Wizard (The Key to Magic)

by H. Jonas Rhynedahll

  Then he learned something new -- monstrosities could fly.

  Not very high and not very far -- it was more of an assisted jump -- but the ability did bring them close enough from the rooftops, balconies, terraces and promenades all around to throw chunks of not-quite-stone at him.

  The missiles, many half as big as he was, came at a blazing speed. At first, he simply hovered, enchanting and deflecting, but then he realized that the chunks flew just like anything thrown -- straight and predictable -- and were easier to avoid.

  He swooped left, redirected a chunk as big as a melon, and sent it to bowl over a monstrosity landing on a roof not fifty armlengths below him. He went left again as a cluster of chunks pressed close, then down to clear a spread pattern of three. With a fierce grin, he redirected the trio downward to batter another monstrosity off his perch on the parapet of a terrace.

  In spite of the ineffectiveness of their attack, the monstrosities persisted, filling the sky with spinning rocks and he continued to dodge and send an occasional missile back at them.

  Trying to think of a way to disengage before more automatons showed up, he cast his glamour, but again found his magic stymied by agitations in the ether. It seemed that only his most basic spells were working without disruption.

  He saw another chunk coming and shifted left, fighting his uncooperative brigandine, and drifted over the unencumbered roof of a lower tower.

  It had just come to him that the monstrosities might be using the missiles to herd him when the sorcerer attacked.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Fire backed by strong force hammered him from the sky while debilitating pain assailed his body.

  He managed to hit the roof on his remaining foot, but staggered and collapsed to his knees when the fire hammer bore down. As the furnace-hot orange flames engulfed him, he smelled his several days' beard, the hair on his head, and the frayed fibers of his coat begin to smolder.

  Throwing out his hands in a savage gesture, he created a wave of contrary flux that extinguished the reaching fire, swept away the pain, and neutralized the sound-color of the crushing force.

  A waggle in the ether warned him in time to drop and roll to his left as the very same yellow jacket who had questioned him in the Faction stronghold ported in swinging a weighted baton. Mar came up fast and spun to put his eyes on the Faction officer, then fired off a blast of wind and set fire to the roof under the sorcerer.

  Both wind and fire swirled about the yellow jacket without touching him.

  Making no further move toward Mar, the man evinced no surprise that his tactic had failed to work twice. With flagrant unconcern, he slid the baton into a loop on his belt and then contemplated Mar with a pleasant, open expression.

  As a striking addition to the utilitarian yellow uniform and jewelry that Mar had seen before, the Compliance Officer wore a spiked steel helmet that was different only in its flaring shape from those that the armsmen of Mar's own time used. Battered and rusty, it seemed something that he might have dug up on an old battlefield.

  "I am Compliance Officer Beltr. Forgive me for the oversight, but when we previously met, introductions were not convenient. I would like to propose a truce."

  Expecting an attack, Mar did not reply and instead lifted off the roof.

  "On my word as a sorcerer of the Elder Rank, I swear that I will make no hostile move during the truce," Beltr called. "Your alternative is to face immediate attack from me and the Enforcement Officers, drones, and aircraft that are closing on our position."

  Six armlengths away, Mar paused. With his most powerful spells crippled, he could not argue with the fact that the sorcerer and his Faction minions had the upper hand. He was not so foolish as to trust the yellow jacket, but talking might gain time to figure out a way out of this mess.

  He halved the distance between the two of them. "Tell the rest to hold where they are."

  Beltr nodded and tapped his bracelet. "Unfortunately, I can delay the attack for only ten minutes."

  "Then you'd better say what you have to say."

  "You will not escape into undertime." The sorcerer pointed to his helmet. "This is the Langdyr Artifact, which, if you are unaware, was created by the Ssoli. Their spells, though primitive and unstructured, were in some cases more powerful than any modern magic. The Vessel of this particular spell is unique in that it exists within an ethereal pocket that does not permit it to be manipulated by any known magical means. The helmet was created for Ptol, the Prime Magistrate of sunken Lym, who had a paralyzing fear of wizards. The helmet, as I believe you already know, suppresses all flux interactions with undertime."

