“I am sure I would have chosen your path too, had the same happened to me,” Alira said, speaking gently. “I have seen more than my share of demon’s foul work. I considered your path, but felt I could help many more people by joining with my Lord Silurian. I also never used to feel I could long live with myself killing in cold blood as the Sisters are called upon to do, no matter how deserving the recipient of their attentions. However, lately, I have seen enough that I might find that much less troubling.”
Standing again, Alira paced and spoke. “I will, of course, do all I can to help you both. I’m sure Silurian will be most pleased as well. Who is the grove mother in Alavar? Oh, and I suppose I’ll need to know who the forest mother is for Salaways too.”
“The grove mother of Alavar is a woman you may have heard of, Martha.” Madge looked down before continuing, “and it may surprise you a bit, but you have been speaking to the forest mother of Salaways.”
“You, Madge, the forest mother? I’m so happy for you,” Alira said, beaming.
“You wouldn’t be congratulating me if you had to deal with the headaches of this calling,” Madge replied rolling her eyes and shaking her head. “I’m not sure what I was thinking when I accepted the nomination. I’m too old for the drama. But, there it is.
“When the council voted to rescind your sundering, I knew I had to be the one to deliver the news. It could be no one less than a forest mother after all you’ve been through, though this is one of the happiest duties I’ve had to perform in ages. We really are happy to have you back.”
“And I can’t say how happy I am to be back.”
Chapter 22
Castle Kord – Skrayla
“How can I best serve you, Masters?” Zeldar said as Eril, Dorull, and Zeldar sat around a table in Dorull’s large work room.
“First,” Dorull stated firmly, “you can ensure that you do not refer to Eril as a Master.”
“But,” Zeldar began, but Dorull spoke over him.
“Yes, yes, technically, since he defeated two master wizards, he should automatically be a master wizard. We know that, but aside from you and those living here in the castle, no one knows Eril defeated two master wizards, and we very much want to keep it that way.” Dorull glared at Zeldar to make his point.
“Technically,” Dorull continued, “Eril here has defeated three master wizards, and he killed the first one while he was still an apprentice.”
Zeldar, who had been looking mildly irritated before now looked at Eril for confirmation. Eril nodded, glancing down.
“Yeah, I did fight and kill another wizard a few months ago.” He said, unwilling to make eye contact.
Zeldar shook himself, looking like he was trying to wake from a bad dream.
Dorull continued quietly, “If the demon wizards knew who Eril really was, or what he was, they would let nothing stop them from killing him. Therefore, you must never reveal that you know these things, and you must never speak to anyone of how Eril is anything more than a simple journeyman wizard.”
“Well, uh, alright then,” Zeldar said, looking slightly concussed. “Uh, my question still stands. What can I do for you, gentlemen?”
Eril, looking much relieved now that the awkwardness of that conversation was past was happy to jump in.
“I would really like to watch you cast that spell that you used in the battle. I presume you have a way of casting it where you only make a small ball, for practice, right?”
Zeldar, for his part, also looked relieved and continued happily. “Certainly. I just need to be near a source of fire and have enough room to allow the ball to dissipate without damaging anything.”
They all got up and moved to be near a hearth at one end of the large room. Eril slipped on his master ring as Zeldar began the gesticulations of the spell while chanting. Eril watched, fascinated as he saw that Zeldar’s words and motions were causing lines of force, which he could now see, to create a funnel pulling the heat energy from the hearth, as it passed through the funnel it transformed from heat into a purer magical energy, which was then captured in the globular magical force enclosure.
As with his earlier experience with Gordal, Eril could now see that there were several subtleties in the process which he had failed to perceive when he was observing during the battle. He was glad he had taken the time to watch Zeldar now with his master ring on, as he felt much more confident he would be able to duplicate the process.
After just over a minute, Zeldar concluded, magically closing the funnel and sealing the ball containing the pure magical energy. The ball was the size of a small melon and it floated free in the air, a few feet in front of Zeldar.
They all looked at the glowing orb. “So, what would you do with this now, normally?” Dorull asked.
“Well, normally, I would practice moving it around,” Zeldar said, pointing at the ball and causing it to move in a figure-eight pattern. “Then, eventually I’d aim it at something and let it explode.”
“Hmph,” Dorull said, not sounding happy with the answer. “Why do you do that, can’t you use it for something useful?”
“Well, uh,” Zeldar responded, sounding miffed himself. “The whole point of it is to destroy enemy emplacements. That has always seemed pretty useful to me.”
“Why don’t you let it just hang around and use it for a light, or in a mine or something?” Eril added enthusiastically.
Zeldar looked happier, now that he had a good answer. “You can’t do that. They don’t last, the containment is never perfect, and it weakens over time. I’ve gotten pretty good at making fairly stable containments, but mine never last more than five minutes or so.” He gestured at the gently drifting ball of light. “The longer you wait, the less certain you are when they will pop. They act like soap bubbles. They can just pop at almost any time after the first few seconds, it isn’t a matter of if it will pop, but how soon, and even a small one like this will make quite a bang.”
