by Bob Blink
It made sense in a way, but Jolan was understandably impatient. Still, progress wasn’t far away. Within two days he actually had shields. Real honest-to-mage shields. They weren’t the greatest of shields as yet, and they wouldn’t stop a speeding copper bullet, but then neither would the shields of anyone else. By the end of the week he had control of all the basic spells he had been unable to conquer during the frustrating couple of weeks in the newbie classes. Now he had all those spells and more. He could do everything that the rest of them could, even more than that snotty ten-year old from his class. He had her beat hands down. Well, maybe not hands down. He could do everything she could and more, but she might still be a bit stronger than he in a few isolated cases.
Ronoran and Luzoke threw him a party in the dorms. They smuggled in a couple of small kegs of ale, something Jolan found incredible given the way certain things were scanned at the gates. Several other friends from the dorm gathered with him to toast his transition and acceptance into the full time mages ranks. Among those who partied with them were Rifod and Nerila, a couple of student mages in Luzoke’s classes. Nerila was the only woman in the little group, and was engaged to Rifod. They had been a couple for a few years, and planned to marry after the completion of their training. Only the limited quantities of ale they had been able to smuggle in kept the group from becoming obviously intoxicated and in violation of one of the primary dorm rules. Once again Jolan felt a sense of being accepted and of having a group of friends he felt he could count on. He only wished Asari could share in the feeling, but he knew this was a mage thing and that even if admitted, Asari was still stubbornly resistant to bonding with Jolan’s new friends.
The next morning he was a bit thick headed when he returned to Dibon’s office to learn what they had planned for him, having foolishly neglected to purge his body of the alcohol before going to bed. He didn’t know how he would fit in with the on-going classes, as they had been underway for some time, and it could be awkward to jump into the middle of things. It appeared someone was thinking along similar lines, and they had decided he would be given a program of individual study. He would have a dedicated advisor, who would direct him to special sessions with carefully picked mages based on how his development went. He could continue taking classroom study as he wished on the general subjects, but all magic training would be handled via his advisor under this new program.
“When do I meet my advisor?” Jolan asked. He was anxious to try something out.
Mage Ward is waiting to meet you as soon as we are done. You seem to have something specific on your mind.”
“I woke up this morning feeling I have a new skill. I’d like to try it out, but I think it is a bit dangerous and don’t know how to go about it here at the College.”
“Let’s go see Ward. I can introduce you, and we can have a look at what you have acquired.”
Mage Ward was middle-aged, a tall and slightly overweight mage with a long dark beard. He greeted Jolan warmly, and explained that he had been briefed thoroughly on Jolan’s situation and was enthusiastic about watching how he would progress. When he learned that Jolan had a weapons class spell he wanted to try out, the group went down to the basement where there were special rooms set aside for just such testing.
Ward set a two-foot log onto a vertical spit in the center of the room and returned to where Jolan waited.
“Will that do for a preliminary target?”
“I guess. I really don’t know what I can do.”
He looked at the log and executed the spell that had been bursting to be tried since his head cleared a bit earlier. Without the slightest difficulty he caused a sheet of pulsating fire to form and begin to rotate around the log across the room. The flames flared and spun, and within a few seconds died away leaving a pile of glowing ash on the floor.
“Firewrap, for God’s sake,” said Dibon. “You shouldn’t be able to use that at all until you’ve reached level four. You were tested as a three the other day. It’s also not one of the spells we normally encourage, as you might gather. You’ll have to learn restraint with its use.”
“You know what’s strange,” Jolan said. “I can tell what spells are being extracted from Cheurt’s memories. I don’t know if he knows firewrap or not, but this one I didn’t get from him.”
“How did you learn it then?” asked Ward.
“I don’t know. It’s like the Mage’s Box. Suddenly it was just there.”
“How strong are you with it?” asked Dibon. “Can you do more than you just demonstrated?”
Jolan nodded. “I was holding back. I didn’t know what to expect.”
Ward set up a half dozen logs and walked back. “Have a go at that. Try and hit it as hard as you can.”
Jolan looked at the pile of wood and let go. This time the band of fire was far brighter and the air crackled from the intensity of the blaze. The entire pile was consumed even faster than the single log had been moments before.
Dibon shook his head. “A level five with good shields could withstand that, but anyone else would be in serious trouble,” he observed.
Ward shook his head in disagreement. “I pity your level five, especially if he attacked Jolan first.”
“What do you mean,” asked Dibon.
Ward pointed at the staff Jolan still carried. “That,” Ward said. “What we have just seen is what Jolan can do unaided. If there is a threat against him, his staff was designed to come to his aid. I’ve dug through the limited records we have, and what I can glean from the material suggests the staff will boost his performance by two to three levels. In a real encounter, I doubt a level seven would be able to resist him, and who knows as he continues to grow.”
