John looked at Vancu -- hard. "I can leave these preparations to you?"
"Yes, great Mage."
"Good. Then you have my permission to withdraw. Time may be an even a greater enemy than the Malachites."
With that, the Navy Head rose from his chair and made his short-waisted bow before "rolling" across the room and out the door, headed, John hoped, for the harbor to get these plans for ship "modernization" under way.
Leaving only the army to be "brought up to date," John turning to the Army Head. "There will also need to be some modifications of our land forces."
"Sir...?" While Etexin had borne up splendidly as the navy was being modernized, tampering with Etexin's branch of the service was quite something else. Flebb was also frowning.
"My understanding is that, while Stil-de-grain outnumbers Malachite in population, the number of troops in our respective armies is about the same."
"I would say that is correct," agreed the Army Head. As he certainly should, since it was from him that John had gotten this information in an earlier briefing.
"A fact, which, since the individual Malachite soldier is stronger than the typical Stil-de-grain combatant, is a recipe for disaster!" The Head looked down at the table, his goatee point blunting itself on his neck.
"Sadly ..."
"And the advantage they have over us physically goes beyond swordplay," John interrupted, determined to build the strongest possible case for the change he planned to implement. "For instance, their archers can pull a heavier bow, giving their arrows both range and penetrating power over ours." Etexin didn't deny it. "And that brings me to the key question. How did we manage to defeat the Malachite army in the Great Mage war?"
"We didn't actually defeat their army, great Mage. In fact, the armies of the two bands did not fight."
"No? Then how was the war won?"
"As a new Mage, you would not know, of course." The Head gave John a tolerant, if somewhat self satisfied, smile. (One of the benefits of being John Lyon, the novice Crystal Mage of Stil-de-grain, was that, unlike being taken for Pfnaravin, John wasn't expected to know everything.) "The great Mage war was exclusively a war of magic. Not that the armies did not participate in it. It was more the case, however, that an army would occupy a territory after it had first been ... neutralized ... by magical means."
"And why is it that this Auro seems to be on the loose again?"
"It is possible that the Mage restraints are failing, that light returns over Azare, that the evil Mage-King's power grows with the light."
"And how could that be?"
"I do not know, great Mage. Unless ..."
"Unless?"
"Unless the other Mages have not kept the agreement to use sufficient power to blacken the Azare band."
That was something to think about. If, indeed, there was magic in this land, and if a fraction of a Mage's magic must go to keeping evil "bottled up" in the black band, then John had a pretty good idea how the "dark" Mage had "gotten loose." Assuming that Melcor had been responsible for a percentage of the magic restraining "evil," then Melcor's death had changed the "formula." John certainly hadn't done anything about "evil control." Wouldn't know how to do it even if he'd been told he should be contributing to the common cause.
For now, the only hope John had was in his military reforms.
"Thank you ... ah ... Head. For the present, as you've pointed out, we're at a disadvantage man for man."
Knowing about the "strength differences" between men from different bands, John had already spent considerable time figuring out how to counteract the physical weakness of Stil-de-grain troops.
"Both armies are of similar size and made up of professional soldiers?"
"That is certainly true."
"Then we must change the system!"
"Change ... the system ... great Mage?" Lip tugging. A sure sign of doubt in Etexin. A sign of confusion. Of hostility? How little John knew about any of the people of this world. Flebb, of course, reflected Etexin's concern.
"I propose that we put out a call for all men of military age to serve in the army of Stil-de-grain."
"But all men of military age are already in the army, sir."
"Who does the farming, then?"
"Why ... farmers, sir."
"What I suggest is that we draft farmers of military age into the army. Shopkeepers, too."
"But they are ineligible for military service."
"Why?" John could feel his temper rising. He had always thought of himself as a patient man, but ....
"Because their fathers were never in the Stil-de-grain army."
"You mean to tell me that someone has to have a father who served in the military for the son to be eligible for military service!?"
"But great Mage, that is the way. A son will be a farmer like his father and grandfather before him -- for generations -- all farmers. Tradesmens' sons are always tradesmen. Merchants produce merchants. Oh, there is sometimes the case of a younger son of a farmer becoming a trader ..." Stubby fingers wiggling nervously, Etexin waved off these possible exceptions to the rule. "But never has there been a soldier in the army or a sailor in the navy whose ancestors had not also been in service. Never! The military .... is a noble calling."
So -- in addition to its other medieval qualities, this world had a "caste system" of professional soldiers. John could have guessed that (if he'd had any time for guessing lately.) The question of the moment was, how this tradition could be broken. If ever John needed magic ........... Yes!
"In matters so grave," John said, his voice as sober as he could make it, even I cannot be the final judge." John let a dramatic pause pound in that assertion. "We must consult ... the future."
From the Head, a scum-eyed stare that said: consult the future? Is the new Mage mad?
John broke the "stand off" by motioning to Golden, the youth rising with acrobatic grace, to stand beside John at the table. "I need Zwicia."
Though Golden didn't like to be anywhere near the Weird, he bowed soberly before walking the length of the table to exit the room; as usual, with the fluid motion of gears in oil.
