by Blink, Bob
Daim released the four wizards and pointed toward the fire. “Let’s eat while you answer my questions.”
Daim asked his questions. Nothing he asked intruded on what Burke felt was classified or which shouldn’t be answered, so he explained what he could. Kaler, Daria, Jeen and Ash’urn mostly listened silently, sometimes adding to the answer that Burke supplied. It was almost three glass later when Daim was satisfied.
“This is very bad,” he said slowly. “The situation is worse than I expected, and the fact that war is breaking out among the non-gifted is something that must be ended immediately. Given the advanced state of affairs, we will need every man and resource if we are to put aside the advance of the Hoplani.”
He stood and beckoned the others to do the same. “It is time for you to return to inform the others in your group what I told you.”
“What? Tonight?” Burke looked over his shoulder at the darkening skies and the distant Ruins. Clearly he was not anxious to venture back into the wasteland at night. “The number of Razmot have increased beyond all expectation. It would not be wise to venture out there tonight.”
Daim smiled. “You show your ignorance again. I assume you are referring to the beasts that wander loose in the wastelands. They are known as Hoplani. Razmot is the name we gave to the alien flowers that have caused so much grief.”
“Those glowing flowers?” Burke asked. “What is so worrisome about those?”
“You have much to learn. For now, I’d advise you give them a wide berth. They are especially unwholesome for the gifted, and even in their weakened state might still demonstrate to you what they can do. But never fear. I want you to return safely and deliver my message. You won’t have to spend days walking back to the transfer point. That is a far too restrictive means of getting around. I expect obedience from every wizard in your group. You have been looking to the proper enemy, but your approach will fail. It has failed in the past with a far greater number of more powerful wizards. There is only one way for this to end satisfactorily.”
“How will we get back then?” Burke asked.
Daim pointed off to one side, and another of the arches appeared. “Step through that arch and you will be home. Take care with the edges.”
Burke looked uncertainly at the unfamiliar structure.
“Go!” Daim commanded, his good humor already dissipating. “If I wanted to harm you I could do so easily enough.”
Burke walked with his friends toward the arch, stopping just short of actually stepping through.
Ash’urn spoke up. “It’s some kind of travel device. He brought us from several day’s walk out in the Ruins to here through one just like it.”
That seemed to satisfy Burke, who looked back at them, then determinedly stepped into the arch and disappeared. Somewhat nervously the others followed. Daim wished away the structure once they were gone.
“We have much to do come morning. I will want to travel to the capitals of each of these countries of yours. Tonight, I need sleep. This has been more tiring than I expected. None of you may leave.”
Daim augmented his words with a mental command that they would be unable to disobey. He also used the command to ensure they would be unable to plot or act against him while he slept. Just to be certain, he would erect a warning barrier around himself that they wouldn’t be able to penetrate without alerting him if they somehow were able to overcome his commands. He was still uncertain what this group was capable of. Then he turned away and found a place to sleep.
Chapter 64
None of them had gotten much rest, except Daim, who was off on his own apparently still asleep. Daria, like her friends, had spent much of the night trying to think of a way out of this predicament, and how to avenge Rigo. She owed him at least that much and felt a poor companion for having let him be killed.
“I’ll cut his heart out,” she hissed when she realized that Kaler was awake a short distance away.
“I doubt you could even if you tried. Discounting his ability to simply burn us out of existence, I find I can wish and think and plot all I want. But if I make the smallest attempt to take action, I am paralyzed. I’m certain you are bound by the same magic. For now at least, he controls us completely.”
Daria muttered a curse he didn’t recognize.
“At least he sent that Burke off with his tail between his legs,” Ash’urn whispered from her other side. “I was happy to see that.”
“He’s no better than Burke, from what you told me about him,” Jeen said joining the conversation. She had been listening to the others. “He seems to want some of the same things, and he certainly isn’t hesitant about taking what he wants. He planned to drag me off just as you said Burke would do. He scares me.”
“So what do we do?” Daria asked. The frustration was clear in her voice. “Let him win?”
“We’ll have to take our time and see what develops. He has to have a weakness of some kind,” Kaler suggested.
“I wish Rigo were here,” Jeen said sadly. “He was always the one with the ideas.”
“Maybe we should test what he said. Maybe it would be best if we just walked away,” Daria said. “We are back where we can take care of ourselves. It might be a long way home, but we could make it. Who knows what will happen if we stay with him.”
“Don’t go,” Jeen urged. “He might let you go, but I doubt he’ll let me. I don’t think he’d need that necklace to find me.”
“I think whatever plan we make will have to wait,” Ash’urn said softly. “It appears our captor is waking up.”
Daria glanced quickly over toward the spot where Master Daim had chosen. Ash’urn was right. The man was clearly awake. They wouldn’t be going anywhere this morning.
“How do we handle this?” Kaler asked.
“Observe,” Ash’urn suggested wisely. “We’ll have to wait and see.”
“I’ll go check,” Jeen volunteered. “He’s going to want to talk with me anyway.” She stood and headed over to where Daim waited. They could see that he was looking their way.
