guards on duty wouldn’t open the gates to anyone else before morning.
Andy decided against an evening workout. His arms and legs were falling off, and he had more important things to do. A “curtain of silence” came down on dorm room number nine. Even if the neighbors had been listening in, they wouldn’t have heard him and Frida.
Orten. The Orten School of Magic. Andy. Two weeks later…
“Mana and magic. What is the source of their existence in our world? Many venerable mages and philosophers have wrestled with this question and could not provide an intelligible answer. All their pondering lead to the very question of where mana, the driving force of any magical action, comes from in the first place. We know that the highest level of mana, over 14 Bell, is found within the borders of the forests of the elven people. They insist that the Mellorny trees produce mana, which is partly true, and that the mana produced, just as water from the mountains, drips down over the surface of the planet. The average mana level beyond the borders of the elven forests is 10 Bell. As we have seen earlier, the elves’ insistence that the Mellorny trees produce mana is not without foundation in truth. How, then, can we explain the unlimited ocean of energy in the internal layers of the astral? There is no such forest that can produce so much mana. Most probably, the Mellornys somehow tap into the astral plain and transform mana into the type of magical energy we are used to. We are not capable of studying in any detail the method of transforming the energy of the astral into mana because of the elves’ resistance to any such study, as everyone knows. Working with astral energy is incomparably more complex and only one mage in three hundred can practice this art: not only tapping into the astral, but taking energy out of it. Now then. What does “raw” astral mana consist of? In order to answer that, let’s take a look at the design or structure of the world.
The world we’re accustomed to is made up not only of the objects surrounding us, heavenly bodies: planets and stars, star clouds and dust, but of other worlds. The latest research proves the existence of worlds beyond the threshold of understanding. Entrance into these worlds has shown investigators that in those worlds, there is a different structure of energy field vibrations and passage of time. The investigators thought they had passed one hour in the other world, but came back to our world three hours or a day later. There were cases when a day had gone by in another world, but in ours, only seconds. All the worlds studied were united by one thing—the astral plain! In some worlds, it was powerful, and in others, weak. In worlds on the edge of the temporal cluster, attempts to tap into the astral plain were not successful. The astral there is separated from the real world by a powerful barrier and magical activity in these worlds is practically non-existent. The experimenters’ return was enacted due to their enormous internal reserve of mana and crystal basins, which recharge in that world unbelievably quickly.
Summating all the information of the research on worlds beyond the threshold, one can draw shocking conclusions.
Number one: the Great World and space are not the only realities. A multitude of worlds with a different energy-field structure and time structures exist. We see and are able to evaluate only a tiny percent of the diversity around us. The worlds are divided into clusters with accessible and inaccessible astral energy fields. In worlds with an accessible astral, there is enough mana to sustain magical activity. In worlds where the barrier does not allow access to the astral field, the level of magic is puny.
Number two: astral energy is born of the interaction of worlds on the borders of mutual contact and interpenetration. Mana is the derivative of astral energy. Astral energy can be transformed not only by Mellornys, but by all creatures able to tap into the astral field, because the investigators found no Mellornys in many worlds!
Number three: magic is possible only in those worlds, energy structure of which allows living creatures to convert mana and conduct magical activity on the world around them. It is in worlds like these that magic exists as a way of managing the flow of energetic processes by means of one’s own developed will…”
Andy closed the book. Two weeks of careful searching had finally paid off. He had found his first source. It was an ancient folio dating back to who knows when. One good thing about it was, it was written in Younger Edda. Now he could continue his search. But still…
&nb
sp; A cold chill ran down his spine. Back on Earth, in his former life, Andy used to like reading various entertaining encyclopedias. One of them was about space. He remembered very well that, according to the latest information by Earth scientists, five percent of the universe was made up of stars, interstellar gases and dust, and planets. The other ninety-five percent was what they called “dark matter;” it was not possible to study or explain the characteristics thereof. There you have your explanation, dear scientists! It was made up of other worlds and a different frequency of the oscillations of parallel worlds. For them, the Earth was like a neutrino—invisible and able to fly right through them. Perhaps another star from a parallel world located in the place of the Sun is generating those neutrinos? And Earth scientists were trying to catch them. That’s where the other ninety-five percent of the multidimensional universe got to! Simply beyond comprehension. You got dizzy even trying to imagine it. Becoming the archivist—and doing his best at it—was starting to pay off!
