Key to Magic 01 Orphan

by H. Jonas Rhynedahll

  It seemed obvious now, in retrospect, that there was more to the text than the demented spoutings of some ancient mystic. Something must be hid in the book. A map, perhaps, or other directions or clues to the location of some fabulous ancient hoard, some centuries forgotten treasure. Surely, only the lure of great riches could tempt an old man from a life long vocation, drive him to desert the well-worn traces of his life and scamper off to only the Gods knew where on no more authority than a few mere scraps of antiquated paper. And, just as surely, if there were riches involved in this lunatic quest, Mar was determined to discover the particulars.

  Gold brought Mar no particular pleasure in and of itself, but money was life; the youngest, dirtiest, most alone street urchin in all of Khalar knew that. Much money meant a comfortable life. Little money meant existence, of a sort. No money meant, more often than not, death. Thievery was and had always been to Mar foremost a means simply to survive. Hard labor, the only work available in Khalar to someone without the money, kinship, or other marketable commodity to purchase entry into one of the hereditary guilds of the Lower City, was a losing proposition. A man could earn enough between light and dark to eat, but only that because starving men cannot work, and even then he was more likely to be cheated of wages than not. Bond servants, men and women who had sold a score of years of their lives for a single gold thalar, ate reasonably well, were decently clothed, and suffered much less ill-treatment than free laborers. The bonded, unlike free men, were protected by Viceroy's decree from the lash. Many had found it easier to take the brass arm circlet than to remain free, which was without doubt the whole point of it all.

  Mar was by default a realist. He planned no farther than his next theft, plotted no goals, and had no expectation of seeing old age; a thief had no future and no right to expect one. One day he would be too slow or too careless or just plain unlucky and the Guard would have him, as they almost had that last night in Khalar. But had he enough gold, then any future could be his.

  Yes, Mar wanted another look at that book. The ease with which Waleck had paid the twenty thalars, certainly the savings of a lifetime accumulated a few brass thay at a time, and that heady promise of a hundred more said plainly enough that there was money involved, were there nothing else to tug at his suspicions. By whatever means required, Mar was determined to have a part in it.

  Waleck, regardless of his protestations of trust, kept the cylinder close, in a leather pouch strapped to his belt, and his hand never strayed far from it. The old scrapper had never again opened it in Mar's presence, and they had not directly spoken of it since that last night in the Waste City. It lay with the old man now as he slept on his mat.

  Mar had thought on his plan the better part of a day and a night. He must try for the cylinder while Waleck was asleep; no deception or misdirection would ever turn the old man's attention from the artifact long enough for Mar to slip it away -- much less long enough for the young thief to peruse its contents. At least, none that Mar could manage here in the Waste. There were no clinging, confining crowds, no great maze of narrow streets, no eager accomplices to utilize. Here there was only the trail, the water holes, and sleep.

  Waleck was normally a light sleeper. The sound of a boot shifting on sand or of an indrawn breath would wake him, even on the darkest of nights. But the arduous demands of the trip had taken its toll of his worn frame, and Mar had taken careful and surreptitious note of the fact that the old man had staggered his first few steps after dropping stiffly from his saddle this morning. His slumber now was the deep, unmoving, dreamless sort of men in the grips of exhaustion. If ever Mar was to take the tube from Waleck without the old man's knowledge, it must be now.

  Mar found a spot relatively free of roots and stones, unrolled his woven mat, scattered his blankets across it, and then lay down with a heaviness that warned him that Waleck was not the only one taxed by their trek. After a moment, he canted his head to the side and studied Waleck's still form. The old wasteminer's eyes were tightly shut and the flat planes of his face were rounded, relaxed. His chest rose and fell with a ponderous regularity no man, Mar hoped, could feign. From all outward indication, he was well and truly -- and hopefully unrousably -- asleep.

  Still, the touch would demand the utmost care. Waleck's dark and knotted left hand lay limply across the pouch, as if, even as he had fallen into sleep, he had grasped it to reassure himself of its presence.

  Mar must move that hand before he could loosen the leather tie and open the flap. He hesitated at that thought, but only for the barest thread of a moment. Risks, small and great, were a fundamental facet of his trade.

  He rolled to his side and then quietly to his knees. He gave a pause for a searching look, then, stilling his breath, began to crawl toward the old man.

  Mar knew how to be silent -- utterly, completely, death-a-creak-away silent, one of the few reasons his head was still attached to the rest of his body -- and he employed this skill at its finest now as he edged across the intervening space. Moving one hand slowly and precisely, then the following knee with equal care, he advanced by incredibly deliberate degrees, careful to avoid the prickly branches above his head and the dry twigs littering the sand. He paused frequently to examine Waleck for any hint of movement, any sign of awareness, that one, slight, almost insignificant stir that would prove all of Mar's conclusions false and foolish. But at each instance, he detected nothing and so continued, till he knelt at last within easy reach of his prize.