  Mar drifted closer. "I've fought everything that you've sent at me and beaten it."

  "True and you have done it in a remarkable fashion. I wish that I had time to ask you about the spell that you used to disable this last phalanx of drones. It would be an excellent addition to the arsenal of the Commonwealth. With our time short, though, I must instead point out that you have not come through this battle unscathed. Your amputated limb is sufficient proof that one man cannot stand against an army forever. Eventually, the drones or the Enforcement Officers or my own magic will overwhelm you. If you continue to resist, your death is all but certain."

  Mar shrugged, again moving slightly closer. "Then why talk?"

  "If you agree to cooperate, I can guarantee that no further harm will come to you and I swear that I will arrange for your unconditional release within five days."

  Mar was only two armlengths from the sorcerer now. "Cooperate how?"

  "Name your confederates."

  "There aren't any. I came here alone."

  "I am sure that you indeed did, but it is clear that you have had assistance from individuals within the city. Identify some number of those -- the quantity is irrelevant -- and additionally confess the aid of a set of Faction collaborators that I will provide."

  "And these collaborators would be your enemies."

  "No. I do not indulge in the game of allies and enemies. The names are those of individuals who for various reasons might be impediments to my long term goals." Beltr did not smile. "I will need your answer immediately. Time is growing short."

  Mar used the Keys that he had just finished devising to cancel the spells on the sorcerer's protective pendant, and then surged forward, catching Beltr completely off guard. His kick landed in the pit of Beltr's stomach with the added force of his lunge and his extended right boot staggered Beltr, bending him double and allowing Mar to lay both hands upon the helmet. Wrenching it free of the gasping sorcerer, he backed rapidly, whipped around, and slung it as hard as he could. The headpiece cleared the roof edge twenty armlengths away and dropped from sight.

  It had been plain that the Key to the helmet's spell was the act of being worn. With both it and the pendant deactivated, all his spells should function.

  As Beltr began to try to get to his feet, Mar slammed him down again with an experimental gust, moved away, and began to gather and refine whispering-gray background ether into Black.

  A fire hammer bowled him over and he dove to the side as it struck again, smashing down onto the roof and splashing up droplets of flaming tar. Before he could gather his wits to reply, Beltr was up and charging as he gestured to key more attacks.

  Mar flew up off the roof, crashed into the sorcerer, and the two of them went down in a tangle. He threw rapid punches to Beltr's head in an attempt to prevent him from keying another spell. With trained proficiency, Beltr blocked each blow and threw Mar off with a hard shove from his right foot.

  The two of them sprang up together, but with the assist of his brigandine Mar moved faster and attacked again before Beltr could complete another gesture, landing a right to the sorcerer's jaw that rocked his head back.

  With an angry yell, Beltr abandoned his spells and began to snap blazing fast punches and kicks that forced Mar to give ground. He kept his elbows tucked in and few of the blows landed, but the flurry kept him busy.

 
; Without warning, Beltr leapt back and slapped his hands together hard.

  A force like two stone walls struck Mar from each side, crushing the breath from him and causing his vision to swim, and he hung stunned and limp in his brigandine. When he could see straight, Beltr was standing within striking distance, holding his baton.

  "Surrender!" the sorcerer demanded. "My offer still holds."

  Mar made his brigandine catapult him at the sorcerer and Beltr instantly swung the baton.

  Mar ducked beneath the sweeping length of wood, shot back to his full standing height, and whipped his left fist into the sorcerer's throat.

  Beltr staggered back, gagging, but while his left hand clutched at his purpling neck, his right released the baton and rose to key another spell.

