The Cypher

by Julian Rosado-Machain

  “Give him my regards,” Tasha said acidly then turned to the Doctor. “What is the meaning of this visit?”

  Thomas saw a change in Tasha’s demeanor. She sounded much older than the girl she usually appeared to be, and her forehead wrinkled in frustration.

  “King Seryaan decided to send Elise to work for us,” the Doctor said.

  “I see.” Tasha glared at the newcomer. “So I am to be replaced?”

  “No,” the Doctor said. “Elise was scheduled to begin work with us this year anyway, so I decided to assign her to become Thomas’s protector. He needs a spell weaver by his side.”

  “I thought we had agreed that I was going to be his spell weaver.”

  The Doctor fixed his monocle. “These are very delicate times Tasha, and I’m going to need your help with the Faun Council and the Society of Nations. They respect you.”

  “They respect you more,” she shot back. “And she’s just a baby. You know,” Tasha complained.

  “My dear,” the Doctor placed his arms on Tasha’s shoulders. “Compared to you, our whole civilization is a baby.” Tony elbowed Thomas. “Besides,” the Doctor continued, “she is of royal blood and according to King Seryaan, a powerful spell weaver.”

  Tasha drew in a long breath and glared at Elise. “You mean, her blood has mixed royalty in it.”

  Elise pursed her lips, but kept quiet.

  “What is my assignment then?” Tasha demanded.

  “You’ll remain in your current position, as my personal assistant.”

  “I have to object to that,” Tasha snapped. “I don’t think Erisham is fit to protect the Cypher. She has neither the experience nor the power.” Tasha continued, “She would be overwhelmed by her duties.”

  Elise stepped forward. “I’ve been trained by Queen Therese and King Seryaan themselves.”

  “And they, too, would be overwhelmed, I’m sure.” Tasha stepped away from the table. “We aren’t just facing the Warmaster; there’ve been Wraith creatures attacking Thomas, and they’d even been inside the mansion.”

  “We’ve updated our security systems,” the Doctor interjected. “Wraiths can no longer enter.”

  “It was I who updated the systems, Doctor, and the magical defenses too. I am the best suited to defend Thomas if wraiths attack again.”

  “Queen Therese and her court mages have instructed me extensively in countering Wraith magic.” Elise stood up to Tasha. “I’m more than qualified.”

  “Really?” Tasha glared at her. “And how are you going to prove that without endangering the Cypher?”

  “A contest, perhaps?” Elise offered and Tasha smiled.

  “Sure,” Tasha said lifting a hand. Elise stepped back, gasping, as black tendrils appeared around her neck. “A simple Wraith spell,” Tasha commented. “And the protector fails.”

  They were all taken by surprise at Tasha’s callousness. Thomas stood up with a jolt. He’d seen tendrils like those in the library and at his house when the Adze trolls materialized from the shadows. They seemed to be no more than faint shadows, but they curled and twisted around Elise’s neck, her skin compressed by them. Why could Tasha wield them?

  A ripple of blue energy began to form around Elise’s hands. “Clumsy,” Tasha said closing her hand, and Elise stepped back grasping at her neck.

  “Release her, Tasha,” the Doctor said. “This demonstration is unnecessary.”

  “But I do think it is.” Tasha continued centering her gaze on Elise. “What good is she as protector when she can be overtaken so easily?”

  “Tasha…” the Doctor lifted his cane, a faint white glimmer emanating from the serpent’s head.

  Elise knelt down before Tasha, grabbing her throat. Her eyes bulged out of her head, her skin turned pale. “It would take just a little more,” Tasha whispered menacingly.

  “Stop it!” Thomas yelled. “Let her go!” The full realization of everything Tony had told him about Tasha sunk in. She wasn’t just a cute girl, or a teenager like him, she was an elder, a powerful magical being. She could wield energies he couldn’t imagine and had lived for thousands of years. Something else crept inside him alongside his feelings for Tasha. For the first time since he’d met her, she scared him.

  She could kill with a word.

  How many times in her long life had she actually done so?

  Tasha turned to Thomas and smiled. Her face relaxed. She lowered her hand and Elise was released from the choking spell. She drew in long breaths of air.

