Arcana Universalis: Terminus

by Chris J. Randolph

  He opened his eyes and retrieved a notepad from his jerkin’s inner pocket. With a few smooth pen strokes, he sketched out the hill and the barrier, then followed with a few tentative doodles of its innards. All the while, a bitter voice haunted the back of his head, chiding him for not paying more attention during Magus Roussain’s lectures on fortification theory.

  “Why’d you have to be so monumentally boring?” he asked.

  Bibbs frowned. “You’re talking to yourself again.”

  “I know, I know. Sorry.”

  He looked down at his drawing, squinted and let out a sigh. The diagram was simply inadequate. He needed more information, and that meant giving himself a splitting headache.

  Much to his disappointment, there was no other option.

  Caleb tore a strip of parchment off and wrote down a series of Urskrit runes. He’d always loved the look of the twisting glyphs even before he learned to read them, and that love only deepened once he mastered the skill of writing them. With practiced grace, he linked one glyph to the next, his hand flowing through their forms, until the scrap was filled end to end.

  “Here,” Caleb said while handing the paper to Bibbs. “When I give you the signal, read this at the barrier.”

  Bibbs glanced over it, and Caleb could see his lips moving as he read. With anyone else, such a quirk might have been a sign of ignorance or dull wit, but neither of those described Bibbs. He was a thorough and effective orator with the sort of deep and powerful voice that would surely make the universe quake someday.

  “Ready?” Caleb asked.

  Bibbs gave him a nod.

  He flared his sight and simultaneously pointed to Bibbs, who looked down to the note and began to chant. There was nothing half-hearted about Bibbs’ performance; he read the ancient language with uncanny accuracy, producing the syllables, rhythm and tone as Caleb had written it, and he linked them together with deft improvisations that strengthened and reinforced their power.

  Caleb, with his vision once again amped up to dangerous levels, watched the words tumble out of his friend’s mouth. They became oscillating patterns of light that radiated out toward the hill and its waiting barrier, only to crash against it and be annihilated in a rippling cascade.

  This was the key moment. Where the chant struck, the barrier churned into action, swallowing up the writhing waves of energy, digesting them, and ever so briefly illuminating the structures within itself. The barrier rejected the passphrase, but it was never meant to work; it was simply a probe.

  Caleb released his second sight and it snapped shut with a flash of pain. It was nearly enough to knock him on his ass, but it didn’t matter because he’d seen what he needed to see. His head began to throb and a bit of blood trickled from his nose, but he ignored them and went to work filling in the details of his diagram.

  He scribbled here, jotted there, scratched out a mistake that was so obviously idiotic that he wondered how he’d ever thought of it in the first place, and finally found himself staring at a reasonable facsimile of the barrier that protected the hillock. The flow chart was littered with tiny collections of glyphs, each set organized into its own circle or tree, and surrounded by notes describing their inputs and action.

  “Well?” Bibbs asked. He was a patient sort, but not infinitely so.

  “I’m getting there.” Caleb waved his companion off and tried to focus. With pen in hand, he traced the workings of the construct from link to link, looking for the chink in its armour. He knew there had to be a weakness somewhere. The challenges was in finding it, and when he reached the start of the loop, he still wasn’t any nearer. Was he missing something? Maybe he could feed it another passphrase, and find whatever he’d overlooked.

  “Feed it another passphrase,” he said under his breath, and there it was. He’d found the weakness.

  The plan came together in his head quickly, practically forming itself, and his hand was only a short step behind. A minute later, a new line of Urskrit glyphs sat at the bottom of his page, which he checked and double-checked just to be sure.

  “I think I’ve got it,” he said, while slipping his pen back into his pocket. He handed the new page to Bibbs, saying, “Read this on my signal, just like before.”

  Bibbs skimmed over his new script, but looked perplexed when he reached the end. His brow was knitted tightly together, and he looked to be doing ten-digit long division in his head. “I don’t think I understand.”

