by Vox Day
Dag sighed and shook his head.
“Because your Assembly couldn't accept this, they'd be too afraid of the possibilities.”
His hands described a circle as he attempted to make his new friend understand.
“If the past can be altered through magic, then magic becomes an intrinsically destabilizing element in what is a much more chaotic reality than is commonly imagined. Your Masters believe their magic serves the cause of a positivist Order in a rational universe, so the idea of a dynamic history looks heretical, if not downright evil to them.”
Yung Chu was uncertain.
“I don't think that's necessarily so…. I mean, if our cause is Order, then surely the possibility of a Discordian tampering with the past is simply an example of the very importance of our duty.” His slim eyebrows raised in speculation. “Maybe this is why we have been given our power.”
“Whatever gets you through the night. Look, the theological implications are not a concern of mine, okay?” Dag pointed towards the door. “Go tell them yourself. I'll be here when you need me.”
An hour later, a furious Yung Chu stalked back into the room, muttering angrily under his breath. Dag's eyes danced with amusement but he pretended not to hear the Logosian's near-blasphemous imprecations. For a long moment the slim Asian stood before the window, arms folded, staring silently out at the courtyard below. Finally he turned to speak.
“They didn't listen. You knew they wouldn't!” he spat accusingly.
Dag nodded, but did not reply.
“Fools, all of them! Even Master Gorean! And Alexi….”
The junior Adept's voice trailed off, but Dag suspected he knew where the greater part of Yung Chu's fury was directed. Dag let him stew in silence for another few minutes, then rose from the desk where he'd been reading.
“Then we'll take matters into our own hands.” He pointed to the book upon the desk as he started to leave. “Why don't you read up on where we're going, and I'll go finish a few preparations I want to make. I'll be back in an hour, two at most.”
Yung Chu looked alarmed.
“But you can't cast a spell of that nature here! They'll feel the astral disturbance and interrupt before we can finish!”
“No they won't. They'll be too busy, I'll bet. Friends in the North, remember!” He paused in the doorway. “And, Yung Chu?”
“Yes?”
“If anyone asks about me, you don't know where I am.”
“But we can't–” Yung Chu tried to protest, but before he could finish his sentence, the sorcerer's apprentice drew the door quietly shut, and disappeared.
Derek Utberg sits quietly in the maximum-security council room, blond hair and Aryan profile accented dramatically by the black-and-silver uniform of a ranking SS general. A top aide to Fieldmarshal Rommel presents to the Fuhrer the latest information on the situation in Northern Africa, but the adept pays him no attention.
Instead he focuses his astral self outward, searching for signs of magical tampering with any of the twenty or so men in the room. He delves quickly into the minds of a Wehrmacht general and a heavyset air marshal, both to no avail, then recoils upon coming into contact with the twisted obscenities that writhe inside the head of a fellow Gestapo officer. The knowledge that the man's warped mind does not stem from an outside source is of little comfort, and it is with some relief that Utberg turns his focus towards the next man, a civilian party official.
He is too caught up in his investigations to note the end of the major's presentation and does not realize that another has detected the astral disturbances created by his scans. Adolf Hitler, the Leader of his adopted country and an accomplished tantric sorcerer, observes with surprise a faint purple aura emanating from the head of one of his generals.
A closer look reveals nothing but psychic shields tightly drawn about the general's closed mind. Caught up in their surreptitious activities, neither adept notices the rapid exit of Rommel's aide, nor realizes the significance of a briefcase left behind under the large wooden table. Abandoning his fruitless examinations, the spy from the future returns his attention to the table's head and is shocked to discover the rabid eyes of the Austrian boring deeply into his own. His awareness dims momentarily as an invisible fist cruelly grasps his mind, attempting to crush his psychic wards. He stifles a cry and achieves a temporary respite as a reflexive thrust at the mind of the other causes the iron grip to relax for a second.
