by Clayton Wood
Suddenly, there was a loud, high-pitched wail sounding throughout the room. Kalibar turned almost immediately to the front door of his suite. The sound, he knew, was the emergency alarm. It had to have been activated by Erasmus, one of the Council members, or the elite guard...and only in the event of a catastrophe. He sprinted to the front door, which was always translucent from the inside, and saw Erasmus appear on the other side of it. The Grand Runic was dressed in a simple robe; judging by his appearance, he'd clearly just woken up. Kalibar activated a crystal embedded in the side of the door, and saw Erasmus's eyes focus on Kalibar as the door became translucent from the outside.
“Kalibar,” the Grand Runic yelled, banging his fist on the door. He drew back sharply as Kalibar's face became visible. “What the...!”
* * *
Erasmus and Kalibar sat on a U-shaped white couch, resting their elbows on the circular glass table in the middle.
“I don't believe it,” Erasmus was saying, staring into Kalibar's eyes, appearing mesmerized by them. Kalibar shrugged.
“And yet I have eyes, and I can see,” he replied. Erasmus shook his head.
“God, what I wouldn't give to have met this fellow,” he breathed. “If what you're saying is true...”
“It's true, trust me,” Kalibar insisted. “This...being, he was indescribably powerful. You can't imagine it, the power he radiated...it was absolutely amazing.”
“So who the hell is this guy?” Erasmus asked. “And why did he decide to stroll into your room and give you your eyes back?”
“He only said two things, if you can call it speaking,” Kalibar answered. “'You wanted to meet me,' and 'now you have.'”
“So who did you want to meet?” Erasmus pressed. “With a guy that powerful, the list of candidates is pretty damn short.”
“That's what I've been asking myself all morning,” Kalibar admitted. “There's no one alive that I want to meet that I already haven't...and like you said, no one I know could be that powerful. It doesn't make any sense.”
“It sure doesn't,” Erasmus agreed. “Anyway, we have more pressing matters to attend to right now.”
“Yes, about that,” Kalibar said. Erasmus had been so surprised to see Kalibar's new eyes that he'd almost forgotten about the emergency that had brought them together in the first place. “So you're saying that someone freed some of the criminals from Stridon Penitentiary?” The prison included the highest-security jail cells in the Empire, specializing in the detainment of criminals who happened to be powerful Weavers and Runics.
“That's right,” Erasmus replied gravely. “No one realized it until the morning shift arrived, and found all of the night guards on the floor, dead. Not a mark on any of them, either. The bars to each cell had been ripped from the walls, the magic containment fields destroyed. At least eighty of the prisoners are missing...we can only assume they escaped somehow.”
“I still don't get it,” Kalibar stated. “How could any of the prisoners have escaped...in broad daylight...without anyone noticing?” It was a good point; all of the prisoners had been wearing blue and orange prison jumpsuits, and the prison's only entrance led out into a busy street. Yet there had been no eyewitness reports of a breakout.
“We did hear from a man,” Erasmus replied, “...a passer-by on his way to work at the time, that the two guards at the entrance had let an old man into the prison. A beggar, by the eyewitness's description.”
“A beggar? Why would they let a beggar into Stridon Penitentiary?” Kalibar exclaimed. “That doesn't make any sense.” The prison was on constant lock-down, with no visitors allowed. Only officials with the proper clearance were admitted into the prison, and even then only with advance notice. “Do we have a description of the beggar?” Kalibar pressed. Erasmus nodded.
“In process,” he answered. “The eyewitness is working with our sketch-artists to render a likeness. It should be completed within the hour.”
“Good,” Kalibar replied. “We'll notify the city guard to copy and distribute it once it's finished. I want the public to know what this man looks like...we need to bring him in for questioning.”
“There's something else.”
“Isn't that enough?” Kalibar asked. Erasmus sighed.
“Orik was found...” he added, shaking his head. “He was in pieces.” Kalibar frowned.
“I wouldn't have thought him shaken up so easily,” he remarked. Erasmus smirked.
