by Angel Bright
The terrain’s surface was dry and rocky. There were no energy sources.
I felt tightness around my body; the air was turning into glass or ice.
I could not find a connection with energy points around the mage opposite me. He probably stood on a united energy source and had sucked out the available energy.
I stretched my arms forward with fingers spread and began to emit my destructive green lightning. It sprang into a spiral and entered in the braided energy strings of the rings. Was it true that large energies were controlled by low-power energies?
The air grew colder and began to harden, but the fire rings continued to descend from the sky, which began to turn white. But the rings reached only a certain height above my hill and collapsed in colorful, sparkling jets. I lifted my arms a bit, and my green spirals began to meet the fire rings higher and higher.
I felt a warm breeze when the last two rings melted under the white sky.
My magical opponent lifted his club with his right hand over his head and began to raise and lower it as if he were stabbing a stake in the rocks beneath him.
The soil and stones under my feet shifted and began to collapse down the slope. I was panicking, looking to escape with swift jumps on the big rocks, which sank more slowly and became a more unreliable support for my feet. I saw that the slope not only was crumbling down toward the gully but also was sinking into an earth cavity, where chasm rocks were crumbling. And the magical creature would not stop moving his club up and down.
My energy hopes were also crumbling. My strength was diminishing. The neighboring mountain stood unshaken, and in my head persisted the strong desire to step there into the safe place next to the great tree.
I stopped sinking.
Branches were stretching over my head, and I sensed the warmth and smell of greenery. I turned back and saw the ground boiling, with huge blocks of stone rolling into it. The high mountain where I had been standing moments ago was now an area of indescribable boiling chaos.
The white sky began to tear apart and bubble. Under these spherical clouds, green and silver strips twisted in spirals, and their edges slid past the forested massif.
This was a new magical threat I had no idea how to oppose.
I imagined the bare ridge of this hill with the magical club-wielding creature and the accumulation of energies incompatible with the capacity of a living being.
I was seething with hatred and wanted with to get to him.
I got there, very close to him. His club was rhythmically rising and descending. But fear appeared in his eyes, as well as surprise. His lips moved in a silent scream, and the club in his hand changed, taking the form of Neptune’s trident. A golden protective shield shone between us and pushed me down the slope. He did not have the time or the space to take down and aim the trident at me because I activated my emergency series of illusions and real energy-cutting bundles. Three glowing fire jets rose toward the white sky and collided with the silver strips. In the places of contact, a silvery ball appeared between them, which took the form of a whirlwind. The whirlwind aimed down to the mountains on the spiral formed by the silver strips. The energy taken away from the planet was returning like an avalanche, and the energy lash could have burned us to a crisp. My connection with energy sources had not yet been restored.
The magician stumbled back and thrust a fiery-red wave at me. Seeing his stagger, I realized I had injured him. I was too close to avoid damage from the raging fire and managed only to activate my protective energy shield. The fiery-red wave threw me over a rocky ridge, where I hunkered down. In the next moment, the celestial vortex reached the surface of the planet, and the dusty smoke of the backlash burst out from gullies and valleys. The shockwave threw me up into a steep trajectory, accompanied by mad spinning and swinging. Again, I resorted to my only salvation. I pictured the daily peaceful hall in Hasterazis’s Palace and wished to be there.
The place where I found myself under the stylized pattern of the overhanging ceiling was not calm, either. The rays of the eight-ray star had acquired a dark-red color, and green sparkling flashes raced forward and backward over them and would momentarily merge into a green circle along the star’s edge and then spread. A loud rumbling was followed by the floor shaking beneath my feet. There was nobody around. I stood in my muddy suit, clutching the blaster in my hand.
The camouflage device on my shoulders remained switched off.
I spent the whole night with my notes, analyzing what had happened and being confused by the power of the magical attack that had almost destroyed me. I was reworking projects for emergency energy combinations for protection and for defeating one or more powerful magical creatures. In my defenses, I incorporated my new ability to instantly move from one place to another: teleportation.
What was I turning into?
Until recently, I had been attracted to science and inventions and wanted to achieve development and improvement there. I had felt the sweetness of success in a particular scientific field, and I did not intend to give up. The daily routine in these muddy ranges was only a waste of precious time and a possibility to be killed or crippled irreparably, which was in conflict with my goals—namely, large, brightly lit or darkened labs with dedicated computer workstations and terminals for process management, data collection, data processing, and analysis. There was my forte, and that was what I was I striving for. This world of spells and of magicians stalking each other all the time did not attract me despite the sense of power and supremacy, thanks to the mastered power.
The scientific approach I had not given up on and with which I analyzed the magical art taught me the ability to skillfully counter everything the creators of the training ranges could think of. More often, I found repetitive behaviors, attacks, and obstacles.
