Wizard's Blood [Part Two]

by Bob Blink

  Jolan hadn’t excelled at the pistol course, and had left with a rating of “almost safe out in public” rather than “top gunslinger”, but once again he had learned a great deal. He had learned about proper holds and sighting, and how to place his shots in proper two-shot groups. The concept of firing in the approximate direction was driven out of him. He could still hear the instructor repeating his favorite line, “You can’t miss fast enough to win a gunfight.” His group size had improved and, given what he had learned, he simply needed lots of practice to become a reasonable shot. Asari would benefit greatly from the downloaded information, and Jolan had made sure they had a couple of spare crystals in case he wanted to pass the information to others. The small pistol that Gene had given him performed better than he’d expected, and was now safely stashed with Vaen along with his other treasures. He had decided to ask Janie to try and buy a couple of the full sized CDP’s to pass along to Samm for his team leaders, another request that had almost slipped away.

  The downloads of Oscar’s materials he would allow to settle while he scanned through the material to see what he had learned. The next trip he would transfer select material into crystals so Vaen could distribute it appropriately, and then he hoped his transfer activities would be completed.

  After his return to Earth from that quick trip, Randy had settled into the garage workshop and carefully taken the small amulet apart. It was snowing outside as he worked in the small shop, another thing that was going to make getting things done harder. Winter was going to be setting in hard pretty soon. It was good they were about finished here. He wanted to see what he could do with the damaged amplifier and scratch the itch in his mind the device caused. Then he needed to get serious about what he was going to do about Ryltas.

  It took a jeweler’s screwdriver to fit the small slots he carefully cut in the screws that held the sections together. Randy assumed Oscar must have used magic to tighten the screws originally, since there was nothing he could see to grab onto, yet each of the screws was secure and flush with the surface. Trying to be as careful as possible, it took him longer than seemed reasonable, but finally he had the screws removed, and carefully pried the two sections apart. As he’d seen under the magnifier, the two parts were unequal in thickness, one acting more like a cover on top of a thicker base.

  The hexagonal exterior was mirrored by the internal layout. It looked very much like some of the microstrip circuits he had seen back at the lab when he was a graduate student. The central “button” which was the part Oscar said he found, had six radial channels fanning out to a hexagonal channel halfway from the center of the device. The channels extended through the outer hexagonal channel and continued to the outer perimeter of the device, where they ended in solid silver plugs that Randy had been able to observe before opening the device. Extending a bit out from the outer channel midway along the straight sections, were six short channels which appeared to have a small block positioned partway down the length. Three of these shorter channels were badly burned, and the silver coating that covered the inside of the channel had been vaporized showing the bare ceramic underneath.

  The channel itself was very oddly shaped. It had six sides, but with an assortment of shapes. The removed cover had made the sixth side, and was one of two flat surfaces, the other being directly opposite. Two of the opposing surfaces were domed shaped, and the remaining pair was an oval on one side and a peaked triangle on the other. Randy had never seen anything like it. If it was some kind of amplifier, he could see no active devices, and there was no obvious input or output.

  While the physicist in him raged at not understanding the principle behind the device, his more practical engineering side only cared that he make it work. After all, whatever had caused it to burn could easily have damaged the central component. Randy could see nothing that indicated damage, and no way to open it. Fearing that fooling around with the small metallic looking button might damage a non replaceable part, he decided to see what he could do about repairing the device to see if the amplifier could be salvaged. It didn’t take long to see that the ceramic base had been cracked around the burned areas and would need to be completely replaced.

  From Oscar’s notes and his own experience with the microcircuits, this was not a task for knives and files. This would need to be precision formed. It took him two days, and a couple of trips to a precision tool shop, to get the necessary measuring tools and carefully create a drawing of the dimensions of the device. Not knowing what might be critical, he wanted an exact duplicate of the original. That done, he removed the core, and placed it in a secure padded drawer in his tool box.

  Next came the matter of getting a replacement made. There were firms that could do the job here, but it would be expensive, time consuming, and would probably generate a million questions he didn’t want to answer. Originally it had been made on Gaea, using magic to remove the material to form the channels. He was certain Buris would have someone who could do the job, and they would probably have better luck finding an exact match for the base ceramic material. That meant another trip to Gaea.

  He had to wait a full day for the replacement to be made, and then hurried back to Earth to try and reassemble the device. Before doing so he carefully repeated his measurements to be sure an accurate copy had been made, and was pleased with the quality of workmanship. He thought even Shyar would have approved. Carefully he slipped the core into place, aligning the six small holes to the six radial channels. Then he carefully reattached the lid, this time using new screws he’d had Buris create with slots to make assembly and disassembly easier.

  Randy looked at the device. The last time it had been activated, something he now knew how to do, it had burned up. It had worked on Gaea. Shaking his head, he walked out in the cold and made the jump to Gaea, stepping out into the Nexus chamber. This should be far enough, he thought, and attempted to draw power through the device. He didn’t try to draw much, but could sense it was working, which suggested the core was intact. When he tried to draw more power, he was disappointed to find he really couldn’t get much of a boost. Nothing like the gain Oscar’s notes had led him to expect.

