Gemworld

by Jeremy Bullard

  “No, milord mage. It is not the policy of this prison to maintain constant guard outside the shack.” He grit his teeth and prepared his soul to meet the Crafter.

  “Policy, you say?” the granite questioned, considering. “And who is it that makes policy, Guard Dunbar?”

  Surprised by the question, the guard flicked a glance at Ter’Nal, whose skin had gone a pasty grey. Before the warden could move, the granite mage caught him in his clay colored stare, trapped like a fly in amber. He shot his hand toward Ter’Nal... and it vanished into the warden’s breastplate! The warden’s eyes went wide, his mouth foaming with blood.

  With a tearing sound, the mage pulled his blood covered hand from the warden’s chest. To Dunbar’s shock, the breastplate was still whole. But even as he watched, Ter’Nal dropped to his knees, and then keeled over on his side, eyes already glazing. Blood seeped from behind the breastplate, soaking the parched ground beneath the corpse.

  The granite mage opened his hand, revealing a heart, still quivering of its own volition. “Mistakes can be forgiven,” the mage said, tossing the heart on the face of its former host. “Careless, however, cannot. See that you surpass your predecessor, Warden Dunbar.” The emphasis on the new rank could not be misread, nor the warning misunderstood.

  Dunbar swelled as the mage turned to walk away. Had the new warden not been so fixated on barking his first orders, he might have seen boiling rage flash across Laryn’s features, and then vanish just as quickly behind years of discipline. It would never occur to him that this wasn’t the first time the emerald had compromised his principles for the good of the much-rumored Cause, watched an innocent man—or at least an ignorant one—die in order to maintain Laryn’s image of loyalty to the Highest, and it most assuredly would not be the last.

  Not that Dunbar would have suspected Laryn anyway. What? The mage that woke the guard and informed him of the escape in the first place? The one who came to his defense just moments ago, and was ultimately responsible for his long overdue promotion?

  Perish the thought.

  Chapter 4

  Sal and his fugitive friends made their way north, following game trails through an area Jaren called the Vale, a vast expanse of woodland surrounding the city they’d escaped from. Never following a single path for very long, they stayed mainly in the brush, forging their way through the woods proper so as to avoid unwelcome eyes. Sal noted that the forest could easily have been any stretch of land in the Deep South. Alabama, Georgia, Florida—the Vale would have fit nicely into the backwater of any of those states. All he needed was a decent hunting rifle and he would have felt right at home.

  Rifle…

  “Dang it!” Sal exclaimed, and then winced under the sudden pressure of seven sets of eyes. When he spoke next, his voice was decidedly softer. “I forgot to have y’all look for my gun back at the guard shack.”

  “Your ‘gun’?” Reit asked.

  “Yeah. It’s a standard issue MP5, fully automatic, with…” His words trailed off awkwardly as he realized what he was trying to do. What would these guys know about firearms? “It’s a weapon that fires bu—umm, metal projectiles.” Hopefully they could grasp that much.

  “Metal projectiles?” Jaren hissed intently. He held a hand up, his forefinger and thumb about an inch apart. “Conical pellets about this long?”

  “Yeah! You see it?”

  The mage shook his head. “No, but I’m not entirely certain I’d like to, either. You had enough of those pellets in you to make my job very difficult, especially given the nature of our previous residence. You were near death when you were brought to us. I shudder to think of any mundane weapon that could have caused such damage.”

  “Yeah, well, I can’t blame you on that one. But it sure would be useful if we ran in to any of them Schel Veylin guards.”

  Sal’s fears were quick to take form. As the hours and days passed on their trek through the Vale, they met more and more Veylin patrols, many of which were comprised of “Earthen Rank”, as Jaren called them. Whatever Earthen Rank were, they caused quite a stir amongst the other fugitives. The barest hint of a patrol heading their way sent the group to ground, not to emerge from their hiding places until the patrol was well past. “Just a precaution,” Jaren explained once, then said no more.

