Thief (The Key to Magic Book 7)

by H. Jonas Rhynedahll

  Rumbling came from the east. This was not thunder, but sounds that nhBreen remembered only too well. It was magical war, artillery or aerial strikes.

  After a moment, he heard voices from the clearing and murmured the words of a simple cantrap to magnify the sounds just enough at his ears to make them understandable.

  "... storm must be coming."

  nhBreen did not recognize this voice, but the studied pronunciation was that of an aristocrat, though not a Mhajhkaeirii'n.

  "No, that is not thunder. It is magic."

  That was Ghorn.

  "How do you know?"

  "No thunderheads. There is a battle not far ahead. Dispatch the runners to your legions with orders to prepare to form ranks."

  Then the shock struck the background ether and roiled over nhBreen like a deluge. Within less than a single gasping breath, a gust of wind smashed him flat like a hammer. Head swimming from the impact, nhBreen happened to roll his eyes upward.

  Up above the treetops, the sky was burning.

  Mar stood unperturbed and unmoved. Not a hair upon his head had been disturbed.

  A vision seized nhBreen. The foresight was so powerful that time slowed.

  The ether had spoken to him when he had been awake only a few times in his entire life and those visions had all been unclear, confusing, practically useless, and relative only in retrospect.

  This one was sharp, strong, and unmistakably direct.

  This older Mar would save the Mhajhkaeirii and their allies, but his single-minded focus would leave him and nhBreen vulnerable to a freak ethereal feedback wave that was even now building.

  Both of them would perish, incinerated. Not even their bones would remain.

  nhBreen knew that he dared not disturb Mar. That path would lead likewise to their deaths as the thief's wards collapsed beneath the continuing blast.

  The freak wave was intense, but not so potent that nhBreen himself could not deflect it.

  But that protection would require his most complex and powerful personal ward.

  If he cast that spell, it would be the same as announcing to Mar that he had regained all of the skill that he had possessed in the ancient world.

  Mar would know, without a doubt, that nhBreen had been feigning.

  All of his plans would be shattered.

  All of the effort that he had expended to regain Mar's confidence would come to naught.

  But his choice was between revelation and annihilation.

  Still on the ground, he raised his arms, raging inwardly, and cast the spell.

  In only another few heartbeats, the blast was passed and the freak wave dissipated.

  "Good," Mar said, now watching him.

  But this was yet again another, older Mar!

  There was no surprise or disapproval. He had known.

  "Now, get up. We have one more place to be."

  nhBreen rolled to his feet, jaw vibrating.

  And was somewhere else.

  The transition through undertime had been imperceptible.

  They were on a shaded knoll overlooking a wide valley of farm fields and pastures.

  "We have an hour," Mar told him. "I'll answer some of your questions now."

  Knowing the intense emotion would not gain him any leverage, nhBreen shoved aside his anger. "Where and when are we?"

  "This is Thirteenthday, Third Springmoon, Waning. This spot is five leagues east-northeast of Elboern. If you wish to turn aside, you can reach the city before sunrise tomorrow."

  "Why have you brought me here?"

  "I wish you to use your skills to preserve the lives of the passengers of the shuttle that will come down in the valley. Without your intervention, all of them will die."

  "How long have you known about me?"

  "I will not answer that question or anything concerning your immediate future."

  nhBreen gritted his teeth. "The shuttle, it could only come from the Orbitals."

  Mar nodded.

  "Meaning that ... they are still inhabited. By who?"

  "You will find that out, but not today."

  "Why me? You could do this yourself."

  "I, as a point of fact, could not, because I would be interfered with."

  "By Zso."

  "Yes."

  "What's to stop him from interfering with me?"

  "He can't find you because those guiding him can't see you."

  "Explain."

  "At this point in your life, you have existed for so long that real space and normal time have made an accommodation for your presence. In essence, the world assumes that you are, for all practical purposes, a relatively permanent fixture like a mountain range or an ocean. Thus, you cause no significant undertime disturbance as you progress through life. No anti-flux waves are reflected into the past and so you cannot be foreseen. No one can predict you and the only way to track your movements is to follow you second by uninterrupted second through undertime. That is why you were able to kill Zso at the Monolith. He did not know that you were coming."

  "What is an anti-flux wave?"

  "The negative refraction of an energy interchange of a sub-flux migration and a transverse undertime echo."

  "I do not understand what you just said."

  Mar shrugged.

  "What if I choose not to save the passengers of the shuttle?"

  "Magic will die."

  "Magic has died before."

  "Not completely and not forever."

  "The future of magic depends upon the passengers?"

  "My future depends upon the survival of the passengers."

  "And you are the future of magic?"

  "You have always known this to be the case."

  "How can I know that you are telling the truth?"

  "You can't."

  "What happens after?"

  "You return to the Waste City a second after you left."

  "And your younger self will not know that I have been gone."

  "I chose my moment with care."

  "There is a sequence of events that you wish to protect."

  "Yes."

