by Bob Blink
Jolan circled inland, and then turned back toward the entrance. He could still faintly sense the group of student-mages back where he’d left them. That was good. They would be out of the way. Then Jolan realized that his pursuer had closed the distance faster than he’d thought possible, and he was still in the open. He’d hoped to make the rock playground before the man made it over the hill. Jolan was still twenty yards from the rocks when he turned and saw the man crest the hill. He knew the man would attack immediately and was stunned by the force of the beam that smashed into his shield, the view turning reddish almost at once.
How was that possible, he wondered. Given the shield Jolan was capable of presenting and the level he’d assumed for the man and supported by the relative strength of his shield? There was no time to reach the rocks, and probably no time for an attack of his own. In a flash of desperation, Jolan created the largest Mage’s Box he could in line with the attacking beam. He’d never seen anything that could harm the box, and he wondered if it might give him a bit of protection.
The box held. He could see it start to glow from the energy being thrown at it, but it blocked the beam. Jolan turned and ran like the hounds of hell were after him, disappearing around the edge of the rocks and out of sight. As soon as he was certain he couldn’t be seen, he dropped the standard shield and brought up his shield-pair. He was a bit better protected and now untrackable to the attacker. Now, if only the man didn’t know about the many hidden pathways through the rocks, he had a chance of capturing him.
Jolan ran all the way around to the far side, and then turned and scurried in toward the center, staying low and out of sight through one of the hidden passageways. The afternoon he and Shyar had played in here had suddenly become very valuable. Once he reached the middle of the quarry he turned to the left and made his way quickly, but quietly, toward the outer perimeter. He assumed the attacker must be making his way slowly around looking for him, assuming he’d dropped his shields in a desperate attempt to hide.
Jolan heard the man before he saw him. Despite efforts to move quietly, the small gravel around the edges of the rock pile made soft crunching sounds as the man set down one foot after another. Jolan waited until the man had moved past the nearly invisible opening, and then slipped out quietly behind him. As Jolan closed the distance to the man, the same gravel gave him away. The man turned, a smile on his face as he prepared to unleash another of his wicked beams. His grin widened as he saw Jolan swing the staff at his head, knowing his shield would hardly notice something as commonplace as a staff striking it. The smile suddenly disappeared as the Staff of War passed smoothly through the shield and the heavy end smashed solidly into the man’s head knocking him unconscious. That was something else Jolan had discovered about the staff while sparing with Ward one day. It didn’t seem to be deterred by shields. As soon as the man was knocked unconscious, his shield collapsed.
Jolan looked down at the unconscious man and wrapped a band of air around his face. He’d let him breathe, but just enough to stay alive. He would remain unconscious until the band was removed. Jolan figured the mages at the College would have a number of questions for the man, and once warded and shielded from the power, they would use their not so friendly techniques to get answers. Jolan had a few questions of his own.
He had recognized the man when he'd struck him with the staff. It was Toran, one of Cheurt's chosen wizards. He knelt next to the man and looked carefully at the ring on his finger. Jolan now knew why Toran had had such incredibly powerful beams at his command. He wore a ring with a softly glowing purple stone. To the victor go the spoils, Jolan thought, as he slipped the ring off the Toran’s finger and put it in his pocket.
He was surprised to sense another shield approaching, and turned to meet a possible attacker when Luzoke came running around the rocks.
“What’s wrong with you?” Luzoke screamed at him when he saw him standing next to the fallen man.
“It’s about time you got here. I could have used some help.”
“They sent me for the ale. I just got back with the kegs a little while ago. You should have waited.”
“They would have gotten away. Is everyone all right? That blast was a bit more than I expected.”
“You did that? Everyone thought someone had killed you with it. Where are the other two?”
Jolan pointed toward the ocean. “Out there somewhere. I can’t sense the shields anymore. Rifod, the others, all okay?”
Luzoke nodded. “Yeah. Everyone’s okay. Rifod looks pale, but the medical-mage can’t find anything wrong. They don’t understand all the blood, so they’re taking him in for observation. That’s something else I want to ask you about.”
“Later. Help me get this guy back to somewhere we can get a carriage.”
Chapter 71
“You were right. Toran was his name,” Dibon said as he walked into Jolan’s room. Jolan wasn’t used to seeing the man out of the Council of Mages building. He couldn’t remember ever seeing him in the dorms before.
“Was?”
“He didn’t survive the session,” Dibon answered matter-of-factly. “I think he told us everything he knew. He was Cheurt’s number three man.”
“You know that Vaen is a bit miffed at what you did. It was a hell of a risk chasing after three of them.”
“I was angry, and once again I was lucky. Has anything been seen of the other two?”
“Not a sign. We sent out several ships to have a look, thinking we might find the bodies, but nothing has turned up. You don’t think they could have survived do you?”
“The shields would have protected them through most of it. It all depends on whether they could have gotten back to shore.”
“Then there is a small chance you might still be at risk for another attack?”
“What did Toran say about that?”
“They were the only team that has been sent, for now at least. There were four of them, and you’ve accounted for two. The other two we’ve been assuming were killed, but you have just shed a bit of doubt on that.”
