Mobius

by Garon Whited

  The process went without a hitch until I ran face-first into the whole departure problem. I kept my Ring of Spying running to prevent a time differential. When I left, the Earth I was using would go back to a random time rate. I might be gone for a minute or for so long the MREs might go bad before I got back to them. Keeping a maintenance micro-gate running struck me as a good idea.

  After poking around for a bit, I finally settled on an old beer can for my maintenance gate. I poked a tiny hole in it, wrapped it in a gate spell, and left it on a rafter in the barn. This put it close enough to the barn door to use it as a transfer gateway.

  This would be so much easier if I had an inter-universal Internet. Then again, how would anyone deliver anything to me? I’ll always have to go pick it up.

  The different time zones worked out fairly well. I had most of the day to find and deal with housing, ordering, and delivery. By the time the sun went down, I finished giving away money and was ready to come back. A second-rate beater of a car got me around while I was there. Bronze didn’t think much of it, but it was inconspicuous. It also used three tanks of gas and ran much better by the end of the day. We left it in the barn when we came back through the gate.

  Immediately, we were off again—this time as horse and rider—heading west, away from the Empire. My tunnel through the western ridge was still progressing, but it wasn’t finished yet. I juiced up the spell with a power crystal, speeding things along, and realized I should have briefed Leisel more thoroughly on her role in fortifying the western border. I called her on the mirror and scheduled some work crews for the next morning.

  Then we went around, down through the river’s waterfalls, splashing and sizzling and sometimes scraping, until we could cut to one side and head into the barbarian lands beyond the mountains.

  I hoped they were open to a discussion.

  They were not amenable to polite discourse.

  My thinking was if I rode into a village all armored up and swords at my sides, they would only see a man of the Empire, an enemy. Instead, I thought I might walk in, carrying only Firebrand and wearing normal clothes—well, normal clothes, a relic cloak, and magic underwear. I would appear less threatening. With a translation spell, I might even get in a few words and shock them with my knowledge of their language. I could propose a trade, offering all sorts of goods and gear.

  The first part—walking up to the village—went pretty smoothly. Nobody seemed awake, so I knocked politely on the largest hut. It didn’t have a door, only a frame with a tight-stretched piece of patchwork leather laced in place to keep out rain and drafts.

  A moment later, the leather door was flung wide and a large man came out. He leaped through the opening, attacking with a knife in either hand. He plowed into me, staggering me backward with the force of his rush, and stabbed repeatedly, hard and fast, arms wrapped around me to put his knives into my back. It didn’t work, of course, since the iron points didn’t penetrate, but they still dug in pretty well and hurt. He was no weakling.

  I brought up a knee, hard. This took half the fight out of him, so I pushed him away with one hand and crossed his jaw with the other. He decided to lie down and relax.

  Right behind him, two more men, somewhat smaller and younger, emerged while screaming and brandishing knives of their own. They were less of a problem. I clonked their heads together until their knees folded, but then the women followed them out, also waving cutlery.

  About this point, I started to wonder if these people were hostile to everyone or if I’d committed a serious breach of their tribal etiquette. Admittedly, I was a stranger, but was that sufficient to be an instant target? Or was showing up at night enough to make them think it was a raid by a rival village? Or is touching someone’s doorframe Simply Not Done?

  Regardless, the women were next on my list of headaches. They rapidly developed headaches and decided they didn’t want to participate, but by then other huts were opening up and men were coming out. Everyone was shouting and torches were lit. Snarls and pointed fingers indicated I was their main point of interest, and I didn’t think their interest was friendly.

  I had less trouble with Homo Apocalypticus.

  Well, fine. Maybe it was my fault, but they didn’t seem interested in talking it over. I lashed everyone with tendrils, a broad, sweeping sort of attack, and everyone abruptly felt tired. It threw them off and slowed them, but it also allowed more of them to cluster together for a rush. Rather than wait for it, I borrowed the eldest of the unconscious sorts—probably the father of the family group—and departed for the woods. They pursued, but not far. Well, they were tired. I also don’t think they liked the idea I could pick up a full-grown man and run so fast.

