Into The Ruins

by Blink, Bob

  “They will fail before much longer,” Daim said as he stared at the often repaired structure not too far away.

  “That is why Rigo was trying to get a second barrier erected before the inevitable happened,” Nycoh explained.

  “You said that system is less than a quarter complete,” Daim replied.

  “That’s the problem. We don’t have as many people with the gift as existed in your time, and with the constant breaches in the older barrier, we are kept too busy.”

  “You won’t make it in time,” Daim announced after his critical examination. “All of this because of those blasted Morvane? The Hoplani are contained by the barrier?”

  “Morvane are difficult to kill,” Nycoh explained. “One of Rigo’s discoveries from his trips into the Ruins appears to be helping. The Duneriders make knives from the bones of the Hoplani. Those knives penetrate the hides of both Hoplani and Morvane. We have recently learned how the knives are made, and have created large spears with tips that are made from the bones. Launched by magic at the Morvane, we have shown we can bring the creatures down more easily than with magic directly.”

  “Perhaps it would be possible to hunt them down and eliminate them completely?” Daim suggested.

  “Unfortunately, we have seen an increase in the number being produced at the Farms to offset the increased number we kill. We don’t know how the system works, but there is some sort of feedback mechanism that tries to offset any losses in the total number.”

  “Which means the factory has to be shut down,” Daim summarized.

  “The killing of the Morvane has provided some gains. It takes time for more to be produced and make the trek all the way to Lopal. By sending out hunting teams, we hope to thin the numbers locally, which should cut down on the number of towers that are damaged, leaving more time to work on the second barrier.”

  “The path you are suggesting means an unending battle to keep the Morvane number low,” Daim said. “You cannot win that way. We tried something similar with the Hoplani.”

  “We are aware of that. That is why so much hope was placed on Rigo’s exploration into the Ruins. Somewhere out there has to be the answer.”

  “No one knows when the Hoplani first appeared. The beasts have existed for thousands of years. The Ruins as well, although the oasis you showed me suggests the Ruins are slowly failing. Whoever created the Hoplani and Morvane are long gone, or they would not tolerate your presence at the Farms. I am not as certain as you that an answer still exists. The magic used is far beyond what was known even in my time.”

  Nycoh didn’t want to hear the negative predictions of the older wizard, but she had some doubts herself, and with Rigo lost and all means of traveling in the Ruins with him, it wasn’t an issue that mattered.

  “Can you make another staff?” Nycoh had asked Daim bluntly one afternoon the previous week after a return from the Hideaway where Daim had examined the sanctuary he’d once built.

  “No,” he replied after a moment’s thought.

  “No?” Nycoh asked, the defeat apparent in her voice. This was why they had brought Daim back, at least one of the main reasons. “Why not? You’ve done it before.”

  “I was far stronger then. I had access to several magical artifacts that helped with the construction of such devices.”

  “Isn’t there a way to recreate the necessary aids?”

  “Possibly. But there is a more important reason.”

  “What is that?”

  “I’ve forgotten what I did to create the staffs.”

  “You’ve forgotten?”

  “”It’s one of the areas of my memory that is foggy. I can’t remember the last few weeks before the end. I recall starting on the Outpost, but it all fades before the task was finished. I recall deciding that something to bring me back was needed, but how I went about it is gone.”

  “Wouldn’t you have kept records?”

  “Of course. My journal. But you said that my journals had not been found.”

  “Where would you have kept them?”

  “In my office at the Citadel.”

  “That’s long turned to dust,” Nycoh said.

  “You see the problem,” Daim said.

  “You moved everything else of importance to the Hideaway,” Nycoh argued. “Why would you leave something as important as your personal journals at the Citadel. They must be at the Hideaway somewhere.”

  Daim agreed with her reasoning, so they returned to have a closer look.

  “You’ve never found them?” Daim asked.

  “Every volume here has been catalogued. None are your personal journals.”

