She took it, and offered it to me.
"Your staff, Great One!"
Thirty
"Nice staff," said Jen, trying not to keep the smirk off her face.
The others were grinning. It was actually a nice staff. The wood was inlaid with gold, and some of the images were of the woman I’d seen in the skrying platter. I had no idea why some of them showed her with more than two arms though. The top of the staff was a large red crystal.
"Who's your friend?" asked Tasha.
The Oracle said a name, and I immediately forgot it. This was becoming a tad annoying.
"Do you know why I can't remember names?" I asked her.
She looked at me with a speculative expression.
"No, but I'll see if I can find out."
"You mean there might be an actual cause?" asked Lea.
"How come he can remember ours?" asked Jess.
"Wait," said the Oracle. "What is different about you? It might be important."
"We're not from this planet," said Jen.
The Oracle's eyes went wide, but she nodded.
"What?" I asked.
"No idea. But it’s a detail which could be significant. I'll see what I can find out. Are we ready?"
She was looking at the girls, who now looked at me in confusion.
"Ready for what?" asked Tasha.
I indicated the Oracle.
"She thinks I need an escort when I go to see the Matriarch."
"A female escort," added the Oracle.
"What Matriarch is this?" asked Jess.
"The one which rules a fifth of the usable land mass here," I said. "Female king if you like."
"You mean a queen," said Jen, smiling.
"No," countered the Oracle. "The Matriarch is not a queen. And you better not suggest it in her presence either. A queen presupposes a king, and this is not a concept my people entertain."
"You don’t have men?" asked Lea.
"Of course we have men. But none who can do magic. Only those with magic can rule."
"What happens to a man with magic?" asked Tasha.
"Banished. But it doesn’t happen very often."
"So what happens when a man with magic comes to visit?" asked Jen.
"Nothing good. Unless he comes with women who can speak for him."
Jen grinned.
Thirty One
"So you have come," said the youngest looking woman in the group waiting to meet us.
I'd jumped us to the front of their meeting house, Jen, Jess, and Tasha in a triangle ahead of me, and Lea and the Oracle behind me. The woman was one step ahead of the others, and looked to be about my age, which I knew was wrong. Power radiated off her, and she was the single most powerful mage I’d seen so far. I wasn’t sure if she was able to keep herself young, or was presenting an image of being young I couldn’t yet penetrate. The other women ranged from my mother's age up to frail elderly. All deferred to the one in front. She looked at the Oracle.
"Leave us."
The voice was laced with command, but not with the level of compel I could manage. All the same, the Oracle looked at me, nodded, and started to leave.
I moved her to the clearing where her hut was. There was surprise from some of the women as she vanished, but I was only really looking at their leader. Her eyes flashed with annoyance. But she wasn’t looking at me, but at Jen.
"Why do you bring a man here?"
"I didn’t. He brought us."
"Then have him take you back where you were. He is not welcome here."
"Welcome or not, you will talk to him."
"Blasphemy!" muttered several of the women, loud enough to be heard clearly, but not so loud as to risk being admonished.
"And why would we do that?"
"We come to stop all wars," said Jess. "We would prefer you reach terms."
"And if we don’t?"
"He will take steps to ensure war will not happen again," said Tasha.
"You threaten us?"
"No," I said. "And yes. There will be peace. One way or another."
"You dare address us?"
I grinned at her.
"Of course I dare. Why else would I be here?"
"And if we wish you gone?"
"I will have peace without your participation in the decision making process."
"Who are you to threaten us?"
I showed them my death image. As I changed, I saw through hers. She was ancient, holding herself up with an ornate staff, and a great deal of willpower. While shock was being voiced around her, I concentrated, and as I returned to my normal look, I forced her back to hers. The level of shock deepened. We all stood there for more than a minute, my girls with hands on guns.
"So. You have come. Long have the seers seen your arrival, but it had to be tested. Come."
She turned, and limped slowly into the building in front of us. Her entourage followed her, and we brought up the rear.
I felt the wards as we passed through them. There were so many, there was no chance to figure out what they were for, but at a guess, there were four sets of protection, against four sets of kingdom mages. I was tempted for a moment to remove all of them, but decided to leave them alone. At least for now.
Inside, we found five chairs in a semi-circle, with mounds of cushions for everyone else. Before anyone could sit, I removed them all, and replaced them with lounge chairs.
The five eldest mages looked at where their chairs had been, cast looks at me which suggested I’d committed the worst crime I could have, and sat as if they'd always been there. I’d continued the curve around into a circle, so the five of us sat opposite them, with the rest of the circle and the half circle behind the other side from us. Everyone now had a comfortable seat.
The oldest of them was opposite me, and she fixed her eyes on Jen.
"Why do you defer to a man, when you obviously lead?"
"He proved himself worthy."