His situation defined, Dibon headed off to talk to the council about what he had learned from Jolan’s visit, while Jolan made arrangements to meet with his advisor the first day of the following week and then made his way back to the dorms. He decided now was as good a time as any to talk with Buris, and he wound his way through the now familiar maze to the feisty little mage’s lab in the lower levels.
“You want to tell me why you need a chemist?” Buris asked when Jolan told him what he was looking for.
When Jolan hesitated, Buris answered for him. “Of course Mage Buris, I’m planning on building a weapon.”
Jolan looked at Buris in surprise.
“Give me a break my friend,” said Buris at the look. “I’m not stupid. I know a little about you, and I think I’ve got your agenda figured a bit better than a lot of the bigshots around here?”
“But. .”
“But why would I help you? Why do you think I’m down here instead of up in one of those classrooms instructing you young geniuses. I meant other than the fact I’m old, and ornery, and hard to get along with?”
Buris paused and looked at Jolan, but he wasn’t expecting an answer.
“I don’t toe the company line, that’s why. I don’t agree with all this pure and clean is the only proper use of the power. Dragonpiss. What good is it to be all clean and pure if some bastard comes along and wipes you out of existence while you are playing nice. Yes, the power caused a pretty nasty war, but where would we be if they’d just let the dark wizards win way back then?”
“The council probably won’t be happy about what I’m doing.”
“Of course they won’t. You scared the piss out of a couple of them with that little demonstration of yours from what I’ve heard. But if you’re right, Ale’ald is going to start showing up with some things we aren’t going be able to counter, so if you have some ideas, best we get started sooner rather than later. Once Ale’ald starts attacking, the council will come around right quickly. Especially if you are offering an alternative that doesn’t require them to misuse their precious magic.”
Jolan hadn’t been prepared for this kind of reception, and was at a loss for what to tell Buris.
“What are you trying to do? Build more of that little weapon of yours?”
�
�Something simpler,” Jolan said. “I don’t think the technology exists at the moment to build something that advanced. Perhaps later, although maybe you know better.”
“I’d love to have a look at it,” Buris said eagerly. “Why don’t you run up and get it, then we’ll sit down and look at what you want to do.”
It was now well after dark, and they were still talking. Buris had watched as Jolan took the pistol completely apart, and had carefully examined all the parts, including the ammunition, showing no surprise at the cuprum in the cartridges.
“I think you’re right to start with the long gun of the simpler design,” Buris said. “It will present enough challenges, and if it works, other designs can be developed from the processes learned along the way.”
By fortunate chance, the metal-smith that had thought he could come up with a means of rifling the bore was someone Buris knew and respected. He felt the smith was probably the best in Cobalo, and if anyone could come up with a workable design he would. Buris was concerned when Jolan explained the kind of pressures the pistol operated at, and even more surprised when he learned that it was considered fairly low pressure as firearms back on Earth went.
“I would go to these two chemists for the powder you want. It’s a simple mixture, and they would be better set up to make it in quantities. I’d have a couple of sample batches made up by each of them, with varying mixture ratios since you aren’t positive of the correct mixture.”
“You think we should make the fulminate of mercury here?” Jolan asked.
“From your description it is simple enough, and it’s a bit sensitive to handle. We have mercury and nitric acid, and alcohol is available at your local pub. For now, maybe the trigger material is something we keep as our little secret.”
Buris was being cavalier about the simplicity. Jolan could remember the chemicals used, but he had no idea of the proportions, or exactly how the results were extracted and put into the primer caps, but the old man was confident such matters could be figured out easily enough.
“Seems like one of the concerns is what to use as the little caps you show here to put the primer compound in. What do you use back on Earth?”
“That’s a problem. They used to use brass, which is mostly copper. I was thinking maybe aluminum, but that doesn’t seem to be common here either. I guess without an electrically based industry, aluminum isn’t easy to convert to metallic form.”
“Well, magic can do it, although not on an industrial scale. But you only need a little bit. I know someone who can extract the metals for us. Let me deal with that.”
Tasks defined, and responsibilities set, Jolan left after reluctantly giving up one round of .45 auto ammunition and explaining how a bullet puller was designed, so Buris could carefully take the round apart. He wanted to study the design against the possibility of building their own ammunition in the not too distant future once they had workable cap and ball guns.