  “Good news, my friend: you don’t have to. Ready?”

  “I guess. Ready as ever.”

  Caleb gave him an amiable smile. “Excellent. Now remember, on my signal.”

  This time, Caleb squared up, looked to the hill and began to chant. His words were nonsense, just a repeating pattern that superficially matched the sort of phrase the barrier expected. He counted off his repetitions until he hit six, and at that moment gave Bibbs the signal to start while he continued on.

  Beside him, Bibbs immediately launched into his performance, speaking the old words with such vigour that the very air around them began to hum in response.

  They went on like this for more then a minute, then returned to silence. It was done.

  “Nothing happened,” Bibbs said. He sounded like a child with a broken toy.

  “Just wait.”

  They waited and still nothing happened. Bibbs, having grown bored in the intervening lull, formed a tiny flame in his hand which he made dance from finger to finger. He was no doubt brainstorming other more direct methods to crack the seal.

  Caleb meanwhile counted off minutes until the time was right. “You’ll want to watch this,” he said.

  With a skip in his step, he approached the hill and stopped a mere foot from where the barrier stood. There, he raised his arms and held them outstretched, took a deep breath, and brought his hands together in a quick, comical clap.

  Bibbs gasped. “It collapsed,” he said.

  With a creak and a groan, a hidden stone door opened in the face of the hill, chased by a cough of beige dust.

  Caleb cracked a wicked smile.

  “You figured out the passphrase?” Bibbs asked in disbelief.

  Caleb stepped up to the doorway and cautiously peeked inside. “No, I already told you. The passphrase was a dead end.”

  Bibbs came up beside him, still juggling the small flame in his hand. “Then how?”

  “You really want to know?”

  “I really want to know.”

  “Fine, the idea is simple enough. When the barrier receives potential passphrases, it boxes them up and tests them; if a phrase is wrong, it’s shuttled off to a destructor, a sort of rubbish bin where it can be safely dispersed. That’s where the weakness is hidden. The barrier was only intended to accept a passphrase of a certain size and shape, and it only has a limited number of bins.

  “So, I fed the barrier a likely passphrase, which it happily trapped, tested and discarded over and over again, filling up those bins. When you began to chant something that very much didn’t sound like a passphrase, the barrier tried to send it straight off to another bin… one which didn’t exist.”

  Bibbs looked oddly concerned. This stuff clearly wasn’t his forte, but he did his best to follow along. “And that did what exactly?”

  “Allowed us to slip a new pattern directly into the barrier’s internal structure, one designed to terminate the whole thing on command.”

  Bibbs nodded. “And the clap was the command.”

  “Wasn’t strictly necessary, of course, but I enjoy a spot of theater every now and again.”

  Bibbs smiled and shook his head. “Caleb, my friend,” he said. “For future reference, the concept wasn’t really that simple.”

  “I know,” Caleb replied, “but I’d sound like a right ass if I came out and told you how brilliant I am, wouldn’t I?”

  The two stood on either side of the open doorway, peering inside with little luck. It was just past midday and bright outside, and aside from a glimmer of du
ll light shining within the cavern, the place was otherwise too dark to make out. Second sight was even worse, inhibited by something that allowed only a vague impression to squeak through.

  There was no telling what treasure–or horrors–waited them inside..

  “Who goes first?” Bibbs asked.

  Caleb glanced at the flame still dancing in his friend’s hand, then gave him a look of weary stupefaction. It was the sort of expression a dirty beggar might give a wealthy gentry who asked to borrow some spare change.

  “Oh, right,” Bibbs said, and he instantly stoked his tiny flame into something larger, crackling and dazzlingly bright. Brandishing it before him, he moved cautiously into the breach.

  Caleb followed and unshouldered his bow, stepping across the threshold into dense darkness and the smell of dust long untouched by man. There, for just one instant in those shadows, the world was empty but for the sound of his breathing and the flickering glare of synthetic fire.

