Choice

by Gary Stringer

  “But what about direction? What about wind?” Loric wanted to know. He was gripped. For him, flying had always been a simple muscular reflex action without grace or form. Never had he considered it to be anything more than a convenient way of getting from A to B. But his tutor had refined it to an exquisite degree. He retracted his previous, hasty assessment: whatever power had chosen this dragon to be the Elder Dragon of Air had chosen very well indeed. Loric looked again: her sleek muscles, her efficient, well-formed wings. Here was a dragon truly designed for flight. The more he thought about it, the more he marvelled, and the more questions formed in his mind.

  “Direction is more subtle,” Air answered, “and wind is a factor, of course, but many things can help a dragon through the sky: the stars, the pull of the ground, simple landmarks and lines that run between them.”

  “But when you can't even see, like last night?”

  “Then a dragon relies entirely on her own body. It can be done, Loric and I will prove it.”

  But Loric no longer doubted. “What about when you fly high and the air gets thin? What about when you get tired - don't your wingbeats become erratic? And changing height? And what about...?”

  “Loric!” Air exclaimed. “I cannot teach you many elven lifespans of work in one night.”

  “Of course, but we have more travelling to do yet, don't we?”

  “Oh yes. The aquatic kingdoms are a long way even as an efficient dragon flies.”

  “Then teach me as we go. Teach me all you can, and when all this business with Niltsiar and the war is over when we're victorious, I'll come and find you so I can learn more.” “When I became what I am today,” Air told him, “the drago n that I was merged her skills with those of the previous Elder Dragon of Air. I have been developing my skills ever since. I am learning still. This isn't like the Fire Rage, Loric. There is no single, clear defining moment. This is a lifetime of dedication to improving the art of flying.

  “Consider me dedicated,” Loric insisted. “So what about the Penta Drauka?” Loric wondered.

  “Oh that!” Air said, almost dismissively. “Congratulations. I am pleased to tell you that you have passed.”

  “What? But I haven't done anything! I haven't even begun!” “This segment of the Penta Drauka,” she explained, “requires two things: First, you must demonstrate a grasp of the fundamentals, which you have done. Second, that you show not only a willingness to learn, but also a genuine desire to develop your flying skills. Not just as a means to an end, but as a life choice. Loric, when I showed you my most basic skills, your first response was to ask questions, then to seek long term training and finally to ask about the Penta Drauka. I have to tell you that if you had reversed the last two, you would have failed.”

  Loric nodded in understanding. “Because that would have meant my priority was merely to learn enough to pass the test.”

  “And that would simply not be good enough,” Air affirmed. “But the ocean is still a few days' flight away, so there is more I can teach you yet.” After a few hours' rest, they set off again. Loric tried hard to concentrate on his own wingbeats. Up and down, up and down, maintaining a constant, steady rhythm...well, more-or-less. It wasn't easy to do for all that Air made it seem so effortless. His thoughts scattered as Air dived close by, her sudden wake disrupting Loric's fragile sense of timing. A broad and slightly wicked smile spread across the silver-bluesapphire dragon's face. She swooped back and forth above Loric, casting a critical eye over her pupil's efforts to regain his composure.

  “Never trust an airstream!” she announced. “You must be aware of your environment at all times, anticipating changes so you can adopt a proactive, rather than reactive flying style. Yes, I know it's difficult at first, when you need to devote so much concentration to the mechanics of flight, but you must learn both parts together. There is no other way.” After taking several deep breaths, she remarked, “Ah, the winter is beautiful from up here!”

  Loric had to agree...although trying to split his concentration still further to sight-seeing caused another wobble in his flightpath.

  Air chuckled at his clumsiness. For the next few days, the dragons simply flew, continuing Loric's extended flying lesson, alighting only rarely. Loric proved himself to be a keen and able student, willing to admit his own mistakes and work hard to correct them. While it would be a long time before he could even begin to understand the subtlety of Air’s navigational skills, he still managed to learn the rudiments of wing control and the regulation of his rather erratic flight rhythm

  Air discussed dragon anatomy, physiology and aerodynamics. She explained how most of a dragon's bones were hollow to keep the body weight down, and how the retracting blades of cartilage at the trailing edge of his wings, when deployed, would greatly reduce his stalling speed, allowing slow and complex manoeuvres. They were particularly useful when landing on precarious ledges. She described the arrangement of his muscles and how his deep breastbone was really a keel onto which were anchored his most powerful flight muscles.

  “How do you know all this?” Loric marvelled. In some ways, it was nothing new. He was well used to how his body functioned after using it for so long. But he had always just taken it for granted. He had never thought about it, never considered it might be worth spending time thinking about it. The way Air articulated it so precisely and simply, he was swept away with the sheer elegance of it.

  “Flight is symmetry,” Air stated. “Flight is science. Flight is art. You're lucky - you've got me to instruct you. I had to learn all this through experience.”

  “Yours or that of previous Elders of Air?” Loric wondered.

  Air responded with an elaborate shrug, naturally without losing a split second of timing. “It’s the same thing.” Loric let that go, not least because they were moving into a warmer climate and he was having a little trouble with the changing air currents. He didn't really care about the mysteries of the Penta Drauka dragons. He was happy to simply enjoy the feeling of flight, for in flying he felt utterly alive.

