Wizard's Blood [Part One]

by Bob Blink

  The next week went by swiftly, and while they were kept pretty busy with question and answer sessions, usually separately, they had a bit of time to themselves as well. By mid afternoon they were usually free to pursue their own matters, which usually meant a stroll into the town to look around. By the time the week was over they had found several places to eat they favored, and one tavern that not only had a pleasant atmosphere, but had a group of musicians they enjoyed who performed every evening. Asari was already giving one of the serving girls the eye.

  Both Asari and Jolan felt they were making real progress with the mages in terms of raising concern about the activities of Ale’ald and the very real possibility that technology that would give them a considerable advantage in a future war was being imported through the Nexus. Asari had almost convinced Mage Bloor to support an expedition to the site of the Nexus for future investigation and to consider what actions they might be able to take against Cheurt.

  Jolan found it amusing that the mages he talked with didn’t want to accept he could really be from Earth, yet couldn’t seem to hear enough about it. He had been probed for hours about the history as well as the state of development. Many of the facts he conveyed were met with simple disbelief. The idea that the men of Earth had actually walked upon its moon was difficult for them to comprehend.

  * * * *

  “Have you heard any results from your test yet?” Asari asked after a week when they met back in their quarters.

  Jolan nodded, but he didn’t look pleased. “They had the results back today.”

  “Well,” Asari asked impatiently. He knew that Jolan had been stewing anxiously about this for the past several days.

  “It appears I won’t be one of the all-time great mages in terms of power,” he responded. Asari could hear the regret in his voice.

  “Why? What did they tell you?”

  “According to their testing, I’m likely to top out at a level five. That’s more or less where most of the senior mages here at the college seem to fall. The Chancellor, Mage Vaen is supposed to be level six, which is very high. Each jump in level is about five times higher in strength. Dibon told me they know of one level seven, but he is elderly and no longer very capable. Higher is theoretically possible, but they haven’t ever tested anyone to that level.”

  “What level do you think Cheurt is?”

  “I’m betting he’s a six or seven from all we’ve seen and heard.”

  “And you hoped to best him, or at least be his equal, didn’t you,” Asari observed astutely.

  Jolan nodded. “How are we going to beat him if we can’t match him in power?”

  “I thought there was more to it than sheer power?”

  “So they say. Overall ability is a combination of level and certain other characteristics they haven’t explained yet. It just annoys me how they presented it.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s sort of like back home. Oh, your math ability is pretty bad, so I guess you’ll never make an engineer. Don’t let that bother you. There’ll always be something else you can be, say maybe a lawyer. Balls!”

  “Maybe the test is wrong,” Asari suggested trying to placate his friend.

  “They claim that past experience shows they are on the mark about eight-five percent of the time. That’s on a base of over five hundred years of testing to draw from. Seems like about twelve percent of the time the tested person actually comes in a bit lower than projected, maybe because of lack of effort, perhaps a variance in the test. Only about three percent of all tested have ever come in higher than projected. In those cases it has never been more than one level higher.”

  “That would make you a level six if it happened.”

  “If! That’s a big word. Even then, I wonder if that would be enough.”

  Asari knew he needed to get Jolan out of the college for a while. “Let’s go buy those coats, then have a drink at the tavern.”

  Current women’s fashion in Cobalo was a very attractive, and expensive, fur coat for the winter months. They’d never seen anything nearly as nice in Carta and had decided that Ashreye and Sindra would really be pleased to have them. Somehow, events had conspired to keep them from actually completing the purchase, but the store they’d found a few days ago had an option to have them shipped directly to Seret for a large, but not entirely unreasonable, fee. The coats could be there in a week, in time for the cold months.

  Chapter 42

  Classes were scheduled to start in the morning, and the unexpected summons from High Chancellor Vaen whom he hadn’t seen or heard from since the initial meeting three weeks earlier had come as a surprise. Jolan hoped this wasn’t something unexpected that could affect his being enrolled. He was a little concerned already because he hadn’t been relocated from the Guest Cottages into the student dormitory, which he’d been led to believe would happen prior to the start of the session.

  “Come,” said High Chancellor Vaen, Mage of the Sixth Order and head of the Council of Mages, admitting Jolan formally to her office.

  This was not where they’d met before when he’d first arrived. This was her private office. Then there had been a number of the Council present debating whether he should be allowed into the school at all. This time there were only the two of them, a great honor. He moved smoothly into the marbled office and stood where he had been instructed was proper.

  She smiled as he entered, a good sign he hoped. He certainly hadn’t entirely fit easily into the mold the mages would have preferred, and he knew he was at odds with some of their philosophy. Well, he didn’t really want a lifelong career here. He mostly wanted to develop the skills he would need to conclude matters with the wizard.

  “You’ve certainly been a disruption, haven’t you?” she asked, but not unkindly, mirroring his own thoughts.