So began a tension filled wait ... in silence ... the Head's short fingers drumming soundlessly in air, the walnut smell of the newly-polished, half-paneled walls noticeable for the first time. Silence, not sound, was the diocese of smell.
Seconds, moments, minutes, hours -- the door finally opening, Golden issuing in the Weird, the old woman dressed in flowing, violet finery to match her new station as magical consultant to the Mage of Stil-de-grain.
"Have you your crystal?" John asked regally, raising his voice more than was necessary to carry across the smallish room.
"Got," muttered the Weird as she tottered slowly forward, Golden coming, also, but keeping the table between himself and Zwicia.
The Weird arriving to sway beside John, John motioned her to retrieve the out-sized Crystal from beneath her loose, old-flesh-covering, purple gown.
"I must look into it."
Under orders, Zwicia "fetched up" the Crystal, stretching up her scrawny neck as she did so, careful that her wattles didn't catch as she pulled the Crystal's chain over her head.
Hesitantly, regretfully, she did as commanded: put the crystal in front of John, face up on the table.
Wanting to make his "magic" look good -- meaningless ritual the cornerstone of religion as practiced in both worlds -- John began to pass his hands over the Crystal as he had seen the old woman do so often, pleased, when rubbing the crystal's glassy surface, to feel that "dry sensation" build, the tingly "thrill" of static electricity clinging to his body, his hair feeling "light" on his scalp. It was good to have this remembrance of the kind of power he hoped would take him home!
For now, all John wanted was to impress the Head. Pretending to consult the Crystal, John would announce to Etexin that the Crystal foretold a battle lost for want of a healthy dose of new recruits.
As John continued to finger the transluce
nt stone, however ... something else ... began to happen.
Rubbing harder, faster, John saw the glass change from violet to grey to almost clear, as he kept it up, an image forming in the glass, a picture that grew steadily stronger. Brighter. A scene ... in depth. Color. .....
What? Though he couldn't be sure, it looked like some kind of ... airplane ... or ... space ship; a silvery, metal hawk, wings swept back as if to dive. Below the ship, shaped like the strange flying machine itself, was a planet -- another bird shape. A thin ... planet ... seen in cross section ... its disk edges curving down like wing tips, a mountain neck, a rocky head distended at the top. What .....?
The shapes ... melted ... to ... thin men. In strange costumes. Vitreous helmets covering their heads.
They were in space. Working above the "bird" planet, constructing ..... a .... sky dome ... over the planet, like a vast bowl .....
John was suddenly awake, Zwicia shaking him out of his reverie, Flebb, Platinia, Golden, the Weird, no longer at their places but gathered around him, the Army Head trying to force a cup of water into John's hands.
"I saw ...."
"No mo' look 'n Cryst'l," grumbled the Weird, shaking her head, her thin, iron gray hair flipping side to side like a fly whisk gone mad. "Trap in'a Cryst'l."
John could see the outline of Zwicia's Crystal beneath the yoke of the old women's flowing dress. Somehow, she had taken the disk back.
John still wasn't certain what had happened. He was in the war room. The same people there. Yet ... time had ... passed.
The Crystal! It was coming back to him. He'd seen images in the disk! Fantastic images: of a space ship, of a world, of a dome above it ... Elongated men ....!
Not what he'd planned to "find," at all, John intending to see ... nothing, his plan to pretend to look into the Crystal in order to report that he'd seen the future; the Malachite army dealing a death blow to the forces of Stil-de-grain. He would then have another vision of Stil-de-grain, strengthened by John's proposed new forces, in glorious victory over the decimated troops of Malachite. In this way, John had meant to persuade the Head to add non-military recruits to the army -- something the stuffy little man clearly found abhorrent. Numbers. That was what they needed. Multitudes to over-match the stalwart men of Malachite.
But it was not too late. The Head's objections could still be put to rout!
"I saw in the Crystal ...," John began, trying at the same time to clear his mind of the fascinating phantoms he had witnessed, "... the future. A horrifying future! One in which we are destroyed unless we have more soldiers!"
The Head still seemed stricken -- remained as frozen at John's side as a Van Dyke painting in its gild edged frame -- so paralyzed, that John was uncertain Etexin had heard John's warning.
Trying to break the "spell," John paused to wave the little man around the table, gesturing the others to their places, as well.
The bearded Army Head moving at last. To sit down weakly.
"Do you understand me?" John insisted. "We must have more men in the army! It doesn't matter if their ancestors were military or not. We must double the size of the existing army and do it immediately!"
"Yes, great Mage." The Head was at least semi-alert.
"You will tell everyone what you saw. That they are to do as I command!"
"Yes, sir. It shall be done." Ever the military man, Etexin -- like others in this place -- functioned best on direct command.
And that was the end of the meeting, a broad wave of John's hand clearing everyone, even Platinia, from the room.
John yawned. Was exhausted.
A good day's work, both navy and army to be improved.
They had a chance now. At least John thought so. More than a chance if he could carry this off.
And in the process, John had learned something else of interest. Like other talk of "magic" in this place, there seemed to be some truth to what he'd been told about the Weird's Crystal. It certainly showed pictures -- unless John had put himself into a trance while looking in it. .... No. He didn't think so.