“No, I mean he was literally in pieces. Someone slaughtered the bastard and left him to rot in his cell.”
“Damn,” Kalibar swore. “We weren't done interrogating him.”
“He certainly deserved what he got,” Erasmus opined. “But there's more...the guards at the entrance were killed, like I said before, without any sign of violence to their bodies...at least not externally.”
“Go on.”
“We ordered emergency autopsies on the two guards at the entrance to the prison,” Erasmus continued. “I got a report – right before I came up to talk to you – from the coroner about his findings.”
“So quickly?” Kalibar asked. A coroner's examination usually took days to weeks.
“As I said, there were no external signs of trauma,” Erasmus repeated. “But the guards' armor – and the guards themselves – were completely drained of magic. Not a lick of power left in them. And when the coroner removed the top of the guards' skulls, their brains poured out.”
“Poured out?” Kalibar exclaimed. Erasmus nodded.
“They'd been liquefied,” he explained. “The rest of their bodies were intact.”
“How were their brains liquefied?” Kalibar pressed, rubbing his goatee fiercely. “I know of no pattern that would allow for that without causing external damage,” he added. “Or one that would allow anyone to completely drain magic from a full suit of armor so quickly...not even Verhanian technology can do that.” But of course Erasmus knew this; if anyone would know about the armor the guards wore, it was the Grand Runic. Erasmus had, after all, been instrumental in designing that armor, before he'd gone into politics.
“It appears that whoever is attacking us,” Erasmus replied, giving an apologetic look, “...is once again capable of circumventing my work.” Kalibar knew what his old friend was thinking. First, his runic wards failed to stop an assassin from nearly ending Kalibar's life, and now his designs had failed to save the prison guards from having their minds literally destroyed.
“It's not your fault,” Kalibar interjected quickly, putting a hand on Erasmus's shoulder. “No one doubts that your work is among the finest the Empire has seen,” he added. “We have to remember that our enemy is resourceful in ways that we haven't begun to understand. We're dealing with a man who can raise the dead, and take on an entire room full of Weavers and Runics and win easily.”
“Small consolation,” Erasmus grumbled. “But you're right...it has to be Xanos, or one of his Chosen.” He sighed heavily, shaking his near-bald head. “We're dealing with people far more powerful than we are,” he added wearily. “I hate to be the one to say this, but I'm not sure we can win against such an enemy.” Kalibar said nothing, but he knew that Erasmus was only stating what they'd all been thinking...indeed, what he himself had thought just last night, while taking his evening shower.
They were going to fail, and there was nothing they could do about it.
“But we have to try,” Erasmus stated. “I refuse to roll over and die for these bastards. We won against Xanos once, we can do it again!”
“We lost,” Kalibar corrected, feeling suddenly exhausted. “Kyle's ring is the only reason we're still alive having this conversation,” he added. “How are we on decoding his ring?”
“Closer,” Erasmus answered. “But the blasted thing is maddeningly complex,” he added. “Most of the runes are completely foreign to us...I mean, I've never seen anything like them. We've isolated two dozen of them or so, and we've had our Weavers try them out. So far, all the runes have done is generate s
ome sort of harmless energy beam. We're trying to link together the runes just like they're linked in the ring, but it'll take more time.”
“At least we're getting somewhere,” Kalibar said, rubbing his eyes tiredly. Then he stretched his arms out to his sides. “What I wouldn't give to get a good night's sleep,” he added wistfully. Erasmus snorted.
“You're a politician now,” Erasmus reminded him. “You won't get a good night's sleep until your term's over.”
“Or until I'm dead,” Kalibar replied. “Now, about those eyepatches...”
