by Bob Blink
Thirty minutes after the planes had departed and the winds had cleared away the remaining gases, the troops that had landed earlier started their attacks. They took the river port defenders first. Once the port was theirs, landing additional troops from the sea was straightforward. Ale’ald had dedicated virtually the entirety of its remaining fleet to the task.
Then the Ale’ald soldiers moved inland. The defending army was far too small now to put up a reasonable defense. The city fell quickly. Two companies of the attackers headed directly to the regional headquarters. There they killed or captured all of the military leaders for the area. Fortunately none of them knew anything about the portal system and very little about the covert activities that Wylan had running. That important secret remained safe for the moment. The secret communications gear was destroyed at the last minute when it was clear the facility was destined to fall into enemy hands.
By the time dawn began to break, the city was owned by Ale’ald. Those civilians who had managed to sleep through the night woke to find themselves in the same condition as the civilian population of Kimlelm. They were now prisoners of war. They would be expected to do exactly as told, or they would be summarily executed. Their function would be to support the invading troops and to supply a labor force for Ale’ald. The use of prisoner labor had freed up tens of thousands of Ale’ald citizens to fight the war. A few were required to watch over the slaves, but the advantages were significant.
Word reached the central command in Carta before dawn, and as the day progressed it became clear that the country had to rethink its distribution of forces. Carta was now at risk of attack. If the enemy could hold onto Belth, which seemed likely in the near term, they could establish an airport, land troops and supplies, and have a direct weeklong march to the capital city. In addition, Ale’ald now controlled over half of the river border between Seret and Kimlelm. It was starting to look like nothing would be able to stop the enemy advance.
Chapter 139
“When do you want to make this attempt?” Vaen asked.
Jolan was surprised she would bring the matter up with Nerila present, but he trusted her implicitly, and if Vaen wanted to talk about the mission while she was here, that was her prerogative. They had discussed the mission the previous afternoon with Wylan and Kavel, and tentatively set the schedule for the next evening. The loss of Belth had been a shock. Wylan had been distressed and blamed the failure on himself, whereas the decisions that had been made had been endorsed, and in some cases insisted on by the Queen. The largest concern had been the accuracy with which the enemy had targeted their points of attack. They either had more spies running free in Seret than was previously suspected, or they had an inside source of information. None of them wanted to think about the fact that, had they taken out the warehouses filled with rafts when they’d first found them, the attack might not have been possible. Now it was imperative they take the initiative and go after the remaining supplies of the craft and as many of the planes as possible.
“No change in the schedule seems warranted,” Jolan replied. “We’ll go in after dark tomorrow. There is a portal we’ve mapped less than two miles from the woods, and Kavel’s agents have chosen where we’ll make our entry.”
“There’s no portal inside of the town?”
“There probably are, but we don’t know. That’s one of the mixed blessings about this part of Kimlelm. It must have been really popular for some reason a thousand years ago. There are so many portals, the maps don’t attempt to show them all. What maps we have don’t help very much. Nerila will tell you the maps that locate the portals reflect conditions before the War of Mages. Too much has changed. Even the terrain is often different. The old language doesn’t always help either. Names are often vague or refer to something that had meaning then, but the reference is lost to us now. The only way we can be sure where one of the portals is requires making a jump to see where we end up. That often means scouting around a bit to determine exactly where we are located. Not only does that greatly increase the risk when running around in Kimlelm, but it takes time. Time is something we haven’t got. If we wait too long, the planes might not even be there.”
“Where would they go?”
“Good question, but they had some located not too far from Belth. From what our agents tell us, that was a temporary location for the move on Belth. They really want the planes located in Seret. Since there haven’t been any flights for a couple of days, we are hoping they have been moved back there. I’m afraid that will change once Ale’ald gets its forces settled into Belth. It doesn’t look like we are ready to push them out at the moment.”
Vaen nodded then said. “You mentioned popping out and looking around. Nerila is here with something that Altz uncovered. I think it might be helpful to you.”
Nerila smiled. She looked good and, unless she was eating too well, she was a couple of months along. She and Rifod must be getting some time together.
“Remember when we found the tunnel to the Nexus it had the mini-portals that allowed you to see what was at the other end of the jump?”
Jolan had no trouble recalling the scene. At first they hadn’t been sure since the Nexus room was dark and the portal near the entrance had been dark. “Don’t tell me you’ve found something like that for all the portals?”
She smiled and nodded eagerly. “It’s a maintenance mode function. It would be difficult for the portal to display something under normal operating conditions because many destinations are possible. But if a portal is set to maintenance, and a single location is chosen, then it is possible to put the system into a viewing mode, one-way or two-way, so you can see what’s on the other side just as we did in Tilano.”
“You’ve tried this?”
“Of course. It works really well.”
“So we could set it up and actually spy on the far end through the portals. Someone on the other end wouldn’t even know the portal was active unless they knew what to look for.”