From my instructors with whom I had contacts and from whom I expected praise and friendship, I sensed only a growing alienation, suspicion, and fear. Even Ziggy, who had been a little more sociable and showed some kind of sympathy every time he took me out of the recovery room, stepped back and tried to spend as little time as possible in my presence. His magical abilities taught me how to understand the language spoken by my relatives, instructors, and other service staff. But it turned out later that becoming friends with me was a task given to him by my father and later also revoked by him.
One day, I decided I could learn nothing from these continual merciless drills, and I declared this to the morning instructor.
“I am stopping with these mindless workouts. I’m better than all of you, and many of the elements have started to repeat. I have more important intentions and do not intend to fight anyone. If you force me to continue, I will destroy the range, and you will be nailed.”
The instructor looked at me in amazement.
“Have you not noticed that these have not been field workouts but real conflicts in real conditions? And you’re still at the beginning of the training process. What have you learned so far? Only multilateral energy absorption and increased impact power of radiance—and extremely inefficient at that! We can show you a more rational application, but there’s no way we can limit your energy lashes, and this would lead to someone’s mutilation in order for you to believe us. But that would be the height of stupidity. I would list what else you need to learn to understand where you are. We need to teach you to create imaginary fights with one and more opponents and to prepare pre-tactics and strategy of defense and attack. In advance, do you understand? So far, we have seen from your improvisations at the moment, rapid reflexes, destructive strikes, and panic escape. Many times, we have had to interfere so that you would not die because you are young and untrained. Until now, you have not used the art of blending with the environment, camouflage transforming of the terrain, preparing surprises and obstacles for your pursuers, preparing traps and lures for attackers, or capturing and interrogating alive and dangerous witnesses or informants. We’ve never checked during the day or nighttime whether you carry any auxiliary e
quipment with you. Most of your assailants you could overcome without killing them. Until now, they were just animals. Instructors are able to protect themselves. You could avoid challenging them, but to do this, you had to watch the area and find them in advance. You prefer to pass like an elephant, like a battering ram, as if speed records are the most important thing. No one needs that. Your magic skills should be used rarely because they reveal your presence and attract much more dangerous opponents whom you cannot be sure you will overcome! You underestimate many of the magical movements, spells, and mantras, but they are always used in combinations, and you cannot reflect a whole complex of them with merely a quick improvisation and even fewer with a quick reflex. The protective magical shields are not universal, and you must have prepared knacks for quick release from magical blockades and simultaneous attacks with a complex of similar blockages of breathing, musculature, thought activity, and whatever else you might think of. Whatever attack you come up with can also be used against you. Your advantage will be that you have found the solution and prepared yourself in advance. The art is infinite, and your initial judgment of a supposed range of training, range, and arsenal of weapons is crucial in many cases. The two attacking magicians were misled by your childish appearance, and you destroyed them by surprising them. The last time, you got very lucky. Make the necessary conclusions, be prepared, and do not make such mistakes!”
I stood petrified and tried to remember this whole revelation. Even the instructors had not understood the level of my combat training and what I was using against them. And I never used many of my most dangerous and powerful combinations against my instructors and their brigades. I didn’t want to kill anybody.
But now I had also heard invaluable tips and even greater opportunities for creativity. It was as if a dam had broken in my head, and the invasion of streams washed away the routine layers and made clear notions of development even in this area of battles, attacks, and defenses.
To impose your methodology on the actions of the enemy and to dictate your rules of combat—this was the key to success.
The sun scattered the fog in which I had been lost for some indefinite period. That was the end of my behavior as a student expecting permission or approval.
That day, I crossed the range in record time. And despite the fatigue, I sat down and studied the notes and diagrams of the taught magic-battle-learning material. It turned out that much of the taught material had remained in one form or another in my mind, but I had not realized it and prepared for its execution as a necessity.
The main thing I emphasized was the creation of magical combat complexes. Combinations of strong and weak interactions, especially in sequences with appropriate speedy physical attacks, would be used to repel, especially if accompanied by suggestions of insignificance and fear.
I got loose clothes that hung on my body and hid my training and could also hide a series of surprises taken from the range confrontations. The forgotten idea of a safer and naive look had captured me with its simplicity and possibilities. I continually perfected myself in the mimicry of a helpless and fearless grumbler to such an extent that I convinced my instructors.
On the tracks, I began to instinctively find convenient places for hiding from observation and setting traps where my pursuers had to pass when following my trails through gorges and fords and muddy and marshy places, especially when I was able to get back above the trap locations and finish the helpless victim. Observations and hiding were useless against opponents with magical sensitivity who saw my energy glow or felt my presence in the aura when I was behind a wall, an earth embankment, or any obstacle. This was both good and bad. I also found them on time, but they, too, noticed me from a distance. The magical battle complexes I created always started with actions that wasted as little time as possible, and they always created a distracting glare and noise. I repeated them twice, even as warnings. To continue with the more serious ones, I needed a whole series of movements that took time. And the worst and most destructive magical complexes required brief hiding and at the same time extraction of energy from several different levels. The process was like charging a capacitor from the electrical power network.