“If they made it, I’ll bet they are headed back to see Cheurt. They’ll know he would want to know what happened, and they probably feel they can’t do the job alone. I’ll bet we have a period of relative safety. Unless he has a team he can activate here in Cobalo, but if he did, why would he have sent his men all the way from Ale’ald? Did Toran tell you anything else?”
“We know that your guesses have been fairly close to his plan. Toran indicated some kind of attack before winter. We’ll have to pass word along to Kimlelm on that. We also know that Cheurt is expanding his group in preparation for what is now starting. They had a woman contact here, but when we searched the house we were directed to, no one was there. He gave us a description, but it doesn’t fit anyone we know. Chancellor Vaen has suggested that the woman might be using a bit of glamour to mask her true appearance. The most revealing thing was that Cheurt’s number two man, Ryltas, is on Earth.”
That had been forwarded to Jolan as soon as they had stripped the news out of the man. He hadn’t expected that. It meant Cheurt was expanding the core of people who knew how to use the Nexus. That was bad. It meant that simply eliminating Cheurt didn’t solve one of their major problems. He’d asked, but no one knew enough about the Nexus to know if it was even possible to shut it down permanently.
“You have your own session tomorrow you know? People have a lot of questions about exactly what happened. Major Wylan wants to know about that bomb you set off and how it can be turned into a field-able weapon. That could really make a difference in the war. Vaen wants to know what happened to Rifod. So do I. You haven’t any ability to heal, yet the medical people we’ve talked with say all indications are that Rifod was effectively dead, or near to, and that he’d been torn apart. Yet he’s as good as new.”
Not as good as new. Jolan knew his friend had had nightmares the previous night. He hoped those would pass soon or someone could help with them. Neril
a had asked what had happened as well, but he only told her that Rifod had been wounded. He couldn’t bear to tell her how badly.
Jolan held up his hand and wiggled his finger. “We now know what the blue stone does,” he said simply. “I couldn’t have helped Rifod, but the ring brought him back from the edge of death. It did it. I didn’t have any input. I just had to make contact with him.”
Dibon’s eyes widened. “You haven’t told Chancellor Vaen?”
“I haven’t seen her, and other things have been on my mind. I figured I’d be seeing her soon enough. Oh, and then there’s this one.”
Jolan reached into his pocket and pulled out the ring with the purple stone. Toran had this. I took it from him. This is how he was able to create such incredible beams.
“I’ve only heard of one other purple. Now you have two rings.”
“I haven’t decided if I am going to wear it.”
“Of course you are. It will give you energy-beams on a par with your fire-wrap. You might be needing that given your record the past few months.”
Jolan looked at the ring and then nodded. He slipped it slowly onto a finger next to the blue stoned ring he already wore. As it slid onto his finger, he could feel the ring adjusting to his finger size and settle firmly in place.
“Tomorrow morning then?” asked Dibon as he stood to leave.
“Chancellor Vaen’s office I suppose?” asked Jolan.
“You’ve become quite accustomed to it by now I would think,” said Dibon as he ambled out of the room.
Jolan leaned back in the chair. He had already decided not to tell Chancellor Vaen he’d violated his promise to her already. Yesterday he’d shown the new shield-pair spell to Shyar. After seeing what had almost happened to Rifod, and knowing she was with him more than anyone, he couldn’t not offer her whatever protection he could. He’d explained the concern, and she’d vowed she’d never reveal the secret.
Chapter 72
This was the sixth time over the past two months that Jolan and his friends had made excursions into the sealed rooms where the off limits materials were stored. Sometimes it was the whole group, which Ronoran had reluctantly agreed to after a great deal of persuasion by Jolan. Other times it was only part of the group that made the late night foray down into the lower section of the library building. Each expedition had to be pursued with great care, because they learned the hours when members of the staff could be found working in the area had no defined limits. It seemed almost as if those that worked on the materials did so almost at whim, when they had time, or when some unexplained urge drove them to do so. On more than one occasion they slipped silently down the library stairs toward the warded double-door entrance, only to arrive and find the wards and seals were not in place, indicating someone was inside. On these occasions they had to slip away just as quietly and return to their rooms hoping that no one had noticed their presence.
The time they could spend on a given day was also limited by the need to get some sleep so they could appear looking relatively alert for the tasks that they needed to perform the following day. The nights of the two-day would have allowed them to stay for longer periods since those days did not require them to be present anywhere at a particular time, but those days turned out to be favored among the staff for the times they worked in the closed rooms. Once, on one of the early trips, they had been inside examining one of the lower levels on a two-day night when several of the instructor-staff came into the room. Fortunately whatever they did that night kept them on the upper levels, but for most of the night the group of interlopers were trapped, having to remain silent and waiting until the staff members finally left in the early hours of the morning. The experience caused them to rethink the nights they entered the area, and kept them away for almost three weeks.
Tonight it was just three of them making the trip; Jolan, Ronoran, and Shyar. Since the attack, Rifol had not felt comfortable with making the trips, although he was completely healthy and free of any restrictions from the medical-mage team. Somehow the attack had stolen some of the fire from him, at least for now. If Rifol didn’t go, then neither did Nerila. Luzoke was always uncomfortable, and made the trip only about half the time, the decision being made at the last minute and for reasons that only he knew.