  Tuning, he thought. The stubs were for tuning, and simple mechanical duplication wasn’t going to result in a properly tuned device. The immediate question was what did he measure to look for proper tuning? He could simply play with the positions of the stubs and see what happened, but suspected that would be a long trial and error effort, with no guarantee of success. He had learned that he could regulate the draw on the device, and decided to go home and carefully see what a small draw would do there. Oscar had apparently attempted a significant draw when he activated the device and burned it out.

  Back on Earth once again, Randy held the device and pondered the wisdom of his intended action. He’d rebuilt it once. The second time should go quicker, he reasoned. Carefully, he tried to draw the smallest amount of power. He could sense the device working, but other than a slight warmth in his hand, could sense no power gain.

  Gene had a small lab, and after a few purchases to augment the equipment he had, Randy was able to set up a spectrum analyzer and several other instruments. Since the interior of the device looked like waveguide, he wanted to see if he could see anything that resembled electro-magnetic waves. He and Gene fiddled for the entire day, and finally found the smallest indication of something at a frequency he wouldn’t have expected. A repeat measurement in another of the channels showed something present at the frequency as well. Throwing caution to the wind, Randy broke one of the stubs free, and jury-rigged a means of precisely moving the stub. It took time to get back to the starting point, but eventually he was able to see that a small movement changed the tuning. The signal dropped off sharply, and just about the time he was about to start moving back, he suddenly found the level coming back up. He continued moving the plug the same direction, and found a significant improvement in the signal.

  The next day they repeated the process for the fiv
e other channels. Soon he had all of the channels aligned to the peak he had found. Carefully closing the device, Randy held his breath and tried to draw power. He was rewarded with a marked increase in flow, and easily picked up a wrench on the table and moved it across to the toolbox. He grinned at Gene, who had never seen him this strong before.

  “It works,” Gene said in awe.

  “Seems to,” Randy agreed. “I’d like to see how much I can draw, but I think we need to go slowly. So far it doesn’t seem to be warm.”

  “Why does it work for you, and didn’t for Oscar?” Gene asked.

  A good question. “I’m going to try something,” Randy said. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

  Randy headed home, and made the jump to Gaea. Forewarned, and being cautious, he tried to draw power through the device. Very quickly he could feel it getting hot, and he halted the attempt.

  “Dragons!” he cursed. “It has to be tuned differently here than on Earth. Wondering why that could be, he recalled some of the oddities he had seen in some of the books back in the library in Ygooro, and wondered if there could be something subtle but fundamentally different in Gaea’s universe. Whatever the reason, if he was correct, he would have to bring the test equipment for tuning to Buris’ lab.

  Back on Earth, Randy and Gene bought duplicates of the critical items, and Randy made yet another trip. After setting up, he repeated the measurements and found that, as he had expected, the tuning blocks had to be positioned differently for the device to work properly on Gaea. He could have it properly aligned for one place. He could set it up and change it if needed once he knew where it would be, but that seemed clumsy. Back on Earth, he talked with Gene about the problem. Gene suggested they could install a small battery, a couple of active devices and a switch, then they should be able to set it up for both locations, with the switch controlling the tuning. The dead battery default would be for Gaea.

  While they were laying out a new design to have Buris’ man make for them, Gene expressed the belief that they might be able to put in small amplifiers that might boost the output. The frequencies were common enough, and micro-amps were readily available. With the battery in place, they already would have the power. Randy was initially reluctant, but eventually gave in and they added the location for an amplifier in each of the six radial lines from the core. Designs complete, one with the amplifier and one without, Randy headed back to Gaea to see what Buris could do about getting them made.

  While he was on Gaea and waiting, Jolan took care of several matters that had come up, and spent a bit of time with Asari. He had the knowledge transfer from this pistol course, and had been practicing, amazed at what he could now do. He wanted more ammunition. Randy was glad to learn they were still taking care to harvest the copper from the sand berms, if for no other reason than to keep it out of the hands of Ale’ald.

  He also had another long meeting with Vaen after making crystals with the language information he had received from Oscar. He had too much on his plate, and it was necessary for them to consider a change in the way things were being done.

  “Now you want to open up our system. I thought you were concerned if too many people knew about it?”

  “I was, and I am, but we are penalizing ourselves because of our caution. There are too many things that aren’t getting done because we are relying on a handful of people to try and do everything. Eventually more people are going to have to know anyway. The assault teams Wylan is forming are only going to be effective if they can use the portals. That means men who are at the greatest risk of capture, are going to be aware of the system.”

  “So how would you suggest we approach this?”

  “I can see three levels of awareness. First, will be those people who know the portals exist and are taken through them. At some point, we can expect that knowledge to be compromised. I can see the need for a great many people to travel. Second level would be how to use the portals. We can take people through without their knowing how it is done.”

