Thief (The Key to Magic Book 7)

by H. Jonas Rhynedahll

  "Where did the craft crash?"

  "To the south. Near a large walled town at the top of the coastal plain."

  Mar sidestepped into undertime, raced through the shallows till he caught a glimpse of the crashed shuttle, determined the locations of all the milling ancients, hurriedly built an undertime manifold that targeted those locations, and concealed the multiple entrances in illusion. For all those in motion, their next step brought them to the ethereal prison at the Monolith. Those that sprang into motion at the shock of seeing their companions disappear were only seconds in joining them.

  He returned to his place beside Waleck in the fraction of a second after the fraction of a second that he had left it. The first batch of ancients arrived at the same time. It was several moments before the voice from the imp spoke again.

  "That was very ... impressive magic. Thank you." The awe in the man's voice was clear.

  Mar thought for a moment of offering to return these ancients to their orbital in the same way, but decided that such an offer could only confirm to them that he had the full powers of wizardry at his disposal, a fact, that if concealed, might offer a certain level of advantage in future. As, at least in theory, the same feat could have been accomplished with port magic such as they no doubt had, they could now yet believe him to have only the spell portfolio of a common sorcerer.

  "Will you now agree to return from whence you came?"

  "We will if you compel us to do so, but our desire is to remain here on the surface. Our places are the moons that you call the Cousins and there is no room for us to live there. Our proper place is here, on the ground, where we were all born. We are of this world just as you are, but from the age before this. Our magic allowed us to sleep through the last few thousand years. We are castaways in time, but we belong here. That is why our first craft came down."

  "Is that what you would do if you are freed from confinement? Just live?"

  "We have no designs on the empires of this world. We will abide by any restrictions that you impose and will readily submit to the authority of your Empire. Like any people, we can only prosper when there is peace."

  Mar made his decision. "Very well. As long as you live in peace, you will be left in peace."

  FORTY-THREE

  Mar, with Waleck at his side, waited as the three sorcerers approached. When Mar had dispersed his spells and released them, the voice from the imp had requested a face-to-face meeting for further discussions.

  There was nothing particularly remarkable about the appearance of the three men. The apparent leader was a bit taller than the other two, but otherwise the three ancients, save for their outlandish clothing, could have hailed from any city around the Silver Sea. Like Waleck and Llylquaendt, these ancients looked no different in feature than anyone else.

  "They should have horns, at least."

  The old man gave him a blank look. "Sorry, did I miss part of this conversation?"

  "Demons from the past. All the stories give them the appearance of monsters."

  Waleck raised his hands to his forehead as if feeling for the missing horns. "Some do have horns. They just cannot be seen."

  Mar grunted. "And some have put their horns aside."

  He turned his attention back to the sorcerers. In the ether, all three had a blazing presence, the leader much more so than his companions.

  It was a given that the other three were likewise studying Mar and the old man.

  The leader gave a slight start and then gave Mar a hard stare. "I remember you! Your name is Mar."

  The other two sorcerers hung back slightly and watched Mar and Waleck with guarded expressions. Mar watched them as well in case either attempted to cast a spell.

  He decided to discard his feigned accent. An anonymous voice might find some utility in a disguise, but in person he preferred to be himself. Besides, talking that way made his jaws ache.

  "We've never met."

  "You met a friend of mine in the life before. His name was Mortyn."

  "The Proctor."

  "Yes."

  "Is he up in the orbital?"

  "He did not choose stasis."

  A stray thought nudged Mar to ask, "Did you also know Oyraebos?"

  The consternation on the man's face revealed the truth. "You're Oyraebos."

  "Yes." Oyraebos paused. "Did Mortyn mention me?"

  "No, but he brought me something of yours. Part of a book on magic."

  "That is curious. I am working on a text book, but it is far from complete."

  Waleck laughed.

  Oyraebos frowned slightly. "I am sorry. Did I misspeak? I am fluent in your language, but it is not my native tongue."

  "No, not at all," the old man assured him. "I was simply struck by the incredible absurdity of life. Please forgive my outburst."

  Mar agreed with the old man about the absurdity of the situation, but he did not feel moved to laughter.

  "What did you want to talk about?"

  "We have two matters that we would like to discuss. The first is to discover the exact terms of our release from confinement."

  "You will not use magic to gain undue advantage over those that have none. Other than that, you may do as you please as long as you obey the laws and decrees of the Empire and of this city. I would also advise you to learn and conform to the accepted standards of public behavior established by the peoples that you encounter. We have the magical capability to monitor each one of you on a continual basis as well as the magical capability to apprehend and punish any who transgress."

  Mar saw Oyraebos glance at his two companions, but neither gave any response that he could detect other than to meet his gaze.

  "There will be no restrictions on our use of magic amongst ourselves?"

  "Not as long as that use does not violate the laws and decrees of the Empire."

  "And you will always be watching."

  "We will always be watching."

  This time, Oyraebos glanced at Waleck, then back at Mar. "We understand and we can live with that."

  "What was the second matter?"

  "You wage war against the group known as the Brotherhood of Phaelle. We have made direct contact with them and we would like to offer our services to mediate the dispute in an attempt to bring peace."

