For no more than a second or two, Mar envisioned himself bolting back along the street and dodging into the first opening that he ran across to find a way up to the rooftops. At an earlier point in his life, that was exactly what he would have done. Now, he just waited, continuing to delve the mechanisms -- the monstrosities were plainly artifice and not transformed flesh like the Bhrekxa that had attacked him above Mhajhkaei -- and began to work through combinations to adapt his lifting and driving spells. The metallic portions did not reflect the pure sound-colors of steel, iron, copper, or brass, but he did discover elements of some of those modulations and as far as he could tell the monstrosities' shells would respond to his enchantments.
Sound emerged from the centermost monstrosity, echoed along the street, and registered belatedly to Mar's ears as a voice. Roughened and sounding slightly off, the voice was a man's, was insistent, and was clearly enunciating a command, but the words were in a language that Mar did not understand.
As he considered how to react, devices mounted to the ends of the arms of the two adjacent monstrosities swung to point squarely at his hiding place, causing him to guess that the things had cast spells to locate him. The obvious implication was that the devices were weapons, perhaps flinging projectiles in a similar fashion to the Brotherhood's magic driven catapults.
Making a flash decision, he dealt with the threat, casting flux modulations to imbue the mechanisms with lift and hurl all three backwards. The growling-carnelian smashed the monstrosities into and through the red brick wall of a building on the back corner of the intersection, sending up a great racket and a cloud of dust.
Without waiting to see what became of them, he sprinted across the street, enchanted his brigandine again, and sailed in spits and spurts up two storeys of clapboard to the roof. When he landed, he took off at a dead run, making as little noise as possible. As the roofs changed level, he went up or down as necessary, and when he came to a street or boulevard, he vaulted across with the aid of magic.
Disturbances in the background ether informed him immediately that a pursuit, a dozen or more of the monstrosities trailing in a semi-circle, had taken up. They remained behind buildings out of his direct line of sight, but their complex spells made their locations as clear to him as if he were standing next to them. As all of them maintained at least a hundred armlengths interval, he left them unmolested.
As he ran, for the first time he began to feel uncertainty. It was clear enough that these were not posers like the Phaelle'n, but true magicians. The sophistication and consistency of their spells showed that they did not use a hodgepodge of salvaged ancient magic. Whenever he was, it had to be somewhen in the age that Waleck had spoken of, that fantastic time when magic ruled the entire world. That meant that he had to have plunged deep into the past, millennia before the Empire had come into existence.
His instinctive preemptive attack had probably been an error. These magicians might simply be the local constabulary and while perhaps only suspicious before, they now definitely had cause to bring him to heel.
Regardless, he needed freedom of action to accomplish his task and would do whatever necessary to make sure that he was not caught.
Still pursued but not yet confronted, he reached a pigeon spike-topped parapet. Below it lay a broader back alley that sliced off to the left and might allow him to double back against his pursuit. To sight and to magic, the alley was clear, but directly across from him on the facing rooftop were more of the monstrosities and something else that was hidden behind a glamour that he could not penetrate.
A ball of ethereal flame snapped into existence and blasted towards Mar. Almost immediately, he read the modulation of the highly energetic mass of sound-color and dissipated it. Before the hidden magician could cast another, Mar leapt down into the alley, easing his fall with a reinforced enchantment.
Monstrosities flooded the alley from his right, covering ground with wide, sailing strides. He bowled them over as a mass, then pivoted to drive another clutch before him with magic driven wind, opening a hole in their line that he instantly charged through.
All about him, the monstrosities opened fire, casting blazing bolts of multi-colored light whose cores possessed charges of grunting-persimmon. Deflecting these with a complementary howling-puce, he slowed as his magic required greater concentration, but continued forward, knowing that escape required that he break out of the cordon that the monstrosities were trying to close.
Before he had gone more than half a dozen steps, shockwaves crashed through the background ether as incredibly dense masses of flux plummeted from above, dropping directly on top of him.
Hastily cast layers of contrary flux, the spell an amalgam of an air shell and an adapted glamour, shielded him from the effects, both ethereal and physical, of the ensuing blasts, but the fire and light that flared outside his defenses dazzled his eyes and for a moment or two he was blind to his surroundings. Unaffected, his ethereal sense warned him of the sudden charge of the monstrosities. Blinking in an attempt to clear his vision and feeling his head begin to spin, he nevertheless managed to enchant all that approached and hurl them back.
With a sense of impending panic, he realized that if he did not leave quickly, his attackers would soon be able to concentrate sufficient numbers to trap him with physical bulk alone. He needed to get back to the open rooftops. Striving for a near overload that would catapult him into the air, he had started to infuse his brigandine when he sensed a sudden, shocking stir in the ether behind him.
He made to spin about, but did not complete the motion.
TWO
2170 by the Common Reckoning
(3211 Before the Founding of the Empire)
Dhiloeckmyur Province
Beltr studied the unconscious man.