  With a mile or more behind me, I settled my burden on the ground, made sure he was disarmed, and worked a little magic to revive him. He came back to consciousness with a few sore spots, but nothing truly damaged. We had a little incident with him trying to fight me some more, but he settled down after I tied his arms in a non-damaging but painful knot.

  His name was Uruzgan. He was the son of the village chief and planned to be chief, himself, as soon as his father had the grace to die. His sons were supposed to follow him out the door to repel the raiders. He didn’t want anything to do with me, with the steel-wearers, or anyone outside his own little village.

  Further interviewing led me to believe he was a fairly typical sample of the local barbarians. He was stubborn, pigheaded, violent, and more than a little xenophobic.

  On the other hand, he was greedy. I can work with greedy. Not immediately—I wasn’t prepared to bribe him effectively—but greed might be the foot in the door to commerce.

  After a brief explanation of the idea of trade, I suggested he might want steel knives instead of iron ones.

  “You give me food, I give you steel. You try to take my steel, I cut off your hands. Is that fair?”

  It seemed to get my point across. As a bonus, I pointed him back toward his village. It’s important to establish some sort of friendly relations—or the potential for friendly relations—with the neighbors. The other option is to kill them all, ship their kids off to other villages, and take everything not nailed down. Given Uruzgan’s views, I doubted there would be any organized response.

  Grumbling and muttering, I rode back to the ridge. We would need the tunnel sooner than later. Ideally, we would have a full-sized tunnel leading to a heavy gate and a walled-in killing ground. There, we could negotiate prices and trades without risking a full-scale incursion into the valley. I had hoped we could have a steady supply of food from the barbarian lands to support us, but, unless something fundamental changed, I figured we wouldn’t get more than a few bushels of vegetables or grains, maybe some minor meats from hunting parties. Not enough to last us.

  Still, if I start with an offer of steel knives, I might get them to open up trade talks, at least. Selling them a new type of plow or a horse-collar might be more difficult, but if I could get word to spread among the kustoni about good steel for sale, cheap, it might be the necessary foot in the door.

  Well, kidnapping someone and forcing him to talk worked. Maybe I’ll kidnap another one and force him to learn about heavy plows and other farming technologies. If I have to, I am entirely capable of dragging all of them, kicking and screaming, out of the Stone Age and into the Dark Ages. Although, technically, now I think on it, they do seem to live on more of a Dark Age level than a Stone Age one… which I blame on cross-cultural contamination from the Empire.

  Why did one advance so quickly and the other so slowly? There’s a good question, and one I am completely unable to answer. Or, rather, one I could answer in a hundred different ways, all of which would be guesses. One guess is Tassarian culture is a colony of some sort grown to nation status, while the original nation—the one across the sea—fell into warfare and collapsed. No doubt there are other possibilities, but it’s my best guess with what I know.

  I cast a spell on the western side of the
ridge so the tunnel would start forming from both sides and meet in the middle. The work crew could start clearing the tunnel and stacking blocks in the morning. I, on the other hand, had other spells to cast.

  Tauta, 23rd Day of Milaskir

  Last night was another busy night. I did some preliminary work on the nearly-finished barn and laid out the lines of the western tunnel fortification. I also had a number of gate spells to work on, including snatching some iridium from elsewhere and turning it into either wire or pinhole gates. Another fishing trip loaded me up with some fresh gold—vital if I didn’t succeed in my planned theft of the Sarcana vault. And let us not forget the brand-new stone-merging spells on what would one day be a fortification around the tunnel mouth. Stacking rocks is nice, but making them stick together is better.

  Leisel promised me we could have an iron grating and an iron-bound door within the week. They wouldn’t be pretty, but they would be functional.

