Path of the Magi (Tales of Tiberius)

by Stuart, Richard J

  “Well the basic routine is well known. You won’t accidentally bampf yourself into a bookcase or anything. The spell and the intrinsic gravitic structure of objects will push you to the side. It’s rather tiring though."

  The first time Tiberius tried it he got nothing but a face filled with smoke. After a couple of tries he got the hang of it, though. He found he liked it. After a couple of weeks he had to restrain himself from teleporting around the university. Tempting as it was to get to his early morning class with a couple of quick teleports, it didn’t do to alarm his classmates.

  He had to learn a lot of spells, he found. Dallen’s mnemonics lessons were not for nothing. Casting spells required that he know the formulas - really know them and understand them, not just glance them over. It meant not only memorization, but pulling them apart and rebuilding them from first principles. It was an exercise he frequently found frustrating.

  “Singh, can you look at this formula? I think something’s wrong,” he asked one Friday after getting nowhere with a particular spell.

  Singh studied the document carefully. “Hmm. Were you trying to throw cobalt at someone?” he asked.

  “Cobalt? Nooo. Steel is more what I had in mind,” Tiberius said.

  “You’ve got the wrong atomic weight then.”

  “Oh, bugger it. I copied the wrong line. I see it now.” Iron was part of steel, but cobalt wasn’t. It was however, one element over from iron, and he’d copied the wrong atomic weight.

  “Remarkable, isn’t it, how delicate the dance of equations is? A simple misplaced comma, a transposed figure, all can lead to disaster.”

  “Makes you rather glad God is good at math, doesn’t it? Hate to think what would have happened to the universe if he’d slipped a decimal point when creating gravity,” Tiberius said.

  Singh had no answer for that but to agree with him.

  “Let me show you the art of illusion,” Dallen said as they were seated around the library fireplace one quiet Saturday in the fall. He cast a spell and Tiberius was slightly startled to see a perfect image of Salina standing in the room.

  “That’s amazing,” Tiberius said.

  “Rather good, if I do say so myself,” Dallen admitted. “This is a simple static illusion. You can do anything you’ve seen, or possibly something from only your mind's eye if you know it well enough. I shouldn’t attempt to do anything larger than an elephant. You will want to start with something small. Now, after you master static illusions, we’ll move on to mobile illusions.

  Dallen waved his wand again and now the image of Salina began to move. It was like she was here in the room. Only Tiberius noted something odd.

  “I can’t smell her perfume.”

  “A good observation,” Dallen acknowledged. “The more senses you try and fool, the more difficult the spell. I’m not sure I remember her scent well enough to get it to fool you anyway. But we can have her talk though.”

  “Good morning, Dallen. Good morning, Tiberius,” the illusion said. The voice was right, but again, something was wrong. It just wasn’t her.

  “Touch her,” Dallen urged. Ti did and he found his hand went right though her.

  “This is an optical illusion, primarily. When you’ve got that mastered we can move on to the third phase: phantasms, the most sophisticated forms of illusion.”

  Dallen waved his wand again. Then Salina stepped up to Tiberius and gave him a light slap on the cheek. To his surprise, it hurt.

  “Hey! I felt that!” he said.

  “Yes, the phantasm has a certain electromagnetic presence. It makes it able to touch things. You can pound on one and get rid of it. Or you can concentrate and dispel the illusion. Either will work to get rid of one.”

  His eyes narrowed and the phantasm vanished.

  “Dispelling by disbelief is really more an act of concentration than a spell. Anyone can do it. A trained magus has a better chance. Are you listening?”

  “Hmm, yes, a trained magus has a better chance.”

  “Something wrong?”

  “No, sir, just a thought.”

  “Concerning illusions? You look like you have a question. You know the only bad question is the one you fail to ask.”

  “I don’t know about that. But if you really want to know, I was just wondering if, well clothing was optional in those illusions.”