  His eyes adapted to the dim confines, but even in the light of Bibbs’ flame, he could make out little. It was a large cavern carved from natural stone, with a few dozen stalactite columns bridging the ceiling and floor. At its center, a small earthen rise covered in grass sat within a radiant shaft of sunshine.

  Caleb needed more light. Despite the throbbing in his skull, he forced himself to relax, then focused his second sight inward, feeling the familiar stir of fundamental energies within; the motion of fluids, flexion of muscles, and jagged thrum of electricity were all there, as well as a bevy of more subtle forces that defied simple description. In a practiced motion, his awareness danced across nerve, muscle, tendon and bone, fomenting a wave that he further shaped and moulded with imagined glyphs.

  The wave swelled to ripeness, and in the ancient language, Caleb spoke its name.

  A quick series of tones rang out like a clatter of wind chimes, and a sparkling point of light burst into existence in the air before him. With a tiny shake, the wisp leapt into motion and began tracing small circles, singing a queer melody and alighting wherever Caleb’s attention roamed. The wisp was lux, a fountain of light given pseudo-life by his imagination. Much to his continuing chagrin, it was the only technique in his arsenal.

  Bibbs circled along the wall and Caleb followed. In the bluish light of his wisp, he could now clearly see that the cavity was a natural formation with uneven floor and bulbous chambers carved out of the walls. Where the ground wasn’t covered over with moss, there were shallow pools of clear water that shimmered in the light, no doubt fed by a spring somewhere nearby.

  Caleb dragged his fingers over the rough wall, and though he was sure the cavern had originally been hollowed out by ground water, there were also marks carved by an intelligent hand. As he leaned in for a closer look, the wisp zipped over and bathed the wall in its cool glow.

  “What strange markings,” Caleb said while examining the countless tiny scrapes.

  Bibbs looked to the wall beside him, revealed in the orange glow of his flame. “Maybe something was trying to claw its way out.”

  “Don’t think so,” Caleb replied quickly. “Too ordered. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think they were hash marks.”

  “Do you actually know any better?”

  Caleb looked out across the chamber, trying to estimate how many of the marks there might be. “I suppose I don’t.”

  Just then, he saw a streak of light in his peripheral vision but it was gone in the instant it took to whip around. Instinct lifted his bow and readied an arrow, while at his side, Bibbs stood at guard with hand engulfed in flame. Both glanced about manically for the source of the light.

  “Did you see it?” Bibbs asked.

  “Corner of my eye.”

  With his other hand, Bibbs motioned for Caleb to circle, and Caleb begrudgingly obeyed. He stepped lively around the edge of the cavern, hopping over puddles from one dry patch to the next, the soft moss completely absorbing the sound of his footfalls. All the while, his mind’s eye filled with hideous abominations and he fitfully tried to predict what horrific fate awaited him.

  Would it have fangs? Claws? Dozens of beady eyes that beamed terror directly into his soul? Maybe the beast would feed through a long proboscis that could suck his brains right from his cranium with a sickening slurp. Would it have thousands of tentacles, or only a few dozen?

  The endless stampede of beasts pounded through his head as he reached the other end of the cavern. He scurried up to one of the stalactite columns, leaned against it and peaked around, only to find nothing in particular on the other side.

  “Nothing here,” he shouted back to Bibbs. “You?”

  “Same,” came the echoing reply.

  “Why couldn’t you just be a sensible treasure trove,” Caleb grumbled, “one with treasure, as the bleeding name implies?”

  Another light streaked in Caleb’s peripheral vision, the size of an apple and blue like his wisp, but a more vibrant shade. He caught another glimpse of it as it approached Bibbs, halted, came back around, then ducked behind a column and was once again gone.

  Bibbs’ burning hand brightened from orange, through yellow and finally into a viciously hot blue, and Caleb could feel the sudden draw of energy like a riptide.

  “Hold,” Caleb shouted. “Whatever it is, it’s afraid of us.”

