by Bob Blink
“Altz is in Seret?” asked Vaen. “How do you know about Altz?”
“He was. I hope he still is. He helped me before I came here. I had no idea what his issue was with the College until the matter came up in Ygooro.”
“I want that man,” said Vaen. “He violated the confidence of his position and stole from this institution.”
“I realize there is an outstanding matter to be resolved, but I would ask that you consider the ultimate end. I might be able to find him and get his help, but not if everyone is after him at the same time.”
“How do you hope to make any of this work?” asked Dibon. “There’s a war on, and the distances between these places is immense. Winter is coming, and you have people in very remote locations.”
“That’s the part I was getting to. Nerila learned something else while we were in Ygooro. She learned how to activate the portals.”
He could see they didn’t understand. He’d become used to knowing what the structures were for, but they had been around them all their lives and had never seen one work.
“You know the large stone structures that are scattered around the countryside? There is one here at the College.”
“Two,” said Ward interrupting. “We have one downstairs. A section of the building is build around it.”
That was good news, thought Jolan.
“They are travel portals,” he said, continuing. “Once activated they allow nearly instantaneous travel between locations.”
“Nerila learned how to activate these portals? And you know they work?”
“We had two of them activated in the desert. One of them is underground next to the library, the other a few days ride away in a nice oasis where we stayed. We used them every day to travel between the oasis and where we were searching for clues.”
Jolan reached into his sack and pulled out the small Mage’s Box. He opened it and pulled out Asari’s book with the maps.
“This is something Asari’s father found a few years ago. He couldn’t open it, but Ronoran could. We didn’t think it was important until we were able to activate the portals and understood what they did. There are thousands of them throughout the Settled Lands. They all probably still work. We can use them to move people from place to place without the long delays. But there are reasons to keep this secret.”
“There are some in Ale’ald,” observed Ward.
“They are everywhere, which is good and bad. We have to be careful and only activate selected portals for our use. If we can keep the secret from Ale’ald, they will be at a serious disadvantage.”
“You can demonstrate this?” asked Vaen, the awe clear in her voice. “This really works?”
“You said you have one in the building. I suggest we activate that and see. I’ve only traveled between two that are close together, but I’m certain that won’t matter. That’s one reason I sent people to the other locations. They are supposed to open up paths to those locations. They may have already done so.”
While he was talking, Ward had been paging through the book. He reached the end and studied it carefully.
“This seems to cover the whole of the Settled Lands, and yet there are pages missing. Do you know why that is?”
Jolan shook his head. “That is something I have been wondering about since I realized something was missing. What could those missing pages have been showing?”
Shortly thereafter, Jolan stood in front of one of the portals. He hadn’t known this one even existed, although he’d been in the Council Building dozens of times. He walked over to the front, and executed the activation spell. He had told them it could be done via the crystals, but this was easier. He could see how the light changed subtly as the portal came on line.
He walked up into the glow, and watched as two destinations came up in the air in front of him. He recognized both of them, since he’d used them both for many days. No new ones had been added. He felt a bit of disappointment, but he’d always known he would most likely reach his destination before the others. He’d just have to be patient. He turned and walked back out to the group.
“I’m going to give it a try. I’ll be right back.”
Once again he walked into the opening and selected the oasis. As expected, it worked just like before, and he walked out into the bright sunshine, hundreds of miles away from Cobalo. He knew that Nerila and Rifod would still be at the library, so he turned and walked back to the portal, returning to where the three mages waited expectantly for him.
“Works fine,” he said as he emerged. “Who’s going with me this time?”
Chapter 97
Jolan smiled as he watched Rifod and Nerila come forward hesitantly once they realized who was sitting with him. It had to be a bit of a shock, since the last they had known, Chancellor Vaen had been in a coma. Even when healthy no one at the College had ever known her to travel outside of the city. The choice of who was to travel through the portal with him had been settled by Vaen herself, who demanded the right and as the Chancellor there wasn’t anyone who could out vote her. She decided the others could wait for another time, partially so that everyone wasn’t away from Cobalo at the same time and partially because she wanted a chance to talk with Jolan alone.
“Come on over,” said Jolan, encouraging his two friends who still seemed a bit uncertain how to react. He reached into the Mage’s Box and pulled out a couple of glasses and then a bottle of cool white wine. “We’re celebrating.”
“Chancellor,” said Nerila as they approached. “It’s good to see you. I just didn’t expect. . .”
Chancellor Vaen smiled and patted the stone next to her. Jolan handed her a glass of wine, and then one to Rifod who took a seat as well.
“What are we celebrating?” asked Rifod.
“The official opening of the trans-Angon travelways,” said Jolan with a smile. “As you might have concluded, we are from Cobalo. The portal there works just like these two, which answers our questions about the system.”