They watched her leave, then turned back to discuss what each of them had thought about through the night. Nothing seemed to be a workable solution. From what they had seen it would be all but impossible for all of them to get away, and none was willing to run leaving some of their group behind. They were still talking, heads leaning together when Jeen screamed.
Kaler was on his feet in an instant, the sword he’d been allowed to keep coming out of his scabbard as he headed toward Daim and the girl. Wizard or not, there was no way Kaler would allow the man to do anything to Jeen. As fast as Kaler was, Daria was even faster and she was well ahead of him as she drew two of the last of her knives on the run. She was halfway there when she realized that the two were not struggling, but that Jeen had Daim wrapped in an embrace that looked more like a hug.
Not certain what this could mean, Daria nonetheless continued running toward the pair until Jeen turned toward the sound of her approach with a broad grin.
“Rigo’s back!” she exclaimed happily. She stepped away easily.
Daria wasn’t ready to believe what Jeen was saying, although she halted her hurried rush and looked closely at the man who had been Rigo and then Daim. Immediately she could see a difference. He stood with the casual ease that Rigo had always demonstrated. Daim may have learned how to do this, but she couldn’t see any reason for him to pretend. He had absolute control anyway. Then she saw the smile and the eyes. It certainly looked like Rigo.
“Rigo?” she asked cautiously.
“Yeah, it’s me,” Rigo replied. “Be careful with those blades.”
“How do I know for sure?” Daria asked, still tense but not as ready to strike as she’d been a moment earlier.
“I’m not sure. You’ll have to trust your instincts. He knows everything that I do. But from what you have seen would there be any reason for him to pretend to be other than himself?”
“Knows, you said,” Ash’urn asked.
“Where is he?”
“Oh, he’s in here with me,” Rigo replied tapping his head. “You’re going to have to keep a watch in case he regains control. For now I have the upper hand. He’s not at all happy with the current turn of events, and I can sense he is trying to find a way to turn matters around again.”
“He said you were gone,” Kaler said uncertainly.
“He lied,” Rigo said. “I was supposed to be gone when he took the body. It seems that certain plans and preparations that Daim made didn’t work out exactly as envisioned. I was supposed to have been transported to that chamber when I was young. Remember that my memory was gone at the time my father found me. If I’d been transported to the hideaway as planned, Daim would have been able to move into my body and there would have been no one there to contest ownership, so to speak. The fact I didn’t get to his hideaway for another decade allowed a new personality to grow, and he didn’t have an empty shell to take over. When he was transferred in, the shock put me in the background for a while. Somehow after he went to sleep I moved to the forefront again. I think I’ll be able to retain control, but this is obviously something new so we’ll have to be careful.”
“Who is he and how can he do these things?” Jeen asked.
“You overheard what he told Burke. He appears to be exactly what he claims, a wizard from the distant past. Come, let’s have breakfast and I’ll explain what I’ve learned.”
Rigo spent the next half glass explaining what had happened in Daim’s time and what the old wizard feared for the world. Rigo was almost sympathetic to the man’s goals, which made Daria a little uncomfortable.
“You mean those flowers are behind most of this?” Daria asked. “I could have killed you when I brought that flower back to camp. No wonder you got sick.”
Rigo nodded. “The flowers affect those with the gift much differently than the rest of you. Fortunately it was a single flower. Add to that they are on the downside of a long cycle where they are less virulent and the fact that they are far less effective even at their best than they were in Daim’s time. The nearly hundred year cycle when they peak in strength has to coincide with the loss of immunity in the ungifted before a new plague can break out. If the Seer that foresaw all of this happening is correct, the flowers will be unable to begin a new plague again. By the time mankind’s immunity won from the last cycle wears off, the flowers will have lost too much of their strength.”
“And Daim fears those beasts?” Kaler asked. “What did he call them?”
“The Hoplani,” Rigo said. “They are something that have existed for thousands of years. They had found a way to contain them, the tower that we saw, but they have failed over the millennia with no one to oversee them. Now that the Hoplani are making a comeback, they will pour into the settled lands and without the force of wizards who once existed, man won’t be able to resist them. Daim hoped to form a team of wizards capable of defeating large herds and to see to reactivating the towers.”
“What does this mean?” Ash’urn asked. “If you are back in control, what happens to Daim’s plan and how do we stop the beasts?”
“That’s something we have to think through. Daim is effectively still here. I can communicate with him, although it’s a very strange exchange. We need to work this out. I can see where I’ll need to go to Burke’s people and direct them as Daim intended. That is the only source of wizards available, although even Burke is pitifully weak.”
“Burke weak?” Daria asked. “Before we thought he was incredibly strong.”
“That is one benefit from all of this. Daim has brought the knowledge of magic as it was known long ago. His memories also reveal the secret to growing a person with the gift to his or her full ability. To make me effective for himself, he has already performed that activation for me. It seems that those of us with a talent for magic have a number of nodes, eleven actually, that need to be activated for us to reach out maximum potential. Like most naturally born wizards, I was operating with only the first node activated. When training wizards of old, the nodes would be activated sequentially over a period of time, mostly so the fledgling wizards could learn their abilities, not out of any real need. He bypassed that and activated all eleven of mine. I am far more powerful than before, although I can sense that Daim is disappointed in the loss of ability compared to what he once had.”
