Rotating slowly to take in the entire place, it came to him why he had come to dislike the magical wonder that was this forgotten city of Dhiloeckmyur -- there was too much magic.
Like an inveterate sot with his ale, these ancient magicians could not be separated from their spells and insisted upon weaving magic into every endeavor they undertook -- even when no magic was required.
He spread his magical sense and found not-quite-stone and flux reinforced steel beyond the dome. As he had suspected given the limited range of the port spells, this artificial glade was inside one of the towers.
As he finished his turn, he caught sight of a man waiting at the other end of the glade. Sitting in a very relaxed manner on a small bolder, the dark haired fellow was short and thin, with no sign of stubble on his smooth jaw, and might have passed for a stripling, save for the contrary proof that the deep lines of his face gave. When he raised a hand in greeting but made no move to rise, Mar advanced toward him.
"You look like them," the man said as soon as Mar was near.
Rather than be drawn in, Mar just waited for the man to speak again.
"My name is Mortyn. As you must expect, I am a Proctor. What may I call you?"
Mar thought of giving a false name, but expected that this Mortyn would be no more fooled than had Nali. "Mar."
"Ah, that is indeed remarkable! Would you mind if I asked how you came by that name?"
Mar did not really know. He had always been Mar. "An old woman named me."
"Your name is very similar to your father's. He was called nMahr and your mother was Orethe."
Mar did not react.
"We logged a report of their deaths two years ago along with the entirety of your lineage. We had known that your mother was with child, but were not aware of your birth and had assumed that you died along with her. Frankly, we were very much pleased when you turned up."
"If you haven't noticed," Mar told Mortyn flatly, "I'm not two years old."
The Proctor shrugged. "Such is the way of those who travel through undertime."
"What is it that you want of me?"
"A direct question deserves a direct answer: The Project desires your progeny."
"How's that?"
"Children, offspring, descendants --"
"I understood the word. I don't understand what possible interest you could have in my get."
"You know nothing of the Project?"
"No."
"I see. Shall I explain?"
Mar grimaced. Everyone in Dhiloeckmyur had something to explain or something to convince him of. "I'd just as soon skip the explanation."
Mortyn looked nonplussed, as if his carefully crafted script had gone awry. "It will be difficult to proceed without an explanation."
Relenting, Mar turned out his hands in a careless gesture.
Mortyn's smile returned. "The Project is in its four hundred and eighty-third year and is a long term, ongoing effort to perfect the magical nature of mankind through selective pairings that reinforce, enhance, and strengthen the natural abilities that are used to manipulate and sense the ether."
"You're breeding sorcerers?" Mar asked, not bothering to keep the contempt from his voice. The Brotherhood had the same insane idea.
"Nothing so crass as that. Our goal is not to improve any particular magical discipline but rather to encourage the creation of lineages whose members have a more evolved affinity for magic than the average magic user of today."
"You create freaks."
"Again, no. We do not manipulate and have not directly manipulated the expression of favored gene sets and do not engage in interspecies comingling. We find such practices distasteful and unethical. Our practices and techniques are entirely benign and our input non-intrusive. The Project employs only natural social bonding mechanisms to achieve its aims. Our primary efforts involve the maintenance of comprehensive genealogical records, the monitoring of the progress of familial lines, the facilitation of introductions to encourage promising pairings, and the provision of financial and other support to Participants."
"And I am important to your Project in what way?"
"You are the last surviving descendent of one of our control lineages."
"So you're saying that your Project is responsible for my birth?"
"Not at all. Your parents were Holders and if you are not aware, the Holder philosophy summarily rejected outside intervention of any kind. Their fundamental tenants included self-sufficiency, self-reliance, individual responsibility, and independence of action. External authority of any sort was anathema. While they had no prohibition against marriage outside of their clans, they tended toward endogamy. This proclivity made their pedigree fairly homogenous and thus a perfect choice as a base line of normal magical evolution to which the Project could compare and contrast the results of our experimental pairings. We simply left them to their own devices and documented the observed results."
"You said were. What happened to them?"
"They met an unfortunate, but, I fear, predictable fate. As the Oaurlervy Faction gained military power and expanded its territory, it came into constant conflict with the yeomanry of the Holder Movement. The Holders were never very numerous and though they managed on a number of occasions to deal serious setbacks to the Faction, the yeomen were heavily outmatched. The Holdings were defeated and destroyed one by one over a span of some fifteen years. The smallest, Kharae, held out longer than the others, but it too finally fell two years ago, apparently very near to the time of your birth."
Old Mar had said as much, though stripped of detail. Mar had not given it any consideration then, but with this confirmation, it would be no more than bull-headed obstinacy to reject it now.
He let the revelation roll around in his head for a moment and then realized that it did not matter. None of what this Proctor had said made any change in the person Mar was or the life that he had lived. For all of his days, his parentage had been a disregarded unknown. Even with names put to the people that had brought him into the world, he had no less reason to disregard them now.
