by Bob Blink
She took a deep breath when she realized she could faintly sense Jolan. He was in Angon. Cheurt had been wrong about that. She would have to make sure she didn’t reveal this bit of information. Not only would it be dangerous for Jolan, it could affect her own status as well. Now that she had gained a bit of ability, she wanted time to develop it and see what could be done. She was glad Jolan hadn’t been trying to rescue her. That had been her fear when she had learned he had supposedly left Cobalo. A rescue would play into Cheurt’s hands. It would most likely mean that both of them would be killed. For the many weeks she had been held captive she had suspected Cheurt kept her nearby hoping that Jolan’s disappearance meant he was making his way into Ale’ald. Now she knew it wasn’t true and was relieved.
Almost as quickly as she had found him, Jolan slipped away. He was replaced by a stronger pull to her mind, this time someone she didn’t know. It appeared to be someone quite young, yet powerful in ways that Shyar had never seen before. Why her? What connection did she have to Shyar and Jolan? She tried to bring the mind into focus and see if she could form a specific thought to send that way when one of her minders smacked the side of the shower causing the connection to flicker and die.
“Time’s up,” he said annoyed.
She had been slow today because her mind was occupied with these new experiences. Quickly she released all of the power she had been drawing, fearful he might sense the draw. Once again, the complacency of her watchers saved her.
Back in the cage, she found she was as helpless as before. Her advancement to a higher level did not help her inside the cell. It had apparently been built to control someone of her current level or higher. It didn’t matter. She now knew she would be able to take small actions each time she was let out. She would plan for what to do in anticipation of those opportunities.
She was lucky that there were so many wizards around the residence and they were so careless in their use of the power. The small draws she made when she had the opportunity went entirely unnoticed. Each time she was taken from the cage she would carefully exercise her access to the power and test her new skill. Sometimes she couldn’t sense Jolan at all, which caused her great concern. She’d worry the entire week that something had happened to him, and then, happily he’d be there in the back of her mind. Once he was gone for two weeks. The young girl was almost always there, although she had the feeling she could sense the girl more often then the girl could sense her. It made sense. If the girl was as strong as it seemed, and she had full access to the power, her ability to project was far greater than Shyar’s. One thing Shyar had been able to establish for certain. The girl knew who she was. She actively sought her, and it was frustrating to Shyar on those occasions when she could tell that the girl couldn’t sense her.
When she was outside the cage, Shyar had attempted to examine the construction. It was clear after just a little checking that it would take far more power than she could currently access to have any impact on the structure. It would require power levels that would be immediately obvious even to the complacent wizards that were watching her. It seemed that her progress would be limited to those short periods when she was allowed out.
She also discovered something else. Her control of the power and ability to sense its presence had always been located in her brain. Now that she was cut off, she found herself exploring her senses more carefully, and found she could trace the nerves in her body if she focused on them carefully. While she was trapped inside the cage, she could reach her hands through the bars and extend them perhaps a foot and a half beyond the cage walls. That was far enough for her hand to be beyond the influence of the cage. That was far enough to be able to sense the power. She found she could actually draw a small amount of power through the nerves and back to her brain. So far, the draw was small enough to be useless, but she could feel the ability gaining strength. She exercised the talent as much as possible, careful not to appear to eager or too pleased while she was doing so.
Then one day they moved her. It was totally unexpected, but it appeared that Cheurt’s star had risen and, to assume even greater control of the ruling council and control of the war effort, he was moving into the castle across the grounds. Shyar was going along. At first she expected to be moved, and her cage relocated, but when she arrived she discovered that she now had her own room, with a new and larger cage built to fill most of the interior. There was enough room between the cage and the walls that she couldn’t reach them, and servants or guards could patrol the perimeter or bring her food as required. The new cage was considerably larger and housed shower and restroom facilities inside its boundaries. That meant she could be kept inside the new cage all the time. There would be no need to take her out once a week. This looked like a major setback.
She soon learned the cage wasn’t nearly as well constructed as the previous one that had held her. In fact, this looked very much like something that had been built in an attempt to match the design of the other, but had been built by someone with far less skill and knowledge. Shyar was appalled at the workmanship. The wizard responsible had to have been no more than a six, and with very little understanding of the finesse that should be used. Well, they probably had never tried to contain a seven before. The bars were no longer a single continuous flow of metal, but were joined in places with welds. Not the best of welds at that. The door had hinges, but they were nothing like the flexible miracle hinges of the other cage. Power still flowed in the bars, and the cage cut her off from the source. The cage might have actually worked if it hadn’t been for the new tricks she had learned.