  “Oh. Yes, I suppose using Salina as an image can be a bit distracting for you. But to answer your question. Yes, your images of a person will wear whatever clothing or lack there of you desire. Of course your images will be far more realistic concerning things you have actually seen,” he said with a raised eyebrow. “And one should always be careful mixing sex and magic. You know that. A union of bodies causes a union of souls and extends to the spirits.”

  “Right. I shouldn’t wish to embarrass a lady by making tasteless images. Just wondering about a technical point. So, where do I start,” he said, eager to change the subject. He didn’t want to think of Salina just now. She was more like a romantic tornado in his life than a real girlfriend. He hadn’t seen her in some time, apart from the recent illusions.

  “Why don’t you start with something small like a hamster?” Dallen suggested. “Should be easy for you, they don’t wear clothes, generally.”

  Tiberius carefully read through the offered scroll. A moment later he had produced an image of a small hamster wearing a blue sweater and matching hat.

  “I think you have the idea,” Dallen said, smiling.

  Later on when Mr. Okubo came by again, he had a chance to try some of his lessons. Tiberius and Mr. Okubo squared off in the center of the ring. The quarterstaves started twirling about with the intensity of their usual high speed battles. But something was different this time. Midway though the battle, Tiberius suddenly split into two Tiberiuses. Mr. Okubo swung at one and then the other, but when he turned to strike the second, he found himself off balance from swinging at empty air. A mere illusion, but enough of a distraction for Tiberius to give him a solid touch with his staff.

  Mr. Okubo stepped back, shaking his head.

  “You have an annoying habit of picking the right one,” Tiberius said.

  Mr. Okubo gave a sharp nod. “Yes, but it’s no help. Your illusions become solid. You teleport away and leave your image behind, you split in two, three, turn invisible, or to shadows.”

  He threw the staff down. “This is useless,” he said. Walking over to his sack of gear he pulled out a wooden sword and a small dagger. The dagger was a wooden copy of his old M-1 bayonet, the one reminder of his days in the Old World that he still carried with him.

  “Ok, again,” he said. Tiberius bowed and then came to a ready position. He had to be careful now. Michael’s best weapons were sword and dagger, and that was saying something. With a word and a twirl, he wrapped himself in a cloak of shadows, dark images of himself that swirled around and though him, making it very difficult to properly target the real man. Okubo gave it a good try, though, launching a furious attack that Tiberius could barely parry, much less concentrate on while fighting. Tiberius stayed calm and defensive, though, and eventually he had his chance to teleport behind Mr. Okubo. Okubo turned right away, but not before Ti threw up a wall of fire around him. Okubo took his best leap and did an amazing summersault over the top of the flames. But then to his amazement, the flames came after him! The fire formed into a fire elemental that lunged towards him. Okubo managed to dodge it, but this was enough of a distraction that he didn’t see Tiberius move invisibly towards him land a touch.

  Again, Mr. Okubo walked away shaking his head. “You get stronger every day. They’ll need an army to stop you.”

  “They have armies,” Tiberius said. “And other creatures.”

  “Is it my turn now?” Maci said from the side.

  His dad laughed at her. “Be my guest,” he said with a bow. Maci cheerfully ran over and picked up the staff.

  “No magic now, that’s cheating,” she said.

  “Al
l right,” Tiberius answered. He figured he could take on an seven-year-old little girl without magic, though Maci was certainly not your average seven-year-old girl.

  Maci stopped and did a very elaborate curtsey before him. Ti followed form going for his best formal bow. That was when he felt Maci rap him in the shins with her staff.

  “Oww! Hey, that’s cheating!” he complained.

  “I have to cheat; you’re bigger than I am,” she said stepping back, en guard. Ti raised his staff to try and return the favor.

  “I knew you’d fall for that,” she said, dodging Ti’s attack. “You’d never hit a lady.”

  “I’m starting to wonder if you are a lady,” he said. Maci replied by sticking her tongue out at him and following up with a quarterstaff attack that had no business coming from a little girl.