Chapter 7
The morning sun shone in full force as Kyle sped alongside Master Banar, easily keeping pace with the Runic as they raced across the massive lawn of the Secula Magna. Master Banar had spent the better part of an hour explaining how Ancient Runics had discovered the unique properties of crystals to store and channel magic. Apparently, weaving had been discovered first, and it wasn't until much later that runic technology had been invented. Kyle's new instructor had not spared a single opportunity to show Kyle the many miraculous inventions that Runics had created in the past two thousand years. Master Owens had been right; Weavers were flashy and cool, but the Empire itself had been built by Runics. He still felt lousy about his failure to succeed as a Weaver, but he had to admit that Master Banar had managed to make Runics seem like a pretty cool alternative.
“Did you have breakfast this morning?” Master Banar asked, slowing down, then stopping. Kyle followed suit, shaking his head. “Well then, time to eat!” the Runic exclaimed, dropping to the ground. “Come on, I've got plenty of food in my pack.” He slung his bag off of his shoulder, rummaging through it until he found what he was looking for – a small sack. “I've got bread, and vegetables,” Master Banar offered, pulling a loaf of bread out of the sack. “I don't eat meat,” he added. Kyle smiled, remembering the countless meals of bread soaked in soup he'd had during his last adventure.
“That's okay,” Kyle replied, taking some bread from his instructor. He munched on it, surprised at how moist and flavorful it was. It was certainly much better than the rations Darius had fed him on the way to Crescent Lake.
“While we're here,” Master Banar continued, throwing his pack back over his shoulder, “...I might as well start teaching you the basics about runes.” He took another bite out of his loaf of bread, chewing vigorously. “Now, you already know how to Weave, which is going to make this much easier,” he added. “Magic, as you know, is created in the brain, and must be woven into certain patterns to have a desired effect. Well, at some point, it was found that the patterns didn't have to just be woven in the brain. As long as magic was moved in a particular pattern – within the brain or outside of it – the effect was the same.”
Kyle nodded; Kalibar had mentioned something similar previously, at Crescent Lake.
“So the question is...how do we get magic to move in a particular pattern? And the answer lies in minerals,” Banar continued. “Some minerals store magic, that everyone knows. But other types of minerals are better at conducting magic.”
“What do you mean?” Kyle asked.
“Well, if you take certain minerals, and form them into a long wire of sorts, magic will flow from one end of it to the other,” Banar explained. “And if you make that wire into a certain shape – a pattern – it's just like weaving magic in your mind.”
“So runes are made of crystal wires?” Kyle asked. Master Banar hesitated.
“Sometimes,” he replied. “It's complicated,” he added ruefully. “In any case, there really isn't much difference between patterns in the mind and patterns drawn outside of it...except that with runes, a pattern can be used over and over again, nearly effortlessly. All you have to do is supply the magic, and the rune does all the rest.”
“Kalibar showed me how to make runes once,” Kyle offered. Master Banar's eyebrows rose.
“Really?” he replied. “I can't say I'm too surprised,” he admitted. “Grand Weaver Kalibar is an exceptional academic...few Weavers ever deign to learn how the other side operates. So you know how it works?”
“Well...not really,” Kyle admitted. “I just remember him carving stuff into some metal,” he added. Master Banar smirked.
“Not quite,” he corrected. “Here, let me show you how we do it,” he added, pulling something from his pocket. It was a small brown cube.
“What's that?”
“A storage crystal,” Banar answered. “We're going to create a rune on it,” he added, handing it over to Kyle. The cube felt warm in his hand.
“How?” Kyle asked.
“Well, as hard as it may be to believe, that cube is made up of many smaller cubes,” Banar replied. “In fact, it's made up of cubes so small you'd need a magnifying glass to see them.”
Kyle smiled; being from Earth, he knew that everything was made up of tiny atoms. Crystals were just clumps of particular atoms that formed a certain shape. There was no way that Master Banar could know that, of course.
“This cube is good at holding onto magic,” Banar continued, “...but terrible at making magic move.” He gestured for Kyle to hand the cube back, and Kyle did so. “In order to make a rune, we have to make a wire, remember?”
“How do we do that?” Kyle asked.