Because of the new design, she was watched even less closely than before. Also, from inside the cage she had access to a small amount of power. Shyar was more than a little familiar with metals, and welds could be weakened and broken. With a little power, it would take time, but she could gradually weaken a few key points and interrupt the flow. Then she would have access to even more of the power. That would allow her more ability. It was going to be slow going, but she expected she would be able to make a way out of the cage. Then she would see what came next. One step at a time.
Two weeks later she was able to create a small area where she had partial access to the power. That allowed her to sense the girl once more, but once again Jolan seemed to be missing. That no longer bothered her. He was obviously up to something. She went back to work. The small hole she had made in the wall allowed her to extend her new senses and she could overhear a great deal of what was said in the other room. Cheurt conducted much of his business elsewhere, but enough discussions took place in his quarters that she was getting a general idea of what was happening. No one was present now, so she went back to weakening another section of the cage. This had to be done carefully so it appeared the normal power was flowing creating the nulling field, while in fact there were areas where the field had been interrupted. She’d have a real surprise for Cheurt one of these days.
Chapter 125
At Jolan’s request Vaen had called a number of the individuals that made up their private group together to hash out details of where their efforts should be headed. It was likely to be a very long discussion, and would certainly change the way in which some of their most closely held secrets were handled. In addition to the Chancellor, Major Wylan, Ward, Dibon, Buris, Jolan, and their newest member Gene were present. Jolan had the floor, since he was the one who had requested the get together, and had a number of matters he felt they needed to resolve.
“Why would you want to change the way we operate the portals?” Ward asked. This wasn’t the first time the matter had come up. Chancellor Vaen had indicated a few weeks back that Jolan was pressing for a change. They had a powerful secret, and the current approach had served them well. He wasn’t keen to make changes.
“Because we have a powerful resource that isn’t being used effectively. Granted, the fewer people who know a secret, the better the odds it will remain secret. We could hold to our present approach and, in a
ll likelihood, the existence of the portals would remain unknown outside our group. We would also get minimum usage from them. What I propose will almost certainly result in their existence becoming known at some point. That is unfortunate and will eventually cause us to change our operations once again, but it won’t be fatal. Having the enemy aware of the existence isn’t the same as granting him access, especially if we make some of the changes I was planning to propose today.”
“We’ve already allowed a number of individuals outside our group to know of the existence of the portals,” Vaen reminded them.
“You are referring to the team Rifod and Nerila have working in Ygooro,” Dibon said. Dibon had been aware of the system from almost the beginning, but was uncomfortable that his fellow members of the Council had never been brought into the circle. Despite the fact Lonid had been an embarrassment, and might have been a security risk had he known of the system, Dibon felt the leaders of the government should know more about what they were doing. The Council of Mages was assuming more authority than it properly had in the setting of policy, and he could see some uncomfortable parallels with the way things had progressed in Ale’ald. He had been urging more disclosure to the rest of the government, while realizing there was a good reason why things had been quiet thus far.
“That’s right,” Jolan said. “And look what allowing that team to grow had accomplished. Already the effort is bearing fruit. We can only guess at what other secrets they might uncover given time.”
“Assuming we can keep them away from the histories,” Vaen noted. The team had found vast sections of the library filled with histories in the old language. Given the time, many of the questions about the times before the war might be answered. For now, they had been directed to bypass that material, and focus on items that might aid the current effort.
“The research of Rifod and Nerila have had more impact on the war than anything else to date. Their discovery of the portals, the Nexus, and now how to control them remotely is going to change the whole nature of the coming encounters with Ale’ald. The two of them have probably contributed more to the war effort than any other single person.”
‘How many people know of their discovery?” Dibon asked. “I guess I should rephrase. How many know the spells to control the portals, and how many know how the remote control is performed?”
“Thus far, the knowledge of portal activation has been restricted to those in this room, Luzoke, Ronoran, Altz, and of course, Nerila and Rifod,” Vaen said. “Major Wylan isn’t a mage, so while he is aware of the portals and their function, he doesn’t know the activation spells. Only Ward, Myself, Nerila, Rifod, and Altz know how the remote activation works.”
“Over half of the people that know the secret are spending most of their time far from Cobalo in a place where they are unprotected against discovery,” Dibon objected.
“Not so,” Ward objected. “Ygooro protects them. It has remained a secret for a thousand years, even though people knew approximately where it had been. Now, the only way into the city is via the portals. The way in that Jolan and his team found has been buried. Even if one knew the precise location, he would have to dig through a mountain of sand, and then would locate only an old tower that is filled from top to bottom with dirt. No one is going to get in without using the portals.”
“Anyone who gains access to the system could simply pop in there and capture them,” Dibon said.
“So you would have guards stationed there to protect them?” asked Wylan. “I thought you wanted to restrict usage?”