“What about learning all the different skills and spells?” Jeen asked.
Rigo smiled. “It is not like I would have guessed. There is no long training period. The complete spell set is in my mind, and those I have a talent for I can activate. For example, I know of healing, but I can also sense it isn’t my strongest area, and I can do little with it. The energy spell I couldn’t perform, known as Brightfire by the way, I can tell is a simple spell for me now. The good thing is, I can easily enough directly pass the knowledge to another wizard such as yourself in a very short time.”
“That’s amazing,” Ash’urn said.
“Yes. We’ve forgotten a lot,” Rigo said. “Hopefully we can get Master Daim to work with us. The world is at risk, and the war that Burke revealed is something that will only complicate matters. Daim is right in that something must be done to stop it in short order. The men and resources are going to be needed elsewhere if the Hoplani are to be stopped.”
“Do you have any kind of a plan?” Daria asked.
Rigo shook his head. “I know what Daim had in mind, and some of that might be applicable. I need time to adjust to this and to think. I will need all of your thoughts. To that end we need to go somewhere where we can work this all out.”
“It’ll take us weeks to get back to civilization,” Kaler said.
“You forget. I can now create the Bypass that Daim used to bring you here.”
“You’re certain?” Daria asked.
“I’ll demonstrate. There is something I want to do before we leave here. I’ll go alone, just to test out my ability. If I don’t return within a glass, assume I wasn’t as capable as I think.”
“Rigo, maybe . . ,” Jeen began.
Rigo held up his hand. “I need to know. Don’t worry, I’m sure Daim would warn me if I were about to do anything fatal. He has a vested interest in my health as he hopes to regain this body.”
Rigo stood up from the rock on which he’d been sitting. He waved his hand, an unnecessary gesture he knew, but it helped his concentration, and one of the arches appeared.
“I’ll be right back,” he promised and stepped into the arch and disappeared.
“He can do it,” Ash’urn whispered as he watched Rigo disappear.
For a very long half a glass the foursome waited expectantly for Rigo to return. Then suddenly, he seemed to step out of nowhere. They had forgotten that the Bypass arch didn’t appear on this side. Rigo had his hands full, and he happily lay down his load.
“Where did you go?” Kaler asked.
“Back to the hideaway. There were things I thought I should have, and we will need funds. Our own have gotten lost along the way.”
“The hideaway?” Daria asked as she looked at his eyes. “Was that wise?”
Rigo grinned. “It’s still me.”
“What’s this?” Ash’urn asked as he unrolled a large scroll that Rigo had come back with. “And these? Books.” Ash’urn flipped through the three thick volumes. “But there’s no one who can read them.”
“I can,” Rigo said, “and they are going to be important. I’ll decide what to do with them later. They have information on the towers. The scroll is a map of the tower locations. We are going to need that as well.”
Rigo then handed over the knives that Daria has lost attempting to defeat Daim back in the underground hideaway. “I thought you’d like to have these.”
“What about your staff?” Kaler asked.
“I left it there. I can always call it if needed, but Daim was telling the truth. It has served its primary purpose and I have no need for it any longer. It would no longer augment my abil
ity.”
Rigo bent down and picked up the sack of gold and gems he had retrieved. This should more than cover our needs, and I can always return if we need more.”
“Where are we going now?” Kaler asked.
Rigo had thought about that. He had considered returning to the Rusty Anchor in Garth, but it was a smaller inn and he wanted something with larger accommodations. He wanted at least one room where they could comfortably gather and plan. He had spent two nights in a large inn outside of Sulen during his travels. While he had stayed in a rather modest room, suites had been available, and the food had been exemplary. The Prancing Pony was the name. They’d go there he decided.
Rigo smiled at his friends, then created the Bypass. It was remarkably easy once one knew how. He couldn’t believe the weeks it had taken to travel before.
“Come,” he said. “Let’s get started.” Then he led the way through.
Chapter 65
“Word precedes you,” said Februus. “Once again you have failed to bring the young wizard back with you as directed.”
Burke looked at the three Elders who had waited for his return. It was difficult to tell whether they were pleased to see he had failed, or whether they were displeased that Rigo had not been brought back sedated. Burke knew that the Trio was aware of his rising favor among some of the wizards. He didn’t feel at all intimidated by their stares. Failed! He had not. Matters had changed significantly. Besides, the wizard would be here soon enough if his word was good, and Burke had the feeling he could be counted on to appear.
“You sent me to locate and bring back Rigo,” Burke replied a bit defiantly. “Rigo is gone, dead it would seem. What we found is someone else. A mature wizard and far stronger than any we have encountered before. Far stronger than any of us. He has somehow taken over the body of the youth we knew as Rigo.”
“Foolishness,” scoffed Nadav. “This Rigo uses the power he can somehow tap into from the staff and had fooled you once again. He is playing with you.”