  Mar stiffened. "The sorcerer at Mhevyr is one of you?"

  The tall ancient noticed his reaction. "We have personnel at Mhevyr, yes, but they landed only a few hours ago."

  Mar clamped his jaws shut on a curse. "Tell the sorcerer to fall back."

  Oyraebos shook his head. "I communicated with our other shuttle only half an hour ago. They did not report a battle."

  "There will be in an hour."

  Oyraebos stared at Mar for a moment, produced a grimace, and said, "Wizardry."

  "Tell your man to fall back," Mar repeated. "But wait for an hour and a half. If he does not give way when I return to that battle, I will drag him and anyone with him into the heart of undertime."

  FORTY-FOUR

  17th Year of the Phaelle’n Ascension, 353rd Day of Glorious Work

  Year One of the New Age of Magic

  (Firstday, Waxing, 1st Summermoon, 1645 After the Founding of the Empire)

  Plythtwaelndt Fortress

  As he walked to his quarters, Bhrucherra reflected on the meeting that had just completed between Traeleon, himself, the Brotherhood's senior combat commanders, and the sorcerers of the moon people.

  It was his calling and duty as First Inquisitor to suspect the motives of any that came seeking an alliance with the Brotherhood and the sorcerer Dhavosh and his underlings had given Bhrucherra much to be suspicious of.

  As he knew with utter certainty that men were incapable of genuine altruism, he also knew with utter certainty that Dhavosh's claims that the moon people had come down to help the Brotherhood restore the heights of magical civilization to be, at the very least, a misdirection.

  Men of such power would not make the Brotherhood an equal par
tner out of the goodness of their hearts.

  His privacy being essential, he had chosen quarters in an otherwise little populated wing of the fortress and thus the corridor off which his single room lay was dark save for a single sconce beside the jamb that an Initiate lit at dusk and extinguished at dawn.

  As he always did, he stopped a dozen paces short of his door, still in the shadows, and listened.

  As always, he heard nothing and started to continue on, but an odd feeling held him in place.

  Something was not quite right.

  After another moment, he crept forward, drawing his bolt thrower. At the door, he extinguished the sconce with a pinch of the fingers of his free hand. Still listening intently and trying to sort out meaning from the premonition, he waited some moments to allow his eyesight to adjust to the dark, then, staying alongside the wall, he pushed the door open as he leaned forward just enough to see inside.

  His night vision was more than excellent. He saw the man sitting in his single, hard chair as a fuzzy outline. The visitor seemed relaxed and made no apparent aggressive move. Bhrucherra decided to investigate this intrusion further before he pulled the trigger. He waited.

  "Greetings, First Inquisitor."

  The voice was an older man's voice, the pronunciation indicated education but did not have the artificial crispness that Bhrucherra had heard from the surviving aristocracy of Mhevyr.

  "You have entered my room without permission," Bhrucherra said. "Unless you can indicate a reason that I find acceptable, I will presently kill you."

  The tenor of the voice did not change; the uninvited visitor was unmoved by Bhrucherra's threat.

  "I am the Wizard Zso and I have come to offer a proposal to our mutual benefit."

  "Wizard? You are of the moon people?"

  "No. I should be considered a very interested third party."

  "What is your proposal?"

  "Kill the sorcerer Dhavosh and I will make you Archdeacon."

  Bhrucherra fired, but the demon had already vanished.

  FORTY-FIVE

  7026 by the Common Reckoning

  (Secondday, Waxing, 1st Summermoon, 1645 After the Founding of the Empire)

  Tertiary Launch Site

  With her son snug in his floating pram and it trailing faithfully on an ethereal leash, Prim marched down the improvised landing ramp. She had seen the images relayed from the big displays in Orbital Control and she knew what to expect, but the stone ruins that rose all about the cleared area where the shuttles sat lined up left her slightly taken aback. She had never seen this launch site, but knew that it had been the near twin of the one in the Commonwealth. That one -- last seen the day that she had left the old world forever -- had been an open, dead-level expanse of hexagonal landing pads with a few bunkered stairwell exits scattered between.

  Preliminary reports sent back up to the orbital indicated that four distinct levels of habitation, each more advanced in technique and method of construction than the last, existed above the thick cap of magically fused rubble that had been laid down -- likely as a defensive measure -- over the original poured stone. No one, including apparently the current tenants, knew the identity of those previous owners.

  But the who or the why of an unrecorded past was irrelevant to her. All that mattered was the now.

  Still, at the bottom of the expanded metal ramp, she did pause, overcome by the sharpness of the air.

  Non-recycled air smelled so clean!

  As a teasing wind tugged at her hair -- another sensation that she had not felt in so many months that it felt like forever -- she drew in a lung full of that natural air and blew it out in a laugh. She had not realized how much she disliked being trapped in a steel can in the midst of an airless void until this moment!

  She started across the stone pavement, marveling at the slight skritch of the stone under the artificial composite of her boot soles. The manmade materials of the lost world had never made a sound exactly like it and she wondered how long it would be before her footwear had to be made of the skins of animals.