  Daim sat in the large chair and looked around the chamber. He was silent for a long time, then slowly he stood and walked over to the rack that had once held the two staffs. He starred at the rack for a long time, then slowly reached out his hand and grasped the rack, a glow of magic suddenly surrounding the wooden rack. A faint outline appeared in the wall of the room and Daim pulled outward on the rack, removing a section of wall four hand spans wide and as many tall. He set this on the floor and peered inside.

  “You didn’t look very well,” he said, as he reached in and pulled out three thick journals.

  “Why wouldn’t Rigo have known about that?” Nycoh asked.

  “From what you tell me, the Rigo-Daim had some ability to control what information was passed between them. Perhaps the matter never came up. Perhaps he had forgotten about them as I did. I don’t know, but here they are.”

  “Do they contain the information necessary to build the staff?”

  “I don’t know,” he’d said. “I would expect so, but I’ll have to sit and read them.”

  Now, almost a week later, Daim wanted to speak with them. Nycoh hoped it might be about the staff, but she had no more idea than Jeen what Daim intended.

  The sound of footsteps, sure and steady caused them both to look up. Daim, looking like a very fit Brice, stepped into the room, a small smile on his face. The pale blue eyes twinkled. The brown beard he was growing had filled in, matching the color of his thick hair. Youthful and healthy looking, it was sometimes hard to think of this man as a Master Wizard from the distant past, who had been quite old when he had died so many centuries before.

  “We just might be able to do it,” he said without waiting for them to speak. He looked expectantly at the two young women who he’d come to realize were the strongest wizards in the community. They were also the most insightful. He had yet to meet this Rigo, but for now these two were the obvious choice to be in charge.

  “The staff,” Jeen asked eagerly, meeting the eyes of the Master Wizard, and noting the coarse stick of hardwood the man carried. It didn’t look anything like the staff that Rigo had carried, except being roughly the same dimension.

  Daim nodded. “I did a good job of recording what I wanted to do.”

  Nycoh nodded. She had expected as much when she’d seen the journals. She also had realized they would have to rely upon Daim to personally sort through the books as they were written in some kind of personal code that Daim had created to protect his writings. Even Nycoh, with her experience from years of digging through texts with Ash’urn, hadn’t been able to make any sense out of the scribbling.

  “I assume you brought that crude staff for a reason?” Nycoh asked.

  Daim glanced at the piece of wood and nodded his head. “This will form the basis for the staff we will try and create.”

  “We?” Jeen asked.

  “Oh yes,” Daim replied. “This is no longer something I can attempt by myself. I am nowhere near powerful nor skilled enough. This Brice, whoever he was, was an adequate wizard, but nothing unique and none of you, yourselves included, have the raw ability required. You told me once before you have learned to Link. I am hoping the three of us Linked, will be able to do what none of us individually is capable of.”

  “Both Jeen and I have the ability,” Nycoh confirmed.

  “Good,” Daim responded.
“Why don’t we give it a try?”

  “You mean right now?” Jeen asked surprised.

  “You indicated this was an urgent matter,” Daim said. “If we are going to know if this will work at all, we need to see what we can do. If the three of us are insufficient for the task, we will have to decided who else might bring ability and power into the link.”

  “How will this work?” Nycoh asked. She was certain that Daim, who had the knowledge to form the staff would be the one in charge of the Link. That left her a little uneasy. The individual who controlled the Link had a certain power over the others, and if he wanted Daim could use the situation to his own advantage, even potentially causing them harm if he wished. They had no reason to expect this, but Daim was still somewhat of an unknown. On the other hand, both she and Jeen were quite strong, and could probably break or block any attempt he made, especially if they worked together.

  Daim laid the length of wood upon the table. “We will form a Link, hand to hand to increase the effectiveness. I will have to control it, so I will Link with one of you, and then the other. With our minds operating in concert, we will delve into the structure of the staff, shaping it as desired and imbuing it with the magic that makes it work.”