"Why does he alone in your group have magic?"
"Why don’t you ask him?"
I held my grin in, but Lea's was openly showing. Eyes flashed in her direction, but she didn’t let them intimidate her.
"I'm asking you."
"Where we come from, there is no magic. Only technology."
"What is technology?" asked one of the other elders.
Jen pulled her gun.
"This is a weapon. It is made from common elements you have available here, but in a way you will not understand. It fires something which would rival a mage's fireball. At its strongest setting, it kills."
Jen put her gun away, although I could see she wanted to fire it, and demonstrate its power.
"Who rules when there is no magic?"
This time there was a level of compel in the question, but I could tell it tired the matriarch to use it. Jen grinned, obviously recognizing it.
"You don’t need to compel me to answer. At the multi-planet and planet levels, all vote for representatives, who form governments. In the military, a hierarchy based on merit. On space ships, the owner rules, or appoints a captain to rule."
"And where do you fit in?"
"I captain my own ship. I used to command many ships in a war. But when Thorn is aboard my ship, I follow his commands."
"Why?"
"Why do these follow you?"
"She has you there," laughed the elder on the far left.
"Quite." She flashed a smile, but looked back at Jen seriously. "He fights at a higher level, and so you obey him while fighting?"
"No," said Jess. "We fight as a team."
"Thorn needs our skills," added Lea, "to focus his."
For the first time, the matriarch truly looked at me.
"I apologize for your greeting. It was necessary for those watching. What is it you want of us?"
"Those watching?" I asked.
"Yes. Five Kingdoms there are. All watch each other. The other four were shown what we wanted to show them."
"Which was?"
> "Reluctance to talk to you, as we have always been reluctant to talk to them."
"And in reality?"
"The Seers have seen. You will give us our own land, free from other kingdoms. This is what we want."
"Do you know where this land is?"
"No. But the skrying shows you do."
Which was news to me.
Thirty Two
"There was something very odd about that lot," said Tasha.
I turned over to look at her, having thought we'd finished talking for the night, and it was sleep time. Apparently not.
"Which lot?"
She chuckled.
"The witch lot."
I gave her the look which says 'don't call people a witch if you can't stop them turning you into a toad'. She laughed harder.
"I don’t think any of them would appreciate being called a witch."
"I get that, but it was too irresistible to let pass."
The laughing stopped, but her grin remained. I frowned at her, and the grin widened. The moonlight was streaming in the open window, so I could see her quite well. Her lack of night wear should have been distracting, but wasn’t.
Since we'd been back, I’d been hearing some complaints about how hot it was here. With the implied implication I should change the weather. I'd resisted being baited. To actually do so would be disastrous. It would be simpler to move everyone again. But now was not the time. There was still the next king to deal with, before the village would be safe.
"So what was odd?"
"Did you notice there was no reaction to space ships and other planets being mentioned?"
"No, I hadn't. I was a bit focused at the time. No reaction at all?"
"None. It was if they already knew about such things. But how would they?"
"I had the impression they spend a lot of time skrying."
"What's that?"
"Looking at what's going on elsewhere, and it seems, some of them can see the future."
"Surely not."
"I've never tried it. Skrying is a skill usually seen in those without actual remote sight. Hence Oracles. It also tends to be a female mage skill. I'd never met one before today. I know my people have a few."
"Why only a few? And why a whole chunk of the island with only female mages, where your people don’t have any?"
"I don’t know. I wasn’t taught anything about the other kingdoms. The mages told me they existed this morning. But it does sound odd the way they're grouped. All women mages in one, all men in two others, and mixed in another two."
"It sounds almost symbiotic."
I looked at her for a moment, considering.
"I guess it is possible things developed that way over time. Male domination causing female mages to flee with their families, to where they could set up their own kingdom. I got the feeling this morning there was a good deal of people movement between all the kingdoms. If it's been going on for centuries, it explains the groupings."
"Symbiotic."
"Quite."
"Who's next?"
Thirty Three
Over the girl's objections, I went alone for this next visit.
It turned out to be a good decision, since the moment I appeared in the middle of the barbican of the castle, I took magic fire from all around. In moments, all I could see was fire in any direction. But it wasn’t only fireballs I was taking. Large rocks were also hitting my wall, along with lightning, and other magical intent.
My wall held easily, but doing anything in here was going to be difficult. I cast my sight around the walls, noting dozens of mages all doing what they did best, all concentrating on the sphere around me. Intermixed with them were ordinary soldiers.
Something I'd read came back to me, and I chuckled. First group of mages fling magic. Second group protect the first group from the magic coming back at them. Third group protect second group. And the mundane army arrives and chops them all up, while they're all hard pressed doing magic things. Hence the soldiers there to protect the mages, should the mundane turn up.