  It would take years -- perhaps decades -- to establish a modern magical production infrastructure. The grounders, being Magic Deficient, would not have the capacity to either assist in the manufacture of the necessary machines or to operate them once manufactured; the members of the Project, both Proctors and Participants, would have to do everything. Shortages of common physical goods had already appeared on Orbital B and these were expected to intensify as the extraordinary wear of the labor to build a new civilization took its toll of clothing, tools, and magical instruments.

  Armed with a large data display skry pad, one of the shuttle's crew, a woman whom Prim thought was the Flight Engineer, was standing a few dozen steps away from the ramp, directing the passengers towards the tents and sheds of the temporary encampment.

  She slowed, looking about. Neither Prim's nor Lawst's name would be on the woman's lists. She had made it onto the last shuttle simply by melding her and Lawst into the final clutch of passengers and barreling by a harried clerk.

  After he had arranged a guarded peace with the grounders, Project Leader Oyraebos had messaged that rehabilitation of the Tertiary Launch Site so that the remaining civilian shuttles could begin regular flights from the surface to Orbital B would take every possible hand that could be brought down. The Deficient grounders would be useless save for brute physical labor. To that end, he had ordered that the remaining shuttles, the Hawk and the Snake, be launched with every bit of gear and every able body that could be crammed aboard.

  With the only universally recognized central authority, Project Leader Oyraebos himself, trapped upon the surface, at least in immediate terms, the governance of the orbital had become dysfunctional. Something like panic had reigned as the various committees and sections competed to squeeze their own people aboard the last two shuttles.

  She did not expect the Raven to be summoned from half the continent away to rush her precious womb and her even more precious Proficient infant back to the orbital, but she did expect serious scolding and handwringing, both of which she was loathe to entertain, especially as both would be to utterly no purpose.

  Thus she had exited last, allowing time the opportunity to provide an alternative.

  Happily, time did just that.

  "Nali!" Prim called out as she started walking briskly towards the medic assistant.

  The Flight Engineer looked up, frowned, but did not take after her.

  Prim had caught sight of the dark hair and distinctive figure of Nali off to the left as the woman left a lane between two under construction sheds. Walking alone with purpose and speed, Nali appeared in a hurry to get somewhere in particular.

  Prim saw Nali's head turn at the sound of her name, then saw her lips burst into a huge smile of recognition. When Nali began to trot towards her, Prim increased her own pace.

  As the two came together, Prim, struck by an uncharacteristic impulse, enveloped the other woman in a tight hug.

  Nali returned the hug, then linked her arm with Prim's. "Come on! We can talk on the way!"

  Prim paused only to glance back to make sure that Lawst was still sleeping and safe in his pram, then let Nali guide the two of them along. "Where are we going?"

  "The market, for lunch," Nali confided, almost with truant school girl bravado. "The rations we brought down are inedible! How is Lawst?"

  "Growing, eating, pooping." Prim grinned. "Typical baby routine."

  Nali laughed. "I saw Walis this morning. He didn't tell me that you were coming down."

  "He did not know. I decided that I was not going to wait until someone else decided that it was safe. I suppose that I should find him later and let him know that we have arrived."

  "He's down in the deep tunnels right now and he won't be back up until his shift is over at sunset. He's supervising the grounders that we've hired to excavate the backfill. Everyone works twelve hour shifts and sometimes longer."

  "What exactly i
s the situation here on the ground? Pronouncements from the stub of the Progress Committee made it seem like the Project Leader had single handedly subdued the entire planet."

  Nali made a face. "He was lucky that Mar isn't the sort to kill people on general principles alone."

  "Mar? That's the grounder wizard?"

  Nali must know that Prim had to have had contact with Zso, but the two women had never discussed the events and designs that had brought the two of them to Orbital B, to stasis, and now to this future world. Nali did not know that Prim had encountered Mar in the life before and Prim had no intention of letting her companion discover that acquaintance, if it could be prevented.

  "Yes. He's also king of all these grounders, emperor of all the north, and, if grounder rumors are to be believe, revered as some type of demigod -- just say that he's everything in and to this world. Based upon what I've heard, he could have snuffed out Oyraebos, Khoe, and Bilddhri with a single spell."

  "So why did he not?"

  "Like I said, Mar's not the sort to kill people without an overwhelming reason."

  To Prim, that sounded like a weakness, but she kept that judgment to herself. She did wonder, though, why Nali spoke of Mar in such familiar terms. Had she also met him in the life before?

  "So is it an armistice or just a ceasefire?"

  "It's a peace until Mar decides different."

  "What are the terms?"

  "Terms?"

  "Terms of the peace. What sort of boundaries has he placed upon us to let us live?"

  "None! I don't think it occurred to him to set conditions. He's fighting his own enemies here and won't make one of us unless he must."

  "What about the Project Leader?"

  Nali cast her voice in a poor imitation of Oyraebos' stentorian tones. "Stay safe! Labor with diligence! We are all in this together!"

  "Typical."

  "Everyone is working so hard to get the launch tubes in operation that no one has time to worry about laying down the law."