by Jean Johnson
“Where is this?” Myal asked in a whisper, heart racing in alarm. “Where in Aiar is this? I don’t recognize any of the building styles.”
“It’s not here. It’s in Fortuna . . . and it hasn’t happened yet.” Kerric flinched as a six-armed demon disemboweled some armor-clad, brave, but outclassed warrior. Turning, he faced another mirror, one set to record everything the larger mirror had seen. Stroking the edge of the frame, he backed up the recorded scryings, watching for the exact moment in time when the placid view of Fortuna had changed.
Myal, holding her tongue while he spellcast, watched the new, smaller mirror as the images of the demonic invasion flowed backward, eased, and retreated. She’d seen reversed recordings of scrycastings before. Usually, such things fascinated her, watching time flowing backward. This time, the images were too gruesome and disturbing to enjoy. They also started to blur, they moved so swiftly. Grim-faced humans—Fortunai—retreated from clashing with the demons. They stood in formation as their leaders rode their horses backward back and forth, no doubt giving stirring speeches. They gathered in the great plaza before their Temple, first in mighty ranks, then in grim-faced formations, then in straggling groups, until there was nothing but a plaza of unhappy people hurrying back and forth under a sickly-looking sky—
The grim, overcast image vanished. Bright blue sky overhead, peaceful daylight, and a placid plaza filled with priests, petitioners, and average citizens took its place. Kerric jabbed at the forescrying mirror, freezing its image, and slashed out his hand. A mesh screen rolled his way on metal casters. As Myal watched, he muttered strange sounds and scratched glowing lights on first the surface of the mirror, then on the blank, unlit mesh, until a modest rectangle blossomed on its surface, showing the frozen image had been captured by the board for manipulation.
“I don’t know what changed in the world to create such a horrible future possibility,” he murmured, aware that Myal was silently watching and wondering what was going on. He was wondering, too. “But I do know I can quickly rule out whether or not it was something we did.”
A scooping slash of power connected the board to a couple others, which lit up with images of their own. Myal peered past the first to get a better look at the rest, then looked back at Kerric. “What are you doing?”
“If my regaining control of the Tower did this, then . . . no, I can rule that out very quickly,” he dismissed. “This change happened too far back in time. So now,” Kerric stated, streaking his fingers across the board, calling up images from the internal scryings of the Tower, “we see if my thwarting or keeping Torven alive is what caused . . . no, still too recent. The life or death of the idiot thief isn’t the cause . . . Here is a time stamp calibrated to the approximate time of day it is in the capital of Fortuna,” he explained, pointing at a set of tiny symbols down in the corner of the first image on the mesh screen. “And here is a time stamp of when events happened here in the Tower.
“Whatever happened, it happened . . . an hour or two after lockdown occurred. Before I picked you,” he added firmly. “So it is an unrelated event. Not related to the Tower locking down, not relating to my selecting you to run the gauntlet with me, and not related to anything that happened while we were restoring my control.”
“That’s . . . good, I suppose,” Myal murmured, eyeing the images. “But if this mirror can predict the future—”
“Based strictly on current events,” he interjected. “Whatever is happening around the world when an exact image is shown in the forescrying mirror has an influence on that image. I don’t know what event in our current time frame caused this, but if it was scryed upon by any mirror or Fountainway that touches the Tower, I’ll be able to find out what the triggering event was, and . . . and maybe figure out a way to undo it.” He turned to look up at the original looking glass. “Because a demonic, Netherhell-based invasion must be stopped.”
“Yes, it must,” Myal agreed. She grimaced in the next moment. “I don’t know what I can do to help you, though. If this were a physical foe, I could take it down, or at least try. But this?” She gestured at the mirror, then let her hand flop against her thigh. “I am unable to help.”
“Yes and no,” Kerric countered. He moved around her, heading for one of the blank easel pads. “If there is one thing I have learned about you during our gauntlet run to the heart, it is that you are smart. You see things from not just one viewpoint, but from many.” Hefting the entire easel, he brought it over to her side as he spoke. “You consider lines and angles of attack, you size up opponents for their weak points . . . In short, you think.