Eril looked at the orb. He could clearly see what Zeldar was saying. The containment was fragile and beginning to fray even as he watched. Almost without thinking he reached out with his mind and reinforced the containment. He tweaked the spell lines and saw that it was changing. He was almost certain he had it moving into a more stable pattern when, suddenly, the whole thing started to unravel.
Eril started to shout a warning when the ball exploded. The bright flash and thunderous concussion left his head ringing.
After he had recovered from the initial shock, Eril said, “I see what you mean, but I think I almost had it. With just a bit of practice, I bet I can change it, so the containment is much more stable.”
Zeldar looked annoyed. “Why would you want to do that?” He gestured around the room at scorch mark on the floor near where it had exploded. “The whole point of the thing is to blow things up.”
“I think,” Dorull began, standing and walking as he spoke, “what Eril is trying to say is that both he and I see that this spell and these balls you create could be used for things other than ‘blowing stuff up’.”
“Yeah,” Eril enthused. “If you just make one more, I bet I can figure it out well enough to do it myself, and maybe with this next one I’ll figure out how to make it stable instead of accidentally blowing it up.”
Zeldar looked at Eril, offended. “It took me six months working on this spell day and night before I got beyond creating more than a ghost of a ball, and another seven months beyond that before I could get one that didn’t blow up before I could get it into a catapult. My ex-partner shaved two months off that time and he only managed that because he had me there to give him pointers to improve his technique.
“You actually think after watching me do this twice, you can cast the spell and, not just that, you think you can improve it?” His face was red and he looked like he was ready to throttle Eril.
Dorull laughed. This only seemed to make Zeldar more apoplectic. “Zeldar, Zeldar, boy, calm down. I know just how you feel but remember who you’
re dealing with here.” He gestured at Eril, who was looking mostly confused by Zeldar’s reaction. “Eril, really, is a Zdrell wizard. If he says he thinks that watching you one more time will be enough to do it himself, well then he might be right.”
Zeldar was about to begin another angry retort when Dorull looked at him sternly and said, “Stop. Think for just one moment. What happened in the battle to your precious, oh so carefully constructed orbs, heh? Who took control of them and used them against you?”
Zeldar glared, but it was clear that this comment had cut through his defensive reaction. “Alright, if that is the way it is, then, watch and learn.” He began chanting and gesticulating rapidly. He looked angry, but Eril also thought it looked just like the way he appeared when he was casting on the battlefield.
Eril noted the pattern in the spell and realized that he was now anticipating each part of it before it was completed. As Zeldar reached the end of the spell and closed off the funnel, Eril reached out again with his mind and immediately began adjusting the enclosure as he had attempted previously. This time the spell was fresh, and it responded much more readily to his manipulation.
While he concentrated, the ball, which this time was near twice the size of the previous one, began to shrink, the surface of the orb gaining a more solid look.
“What, what are you doing?” Zeldar asked, fear on his face.
Eril calmly continued to work and then looked up, smiling.
“I think that’s got it. I’m pretty sure that one will stay for as long as we want.”
He reached up and touched the orb as it drifted towards his hand.
“Don’t! You’ll be killed!” Zeldar screamed, trying to pull Eril from the orb. Eril ignored the pull on his arm and the orb quietly came to rest on the outstretched palm of his other hand.
Zeldar turned away, covering his ears, clearly expecting an explosion. After a few moments, when no explosion occurred, he turned back, to see Eril rolling the ball back and forth in his hands as though it were only a large glass ornament.
“How?” Zeldar said in shock.
“See what I told you, Zeldar,” Dorull said dryly. “The boy is the real deal. He is as far above you and me in natural talent as we are above your average donkey.” He snorted. “Humbling, isn’t it?”
Eril passed the orb to Dorull, who accepted it with only a small amount of trepidation. Dorull rolled it around on his hands much as Eril had done.
“I can feel the power in there, it is much like holding onto a charged storage ring,” Dorull said, wonder in his voice.
“Yeah, Master,” Eril said. “It feels just like that and I guess it is, only this is made purely of magic. Prodigious, huh?”
“Aye,” Dorull said. “That’s the word for it.”
Zeldar, who at first had stood apart, fearing that the orb would explode at any moment, finally could not resist and came over to have a turn touching and manipulating the stabilized orb. “This is amazing. I can hardly believe it, but I see what you have done, and I agree. It is just like holding a storage ring, though I’ve only done that twice before.”
Eril reached out and the ball floated back to him. It was now the size of a child’s head. He frowned at it. “I wonder if I can . . . ” he said, concentrating on the ball.
Suddenly, it began to shrink, getting smaller and smaller, until, without a sound, it was gone.
“What did you do?” Zeldar asked, fear in his voice.
“I treated it like it really was a storage ring and pulled the power into my master ring.” He smiled, looking at them both, “I had to be a bit careful since there was a lot of power, but it flowed right out until it was all gone. It felt odd.”
Both Dorull and Zeldar exchanged glances as they could see that Eril was glowing slightly.
Dorull began, “Did you let some of the power come into you, Eril?”
“Oh, yeah, I did at first,” Eril replied, distracted, seeming to look inward. “When I started, I was letting the power flow into me and I quickly realized it was too much to hold so I just channeled it into my master ring. It isn’t exactly a storage ring, but it does that too.”
