by T J Trapp
After his first few months on the job, Alec noted that Dr. Alder was more of a technician than he was – Alder excelled at making the equipment work to harness dark energy in ways that no one else could – but Alec felt that he was better at understanding why it worked and how to use dark energy. Alec’s current set of experiments involved a new way to use dark energy to create tricrystals. Tricrystals were the heart of the medallions the researchers wore, and the medallions were essential to focus dark energy.
Yesterday he should have been at the park with Sarah, but he thought his research experiment was more important. Was that just a day ago? He had gone to the Lab to check on his data. He checked in through the security gate, placed his cell phone and wallet in his locker, which was a security requirement, and entered the secure Lab area. He took his medallion from its container near the Lab entrance, hung it around his neck, and opened the door into the central area.
Someone was in the central chamber, using the dark energy generator. Who could be here? Alec thought. And why is the generator on? No other researchers had logged in through the security gate that afternoon before he did. For safety reasons, all generator work was supposed to be done with at least two people on site. Do I need to turn the generator off? He walked into the dark energy generator room. His medallion started to throb. The room was full of dark energy at levels he had never seen before.
“Who is in there?” Alec shouted.
“Go away!” a voice commanded from within the chamber. “Get out of here immediately!”
Instead of following the command, Alec continued into the chamber. If someone is in trouble, they will need help! The lone figure in the chamber came into view.
Dr. Alder stood at the control console. Light from the control panel reflected from his glasses in strange patterens of purple and green. No one else was in in the experimental chamber. Power was pulsing and focusing on a tiny sphere in the middle of the room. Alder’s attention was on the sphere.
Alec watched in quiet fascination. Whatever was happening was beyond anything he had contemplated. He could sense the energy being focused in ways he hadn’t considered. Slowly the energy started to convalesce into the sphere and then into a ring between Alder and the sphere. The power glowed, and Alder started to turn transparent. Then a slight perturbation occurred in the ring. Oh no! thought Alec. It is picking up on the focus from my medallion! Alder looked up and saw Alec.
“No!” Alder shouted. “Get out!”
Alec felt the perturbation turn into a massive instability, like a giant roar inside his head. Instabilities could be very dangerous – even lethal – and was one reason why a researcher never worked alone. Instabilities released massive amounts of raw power. The only thing Alec could do now was to try to smooth the instabilities. Although he had read about instability reduction he had never actually done it. With some effort, Alec succeeded in reducing the low-order perturbations and then started on the higher-order effects. He could see that the variances were subsiding, but Alder wasn’t helping to quell the flow of power. Instead, Alder seemed to be feeding the instabilities in ways that Alec didn’t understand. Alec knew he couldn’t keep this under control without Alder’s help, and started to call out.
Then suddenly everything was flashing colors and vertigo.
✽✽✽
So back to the question. What happened and where am I?
Alec looked up. Erin was looking at him with a bemused expression.
“Where are we?” Alec asked.
“I told you. We are half-way between Arose and Betin,” Erin said, as if tutoring a child.
“But I don’t know those towns! What state are we in? Or what country?” Could this be Canada?
“I don’t know what that means,” said Erin. “I told you. This is the Grassland. I do not live here. My land is Theland and is far toward the morning sun.”
“Who is in charge here?” asked Alec.
“No one rules the Grasslands,” Erin answered, “but many travel across it.”
Alec sighed and looked up. Still, no idea where I am, he thought. The morning sun was well over the horizon now. Three moons were racing across the sky.
“No!” said Alec. “The moons – what – what happened?”
“What do you mean?” she said, puzzled.
“The moons! There are three of them!”
Erin looked at him with a strange expression. “That’s because the other two haven’t come up yet,” she said.
Alec shook his head, exasperated. Think.
One of the theories behind dark energy was that alternate universes exist, but no one had proven that. But was it true? Was this a test? The last thing that happened before he showed up here (wherever “here” is) was walking into the dark energy chamber, and Alder yelling at him to get out. Then there was some explosion. The dark energy must have thrown him somewhere else – this place – this Grassland. Is this some alternate universe? Maybe that was what Alder was working on. Or maybe I’m in a different point in time. He couldn’t be in the past, because Earth had never had five moons. So, if he was on Earth, he must be in the future. But technologically speaking, this did not seem like the future. It seemed like the Middle Ages. And he was clearly in a different place. A different universe, then? The thought gave him a headache.
Erin was still standing in front of him, looking at him awkwardly.
Alec pulled his mind back to the present.
“What do we do now?” Alec asked.
“Whatever you want,” she answered.
“What do you mean?”
“I am a slave,” Erin said, shrugging her shoulders, “either theirs or yours. As long as I wear this neckpiece, I am a slave. And as long as I wear it, their key will be attracted to it and they can find me and make me do whatever they want.”
“Then how do we take the neckpiece off?”