  Mar seized the burgeoning flux modulation, imprisoned it within a shell of contrary flux, and then fed the raw energy of a shivering-orange component of sunlight into it.

  The spell overloaded in short order, ruptured the confining shell, and erupted into a blaze of scalding blue fire that consumed the sorcerer's hand and hurled him, smoldering and screeching, backwards.

  Sheltered behind a hastily erected ethereal wall, Mar remained unfazed. With an exacting gesture that felt natural and familiar, he chopped both hands sideways as if they were knives, generating a blade of Black that sliced open a channel to the heart of undertime. He had positioned the portal directly behind the sorcerer and Beltr's momentum carried him straight in. Immediately, the ethereal turmoil drew the sorcerer in like a riptide. Then, from one eye blink to the next, he simply came apart, dissolving like dust thrown in a puddle, the flux modulations of his body sundered and absorbed into the raging stream.

  Mar spread his arms to close the portal, stood stock still for a long breath, then swung his head about.

  The automatons and the monstrosities would be coming.

  He could stay and fight.

  He could destroy them all.

  He knew, without a doubt, that his magic was now powerful enough to stop anything that the Oaurlervy Faction could throw against him.

  But the prospect of more battles for nothing that mattered did not temp him at all.

  He was done with the deadly diversions of this distracting and troubling past.

  Without a backward glance, he opened a portal into undertime with a wave of his hand and escaped back into its comforting turmoil.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  2170 by the Common Reckoning

  (3211 Before the Founding of the Empire)

  Orbital A

  His hands still trembling from the attack, Mortyn released the acceleration cage that had left him immune to the crushing forces of the high speed boost from the surface and climbed out of his couch. Having no baggage, he joined the general exodus from the shuttle. Like him, the other passengers, a mixed lot of Proctors and Participants, had ported directly into the shuttle passenger compartment just seconds before it had taken off. Some of them had the stunned expression of someone that had narrowly avoided death, but many simply looked relieved.

  The landing bay was crowded. Five other shuttles of the large dual mode Majesty class were docked and all were likewise disgorging full compliments of passengers. In addition, what appeared to be several shifts of dockhands were sliding lifters holding bulk shipping containers from the shuttles' full cargo holds. Oddly, the prep crews who would normally be intensely busy making the shuttles ready to return to the launch site were just lounging on stacks of dunnage, lending a hand in the unloading, or directing exiting passengers toward the locks that opened on the corridors of the habitat.

  After he stepped off the end of the gangway, he paused to look up and down the curved blister of the dock. No Section Leader was in evidence and those directing the unloading were regular orbital apparatchiks. When he saw Myra, a pilot that he had met just over a month ago, two stations anti-spinward, he started in that direction, moving against the general flow of traffic. She stood in the lee of a winged stanchion with a gathering of other pilots and shuttle crewmembers who were likewise remarkable in their inactivity.

  When he approached, a smile sprang to Myra's face and she immediately beckoned him over. On a personal level, he found this encouraging; he had been covertly wooing her almost since the day that they had met without detecting much indication of interest on her part.

  "You just came up in the Lion?" she asked as soon as he joined the small group.

  He nodded. "Just barely made it."

  "You were lucky," she said, losing her smile. "Lion was the last one off. The Faction shut down the Commonwealth site with Bear still in the tube."

  "Did Lion have a full load?" one of the other pilots asked.

  "Yes, no empty cages that I saw."

  "Most everyone got out then," a woman suggested.

  "Who was crewing Bear?" another asked.

  "Lor, Malchen, and Silis," Myra said with a frown.

  "What will happen to them?" the woman wondered.

  A man made a chopping motion against the back of his neck. "They're done for."

  Mortyn told Myra, "I need to find my section chief. Any idea of his location?"

  "Your Section has been quartered in the sunside northeast quadrant, sixth level," Myra supplied. "That is where he is likely to be. Do you know how to get there?"

