The Dotard

by Greg Curtis

  The standing stones on the other hand, he'd left as they were. They were just stones, exactly as they had been before. They had no magic running through them – but then most stones didn't. And despite the carvings and the runes, in the end that was all they were. A tree without life was something of undeath. An echo of the life that had once been. It needed to be destroyed. But a stone without magic was simply a stone.

  The question he had to answer through his explorations though had nothing to do with any of that. It was the more basic one. How had the magic been permanently enchanted into the stones in the first place? Because firstly he didn't know the spell to create a gate between worlds, and so he had to find it. And second, he had no idea how to make it or any other enchantment permanent. The Faerie had built gates that had worked for thousands of years. Their magic didn't fade. But for wizards, all magic faded. That was perhaps the true measure of the gap between what wizards could do and what the ancient Faerie had achieved.

  His efforts with the stones however had shown him that he really did have the ability to cast powerful magic, and cast it well. He might not be able to restore life or magic to something, but he could restore the structure. And that in itself was a complex spell. It meant that if he could find the spell he needed he could cast it. At least he thought so. All he had to do was find it.

  And that was the other thing that the stones had taught him – how to find them. Or rather where to find them. In hindsight the lesson had been an obvious one. But he had still spent days struggling with portal spells and cursing his lack of ability, before the most obvious fact had dawned on him. The stones were buried. And it wasn't simply so that they could be stood upright. It was time that had buried them. As it had probably buried the rest. All the magical structures the Faerie had created were likely hidden under the ground. That explained why he'd never found any buildings when he'd explored this land. Or why no one else who'd travelled through the other gates had. Of course, it surely couldn't have buried everything – it was hard to imagine how an entire world could be buried – but when the only people who could explore this land were wizards, and not many of them had ever bothered to explore this realm, that little fact had made it extremely unlikely that any ancient structures would be found.

  To prove his theory, he’d pulled out the set of binoculars he’d bought when he'd first built his home in this land, and set about enchanting them. He’d bought them originally with the idea that he might go exploring one day. But until now he’d never put them to use. It hadn't seemed important. Now it was.

  The binoculars were bronze marvels of the lens maker's craft, able to bring things as close to his eyes as a telescope could, but easier to use. But they couldn't have shown him what he needed to see as they had been. Now though he'd enchanted them so that they could show him what lay beneath the ground. And sure enough, when he’d examined the land around his gate with them, he’d immediately discovered a road.

  It lay some six feet under the ground – twelve feet in places – and was constructed of stone pillars laid on their side. He supposed he should have expected that. The ancient Faerie had seemed to love their stone. Each of the pillars was twelve feet wide and had been laid alongside the others to form a road which ran down the series of river valleys leading away from his home. It was this road that Edrick was now following, albeit slowly.

  A few hundred paces further along, Edrick stopped the steam wagon once again to check that he was still following the road. The vision given by the spelled binoculars was strange. Using them the grass and soil showed up only as ghostly outlines. Stones and rocks though showed up clearly. It was as though they alone were solid, and everything else was vapour covering them.

  It was disorienting to see the ground below him looking like nothing more than ghostly clouds that he was almost floating over, especially when he could feel the impact of the wheels rolling across solid ground. A pothole in the grass might look like nothing through the binoculars but it didn't feel like nothing when he drove over it. It was also painful. He’d soon learned that the bouncing of the wagon as it rattled over the ground caused the binoculars to smash into his eyes every time he tried to use them. Because of that he’d settled on driving forward a few hundred yards and then stopping to check his direction. It worked though it had made the journey incredibly slow. Unfortunately, he suspected he would get slower still in time. The binoculars wouldn't be much use in the mountains or on stony ground either should he come across it. But for the moment on the open grasslands, they were fine.

  So far, they'd only showed him the road and that wasn't enough. He wanted them to show him what the road led to. Because if the road started at his gate as it did, then it had to lead somewhere else. To another gate perhaps. Or to a city. But after nearly two hours on the trail, he'd found nothing. Of course, he had to remind himself that he’d only been driving for a couple of hours. He needed to be patient. But now that he had a plan and even some hope of discovering a way back, patience was failing him. It was making him doubt.

  Could they have built their roads, their gates and the other standing stones, out of stone but everything else out of wood that had long since rotted away? It was one of the thoughts he'd turned over in his mind as he journeyed. It was quite possible. After all, no one knew anything about the Faerie themselves. The legends of them agreed on nothing more than the fact that they were magical and beautiful. What sort of houses they lived in wasn't even mentioned. Of course, the other possibility was that they just naturally liked to live a long way away from the gates. If so, then finding where they once lived might take a very long time. But surely the road had to lead to somewhere?