But only for a second, for the invisible fist returns like lightning, smashing into his mind as his mental shields disintegrate. Desperately, he lashes out with a bolt of raw power, only to see it deflected harmlessly beneath the table. He sinks in despair as his last defenses are penetrated, laying his secret thoughts open to his adversary.
Under the table, the forgotten briefcase falls to its side, absorbing full force of the magical blast. Derek Utberg finds sudden release in the void as the bomb concealed inside it explodes prematurely, killing him instantly and freeing his violated mind.
A few moments later, his wounded adversary regains consciousness. Before the clamoring officers outside manage to enter, the bleeding Austrian crawls painfully over to the adept's bomb-blasted body, and carefully removes an unusual ruby pendant from around the corpse's neck.
“Did you have anything to do with this?" Yung Chu asked quietly.
Dag only shook his head, too busy with his preparations to speak.
In the hall outside the quiet candle-lit room the Asian apprentice could hear worried voices and the hurried rush of sandle-clad feet. They were alone inside a tiny library located two stories underground in the great Assembly building, constructed centuries before to commemorate a learned Loremaster now condemned to obscurity.
He scanned the rows of books bound in decaying leather, desperately trying to turn his mind from the dark suspicions he was beginning to harbor of his companion. He returned one slim manual back to its proper place and turned to face Tetradates' apprentice. Former apprentice, he reminded himself. Former apprentice.
The sight before him did little to allay his fears. The Discordian was kneeling before an opened spellbook, whispering harshly in a tongue the Order adept knew but would never dare to speak. Blood dripped from an opened vein in his wrist into a bowl carved of white bone, and Yung Chu tried not to think on its origins as he stared at the thick red fluid pooling there.
He started as Dag grunted with satisfaction and began to bind up his wrist with a clean white cloth. The Scandinavian youth smiled at him cynically and beckoned him forward.
“Is that a chirul crystal you're wearing around your neck?”
Yung Chu nodded.
The Discordian grimaced and shook his head. “Has it occurred to you that the spell I'll be casting is a Discordian spell, after all?”
“Of course! Why….” Yung Chu's voice trailed off and he dropped his eyes to the floor. “I didn't think of that,” he admitted sheepishly.
“It's okay. You can still bring it with you. It won't interfere with anything as long as you're not actually wearing it.”
The blond youth laughed briefly, and Yung Chu saw dark amusement momentarily brighten his companion's cold eyes.
“It might come in handy, now that I think about it. I'll probably be wishing I could wear one myself if we run into my master.”
The Discordian absent-mindedly scratched at his scarred face, then returned to his preparations.
“You might want to close your eyes about now. You might not find the presence of some of our arriving guests terribly… comfortable.”
Yung Chu nodded and removed the blue crystal from around his neck and held it clenched in a white-knuckled hand.
“I don't want to know any more,” he shuddered. “Just do what you have to do!”
He closed his eyes and dropped to his knees, hearing the soft scratch of the chalk against the hardwood floor as Dag sketched a protective magick circle. He willed his mind to trance, ignoring the deep sacrilege being performed around him by focusing on the blesse
d writings of the Great Ox.
'But evil is not known by Order through itself, otherwise evil would be in Order; for the thing known must be in the knower.'
“Ghul nakh ghul! Akh gwarrh….”
'Therefore, if evil is known through something else, namely, through good, it will be known by It imperfectly; which cannot be, for the knowledge of Order is not imperfect.'
“Eakdhum yahan ao!”
'Therefore Order does not know evil things!'
The green lightning roared as the magic shield was dropped and the young white-robe's mind found solace in unconsciousness as he collapsed beside the Discordian. The unearthly bolts hissed and crackled around their jerking bodies for a short moment, then blue light flared and they were gone.
“Where are we going, Dag?,” Yung Chu whispered as they crouched outside the walls of the royal palace of the Emperor. “Is Tetradates somewhere out there?”
He pointed towards the red glow of the torch-lit outer walls. Peking was surrounded by the horse-archers of the great barbarian Khan; the city had been besieged for months but was still unvanquished. Beyond the lighted towers of sun-dried brick lay the great goat-skinned tents of Temujin, and somewhere within those tents lurked the evil mind of the Darkmage Tetradates.