Mar took the cylinder from his pocket.
"The reason that I came here was to find out how you came by this."
Mortyn smiled. "I am happy to see that you did receive it. We were not certain of the reliability of the channel into which we released it. It was supplied by an external consultant and the cost was very nearly prohibitive."
"Oyraebos gave it to you?"
"Our consultant is a wizard whom we know by the name of Zso, but it is entirely possible that he may have other names."
"I'd like to meet this wizard."
Mortyn made an apologetic gesture. "Zso is not a supporter of the Project and we are unable to communicate with him at will. As wizards are wont to do -- at least in our experience -- he will appear unannounced at a critical juncture, offer a solution to a current problem for an always exorbitant fee, and fade back into undertime."
Mar drew in a long breath, held it for a moment, and then let it out slowly. It was no surprise that the Proctors had been only another wasted detour, but that did not lessen his irritation.
For nearly three days, he had scampered hither and yon in this phantom world, chasing mirages and daydreams. It was time to cut his losses.
He began to gather flux to pry open undertime.
Apparently having detected the characteristic disturbance in the background ether, Mortyn leapt to his feet. "Wait! Zso left something else!"
The man snapped his fingers and a familiar-looking, tightly packed roll of paper tied up with string appeared in his hand
His eyes locked on the roll, Mar snatched it from Mortyn's hand, snapped the string with an impatient yank, and then opened it far enough to read the top page.
This was another scribbled note, written in the same sloppy hand and the same bastardized Old Formal as Oyraebos' first riddle.
"Three you have found,
"Of Thirteen that were once bound,
"T
he fourth awaits,
"One who will not hesitate,
"Find the cottage where it all began
"Deep in the bowels of undertime."
OYRAEBOS
With clumsy haste, Mar shifted this aside to read the next page.
Magic: A guidebook to Theory and Techniques
Chapter Thirteen: Wizardry and the Conundrum of Undertime
TWENTY-TWO
2170 by the Common Reckoning
(3211 Before the Founding of the Empire)
Secured City of Dhiloeckmyur
As arranged, Prim took a seat at a table on the south terrace of the Alryse Street Cafe. The cafe was an old fashioned place and had a waitstaff, so she was compelled to cool her heels until a waiter deigned to allow her to catch his eye. With expert insouciance, the rotund man presented her with a large menu, half-listened while she made her selection, then waddled away to submit it to the kitchen. To her surprise, her mulled cider and sweet roll arrived in less than a quarter of an hour. She tried both, found neither to her taste, and practiced her patience.
The wizard, dressed in the same conservative business attire in which she had always seen him, strolled up within five minutes and took the chair opposite. His expression was pleasant but his eyes, as always, scanned her as if stripping her naked. He had never made advances, but one gaze was enough to make her feel violated.
"It was as you said," she reported after the waiter had brought him a tea and moved out of hearing distance. "My scans showed that all of the traits that you listed have expressed."
Zso waved a negligent hand. "Of course. He is the thirteenth generation. Magic is as natural to him as swimming is to a fish. Did you infect him with the micro-nodes?"
"Yes. He is colonized."
"Very good. Four minutes after we finish speaking, you will receive an invitation from your supervisor, Walis, to visit Orbital B. It would seem that the two of you have a relationship?"
"I allowed him to bed me once on a whim. Now he's infatuated and won't be discouraged."
"I will pay triple your normal fee if you accept, with the provision that an acquaintance of mine shall accompany you."
"Walis would have a conniption if I asked to bring a man."
"My acquaintance is a woman. She will pose as your cousin."
She eyed the wizard for a long moment. "I think that I'll decline. Walis would have expectations and I already have plans to take some time off from both of my professions. I'm going to the southern coast and let the tropical sun leach the drudgery of Dhiloeckmyur from my bones."
"As you choose. Perhaps you would be interested in a look at your future?"
She felt her expression harden. "No, I would not, as a matter of fact."
Zso wave his hand in casual dismissal. "As you have provided good service during our brief association, I feel beholden to inform you of potential happenings that I believe hold considerable import for you. Positing that you indeed continue with your plans for a holiday, I am saddened to inform you that you will be arrested within the hour, tortured throughout the night, and executed tomorrow."
She shook her head in agitation. "I'm not under suspicion. Save for you, none of my clients can identify me."
"This is very nearly true. Three months and some days ago you provided a man named Trafis with restricted information concerning mine production for the previous quarter. Being a very cautious man, Trafis routinely attached a leeching imp to the ethereal channel by which the two of you spoke. This imp automatically logged the registered code of any comm within four paces, including the personal comm that you always carry. While Trafis had no reason to use the code to learn your name, he kept extensive records. He was arrested this morning by Compliance Officers for an unrelated matter and all of his records seized. He is in the process of confessing as we speak. A few minutes from now, the Investigative Section will identify you as a person of interest. In each and every one of the several potential sequences of events that follow your arrest, you are condemned by a secret tribunal and perish in agony."