  “She wanted a contest, Thomas,” Tasha said sweetly.

  “You just attacked her!”

  “By surprise, yes.” Tasha remained unfazed. “Neither Wraiths or the Warmaster will follow rules or codes of honor. I gave her a taste of what she will face out there. What I’ve faced and survived.” She turned to the Doctor. “I believe that I’ve just proven that I’m the best suited to become Thomas’s protector, Doctor.” She ignored Elise who was just beginning to recover from the attack. “I’ll even train Erisham in her new duties as your assistant.”

  “That’s for her to decide,” the Doctor said, the glow on his cane subsiding.

  Tasha stared at Elise. “You do acknowledge my superiority over you. Do you not?” she asked Elise who exchanged a look with the Doctor. He lowered his cane and nodded slightly.

  “I do,” Elise bowed. “Your abilities exceed my own.” She rubbed her neck and tried to catch her breath. “But,” she continued, “I decline your offer. I will not need your training.”

  Tasha faced the Doctor. “There is too much at stake. I won’t let another Cascadia happen.” Her brow softened for a second. “Well?” she asked crossing her arms. “What’s it going to be?”

  The Doctor sighed. “I have to accept that you are indeed better suited to be Thomas’s protector. If you were to leave with Thomas I would need a new assistant.” He locked his gaze with Elise. “Do you accept that position, Elise?”

  Elise took a couple of breaths and clenched her fists. Blue sparkles floated around her hands.

  “Uh-oh,” Tony whispered expecting to see another magic fight, but Elise contained herself and the magic dissipated from her hands.

  “I accept, Doctor.” She turned to Tasha and bowed her head without blinking.

  “In that case,” Tasha smiled. “Welcome, Erisham.”

  “Elise, among humans,” Elise corrected and bowed her head again.

  Tasha winked at Thomas. “I would’ve never hurt her, Thomas. I just needed to make my point clear.” But Thomas shook his head. Anger swirled through him. He had seen a side of Tasha he never imagined existed.

  “Settled then.” The Doctor stomped on the ground with his cane and led Tasha to the elevator. “We have to talk about Ormagra,” he said, “and we better get to that sign.”

  Tony made as if he wanted to stand up, but the Doctor gave him a stern look. “I’d use this time to study a little bit about what you’ll be facing.” He looked at Thomas. “Both of you. Elise, please bring them up to speed about what we will be facing, Ukiah is stirring.”

  Tony sat down as the elevator doors closed, taking Tasha and the Doctor away.

  The World of Magic

  Elise took the seat in front of Thomas and zoomed out the image until the map filled the screen. “Where do we begin?”

  Thomas sighed, so Tony raised his hand. “What are these pillars they keep talking about?”

  “You were a red level operative weren’t you?” Elise asked. “You are supposed to know these things.”

  “But Thomas doesn’t,” Tony replied. “Tell him.”

  “You don’t?” Elise asked Thomas. He just nodded; he didn’t like to be put on the spot. “I see,” she pursed her lips. “So, tell me, just how much you do know?”

  “About Magic?” Thomas reclined in the chair. “Well, it’s real, and ah… it doesn’t really mix so well with technology.”

  Tony snickered.

  Elise sighed and then cleared the screen. “I’ll con
dense as much as I can, but you’re going to have to study on your own time.”

  The screen showed a representation of the primordial Earth, a shimmering disk of furious water and hurricanes, volcanoes spouted lava and mountains rising from the crust.

  “Magic is not only real, but it permeates the world. There are three basic types of Magic. The first one is Elemental Magic, the most powerful kind. When the world was young, elemental forces shaped it. Air, Water, Fire and Earth – they were always at war with each other until at some point they became dormant. Remember that I’m talking about billions of years here, okay?” She touched the screen zooming in on a coastline. Huge creatures made of fire threw lava at granite giants trying to slow their advance over a field of obsidian. A beast made from water overran them both just to be blown away by a typhoon formed by a bird made up of turbulent air. “Right before they went to sleep, some of the elementals joined together creating a new elemental force. A life elemental. These elemental forces are what we call the Pillars.”