  Mar took several shallow breaths to settle the rapid pace of his heart. He waited just a moment, and then all in one deft motion lifted Waleck's hand by the wrist with his own left hand, twitched the tie expertly, laid the flap back, and slid his other hand inside the pouch till he felt the smooth curve of metal. Another motion, and Waleck's hand rested again upon the pouch and Mar had the cylinder safely tucked under his arm. To open it was but a quick twist and a tug, and then he used the weight of his palms to flatten the ragged edged pages across his lap.

  Mar knew he had little time – he must assume Waleck might wake at any moment -- and there could be no leisurely examination of the text. Therefore, he first riffled through the pages in haste, giving each but a cursory glance, but found nothing that by any stretch of the imagination could be taken to resemble a map, only block after regular block of neat, compact print. Counting as he went, he found that the pages numbered a score and six. Nonplused, he was at a loss for a moment as to his next step.

  Perhaps he should have known that there would not be anything as simple and straightforward as a map. Moreover, perhaps only Waleck could decipher the message hidden in the text. Was this but the last clue in some ancient trail that the old miner had unearthed bit by precious bit in a lifetime of searching the ruins? Could there, in all truth, be any other reason for Waleck to have returned year after year to that blasted city when he could mine little more than enough to put food in his belly?

  Mar could not be sure of that last – his ignorance was too great. He needed more information. He cast his eyes down upon the pages in his lap and grimaced. Submitting to the inevitable, he briefly glanced over the first two pages and then laid them aside to scan the next hurriedly. It read:

  Being An Introduction

  Enchantment in its simplest form is the containment of the interrelated forces of existence, or in common vernacular, Magic, within the spatial confines of an object having a coherent extension in the physical aspect. In the advanced disciplines, this is most often done to store, or reserve, the energy of ethereal particles for later utilization. However, the more usual application of the methods of the discipline of Enchantment is for the purpose of binding a pre-developed series of precise ethereal flux modulations into a readily accessible matrix. Hereby is the use of Magic in everyday life solely made practical, for all but the most sensitive of practitioners are unable to manipulate the ethereal energies to any successful degree without a lengthy process of prior definitive experimentation and prolonged preparation. Fo
rtunately, the ability to enchant is the lowest threshold in the aptitude spectrum, and with study the greater part of the general population (some studies suggest perhaps only one in one hundred are hereditarily impaired) are capable of developing the skills necessary to become successful enchanters. Thus, we begin our study.

  And that was all. More than half the words were beyond the scope of Mar's admittedly less than extensive vocabulary, but he had a feeling that, even had he been able to understand the meaning of the words, they would have made the passage no more comprehensible. He went back to the top and read the page again in an attempt to spot any hidden message, but the words remained gibberish. Grimly, he went to the next and continued reading with a fierce determination till he had completed the work. Most of what he read simply evaded clear understanding, but a sparse sample of the passages was, more or less, intelligible.

  "...there are no instructions herein included for the student on the sensing of or the manipulation of ethereal flux. The two abilities are in reality one and the same, and it has been found that the development of an apprentice's potential is actually retarded by such instruction..."

  "...proficiency at manipulation is won through an individualized learning process of incremental stages, such as a child is not taught how to walk but grows into this inborn ability..."

  “.. the technique of Conjunction, that is, of establishing flux bonds between physical substances, is such a fundamental aspect of the discipline of Enchantment that the initial aptitude examination given to many aspirants is the Sand Test (Encapsulation Technique), whereby an individual is provided with a quantity of dry sand and required to devise a means of binding the material into a solid shape, usually a regular polygon, but oftimes a sphere (the interrelationships of physical shape and magical flux will be discussed in depth in Chapter Eight: The Perfect Vessel.) This is accomplished by successfully linking the individual flux properties indigenous to the sand particles into a persistent bond. The test is considered a failure if the imposed shape does not maintain its form for longer than one hour..."

  "...all enchantments consist of three basic elements: the reservoir matrix (or Vessel), the flux containment bond (or Binding), and the release sequence (or Key)..."

  "...and any truly physical object or substance may be used as a reservoir matrix, but those objects with greater integral inter-relationships, that is, those which are more solid or dense, possess a correspondingly higher Ethereal Flux Index. Water can reserve more energy than air, rock more energy than water, and so on..."

  "...certain basic rules for selecting matrices have been established..."

  "...much research in prior ages to determine the properties of a structure which would have the greatest size to capacity ratio, and it has been discovered (Lhorhorve, Rhals, and others) that objects with perfect multi-lateral symmetry are the ideal..."

  "...substances with dramatic flaws should be avoided for any serious energy demands as they have proven to be inherently unstable under the stress of flux modulations, and have shown a tendency to fail unpredictably and disastrously..."

  "...the normal state of ethereal flux is equilibrium. The exact nature of the relationship between the physical aspect and the magical has never been completely defined, but it has been shown empirically that natural forces and magical forces are symmetrical. In fact, the earliest known methods of creating ethereal flux modulations involved the copying of patterns that are present in natural forces. Certain theorists suppose..."

  "...spontaneous manifestations of magical energy are extremely rare and are thought to be the result of natural adjustments to restore equilibrium in the background ethereal flux..."

