The Galactic Mage

by John Daulton

  “Not at all,” Doctor Singh assured him. Altin had hoped Orli would be the one to react to his hospitable remark, but she seemed a little put off for some reason now. The doctor pressed on, “How far away is your planet? Which system are you in?”

  A quizzical look consumed Altin’s face as he wrestled with the question. Common Tongues was not without its obvious communication gaps. It did nothing to fill in understanding where ignorance came in. “Well,” he began, “I’m only a blink of an eye away from home, but it took me several weeks to make it out this far. I’m not sure how I would quantify it though. The whole thing is terribly new to me; I’ve only just begun.”

  It was their turn to be confused. “So your planet is only a few weeks from here?” Doctor Singh said after a brief delay.

  “No, it took a few weeks to find… ‘here,’ wherever ‘here’ is exactly, but now it’s only a matter of a moment to get back and forth. Teleporting, you understand.”

  “That’s what you’ve been doing in the can, right?” said Roberto. “Teleporting? That’s what you do?”

  “The can?”

  “You know. The bathroom, over there.” Roberto pointed to the tiny room with the waterfall pot and the flowing basin inside.

  “Ah, yes, well, sorry about that. I figured you knew. Your captain—I’m assuming that was the man who shot me—seemed not to appreciate it so much the first time, so, to be safe, I thought it wise to be discreet.”

  “Ok—and I mean this totally not to be an ass—but you’re really saying you’re using magic for all this stuff, seriously, is that what I’m getting here?” Roberto was doing little to hide the incredulity in his voice.

  Orli sighed, but did not intervene. He hadn’t asked anything they weren’t all thinking, and his question was at least almost halfway polite.

  Doctor Singh looked like he might say something in response to Roberto’s question as well, but Altin could tell the older man wanted the answer too. Asking about magic seemed like such a stupid question, though. If he hadn’t seen the doctor using the scrying mirror, Altin would have thought the entire ship was crewed by blanks, which was fine with him, if a bit risky given the Hostiles and the danger they could present. Heading out this far with no mage, or only just a few, seemed reckless; although it certainly would explain the poor maneuverability of their ships, not to mention the trouble they had in dealing with the orbs. However, a crew of blanks could not account for the red light beams, nor could it explain the glowing scales on the outside of the ships, the exploding pellets, or any number of other things. But, regardless of their obvious access to at least a few magicians, these three were clearly hoping he would answer the question and put some of their doubts finally to rest. He was happy to oblige.

  “Yes, I do magic. I can get my Teleporters Guild card for you if you like. I have it back in my tower. I’m a Seven, though my card says I’m a Six: I have a teleporter home with a Z,R,Q,L, zero, K and, well, I don’t know what my divination is just yet…,” he blushed, realizing Orli was going to find out he was still a foundling when it came to that particular school. He tried to fudge past that part as vaguely as he could. “I’m sort of just figuring that school out—it’s a long story; I was a Six up until three days ago. Oh, and a Y.” He shrugged. Nothing to do about it now; the moon was up and the werewolves were about.

  Once again the three of them were staring at him with vacant expressions. Roberto was the first to speak, blinking deliberately as if to clear his eyes. “Ok, so let’s say I buy it. What else can you do? Something we can see. So far we can’t see any of it. Not that I’m saying I’m not mostly convinced. Just, you know, it’s really hard to believe.”

  “Well, what would you like to see?”

  “I don’t know,” said Roberto, thinking. “Can you, what, maybe… how about turn me into a frog or something?”

  “Roberto!” Orli gasped, flashing her tender blue orbs at Altin apologetically again as she punched Roberto in the arm. She turned on her friend. “What is wrong with you?”

  “I am not offended,” said Altin, coming to Roberto’s defense. There was nothing wrong with the question that he had asked, and Altin had resigned himself to these people being at least somehow partly blank. Besides, he was an excellent transmuter, and polymorphing animal forms was easy enough to do, assuming he had the right spell memorized. “And yes, I could do that if you liked. I would have to go back and get a book, however, as the spell isn’t fresh in my memory just now.”