Erin looked at him, her eyes growing wider. “You would take the neckpiece off me? But then I will no longer be your slave!” She drew a quick breath through tight lips. “It will only come off with the key, and the nomad leader had the key. You killed him. But he didn’t bring it with him yesterday, and the key is not here – it is back at their camp.”
Alec stepped closer and put his hand on the metal collar. He passed his hand over the latch and squinted at the small keyhole. As part of the Lab’s commercial applications work, before he had received his security clearance, he had helped a small specialty-metals company make unusual components using dark energy. This didn’t look very different from the specialty work he had done there.
“What if I can make a key – would that work?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” replied Erin. Making a key had never occurred to her.
Alec looked at the keyhole. What could I use? Chemically it would have to have about the same number of protons and neutrons. He looked around, then scraped a handful of dirt from the spongy ground and placed it on a flat rock. Focus. Alec touched his medallion and could feel the dark energy start to flow. Focus. The energy started to pulse, and he started to work it into a form. He closed his eyes, and in his mind could feel the metal band around Erin’s neck and the keyhole. He could sense the holes in the fitting. Slowly at first, then quickly like an eel, the small pile of dirt writhed and flowed, transforming into a set of rectangular and cylindrical blocks.
“Done,” said Alec with a pleased smile.
“What is that?” asked Erin. “It doesn’t look at all like a key!”
“This is just like something I used to do at the Institute,” said Alec. “It is a model of the blank space inside your lock. Now I just have to make a key to fit the blanks.”
Alec moved his model and piled another handful of dirt on his rock.
Focus. The dark energy moved, and the purplish dirt transformed into a dark metal key.
“Shall we try?”
Alec carefully inserted the key into the lock and twisted. It resisted briefly and then grabbed, and the latch popped open. E
rin grabbed the neckpiece with both hands and pulled it off her neck. She shook her head, glad to be free of its weight. Then with a muffled yell, she flung the neckpiece as far as she could into the sea of grass.
“You have freed me. I am thankful and owe you a great debt,” she said, bowing her head before him.
“No,” said Alec. “I wanted to do that for you. I think it was the right thing to do, and you do not owe me anything.” He looked at her cautiously. “But I would appreciate you helping me find my way to safety so that I can go home.”
“I can try,” she answered. Then, “What is this ‘Institute’ that allows you to do such things?”
“It is a school,” he said. “It is where I learned about dark energy, and how to use it.”
“A ‘Wizard School’!” she exclaimed.
Alec didn’t know how to answer. The old saying about advanced science looking like magic was clearly true.
Alec changed to a more pressing subject. “We need to get you to a safe place and then find a way to get me home. Can we take you back to your … home?”
“No. I cannot go back now.”
“Why not?”
“I must have my rings before I return. I will not return without them.”
“Rings? What rings?”
“My family’s rings! The First Mother’s rings! They have been passed down in my family for five hundred years.” She paused, then went on, ready to confide in him. “They originally came from the First Mother, the elf Lian, who settled our land. I am a direct descendant of the First Mother. The rings give those descended from her the ability to sense truth and to defend our people against the elves. My mother has two rings, and I was entrusted with the other two – the nomads took them from me. Without the rings, I cannot protect my people.”
“Where are they?” Alec suspected he knew the answer.
“Somewhere in the Gryg camp,” she said.
Alec clenched his fist and punched the air. “Those guys just tried to kill me,” he said angrily, “and they made you a slave, and you want to go and just wander back into their camp to look for some mere family trinkets that might not even be there?”
“Yes!” she said defiantly. “They are not mere ‘trinkets’! They are essential to the safety of my people. I can find them! I can sense the rings when I am close to them.”
“Why did you bring them with you if they are essential to your people's safety?”
Erin looked contrite. “I was not supposed to bring them. They are supposed to be locked in my mother's vault. My mother would be furious if she knew I brought them, but I thought I could practice using them to sense the people we visited.”
“Why don’t you just get some more rings when you get home?” asked Alec.
“We can’t make rings! The rings came from the elves. We have had the rings for many generations. I cannot go home without my rings.”
“We should get out of here and go find help. Then maybe after that we can come back and find your rings.”
She gestured towards the hillside where the nomads’ bodies lay. “The nomads will be coming for us,” she said patiently. “They will see what happened to their leader. They will see that he no longer has a head. They will want to seek their due revenge. And since we are only two, they will certainly catch us before we get anywhere to find help.”
The concept of more nomads coming after them had not occurred to Alec. But of course. The nomad who fled after the fight with Alec would have made his way back to the Gryg camp and told the others what had happened. They would not be happy leaving two dead members unavenged.
Alec considered his options. He was reluctant to enter the nomad camp to recover the rings, but the girl was determined. Since she was his only link to the world beyond this grassland, he didn’t see that he had much choice but to stick with her. At least for a while. She is pretty, he thought.
“Where is the nomad camp?”
“It is about a half-day toward evening from here.”
Which way is that? Alec was struggling with the concepts of direction in a language he had never heard until yesterday. “How do we get there – and more important – what are we going to do when we get there? Do we need some weapons?”