  Elise pressed the screen. About five-dozen points were highlighted in different parts of the world. Each point had a side bar with red and green stripes and a percentile number that ranged from zero to almost three percent in Iceland.

  “For most, we use the names of the zones where they sleep or the names given by the first humans that sensed them. We named some of them after the Titans of Greek mythology.” She pressed the red button that appeared on the top right corner of the screen. “The Oracle is a Pillar too, the only one that moves around. He actually disappears from the planet. All others are sleeping under the Earth or oceans. Every five hundred years, the Pillars stir as the Oracle returns, and the balance of Magic is shifted.”

  “This one’s in California,” Thomas pointed at a dot on the map that had a .07 percent beside it.

  “That’s Ukiah. We’re pretty sure that it’s a life elemental like Gaia. The forests grow so magnificent because of its influence. That’s also the seat of Seryaan’s Kingdom.”

  “That’s the name of a real city?” Thomas touched the map. The City of Ukiah in Mendocino County, California popped up on the screen. “The elves live there?”

  “The city of the elves is inside the Mendocino National Forest. Ukiah is the ancient name of the Pillar that sleeps there and the name humans gave the county.”

  “It seems pretty quiet – 07 is not that big of a number.” Tony reclined in his seat.

  Elise zoomed out from California and zoomed in on another dot somewhere in the Pacific Islands. “Ever heard of the island of Krakatoa?” she asked. Only Bolswaithe nodded. “Krakatoa is an elemental of fire.” The percentile showed 1.3 percent. “A little more than a hundred years ago, she shifted from .6 to 2.1 in an hour. Her ‘yawn’ was about 13,000 times stronger than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.”

  Elise zoomed out again and pressed on a point in Italy. “There’s another fire elemental here.”

  “That’s Napoli,” Tony said. “Mount Vesuvius?”

  “We call him Iacchus,” Elise said. She nodded and brought up photographs of statues huddled in their death throes. “In 79 AD Iacchus hiccupped, and Pompeii disappeared. We think he reached a 1.7 percent.”

  Tony leaned in to see the number; it was hovering at 0.8 percent.

  “Their shifts are increasing now that the Oracle is back. They feed off of his power.” Elise rubbed her neck.

  “So, the more the Oracle writes, the more Magic is released in the world and the more the Pillars stir,” Thomas said. He leaned in to read Iacchus’s information.

  “And the monsters that attacked me, the Wraith creatures, want them to wake up?”

  “Correct.” Elise cleared the screen.

  “And Wraith magic is stronger than yours?”

  “That’s the second type of Magic, and it’s not stronger. Only different. Wraith magic feeds off chaos. Believe it or not, life follows order, the Fibonacci number, fractals, the genetic code – order among chaos. Between the time when the Pillars went to sleep and our organic life took hold, Wraith creatures ruled the Earth.” She pulled up drawings on the screen of strange beasts – without any specific form – tentacles covering featureless eyes, mouths with serrated teeth sprouting where their heads should be. Some had limbs ending in suckles and others had talons and horns serving as legs.

  All of them alien to any animal Thomas had ever seen, creatures drawn from a nightmare.

  Among the drawings, Thomas recognized one of them. “That’s the thing that attacked me,” he said pressing on the screen. The image zoomed on the beast.

  “A Voraxglobum,” Elise said aloud. “One of the least alien Wraith creatures. It can actually spend some time on Earth before dying of starvation.”

  “And where do they go?” Tony leaned forward. For the first time since they started, he seemed really interested.

  “Who knows? They come to our world through shadows, but they can’t stay very long. Our kind of Magic, Life Magic, pushed them beyond and they want back in again. It is a war that has raged for billions of years and Wraith creatures have tried to kill all life many times. The great five extinctions were caused by the Wraith Elder Gods. They took a tenuous hold over Earth, but life bounced back and pushed them out again.”

  “So they’re trying again. To wipe out all life.”

  “They’re always trying. But now humans have technology. Something as alien to them as they are to us. That’s why technology and magic don’t mix and why, now that the Oracle has returned and the balance between magic and technology is shifting, they’ll try harder. With the Oracle on Earth and the Pillars stirring, all the little marvels humans have created will begin to fail. The most sensitive are already feeling the shift.”