  Roberto rubbed his arm as he flashed Orli a look that spoke of vindication. He turned to Altin with measured patience and said, “I can wait.”

  He was serious, and Altin grimaced at that. It seemed rather a waste of time, given the newness of their acquaintance after all. And why would he want to be a frog? Why fool around with such silliness? But, he reminded himself that the customs of men from faraway places always seemed strange at first. “Very well,” he said. “I shall return in a moment.”

  He started for the “bathroom” as they called it, but Doctor Singh stopped him before he could go in. “You don’t have to do that. We don’t mind if you… teleport from here.”

  “All right,” said Altin. “Just don’t move, okay. You saw what happened to the cocon… to the Hostiles when they got put together in a teleporting merge. We don’t want that to happen to us.”

  They all nodded politely, watching, waiting, none of them really gathering what Altin had said just yet. Altin began his spell and in a moment he was gone.

  They all stood in silent awe as he disappeared with a hiss of rushing air—well, all except Roberto who immediately lost his mind. “Okay. Goddamn it, did you see that shit?” He crossed the room to where Altin was, and waved his hand in the air where the medieval man had disappeared. “Seriously, that’s it. What the hell is going on?” He walked around the area where Altin had been standing, looking for something, anything, to explain the inexplicable fact. “Well, it’s official. Doc, I need something, man, because it’s all coming apart up here.” He tapped his temple with a finger, rather brutally.

  “That was something of a surprise, wasn’t it?” agreed the doctor.

  Orli only smiled, half a smile, the other half of her mouth was tight as she contemplated what she’d just observed. She wanted to believe, but magic seemed like such a stretch.

  “Jesus,” said Roberto, still struggling with a threat to everything he thought he’d ever understood about the universe and things. “That scared the shit out of me, if you want the truth. Like seeing a ghost or something. Look, it gave me chills.” He held his goosefleshed forearm up for all of them to see.

  Doctor Singh was on to more important things. “Did you hear what he said about the Hostiles? About us not moving. Do you realize what he implied? What power that could be?”

  “What are you talking about?” Roberto asked.

  “What he said, about not moving, about being merged. It explains the odd bloating of the orbs before they ruptured. If our new friend is saying what I think he’s saying, he was using his… teleport… to move them inside of one another, and that is how they died. It would be like me slamming you and Orli together so hard that you both became one mass. One dead, bloody mass.” Roberto raised an eyebrow speculatively as he considered that, freezing for a moment as he realized where he stood and suddenly took a long step back to stand once more beside his friends. He stared with horror at the spot where Altin had just been, where he himself was standing only a second ago, and began to shake his head.

  Still, his expression suggested that he didn’t want to believe; how could he accept what he just saw as magic? There had to be some kind of trick. The captain’s theory was looking better all the time. At least the captain’s opinion still had some grounding in physics and established principles of the universe. In fact, the more he considered it, the more likely the captain’s scenario became the realistic answer, the likely one. Occam’s razor to be sure. He announced this to the other two. “No. This is bulls
hit. The more I think about it, the more I think some sort of hallucination is probably more in line.” He laughed nervously. “You know, Doc, you almost had me going there. Both of you. But I’m thinking the orb shot us up with that combo virus crap and now we only think we’re cured. They just used that disease to get inside our heads, and now they’re using it to generate mass hallucinations or something along those lines. That dude ain’t even almost real.”

  The pitch of Orli’s voice rose slightly with each successive word she spoke. “Giant space balls generating mass, synchronized hallucinations through psycho-conductive pathogens? Are you kidding me?” She shook her head with a look on her face that bordered on amazement. “How is that a better hypothesis than Altin’s using magic?” She had to inhale and exhale slowly to keep from getting mad. Besides, she liked the way his name felt as it played upon her lips.

