She shrugged. Neither of us knew any reason why two civilizations should be so much more advanced than the one which now supposedly looked like it spawned them. Of course, there wasn't enough history visible to us, and anything could have happened here to stunt the growth, so it was all just speculation, and thus pointless.
The whale song stopped abruptly, a chill started to be felt by both of us, and we silently walked back to my house, and the privacy of my bedroom.
Hours later, Tasha sound asleep beside me, I lay there staring in the local star cluster, wondering what I’d done.
I came back here to save a civilization.
Now I’d lost three.
Twenty Five
Tasha found me down on the beach again the following morning.
I'd had very little sleep, and couldn’t seem to get past just how much damage one magician could do while trying to do the right thing.
I'd stared up at the night sky, focusing my sight on star after star, looking for systems with our sort of life. When I realized some of those specks of light were much further away than I had any idea about, I brought myself back to local space, and added some intent to my sight to search the systems in a ring around what I already knew.
In my mind, a map of near space began to emerge. My sight could move instantaneously from system to system, focus in on the band of space around a star which supported life, and in seconds determine what was there. As it repeated, I sped it up. System after system added itself to my internal map.
Initially I was looking for a progenitor race which explained things. But the further out my sight went, the more obvious it became that our kind of life, was only here. At least until several hours later, when I found another.
They had a much wider range of skin colours than I'd seen, more variation of looks, languages, and ways of doing things. They too were restricted to a single planet, out on one of the arms of the galaxy where there was so much less stars around. They seemed much more warlike than we were. Than I'd thought we were. If our five kingdoms were all at war, then maybe we were much like them, or them like us. They were a long way away. Even with the ships we'd used so far, travelling to these others like us would take hundreds, and maybe even thousands of years. And for all I knew, not having bothered with looking at jump points so far, there wasn’t even a jump route to them.
I stopped looking at them, and kept searching. I made mental notes of planets capable of supporting our people, where only animal and plant life now lived.
I saw aliens. So many variations. Many with the same basic shape as us, but different. Many in shapes I’d never dreamed of. So many colours! Some even more primitive than my people were now. Some more technologically advanced than Tasha's people had been before we jumped back in time. I saw space battles far larger and more intense than anything I’d been involved in. Warrior species battled each other. Other species served them or were controlled by them. Huge space fleets controlled large portions of the galaxy. Much further away I found more like us, but the distances involved made any common background extremely remote. Large portions seemed empty of anything intelligent at all.
"What the hell are you doing out here?"
My sight stopped abruptly, everything seemed to retract back into my head, and I found myself face down in the shallow water.
Tasha laughed as I picked myself up, and shook the water from my face and hair.
"Wow. I've never seen someone jump like that before. Hundred and eighty degree over-flop from chair to water landing. I wish I’d recorded it."
"You could have made a noise."
"And missed that? You've got to be kidding. Where were you?"
I pointed at the sky, which I now saw was missing the stars completely. Only the rising sun remained.
"How far did you see?"
"Maybe a third of the galaxy? I don’t really know."
"Are the reports of aliens true?"
"Oh yes. And some of them are much more advanced now, than the ship above us. Fortunately, they are a long way away. But I can see how some of them could have expanded to near our space around the time we left. And there are a lot of civilizations which would emerge and space travel before your people did. And some which still won't have."
"Aren't you guessing?"
"Probably. But the reports of aliens which didn’t look like us, although not verified, is most likely true. Some of them have huge empires, and seem to be expanding rapidly."
"Still just speculation."
"Yes. But I know what I saw. When we get back, I can look again, and compare."
"If we get back."
"There is that."
"Come, breakfast."
We went and ate.
Twenty Six
Five mage masters waited patiently for me to finish eating.
As my Mum took my dishes for washing, they approached.
"Are you free to talk, oh great one?" said the battle mage, grinning.
"Last warning," I replied. "No-one calls me that, not even in jest."
"Don’t make him angry," said Jen. "He may look like a powerful mage in control of everything he does, but things happen when he loses his temper. Sometimes really bad things."
The patch of ground between me and the mages was suddenly covered. The basics mage picked some of it up.
"Eggshells?"
I couldn’t help laughing. The girls lost it completely.
"Are you telling us that happened without a directing intent?"
I looked at the battle mage, and nodded.
"We really do need to talk then. Somewhere a little safer."
"What do you want to know?"
"How you do the things you do so easily," said the moving mage.
"And without any visible effects on yourself," added the healing mage.
"Can you teach us?" said the basics mage.
I looked at him in surprise. That must have cost him a lot to ask.
I rose, nodded to Tasha, received a permission nod back, and took the mages to the top of the mountain on the next island along. They looked around.