Jolan still didn’t feel entirely comfortable with walking through the twisted warp in the entrance way that Ronoran created when he defeated the seals and wards. Why screwing around with the seals also made a path through the space where the doors should be never seemed right to Jolan, and he always cringed a bit, expecting to be caught in the door somehow.
“Why is it like that?” he whispered to Ronoran not for the first time as they slipped into the room.
“Hey, I don’t know. I’ve told you that before.”
“I don’t like it.”
“Me either,” admitted Shyar, who always gave a bit of a shudder as they slipped through, and turned to watch as Ronoran closed off the passage behind them. Once safely inside they could be a little less quiet.
“I could remove the wardings, but then someone would know in the morning that someone had broken in. Besides, that way we’d have to find a way to defeat the locks as well. Just be happy it works, or we wouldn’t be getting in here.”
“Maybe that wouldn’t be a bad thing,” said Shyar.
Well, no one around the College even pretended to understand half of what they did, Jolan thought. The mages were operating on bits and pieces of half understood knowledge that had survived a war over a thousand years ago. He wondered what could be done if a little scientific rigor were brought to the whole process of applied magic for a while.
“What are we looking for?” one of the group had asked weeks back on the first group foray into the area.
“I don’t know,” Jolan had admitted. “Something to help against the wizards, but I only know that it will be obvious to me once we find it.”
“I thought you said you were led to things of magic or that have some special significance,” Nerila had said.
“I can sense there is something here, but in the past I actually had to see the item to know it was important. I don’t claim to understand the ability. I just know I’ve had an uncanny history of stumbling onto things there was no reason for me to have found.”
They had spent hour after hour rummaging around in the materials. Fortunately, magic was at work down here, and despite centuries of accumulation and often neglect, no layers of dust had built up. Not only would the dust have made their searching miserable, they would have had to disturb the layers to search, leaving behind an obvious indication that someone had been here.
They’d found whole sections on odd bits of magic, some of the spells quite gruesome. There were spells to inflict a variety of minor ailments and discomforts, as well as how to disrupt normal plant development and disfigure animals and humans. Jolan couldn’t tell if someone had sought the spells, or whether they were things that had simply been uncovered over the years and documented against normal use. As distasteful as they were, they weren’t an ingredient for war, at least nothing Jolan could think of.
The first floor was ignored again tonight. It was the most actively worked area, and they had made a very complete search of the materials weeks before, finding nothing of interest. As they walked down the spiral stairs into the areas lighted by the glow lamps that seemed to always be burning in the lower levels. Jolan wondered why the first level was usually dark, but guessed that maybe it was a ruse to make the area appear unused if someone who wasn’t supposed to ever got into the area. As they reached the bottom of the stairs, he looked back at the small almost concealed room behind the staircase. They’d thought they found something the first time one of the group had noticed the room, but it turned out to be a storage area for boxes and the like. Nothing useful was stored there on any level.
“I still can’t fathom why some of these books are down here,” Shyar said as they passed by an area that contained mostly books on h
istory, and another section on literature. They’d looked through some of the books, found the histories to be conflicting, and in many cases they didn’t know enough to judge which, if either of two books was correct.
“There must be some small item in each that someone has a problem with is all I can guess,” answered Ronoran. “I would think they’d simply destroy a lot of them. What use can they possibly be?”
“Some people simply can’t bring themselves to destroy a book, even if they don’t like or agree with what it contains. Since we don’t understand why the book was relegated here, it’s hard to judge the wisdom of the decision.”
One night they had all sat on the floor of one of the lower levels and each had taken one of the boxes of unopened volumes and one-by-one had lifted them out of the box and had a look. Nothing came from the effort and, if anything, they found the mix of unsorted books more confusing than those already placed on the shelves.
Jolan had spent hours one night when only he and Ronoran made the trip looking at shelves of warded books. All of them were blank, and while he hoped he might come across one that wasn’t, which might indicate that was what they were searching for, he hadn’t found a thing. Ronoran had offered to remove the wards from any book that he thought might be the “one”, despite the risk that action represented, but he’d never gotten the feeling he sought.
“There’s where you picked up that spell,” Ronoran said as they passed by a shelf that held hundreds of books of spells that Jolan had labeled “spells of war”.
Jolan remembered that night as well. The spell was in his mind, and he knew he could use it. That concerned him greatly, for everything said it was a spell that only a level ten mage should be able to initiate, yet he knew he could use it now, even though he was only a level five. He also knew what the spell would do, and it scared him a little. Why was he able to trigger such a spell at his lowly level? Was it because of his background and knowledge of physics that gave him some kind of insight and therefore an ability that a mage of his level shouldn’t have? What surprised him even more was when he found later that he would be able to trigger the spell even without the presence of his staff, which frequently allowed him to do things he otherwise couldn’t. Despite the power it represented, Jolan knew it wasn’t what he was seeking here in the crowded rooms.
