by Garon Whited
“That’s not how I’d put it. They’re my friends. I want to make sure they’re okay.”
“But that’s how it is.”
“Well… yes.”
“I will discover what I can. Would you prefer I rescue them, if they need rescuing? Or do you want to do it?”
“I’m not proud. If you think you can do it, go for it. Be sure to keep someone here informed if I’m not handy. You do still have that mirror, right?”
“I do. And I will be honored to be of service.” He smiled at me. “You’re going to owe me favors.”
“I know. Let me know what I can do for you.”
“I will. I’m saving up for something big.”
“You have only to say the word.”
“Have you any thoughts on where to begin?”
“Offhand? Let me think.” I gave it some thought and paced in a circle around the sand table. “T’yl was in residence here, in the palace of Karvalen, up until he disappeared. Someone might know something—last seen leaving the city sort of thing. Both of them are magicians, so someone in Arondel might know more. As a last resort, I might ask Bob.” I paused and thought about it. “Actually, asking Bob might not be such a bad idea. T’yl had an elf-body, last I checked, with some humanizing alterations.”
“I am hesitant to consult with an elf,” the Hero cautioned. I sympathized.
“I’ll get you a token. He’ll know you have my authority and he’ll be helpful. I have every confidence in his loyalty.”
“Do I want to know why?”
“Probably not.”
“You mentioned a token?” he asked, changing the subject.
I found a coin, one of the silver pentagons with what was probably meant to be my face on it. A few minutes of work and it had an imprint shaped like my hand on both sides—one dented inward, the other pushed outward. Bob would recognize it, I felt sure.
“There you go,” I said, handing it to Sedrick. “I’ll call ahead and let Bob know you’re working for me, too. Let’s see about getting you some money—not to pay you, but to smooth the way in your investigations.”
“I will appreciate whatever you may afford. I believe I will begin by asking questions here, in Karvalen. If this proves fruitless, Vathula will be next—it’s closest—and then Arondel.”
“Sound thinking. Wait here a minute.” I left him and dashed up to the metals room.
Cracks in the walls still oozed metal. The mountain didn’t fill the room up with lumps of it during my absence. It stopped when the piles stacked up to the height of the metal veins. This left a lot of metal in the room. No iron—it was probably appearing as if by magic in one of the smithy rooms. No copper, either—same probability; it’s the main component for brass and bronze. A pool of mercury occupied one corner. Piles of gold and silver lumps heaped themselves against the walls. A smaller mounds of platinum and other metals were spaced around the room.
I’m going to get some iridium for the mountain and ask about it. I swear I am. Right now, though, I’m not sure it hasn’t already squeezed out a small pile of it. That’s the problem with a lot of metals; they look a lot like each other until you do something esoteric, occult, or arcane to them. I’ll have to test them and see… later.
I gathered some lumps of gold. Firebrand helped me slice the larger ones down into smaller pieces. I brought a double handful of the stuff back down to Sedrick. He grunted as I dumped the precious metal into his hands.
“There you go. If you ever need more, say so.”
“I’ll keep it in mind, Sire,” he replied. “Right now, I need to find some strong pouches.”
“Ask Laisa,” I advised. “She’ll know.”
“Right away.”
“Good. I leave it in your hands. If I discover anything, I’ll be sure to let you know.”
“Excellent.” He bowed and hurried off, trying not to lose chunks of gold.
I went back to my spell-work. I knuckled down and got busy with the spells on the sand table.
My first three spells were reflectors and already established. They roamed slowly around the edge of the world, connected to each other and the mountain with locator spells. Rather than spherical pulses, the energy of the locators were focused into beams—think of laser beams, scanning as they sweep slowly around. I was proud of that. It let me link multiple spells together over vast distances.
See, the idea was to have fixed spells on the mountain—three at the edge of the upper courtyard, acting as fixed navigational points. Three mobile spells out at the Edge, following it as they worked their way around the world, would beam information to each other and to the mountain as they moved. Eventually, they would scan the whole world.
I considered having them orbit up and over, tracking along the firmament, but I’m cautious about doing anything with the shield defending the world from the hungry demons outside. Call me overcautious, but I’ve been in a fight with those Things. It’s not an experience I’d care to repeat.
As the mobile spells worked their way around, they would act in much the same way as a reflector. The fixed spells on the mountain emitted a basic detection beam at each of the roving spells, changing the angle by a minute amount with each pulse as the reflectors orbited. Eventually, these detection beams would sweep like a scanning laser over everything—ground, water, trees, the works. With all that information fed into my sand table, it could display a map of the world.
This would not, by itself, find anything shielded from locator spells. What it would do is find any area blocked from such spells—the black balloons in the stadium.
If the sand table displayed the world, except for a half-dozen “holes,” then I would have a good start on places where Tort or T’yl might be. Some I might be able to peek into with a scrying spell. Location-blocking shields don’t stop scrying portals, and vice versa. Others I might be able to look into with a combination of scrying spell and telescope—the spy satellite method. With others, perhaps I could use something like a psychic link with a bird to fly in and look around—the viksagi shamans did something like that, or tried to, during the Battle of Crag Keep.