On his orders, the enforcement team soldiers had restrained the perpetrator with ethereally neutral steel manacles, binding his hands and feet behind his back and cinching the bindings together with an equally magically impervious cable. As a further precaution, they had also strapped an inert black hood over his head. Beltr had no restraining spells in his repertoire and summoning the aide of another sorcerer was something that he scrupulously avoided. Ambition was endemic among Compliance Officers and he had not achieved his current position by providing ammunition to his rivals.
By outward appearance, the perpetrator was young, between the ages of twenty and twenty-five. This had surprised Beltr. What little he knew of wizardry had given him the impression that mastering the discipline took most of a lifetime.
The perpetrator's stature and build fell well within the normal ranges. His facial features and hair color were likewise unremarkable. He had no readily identifiable scars or other distinguishing markings.
His attire, however, was more than passing strange. Trousers and shirt were cut simply from rough natural cloth and vest from thick leather. Decorated with hexagonal steel studs, the sleeveless vest was of a style that Beltr had not previously seen and was possessed of a number of buckles and straps that clearly had been added to make it into a harness. All three items were dirty, scorched, ripped, and holed. Bare feet extended from the ragged and shortened ends of his trousers. If Beltr had not known better, he would have thought the man to be some impoverished vagrant wandered in from the backwoods.
But the magic that he had thrown about proved the captive a very powerful sorcerer and that alone condemned him as an enemy of the Faction.
Beltr was sorely tempted to order the offender put down on the spot. Possible wizardry notwithstanding, his flagrant use of unregistered and unrestrained sorcery merited summary execution. Beltr's superiors would certainly not question that decision; elimination of potentially subversive threats was a normal and expected part of his duties.
With the faceplate of his helmet open as he monitored the comm phases, Enforcement Officer Nhilsi spoke up from just a few paces away.
"Sir, the Rep-Rec team has extracted EO Dlygm and he has been ported to hospital.
The techs indicate that his armor is a total loss. None of the Vessel hardware can be salvaged. Also, they report that it does not respond to standard port or levitation spells. They recommend annihilation in place."
"Was any data recovered from his onboard recorders?"
"No, sir. Everything is gone. While he can't confirm it here in the field, the senior tech believes that the armor suffered an ethereal overload on the order of more than one thousand times rated capacity."
Beltr felt his jaw tighten. The magic systems of the armor were rated for battlefield conditions and were designed to be able to withstand a direct strike from a Level Six spell.
"Have the armor transported by physical means to the maintenance facility at the Investigative Section. I want a comprehensive flux-level analysis of every single spell system."
Nhilsi raised his eyebrows but nodded. "Yes, sir."
While the EO relayed the orders into his comm, Beltr noted that his pinkish hued vision had begun to show highlights of purple, a telltale sign of increasing light. He waggled his right ring finger in a precise series of loops and the light enhancing spell on his eyes faded. Daylight was just beginning to seep into the alley, brushing soft yellow light along the parapets of the facing buildings. The reactive outer shells of the interdicting Support Officers' armor had already begun to adapt to reflect the dusty ochre brick of the building walls and the grimy olive of the cobbles.
He again considered the perpetrator. There remained the very likely possibility that this felon had not acted alone in his illicit wizardry, but had in fact been aided by some number of confederates. In Beltr's experience, the isolated offender was the aberration rather than the norm. A wizard plus a supporting group plus clandestine action equaled a conspiracy. Whether that conspiracy plotted simple crime or heinous rebellion did not matter; either was a danger to the peace established by the Faction.
Beltr realized that he could not dispose of the perpetrator without first determining with full confidence that no other renegades remained at large to trouble the Commonwealth.
"Enforcement Officer Nhilsi, I am personally going to port the perpetrator to the Investigative Section. You will remain in charge of the situation here. In particular, question any of the inhabitants that exhibit any inordinate interest in our procedures or express any sort of curiosity concerning the offender. Detain all who appear suspect and deliver them for inquisition."
"Yes, sir."
After sending a set of instructions ahead via his comm, Beltr tapped a coded tattoo on his port bracelet to tell it to extend its magic to the perpetrator, then tapped it again to initiate the spell to transfer the two of them directly to the Investigative Section's maximum security inquisition chamber.
When he and the perpetrator appeared on the centered platform under the focused floodlights, he found, as he had ordered, Rhingyll Szck and a squad of enforcement officers waiting in the otherwise featureless space. The officers were not, of course, wearing field armor, but each did have a sidearm and shoulder weapon. Per standard procedure, the men straightaway aimed their shoulder weapons at the perpetrator.
Lying on his side, the perpetrator had ported within the unmarked boundaries of the motion restraint hex. Beltr and the soldiers were warded from the hex, but once it was in place the perpetrator should be entirely immobilized.
"Szck, have your men secure him in a standard examination chair. Remove the hood."
"Should we also remove the manacles and leg irons, sir?"
"No. Dispense with the binding strap but leave the rest in place. Have a medic report here at once. I will need the perpetrator conscious so that we can begin the inquisition immediately."
While four of the enforcement officers hoisted the perpetrator, summoned the reclined chair, and dropped him in place with no wasted motion, the rhingyll ported out for a few seconds and then returned. By design, the chamber's standard wards would not permit comm signals of any type to pass through its walls.