  Roberto started to answer, but Altin’s sudden reappearance startled them all to silence. Once again he was holding a book, although much smaller than the last. “All right,” he said as if he hadn’t been gone at all, “a frog is a little more complicated than would be a creature closer to your size, so it will take me longer to do than if you could settle for something on the order of a dog or a deer—you understand, something closer to you in mass. But, whichever you like. I’d like to get us past this part and onto more fertile diplomatic ground.”

  His matter-of-fact tone unnerved Roberto, and the burly Spaniard began to suspect that there was a chance Altin might be serious about what he said. Altin was staring at him patiently without the slightest twinkle of humor in his eyes. Roberto faltered under that gaze, under the expectant looks from his crewmates doing nothing to intervene, unwilling to take the chance. “No,” he said. “You know what? I think I’m good. Never mind the frog. Or the dog. I believe you.”

  Altin looked up from the book. Now there was a twinkle in his eye. “Are you sure? I mean, neither one will take that long. I can do a frog in about fifteen minutes or so. And a dog, well, I can have you licking our feet in less than five.”

  “Oh, do that one,” Orli chimed in at once, flashing a villainous look at the cringing Roberto. Hearing her speak made Altin happy. “We’d love to see that,” she said, eyes glinting. “Wouldn’t we Doctor Singh?”

  “Very much,” the doctor said, grinning and nodding emphatically.

  Roberto glared at them both, traitors in the flesh, then turned plaintively to Altin. “No. Seriously, it’s fine. I’m sorry I brought it up. No dogs. Please.”

  Both the doctor and Orli were laughing hysterically by the time Roberto finished pleading for his human form. Roberto, at first trying to retain his sour face, eventually had to laugh as well. He looked over at Altin and nodded with respect. “Ok, you got me, man. That was a good one, I admit.” He clapped Altin on the shoulder, conceding defeat.

  Altin, somewhat at a loss, just smiled and nodded back. He felt as if he’d only caught about half of what was going on.

  “Come,” said Orli taking Altin by the wrist for the second time that day. Slender yet strong, her hand closed around his arm, gripping him tightly as her touch once more set the lightning coursing through his veins. “We should at least give you a tour,” she said, “since we’ve obviously been so rude.” She flicked her eyes at Roberto, shooing him away. “How does that sound to you? Would you like to see our ship?”

  “Count me out,” Roberto cut in before Altin made his reply. “I have work to do.” He winked at Orli, they both knew he was off duty for six more hours.

  “A tour sounds wonderful,” Altin said as his palms grew slick with sweat. She could lead him into a wyvern’s lair and he would gladly go.

  Chapter 39

  Altin and Orli did not get very far before discovering that once they left the area where the Common Tongues spell had been cast they could no longer understand what one another said. They’d gone perhaps a hundred paces down the long white hallway when Altin finally felt the need to point it out. He hated to spoil the contact with Orli as they walked along, but by the end of the corridor, he realized that he would not be able to just contentedly stroll along to the music of her voice forever; at some point, he was going to have to say something back, for if he waited too much longer, the revelation might be embarrassing to her. Reluctantly, and not until they were nearing another of the ship’s sliding doors, he told her about the range of his divining language spell. As soon as he spoke she understood—in that she could not understand a single word he said. They both laughed and then went back to the hospital room.

  “I’m going to have to enchant something portable, or we’ll never be able to leave this room,” he said on their return. “Either that or I’ll have to enchant your entire ship, which I suspect would be the task of months if not a year.”

  “Enchant?” she asked. “What do you mean by that? Like something permanent?”

  “Yes, exactly. It might take me a bit of time, because, as I said, I’m rather new to Divining magic. However, I’m not new to enchanting at all, so I should be able to come up with something that will work. We just need it to be portable so that we can communicate as we move around.”

  “Well, will it interfere with radio waves?” she asked, unclasping a silver button from where it was attached near the collar of her uniform. “If not, we could use this. That’s what it’s for anyway. Communication I mean.” She handed him the small device, not much bigger than the tip of his thumb, and let him take a look. The object would do fine.

  “Are you sure you can do without it?” he asked. “It may take me some time to get it done. Again, divining is rather new for me.”