  She typed on the screen and the National Institute of Standards and Technology popped into view. “The U.S. atomic clock has begun to have greater uncertainty in its measurements.”

  “Okay,” Tony said as he read the article on the NIST page. “It says here that the clock will lose or gain a second every 47 million years. Aren’t you being a prophet of doom about it?”

  Elise closed the NIST page. “Five months ago it would lose or gain that second every 60 million years. Imagine a dam holding the ocean. That variation is like a little crack in it. Just a couple of drops go through it. The dam still holds the water back, but it’s being undermined little by little. The drops soften the dam and soon the whole dam has cracks in it that get wider until the dam comes crashing down. With NIST, we are talking about a variation at the atomic level affecting the clock, but soon the influx of magic will affect molecules, then complex electronic systems and then things we use every day. GPS, computers, satellite communications, even electricity will be affected if we can’t find the Book of Concord and patch the holes that are being created by the shift in the balance.”

  “On the other hand,” Tony interrupted. “With more magic around, Mashcrits will become dominant again.”

  “That’s exactly what the Warmaster wants.” Elise typed in the name, but only a couple of references and sketches about the Warmaster appeared, not a single image. In the most elaborate sketch, he appeared like a warrior clad in a turquoise plated armor, his face completely covered by a helmet shaped like the head of a dragon.

  “He’s the one who has my grandpa,” Thomas said. “He’s the enemy.”

  “For us,” Elise corrected, “a hero for many. Remember Thomas, we are Guardians, shades of gray, there are no absolutes. If the Warmaster finds the Book of Concord he can steer the future to advance magic and eliminate technology.”

  “So he’s a Wraith?”

  Elise zoomed in on the sketch; the Warmaster’s armor was full of scales and blades, but it wasn’t his skin, it was just armor worn by something humanlike.

  “We don’t know for sure,” Elise continued. “He’s a puppet master, a ghost. We would dismiss him as myth, but we’ve seen his lieutenants very often.” A window opened on another side of the screen showing a slides
how of drawings and photos of elves, humans and fauns clad in blue and black armor.

  “The Azure Legion,” Elise said. “The right arm of the Warmaster, and champions for many of the Magical creatures.”

  Since coming back from Hussahassalin, Thomas had read about Fauns. They came in all shapes and sizes, almost every species of animal in the world had a faun counterpart. The slideshow had pictures of foxes, leopards, bears, and even a rhino faun clad in blue armor.

  “I’ve clashed with the legion before,” Tony said. “Tough as nails and very dangerous.”

  “What about the humans?” Thomas asked. Some of the pictures showed men and women clad in the same armor.

  “Magic-attuned humans,” Elise told him. “Mages, witches… a small percentage of humans can use magic and not all are with the Guardians; some would love to be back in a non-technological world.”

  She closed the slide show and enlarged the Warmaster sketch. “So we’ve heard stories about the Warmaster, seen the results from his campaigns. World War II was mostly of his making. Until the Guardians allied themselves with the elves and fauns against the Nazis and the Warmaster, they were unstoppable. The strange thing is that he didn’t use Wraith Magic then. If the Pillars awaken, he loses too.”

  Tony leaned forward. “I’ve seen the legion, but never the Warmaster. If he’s a ghost as you say, how do we even know he exists? Maybe the legion made him up, or maybe they needed a champion just to rally the Mashcrits.”

  Elise brought up images from World War II. “We know the Warmaster is real because King Seryaan battled him and his forces outside Stalingrad. It took thousands of elven and faun lives and more than a million Russian soldiers to stop him and his Nazi allies. The King himself almost died in that battle.”

  “Still,” Tony continued, “I know a couple of magical creatures who would love a scenario where magic gained the upper hand, maybe even some elves.”

  “Oh yes…” Elise answered sarcastically. “A war between billions of humans and magical creatures. The forests razed to the ground, dragons waking from their sleep, were-creatures running rampant. Another inquisition and all that chaos feeding Wraith Magic and allowing its masters to come back to the world. I’m sure King Seryaan would love that. We might even manage to wake a Pillar or two.”