  “That’s a pretty simple thing. My experience says they are designed to be easy to use.”

  “We have a bit of an advantage in that people can’t read the destinations. We have built up a matrix. We can at least keep that secret. Someone might hesitate if he didn’t know where he would be popping out.”

  “And the third level?”

  “Only a handful know how to activate the portals. We need to keep that knowledge, especially the idea of the activator crystals, closely held. We don’t want someone else able to open up a portal. Any open portal appears to be able to access any other. That could prove a real issue.”

  “Assuming we all agree to operating this way, how do you see it helping us?”

  “To start with, we need to carefully select people, and impress on them the importance of secrecy about what they learn. We now have an understanding of the old language, at least to some limited degree. Already I can read some of the symbols when I go through the portal whereas before they were just a bunch of scribbles. I have no idea how the words might be pronounced, but I know what many mean. I think we need a major research project started. Select fifty people and vet them. Then give them the old language and send them to work for Nerila and Rifod. They can be escorted through the portal rather than making their own way each day. That will expose the existence of the library and the portals, but they won’t know how to use the portals themselves, and they won’t have a clue where the library is. Of course, they might stumble onto the knowledge, but I think it’s worth the risk.”

  “You also believe there is something to be found there that can help us?” Vaen said, indicating she also believed they needed more effort there.

  “Absolutely. But no progress can be made because of the limited resources. Give Nerila and Rifod a real chance and I’ll bet we’ll be amazed. Half of the progress we’ve made has been because of their efforts.”

  “What else?” she asked, knowing Jolan had more on his mind.

  “The mages’ language. I suspect there is a wealth of potential there. I have seen what understanding a few of the symbols can do. If I had time, I’ll bet I could unravel a lot of the existing spells and come up with ways to either modify them or develop new ones that would be useful. We need a team that can start on that. Altz might be the one to lead such an effort. He told me once how he desperately wanted to understand and be able to create.”

  “I’ll have to think about Altz. He has the right abilities, I’m just not sure if I want him leading something so important. He has a lot to make up for. Have you thought any further?”

  “Not near enough, but we need to get some of Wylan’s experts in the loop. They need to study the maps and where the portals exist. If we can use the portals to support the teams, we will be far more effective. Hopefully we will find a way to remotely control them. To fight effectively, they will have to know what options are open to them. Buris, of course, is overloaded as well. He needs some trainees who can become familiar with the systems he is trying to keep going.”

  “How about yourself? Did you learn anything else from Oscar that will be helpful?”

  “I picked up a number of new spells. Some of what he had saved I either learned or picked up from Cheurt. He also had a means of holding onto spells he couldn’t use that I need to understand. Now, if one is unable to use a spell, it isn’t captured in memory. Oscar had a way of holding onto spells that even he couldn’t use.”

  ‘Did you pick up any that are useful?”

  “Several interesting ones but I need to think about them a bit. One of them is restricted to a level nine, but you might find it interesting. It is a rejuvenation spell, which might be a cousin to the spell used to extend your lifetime. I also picked up a reflection spell, which seems to be capable of reflecting back an attacker’s spells to the source, even if it originated from a stronger mage or wizard. One he called shieldlock supposedly has the ability to lock an existing mage’s protection shields so they can’t be drop
ped, essentially imprisoning the man inside. I’m not sure how that would be used. There is also something he thought of as a travel-box, somewhat akin to the Mage’s Box. He didn’t seem to know of the Mage’s Box, and I haven’t experimented to figure out what this new one can do.”

  “That’s quite a collection.”

  “There’s more, including a levitation spell, but it also requires a high level; an eight in this case. One that intrigues me is a spell that creates a temporary ‘no-magic-zone’ where the power is ineffective. Oscar had the spell but from the information he saved, he had never tried it. He also had a spell that supposedly could temporarily boost a mage’s level. There is a level seven spell that is a significant improvement over the standard cloaking spell, which works in the brightest light and completely hides the user so long as he stays still. I know that Oscar used that one before. Some of these spells Oscar captured, but didn’t have much information on, which makes me think he hadn’t experimented with them. I’m concerned there might be consequences to some of these that aren’t anticipated or desirable. They should be approached with caution and I certainly haven’t put any time into thinking about them.”

  “You have been preoccupied with that amplifier. How is that going?”

  “It definitely works,” Jolan explained. “I am having Buris make up a couple more designs. There are some things I want to try.”

  “Have you decided what to do about Ryltas. He will be due to make another trip soon. I would rather he didn’t have the opportunity. And don’t forget, spring approaches.”

  “With the amplifier, I have the ability of a level two, perhaps a level three on Earth. Unlike the power crystals, it won’t run dry, so I have a decided advantage over Ryltas. I am thinking I’ll try and capture him, but it would be nice to have some support. I don’t think it would be right to ask my friend Gene, so I might have Luzoke come along. Give me another week to plan.”