  “It’s fine; I have another one I can use. How long do you think it’s going to take?”

  “Well, I’m not sure. A few hours at the very least. It might even take a day or two. But, something like that. Plus, I need to send my dragon home; he’s been out here far too long.” Altin knew as he said it that he no longer had any intention of accompanying the dragon home. Taot was going to get delivered right into his cave. Clearly, given his display the other day, practically burning them both to death, the dragon would be able to keep any nosy predators at bay. He might not fly for another week or two, but Altin no longer feared for his safety in the cave.

  Orli gasped as he said the words. “No,” she said. “You can’t send him away. I was kind of hoping I could say hello.”

  “To my dragon?” His brows knitted nearly together with concern. He hated to tell her no, but it probably wasn’t safe. “Listen, dragons are an unpredictable lot, and he’s been sick. Did you see him during the fight, blowing fire all around?”

  She nodded.

  “Well, that’s not normal. He’s never done that before.”

  She looked disappointed, her delicate lips curving to a pout. “It’s okay. Maybe some other time.”

  He groaned inside. “He doesn’t like anyone. He’s horribly rude that way.”

  She smiled, barely. “It’s okay, really. I understand.”

  He groaned again, this time not just inside.

  She put her electric hand on his arm again, heating his face and flesh. She certainly was an aggressive thing, despite her incongruous sense of tact. “Altin, I really do understand. Animals are like that. I’ll meet him some other time, when he’s feeling better.”

  Altin could no longer let discretion hold him back, not with the pounding in his chest. “I’ll make him behave. It will be fine.” He simply could not let her down. Not even a little bit. And Taot was probably still asleep. He would send a telepathic warning before he brought Orli to the tower.

  “No,” she said. “Really. I’m not sure I’m ready to be barbequed anyway.” She laughed.

  He sent a gentle probe to Taot’s mind, almost disappointed to find that Taot was awake. Finding him so, he projected a sense of visitors and that there was nothing to pose a threat. The dragon returned an impression of unconcern but accompanied that with a sense that neither Altin nor his guest would be safe i
f Altin didn’t find the dragon something to eat fairly soon. Altin assured the beast that he would supply food the instant he was in the tower.

  “Everything will be fine,” he told her. “I just checked with him. He’s just a bit cranky right now is all. I need to feed him as soon as we get back.”

  “You mean you can talk to him? Like, with E.S.P.?”

  “I’m not sure what that is, but if it’s on the order of telepathy, then yes, that’s exactly how it works. Dragons are remarkable that way, one of a handful of telepathic beasts. I take it you don’t have dragons on your world.”

  “No,” she grinned. “At least not in the last several million years.”

  He nodded. Prosperion had seen its share of species go extinct as well. “All right then, are you ready to go?”

  She stared blankly at him for a moment until it slowly dawned on her what he had just proposed. She felt her hands begin to sweat and found herself more than just a little terrified. “You mean now? With a… teleporting?”

  “Yes. Unless you have another way.”

  She swallowed hard. She wondered how much trouble she was going to be in. She was off duty though. What she did with her own time was, technically, up to her. Wasn’t it? But unauthorized departure was definitely against the rules. However, she loathed the rules. And though she’d never actually thought about it before, she’d always wanted to meet a dragon. “No,” she said at last, as her skin tingled and her heart began to race, “let’s go say ‘hello.’”

  Altin grabbed his books from where they lay upon the bed and began to chant the spell. A moment later they were standing in his room. At which point he blushed to the deepest crimson, realizing what he had done. “Oh my,” he said, eyes wide and expecting her to be mortified. “It’s really not what you think.” He stammered and, tossing his books aside, tried to straighten the blankets on his bed. “Oh my. Oh my. You’ll think me a scoundrel.” He turned to look at her, clearly horrified by what he’d done, then abruptly darted up the stairs, calling down to her as he went, “I’m terribly sorry. I honestly meant no insult at all. Please don’t think me so depraved. I just… I’m unendingly sorry. Please forgive me.”