“Which is a huge point of arousal for me,” he added. Pulling her head down into range, he kissed her cheek, then her lips. “So, together, you and I will think. I’ll do all the hard work, scrying and sorting, and you write down all of our observations and try to figure out connections of cause-and-effect.” He paused and wrinkled his nose at the task ahead of them, eyeing the recording mirror and the mesh board. “Of course, if anything in the world set this disaster in motion, then I’m not quite sure where to begin in conquering the problem it caused.”
His words triggered a thought. Myal pounced on it mentally. “Divide and conquer. We start with, as you said, every connection this mirror has in the Fountainways. Everyone knows the Tower scrycasts to every known continent, and even to some kingdoms that are underwater. Perhaps there are spells you can use to . . . to trace vibrations in the aether connected to this evil? Netherhell energies are different from our own, after all, and anyone who dabbles in dealing with them . . .”
“Would leave a trace in the aether, yes—wait, underwater—Menomon!” Acting on his idea, Kerric summoned another cheval mirror on rolling wheels. Angling the mirror so that it faced away from the rest of the room, he plucked a piece of chalk from a nearby board and scraped several runes on the edge of the frame. “Jessina said the attack came from the Fountainway connection with Menomon. That attack ended at some point, because I didn’t see any danger-runes from that channel while I was seated over the heart, checking up on everything. Right . . . this should be warded enough for a quick contact . . .”
Focusing the mirror with a murmur, he activated it . . . and found it blocked. He tried again, and received no connection. Brow creasing with a frown, he turned and headed for one of a trio of alcoves tucked into one of the sidewalls . . . then swung around and stalked back. Catching Myal’s hand, he hauled her in his wake.
“Come. We’re going back to the Fountain,” he told her. Then released her. “Wait, grab the drawing pad and a pencil from that table there, so we have some way to write down our observations.”
The moment she came back with pad and writing implement tucked under her arm, he caught her wrist and led her through the hidden doorway-Gate. Emerging in the Fountain Hall, he led her through the mesh door and stamped his foot three times on one of the rounded brown sections of marble near the black-lipped edge of the singularity pool. The moment he moved back, the surface of the stone shifted, stretching up into a swivel-style chair like his own.
“Have a seat,” he directed her. “All of this started because something happened in Menomon, an underwater city located far to the south of us. I cannot say exactly where, other than that it’s located somewhere in the Sun’s Belt Reefs, but I can say that the people of Menomon are odd, isolationist, and paranoid. The Mistress of their Fountain, however, is open-minded, common-sensical, and a delight to deal with.
“Guardian Sheren would never attempt to attack the Tower Fountain, however. Menomon is an underwater city, built under a protective bubble of air,” Kerric told Myal, mounting the steps to his own seat as she took the offered one, pad balanced in her lap. “Sheren’s Fountain is used specifically to keep the city it shelters from being crushed and its occupants drowned by the weight of the water over their heads. She would never risk a retaliatory attack from a fellow Guardian upset at her trying to wrest away control of a second singularity. It would literally kil
l her and everyone living with her.”
“So it had to have been someone else. Someone who challenged her and took over the Fountain, perhaps? You said the attack was stopped,” Myal reminded him. “Perhaps the city’s rulers or its citizens protested, and got whoever it was to stop? Or . . . did the Tower counterattack automatically?” She bit her lower lip at the possibility of all those people crushed and drowned deep underwater.
Kerric shook his head quickly, curls bouncing around his head as he negated that awful thought. “The Tower doesn’t attack through the Fountainway. All of its defenses are here, so all it did was cut off all contact, until I regained control and re-awakened the connections. The connection is fine. With centuries of scrycasting research behind everything, the Tower’s diagnostic spells proved that much when I checked the status of everything, including that. I’m just getting blocked by something which seems to be deliberately cutting it off, and I need to check on that.”