The Mage King himself was throwing the largest fireballs of all of them, and more rapidly than anyone else. I guess that was why he was king.
Leaving my sight above them all, I decided to try a few things. I aimed a large fireball at the king, and watched what happened. The mages on each side stopped throwing things, and shielded the king. While they did that, I force punched the one on his left, and he went down. The one next to him took over his role of protecting the king, who stepped up his rate of fire at me. I soon had six of them all protecting the king, with the ones next to them on each side protecting the others. I grinned.
I stopped trying to get the king, and threw random fireballs all around. Most of them were intercepted, but a few more mages went down. The fire rate on me lessened, as more mages went over to defensive magic.
After about half an hour of messing around with them, I started getting bored. And by now I understood the Oracle telling me these mages would have made me lose my temper. They were annoying. Obviously highly battle trained, they were mixing it up, and trying everything they could to get through my wall.
And one of them almost did. The ground below me vanished, and a fireball came up out of the hole. I stayed where I was by sheer will, and a second wall around my body took the fireball, and fed it out to the main wall.
At this point, I figured it was time to move. I made the wall stay where it was, set up a firing sequence so it looked like I was still there, and moved myself to the top of the highest tower, where I could look down on the whole scene.
With eyeball contact on the action, I sent my sight through the entire building, and quickly moved everyone inside to an empty place outside the castle walls. All the soldiers on the walls followed. This left only the mages around the barbican.
I concentrated on intent for nearly thirty seconds, and activated it. On the far wall from the king, each mage took a tap to the head sufficient to break their concentration, and as they stopped working magic, I moved them to a clearing in the foot hills on the other side of the kingdom.
The firing and magic from the other walls went ragged, as a wall full of mages rapidly vanished one by one. A second wall started doing the same thing, and it had the added effect of the fire reducing to a level where they could now see inside the sphere of my wall, and all firing came to an end as they realized I was no longer inside. By the time the king spotted me, all the remaining mages were gone.
For a few moments, we stared at each other. I raised a hand, clicked thumb and forefinger together, and the entire castle turned into dust.
The king moved himself to the middle of the empty yard, and was quickly lost in the dust. I stayed where I was in the air for a few moments longer, and saw a mage appear back where the wall had been a moment before, and quickly fall into the dust cloud below. The expression on his face was priceless.
My sight showed me where the king was, and grabbing him, I moved us both to the volcano island.
We eyed each other for a moment over the top of six lounge chairs, before I dropped into one of them.
"We need to talk," I said.
Reluctantly he sat. Bottles of water appeared in front of both of us, and as I reached for mine, I vanished the dust off him. He watched me open the bottle and drink, and did the same. Now I could see him up close, he was of middle years, and otherwise completely unremarkable. Only the band of gold around his head showed him to be a king. He dressed the same as his mages did.
"What do we have to talk about?"
I looked at him for a moment, trying to figure out how a king with his magic powers, was so stupid.
"Peace?"
"There will never be peace."
"Why not?"
Now he looked at me as if I was stupid.
"They told me you were powerful, and so you are. But do you not know anything about this land we live on?"
"Not really no. I only looked at it properly yesterday."
"Prop
erly? Hah. You missed everything of importance."
"Enlighten me."
"I shouldn’t need to. Every mage we train either sees for himself, or is shown. Whoever trained you has failed you."
"I wasn’t trained."
He looked very surprised to hear this.
"How does someone with your power not be trained?"
"It's not relevant. Just accept I had to learn to do things for myself."
"You obviously have sight, but how is it you have not seen?"
"Just explain it to me. Please."
After a brief pause, he did.
Thirty Four
I was back on my island for lunch.
"How did it go?" asked Tasha.
"They annoyed me a bit, and the king and I had a nice chat."
"How big of a bit?" asked Jen, grinning.
"Reasonably big."
"What did you do?" asked Jess, also grinning.
"There's a pile of dust where their castle used to be."
"Did you kill anyone?" asked Lea.
She wasn’t grinning.
"No. They were all nicely distracted trying to kill me, to notice me moving people out of harm's way."
"I assume the king wasn’t happy?" asked Tasha.
"I can't say I noticed. He was too busy lecturing me on things I didn’t know."
"But you got an agreement for peace, didn’t you?"
"Not as such. He agreed we needed to talk more. I offered to help him rebuild his castle, but he refused."
The grins were back out again.
"What does he want?" asked Jen. "The Matriarchy wanted their own lands. What did he want?"
"Much the same actually. I suspect all of them do."
"Are there enough islands here to achieve that?"
Lea looked skeptical.
"I guess so. But it's only a temporary solution moving groups of people to other islands."
"Why?" asked the battle mage, who'd been listening in.
I sighed.
Tomorrow's Spacemage (The Spacemage Chronicle Book 3) Page 10