  ∴

  “Lets talk about staying alive,” Dallen began. It was another of his Friday morning lectures. True to his word, Dallen was now covering a lot of magic in a little time. “The servants of the enemy won’t play fair. Many of them are cowards or have no honor, so naturally they will prefer to kill you by stealth or subterfuge rather than meeting you in a fair fight.”

  “Yes, well if they were kind, honorable men who feared the Lord, they probably wouldn’t be trying to kill us,” Tiberius observed.

  “Exactly. That presents some practical difficulties, however. I’m sure you’ve noticed that while magical defenses are extremely effective, they can be tiring to maintain over a long period of time,” Dallen explained.

  “I wondered how you stay alive while sleeping,” Tiberius said. “I supposed it was due to your magical little clockworks keeping an eye out while you slept.”

  Dallen smiled. “You’re not entirely wrong. But that isn’t my first line of defense. It’s more of a personal flourish. For our main line we must learn to manage our standard shield spells. The technique is called sleeping shields. You cast your shield spell in the usual way, and then put it to sleep. The sleeping shield is then tied to your personal aura. Any harm or danger that touches your aura instantly awakens the shield and it gives you whatever protection it offers. Take a look at these notes and you can study the effect. It’s a bit tricky.”

  Tiberius looked at the offered scroll. “I see there’s an electrical component. Not surprising, as the aura’s basically electrical in nature. Any chance of a hostile wizard catching you by surprise with an electrical attack?”

  Dallen gave a slight shake of his head. “I never say impossible, but it would be very difficult to do something like that. The spell is quite delicate. It would be worse than creeping up on a spider by walking along its own web. You’d have to know exactly how the magician cast it on that particular day. The more realistic difficulties with this spell are it triggering prematurely. I’ve had it wake me up for a mosquito bite, and you may have some explaining to do if a young lady ever decides you have been impertinent and decides to slap your face.”

  “I can see where that might awkward, especially if I have not acquainted the young woman with my profession. Hopefully I’ll manage to avoid that situation,” Tiberius replied.

  “Another danger is overconfidence. A sleeping shield that awakes should have at least 95% of its original strength, provided that you cast the spell within the past twenty four hours. After that you can expect the shield strength to show rapid deterioration, though I’ve known them to linger on to some degree for up to a week. I certainly don’t recommend that. Anytime you know you are walking into danger, I’d advise recasting the spell and not relying upon the spell waking. A defensive spell should almost always be your first move in any sort of wizards duel. A recast over the sleeping shield usually boosts the shield strength slightly, say to about 105% of the resting shield strength for up to an hour or so after you cast it.”

  “So you’d recast every hour for maximum shield strength?”

  “Yes, if I was especially worried about it,” Dallen said. “It’s not usually practical to recast that often. As a practical matter, just recasting your shield as you go into danger should serve you well.”

  Dallen reached into his belt pouch and brought out a small cloth sack which Tiberius could see was lined with purple silk cloth on the inside. With a certain ceremonial flourish he brought out a handfull of rather ordinary looking flesh colored rubber bands.

  “Now, put a few of these on. About a half a dozen or so should do nicely,” Dallen said.

  Tiberius took a few of the rubber bands and tested one, letting it stretch and snap back. It seemed like a perfectly ordinary #19 rubber band.

  “Are you kidding?” he asked. “Magic rubber bands? Put them on how?”

  “Just slip them around your wrist like a bracelet. They’re fairly inconspicuous,” Dallen said, pulling back his sleeve and revealing that he had a few on his left wrist. Tiberius had never actually noticed them before.

  Tiberius slid them on his wrist, feeling slightly foolish, but by now he knew to trust Dallen when he told him to do something.

  “Now, just hand me that glass mug over there,” Dallen said, pointing to a rather ordinary looking ceramic mug.

  Tiberius reached for the mug, but suddenly he felt a sharp contraction about his left wrist, like someone had twisted the rubber bands somehow. He stopped, and froze, looking down at his wrist.