  "And I am to say nothing of this to your younger self."

  "That is in your own self-interest. If he discovers your deceptions now, he won't learn to trust you again. If he doesn't do that, at some point he will kill you."

  Feeling a chill at his core, nhBreen fell silent. For the first time in centuries, he knew paralyzing fear.

  He was not in control.

  His fate was no longer his own to command.

  He could abandon his plans and the future that he had fought with all of his being to create or he could dance to this unsmiling wizard's tune.

  The boom of a reentering shuttle crashed across the sky.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  One cold winter night, Mar returned to the Waste City camp after yet another undertime excursion prompted by an ethereal twinge. Though it had been four days for him, from Waleck's perspective it had been only a matter of seconds and the old man still lounged exactly as Mar had left him near the penetrating warmth of their crackling fire.

  As Mar could refill their wood bin at a moment's notice, they had no reason to be at all frugal and built an overlarge fire each night.

  He sat down on his still warm camp stool, gathered up his coat from where he had dropped it, and slipped his arms into the sleeves. He kept a flask of water in the coat and he took a moment to have a long drink. Undertime travel tended to leave him thirsty for some unknown reason.

  As Waleck had learned to make accommodation for Mar's unannounced departures, he made no comment at the equally abrupt return, but simply picked up their conversation where it had been left off.

  "And after that, the hillside broke loose and slid across the road. The Imins had no choice but to withdraw."

  It took Mar a few seconds to bring to mind the first part of the story of Waleck's -- the sorcerer nhBreen's -- first battlefield duty. Though only a first rank and a most junior officer, his ne
ar panicked and misaimed cast of an offensive spell had by pure chance prevented The City's enemies from piercing a weakened front. The inadvertent success had earned the young nhBreen the first of a great many commendations.

  Reflections on these recollections of war, musings on his own battles with the monks, and his increasing forebodings of the battles that would soon begin had convinced Mar that he should learn more of how the ancients made war.

  "On the barge, when the monks first took you and Telriy, you fought back with magic. Tell me about that spell."

  "On the barge? Yes, I had forgotten that. That was not actually me, but I do have access to the memories. Those were ... enervated bolts. Yes. Hmm, the name of the spell was Orghon’s Wrath. No, that is not right. Hmmm. The name is right there on the tip of my tongue."

  "What is Orghon's Wrath?"

  "Ah? Orghon's Wrath is a projected globe of fire, possibly with collateral wrenching forces, but that additional effect is dependent upon the technique and skill of the caster. The globe will envelope its target and with the application of sufficient power, it is capable of melting steel."

  "Tell me how to make the flux modulations."

  "It is very complex and the exact form varies according to environmental factors. It is a combination of four counter revolving flux layers, each composed of one of the primary segments of the natural flux modulation of an aerated oil fire. I might be able to produce a weak example, if that would be of any assistance."

  "Show me."

  Waleck raised a fist and a look of deep concentration seized his face. After a full minute, a wane, almost imperceptible glow surrounded the fist.

  Mar delved the modulations, memorizing connections, exchanges, and flows.

  The old man blew out a sharp whoosh of air as the meager effect faded. "That is the best that I can do. I am sorry."

  "No, that was fine. I think I have it." He raised his own fist towards the sky as he teased the four sound-colors, a weeping-yellow, a retching-rose, a screeching-maroon, and a coughing-magenta, into existence.

  The spell sprang into bright being, its fierce light filling the entire camp. Watching closely with his ethereal sense, he fed flux into the assemblage.

  "If you moderate the transverse shift of the second flux layer," Waleck advised, "you will be able to control the output of visible light."

  Mar calmed the retching-rose and the blinding torch about his fist cooled to a red beacon, but he continued to pump flux into the spell.

  Watching intently, Waleck said quite calmly, "If you should happen to release that, nothing in this area, including our corpses, would leave so much as a pinch of ash."

  Mar's lips twitched into a smile as he dismissed the ethereal weapon.

  Waleck relaxed. "It has come to me that the enervated bolts were the product of the Spear of Chalan."

  "Show me."

  TWENTY-NINE

  7026 by the Common Reckoning

  (Thirteenthday, Waning, 3rd Springmoon, 1645 After the Founding of the Empire)

  Near the Monolith

  The trees towered on every side and the foliage of their overarching branches was much too thick to allow a great deal of direct sunlight through.

  Zso tramped forward through the bushes, trying not to wince at the thought of some bloodsucking insect hitching a ride on his clothing. He had never cared much for the wilds. Everything in it either bit you or caused a rash. A man's natural place was in the heart of a city where green things only grew in planters and window boxes.

  A dancing pinpoint of light led the way through the forest. He would have been hopelessly lost without it. Random ethereal factors had prevented the monks from determining the exact location; it could only be calculated here -- in the precise moment -- and the imp had been designed to do just that.

  The imp banked to the right, swerved between two trunks and stopped. It began to cycle in color: red, green, orange.

  He scurried to catch up, raising the heavy launcher to his shoulder.