Jolan held up his hand. “That’s one advantage of the change I want to make. It minimizes the ability of anyone to misuse the portal system. Look, let me walk through it, and then we can discuss the implications.”
The others nodded. Only Chancellor Vaen, Major Wylan, and Gene knew exactly what Jolan was going to propose. The others only knew bits and pieces.
“At the moment we have only four portals open full time, having closed the oasis and the upper portal at Tilano. That isn’t many, and has been easy enough to police. We know that to use the system, more portals are going to have to be opened, and that will increase the risk of unwanted access. My first change, is to reduce the open portals to one; the one here in the Council Building.”
“What good is a single portal?” Dibon asked.
“Most of the time, the portals are idle. We would have Ward, as the Mage in Charge of the system, be responsible for remotely activating any portal where traffic is required. Take Ygooro. We could allow either Rifod or Nerila to open their portal at the start or end of each day when they take their crew through, and close it afterwards, or we could limit the task to the designated controller. For now, there should be no traffic to Tilano for a while, since we have shielded the Nexus. We even closed the outer opening to the Nexus tunnel and removed all indications that it is there at all.
If the need arises for someone to go there, Ward or his designee could activate the portal to allow travel. In the case of Seret, we travel infrequently, or have been this winter, so we could have designated times when the portal is activated for a short period each day or week, or we could rely on radio communication to request an opening when the need arises. The radio link has worked quite well since we put the new system in place.”
“What is the advantage to this?”
“The first gain is that there are no open portals that some unauthorized person could use. From the discussion I’ve had with Nerila, the remote control function can be set up so the open portals can be monitored quite easily. We would do that from the portal area on the first level. At a glance we would be able to see only this portal open. When another is activated, that would show on the monitoring system, and it should only be open for the brief period when someone is traveling. Any rogue portals that were opened would be instantly obvious, and they would not have access to anywhere but here. This process would also mean that the knowledge of controlling the system would remain controlled and restricted to the few that already have the knowledge, or who we might grant it to if we want additional operators available. ”
“That puts a great deal of responsibility on the people here,” Ward said.
“That is true, and I propose some changes for the operations. In addition to the monitoring system, I want to establish a guard system.” Jolan pulled out a large sheet of paper on which he had sketched the portal room below.
“The guards would be some of Major Wylan’s. He would choose a number he feels are reliable, and they would be specifically trained for the job. We would install a thin bubble in this corner. It would be lightly coated with vapor deposited copper, which would provide a secure location for the guard. Any wizard that got through the portal would be unable to use his magic on the man stationed behind the barrier. The guard would be armed with the shotgun I brought from Earth, the shells loaded with pellets coated with copper. If needed, he could easily shoot through the bubble and eliminate any transgressors.”
“You can see the bubble is positioned to give a clear view of anyone coming out of the portal, but a field of fire that sweeps across the front using the far wall, rather than the portal, as a backstop. Getting unannounced into the portal room here via the portal system would prove very dangerous to those with undesirable intentions. We would also install one of the video systems I brought from Earth, so Ward’s office and Buris’ lab would have continuous coverage of what was happening in the room.”
“You must have more in mind than these rather burdensome measures to protect the system that works well enough at the moment,” Dibon said.
Jolan nodded and Major Wylan responded. “All of this is to prepare for what we can do with the system. We have recently finished training our sniper teams. We now have fourteen fully trained and equipped soldiers who can be sent on missions either in pairs, or any groupings up to the full complement. These men can dependably take out a target up to six hundred yards, far greater distances than the enemy will be expecting. The
y are also trained to be low profile, hard to locate, and to elude capture.”
“When we originally planned on the teams, we were uncertain just how we would deploy them, but envisioned using the portals to move them into needed areas. The exact mechanism was still being considered. The men would be marginally useful if they were to be deployed by conventional means. It would take weeks to get them to a battle area, and by the time they arrived, the reason for their deployment could well have changed. Sending them in pairs, to multiple locations widely spread, would mean they would always have to operate that way, since it would take weeks to bring them together again. This is the way our enemy is forced to operate, since the distances involved are so great.”
“The portals free us from such restrictions. We see a need somewhere, we can open a portal in the area, and send a team through. They complete the mission, return to the portal and home, and we close it behind them. The enemy has no idea where they came from or where they went. Even better, the same team could perform one mission in an area hundreds of miles away from where they perform a second mission hours later. Instead of appearing to have a dozen snipers, we will appear to have hundreds, or perhaps thousands to the enemy, who would have to see each team as separate soldiers.”
“Whom would you target?” asked Ward.
Major Wylan glanced at Jolan. He and Jolan had talked about this while forming the teams.