"Allow me," said the creation mage, and six of my lounge chairs appeared in a circle.
We sat.
"How far can your sight go?" I asked. "Can you see the island we just left?"
"No," they all said after a few moments trying.
"Tell me something. Is there a general well of energy or something, which comes from magicians all being close together?"
"Why do you ask?"
I looked at the battle mage.
"When I was first thinking back to the magic I did before my choosing day, it felt like some of what I did, like my shields and force punches, was using energy beyond what I had for myself. I speculated a group of magicians might create a pool of energy any of them might tap when needed."
They looked at each other for a moment.
"Not that we know of," said the basics mage. "All mages have power, some more than others. You seemed to have more than most. But what you do now is well beyond the limits we established for you. Had you received one mundane no, and become the battle mage you wanted to be, you would in a few years' time have taken your place as either the battle mage for our village, or become a senior army mage."
"We knew almost immediately you would be more powerful than any of us in the fullness of time," said the healing mage.
"But we never expected what you are now," added the creation mage.
"And it never occurred to you I might be destined for all yes?"
"Alas no," said the battle mage.
"It's something I've not understood. If getting all yes results in the king taking over a student, then why not put some pressure on say one of the farming masters to give a no, to make sure it doesn’t happen."
They all shook their heads.
"Not the way it works," said the basics mage. "The integrity of everyone involved requires all masters give their own counsel. Otherwise the student would never get a fair choice."
"I didn't get any choice."
I flinched, hearing the way I said that. I'd had plenty of choices, but not the one which should have mattered most. I hadn't realized I was so bitter about it.
"Thorn," said the battle mage quietly, "it's never happened around our village. Even the king came from a village outside our sight range. Expecting it, was never going to happen. We need to deal with the situations we face now. And understanding what you do, would help us, and maybe also you."
I looked at him for a moment, and finally nodded.
"So no pool. Let me try and explain what I did. At first, my head used to be in great pain when I did larger magic. As if I was either accessing it wrong, taking too much energy from myself, or drawing it in wrong."
"What do you mean draw it in?" asked the creation mage.
"Head pain is common among early trainees," said the healing mage. "Some never lose the pain. How did you deal with it?"
How do you describe modern medicine?
"In the future, they found certain substances have effects on the body, including pain relief. I found one compound which worked for me, and learned how to create it for myself. I had to take it daily for several years."
"Why did you stop?" asked the moving mage.
"I found another source of energy, and as I drew more and more of it, the tiredness and head pain stopped."
They looked at each other, and I could see they didn’t understand what I’d said.
"Ships fly between the stars by generating their own energy. They protect themselves using some of that energy. I tapped into the same energy in order to do bigger and bigger magic. But here on the planet there are also sources of energy. And I think some mages tap into them without knowing they do."
"What sort of sources?" asked the basics mage.
"For a start, anything living."
They were shocked.
"Yes, I know. Potentially, you can kill anything by taking the energy it possesses from it. Has there ever been a mage who cast great magic, which killed all the plant life in an area? Or even all the animal life?"
"Not that I'm aware of," said the battle mage. "You mean you could kill everyone on the battlefield by willing it, and be a stronger mage as a result?" I nodded. "You haven’t, have you?"
"No, but I've been very aware I could do it. It's why Jen warned you about my temper. And why I take myself off to isolated places at times when I lose it."
"So it's one source you know about, but choose not to use? At least something we taught you stuck. It's always a problem with some young mages, and why a small number of them go bad. They don’t take the moral and ethical code properly, or for some reason reject it. They have in the recent past sometimes ended up with the king."
"Moral and ethical code? I don't recall being taught any such thing."
They laughed.
"That's the whole idea," said the basics mage. "Safe use of your gifts is built into early training. Safety for everyone. It's one reason you spent time demolishing that wall."
"Why didn’t that give me a no? I've always wondered why my temper didn’t generate a no."
"Temper is something we have to train everyone to deal with. Losing it early on happens to most, and as long as you don't kill anyone, it's more of a power indicator to us than anything else. We knew you had more power than most, by how hard that first set of punches you threw were. Had you not learned to control your temper, well that might have earned a no, but the system is not designed for no's based on character traits, although we tell you differently, only for skill sets. You had the skills. You got the yes votes."
"I have to wonder how much of what I could do early on was my own power?"
"What else could it have been?"
I noticed the others were letting the basics mage do all the talking. Probably because this was all his main area of teaching.
"You mean none of you feel the power rising from beneath your feet?"
Their looks said they hadn't.
Twenty Seven
"One of the reasons I'm powerful here, is this is my home planet, and I learned how to tap the planet itself."
Disbelief showed on all their faces.
"Cast your sight downwards. What do you see?"
They all looked at the basics mage. He concentrated.