  As before the binoculars showed him nothing of interest. Just the road heading off into the distance under the ground, bending off a little to the south as it followed the line of the descending river valleys. But there were still no structures that he could see. No buildings, no temples, no standing stones and no rings. Just the road. A seemingly endless succession of stone pillars laid out on their side.

  Edrick let out another disappointed breath, and then pushed the lever into place to connect the drive shaft to the wheels, and started off again.

  “And I suppose you think this is exciting!” He called to the unicorn who'd been shadowing him for the last half hour or so. He wasn't sure why the beast was travelling with him. Maybe it found the steam wagon curious. Maybe it thought it was a giant unicorn. Or maybe it was just amused by his feeble attempts to find an ancient city. But he supposed he should be counting his blessings rather than complaining. He was heading into the territory of a wyvern, and no wyvern would ever go near a unicorn. Of course, they wouldn't attack a steam wagon either – it was just too large. But a man wandering alone was fair game. And he hadn't brought so much as a rifle with him to this world. A little extra protection in the form of a unicorn therefore couldn't hurt.

  The unicorn did nothing save to trot slowly after him.

  They carried on for a few more hours like that until Edrick finally did come across a structure. It was one he'd visited before, and unfortunately he knew the instant he set eyes on it that it wasn't what he wanted to find. It was a circle of standing stones, not a town. There were a number of them near his home, and none of them had any magic. He'd checked them all. In fact, only one thing was different from his previous visits. This time he knew that the standing stones had been placed alongside the road.

  Actually, when he checked again through the binoculars he realised that wasn’t quite right. The road formed a ring around the circle and then split into five roads – six if he counted the one he was on. Six roads radiating outward from that point like the spokes of a wheel. The circle was the hub.

  That changed things.

  For a start it meant that this circle had to have been important to the ancient people. That was new. Before he'd used the binoculars on the stone circle he’d thought of it as no more than a ring of standing stones out in the open. There had been nothing of a
ny great interest about it. Now that he could see the roads under the ground leading to and from it, he knew better. But more importantly, six roads leading away from the circle, meant five more chances to find a gate or a town!

  But there was something else that was new. When he jumped down off the wagon and started exploring the circle he discovered that some of the stones were now imbued with magic. He could feel it flowing. It came from only two of the stones – the two facing the direction he'd just come from. Edrick didn't have to be particularly quick witted to realise that it had to be linked to the destruction of his gate. The two gate stones had been destroyed, their magic lost, and now two circle stones facing those two gate stones, which were previously dead were now pulsing with magical energies. Why? Because he knew it was important. He could feel it in his very bones!

  And then it hit him. The gate stones had lost their magic and he'd just found it! The gates and the circle together formed part of some sort of great spiderweb of magic. They were all connected by the Faerie equivalent of ley lines. There had to be some sort of conduit of magical flow between them. And presumably since there were ten more stones in this circle – or five pairs with each pair facing a different direction that aligned with the roads leading away from the stone circle, there were five more gates. Working gates, since if they'd stopped working, the other stones in the circle would be alive with magic.

  “Yes!” Edrick threw back his head and let out a victory cry as he realised he'd found his answer. His hope. Forget looking for ancient cities! He had five more working gates he could find simply by following the other five roads!

  “Come here you!” He threw his arms out wide and called to the unicorn, overcome with relief and happiness. “Give me a damned hug!”

  The unicorn abruptly raised its head from the grass and stared at him dubiously. And then it backed away a couple of steps!

  “What?! I bathed!” Edrick retorted, somewhat offended. “And you don't smell that good yourself!” But in the end, he decided it probably just wasn't the hugging sort.

  And then another possibility occurred to him and he forgot about the beast. If this thing was alive with the spell that had been lost from his gate, could he activate the portal here? Without thinking about it he willed the standing stones to spring into life and activate the gate between them.

  Nothing happened. No gate appeared. Disappointed, he tried again. And again. He kept on trying until he finally accepted it wasn't going to work. These two standing stones weren't a gate. Or if they were, they didn't respond to him. And yet he was still sure that the magic they contained had to be linked to the spell that destroyed the gate by his home. There was no other explanation he could think of for why the stones had magic now.

  Maybe it was like the spokes on a cart wheel? One end connected to the middle point which turned on the axle. The other end to the part of the wheel that pushed against the ground. Even though both ends were part of the same spoke, they weren't exactly the same. If so then that meant he still had to go and find a gate at the end of one of the other roads leading away from this circle of standing stones. It was a disappointment. But it didn't completely dash his hopes.