“We only saw the one additional option displayed when we left the library, so I assume the others haven’t reached their destinations yet.”
“That appears to be the case. We will just have to be patient. I’m hoping they are within a day or two of opening the portal in Seret and up by the lake. I’ll admit to being a bit anxious about Asari and Luzoke since they had a dangerous path to take to get where they were headed.”
“Jolan has been telling me about the impressive work you two have done for him. I must say, I’m also impressed by the nice surroundings you have while away from home. It’s been a very long time, but I seem to recall roughing it a bit more when I was engaged in similar pursuits. Have you two uncovered any more secrets while Jolan has been traveling?”
“We have learned a bit more about the portals,” Rifod explained. “As Jolan expected, there is a means of turning on the entire system, something we probably want to keep under wraps for now. There is also a means to force open a portal, so a group can pass without everyone having to make a destination selection individually as we do now. There also have been hints that there is a way to remotely turn on or off a portal, but we haven’t located any specifics. That would be incredibly useful, but it doesn’t seem to be in the materials we’ve sorted through yet.”
“Unfortunately we’ve found nothing about. . .” Nerila let the sentence drop and looked at Chancellor Vaen. It was obvious that she wasn’t certain how open Jolan had been with her.
“About Tilano,” Jolan finished for her. “Chancellor Vaen knows all about our search for the city. So we are still in the dark about just where and how the city is hidden. Somehow I didn’t think it would be as easy as we’d like.”
“We found another library,” said Rifod who’d wanted to tell Jolan immediately, but wasn’t sure if he should say anything in from of the Chancellor.
Both Vaen and Jolan looked at him sharply on hearing this.
“Another library,” said Jolan. “Where?”
“We
found another walkway. This one went under the whole city and survived. There are other buildings that are like the ones we’ve seen, some heavily damaged, others only partially so. About a half mile out in the desert there’s a huge library that has mostly survived. We just found it the other day so we’ve barely had a chance to start investigating what is there.”
Chancellor Vaen nodded to herself as if something had been confirmed. “The records claimed that Ygooro had the largest gathering of books and scrolls in the known world. It was one of the reasons it was so often sought. I was a bit surprised when Jolan indicated you had uncovered a rather small library.”
“There are more books there than I’ve ever seen,” said Nerila. “Far more books than in the whole of the library in Cobalo.”
“We have more books in Cobalo than you might realize,” said Vaen.
Nerila shook her head in disagreement. “There are more books on one floor of this library than in the College’s main library and the storage area below combined.” Then she realized what she had said and flushed.
Vaen looked at her and then Jolan. “I might have guessed,” she said. “Was there anything useful in the closed book rooms?”
“That’s where we found the map to this place,” admitted Jolan.
“How did you get it out of there undetected? There are supposed to be wards against removal.”
“It’s still there. We took pictures and made a copy.”
Vaen just shook her head. “Can you show me this new find. I am anxious to see just what you have uncovered.”
“It’ll be a bit of a walk,” warned Rifod. “The portal isn’t located nearby, although if we look we might be able to find one closer. There were supposed to be several in the city.”
“I see you have picked up a staff along the way. Do you know what yours does?”
“I think it’s just a walking staff,” said Rifod. “I’ve no indication it can do anything else.”
Vaen looked at the staff as they walked. “I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” she said and then dropped the subject. She remembered something about a staff that looked like Rifod’s, but it had been a long time ago. Maybe it would come to her later.
* * * *
“This is incredible,” said Vaen after they’d walked briefly through the four lower levels of the new library. “The glow bulbs are far better than I’ve ever seen. Were these active for the whole time this has been buried?”
“We activated them when we found the books. They work the same as the ones at home, but give a brighter and cleaner light.”
Chancellor Vaen looked at the huge expanse of books. “The task of moving these to Cobalo would take years, and we have no place to put them. A whole new building would need to be erected just to house this many books. It might be best to leave them here for now, and have a small team start examining them in place. I worry though, about how secure the place is.”
“It remained hidden for almost a thousand years,” said Jolan. “We covered the entrance we found with sand, so it now just looks like another small hill in the desert. The only way in is via the portals, and we have the only access at the moment.”
“We want the portals to remain as much a secret as possible. That will limit who could work here since they’d have to know that secret as well.” She turned and looked at Nerila and Rifod. “If you two are willing, I’d like you to be responsible for this site, but work out of Cobalo so we can stay in contact. You could live back at the College, and just use the portal to come here each day. We will have to consider carefully anyone we might be able to assign to help you. This is happening so fast I haven’t had time to consider the implications.”
“What about the oasis portal?” asked Rifod. “Do we want to leave it here open and unattended?”
“I’d feel better if it were closed, although we’d probably be aware if anyone found it and started using it. How could we shut it down?”