“We're going to find someone important,” Dag replied quietly. “The city will fall at dawn.”
“How do you know that? You can't possibly know that!”
“Of course I can!" Dag patted the padlocked book at his side. “I looked it up once we got here. The link spell held. Listen!”
“Acting under the advice of his general Subutai, the Khan ordered that the Yangtze be diverted, thus depriving the city of its water supply,” he read out loud to Yung Chu.
“See, when the Khitan nobles realized this they opened the city gates to the Mongols, but only after giving the Golden Emperor time to escape to Kai-Feng in the south.”
Dag pointed to the palace looming over their heads
“The Emperor departed at nightfall, so that means the gates will be opened in a few hours. I'll bet you anything that Subutai is really my old master by now. I know how the fat bastard thinks, and since Subutai is Temujin's man, that's who he'll replace.”
“But if tonight's the night, we'll be massacred along with the rest!” Yung Chu was aghast at the prospect, and he couldn't understand how his companion could be so composed.
Dag shook his head and smiled reassuringly.
“We'll be fine. Trust me. But first we have to find a certain scholarly gentleman." He rose to his feet and smoothed his stolen thirteenth century Chinese garb. “Let's go.”
A few hours and a number of attention-diverting spells later, the two young magic-users stood in an ornately decorated hallway in the east wing of the palace. A pale glow around the edges of an intricately carved wooden door indicated that the occupant of the small chamber was still awake and at his duties.
Yung Chu reached out to knock, but Dag, sensing someone approaching them from the far end of the hallway, grabbed his arm and pulled him back roughly behind the cover of a huge silken tapestry on the southern wall. They heard the soft footsteps of two or three men, leather-shod for silence. Yung Chu could see very little through the tapestry, but the metallic clank of swords being drawn from scabbards was unmistakable, as the shadowy figures paused for a moment before the doorway.
Then the armed men burst violently through the unlocked door, and Yung Chu cringed as he heard the sound of iron slicing through flesh and bone, and the meaty thud of a body hitting the floor. Then there was only silence as the assassins padded softly out the door and retreated down the hall in the direction from which they had first appeared.
Dag slipped from behind the tapestry, and after looking down the hallway to make sure the killers had no intention of returning, beckoned for Yung Chu to join him. Reluctantly, the Logosian apprentice crept out from his hiding place and followed his companion into the room of the dead scholar.
He fought the gorge that threatened to rise from his stomach as he forced himself to look at the murdered man. The victim was young, about his own age, and of a similar build. His clothes were rich, yet simple, and his face was finely formed with the sensitivity one might expect in a scholar, or a priest. One blade had gutted his stomach, while another had swept down across his body, crushing his collarbone and nearly severing his head.
“Good!” Dag commented coolly. “The one thing I feared was that they'd take his head. That would've been a problem!”
Yung Chu could only stare at the Discordian apprentice, too appalled to speak. The horror, the nausea, was almost too much to bear. “His head?” he finally managed to ask.
“Yeah, we needed to know what he looked like.” Dag smirked at him. “You're going to take his place after all, and we needed to be sure he didn't have any distinguishing features like a scar or a missing tooth. All those earlier visitors did was save me the trouble of killing him myself.”
Yung Chu chose to ignore the frightful implications of that statement, and focused on the assassins instead.
“Who killed him? And why?”
“I assume Tetradates had him killed. His name is Yeh Che'lyu Tsai, and after being captured by Mongol soldiers during the fall of Peking, he was taken to the Khan. He was Khitan, but his loyalty to his Chinese overlords pleased Temujin to the point that he was made chief astrologer to the Khanate. He was in a position to influence the Khan against his more bloodthirsty generals. Like Subutai.”
Dag laughed gleefully, his long hair flying free as his ill-fitting wide-rimmed hat fell off.