  “You know, you could have told me about this!” He chided his grazing friend. But though Edrick was by now pretty sure the beast understood him a little, the unicorn ignored him and continued grazing. It had priorities.

  Meanwhile he had a decision to make. A direction to choose. There were five new roads in front of him. Any or all of them could lead to another gate. A working gate. Or a town. But he had no idea which might be closest. Or which gates might be accessible either by the steam wagon or on foot. His choice would be completely random.

  “I don't suppose you have any thoughts about which way I should go?” he asked his companion. It occurred to him as he engaged in the one-sided conversation that perhaps he'd been alone in this realm for too long. Now he was not only talking to the animals, but actually hoping they'd reply.

  “Then hard left it is.” His choice was based on practicalities. Because the road leading hard left was almost a complete turn so that he was practically doubling back on the road he'd just followed. If all roads led to a gate – and he had no idea if any or all of them would – then this was likely the one that would be closest to his home.

  Of course, he realised as he struggled with the wheel to turn it as far anticlockwise as he could and then set off up the gently sloping grass covered hill, it was only a chance. He could have picked the very worst road. He probably had. If he was honest, his luck hadn't been very good lately. And as always there was only one thing that was absolutely certain – his companion wasn't going to tell him. Not even if he knew.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The cries of the patients were a constant torment for Carrie. As were the wails of those who had lost loved ones. All of them were crying because of what her Grandfather had done. Somehow that made it her fault too. And there were so many of them.

  The field she was in, a paddock of long grass just ready to be grazed by sheep, was now home to well over a thousand injured people. Those who had been hurt when her grandfather had attacked the wizards of the Guild, but not killed.

  There were so many of them. Too many to put in buildings or under shelter – not that they had any buildings left. Too many even to put in tents. But there were no tents either. Not yet. So the sick and injured simply had to lie out in the open on make shifts cots of straw, and suffer.

  In time the field would empty out as the patients left. Those who survived would walk away, heading for the nearby fields where at least ten thousand others from the town were now erecting whatever shelter they could find as they worked out how to pick up their lives. Those who didn't would be carried to another field a few hundred yards distant where men with shovels were digging endless graves, while women and children cried and the Priests intoned their prayers. Her job was to try and help as many of the people in her field to go to the right field.

  This field of long grass, pain and suffering was a half way station between the land of the living and the dead. It was she felt, where she belonged.

  Carrie knew that though she had tried her best to stop her grandfather, what had happened in Coldwater was in part her fault. She blamed herself for letting her grandfather get out of control. And for not knowing what was coming – or warning anyone. She could not however, find it in herself to lay blame with her grandfather. He was far beyond the point where he could be blamed for anything. He had no idea what he was doing anymore. She didn't even know what he'd done. Or at least what spells he had chanted. No one did. She only knew the effect it had had on the people of Coldwater. Hundreds had been killed. Hundreds more were missing and probably dead. Maybe even thousands. And thousands of people had been injured. Nearly every home and business in Coldwater had been destroyed. And nearly twenty thousand people had been left homeless. No one could return to those few buildings that still stood. Coldwater was lost.

  No one dared to go back to the town while her grandfather still resided there. Even now after the battle had ended, the town was cloaked in a permanent storm of darkness and an orange fire that slowly spun. Every now and then she and everyone else who had escaped would look back toward the town to see flashes of magic shattering the ground and lighting up the sky. They could hear the strange howls of the creatures her grandfather had summoned which she guessed were now prowling the streets. And of course, there was the constant roar of thunder coming from it. Those who had tried to return had all been driven back. If they hadn't been killed.

  Carrie desperately wanted to make things right. But all she could do was lend her healing spells to the injured. It wasn't enough. Not when there were thousands needing treatment and only four healers. Herself, two other junior wizards from the Guild, and Py, one of the Argani who called herself a sorceress. That was it.

  How could Grandfather have done this? She asked herself that as she cast a spell of recovery on a man with a tear right th
rough his middle. It was a question she asked herself constantly as she went about her work. It wasn't the why that she wondered about. That she knew. Her grandfather was mad. He could do things like this simply because he had no understanding of the terrible harm he was causing. But how was he able to cast such powerful spells? She had seen him in the hall, casting effortlessly and without words or gestures. It was clear to her that he was casting by pure will alone. It was what wizards generally referred to as baby magic and was what the sorceress used. But it shouldn't be that strong or that controlled. It was why wizards used the magical language. It greatly increased their power and control.