  “I’m sorry,” Jolan apologized. “My abilities seem to be somewhat at odds with the normal training approach.”

  She waved her hand cutting him off. Another smile crossed her face.

  “You have shaken some of the old fools from their complacency. To be brutally honest, I think we are learning more than you thus far. Tell me, have you settled in despite all the difficulties?”

  “I’m beginning to,” he responded. “I’m still in the Guest Cottages though, which makes me a bit of an outcast.”

  “You’ll be moving this weekend. It has been a matter of discussion where you should go. Normally you would be housed with the others of the first class, but you are eight to ten years their senior, and may move beyond the first class suddenly. Other locations would place you with the more advanced students, even if you aren’t ready for that level as yet. This would allow you to mix with people of more similar age, and might well be best for your development.”

  So he was still in. That was a relief.

  “Another matter is your friend Asari. Once you relocate, he cannot stay with you. Only students of the college are allowed in the dormitory. I suppose we can make an exception and allow him to stay in the Cottages, but it will be alone, and under the condition that he not bother you during the week. You can meet with him on the two-day at the end of each week.”

  A week earlier Jolan might have argued the matter, but Asari had already made his own choice.

  “I’ve had it living here,” he told Jolan. “I know you are going to have to be cooped up inside the Inner Court, but I’m going to find a place out in town. It’s simply too limiting being here. I can’t even make any friends.”

  “He’s decided to move into town,” Jolan informed her. “There is very little for him to do.”

  In fact, it wasn’t only the living arrangements, but Jolan had come to realize the current situation was not ideal for his friend. When Asari had offered to see him to Cobalo, Jolan had known nothing of the country, and Asari had only been someone who could help. He’d never thought beyond getting here. Now, after months together, he was more than a friend, yet if Jolan was to pursue study at the univers
ity, he would be mostly separated from Asari. Being new to the city, knowing no one, what would he do? Jolan had considered suggesting he go back to Seret, where he had friends, until Jolan could find out what he needed from the mages here. He was worried that Asari might misinterpret such a suggestion, and had put off saying anything.

  “That’s probably for the best. It would be an unusual arrangement for him to continue on in the Cottages.”

  “Have you decided where I’m to be placed?”

  “You will be located with the more advanced students. They will be made aware of your special situation, so it shouldn’t be as difficult. We will at least try that at first. However, that’s not why I asked you here today. I wanted to discuss the warning you raised when you first arrived, and the oddities surrounding your encounters with Cheurt. Have you considered how impossibly great are the chances that Cheurt would arrive on Earth exactly where you lived, and that you would somehow have an affinity for magic when virtually no-one on your home planet has any ability?”

  “Someone crossed the Nexus in the past,” Jolan answered without hesitation or thought. He’d decided this a long time ago.

  “You figured that out,” Mage Vaen said dryly.

  “It’s pretty obvious given what I know now,” Jolan replied respectfully. “I can’t know for sure, but I’d guess it was my great relative Oscar who first bought the land. It only makes sense he knew the Nexus was there and that is why he wanted the house to remain under family control. If he knew of the Nexus, then he must have used it at some time, implying he had some ability to use the power. The ability must have been passed from him to those of us in later generations.”

  “Good old impulsive Utar,” she said, changing the name slightly.

  “You know of him?” Jolan asked surprised.

  Mage Vaen pressed her hands against the desk and forced herself upright. She grabbed her cane and made her way around from behind the desk, walking slowly and using the support of the cane to offset the weakness in her right leg. She was white haired and her skin showed the soft saggy wrinkled texture of the very old. He hadn’t realized this the first time he’d met her. She saw him watching her.

  “The years are starting to show, aren’t they?”

  Jolan couldn’t help himself. “With all the experience of the Council, and your personal skills with the power, I would have expected that something could be done to offset some of the effects. I’d heard there are those here that can use the power to even delay the aging process.

  She walked over by him and sat down on the chair next to his, her eyes twinkling. “How old do you think I am?”

  Jolan was suddenly uncomfortable. This was the kind of question that was always dangerous to answer, yet he sensed she would not like him to be evasive.

  Before he could answer she smiled. “I withdraw the question. It’s not fair. Last month was my most recent birthday. I was three hundred and eighty-one years old on that day.”

  Jolan’s eye’s widened. He’d been told that the mages could extend the life span with certain techniques known here, but he’d been led to believe it was a matter of decades. The average life span on Gaea was around seventy years.

  “How can that be?” he finally managed.

  “There are many that would like to know,” she replied with another of her small grins. “My situation has caused a whole new search for the ancient skills in life extension.”

  “Then you don’t know. . .”

  “No, I don’t have any inkling of the skill required to allow one to live so long. I suspect I know what happened, but it won’t help those so desperate for an answer.”