  At the end of another long day's flight, they alighted and took shelter in a group of caves. Loric found it remarkable that he was only barely fatigued from the day's journey, though he was sure he had flown at least double what he would have previously considered his maximum distance.

  “That is because you flew well,” Air answered, simply. “A dragon uses less energy when he flies well.” Changing the subject, she told him, “Tomorrow we will reach the coast and the second segment of your Penta Drauka quest will officially be complete. After that you will be able to begin the third segment and hopefully gain the assistance of my water counterpart to heal your young Callie.”

  Loric felt suddenly guilty that he had not thought of her at all for several days. Air gently d raped a wing over his shoulder. “Troubles have a way of becoming as distant as the ground when a dragon flies. It has done you good to unburden yourself for a while, take a restbite. Remember, everything you have done has brought you closer to helping yourfriend.”

  Loric nodded, accepting the wisdom of her words. Air folded her wing against her own body once more.

  “Rest well tonight,” she advised, “for your challenges are far from over.”

  “Tell me about it. I have three more segments of the Penta Drauka to complete, a dragon predator to fight and a friend to save.”

  With that, he took Air's advice and tried to get some rest.

  Chapter 3

  “The central convergence of all magical nodes,” Rochelle mused, when Eilidh returned with a complete account of her meeting with the Wise One. The promise of such an account was the only thing that had kept the gnome content to remain behind. Well, that and the books. They were truly fascinating. Absolutely infuriating, too.

  “That's what he said,” Eilidh confirmed. “Have you come across anything that might explain what that is?” Rochelle considered for a moment. “Nothing specific, no. But then I don't understand half of what I've been reading. Beside
s, I can't imagine it will be conveniently indexed under `MAGICAL NODES: CENTRAL CONVERGENCE OF`.”

  Eilidh smiled. “That would be very nice, but if it were that easy, someone else would have found the Well of Life by now.”

  “Not necessarily. These books have been hidden a very long time.”

  “How long?” Eilidh wondered.

  “Since the time of the Ancients. It seems they were hidden by Ganieda.”

  * * * * * It had been a golden age of magic. Majaos was simply brimming with power, spilling out of the Great Source and flowing across the world like rivers. So many things were possible here - realities beyond the wildest imaginings of mages on the old world. The first city was a work of art, a testament and a monument to the beauty and majesty of the magic of this world. Sunstone sparkled, the buildings shone with a million colours, shades and hues. And the streets were made of gold...or at least they emitted a golden glow

  - the effect of light filtering through the shield that surrounded the city and interacting with the paving.

  The Council of Magic and Great Library stood tall and proud in the centre of the circular city. Merlyon was far from the only installation of magic on the continent of Mythallen; there were many others. But this city was the centre of magical learning and a beacon to which everyone turned, representing as it did, what on the old world would have been called `human achievement`. It wasn’t just humans, however. Co-operation with the other races had been quite successful, for the most part. Humans had brought with them a drive for progress that was infectious. They achieved so much in such a short time. Everything was perfect.

  Too perfect. It happened slowly at first, in ones and twos, but then people by the dozen, the score, began to get sick. Burns on the skin were the main symptom, though there were other, more obscure illnesses that appeared to be related. Druids and clerics fought to cure the sick, but the healers were just as susceptible as anyone else. No-one was safe and it was only going to get worse as it spread like a plague. Some races were more susceptible than others, but all were affected. Of all the indigenous races, elves fared best. The Faerie were almost immune.

  The cause was not discovered quickly. No-one even considered it as a possibility and even when the truth was finally discovered, many would not, could not accept it. Scores became hundreds; hundreds became thousands. There were fatalities. Many deaths before the truth became undeniable: Magic in this world was potent indeed...too potent. It was exposure to the very magic itself that caused the burns and sickness.

  But how could this be? The indigenous sentient races had never experienced these problems; not until the humans came. A single theory quickly became accepted as the truth: humans had introduced a whole new way of thinking and acting to the world and magic was far more active than it had even been before. Magic was being excited to higher energy levels and this was the reason for the burns.

  “If that is true, I wonder why only sentient races suffered,” Eilidh interjected. “Why weren't other forms of life affected, too?”

  “Actually,” Rochelle answered, “I think the question is: why weren't they affected yet? The effect

  was more subtle and long term in other living things. That's why it wasn't spotted immediately. But research was conducted and there was a considerable body of evidence to suggest that the continued use of raw magic would have a serious longterm environmental impact.”

  “What kind of impact?”

  “Well, as I say, widespread use of raw magic excited the flow of magic to higher energy levels and it's a common law of nature that everything aspires to achieve the lowest energy level possible.”

  Eilidh gave a half smile. “I once had a roommate at the Church of Life who personally embodied that law.”

  Rochelle laughed.

  “Sorry,” Eilidh apologised. “This is serious. Go on.”

  “It's OK, that was funny! Anyway, yes, in accordance with this rule, the raw magic flowing around the world would try to lose energy as heat.”