  Each time they were forced into hiding, the group got quieter, more reserved. The mood of the fugitives became more pensive, tense, reminding Sal of a spring slowly being wound. It was an emotion he was used to. He’d seen similar behavior at his previous duty stations, especially those with a high probability of a combat situation. The mood would eventually get so tense that the group would become self-destructive, with colleagues lashing out in frustration at each other, getting more and more careless until finally something went horribly wrong and the team descended into chaos.

  Well, Sal wasn’t about to let that happen. They’d been on a straight, shaded stretch of road for the better part of the afternoon, and not a single word had been uttered save what was absolutely necessary. They needed a diversion in a bad way, something to take their mind off the patrols for a little while. Sal thought for a few minutes about what he should do, how he should go about taking their minds off the present situation. He decided that the best course would simply be use his gnawing curiosity about the world as an excuse to get everyone talking again, and maybe gain a little personal understanding to boot. “So what’s up with this magic thing?” Sal whispered cautiously, drawing withering glares from his companions. “What?” he asked defensively.

  Reit looked back toward Jaren and made a few obscure gestures. Whatever the signals meant, Jaren seemed to understand. The mage faced Sal, his green gemstone eyes flaring briefly. All of a sudden, the woods came alive with sound.

  No. The sound had always been there. It was just louder now, more distinct. Neat little trick, Sal thought in admiration.

  “Don’t be alarmed,” he heard Jaren breathe, though the mage barely moved his lips. “I’ve temporarily enhanced your hearing so that we may talk—silently—as we go.”

  “Thanks. Sorry for getting loud.” Loud? Funny that he should consider a whisper in the middle of the forest as being loud. But whatever Jaren had done to his ears, it made a believer out of him. “And I’m sorry if I offended you back there.”

  Jaren’s face shadowed at the mention of the slight, but it quickly faded. “No apologies are necessary. I suppose I should have explained a few things to you when I saw your reaction to healing. I wrote the reaction off to disorientation, you just being awakened from sleep and all. The fault was mine.”

  “So magic ain’t spiritual, huh?” It took Sal a moment to even get his mind around that one, let alone believe it. “Where I come from, magic is all like love potions, channeling the dead, demons and stuff. It’s considered unnatural by some, a sin. Or an abomination, I guess you call it.”

  Jaren nodded. “Your ‘magic’ indeed sounds very similar to mysticism. The Way of el also declares mysticism to be an abomination. But mysticism and gemstone magic are two very different things.”

  “How so?”

  Jaren frowned, his brows furrowing in thought. It was obvious to Sal that the mage had never before needed to explain the difference between the two. Here in this world, it was just a given.

  “Imagine two men, exactly alike in every way, except that one has been blind since birth. Is it mystical that one is blind and the other can see? Not at all. The Crafter granted that one man’s eyes would work, while the eyes of the other would not. Simple as that.

  “Magic is much the same way. Some are able to wield the flows of mana—the pure forces of creation—and some are not. Simple. It’s like walking, or picking up a hammer, or lighting a fire, except we do it by manipulating the mana flows rather than by using our arms and legs. It’s not an ability you can gain unless the Crafter gives it to you.

  “Mysticism, on the other hand, comes from the Abyss. It does not use mana, but rather bends the world by the pow
er of the spirit realm. Not miracles, mind you. Miracles are spiritual as well, but they are granted by the Crafter Himself. They are His intentional, direct interactions in our physical world, and when granted, they are specifically for His purpose and glory. Mysticism is for the user’s glory and personal gain. Palm reading, divining the stars, speaking mind to mind, communing with the dead—these are a few of the ‘gifts’ of the Evil One. And to the Evil One they lead in the end. True magic is just a tool, shaping and reshaping our world according to the physical laws that the Crafter Himself had already set into place. Mysticism steps outside those laws at will.”

  Sal nodded, starting to catch Jaren’s meaning. “And these Earthen Rank dudes… are they magic users too?”