Nerila nodded.
“That could be very useful,” Jolan said, already thinking of several applications. He wanted to get into Ale’ald, and this might increases his chances considerably.
“You could use the Buris Portal,” Vaen suggested.
As they’d progressed, the suggestion had been made that having a second portal room near the College setup and ready would be very useful. When the power building was built, they blocked the view of the portal out back of the College. A bit later, another building made access a bit more difficult for the casual observer. A few other projects later and the portal was totally encapsulated in it’s own structure, and then the room had been fully outfitted to mirror the one currently in use in the Council Building. For the time being the second portal, known as the Buris Portal by those aware of what had happened, was not being used. It would be the perfect place to run such clandestine operations.
“Maybe Nerila can come over to the lab and give Buris some instruction?” Jolan asked. “I’d be there as well, but I’m going to have to meet with Kavel in a bit.”
Nerila nodded in assent, and then looked over at Vaen.
“Go ahead, show him,” she said. “He’s more likely than anyone else to know how it was done.”
His interest now piqued, Jolan watched as Nerila unwrapped a large object, roughly fifteen inches square. It looked like a painting, and he assumed it was when it was first handed to him. It only took a moment for the assumption to be proved false.
‘Where did you get this?” he asked, stunned by what he was looking at.
“It was found in Tilano, in the ruins. We have a few people poking around there. This was in one of the destroyed buildings, but it was warded separately and survived. Ronoron was able to break the warding, which was quite different than anything we’d seen before. This is what we found.”
The resolution was astounding. The detail that could be picked out of something so small was impressive. He’d seen a number of such photos before, but none o
f them were this good. They were also of Earth. This was a photo of Gaea, apparently taken from space.
“That is a picture of the Settled Lands unless I’m mistaken,” Vaen said as Jolan continued to stare at it. “How would someone a thousand or more years ago have been able to take a picture at all let alone one so detailed? And where would such a picture have been taken?”
“From near the orbit of one of your larger moons would be my guess,” Jolan said.
“That’s ridiculous,” Vaen said. “There is nothing that suggests that anyone on Gaea ever had the ability to travel into space. I’ve heard you talk about it before, but that is something that has never been within the capability of anyone here.”
“Unless this is a fake, someone did,” Jolan said with certainty. “Some things have changed, but others are the same. Look, you can even see Tilano and the lake. Here the lake is shown in its reduced size before the city was flooded.”
He was about to hand it back when something else caught his attention.
“Did you notice this?” he asked, indicating a small sliver of land showing at the far edge of the globe. Most of the picture showed the Settled Lands surrounded by thousands of miles of empty ocean, but there was something else. Just a sliver showed, but it looked like there was land far in the distance. That raised the question of what might be on the far side.
Vaen nodded. “I did. There were some stories of a land far over the horizon, but no one has ever succeeded in going there and returning. If this is real as you suggest, this might be proof that the stories are based in fact.”
“Nerila, are they still searching in Tilano? Could there be more of these somewhere?”
“We are looking, but nothing else like it has been recovered. I’ll let you know immediately if they find something.”
Chapter 140
Jolan stepped out of the portal and onto Kimlelm soil for the very first time. He’d been close a number of times, but had never made it actually into the country. It was dark, the sun having set a couple of hours ago, and the city was relatively quiet. People were still out, running errands that he couldn’t guess at, and they could see soldiers moving on the adjacent street. He’d been warned to expect a number of soldiers patrolling, as the portal was only a few blocks from one of their barracks and Ale’ald kept patrols running at all times.
There were seven of them. He and Luzoke, three of Kavel’s spy-mages, and two non-mage spies. All of the mages wore local uniforms. Jolan felt a bit odd, but the practice of wearing the enemy’s clothing when performing covert activities was as common here as it was back on Earth. Luzoke and Jolan were dressed in the classic wizard attire, while the three spy-mages were dressed as local military officers. The two non-mages were dressed simply as locals, since their tasks would require them to blend in with the local population after they dropped the others off. The uniforms wouldn’t provide any protection if they were spotted before they actually got into Belar, since the way in was not somewhere either local wizards or officers would be likely to go. But once inside, the uniforms might allow them to blend in or buy them a critical few seconds in an encounter should one occur.
The two non-mages would be their guides part way through the forest. They knew the way from previous explorations, but would be only able to take them so far. The precautions Ale’ald had set up to protect the small town would make it difficult for a non-mage to be able to enter unseen, so they would have to stay behind. Asari had been extremely upset when he was told he couldn’t go this time, but the same situation applied to him. He wasn’t a mage and therefore couldn’t use some of the power tricks they deemed necessary to get inside. Another factor, of course, was they wanted to go after wizards as well as planes. Jolan expected to find a heavy concentration of wizards in the area, and non-mages didn’t have shields to protect themselves. If they were to come along, they would have to be protected by those who could raise shields.