  I also got busy on a closet in the keep, manually building it out of bricks so I could have it now, rather than waiting for the tower to form it. The tower could move it later. It wasn’t a large closet—maybe three feet square—but it was an important component to my plans. Then there were the non-dedicated scrying mirrors, useful for looking anywhere, and especially useful for following magically insensitive people.

  A lot of these were spells rather than enchantments. It saved me a lot of time and effort, but they were inherently more fragile. In any world where wizards are uncommon to nonexistent, it’s not an issue. Here? The spells can be magically attacked fairly easily, cracked open like an egg, and ruined. It’s a risk, but I don’t see I have a choice. Even with my new helper wand, the effort was considerable. The wand isn’t personally attuned, but the spell on it acts to suck in power over a wide area when active. This saves me a lot of effort in gathering power manually, although the wand does consume some of the power in order to operate.

  The thing has its uses, depending on the local magical environment, the power requirements of the spell, and how much magical current you’re prepared to channel. There’s a “butter zone” for where a wand of this sort is more useful than not. If I have to throw a spell in a hurry, the wand would be helpful. If I want to cast a spell without expending much of my stored energies, the wand would be helpful. But if I want to make sure I’m not interfering with any other spells in the vicinity, I shouldn’t use the wand. It’s not a precision tool and draws in any loose power floating around. Clearly, I don’t understand their spell for making them, but it works fairly well. It’s especially useful for work during the day!

  There’s a reason Rethven wizards didn’t go in for these things. In Rethven, and especially in Karvalen, there were spells all over the place. The enchantment on the wand would need to be considerably more sophisticated to differentiate between ambient magical energy and the densely-packed magical power in a spell. While a good, well-constructed spell would probably stand up to the power-draining function of a generalized wand, it would be like taking a punch. The spell might take one punch without serious harm, but two, five, a dozen punches? An enchantment can take it. A wand being used near an enchantment is merely competing for power resources. But a spell isn’t anywhere near as durable.

  I suspect one of the reasons the Tautan magical practitioners favor enchanting is because of the other magical practitioners. When everyone in your guild—or caste—is inadvertently trying to undo your spells, you have to make them solid. And if you’re going to that much effort, you may as well enchant an object and make it permanent.

  Another danger, as I see it, is the thing will draw in any power it can reach. True, it’s only magical energy—the function is utterly harmless to any normal person. But if someone were to release a large amount of magical force by disrupting a powerful spell, the wand would try to channel it all into the wielder. In short, it would act like a lightning rod. At night, I’m not too worried about such an effect. During the day? Or in the hands of a mortal? The results could be on par with an actual lightning strike, or overexposure inside an Ascension Sphere. Souls are not supposed to be set on fire. Besides, mine probably still has some crispy bits.

  I much prefer my toolkit of specialized wands. I may have to build another set.

  Today, though, it was mostly a case of sitting back and watching. There’s a delivery expected on an Earth, so I occasionally scry through the micro-gate even though I know it can’t have arrived, yet. Tomorrow, maybe, or the day after. I have power crystals charging, but I don’t have to watch those. I have scrying shields to monitor, a solar conversion roof finishing up over the valley, and a keep growing outbuildings. Out by the western ridge, there’s a tunnel still forming, bricks being laid, and a fortification being built. At the eastern bridge, a crew is installing a drawbridge, but I’m not taking out a chunk of bridge until they’re done. A couple of work crews are loading up carts and wagons to haul more stone blocks down from the not-exactly-mines-yet to help reinforce and build up the bridge fort, too.

  The hardest labor I’ve done, once the sun came up, was to walk through the new-cleared land and have Firebrand burn out stumps. I didn’t even get to cut down the trees or strip them. People have already been doing that. And, since the sawmill is working, I don’t even have to cut notches in logs. It was good to have a break. I may not grow fatigued at night—it’s all a matter of energy levels, not fatigue poisons—but I do have a psychological need to take a little time for myself. I like to be more relaxed and low-key.