“By using magic to change parts of the cube,” Banar replied. “There's a magic pattern that will change the nature of the crystals that make up that cube,” he added. “That will make them better at conducting magic.” He paused then. “It's actually a lot more complicated than that,” he admitted. “But let's keep it simple for now.”
“Sounds good,” Kyle agreed. His head was already starting to hurt with all of the information Banar had taught him.
“There's a pattern that'll change the structure of this storage crystal,” Banar continued. “You just weave the pattern in your mind, then throw it out to the area on the crystal you want to alter.” He demonstrated then, leaning over the cube, his forehead nearly touching the surface of it. A faint blue dot appeared on the face of the crystal, then faded. Banar handed the cube to Kyle, who glanced at it. Where the blue dot had been, the cube had changed color, turning bright orange. Kyle frowned at the orange dot.
“That's not a rune,” he observed.
“True,” Banar agreed, taking the cube back from Kyle. “But if you took a powerful enough magnifying glass, you would see that the orange part of the cube had a different structure than the rest.”
“Making it better at conducting magic,” Kyle guessed.
“Correct,” Banar confirmed. “And can you imagine what would happen if, instead of making a simple dot, I were to create a magical pattern on the surface of the cube?”
“It would make a wire that would conduct the magic,” Kyle replied. “A rune,” he added, suddenly getting it. He felt a sudden giddiness. “Wait, so it's that simple?”
“Well, in theory, yes,” Banar answered. “In practice, it can get a lot more complicated. But yes, that's how the simplest runes are made.”
“Cool,” Kyle breathed. He stared at the orange dot on the cube, suddenly eager to try his hand at making a rune of his own. But Master Banar put the cube away.
“Let's take another break,” he stated, stretching his arms up and outward. His bony shoulders popped with the motion.
“Already?” Kyle asked. He wanted to continue, now that he finally understood how runes were made. Master Banar smiled.
“The next part is a bit complicated,” he warned. “And I don't know about you, but I could use a breather.”
“Okay.”
They both sat down on the grass, as they had during their previous break. Kyle gazed up at the clouds, now only barely tinged with a purplish hue as the sun rose above the trees in the distance. Then he sighed, dropping his gaze to his lap.
“What's wrong?” Master Banar asked. Kyle shrugged.
“I'm still upset about failing as a Weaver,” he admitted. “Not that I don't like the idea of being a Runic,” he added hastil
y. He hardly wanted to offend his new teacher, especially since they were getting along so well. But Banar didn't seem offended.
“It's hard to take criticism,” he replied. “Especially when it comes from people you admire,” he added. “But you have to understand that Master Owens thought you'd make a good Weaver...he just thought you'd make a better Runic.”
“Yeah, well it seems like everyone's good at something except for me,” Kyle muttered. And it was true; Ariana had not only proven herself a better Weaver, she'd also been more responsible, showing up to class on time every time, except for yesterday, of course. And she'd saved his life on more than one occasion, leaping into action while he froze.
“You are good at something,” Banar countered. Kyle frowned, not understanding what Banar was getting at. “Let me show you,” Banar added. He stood up then, reaching into one of his many pockets and pulling out a small, transparent sphere. It almost immediately turned yellow.
“What's that?” Kyle asked. It looked familiar.
“A Finder stone,” Banar answered. Kyle nearly slapped his forehead, recognizing the crystal ball.
“That's how Kalibar showed me I could make magic,” Kyle recalled. And it was true; the stone had turned green when Kyle had touched it, indicating that he could make nearly as much magic as Erasmus...unheard of for a young boy.
“Do you remember what color you made it turn?” Banar asked.
“Green,” Kyle replied. Banar gave a low whistle.
“Impressive,” he murmured. “Well, as you know, the Finder stone changes color based on how much magic whoever is touching it makes. The colors go from least to most magic: gray, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. Each color change indicates an exponential increase in magic production.”
“Right,” Kyle replied. “Kalibar turned it violet,” he added. Kalibar was not only the most acclaimed Battle-Weaver in the Empire, but also the man able to produce more magic than anyone else.