  “I never realized that wood could be imbued with magic,” Nycoh said.

  “The wood will be altered, and will have properties quite unlike common wood. The magical properties will be stored in this, which will be buried deep in the core of the staff,” Daim said as he extracted a small piece of clear quartz from his pocket. He laid that on the table next to the raw staff. “Shall we begin?”

  Jeen looked uncertainly at Nycoh, who after a moment nodded. This is what they had hoped for, and Rigo’s future as well as that of the Three Kingdoms were at stake.

  “Let’s begin,” Nycoh agreed.

  They stood around the table which held the raw staff and the bit of crystal, reaching out and joining hands. Daim examined each of them, and then began the Linking. Daim in Brice’s body may have been far weaker than the Master Wizard of old, but his skills were far superior than those of either Nycoh or Jeen. The Linking formed effortlessly, and they found their minds and ability being directed by Daim. Without hesitation he focused their combined power and ability on the two objects on the table. As they watched, contributors but no longer active participants, Daim wrapped the two objects on the table in magic, forming the shape of the staff and melding the crystal into the structure of the resulting staff. The crystal didn’t simply merge into the staff, but seemed to vaporize and the material of the crystal diffused uniformly throughout the entire object.

  Once Daim was satisfied with the physical nature of the newly formed staff, he rapidly began transferring pockets of power as well as certain magical capabilities into the material. It was in many ways similar to the ring that Nycoh and Jeen had refilled, by seeing how Daim progressed they knew their own efforts had been crude and amateurish. Daim worked quickly, and it seemed to Nycoh that they were finishing up in a remarkably short time. She had seen what Daim had done, but she doubted she could duplicate the effort.

  Then they were drawing back, their minds leaving the newly formed magical creation. They pulled back into themselves, and almost without noticing it, Jeen and Nycoh realized that Daim had broken the Link.

  “That felt like it went well enough,” Daim said with a certain satisfaction a moment later. “We will have to test the staff, of course, to be certain that it works as we wish.”

  Jeen looked at the staff on the table. Now it looked like something she recognized, down to the odd dents and marks that she had come to know in the staff that Rigo had carried.

  “It looks the same,” she said.

  “I thought I’d use the same pattern as before. That is firmly in my mind. I could change it if we wish, but this was simply a test. If we wish to make more, perhaps a different style would be preferred.”

  Nycoh had been examining her memories of what they had just done. “It doesn’t have to be a staff,” she said slowly.

  Daim looked at her. “No. No, it doesn’t. I just felt the staff was a comfortable and familiar object. Hiding the capability in plain sight, sort of. Is there another shape you would prefer?”

  “I don’t know,” Nycoh said. “Sometimes it is inconvenient to have to carry the staff. If we chose something that would be on us all the time, it might be better.”

  Daim spotted the jeweled stone that Jeen wore around her neck. “Perhaps a necklace?” Daim suggested.

  “You can make it that small?” Jeen asked.

  “The size was only important for the amount of energy stored in the object. The staff had to contain a large reserve as it had to function independent of the user. With one of us consciously supplying the magical energy to be used, the object can be quite small. It needs only to contain the specialized magic to offset the Ruins. It doesn’t need the many functions the original staff required.”

  “Perhaps we should see if it works before we get ahead of ourselves,” Nycoh suggested.

  “Of course,” Daim said. “However be assured. I am confident it will function as you hope.”

  Daim lifted the staff from the table, held it firmly for a moment, and then turned and handed it to Nycoh. “Lead the way,” he said.

  Nycoh accepted the staff and made a Bypass deep into the Ruins. From Oasis Three, the three of them looked out on the familiar sands of the Ruins. Carefully Nycoh walked out into the Ruins where their magic was blocked. She could feel the difference as she walked staff in hand.

  “Can you make Brightfire?” she asked Jeen.

  “I’m completely cut off,” Jeen replied.