  He needed some way to lure it out, and letting his partner cut loose wouldn’t help. With the kind of power Bibbs was channeling, he would raze the whole cavern to ash and lava, and they still wouldn’t be any closer to finding their quarry.

  While Caleb was trying and failing to come up with a plan, his wisp danced jauntily in front of him like a bored puppy starved for attention. With a glimmer in his eye, he said, “That might just work.”

  He made the sign of the guide with his right hand, his index and middle fingers extended, the others curled into his palm and held in place by the thumb. He lowered the hand and felt the wisp’s umbilicus, the immaterial tether that bound it to him, wrap around his fingers and draw taut. Then, by force of will, he guided the tiny construct out towards the grassy mound and gave it enough slack to move about.

  In its own curious way, the wisp bounced from one side of the mound to the other, never waiting anywhere for long, and singing its funny little song the whole time. Sure enough, the other light peeked out from behind its stone a moment later and drifted up into the air.

  “That’s right,” Caleb whispered. His soft touch sent the wisp upward, pantomiming surprise and alert, then he guided it swiftly back toward the earthen mound and made it take cover on the far side.

  He’d aroused the other’s curiosity. The rich blue light bobbed back and forth, trying to get a clear view of Caleb’s wisp, but he kept it just out of sight. The other inched forward, cautious but deeply interested, until finally it drifted down to the mound and came to rest.

  Caleb waited a beat then commanded his wisp back out of hiding, and the other immediately took notice. It approached, circling in one direction and then the reverse, apparently sizing up Caleb’s playful construct.

  He allowed the other to perform its inspection, and when he feared it might grow bored, he drew his wisp back. It returned slowly, bobbing at the end of its line until its pale light illuminated his face. Now in full view, Caleb waved and said, “Hello?”

  Much like his wisp had done only a moment before, the blue ball of light jumped up in surprise, then ducked back toward the small grassy mound. It seemed confused, a little agitated, but mostly calm. Mostly calm would do.

  Caleb reshouldered his bow, told Bibbs to remain in place with a gesture, and began his slow approach. His heart was racing but he ignored it. He kept both hands in the open with palms outward to show he meant no harm, and he adopted the most placid expression he could muster.

  He paused when he was yet a few steps away, partly out of caution and partly in surprise. There on the grass in the golden shaft of sunlight lay a tiny creature with azure skin. She was hardly larger than a finger,
her upper body a perfect scale replica of a girl, but ending in a long, segmented tail instead of legs. On her back were two pairs of shimmering, membranous wings that twitched anxiously.

  “Hello,” Caleb said again.

  Her large, multifaceted eyes stared back at him, and she quivered in suppressed fear.

  “My name is Caleb,” he added while leaning closer.

  At his approach, she ducked back behind her arms, only to peek out a second later. She looked to either side, perhaps on guard for the attack that wouldn’t come, or maybe in search of an escape route.

  “I mean you no harm,” he said very gently.

  She cocked her head to the side and spat out a load of syllables that splashed over Caleb without managing to deliver any particular meaning. He was fluent in a few major languages and several of their dialects, and familiar with the sound of dozens more, but this didn’t resemble any of them.

  With a genuine smile, he said, “Afraid I don’t understand, little miss.”

  She reacted as if his answer were somehow appropriate, and burst into an endless babble of words. Her minuscule hands flew about as she gabbed and gabbed, reciting some impenetrable story with the utmost melodrama. Caleb, now with a look of utter surprise and some small measure of mirth on his face, simply listened and watched.

  Then he heard something familiar. It was just one word buried in the middle of a dozen others, but it was quite unmistakable. He was sure of it.

  “Slow,” he said in scholarly Arkesh, and she gave pause.

  Arkesh was an ancient and potent language used widely throughout the universe in antiquity, but which had long since died out within the Imperium. Some knowledge of it persisted but only among academics and practitioners; it was maintained by academics in order to read old and moldy texts from bygone ages, and by practitioners as an alternative to Urskrit, being nearly as versatile but much easier to grasp.