  Having lived on the orbital for ten months while he assisted with its construction, he knew the corridors and passageways like he knew his own face. He projected uncertainty. "Not exactly."

  She stepped alongside him and linked her arm through his. "Come with me. I'll show you."

  As soon as they had moved away from the group, she asked him, "How long will the emergency last, do you think?"

  It was no secret that he was a Prime Operative and he now understood, with some disappointment, that she had not sought his company for social reasons but rather to find out if he had any more information on the evacuation than she did.

  "I have no idea, really," he told her. "I had no warning at all. In fact, I was in the middle of an attempt to recruit a Participant when the Enforcement Officers showed up. I had to openly use a combat spell to be able to port away. The drop everything and get out signal arrived on my comm less than thirty seconds after that."

  "It is different this time. The moves against the organization are not confined to the Commonwealth. I brought up two loads from the League in the Wolf yesterday."

  Myra had not released his arm and he sensed genuine worry in her voice. After a moment of indecision, he decided that the physical contact would not necessarily be construed as a likely unwelcome romantic overture and patted her hand where it lay on his forearm. "Our contingency plans are functioning as designed. The Project is not in jeopardy."

  "I suppose that you are right," she said, not sounding convinced as they stepped into a glide tube and were sped along spinward. "How long do you think that we will be cut off from the Commonwealth?"

  "I could not say. As long as the Faction is in control, I do not think that we will be allowed to use the Commonwealth launch site."

  "I was in Control when the League denied access to their site. Are we completely cut off from the surface?"

  "No, the new site is operational. I saw the report last week."

  "So I should expect my regular service schedule will resume at some point?"

  "If it does, I do not think that it will be soon. It is impossible to land a shuttle in secret. Once we send one down, everyone will know where the tertiary site is, wards or no wards, and that would almost certainly mean that it too would be shut down. The tertiary site has always been intended as a last ditch back up."

  She frowned, and to his surprise tightened her grip on his arm. "As large as this orbital is, it is still a small place and all these extra bodies are going to make it even smaller. If we are going to be up here for an extended length of time, we will all become very familiar."

  "That would not be terribly unpleasant, do you think?"

  "No
," she agreed with a smile.

  Still linked, he moved with her as she stepped out of the glide tube into the northeast quadrant main corridor.

  Here she finally released his arm, but did not step away from him. "Meet me for supper?"

  "Of course. Where and what time?"

  "Earthside southwest quadrant common room at seven?"

  "I will be there."

  She leaned close and kissed his cheek, then hopped back into the glide tube and slid out of sight.

  Smiling, he moved along the corridor until he saw someone from his Section, asked about the Section Leader, and was directed to the dispensary.

  The dispensary was one of the largest compartments in the quadrant, but he caught sight of the tall figure of his Section Leader immediately, crossed to his table, and sank into the empty chair. Rather than a meal, half a dozen skry stones and a notepad were spread upon the table.

  "I barely escaped," Mortyn told his long time friend with some heat. "Why was I not warned?"

  His friend raised his hands in placation. "I did not have a warning to send. I had no inkling of the danger. My dreams are fixed upon the wars and the ether has been clouded for Chelsen for several days. We had less than half an hour's notice from a source inside the Faction."

  "What of Bernis and Pavvly? They have always had clear sight of imminent danger."

  "We have had no communication with either in two full days."

  "Have they been arrested?"

  "We do not know. We have lost contact with the other Chapters."

  "What! All of them?"

  "As of three hours ago, the last of the Chapters in the League cities that we still had a comm link with went silent. We evacuated all personnel from the Republic last week just ahead of a nationwide raid. The last message that we received from the Chapters in the Alliance was to the effect that they had chosen to disperse and shelter in place."

  Mortyn's expression became grim. "Is it a coordinated purge?"

  "As far as the League Chapters, it appears so, but I think that there is no direct connection between the actions in the separate political blocks. The great powers are simply tightening their security in preparation for the coming wars."