  “Yes,” Jaren nodded. “But they are sworn to the Highest, and as such, do not hold to the same principles as we do. They are trained early on to use their magic as a weapon, and are often recruited so young that they know no other use for it. Sal, how is it that you have no knowledge of this? I mean, even in the Outer Reaches, magic exists. Surely, you would have at least been taught the basic principles, even if you’d never met a mage in person.”

  And with that, Sal was caught. He supposed that he could continue to hold back, to offer vague details about his origins, but more and more he realized that he’d need to be honest with his new friends, to trust them, if they were to ever help him get back home.

  “You ain’t gonna believe this,” he warned, wincing internally. The redneck version of ‘once upon a time,’ Sal thought wryly. Apparently, Jaren had never heard that joke, for the mage just nodded him on, accepting the warning for what it was.

  Taking a deep breath, Sal jumped in. “Here goes... I’m not from this world. At least, I don’t think so. I’m from a place where we’ve built cities hundreds of times larger than Veylin, out of metal and glass instead of wood and clay. We’ve created machines that run without horses, that dive to the bottom of the ocean, that fly...heck, we’ve even gone to the moon! But we don’t have magic, and I ain’t got the foggiest idea how I got here.”

  “The moon, eh?” Reit whispered. “Sounds like magic to me.”

  Sal sent a sharp look at Reit. How in the world could he hear what he and Jaren were talking about? But the swarthy leader only shrugged, and the reason became clear even before the other spoke. “What, you think I don’t like good conversation?” Retzu and the emeralds chuckled silently. Apparently everybody was eavesdropping. “Seriously, though. You’re still a stranger to us. We need to know as much about you as you apparently do about us.”

  Sal couldn’t fault him on that, but it still didn’t sit well with him. “That’s cool and all, but next time warn me when I’m about to be on public display.”

  “Fair enough,” Reit acceded, then said nothing more.

  Which left Sal curious. “What, that’s it? I just said I’m from another world. That don’t sound a bit crazy to you?”

  “Why should it?” Jaren asked. “In a reality where every possibility is or can be represented, there is always the possibility of a realm that is bereft of magic. And if that is the case, it certainly seems reasonable that you’d be from that very place.”

  “So I’m not crazy,” Sal stated, more to assure himself once more than for their confirmation.

  “No, I doubt you’re crazy,” Jaren chuckled near-silently. “Unfortunate, perhaps. Misplaced, certainly. But not crazy. And while I grant you that it is very odd that you should find yourself here, I would not go so far as to say it was impossible or even unlikely. After all, what you might consider impossible would seem to be commonplace in this world,” he added with a wink.

  ***

  Over the next few days, Jaren answered Sal’s questions as best he could, mainly to acclimatize the stranger to his new surroundings. Sal felt more like a sociology student than someone having a real conversation.

  At night, though, they would bat around stories of a personal nature; women—-except the female mage Nisa, who would discuss her family—battle, misadventures, what have you. The conversations took much the same slant as those evening powwows back in the prison, except Sal felt comfortable enough now to add his otherworldly perspective to his tales.

  “I mean, we all warned him, but Boob was dang sure gonna buy her a drink if it killed him!” Sal was saying one night, amid uproarious laughter from all except Nisa, who colored a bit at this “Boob’s” impending mistake. Even Reit was doubled over with mirth, valiantly trying to shush his companions, but doing a poor job of it himself. None of them knew who Boob was, or what “tequila” might have been, but they didn’t have to. They knew what was coming, and cruel as it seemed, humiliation was universally funny.

  “So there he goes walking up to her, shot glass in hand, and he says ‘Hey baby, what’s your name?’ And in the deepest voice you ever heard, she says ‘Bruce’!” With the punch line went the last of the restraint. Howls of mirth rose up through the trees, startling night birds from their roosts. Even Nisa lost it.

  They continued that way for a few more moments. Then memory drew a dark cloud over Sal’s jollity, and his eyes began to fill. “He was a good man, good to his Momma and Daddy. He deserved better than what he got.”

  The others agreed—though more for Sal’s sake than for any kinship they might have felt for Boob—and raised their cups in salute to Sal’s fallen brother-in-arms.