I have lots of options for looking someplace over. The trouble, as always, is finding the place!
A related problem was the time it would take. The spells floating around the world, following the contours of the Edge, might take a while.
This whole setup was harder to coordinate than I anticipated. Flinging the spells out to the Edge wasn’t the problem. Immaterial constructs like a spell matrix don’t have to worry about mere physical issues such as air resistance or the speed of sound. They traversed the distance almost instantly. My real problem was the information links back to the mountain. All these information-processing spells needed to communicate with each other to send their detection beams, relay the information, and keep a track of all the relative movements of everything else, all while coordinating with each other. It’s a network of spells, all talking to each other at the same time and relaying their location information to the sand table.
If it sounds complicated, you’re getting the picture.
I’d only tested it on the small-scale, mapping the sand table itself. It was really only a proof of concept. Scaling it up might have some problems.
Still, if it didn’t work, I’d at least be able to start debugging its program. I did manage to put it all together—eventually. I could have used another pair of hands and a prehensile nose, though. Fortunately, I had the presence of mind to lock the door; the mountain welded the pivot-door shut for me. If someone had walked in and disturbed my concentration during those few hours, I might not have been as patient and understanding as I should be.
It started working.
I watched as narrow wedges started to appear on the sand table. Terrain? Land, sea, hills, forests? Yes… not too clear, but it wasn’t designed for high-resolution scanning and all the fiddly details. Blank, flat sand stayed smooth and unbroken until the leading edge of the scanning satellite-spells
crept over it. Grains leaped up all along the lines between mountain and Edge, revealing a map of the world with agonizing slowness.
But it was working, or seemed to be. It wasn’t an example of high-resolution imagery or of lightning swiftness, but it worked!
Watching it wouldn’t make it scan faster. Although, if I added more scanning satellite spells to roam the Edge… which would take more networking to integrate each one with all the others…
I can be patient as long as I can see progress. This was progress. Now I needed to leave it alone and let it do its job.
The power requirements for building the scanner array weren’t too bad. I wasn’t tired in the sense of feeling drained. It was more of a concentration thing. I spend hours on end focused on magical projects. Whether they cost me in terms of energy or not, there’s a pleasant feeling that goes with completing it and sitting back, relaxing from the intense concentration. So I took a brief break, worked some kinks out of my neck and shoulders, and checked with Laisa about something to eat.
I like her. I think she assumes I’m always hungry.
With a plate of food in hand, I munched my way over to what was now my new gate room. I wondered again what happened to the old one. I hadn’t found it in all my wanderings. With the original gate destroyed, it didn’t really have a purpose. It might have simply closed up and vanished. I suppose I could ask the mountain, but asking it questions and getting answers takes an awfully long time compared to people. Every question becomes a geography question…
The mountain had an arch prepared and a layer of silver on the wall for me. The new arch was already a free-standing piece of stone. I hadn’t specified how big it should be, so it duplicated the old one. That suited me. I could ride Bronze through it at a full gallop if I needed to, and I might.
Rather than dive right into another major enchantment project, I worked on the sheet of silver first. The mirror was the easy part—much less complex and far less power-intensive. Since the mountain had the metal sheet embedded in the wall, I worked carefully. No, it wasn’t considered “part” of the mountain. The metal was separated, but held there by a frame of stone.
Does this mean the stone of the mountain is alive, but the metals aren’t? Or is this particular sheet of silver something of an exception because I asked for it to be? The mountain doesn’t really know these things, not like I want to know these things, so asking it is pointless.
But I wonder.
I gave the new mirror a quick polish and a basic pan-and-scan scrying enchantment; I was in a hurry. With the mirror mounted next to the arch, one could find the target point and use the scrying portal as a sort of lightning rod, or maybe as a pilot hole for the gate spell to follow. It would help with targeting the other end.
Then it was time for the heavy lifting.
Creating a gate spell enchantment is not a small task—not for me, not for magicians, not even for the ancient Order of Magicians from Zirafel. On the other hand, I cheat.
Casting the spell, rather than making a permanent magic item, is much easier. It’s a sort of poor man’s enchantment, really—the duct tape and wire version, if you like.
Rather than exhaust myself by gathering power, I drew energy from a charged gem to build the spell matrix. A second gem gave it a functional charge; it would work at least once with only moderate effort on the part of the person opening the gate—assuming they were enough of a wizard to activate the thing.
I cheated further by embedding the other two gems into the stone structure of the arch. With those connected to the spell, it should be good for three uses, maybe four, depending on how quickly it was used. Call it ten or fifteen seconds of open time.
Under normal circumstances, one would use the spell until it ran down. The spell would then fold in on itself and consume its own structure until it disintegrated and the portal closed. In this case, however, the gate could be opened or closed at will. If the spell didn’t discharge fully, it would remain intact, ready to be used again—and could be recharged.