Chapter 50
Even the weather had been cooperating, with no new snow for the past five days, with touches of sun peeking through the almost constant cloud cover of the past month that brightened the days a bit. Unfortunately, it was still bitterly cold which could become downright miserable when propelled by the sea winds coming in over the cliffs, not that it affected Jolan any longer. He’d been a bit hesitant to reveal this particular fact to Asari, who spent many of his days out in the weather visiting the various vendors.
Asari was still not his old self, although he was considerably better, and from the various tales Jolan sorted through at the meals, it was pretty clear that his friend had been bedding a couple of waitresses for entertainment. Jolan could sense his friend remained quite lonely. He hadn’t found anyone like Ashreye whom he really liked, so the relationships he was making were of a more casual nature. Jolan still wished he could find a way to get his friend to accept his new mage friends. He knew they would hit it off if only Asari would give them a chance.
“You mean you let them mess around with your head?” Asari asked in dismay. “You didn’t tell me you were considering letting them do that. I would have advised against it. They were just using you as an experiment.”
“I didn’t know what I was going to decide last week,” Jolan told him honestly. “Besides, I didn’t seem to have any choice.”
“It still seems like you took a big chance.”
“But look what has happened. I’m now on the way to becoming a real mage. And while the mages at the College don’t like it, with the staff I already have a fighting spell that they say even a level seven Mage might have trouble handling.”
“Don’t go getting so confident. Cheurt has been around a long time, and there’s more to fighting with magic than just how strong your spell is.”
“Weren’t you the one that was all hot to go after him?”
“I’d like to see these guns of yours work out. Then we might have both magic and wizard-killer weapons to use against him.”
“Well, I even got some support for that this past week.” Jolan told him about the progress he had made with Buris and how they were going to try and develop the critical component for the percussion caps in his lab.
“How are the barrels going?”
“We can take a look a bit later. First we should visit the watch-makers and see if you want to get them started. I tried to explain what we want, but it would be better if you sat down with them over your drawings and walk through it. Then we can visit the barrel makers, and see if we can find these chemists.”
Jolan knew right away when they visited the first of the barrel makers that the man’s efforts were not going to yield useful results. He looked at the ragged workmanship of the barrel blank and knew this man didn’t possess the skills to cut a useable bore, and would be a bit afraid to be holding one of the grainy pieces of metal when it was fired. They paid the man for his work so far, and told him they would look over the barrel and get back to him later. Jolan tossed it into a weeded empty lot as they walked past.
“I hope the others are better than that,” he said.
“Much better,” Asari encouraged. “Even I could tell that you weren’t going to like what you saw there.”
Asari was right. The barrel blanks at both of the shops they visited next looked very promising. Jolan asked them to continue and make up two of the barrels complete with the bore holes. The metalsmith that Buris liked wanted to make three, and have a shot at putting the rifling in one of them. Jolan gave him the go ahead.
Both watchmakers looked promising, and after meeting with them Jolan set them to work building the mechanism. That left the chemists.
“Three test batches,” Jolan told the chemist, repeating the discussion he’d had an hour earlier. All batches should have seventy percent potassium nitrate. One batch should be ten percent sulfur and twenty percent charcoal, one with the percentages reversed, and a third batch with equal amounts of the two. I’d like to see it made with granules that are approximately this size.” He showed the man a small stoppered tube of crystals he’d taken from Buris’ lab that were the approximate size he desired.
“I can have it next week if you desire.”
“That would be fine. Once we determine which works best, we will want considerably larger quantities, so you might be thinking of a means of large production.”
“How are we going to know if the powder is any good?” Asari asked.
“We’ll just have to do a lot of testing. That’s going to be the tricky part of all this. I don’t even know for sure I have the percentages correct. I’m just guessing based on a hazy memory of something I read a long time ago. It’s the same with the grain size I asked for. Someone at the shooting range was shooting a replica of an old black powder pistol once and I looked at the powder. That’s about what I recall it looked like, but I wasn’t paying all that much attention.”
The rest of the two-day was spent more like old times, with a couple of great meals, some music at a new tavern Asari had found, a
nd a bit of shopping the following day. When it came time to leave for the dorms again, Jolan felt bad telling Asari the following week he would only have the one day free because he’d been invited, ordered was more like it, to the King’s Ball.
Chapter 51
Jolan was initially surprised when he was informed he would be required to attend the upcoming King’s Ball. After all, he was a complete unknown in the kingdom’s society circles, and knew nothing of the protocols or proper behavior. On the other hand, he had been a bit surprised since his coming to Angon and presenting himself to the Council of Mages that no consideration seemed to be given to informing the Royal Family of the problem he had presented. Neither had it apparently seemed important to inform the King that a visitor from another world had dropped in on them. Perhaps he’d been wrong in his assessment, and that out of his sight the King had been made aware of more than he realized. This, in fact, was the case.