Dropping his feet into the bubble, he flicked his hands through the air, summoning up curving veils of light that didn’t need any mesh for projected stability. It took him a few minutes to double-check all the connections. When he was through, Kerric rubbed at his jaw, feeling a hint of stubble beginning to grow. As much as part of him wanted to shave it off so he could rub his face all over Myal’s tattooed belly, preferably while the two of them were rolling around on his oversized bed, Kerric knew this had to come first.
Great power demanded an equal level of care and responsibility. Not just in how it was wielded, but also in how it could be wielded. Stopping a Netherhell invasion counted high on the To Be Done list, even if Penambrion was on the Aian continent, an entire ocean and a couple kingdoms away from the ancient Empire of Fortuna. Demons didn’t give a damn about kingdom or continental boundaries.
“Have you found something?” Myal asked. Some of the runes were hard to read because she was viewing them backward from her position. Others were hard to read because they were purely magical signs, esoteric with meaning known only to mages. Mathemagics was the only branch of writing that translated across language barriers because it used mathematical symbols, which always bore the exact same meaning from culture to culture.
“. . . It’s been closed off from the inside. Someone inside Menomon closed the Fountainway channels. These runes here say it was done several hours after the attack ended,” Kerric added, pointing at a vertical line of glowing, bluish lights, then pointing at a set of gold lines that squiggled a bit, with a darker blob in their center. Map symbols, not runes. “These show that the attack ended because of something farther down the line. Farther to the south, if I’m gauging the channels correctly.”
“Who or what lies to the south?” Myal asked.
“Guardian Rydan . . . or possibly Guardian Saleria, though she’s more to the southwest. They’re Guardians of singularities found somewhere in the Katanai Empire, south of Sun’s Belt. I have a second-hand connection at best with Guardian Rydan’s Fountain, but Guardian Sheren has spoken of his great power. If anyone broke into her Fountain Hall and attempted to take over our Fountain, it’s possible he detected it and attacked from outside.”
“Which could have caused the collapse of the city,” Myal muttered grimly.
“What? No, that wouldn’t cause the channels to be cut off,” he dismissed. “I’d see the city having been crushed, because the unique nature of the Tower’s scrycasts allows me to project scrying spells along the channels. Normally the vibrations of the energies involved make the connections sound-based only. And for good reason, since if you can see a place, you can attack it with enough power to push a mirror-Gate through the aether. Our biggest client, Senod-Gra, permits three times the normal visual connections because, well, they are our biggest client. Our service flows to them, and they send money to us.
“No, the connections were closed from the inside. I suspect it’s a result of the paranoia of Menomon’s ruling Council, which Guardian Sheren has complained about time and again. ‘Sodden old sticks-in-the-mud,’ as she calls them,” he added in an aside. “Which is ironic, her calling them ‘old.’ She’s older even than Guardian Keleseth, who is an old stick-in-the-mud. Doubly ironic, for her to be in charge of a city renowned for its ability to relax inhibitions. If you ask me, the Guardian of Senod-Gra needs to get out of her Fountain Hall and go play in her own city for a day. Or maybe a whole week.”
Myal didn’t quite successfully smother her laugh; it emerged as a snerk sound. Kerric grinned at her for a moment, then sighed and rubbed at his chin again, thinking. So did she. Within a few moments, Myal had another question. “You said some of the energies involved came from either Guardians Rydan or Saleria? Perhaps they know why the city of Menomon has sealed itself off from contact.”
“Good point. I do have a direct connection to Saleria. I don’t for Rydan. He’s fairly new as a Guardian, only a few years’ worth, and rather isolationist. Not paranoid, exactly, but not interested in interacting much with others.” Twisting his chair a little, Kerric activated that line, literally a line that appeared on one of the mesh screens across from him. No image formed, since this was a voice-only line. Whatever else she did with her days, Guardian Saleria wasn’t interested in watching scrycasts from the Tower. Much like her counterpart, Guardian Rydan. “. . . Guardian Kerric to Guardian Saleria, are you available?”