  "...the exact sequence of these modulations is named variously charm, hex, incantation, or spell. Henceforward, this text will use the more common term and refer to these sequences as spells..."

  "...to permit repeated or delayed function of flux modulations, spells must be suspended and stored within a reservoir matrix. This is done by creating an ethereal relationship, or bond, between the spell and its matrix. The flux bond itself takes many different subjective forms. Practitioners develop their own particular forms of flux bond through experimentation, but certain principles should be applied to the production of these bonds. . ."

  "…Simplicity is paramount. Complex bonds are more difficult to establish and must be meticulously designed. Flaws in bond logic can produce unpredictable -- that is, disastrous -- results. Very convoluted bonds generally fail to engage or become practically unbreakable, a frozen enchantment of utterly no use…"

  "…Regularity in flux structure is required for dependable operation. Premature failure of bonds often occurs where the flux structure of the bond is disjointed or skewed…"

  "…Strength should be a central property of all ethereal flux bonds. Weak or inadequately reinforced bonds can be released by random natural fluctuations in background ethereal flux or by induced eruptions in the spell itself..."

  "...the last element of an enchantment, aptly named the Key, is a jolt or burst of ethereal particles which releases the manifested power of the spell. The Key is a distinct but linked flux modulation that can be an integral part of the matrix or a physically separated entity. This burst of flux is commonly triggered by an action which generates a disarrangement in the background flux -- a gesture, spoken word, written word, dance, change of state, coordinated movement, and so forth..."

  There was more, at length, in the same baffling vein. Mar read the text twice through, peering often at Waleck, but learned nothing of any real value. Most of it appeared to be nothing more than scholarly blathering; that it was purposefully written to be confusing was without question. That these qualities simply reinforced his belief that the flight of fancy he held was merely a disguise for some far more valuable communication, equally so. It now seemed incredibly unlikely that he might decode the hidden message on his own. Somehow, by whatever means, he must trick Waleck into revealing the secret.

  Reversing his earlier procedure, he returned the text to the cylinder and the cylinder to the old man's pouch, all, as far as he could determine, without disturbing Waleck's slumber. The young thief made his way back to his mat as silently as before and, after checking the readiness of the knife in his boot, stretched himself out tiredly. He dropped off to sleep and dreamed, the decrees of his conscious mind ignored, of crowns and palaces and treasures beyond imagining.

  SEVEN

  The Glorious Empire of the North, which had built Khalar on the rocky promontory at the confluence of the Blue Ice River and its brother the Red Ice, had not had any actual political existence for more than three centuries, not since it had splintered and destroyed itself in an internecine civil war. This unarguable fact of history notwithstanding, the present rulers of the city, as had their predecessors for three hundred years, persisted in proclaiming that Khalar remained the northernmost Imperial province.

  For seven generations these scions had maintained -- publicly, if not privately -- that they were acting under the authority and at the behest of Kharghk XXIV, the last Great Emperor. The local prince, though something of a figurehead, was still officially addressed as His Imperial Highness, Viceroy of the Dominion of Khalar, Marshal of the Northern Host, and Custodian of Imperial Justice for the Sundry Territories. His government, a hereditary bureaucracy of incomprehensible complexity, had not changed significantly either in form or in title from that established by the Emperor Rhwalkahn three-quarters a millennium before.

  The preservation of the imperial façade -- in fact the very survival of the city itself -- had come about primarily as an accident of geography. Sited to serve the lucrative mines in the Mheckel mountain range, Khalar had originally been a frontier outpost, separated by a vast stretch of uninhabited forest from the heart of the Empire. This wilderness had acted as a barrier to the forces whose battles had razed cities to the south and also to the dissension and conflict that gave birth to them. In their enforced isolation, the Patriarchs of t
he great merchant families and the ruling administrative class had been content with their own petty intrigues and had refused to participate in the world shattering events taking place on the southern plains. With no social or military strife to topple it, the imperial system had perpetuated itself rather by default, and the step from autonomy to independence with the utter collapse of the Empire had hardly been noticed at all.

  Waleck reined in before Mar, blocking the trail and forcing the younger man to check his own mount as well. Their ponies and the mules, famished by days of subsisting on a few handfuls of grain, immediately began to crop at the lush grass at the side of the trail. Rhovma sidled toward a tempting swatch of wildflowers, the old man's saddle creaking as the pony shifted its weight. This movement took Waleck's bulk from Mar's view and revealed the valley beyond. They were at the crest of a low, broad pass which cleaved the foothills of the Mheckels. Behind lay two leagues of switchbacks leading up from the barren hills that bordered the Waste. Ahead the trail dropped down into the heavily cultivated Ice River Valley, and some leagues to the southeast the gray buildings of Khalar could be made out.

  "Ah, again the Glorious City!” Waleck declaimed, swinging his arms wide. A voice heavily laden with sarcasm considerably diminished the impact of the pronouncement.

  "Does it always look like that?” Mar had never viewed the city from this vantage before. He had grown up with the soot and the choking days that always came in the hottest months, but he had never realized how filthy the air about the city looked from without.