  “May the Crafter shelter him, and the seed of his memory continue to bear fruit,” Tavin said, his blessing almost sounding like a prayer.

  “Let it be so,” the others said as one.

  They passed a moment in silence, then Tavin asked, “So how did he die, he and your friends? How did you come to be the only survivor of your fellowship?”

  Sal scrubbed a would-be tear from his eye and coughed hard, clearing his throat. “Well, on the night that I came to this world, my team—or ‘fellowship’ or whatever—was sent in to Laos to raid this nut job’s laboratory. He’d been running experiments, dangerous ones that were killing people, and it was our mission to stop him. Among other things...”

  “And in this ‘lab-ruh-torrie’, there was a portal to our world?” Nisa asked, roughing her way through the unfamiliar word.

  “No, not exactly. See, my team was set up... umm, betrayed... and our target, a guy named Merrick, had men waiting on us. That’s how Boob, Tillman, and Gunter died. Hood too, probably, but if he bought it, I wasn’t there when it happened.”

  “Bought what?” Jaren asked, confused.

  “Bought the farm,” Sal replied, then caught himself. “Figure of speech, meaning that he died.” Jaren nodded his understanding, though he retained his quizzical expression, eliciting a grin from Sal. In a way, it amused him that no one understood what he was saying. But on the other hand, it was frustrating. Slang was so much a part of Sal’s normal speech that he had difficulty remembering what he needed to translate, and what he did not. Sighing, he moved on.

  “Anyway, I’m taking out Merrick’s men from behind this desk. There’s bullets—errr, metal projectiles—whizzing past me right and left, chewing the desk to bits. I figure I’m dead if I don’t do something quick. That’s when I see this scientist guy in a white robe ducking into an office. Well, he looks like a decent bargaining chip—or meat shield, whatever—so I go after him. When he sees me, he pulls this rock thing outta thin air and hits me in the shoulder with it, and… I… what?” He trailed off self-consciously as all eyes sharply fastened on him.

  “What did you say hit you in the shoulder?” Jaren asked, intent on Sal’s every word.

  “A ball of rock,” he answered with a shrug. Granted it was impossible, but the impossible was quickly becoming commonplace, so he didn’t see how this one detail was very important.

  “Formed out of thin air?” Retzu led him. Sal nodded.

  “Did you get a look at his eyes?” This from Tavin, his face neutral, belying the dread in his voice.

  They know something, Sal thought excitedly. By God,
they know something. “Yeah. They were like your mage eyes, only different. Kind of brown or grey-brown with—”

  “—black specks,” Reit finished. All were stunned silent for a moment.

  “Who was he?” Sal blurted. All this time wasted, and he had the answers right here. Or at least, some of the answers.

  Reit nodded to Jaren, who took the reins of the conversation. “We may never know who he was, but we can tell you what he was. If what you’re telling us is true, you’re very lucky to be alive. The man who attacked you was a granite.”

  “A mage? So he was like you, then?”

  “Nothing like me,” Jaren answered firmly. “True, he can wield mana, but comparing a granite to an emerald is like comparing a bear to an eagle. Both beasts are powerful in their own right, but they are two very different animals.

  “It is much the same with the six Tiles. Each Tile, or division of gemstone magic, is absolute master in its element, but they are as different as... well, as fire and water.” The others snickered, as if at some obscure pun, but Sal missed it completely.

  “Let me put it another way,” Jaren continued. “Emerald magic, the magic that I wield, is Life magic. It is based on, and affects, vitality and decay. We heal, grow, poison, rot—whatever can be done within the boundaries of Life.

  “Granite magic, on the other hand, is based on patterns of strength and weakness, affecting that which is Matter. Rock, dust, metal—these are the realm of the granite soulgem.

  “A mage’s magical alignment often has an effect on his personality. As such, emeralds tend to be abstract and compassionate, where granites tend toward logic. Emeralds use their magic to benefit others. Granites use theirs with regard to the ‘greater good’, without thought to the individual.”