“The Nature of Mana and Magic,” another ancient book he discovered on the library’s level negative one (one lower than level zero), made his heart beat a little faster. The first book was a fat album of something like laminated paper. The first page contained the words “Runic magic and combinations of runic symbols and magical patterns.” Andy asked his assistants why a book like that was laying around in the far corner. The answer puzzled him—because no one can read it! So what if there was a description of actions as per the runic scheme and the names of the interweaves—without the pattern itself, this was nothing. Zip, zero, zilch! The book didn’t have the pattern, it had some psycho babble. Why the heck did the ancient authors write such a book and cast incredibly powerful preservation spells on it? Andy asked to borrow the album and take it back to his dorm. His boss just waved his hand dismissively.
Unbelievable. It’s not a book, it’s a buried treasure! Glancing at the designs, he was blown away. 3D illustrations—that’s what these were. You had to look at things like this from just the right angle, and that’s all. He used to have some of these when he was a kid. They showed animals, cars, and trucks… all you had to do was concentrate your focus on the image as if you were looking through it. Then the image would seem to “pop up” out of the page. He stared at a page. Suddenly, a three-dimensional pattern of runes appeared on it in an “ice strike” interweave. There were five hundred and two patterns in the album! Five hundred and two pages with patterns and descriptions of how to manipulate runes through energies and combination methods of various interweaves and energy bundles! This book wouldn’t be going back to the library! A gift like this from ancient authors had to be guarded with his life.
Setting “The Nature of Mana and Magic” aside, Andy straightened his back. His scars were making themselves felt with a shooting pain. Awful! When’s it gonna stop? For the second day now, his back stung, his scars ached, and lymph was leaking from them onto the surface of his skin. The delayed-action spell, devil take it. A true sadist had cast it on the boy, a real professional at this kind of thing. No matter how much time passed, and a lot had, he could still hear the whistle of the flaming whip and feel the monstrous pain of the powder from the black mushroom spores and the dried poisonous Birim flies being poured over his open wounds. They didn’t have time to employ the torture; Andy ran away. The thing is, though, the delayed-action spell didn’t disappear from his body after the Incarnation. You can’t get rid of elvish magic that easily. There were no scars in his dragon’s body. But as soon as he returned to his human form, take that! The one who cast the interweave could remove it, or use it as intended, which would heal quickly later, or wait. He could wait three years while his dragon’s body worked up a magical immunity and overcame the infection. It might happen sooner, but he had to be constantly in his true form for six months at a time at least.
It was too bad he didn’t have any helpers today; those guys had been pretty lucky—they were sent to spy on the Woodies. A whole crowd of students appeared in the Forest. Andy was glad he was sitting in a library. What if he accidentally killed someone? He made himself some tea, pulled the album closer, and took to reading it as best he could despite interruptions.
Orten. The Orten School of Magic. The library. Miduel…
Dreams. Again haunted by these memory dreams. Horrific nightmares and the old pain of his losses didn’t let him have any peace.
Reemiko. Reemi. He had always loved her, and would love her until the day he died. Reemi. In dreams, he flew on her back, high above the clouds. Her white wings smelled like wind, daisies, and a hint of musk.
In dreams, he relived their first meeting and that strong feeling of being in love. Earlier, he believed love wasn’t for him since he’d gotten married by political necessity. He didn’t spend enough time or attention on his spouse. Valiel gave birth to two of his children and left. He didn’t try to stop her. So be it. They weren’t humans. Living with someone who doesn’t love you can be torture. No elf would live that way. There was no such thing as love. That is what he thought until he met Reemi and the world turned upside-down.