He had seen something. But what? Had he seen the past? The future? Had he seen this very world from the perspective of space, astronauts fabricating the planet's sunless sky?
What was certain was that, as soon as possible, John meant to have another look into that fascinating disk of glass!
* * * * *
Chapter 19
John watched scalding water boil up from a jagged cleft on the summit of a black glass mountain, the torrent cascading down barren, heat bleached rocks, steam clouds jetting skyward as far as he could see along its plunging length.
The image melted. A new one formed.
This time of a man in an ornate mantle, lying on a couch, other, younger men about him. The room, a cave and yet not a cave; a cavern carved from solid rock, the man ... sick ... burned ... hideously disfigured as if scorched by radiation! Fluid leaked from angry lesions on his face and neck and arms. Beside him, on a slab were ... Crystals.
Barely able to raise his head, the sick man ... obviously dying ... was indicating the Crystals. Red, Green ... yellow. Five in all.
Solemnly, each of the robed, younger men bowed in turn and picked up a crystal, each man hanging his own colored disk about his neck.
The scene faded.
John saw a temple, marble columns, a broad porch at the top of many rising steps. Bald priests in white robes lined the temple porch, a crowd of worshipers grouped below them at the base of the sanctuary. A ceremony: the priests, hands clasped in prayer. Two priests then carried the body of a young girl through the tall portal of the temple. The girl, dressed in a flowing robe of black ... had no arms or legs ... the priests laying her body on a ... raised platform .......
Followed by an apparition of another mountain, the air alive with flickering purple. In the claws of the peak's crown, was an immense ... eye ... of black, vitreous rock ... turning. And from the blind eye's edge, rotating skyward, came a dazzling light, shining to the heavens, reflecting from the sky. The black eye was revolving, its underside a gleaming Crystal.
As the dazzling Gem turned, it lighted more and more of the sky with its rays. From darkness, there was light. Bands of light. At the edge of the far horizon was an arc of red. Next, was a whorl of orange, then yellow, green and blue, until the whole of the Crystal burned skyward.
Over the mountain, violet rays descended from the center sky, the Crystal like a colossal orb of radiated light, rotating slowly, the dazzle of it reflecting from the sky-dome far above to shine down on the earth in colored rings. As John watched the glittering jewel continue in the slow majesty of its rotation, from the back side of that great, luminous eye, could be seen a rim of darkness. As if the eye ... were slowly closing. Closing ... the bands above it going grey.
When the rotation was complete, the eye was shut and it was night.
From that vision, John was transported to a broad and languid river which flowed upon a flat, cold plain. Moving, gliding, to disappear beneath a rocky chasm.
And John saw the sea's end, its waters frothing into the sea's self, pouring deep within the earth. Going home, was what John thought, the water to be heated at the earth's center, flung up and out as boiling springs from some high mountaintop to start another stream.
A shift.
Squinting, John could make out the interior of a small, dark room: a cylindrical space of shadowed stone. Two people were in the room, side by side, standing in the enclosure's center, one an old man, a Crystal on a chain about his neck, the disk glowing yellow with an inner light. The man was stroking the opalescent Gem and chanting. Beside him was a girl, the man's hair rising, as was the girl's. The room glowed with energy. Then ... the girl was ... gone ... ceiling stones ... plunging ... falling on the man .....
All was blackness. Until John awoke. In a room. A room lighted by guttering torches.
Was it ... night? Where was he? John couldn't remember.
He tried to rise. "Rest, gr
eat Mage." Small, soft hands touched his shoulders, their gentle pressure all that was needed to keep him down.
Looking up, he saw it was a girl who was bending over him; saw her dark hair fall forward. Saw her black eyes. Platinia.
John forced himself to lift one hand. Touched his face ... to feel ... a soft growth of beard. Why, when the palace barber shaved him every day? Stiffly, he touched his face again, his hand slipping off to brush his hair.
Though wearing his hair long now, as was the vogue in Stil-de-grain, it had grown longer still.
What had happened to him? He tried to think. To remember. Instead, he was asleep.
Again, John awoke. Stronger now.
With a single motion, he sat up, was dizzy. Recovered.
Seated on an unadorned, wood chair across the room was Platinia, her head fallen forward, her black hair masking her small face. She was asleep. "Platinia?" Though his voice was weak, the girl was instantly awake.
"Pvmyh," she said, rising to come to him, motioning him to rest.
It was night. He would learn nothing from her -- from anyone -- until up-light. So he lay back and went to sleep.
Awake. "Platinia?"
"Yes, great Mage?" John sat up. Swung his legs over the edge of a shelf-like bed. Was well again.
"What am I doing here?"
"You were ... not yourself, great Mage." She was beside him, her cool hand briefly on his forehead.
"Ill?"
"You had the ... Crystal sickness."
"What?"
"It is what Zwicia calls it."
The Weird? He was beginning to remember. After briefing the military, he'd slipped away from everyone, from Golden, from Platinia. Gone to the Weird's apartment. Demanded that she turn her Crystal over to him.
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