  She explained how she’d been very sick as a child. Her father had tried everything, including traveling the long miles to Cobalo to have the mages at the school attempt their cures. They had been eager because they could tell she would be a strong and talented mage if she lived. All their efforts failed. Desperate, her father sought an old hermit outside their home village. The stories attached to the old man were many and mostly unbelievable, but others claimed to have sought his aid and claimed he could sometimes do the impossible. In short, the old hermit had used the power to cure her, some of the old spells he’d told her father at the time. She now suspected the hermit was far older than anyone guessed and as part of her cure had done something that granted her the incredible extension of life. No one would ever know, because long before her lack of aging became apparent, the hermit was killed and his cave burned out by a roving band of bandits when a civil war broke out.

  “My longevity has been the source of interest, jealousy, and frustration,” she said.

  “Why frustration?”

  “Many have grown old and died waiting to move to the position I have held for more than two centuries. They have been trapped in a lower status while feeling they deserved my job. Some probably did, but there always seemed a reason I should hold on a bit longer.”

  “Mage Lonid is one of those, isn’t he?”

  She nodded.

  “I tell you all this so you will understand something. I don’t know of your relative Utar. I knew Utar himself, personally.”

  It took a few moments for that to fully register.

  “Here? You knew him here before he went to Earth?” Jolan asked finally.

  “That’s right,” she replied kindly. “He was one of the brightest of us. You know something of the rating system we use. It is a logarithmic scale. I am a six, somewhat unusual. Your ancestor was an eight. You have probably been told that the highest we’ve ever tested is a seven. Utar modified his records. He didn’t want his incredible level known for fear it would hinder him in many ways. He was not only powerful, but had the kind of mind that found the use of power instinctual. He was also a bit of a scientist, and had learned some of the old knowledge. It was also your relative who first located the lost Nexus after almost a thousand years and figured out how it was used.”

  “It seems there is a lot I don’t understand.”

  She smiled. “You can see how I was interested and why I was one of your supporters when you came with tales of the Nexus. Your description of the location coincided with what I already knew. Utar had shown me where he’d located the node, told me of his plans, and left me all of his journals for safe keeping.”

  “But the others. . . . “

  “They didn’t know. I never told them. Utar was one of the best in generations, and when he failed to return as High Chancellor I made the decision to suppress the knowledge. Too many others would have wanted to try. Even so, a couple of others managed to follow in his footsteps. They never returned either.”

  “Then you have all the information he uncovered. Perhaps in his notes is the means by which I could cross the Nexus.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I failed Utar. His journals were placed in the private archives of the High Chancellor, which was supposed to limit access to only me, or whoever ascended to the position after me. It was meant to be a means of securing information felt by the High Chancellor to be dangerous, but allowing a means for later dissemination if a successor decided the situation had changed. When you came to us with your story, I immediately went to find Utar’s journals, but they were gone. For how long, I cannot say. I suspect one day we will learn that your adversary Cheurt discovered their existence and was instrumental in their disappearance.”

  “There is no other information on how the Nexus is used?”

  She shook her head sadly. “I’m sorry. The Nexus was never well understood. It was more than a device of immense magical power, but a technology far beyond anything now known on Gaea. The Dragons originally established the link to Earth.”

  “Dragons? The Dragons actually existed?”

  “Oh, most certainly,” she replied.

  Jolan felt a moment of elation. Here was something that would cheer his friend. Asari had a deep faith the Dragons were real, despite his frequent statements to the effect they were only tales told by minstrels.

&n
bsp; “You’re sure. This belief isn’t just based on the historical tales that have been passed down.”

  “There is far too much evidence. Much of it circumstantial, I’m afraid, but there remain a few specifics in the archives that leave little doubt. Unfortunately, we know very little about them, but their presence is not in doubt, nor their strengths in magic. Dragon magic was different, but immensely powerful.”

  “Then they might still exist somewhere?” Jolan asked hopefully.

  “No. No,” she repeated firmly. “They are all gone. They were incredibly long lived, and with power we can only dream of, but the stories tell of their fall. None has been seen in well over a thousand years. Where would they go for so long, and how would they be able to remain hidden?”

  “Why did they want to link with Earth?”

  “That appears to have been an accident. The Dragons were intending to use the Nexus for some other function, but the records imply that the presence of the power fields on Gaea disturbed the normal operation of the Nexus, and created the nodes opening the way to your planet.

  “What did the first explorers find on Earth?”

  “The records are poor, but it seems clear that few humans existed there. There was apparently a primitive type of human, at least in the limited areas that were explored.”

  “So humans and Dragons from Gaea populated Earth?”

  “Humans, not the Dragons. The Dragons were unable to use the Nexus to visit Earth. The two that tried died apparently during the transition. The humans that traveled with them returned their bodies, and their fellows declined further attempts. Humans, those with ability in the power, could make the trip easily once they learned the technique. Those without ability in the power could be escorted through the Nexus under the proper conditions. They were usually the ones who stayed. Those with the power felt its loss keenly while on Earth.”