Again, Zeldar and Dorull exchanged a concerned look at Eril calmly mentioning pulling large enough amounts of magical energy into himself that he glowed, all while suffering no visible ill effects.
An idea struck Dorull and he immediately knew he had to see if Eril would try it. “Eril, do you think you could channel that magic into a different artifact? You know I’ve shown you many of my artifacts that, as far as I can tell, would work if they hadn’t used up the magic they were charged with. Could this be a way to recharge them? I know I’ve never had the personal power to do more than wake a small response from most of them. I never knew a way to get magic in sufficient quantities to bring them fully back to life. This might be the answer I’ve been looking for these many years,” he exulted.
§ § §
In moments Dorull had gathered several items that had been sitting on shelves in the workroom. He held out a pair of ornate silver lozenges the size of an adult little finger carved deeply with minuscule runes and bearing a translucent stone in one end.
“Try these first,” he said holding them out to Eril. “I’ve almost had them charged up enough to work previously, but I just didn’t have the power.”
Eril took them, and focusing, channeled some of the power, that was still making him glow, into the objects. In just moments both lozenges began to glow while the stones went from dark to gently glowing amber. He continued to stare at them for a few more moments with no further change when he turned to Dorull.
“I think they are fully charged. I can’t get any more energy to flow into them,” he said as he handed them back to Dorull, who was quivering in anticipation.
Dorull immediately took one of the objects and handed it to Zeldar. “Take this. Hold it in one hand with your thumb over the stone,” he said as he walked away rapidly, heading for the door.
“What will it do?” Zeldar asked, puzzled.
“Trust me, if it works, you’ll know,” Dorull said over his shoulder as he rushed through the door banging it closed behind him.
“Do you know what he’s talking about?” Zeldar asked Eril.
At first, Eril just shrugged, but then he focused his zdrell sight on the object Zeldar was holding. He could clearly see a modified force line, similar to the ones he had learned to create from Gordal.
“I wonder . . .” Eril said, looking at the line when suddenly, Zeldar jumped and looked around, alarmed.
“Did you say something, Eril?” Zeldar said cautiously looking around.
“No,” Eril grinned, guessing what might have happened. “But I bet you just heard Dorull talk to you. Right?”
Zeldar nodded slowly, his eyes looking unfocused.
“Is he still talking to you?” Eril said grinning from ear to ear.
Again, Zeldar nodded, and then said, clearly not talking to Eril, “So you can hear what I’m saying, Master Dorull?”
Now Zeldar started to look excited. “So, you’re saying that if two people have these, they can be anywhere in the world and talk to one another?” Again, Zeldar paused, clearly hearing Dorull respond. After a few moments, he looked less excited but started to examine the artifact in his hand.
“Well done, Eril,” Dorull said as he strode back into the room. “I can’t wait to see what else you can wake up.”
He immediately began opening cupboards, searching for something as he muttered under his breath. “I know it’s around here somewhere; it hasn’t been that long . . . .” Dorull continued searching in various drawers and boxes until suddenly exclaiming, “Aha! Here it is, and,” he rummaged in the same box and pulled out more items. “One, two, three, four, yes, there should be three more, hmm. There they are; the whole set.”
Dorull was now holding seven lozenges, similar to the ones Eril had already charged, but he also had a strange star-shaped metal plate which had a very large facete
d stone in its center. The entire thing was carved with runes, but it looked old and caked with grime.
“This,” Dorull said, holding up the plate, “is one of the rarest objects I’ve got. There are lots of sets of senders like those you charged up, Eril. So many of them exist that for a long time even after they stopped working most wizards had two or three sets. The problem with them is that when they work, they only work with a single matched companion.”
“This,” he said, holding up the star plate, “is a central unit that allows all of the senders,” he gestured at the lozenges, “to communicate with each other or just to the central unit, or all of them,” he finished, glowing with anticipation and passed it over to Eril.
“Why is it covered in dirt?” Eril asked, turning the plate over and examining it more carefully. “It obviously is really valuable.”
“Yes, Eril, it is in this state because I was afraid to clean it further without being sure what parts were supposed to be there and what was just grime.” Dorull looked down sheepishly. “In the early days when I collected artifacts, I ruined several when I cleaned them too vigorously.
“This item was buried in the ruins of a castle destroyed in the Great War. I have learned from my earlier mistakes and only removed the obvious dirt. The demon wizards tried to destroy every one of these. After line cutters, these were the artifacts they hated most.”
Dorull pointed at the plate. “Just think for a moment what this means. With this functional, eight different individuals at any distance can keep in contact. Generals would, and have, killed for this ability. To say nothing of what it means for commerce or foreign relations. It is no wonder that the demons tried to eliminate these. Only true zdrell masters were ever able to create them and sets like these were never common.”
Eril immediately set about charging the plate, the “hub” Dorull called it. He soon found that it had quite a significant magic reservoir. Interestingly, it also seemed to share that energy with the individual sending units, and before he completed the charging of the hub, several of the senders were already showing signs of life.
The Journeyman for Zdrell Page 11