  “That’s a warning,” Dallen explained. “Before you came in I heated that mug to about 325 degrees. It would give you a small burn if you were to grab it. Nothing I couldn’t heal, but I had to have something dangerous so you could feel the warning.”

  Tiberius glanced again at the rubber bands, then looked up again at Dallen with a dozen questions in his eyes.

  “I’m rather fond of these,” Dallen said. “The enemy generally thinks only gold or silver or some rare exotic plant has merit, but the truth is that all living things are God’s creations and even the humble rubber plant has more magic in it than the enemy ever dreamed of. The trick is to keep the plant energy alive in the sap even as you shape it into a rubber band.”

  “But how does it know when anything is dangerous?” Tiberius asked.

  “The bands are attuned to the plant world. The plants and trees have their own ways of sensing danger and communicating. They also have different rhythms than the human body. They sense things even while you sleep. The bands work best where there are plenty of plants around, but the bands don’t require other plants. Wearing a half dozen or so at a time creates a little plant communication-sensory-network around you. Just put on at least three each morning. They don’t last forever, but Singh and Tanyia like making them. They aren’t infallible of course, especially if the danger is some form of trap that no plant would ever have knowledge of. They’ve served me well, though. In some of the darkest corners there are molds and spores where you least expect them that can breathe warning of some of the most ancient and sinister devices. The bands will generally detect poisons as well. Best to carry a couple of special devices for that though. We’ll cover that when we talk about making elementary magical devices. For now you’d better study that sleeping shield spell.”

  One Saturday morning in early December, there was a rare heavy snowfall and the backyard was covered with a white layer of snow. All around the woods were covered with a dusting of white powder. The whole effect was to make the world a magical landscape. All that was needed were magicians. These appeared in the guise of Tiberius and Singh. Ti took the opportunity to try a new elemental attack based upon the snowball.

  It was almost effortless to summon and fling a snowball in this weather, so Tiberius was practicing some advanced manipulations. He fired off three snowballs in a row and had them hit from different angles. A king sized snowball was next, then a snowbolt.

  “I wish I’d known these spells ten years ago. My brother and certain other classmates would have had a snowball fight to remember,” he said, while his hands packed a snowball in the more traditional way. He lobbed it up in the air, then hit it with a
summoned snowball. Next he fired a snowball high into the air. As it came down it split into three snowballs and hit the center of each of the three targets.

  “I need a moving target,” he said. It was an effort, but he managed to summon a snow elemental. The traditional three snowballs formed with two arms also of snow. It bowed once and started to walk, but Tiberius told it to halt.

  “That’s not right,” he said. He cast an illusion spell on it and now it was more properly dressed with a corncob pipe, coal eyes, carrot nose and a scarf.

  “That’s better,” Tiberius said, letting the snow elemental now walk back and forth as he pelted it with additional snowballs.

  “What did you do that for?” Singh asked, interested.

  “It just didn’t look right. Why, did I do something wrong?” Tiberius asked.

  “Quite the contrary,” Singh said. “One of the greatest attributes a magician can have is imagination. The best magicians have a touch of artistic blood.”

  The snowman took another hit, then suddenly wheeled about and started running.

  Tiberius looked shocked. “Hey, I didn’t tell it to do that.”

  Singh concentrated a moment, waved his wand and then the snowman bust apart into a harmless pile of snow.

  “Runaway spell,” he said.

  “I could see it was running away,” Tiberius protested.

  “No, well, yes, it was rather literally a runaway spell, but that’s not what I mean,” Singh said. “It’s spontaneous magic. All magic involves, by definition, calling upon supernatural energy. Our control of those energies is never complete. Since the energies involved have the potential to destroy planets and it’s never fully under our control, magic is always dangerous. You’ll see things like this every once and a while. A thousand times you’ll throw a fireball and get the predictable result. One time you’ll cast the same spell the way you always have and something strange will happen. Something, well, magical.”

  Singh took in a breath looking over the landscape. It was a beautiful winter wonderland. “On a day like this I’m not surprised something unusual happened. Can’t you just feel the magic all around you?”