That was all he said, but that was all he needed to say. Most Guardians had catch-spells for recording and preserving such messages. It could take anywhere from a matter of seconds if the Guardian was on hand and not busy, to several hours before one might reply. But it was now daytime across the breadth of Aiar, and that meant day for the continent of Katan as well. Just as he started to wonder if he should try establishing a communications channel directly with Guardian Rydan’s Fountain, he got a response.
“Yes—yes, I’m here,” a familiar, if distorted, feminine voice replied, making the coppery-hued line wiggle rapidly in time with her words. She sounded a bit breathless, and a bit tinny, but he recognized the Guardian. “This is Guardian Saleria. Guardian Kerric, you said? I was just getting into the Bower when I heard you call. What can I do for eastern Aiar?”
“We were attacked by unknown forces using the powers of the Fountain of Menomon, which has since been closed down from the inside. Were you assailed as well?” Kerric asked.
Saleria’s voice, tinny and echoing, bounced back to him with an answer. “Attacked? No. This is the first I’ve heard about it. Is everyone alright at the Tower?”
“Yes. It took a while to settle down the defenses, but we’re fine. Do you have a connection to Guardian Rydan?”
“Guardian who? Rydan, you said? No, I don’t know anyone by that name,” Saleria replied.
“You don’t?” Kerric repeated, bemused by that revelation. “He’s located down somewhere along the west coast of Katan. Surely you know your own fellow Katanai Guardian?”
“No, I am the only Guardian of Katan that I know of . . . and it’s Kah-TAH-nee, not Kah-tahn-EYE,” she added dryly. “It’s possible there is another one—I’m told Fountain Guardians are an especially secretive lot. But then I only connect to four other Guardian-centers. You’re the one with a hundred links.”
“It’s only twenty-three,” Kerric dismissed. “Right . . . I’ve spoken with him through Guardian Sheren’s Fountainways. I’ll see if I can establish a connection myself, since I know the vague direction to head.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t help. Anything else? That is, if it’s brief,” she added. “I need to begin my mid-morning prayers soon.”
“Just one thing. I have reason to believe someone in the world is plotting to open a Gate or even a Portal to the Netherhells,” Kerric warned her. “I cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information, other than that if current events remain as they are now, it will happen within the year.”
The connection echoed badly, distorting her voice by a bit, but he could still hear the teasing chuckle lurking in her to
ne. “Now now, Guardian Kerric, you know as well as I that no mage can be a Seer. Even one powerful enough to handle the energies of a singularity-rip.”
“It’s information from a Seer. Sort of,” he muttered under his breath. “Just keep your eyes and ears open. I’ll let you know if the visions change, but if you can spare some prayers for averting a Netherhell invasion, or perhaps for searching out energies influenced by such efforts, and are willing to share your findings, I’d appreciate it.”
“I’ll pray to avert it. That, at least, is a part of my job description. Gods bless you, Guardian Kerric. Guardian Saleria out.”
“And you,” Kerric murmured as the copper-hued communication spell vanished from his projection screens. “Well, that’s that. What are your thoughts?” he asked, lifting his feet out of the bubble and turning his chair to face Myal. “Anything?”
“She sounds sincere,” Myal said, “though I don’t know why this other Guardian wouldn’t want to have a connection with her Fountain. Particularly if they’re on the same continent. Don’t Guardians usually cooperate? I know you connect to the other two on Aiar, along the north and south coasts. Everyone in Penambrion knows that, even if we don’t know who or where exactly they reside, but we do know they’re the ones who help relay on all the scrycastings to some of your far-flung clients.”
Kerric shrugged. “Knowing what little I do of Guardian Rydan, I suspect the choice was entirely his. A couple years ago, Guardian Sheren was contacted on a very, very old Fountainway channel, one which hadn’t been used since the Shattering of Aiar . . . though it came from south of the Sun’s Belt, and not from up here in Aiar. I’ve spoken with him via her connection only a handful of times, and he’s left me with the impression he’s more or less an antisocial hermit. But he is a Guardian, and he will occasionally chat with the rest of us.”