"Are we sitting on top of a volcano?"
I laughed.
"Yes, we are. I discovered it by knocking the top off in the future. Not far down is a magma chamber."
"Magma?"
"Liquid rock. Hot!"
Heat meant something to them, I could see.
"Anything hot is an energy source. And as I was taught in the future, under the ground everywhere, is liquid rock. It varies as to how far down it is, but it is there. You can draw on it for energy. Try, using it to power sight of my island."
I saw the basics mage's face change, as his sight range increased dramatically. The others were struggling.
"How about this. You don’t need to touch it in any way, just know it's there, and draw upon it."
One by one, their faces changed as well.
"Now use the new range to keep looking down. The further you go, the more energy there is to draw on. Keep drawing until you can sight anywhere on the planet."
It took them a while. It had taken me weeks, but I’d taken a different route, without knowing what I was doing. These were experienced mages.
"What do you see?" I asked eventually.
"Water," said the creation mage.
The others grunted assent. It wasn’t what I’d expected. Which was when it occurred to me, while I had looked at the rest of the planet before, I’d never really paid enough attention to it. I’d cast my sight around it quickly a long time ago, but never looked at all of it in a way in which I could say I knew everything about it. I knew my island, and I knew this part of the major land mass, I knew where good eating animals and plants were, but that was about it.
It was a bit of a shock to find I could merge my sight in with theirs. They'd all ended up in a high view above where we were, and when I sought their sight out, all six of us merged to see the same thing.
I moved our combined sight, taking my time, and we all had a good look at our planet for the first time.
It was mainly water.
In some ways I’d already known this, but in other ways I hadn't. The land mass we were on, was merely an island, and not the continent I'd thought. Every other planet I’d seen had large continents. Ours didn’t. There was ice at two opposite ends, and this island we were on was about two thirds the way towards one lot of ice, than the other. My island on the other hand, was around the world from this island, much smaller, and about half way between.
My knowledge from schooling in my second life told me the ice locations were polar icecaps, and my island was near the equator. When I took our sight further out into space, towards the sun, I could see the planet had a tilt to it, and my mind supplied images of diagrams explaining it, from years ago.
There were other large islands, but none as large as ours. None of them had people on them.
I zoomed us back in to overlook just our island. It was no particularly recognizable shape. Down the middle was a mountain range, which flared out at the top end into a rough diamond shape, with the lower end joining the point of a rough triangle shape. Around this were five large areas of more or less flat land, with as I could see now, castles on the coastline, and lots of villages dotted around.
Of all of them, the best place for a city happened to be where my second life had been, where now there was only a village. But where each castle was located, was a good place to build one. Or so I thought, not really knowing why anyone built a castle anywhere.
Where the mountains met the sea in five places, they were reduced to rolling hills, with the sort of perfect meadows for going to war on. Where I’d stopped the battle, was in one of these.
I concentrated on what I was looking at, and an image appeared in th
e ground in the middle of our chairs. Our sight dissolved, and we were looking at each other again.
"How much do you know about the political makeup of our island?" I asked.
"Some," said the basics mage. He pointed to our end, and I nodded I understand this was us, which I could see was bottom right of the island map I’d created. His hand moved up along the right coastline. "This kingdom is ruled by a non-mage, and they enslave all who have the power."
"How do they do that?"
"We've had some manage to flee to us, and they told us families who produce mages are kept locked away, under penalty of death if the mages failed to do what they're told to. Some nasty stories of it happening too. Which is also for their protection, as mages are hated there."
"Why do they keep them?"
"Everyone else has mages," said the battle mage, "and fighting a war without them is something of a disadvantage."
I could see this might be a problem. I pointed to the top right.
"Kingdom ruled by a Mage-King," said the basic mage, going right on. "Only male mages rule, the female ones being either forced into seers roles, or are killed or banished."
This struck a chord with me.
"I don’t remember ever seeing a female mage. Do we have them?"
"No," said the healing mage. "Very few have been born among our people, and they tend to more of an oracle than a mage. But I have to also say, our departed mage-king did kill some, usually as girls, the moment they showed any magical talent."
I sighed. I might have killed him too quickly.
"You said female mages were banished?"
The basics mage indicated the top left.
"This is a Mage Matriarchy. They exile any man found to have the power. Most of them end up in three of the other four kingdoms, avoiding the mage-slavers."
"They are really good with defensive magic," added the creating mage. "The female mages I mean. The male kingdom next to them keeps trying to destroy them, but considering most of their banished females go there, no-one understands why."
"They also have the best oracles," said the moving mage. "And we've heard tales their seers are the best. They are always in place to repel an attacking army, and have never lost a battle."
Tomorrow's Spacemage Page 8