  The imp began to blink from red to blue and back.

  He spoke the short phrase that would initiate the launcher's tracking spells, then flipped out the small display. Nested arrows directed him to swing the launcher left and raise the business end to about seventy degrees. A red outline of the shuttle with centered up on the display, vectors scrolling rapidly beside the symbol. A number in bright blue in the upper left corner indicated the interception probability. At this moment, it read 100.

  The imp froze in blue.

  He pulled the trigger.

  There was no recoil or backwash as the missile took flight, but its passage through the canopy rained shattered branches and stripped leaves. The debris rained down upon him and he instinctively ducked his head to protect his eyes. Before all of the organic hail had stopped, he turned his gaze back to the display.

  The de-orbiting shuttle and the missile, the first decelerating and the second accelerating and both nearly directly above him, showed a slow but inevitable convergence.

  Then the outline of the missile twitched and swerved off course.

  Warning symbols flashed on the display. The missile had struck another object!

  This type of missile was fully autonomous. He had no control over it and could only watch in frustration as it made clumsy corrections to reacquire its target. The interception probability had dropped to 58.

  He began to curse. This sequence would have to be redone!

  Then the blue digits began to increase: 60, 65, 69, 78...

  Missile and shuttle collided.

  Relieved, he snapped the launcher's tether to his appropriated battle harness, let it hang, and then dodged into undertime.

  It was only when he had arrived back at the monastery that he wondered if he should have monitored the crash of the shuttle to insure that all of its passengers perished as planned.

  THIRTY

  7026 by the Common Reckoning

  (Twelfthday-Thirteenthday, Waning, 3rd Springmoon, 1645 After the Founding of the Empire)

  A review of drone imaging revealed that the ethereal blast had occurred in the midst of a major skirmish between the armored lorries of The Brotherhood of Phaelle and the primitive ground forces of a coalition of city states which styled itself The Glorious Empire of the North. The conflict was insignificant in scale to the global wars of the old world, but was apparently world changing in current grounder terms.

  To learn the context of the battle, Oyraebos made a point of communicating directly with Scout Enael. As Enael and another scout from the northern team, Paei, had been away from their base comm -- they had been observing the sudden mobilization of Phaelle'n auxiliary troops -- the exchange took almost an hour to arrange.

  "All the information that we have concerning The Empire is anecdotal," Enael confessed. "Without corroboration, we cannot place much value in it."

  The fidelity of the scout's image, projected from a comm that Oyraebos had linked himself with refined spells, made it appear as if Enael was actually in the compartment with him.

  "With the war," Enael continued, "there are none of the normal economic interchanges -- trade ships, merchants, and so forth -- that one might expect between regional socio-economic units. The Phaelle'n condemn the leader of their enemies as 'The Apostate,' so we believe that the causes of the war are religious as well as economic."

  "Does the Empire also have salvaged magical weaponry?"

  "Not to the extent that The Brotherhood has, but we know that the Imperials have skyships, a word that we have translated as 'ships that sail on air,' so they apparently have also recovered or learned to remanufacture some magical devices."

  "Have you any indication as to which side set off the detonation?"

  "The monks that we have observed in public are nervous and agitated. I suspect that they were the target, rather than the originator of the weapon but I am not able to confirm that at this time. The populace here has only recently been subjugated by the Phaelle'n and the unofficial inf
ormation channels that we have made use of in the islands do not yet exist. The Brotherhood is an insular, secretive organization and makes no public announcements outside of religious propaganda."

  "Is it possible that the Empire has another such device?" No sorcerer's spell could defend against a weapon of that magnitude.

  "I think it highly unlikely. I am frankly amazed that even a single weapon with such power could have survived from the life before. We have been operating under the assumption that all of the ultra high level technology was destroyed when the world ended. Most of the Phaelle'n technology that we have been able to detect are simple, low level devices and the considerable majority are in miserable shape. Nearly everything that they have found has deteriorated to such an extent that the ethereal output of the devices is in most cases negligible. "

  "What about the aircraft that we have observed?"

  "Discovered in a sealed military bunker. It was a one of a kind bonanza and at the rate that they are expending them in the war, they won't have any in a matter of months."

  "How did you uncover that fact? I would think such discoveries would be kept secret."

  Enael laughed. "They publish the details of all of their archaeological work in a private encyclopedia. All that we had to do to get a copy is pay a small bribe."

  "That should be studied extensively."

  "As time permits, Erkron and Laabyz are combing through it on a daily basis."

  "Good. Update me immediately if you discover any relevant information at all."

  "Will do."

  On the day following the blast, drones tasked to focus on the bridge showed the advance of Imperial ground forces.

  With all spectators excluded, the Progress Committee met in Orbital Control to observe the live feed.

  "An Imperial victory would eliminate our best potential social tool for use on the northern continent, the existing organization of the Brotherhood," declared Chairwoman Lyrsee. "An imperial system would be difficult to manage and frightfully inefficient."