“Tetradates is going to freak when you show up instead of the unfortunate Mr. Tsai tomorrow!”
“But what about you?”
“What about me? I can't stay with you, you know. I'm not Asian, and Tetradates would strip a shapemasking glamor in a second. Nobody in the Khan's court knows what Yeh Che'lyu Tsai looked like, so you'll pass without a problem.”
“But… but where are you going? Back to our time? You can't leave me here!”
“Of course not. I'll ride to Austria and raise the defenses against the possibility of a European expedition. There's a certain princeling thereabouts who reportedly had long blond hair.”
The Discordian's eyes glittered dangerously.
“You mean you're going to kill him!” Yung Chu blurted out, terrified of this ruthless aspect of his companion's character.
Dag shook his head patiently and tried to mollify him.
“Do you have a better idea? Look, do you really think I can just ride up to the Most Holy Roman Emperor and tell him 'Hi, I'm from the future and I'd like to borrow your armies in case the little yellow people come?'” He chuckled indulgently. “Come on, Yung Chu, don't be such an idiot. Sometimes people have to die so that more people won't.”
He bent his tall frame over and carefully slung the corpse of the Chinese scholar over his right shoulder.
“Now I'll get rid of the body and you clean up this mess on the floor. Just change into one of his robes, fix your hair into a topknot, and wait to get captured. Don't forget to impress the Khan! I'll contact you from Europe; we can firetalk without too much trouble. In the meantime, just do whatever you can to counter anything Tetradates is telling the Khan.”
Yung Chu only stared as the young Discordian mage grunted as he rose unsteadily to his feet and walked carefully out the door, blood still dripping from the lifeless burden. The Logosian closed his eyes and listened until the heavy footsteps were gone, leaving him alone in the past, trapped inside a besieged city doomed to fall in only hours. He lay back on the dead scholar's bed and wept, tears of fear, guilt, and shame wetly streaking his cheeks.
“What do you mean, we won't go after them?” snarled Alexi. “Have you lost your mind!”
The angry Loremaster's voice shook with fury as he glared at the cool grey eyes of his superior.
The Master of Order calmly shook his shaven head and grimaced wearily at the Loremaster's insubor
dination.
“No, Alexi, I have not lost my mind. But you, I'm afraid, have lost your temper!”
A note of steel entered his voice as he pointed a finger at the bearded man.
“It is unseemly and if you would speak further, I will hear a civil tongue! Is that clear?” His iron tone brooked no challenge, and the Loremaster bowed his head in submission.
“Yes, I… I must apologize. It is only… it is my utmost concern that we stop this evil sorceror from consumating his blasphemous plans.”
“I understand and share your concerns–” the Master of Order started to say, but Alexi interrupted him.
“Then why do we wait here, useless? The apprentices have located the evil one, so let us move to end this madness.” The exasperated master threw his hands up towards the ceiling. “I beg you, send me, or Cummings, or one of the Jains, or even go yourself! But we must stop Tetradates and we cannot do it from here!”
He stared at the Master of Order, his fists clenched on his hips.
The Master placed his hands together in the shape of a temple, and stroked his chin contemplatively. He cleared his throat and his eyes narrowed as he regarded the other.
“You realize we have already lost two Adepts, two of our best.”
“Of course. Utberg and DeWitt. What of it?”
“And you think these deaths were mere accident?” The Master's left eyebrow rose skeptically and for a moment the Loremaster looked uncertain.
“Well, we did not know that Hitler was a sorcerer of such strength. As for the plague era, well, millions of people did die of the disease after all, it was just misfortune that the vaccine failed.”
“Really?” The Master's voice was dry. “And it was just happenstance as well that Tetradates' own apprentice should choose this particular time to betray him, so close to the moment of his master's greatest triumph? I wonder, Alexi, I really do. There appear to be wheels within wheels here, and I am sorely afraid I have been deceived!”
It was a painful admission. The deaths of two, perhaps even three good men were already on his conscience. He was loathe to add any more to that score.