In all cases, the clashes were with created virtual phantoms with built-in exceptional qualities. I destroyed them several times each. They had magical gifts and considerable fire abilities—quite real.
I was turning into a machine, a bunch of instincts. And I dreamed of escaping.
Somewhere, there were computers, cars, and spaceships. I was looking for the way back, but I did not have the slightest idea where and how to achieve that.
How far could I teleport myself? How did one pass through the portals?
4 Time for Action
The repetitive daily life bored me to death. I did not know what might happen if I refused to appear in the ranges. I wondered if someone were amused to watch another person try to reach the limits of human abilities. I think they added something to my food, because I grew strong with sculpted muscles on my arms, legs, shoulders, and thighs. The changes frightened me, and I stopped eating the food and drinking the water they were giving me.
During the morning medical examinations, deviations from the doctors’ expectations for predicted changes in my body began to appear, and obvious and not-so-obvious observations of my diet began. I was on the verge of forced and open drug infusions. I did not want to be turned into a monster. I did not know what they planned to do with me, but I suspected my purpose as some kind of thinking, fighting machine.
I had already shaken off the illusion of my kinship with my alleged father and a mother who so easily gave up on me. I saw more of everything that showed some sign of permanence—the sleeping place, the medical center, and the dining room. In the palace—what I called the building of my initial arrival—was the secret of my escape to the world of people, where I wanted to return. My life was there.
I continued purposelessly roaming the halls of the huge building. It was three floors up and who knows how many floors down. After reaching three floors down, I discovered my access any farther was restricted. What secrets were hidden there from me when there was no place to carry them?
No.
Here I would not find a way out to my world. I was wasting my time with things that did not matter to me. Again, I concentrated on finding a solution in the accessible part of the palace. From the outside, the building did not look so large; inside, it was a labyrinth full of surprises.
It was exactly this misbalance that made me feel despair. What was I to look for when the surprises were behind each door and every corner of the corridor I was following? In the morning at breakfast, which I imitated in all possible ways, my eyes were drawn as always to the central hemisphere over the beautiful and mysterious plane with ornaments whose names I did not know. Perhaps Mala’attal was an association with the famous mysterious Indian artifacts.
What did I really know about this wonderful creation?
Nothing. I had not even tried to look at it closely.
I decided to wait until evening to take a good look from its topside. The structure was too mysterious for me to not pay it attention. And we seemed to have some connection with each other. I remembered our mutual reaction at our first meeting and surprised myself how I had missed taking a look until now. I also remembered the intervention of something supernatural that helped me in the collision with the magician. The torn white sky did not look like energy perfection but energy struggle.
In my task today, it seemed as if the main thing were my exhaustion by means of fast moving and maneuvering in almost complete darkness. This exercise created useful skills in maintaining coordination of fluids and weightlessness, but I could not gather some plant foods and was left with the only option to get food in the palace, where, of course, I would also get the chemical or genetic supplements that were turning me into a fighting machine. I had foreseen this and had minimal stocks of food and water, but that was also a sign that our coopera
tion went into a harder phase, and it was a matter of days for me to be returned to my previously defined role in some unknown action show. Apparently, their clear compulsion would be a failure of their plans and would alienate me, make me their enemy, and make the theater with the mother, the aunt, and the father meaningless. This hesitation slowed down the whole procedure of compulsion, and I received some postponement that I should not waste.
After the obligatory theater at the dinner, which I attended but where I was certainly being watched and probably filmed by hidden cameras, I started again with my aimless evening walk through the empty halls, corridors, and stairs. In random places, I was doing exercises for defense, attack, or agility, ostensibly for relaxation after dinner, but now I had a specific purpose. Slowly, I was climbing up to the second floor. I was here to explore the area and did not look for special approaches or signs for hidden access to the space over Mala’attal. I roamed around a number of halls, but I did not find the dome covering Mala’attal. There was no way I could miss it, although I could swear I was in the center of the place it was supposed to occupy. I doubted everything I used for orientation, including views through the windows to the park or to the inner courtyard of the east and west. To the north and south lay green-forested massifs with no outlined roads or paths. The seclusion of this place was pretty puzzling, and I decided to take a walk around during the next evening. I wanted to look around the palace on all sides. Were the views real? Perhaps behind them was the real world in which I dreamed of returning. How were they misleading me?
I easily found my way downstairs by recognizing the same landmarks I had doubted. I went back to the dining room, where I ate and looked at the dome and Mala’attal. I used all my senses to find the slightest energy disturbance. My doubts about the master hologram proved wrong. I would notice the characteristic energy features that had no reason to be masked. Everything seemed normal to me. With my eyes closed, I could clearly see the bluish outlines of the oval plane and the running sparks of static electricity. The oval shape of the dome also had clear boundaries without darkening and overlapping. Access from this side was certainly not possible.