Erin looked at him. “You are a Great Wizard. I have only heard stories of great wizards. You will defeat the pigs!” She smiled.
‘Great Wizard’! Ha! I’m lucky to be alive! “Maybe the first step is to find something to eat,” Alec said. “Then we can develop a plan.” He gestured in the direction of the nomads’ bodies. “Did they bring any provisions with them? A snack, maybe?”
“Yes, they brought a day’s worth of food. That is one of the reasons I was along, to prepare food for them. Do you want me to prepare it, oh Great Wizard?”
“Please. I have no idea how to do anything here.”
The horse-beasts were tied to a stout bush a short distance away with their saddles and panniers stacked nearby. Erin rummaged through the nomads’ supplies and pulled out a couple of small bundles and brought them to Alec.
“What are those things?” Alec asked, pointing at the animals.
“The trogus? Those two are trogus. They are just not very large. They are fighting animals. Riding trogus are larger. The third beast is a drung. It is a beast of burden.” She rolled her R’s; Alec noted, part of the lilting cadence of her language.
“Oh,” Alec said. He was obviously expected to know what a ‘trogus’ was. And I guess now I do, he thought.
Erin looked at him. “Can you make a fire for us?”
Alec thought for a minute.
“If I make a fire, they may see our smoke, but I might be able to do something even better.” Alec felt for his medallion, pulsing with dark energy. Focus.
Alec arranged four rocks together. Then he thought about lava, deep in the earth. The rocks turned red briefly and then solidified with resounding pops as the surface layer flaked off like so many crickets, just as he recalled from watching lava flows in Hawaii.
There. “Those hot rocks should be perfect for cooking.,” he announced.
Erin looked at them suspiciously, but she put her hand over the rocks and could feel the heat rising from them. She spat on one and watched her spit bubble and boil. With the water and supplies from the trogus’ packs, she soon had a potful of gruel bubbling on the hot rocks.
Looks like oatmeal, Alec thought. He ate with relish. It was gritty, but not bad, and he suddenly noticed that he was very hungry.
✽✽✽
Now it was time to plan. Alec needed a weapon that would give him more range than the nomads’ swords. But it had to be something simple, that he could make. Thinking back to his college days Alec thought of playing lacrosse. He could link dark energy with a simple sling, like a lacrosse stick, to give him an advantage. With a little searching he found a stick that would do. Focus. The stick transformed itself into a straight rod with a pouch on one end. He collected several rocks for a test.
Erin watched with interest.
Focus. Alec put a rock into the sling. He focused on an impact point on a boulder about thirty yards away, infused the rock with dark energy and launched it.
Zing. A fiery contrail traced the path of the small rock through the air, and with a loud bang! The rock slammed into the boulder. Fragments spewed in all directions.
Erin clapped. “Good show, oh Great Wizard!”
Alec knew better. No great wizard here. Just a simple guy who wants to go home and take a nice long bath. And a shave. He felt the stubble on his face. Definitely a shave.
If the dark energy field stayed high, Alec knew, he could tap into it, but if the field dropped he would be helpless. He had to use enough dark energy to accomplish his task, but not expend more energy than needed. Try this again. On the second try, Alec put less energy in the stone. It hit solidly in the middle of his target without all the fanfare.
The first step was under control. Erin walked around gathering a supply of right-sized rocks for pro
jectiles while Alec thought about the next step. In addition to the long-range lacrosse sling, he also would need a short-range weapon. Alec looked at the two swords Erin had harvested from the two dead nomads. Alec knew that against a practiced swordsman, there was no way he could use a sword well enough to keep himself alive. What weapon could he obtain that would be effective against a sword? Some memory of old adventure movies reminded him that a staff was an efficient weapon against a sword. Maybe he could make a staff and use it for close range.
The next issue was finding a long stick among the tall grass. He searched for an hour looking for a long straight rod. There were none. Good idea but it’s not going to work, he told himself. Then he thought, why do I need one straight piece? He had two swords but only needed one staff. Focus. The first sword transformed into a thin rod. Alec had imagined aluminum, but he had no idea whether it was aluminum or iron or even titanium. In the short run, it didn’t matter. This will work. He poked around the low bushes and took several long branches from a nearby shrub. Focus. The branches looped around the central rod and fused together. He looked at the final product. It had a nice curling pattern from the branches and felt very good to hold. The only problem was the ends. They would fray.
He could fix that. Focus. Energy swirled, and two metal end caps emerged on the staff. They had the proper light gray color of titanium, but Alec could not tell if he was working to that level of detail. It doesn’t matter, he decided – the end caps were metal and would keep everything together. If they rusted or corroded in a month or a year, he could worry about that later. Making it through the day was his concern now.
As he finished his staff, Erin returned with a dozen perfectly-sized rocks for his sling. She looked at his staff with interest, but it was clear that she was underwhelmed by the simple piece.