The mages making this trip all knew how to use the shield-pair that Jolan had discovered. The one-time secret was more widely known these days. Like knowledge of the portal, it was decided something so useful could be held so close the benefits would be lost. These men were highly trained and knew the importance of the knowledge they carried. Each had vowed to protect the knowledge from the enemy. The only way that could be done successfully, if they were captured, was to die in the process or not have the knowledge. The latter case was considered marginally less drastic, and each had learned a mind-wipe spell. The spell was one of the recovered spells from the lost times, but had been adapted to target themselves rather than an enemy. If they were to execute it, their own memories would be shredded and lost to a point no one could recover anything of use. It was hoped they might be allowed to live, being functionally retarded and no threat. If that happened and they were eventually recovered, the medical-mages back in Cobalo felt they would be able to restore the minds of the men by using a memory dump crystal each had made several weeks before. The technique had been used once before and had worked, but Jolan noticed even Vaen seemed less than positive about the approach.
Jolan knew the spell, and wished he didn’t. He was pretty sure he would not be able to execute it on himself. His mind was something far too precious to him. He’d try to go down fighting, but to shred his mind was abhorrent to him. It was one reason he shouldn’t be on this mission. Both Vaen and Buris had strong feelings against his coming. He simply knew too much and it would be a serious matter if the enemy could get into his mind. He shouldn’t really be on any of these missions.
The first attack on the ships had been a bit less dangerous, in the sense of being captured, but he could have been killed. They’d needed mages with power and range and, because of the amplifier, he had more range than anyone, so it made sense. Tishe should have never been in the war zone, but then technically she’d only been to her hometown, and no one had thought beforehand that she might go there. It was a good thing she had or the outcome would most likely have been far different.
Similarly there was the attempt to capture the airplane. He and Tishe had the most lofting ability, so it had made sense once again for them to go. This time he was the only one who knew much about flying, and he could easily find important aspects of things that would mean something that others would simply miss. They needed to destroy the planes, but they needed to gather as much intelligence as possible at the same time. Wylan had used the argument to push the idea of his going.
After this mission he’d try and stay in Cobalo more. Until the attempt was made to rescue Shyar that is. There was simply no way he was about to allow someone else to run that mission. He hoped that would be soon. He’d initially expected to have already made the attempt, but the war had been going against them the past few weeks and the situation was not conducive to a rescue. Some of the pressure was off because Tishe had convinced him that Shyar was currently fine and not at risk. In fact, Shyar appeared more and more as an asset where she was.
While he had been thinking, the group had made their way down the street, hugging the darkest parts of the road and slipping through several alleys, as they moved toward the edge of the forest. Now it was just ahead, and one of their guides motioned silently for them to follow as he slipped down the bank of a small stream that led toward the trees. It was only four feet deep, so they had to crouch as they waded the fifty yards from the last of the buildings until they were inside the first few feet of the forest.
When he could stand up and look around, Jolan realized that forest wasn’t the proper name for where they were. The trees were thick and extended for as far as he could currently see, but they were far too regular to be a natural forest. These trees had been planted by men some time in the past. They were fruit trees, he realized, and the protective barrier around Belar was simply a number of long standing orchards.
Since leaving the portal, no words had been spoken. They had said everything required before they’d left Cobalo, and now they were simply being led to the point the
five mages would make their penetration. Silently they made their way through the orchards. There weren’t supposed to be any guards at this point, but one never knew. Besides, voices would carry far on a quiet night like this. They had walked for more than a mile, when the lead agent motioned for them to gather close to him behind a mountainous sized rock. He indicated their path began just on the other side and this was as far as he and his partner would be going.
Everyone exchanged nods, indicating understanding. The two men waited while one of the Spy-mages took the lead, and led the others around the stone and deeper into the forest. They had only proceeded a short distance when they came to the energy barrier the wizards had laid down around the city on the path that ran through the middle of the groves. The two men that had left and headed back to the portal had told them that there were four penetrations to the barrier, one on each point of the compass, and each was guarded by a wizard and several patrolmen. The barrier was a serious deterrent. Without magic to create a shield, the barrier would kill. If one raised a shield for protection, the drawing of magical power would readily be detected by the wizards on guard duty. Thus, there was no way in. Except, the enemy didn’t know about the shield-pair, which would afford the needed protection without revealing their presence.
Masking their spelling, each of the team raised their shields and made ready to tackle the barrier. They each knew the new concealment spell that Jolan had learned from Oscar. As long as they remained still, they could hide in plain sight if necessary. The concealment spell was less effective if one were moving, the effect changing depending on how quickly one moved. Most wizards would be familiar with the spell, and would realize what they were seeing if they noticed the distorted blur of a moving mage under the cloaking. Commoners would be far less likely to notice or understand what was occurring.