It’s something like an old diesel engine. If you run it until it uses all its fuel, you get a fault called vapor lock. Basically, it won’t run again even if you do put in more fuel. You shouldn’t have let it run out, because now you have a lot of work to do to fix it before it will start. The spell was just one step worse. If you let it run out, it melts down and goes away. You can’t fix it; you need a new one. But as long as you don’t let it run out, you can keep refueling it indefinitely.
As a further cheat, I built a small power jet and a fuel gauge. As time went on, the gate would continue to suck in power and charge itself. When the crystals and the spell reached their maximum capacity, the jet would shut down, go into an idle mode, and wait to be reactivated. It struck me as a lot less troublesome than building a power circle and periodically draining it, feeding power to the gate, and erecting another power circle.
I like automation.
After all my work, it was time for a shower; I was worn out and sweaty. Power-intensive work as a mortal does it to me every time. It’s a drain on the vitality of the caster even when there’s power aplenty. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Building sand castles with lots of the best sand isn’t as tiring as having to go all over, scraping it together, but it’s still effort—and gates are rather elaborate sand castles.
Then it was time for a big dinner after a busy day. Laisa doesn’t say much, which tells me where Caris got the tendency. I don’t know much about her, really. On the other hand, she does her best to keep food in front of me, so my mouth was too full to ask much. Not really ideal chatting circumstances, anyway. I can’t really object. I wonder, though, if she’s so determined to feed me because she wants to control who and what I eat. It bothers me she might have such an opinion of me.
Am I being insecure? Probably. Doesn’t change the fact I worry about it.
In my chambers, I set up a protective ward on the half of the room with the bed platform. Then I remembered one more thing I needed to do.
Never fails. Get set to have a nap and everything you forgot comes rushing back.
I went out and found a small club, about the size of a typical policeman’s nightstick. At least this wouldn’t require much. Certainly no enchantments; I was too tired for enchantments. But a few spells, yes. A couple of conditional spells to identify the holder, some sets of recorded words to be played back under the proper conditions, one small spell to destroy the fibrous matrix of the wood, another for some illumination effects…
By then I was pushing past tired into fatigued. I crawled onto the pile of furs and rolled into the protective circle. With Firebrand lying next to me and Bronze standing over me, it was time for my nap. The last time I had a nap seemed to go all right, so I wasn’t as worried about it as before. Wearing myself out would help with overcome my natural tendency to lie awake and worry, too.
If I was about to have a talk with the Queen to convince her I wasn’t an Evil Overlord, I was going to have to be at my sharpest.
The fettered genie stands tall as mountains, broad as seas. It bleeds bright drops of rainbow blood like rain. Each drop strikes like a note of music, a ringing, liquid meteor. The splashes shatter into shards, each a crystal seed. Sharp and deadly, they are spears piercing the earth. They grow around the genie, crackling and clicking, crystals multiplying, spreading outward, upward, thrusting sky-bright spires into the bellies of the clouds.
A palace all of glass and crystal takes shape, chiming, tinkling, spreading and branching, prismatic, glowing, delicate. A thing all of angles and light, formed of high spires and eggshell arches, fragile as dewdrops. At the heart of the palace, the wounded genie bleeds still, feeding the spreading empire.
Crystal strands spread across the land, lines of glass and scintillating power. They mark the face of the world, transforming it. Wherever the glowing lines touch, nothing remains the same. Men become gods or beasts. Animals grow into myths or vanish. Everything evolves, drinking in
the bright power or being slain by it—there is no third choice. The world within this egg of rainbow crystal and bloodied glass is a thing of splendor and terror, blazing light and horror.
The genie dies before my eyes, breathing out its last, looking at me, accusing and mournful and afraid. Its final breath is a pale mist of color, swept away on iron winds. The genie fades, turns grey, turns old, turns cold. It cracks, like stone beneath the weight of winter and years, but does not crumble. Its face remains, with the look of pain and weary sadness. Its sightless eyes are black with burnt tears.
Tall towers, their points brushing the cloudless sky, crack and fall. They shatter into flakes like sharp, glittering snow. Coruscating lines collapse, leaving only barren ground. The eggshell arches sway as the earth shudders, break into jagged shards. Showers of crystal daggers fall like a rain of death upon screaming multitudes. Sharp points pierce flesh and bone and stone, and nothing survives the fall.
Reflected in every shard, I see my face.
I sat up with a jerk, heart pounding, sweat beading my forehead. I seized Firebrand and looked wildly around.
Nothing was trying to kill me.
Didn’t go well, Boss?
“Depends on how you look at it,” I admitted, trying to calm down. “I’m not actually being buried under tons of broken glass, am I?”
Not that I’ve noticed.
“That’s good.” I took a deep breath and lay back. “See, this is why I hate sleeping. Nightmares.”
Bronze snorted.
“It’s not an actual mare,” I replied. “You’re quite comforting. Bad dreams are not.”
She nodded, mane tinkling slightly.
At least you’re trying, Boss. That’s good thing, right?
“Is it?”
You don’t like it, so it must be good for you. It builds character. Right?
“I don’t like being electrocuted, beheaded, or ripped apart by rabid weasels, either. Do those build character?”
Do you at least remember what it was? Firebrand asked, avoiding the question.