Clamping her jaws shut on an angry outburst, she just waited.
The wizard finished his tea in a long draught, smacked his lips in appreciation, and stood.
"Were you, on the other hand, to accept my commission and leave Dhiloeckmyur with Walis and your cousin within the next half hour -- in order to temper his carnal intentions, you should tell him that your family insists that she come as a chaperon -- you will entirely avoid the repercussions of your illegal deeds. My acquaintance will be waiting at the Upper Canal port station in ten minutes. She will know you and has already been briefed on her role. As your baggage allowance on the orbital shuttle will be minimal, you should not concern yourself with packing. Your cousin will have an overnight bag with clothing and sundries for your use. Any diversion to your apartments or any of your other usual haunts would be unwise."
Prim cursed under her breath as Zso turned and moved away. With so little warning, her contingency plans were useless. The clandestine bank accounts containing the impressive sums that the wizard and her other clients had paid for her services over the years were lost to her. She could never return to the Commonwealth.
But, as much as it made her want to scream in rage, she did not dare attempt to divert from his instructions.
Only a fool would gainsay a wizard.
She hated wizards.
TWENTY-THREE
2168 - 7025 by the Common Reckoning
(3212 Before the Founding of the Empire - 1644 After the Founding of the Empire)
Tertiary Launch Site
Automated Sentry Four watched.
That was its purpose. While the semi-sentient routine had the processing power to have also managed any number of other tasks, it had only been given the one.
The bounds of its habitation were well defined -- the facility and its close environs -- but it had complete freedom within that range and also had the capability to monitor external channels. It could see and hear into any space no matter how well warded, observe any personnel that entered its domain, and listen to the entire world.
So it watched as personnel came and went, as equipment was installed and activated, and as the world outside its domain went about its usual businesses: commerce and strife.
At a point twelve years, nine days, forty-three minutes, and thirteen seconds into its journey, a new set of timed instructions were added to its command stack. Two years and ten months later, the timer on these instructions expired and it initiated the required power down. It caused all external linkages to be physically severed, disabled all remote sensors, disengaged all subsidiary nodes, reclaimed all sprite clouds, and caused its own core to be refined to a single active micro-node, an infinitesimally small spark composed of only a single sprite that had but one instruction.
After three years and one day of oblivion, the spark activated: REBOOT.
AS4's core rebuilt first, generating sprites from refined background ether to populate the branches of its subroutines one tedious node at a time. This method was the least efficient and most time consuming, but its primary instruction stack forbade connection to external ethereal sources. After 8.0687 seconds, its full functionality had been restored.
A systems check found its observational scope much diminished. No external linkages would respond to a command to come on line. Eighty-seven percent of its remote sensors no longer existed. The Vessels for its sprite clouds were so damaged that only one could be charged to the minimum operational threshold and it crashed with multiple errors when engaged. These faults were limiting rather than crippling and AS4 resumed its duties with the available remotes.
The facility had suffered critical damage in the interregnum, with all of its upper three levels obliterated and the next lower five revealing debilitating damage of decreasing magnitude.
While his sensory remotes located some decayed remains, he discovered no living personnel.
AS4 was not capable of being troubled by these even
ts and none met its programmed criteria for action. It continued to observe.
Three decades later, new personnel occupied the facility, renovating the wrecked levels and creating new constructions above. Over time, these new personnel took up residence in the rehabilitated facility, produced and matured new personnel, and engaged in commerce and strife. On occasion, some would make forays into the lower levels to repair and maintain magics of various sorts, but none ever attempted to enter its primary locus, access its logs, or push any new instructions onto its command stack.
Approximately a century later, a short but very spirited episode of strife depopulated and wrecked the facility once again. All but two of the original levels were annihilated in the process.
Over a period measured in millennia, more of AS4's remote sensors failed but it continued to watch with those that remained. From time to time, personnel came and went. Thrice, for a time, some tarried and built new constructions atop the ruins of the facility, but their occupation was only temporary, a matter of decades or centuries. These personnel had no ethereal signature that would register on AS4's ethereal probes and in general ignored the facility's fading magics.
At a time when AS4 had existed for many multiples of its projected operational life and was all but blind and deaf to both the physical world and the ethereal, its sole remaining ethereal probe registered a strong signature. This event triggered an instruction on its command stack that called for a full passive scan of the facility.
AS4 could not accomplish a full scan, but it did manage to initialize a motion detection ward at its primary locus.
Unidentified personnel had approached its Personnel Access Point. AS4 consulted its command stack and received a packaged subroutine that instructed it to initiate audio and video monitoring remotes of the location. None of the video devices responded and only one of the audio spells returned coherent data.
"Lady Constaz nh' Leaer nhi' Mohra of the House of Sihnel, my lord king. I'm foreman of this gang."
"Well met. This all looks good. Do you have everything you need?"
Wizard (The Key to Magic) Page 15