  “Makes sense,” Eilidh agreed. “Now, if the use of raw magic were allowed to continue unchecked - and the usage was actually growing up to the point of the ban - the raw magic flow would be excited to higher and higher energy levels, which would therefore give off more and more heat, which would, in turn, cause worldwide temperatures to rise. If the temperature rise went too far, too quickly, nature couldn't cope, species would becomeextinct.”

  “Of course,” Eilidh concurred. “Global warming would melt some of the landlocked polar ic e, causing floods in some areas, flash forest fires would be more common and harder to extinguish. Weather patterns would become more extreme and harder to control.”

  “And any attempt to introduce worldwide climate control through magic would only use more magic,” Rochelle continued, “which would exacerbate the problem.”

  Climate change due to the continued use of raw magic could have been utterly disastrous for the whole world,” Eilidh agreed. “Thank the Ancients they put a stop to it!”

  “And that brings me nicely to my next point,” Rochelle segued. “Not everyone wanted to put a stop to it.”

  “By `not everyone`, I take it you mean Niltsiar?” “Yes, but she wasn't alone. Many people believed the whole thing was a government conspiracy, or maybe a cover-up of some secret magical experiment gone wrong. Others simply couldn't live without the luxuries that free use of raw magic brought to their lives. Some wealthy people even suggested paying poorer people to live without magic entirely to offset their own environmental impact. As for the health risks, the wealthy could, of course, afford regular trips to a clerical temple or a druid sanctuary to try and keep on top of the symptoms. Still more people believed the research was wrong. No matter what evidence was produced, they would always have a cousin who had a friend with a young child and their babysitter's father was an authority on the subject and he said it wasn't true.”

  Eilidh was scathing. “And of course, they would place absolute faith in this anecdotal `evidence` rather than think through the reasoning for themselves. It took less effort. Thinking is hard. Easier to simply believe what you want to be true than face reality. So what was the solution?” she asked.

  “Actually, there were two proposals,” Rochelle explained. “And therein lay the problem. “The first solution, raised by Merlyn and the Council of Magic, had been to make magic safe to use. Convert it into a form that could be handled without risk. It was observed that certain animals were immune to the effects of short-term, controlled raw magic exposure. Therefore, Merlyn and others worked to develop a system of using animals as magic converters - a technique adapted from the old practise of keeping familiars.”

  “Yes, the Wise One tried to tell us something about that,” Eilidh remembered. “Presumably, they used their familiars to maintain a bubble of converted magic – Life – around themselves, providing an effective shield against the ravages of raw magic.”

  “As Catalysts do today,” Rochelle concurred. “This converted magic had a way of `sticking` to all forms of life, like it was attracted to living things. As its use increased, it would flow across the world and form a protective layer.”

  “So the aim was to create a safe magical environment for all life on Majaos,” Eilidh concluded.

  “Exactly so. It might also interest you to know that this property of converted magic, of being attracted to living things, is the reason why it became known as Life.”

  “I’ve always wondered about that,” Eilidh admitted. “Hang on, you said there were two solutions: what was the second?” Rochelle explained that advocates of the second solution saw this conversion as a `dilution of the purity of magic`. They believed that harnessing magic's true nature would provide the key to resisting its effects. They devised personal protection spells - cast using raw magic - that would keep the worst effects at bay. They were concerned only with each individual providing their own protection. The more skilled mages would have better protection and as for the lesser skilled, well, it
was a question of survival of the fittest. People would build up a natural resistance or they would die. Those who survived would pass on that resistance to the next generation.

  It was surely no coincidence that this solution was favoured only by those with an already high natural resistance, by virtue of their race, and of course, the wealthy who could afford to continually pay for healing to keep the effects at bay. The dark elves were particularly fond of this notion, but the individual who proposed and promoted it, was the young protégé and daughter of Lord Merlyn and Lady Ganieda: Niltsiar. She insisted it was the duty of every Majaos citizen to seek the ultimate boundaries of magic, to explore deeper into raw magic, not shy away from it. If there was pain involved, then so be it. That there should be a cost for the power was only right, and the rewards for harnessing the ultimate purity of magic would be beyond imagination, if only one had faith.

  Needless to say, the vast majority of the people of Majaos embraced Merlyn's conversion method. The Council decided that the power they had been tapping into was simply too much, too soon. In time, the Life Arts would evolve to achieve the same results as the raw energy.

  Specialist colleges became the Secrets of Life Magic, finding that the conversion process allowed an individual mage access to only one part of the magical spectrum. Aptitudes for a particular Secret were a question of birth and nothing could change it. There were Eight Secrets in those days: the four Elemental Secrets - Earth, Fire, Air and Water, plus the four Ethereal Secrets - Shadow, Time, Spirit and Techmagic. However, there was a further group of magicologists, who seemed to have no particular affinity for any one of the Secrets. They could manipulate both raw magic and Life, move it around, but were unable to cast spells. They became theorists, interested in the academic study of magic.

  “Each of the Secrets gained an attendant arcane symbol and you’d think things like that might change over time, but from what I’ve seen, they’re the same ones we still use today.”