  That was what they had seen before. Nycoh held the staff firmly, and without much trouble was able to trigger a strong burst of the white energy, sending a beam into a patch of the spiky crystals a short distance away. She looked at Daim and smiled.

  Over the next glass, they took turns experimenting with the staff, testing it under ever more stringent conditions. Finally they agreed it functioned exactly like the staffs that Rigo’s party had taken with them.

  “We can go after him!” Jeen said excitedly when they returned to the Outpost. “We need to make a lot of these.”

  “I’ve been thinking,” Nycoh said. “You could improve its ability to resist the Ruins. I see what you did, and by making the following alterations, it should be even more effective.” She listed a couple of changes.

  Daim looked at her with new respect. “I believe you are right,” he agreed. “I will make modifications to the conversion and we will incorporate it into the next version. We can attempt to make the next model tomorrow.”

  “I’ll have to tell Daria and Kaler,” Jeen said excitedly. The relationship with her old friends had been somewhat strained of late when she had supported Nycoh’s refusal to support a foolhardy mission into the Ruins.

  “Who are they?” Daim asked.

  Jeen explained who they were and their relationship to Rigo.

  “They should not be involved in any mission into the Ruins,” Daim argued. “They have no power and would be at too much risk. Only those with the gift can be served by the staffs and should be chosen to go.”

  “They are going,” Nycoh declared firmly. “Not even your magic would protect you if they were to learn a mission was organized to go after Rigo and they had not been included. You do not want to see Daria mad at you. Believe me when I say no place would be safe.”

  Daim looked at the two women uncertainly. “You make them sound quite formidable,” he said finally.

  “You don’t know the half of it,” Jeen said.

  “Has the situation changed where your friend is being held?” Daim asked. Like the others he had been intrigued by the artifact and its remarkable images. He claimed to have seen one of the devices before, but it was inactive, and in his own time it had been a very old item, dated back to the time before the great war.

  “I haven’t looked since this morning,�
� Nycoh admitted. “Nothing had changed then. Let’s have a look.”

  The three wizards walked across the office into the back room where the artifact had been placed.

  “They’re moving him,” Jeen said in surprise. “Where’s Ash’urn and Lorl?”

  “The artifact follows Rigo,” Nycoh reminded her. “They must still be back in the cell.”

  The three wizards watched as Rigo, led by several burly soldiers with drawn swords, a pair of women with staffs, wizards they assumed, and one well dressed gentleman, escorted Rigo out of the building and into the open. They could see the size of the city spread out below, and in the distance the ocean, with a half dozen medium sized ships with sails of a style they hadn’t ever seen before. As they watched, Rigo was marched across the grounds toward what could only be a castle.

  “This could either be a good thing, or very bad,” Jeen said as she sat down to watch how events unfolded.

  Chapter 46

  Jeen stepped out of the Bypass and into central Kellmore overlooking the large orphanage compound that Daria and Kaler ran more like an extended home than the typical compound for those who had lost their families. She was some distance away, wanting to gather her thoughts as she crossed the remaining distance to the familiar structures on foot. Already she could see a group of children involved in a challenging game of loop ball. Another group was riding horses around the corral, engaged in some kind of test of riding skill she wasn’t able to understand. Shouts and peals of laughter could be heard even at this distance. It was always so, she knew. The children who came here were indeed fortunate.

  Jeen somewhat awkwardly placed the staff into the ground as she walked. Unlike Rigo, she had never learned to carry the staff, nor had she become comfortable walking with it. She had brought it today because she knew that it would be immediately recognized by both Daria and Kaler, and they would understand the significance of her having it. She turned her face into the breeze, her long hair blowing free behind her. Her feelings were free and light today. The surprise meeting with her old friends was going to be unburdening, the strain that had developed over the past weeks when she’d supported Nycoh’s refusal to help Daria and Kaler field an expedition to go after Rigo wiped away with the news.