Beltr himself activated the restraint spell, using his own standard issue high level Key.
The medic, a woman in the standard uniform -- multi-pocketed impermeable purple coverall and sealed sanitary boots -- appeared just a moment later on the other side of the recumbent wizard from Beltr. She was tall, short haired, and, not that he deigned to notice such things, lithe and full fleshed. With two large orange trauma bags draped from her shoulders and a number of handheld instruments clipped to her coverall, she appeared to have come prepared for any emergency. Her head swung through a hundred and eighty degree clinical observation of the chamber, dismissing the uninjured Beltr, Szck, and enforcement officers, and then settled her eyes on the perpetrator. She made a head to toe visual examination of the man and then awarded Beltr a nod, but said nothing. Clearly cognizant of inquisition protocols, she made no move to approach her patient.
For the benefit of the recording equipment and the medic, Beltr announced, "The port interdiction ward will now be enabled."
This precaution was normally unnecessary, but considering the demonstrated magical prowess of the prisoner, he felt it unwise to take any risks. The interdiction ward would remain in place for two hours and no one, either inside the chamber or outside of it, could disable it without a Master Key until the interval had passed. As the chamber had no physical exits of any sort -- even the interior atmosphere was generated by spells -- no one would be able to enter or leave. In the improbable event that the perpetrator should be able to free himself from the restraining magics and incapacitate or kill everyone else within, he would still be trapped within a reinforced metal-ceramic composite enclosure whose blast resistant walls would survive forces that would bring down the rest of the building while an alarm sounded to alert every Compliance Officer in the city.
Beltr made the appropriate arcane gesture to initiate the ward, then spoke to the woman. "Medic --"
"Emergency Medical Technician Second Class Prim Olfew," the woman supplied.
He took this preemptory introduction to mean that she was not the sort of person who was content to remain an anonymous non-entity.
"Medic Olfew," he resumed without ire, "revive the perpetrator."
Olfew shrugged her shoulders to allow the trauma bags to slide to the floor then took a knee beside the chair and made a waving pass with what Beltr readily recognized as a metabolic skry stone.
She glanced at the readout. "The subject was struck unconscious by a physical blow and not by a spell. Please confirm." It was clear that she was also mindful of the recording equipment.
"This is correct," Beltr said.
Olfew frowned as she continued to stare at the readout.
"Is there some problem, medic?"
"High order regenerative magic has recently been used on both legs and right arm."
"Meaning?"
"The subject was previously a triple amputee."
"And this is usual in what way?"
"Current medical standards call for traumatic limb injuries to be repaired immediately. Amputation is performed only when the proper medical apparatus and personnel are not available. This would indicate that the subject was in a remote area when he suffered his injury."
"Information noted."
Olfew exchanged the skry stone for another instrument which she pointed briefly at the perpetrators head. "A concussion, but no hemorrhage. I recommend that the brain injury be repaired. This will allow the subject to awaken without the use of stimulants. Is this treatment authorized?"
As a member of the Medical Directorate, Olfew was not technically subject to Beltr's direct command. However, every rational person in the Faction deferred to a Compliance Officer.
He saw no reason to object. "Treatment is authorized."
Olfew removed an object that looked like nothing more than a river washed flat stone, placed it against the perpetrator's temple, and cast, "Gho-nhish-mhal-dyu-wahr."
After consulting her skry stone again, Olfew stood up and took two steps back.
The p
erpetrator's eyes snapped open and his entire body stiffened as he struggled against the restraint hex and his manacles, but after a few seconds he abandoned his resistance, assumed a relaxed pose, and gave every outward indication of total submission. The hex prevented him from turning his head, but his gaze swept across those that were in his field of view: Beltr, Olfew, Szck, and two of the enforcement officers. After a moment, he worked his jaw in an obvious test of the limitations of the hex and then asked a question in a calm tone.
The language that the man used was completely unfamiliar to Beltr. "What is that? Anyone recognize it?"
"Very guttural," Szck opined. "Sounds primitive."
"To me, it's similar to one of those clannish tongues that the Holders used," Medic Olfew suggested.
Making a mental note to later investigate why Olfew might be familiar with the eradicated Holder movement, Beltr addressed the perpetrator. "Do you speak Common? Can you understand me?"
The man replied in the language that he had used before, but his demeanor indicated incomprehension.
"Medic Olfew, do you have the capability with your portable equipment to inject educational micro-nodes?"
"Yes, Compliance Officer Beltr."
"I presume you have a comprehensive Common dose?"
"Indeed. My standard kit contains all major modern languages, a broad swath of mathematics, and also some --"
"Excellent. Administer it. Make sure that the nodes are set to dissipate upon completion of task."
"You understand that the ability to speak the language will only be temporary? Depending upon physiological factors, it may last no more than ten days. Flux induced language cannot produce long term skill and is normally administered only as a learning aid."
"Yes, yes, that is fine." Beltr did not see any need to add that he did not expect that the captured wizard would live out the week.
Wizard (The Key to Magic) Page 2