He transferred power to his eldest son and left. He went to her. Flew away to the Lady of the Sky. Those were the best years of his life. Their happiness lasted eleven years , and then Reemi died….
Betrayal, betrayal was all around him. The true blood Lords of the Sky and chiefs of the Arians invited to the feast were served food mixed with black lily powder. The Arians died without even knowing what had poisoned them. The true bloods fell asleep; it worked differently on dragons. They cut off the helpless sleeping dragons’ heads. The executioner’s sword fell one hundred and eighty times that day.
When he found out about the conspiracy, together with the Rauu and the humans faithful to him, he sped to warn the others, but it was too late. After killing the conspirators gathered in the castle of Ilon, and making their way with swords in their hands to the banquet hall, he found only headless bodies. Reemi too. Her face was peaceful. Even death couldn’t take away her beauty.
The true bloods who had not come to the feast and remained alive began to hunt for the true sponsors of the killings. He and the Arians were investigated too. No one had expected the back stabbing. Mestair’s army and the Forest Lordships who supported it had struck when they least expected it. The hurriedly-gathered Arian armed forces held out against the united army for three days. The Rauu, the true bloods and the other dragons searched for the culpable parties in the mountains; they had been thrown off the trail by a false lead. The declaration of war came as a complete shock to everyone. What war?! There had been no war in Alatar for a thousand years!
By that time, he’d found the customers who ordered the killings and the real conspirators—the Lordships of the High Forest. The scariest thing was that Valiel, his former wife, was at the center of the conspiracy. She hadn’t forgiven him his love for Reemi. He had many questions for the conspirators. Most importantly: “why”? What had pushed the Forest elves to betrayal and a heinous crime? Or who. A cruel murder plot couldn’t simply appear out of nowhere. It had to be based on something. Someone had skillfully controlled the Forest Elves and their Lordships. The war that was sparked immediately afterwards didn’t allow him to find the answers.
The Arians and the Rauu gathered more forces and advanced on their former friends. The wood elves and the Mestairians suffered defeat after defeat. The Arians supported by the dragons bombarded the enemy from every direction. The Rauu didn’t allow the Woodies to send any reinforcements from the Forest. The true bloods preferred not to fight. Overcome by the frenzy of victory, the allies failed to notice the large squadron of mages who left for the mountains.
The news shocked everyone. Almost all female dragons in the nest settlements had been killed. The wrath of the Lords of the Sky was horrible. Hundreds of dragons prepared for battle. The dragons knew their strength and knew the strength of the Forest Lordships. There were only a few hundred of them, while their enemies were ten thousand str
ong. But that didn’t stop the winged force. The High Forest ceased to exist. The charred Dead Desert that remained could hardly be called a forest; it no longer resembled the green sea that had been swaying in the breeze just and hour before the dragons’ suicidal attack. Hundreds of thousands of Forest Elves and their allies rose from the forest to the skies. The guilty and the innocent, women, children and the elderly, all were engulfed in the monstrous blaze’s flame. The dragons did not distinguish; that was understandable. In slaying the female dragons, the elves had left them without a future. Almost all the true bloods left Ilanta for the nests before the Woodies’ attack. They left and sealed the portals. Something unusual and scary happened in Nelita, the homeland of the true bloods and dragons. The three that were left were observers and were to open portals from this side, but in the past three thousand years, the signal hadn’t gone off.
Using magic, the dragons sealed off the Forest Elves’ other possessions by limiting the growth of the Mellornys. The insane attack, full of rage, on the High Forest and the Woodies’ other properties drained the attackers of most of their strength. Many dragons outlived the elves they had killed for only a little while; they had invested their very selves in the attack. From a few hundred, only a few dozen survived.
He dreamed of war, in all its horror and many terrible manifestations.