“Either someone has to shut it down locally, and then make the long trip back by horseback, or we could shut down the whole system, and then restart each of the portals we want to use all over again.”
Both Jolan and Vaen shook their heads at the idea of shutting down the network, even temporarily. “Just because it shouldn’t matter if we shutdown and then reinitialize the system, doesn’t mean it will work that way. We know too little at this point to take such a drastic step. There may be a catch of some kind and we wouldn’t be able to get the system up and running. If we want to shut down the oasis, I think we need to do so locally. For now, I suspect it is safe enough. It’s probably safe enough as is through the winter months. By next spring when people can start traveling again, we might know a lot more, and in the worst case we can give someone the job of shutting it down. I suspect by that time we are going to have a team tasked with opening and closing sites across the Settled Lands.”
Chapter 98
“We need to consider this new development carefully,” said Major Wylan, who had been brought into the small circle of people to know about the transportation portals. “Their potential is staggering, and the idea of quickly relocating troops has a lot of appeal, but I fear that would be a very short term advantage. If that many people become aware what these things can do, the secret will get out. That will mean our enemy will avoid places where they are located, and will actively be seeking the secret of how to initialize them. Once initialized, anyone can use them you say?”
“That’s correct,” answered Jolan. “When the system was built, it was clearly intended to be a rapid and simple system for everyone’s use.”
“How many people know how to activate them?”
“At the moment my original team of six all know, and of course Chancellor Vaen, Dibon, and Ward. They can also be activated by the crystals and if anyone was to get their hands on a charged crystal, they could learn the means from that.”
“My suggestion is we keep it to that small group, and we don’t allow any of the crystals to be activated with the information. Any that exist should be gathered in and cleared. It would be too easy for one to go missing. Winter is less than two months away, and no major advances in the war are going to take place until next spring. Ale’ald will surely take the rest of Kimlelm, but nothing we can do would prevent that, even with this new advantage. That will give us months to consider the best use, and we can be ready to move forward after the melt. I have a couple of ideas, but haven’t thought them through. This comes as a major surprise. Something this incredible and beyond understanding is going to take getting used to.”
“There are soon to be a couple of others who will know about the portals,” said Jolan. “They aren’t mages, so they will not have any idea of how to activate them. I’d also like to add one more person to our select group.”
“I have another name for the list as well,” said Vaen. “The Queen will have to be told.” She noted how uncomfortable this made Jolan. “She has grown, Jolan. She has learned how to handle the power that was dumped upon her, and she is already becoming a good leader. We cannot keep this from her. I will be responsible for making her understand the importance of keeping the matter held close.”
“Who else did you want to bring into the circle?” asked Dibon.
“Buris,” said Jolan. “He is beyond reproach, and a man with many ideas. Of everyone I know, he is most likely to understand and think of ways to use the system.”
“You said there were others?” inquired Ward.
Jolan nodded. “In Seret. I sent Ronoran to activate a portal there. I need to be able to travel to Seret and back quickly, and a portal is necessary. It is on the private property of Lord Yeren. My friend Tomas will be aware of what it can do, and I trust his discretion, especially after I have a talk with him. I suspect a merchant, also a long time friend, will be there and understand what we have. It might have been better if he didn’t know, but I suspect that bridge has been crossed. I want to bring him into the fold, and by doing so I am certain he will not be a risk eit
her.”
“The number of people grows alarmingly,” observed Wylan. “A secret is hard to keep with such numbers.”
“There are two secrets,” said Chancellor Vaen. “We must strive to keep both. First is the existence of the portals and what they can do. If that secret were to become known, it would not only be destructive to our plans, it would give our enemy access to the system. The second secret, which is the manner in which the portals are activated simply must not fall into their hands. I agree with Major Wylan that we must not allow the crystals to exist except in extraordinary conditions.”
“How different are the activation and deactivation spells?” asked Ward.
“There are a few common items since they both deal with the portal, but the spells are surprisingly different.”
“A clever wizard wouldn’t be able to deduce one from the other?”
“I’m certain that is the case. Maybe it would have been possible in the past, when the symbolic language was very well understood, but not now. Why?”
“I’m just thinking ahead. It may be we will want to have portals activated in the contested area. It would take time to send a mage there, and leaving him in a place where he might be captured and forced to reveal the activation spell would not be wise. However, once activated, if we could assign a person with no knowledge of how it works to have a deactivation crystal to shut down the portal in the event the enemy was approaching, it might have advantages. Even if the crystal were compromised, it wouldn’t give the enemy any access.”
“I think that might be a wise approach, but again, it needs a lot more thought,” added Wylan.
“The only crystal outstanding at the moment is the one in Seret?” asked Dibon.
Jolan nodded. “I probably shouldn’t have sent that one, but Ronoran isn’t that strong with the power and I wanted to be sure. Once the portal is open we can retrieve it.”