  Leisel found me out in the field, waiting to recover Firebrand from a smoking hole in the ground. She approached at a trot and reined up beside me.

  “Busy?”

  “Not now,” I admitted, while she dismounted.

  “Been busy?”

  “Yes. What’s on your mind?”

  “Lots of things, but most of them I think I have under control.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Good to hear. I wanted to know what to do with the skull of the monster.”

  “Weren’t we sending it to the Temple in Sarashda?” I inquired.

  “Yes, but we might not be able to.”

  “You’re thinking we don’t want to provoke the roadblock.”

  “In a word, yes.”

  “Hmm. You know, you could have called me on your mirror. The one you have reaches mine.”

  “I had time. Besides, I don’t like using the thing.”

  “Why not?”

  “First, it’s not a face-to-face conversation. Second, there are a lot of those blurry things hanging around.”

  “Blurry things? You mean the scrying sensors?”

  “Yes. Can they see us when we’re talking on a mirror?”

  “Sure. Unless you mean to ask if they can tap into the conversation. I’m not sure a dedicated connection like that is tappable. You’d need one or the other mirror, or to have one of them for long enough to enchant a copy.”

  “I’m still not comfortable with the things.”

  “That’s fair. How many scrying sensors are we talking about?”

  She looked up. I followed her gaze, shifting my seeing to make anything magical stand out against the clear background of sky.

  Dozens of blurry patches hovered high in the air. Most of the ones I saw were over the main village, both around the keep and above the town—and all above the height of the scrying shield. I was willing to bet there were others hovering over the mining camps. One hovered directly over both of us.

  They can’t locate me because of my cloaking spells. I don’t show up on the radar. If I walk in front of a camera, though, they can still see me. And they can certainly find Leisel.

  And here I thought I was having a nice day.

  I recovered Firebrand from the pit and whipped it through a figure-eight to remove dusty ashes. I sheathed it and bounced up onto Bronze’s back. Leisel mounted her horse and followed me back to the keep, clearly puzzled at my wordless departure. Bronze kept the pace down to her horse’s
canter, rather than blaze back on our own. We entered the scrying shield, but I still didn’t say anything. The shield redirects scrying attempts to the main communication mirror. The shield does not block sight or sound on its own. A scrying sensor sitting just outside the perimeter can simply look in.

  Once inside the central tower of the keep compound, however, we were safe from most forms of eavesdropping.

  “How many bows do we have?” I asked as we climbed the tower steps.

  “Twenty or so. Why?”

  “I want you to start a new practice drill. Make a line of four, front to back. The person in front shoots an arrow into a target, then moves to the rear of the line and prepares to shoot again. The next person shoots and does the same thing. This will move the whole line back, one person at a time. Keep it up until they’re almost out of range, then have the rear person move to the front and shoot, then stand there and prepare while the new rearmost person moves forward. That’ll move the line slowly forward.”

  “Um… yes, sir. I don’t understand why.”

  “Trust me on this. It’s a drill I want every warrior to know, and they can start now.”

  “Now? As in, right now?”

  “In a minute. I also have some mirrors for you to use.” I opened the door to my workroom and ushered her in.

  “How so?”

  “Sarcana has a vault in the estate. Presumably, it holds a fair amount of their wealth. I’m interested in how the money gets there.”

  “They carry it downstairs?” Leisel guessed. “I presume it’s underground.”

  “I believe it is. I should have said I’m more interested in where it comes from. Who brings it? Do a thousand people bring in a pocketful of coins or does a weekly contingent of guards escort a single wagon? Or something in between?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “We’re going to find out. Find some people you trust and put them all in a room. We’ll need paper and pens. Each of them is to watch the estate of House Sarcana. When someone leaves the place, one of our people will follow, using one of these mirrors. The movements of this person will be recorded. If we can’t follow them all, that’s fine, but we’ll track as many as we can.”