by Des Pensable
‘At the moment we’ve got a real problem here. There are supposed to be Barra children being held captive in the temple but some type of temple defence has been activated. Do you know anything about it? Do you know if it’s ever happened before?’
‘No I don’t know anything about the temples. The High Druid would, but he’s preoccupied at the moment. There’s talk of a challenge to his leadership. These challenges are often a fight to the death,’ he replied. ‘If he loses, then Featherdown will probably be replaced by Curbut, and that’ll affect you directly.’
‘Damn, I should have killed that bastard,’ said Aquitain. ‘Thanks for the news, even if it’s not good. Please Return to Featherdown and tell him I’ll bring his guards back as soon as we sort this problem out, but that it may take a few days. Tell him I think it’s important for good relations with the little people and the Crin to see the Guards helping them. We can talk about Curbut and the other problems later if he wishes.’
Quab nodded to Miranda, activated a teleport ring and was gone.
‘Lady have mercy on us,’ said Miranda. ‘This is becoming serious.’
‘Yes, I think it’s time we found Alin Amber and my father so that we can find out what’s really going on, but I want to get these children out first. So let’s get working and find out what these defences do, so that I can work out how to bypass them.’ They returned to Kami.
‘Kami you wanted to come with me for a specific reason. I suspect that you came because you knew that something might happen. Let me tell you now that I can break into this temple but it might take me a week and the Barra children might die while we are trying to break the defences. We might also lose many good people by accidentally making mistakes.
‘The temple is in good order considering its age. Someone is maintaining it and I am guessing that it is your people, and perhaps the Barra people as well. You have knowledge about this temple that will help me to break in more quickly and save the Barra children, but I am guessing that it is against some rule or taboo for you to tell me. If the defences were not active, what pathway would you walk?’
‘You are cunning as always, Spirit Lord. If the great ball were not showing on the top of the temple and the fountains were displaying their wonders, I would be walking on the eastern road, Great Lord,’ said Kami. ‘However at the moment it is being too dangerous.’
‘Kami before I became a spirit bear I was involved in making magic items. My master and his master always taught that if we created a magic defence on a building there had to be two ways to turn it off. The first way would be known to all, but the second was always kept a secret in case the wrong people activated the defences. I am guessing that some lore you know of tells how to turn off a part of the defences. If I asked you to send some of your people into the temple, what would worry you?’
‘If I were being asked to be sending some people into the temple I would be worried that the fountains were working, Spirit Lord.’
‘And if the fountains were not working, then the great ball at the top might disappear,’ replied Aquitain.
‘I am always thinking how wise you are, Spirit Lord,’ said Kami.
‘Kami if I were guessing that you had something that might be able to make a fountain stop working, then would I be wrong?’ asked Aquitain.
‘I am being continually amazed at how accurate your guesses are being, Spirit Lord,’ replied Kami.
‘If I were to ask you to examine your amulet, would you object?’
‘Of course not Great Lord, it is only an old badge of office that has been passed down from shaman to shaman for hundreds of years. It has historical value but little else,’ and Kami held it close so that he could view it.
Aquitain examined the amulet carefully. It was a black polished circular disk about four fingers wide, with the shape of a cat carved into the front surface which had been highlighted by rubbing some white material into the groove. The reverse side was smooth and plain with no design. He used his power to detect magic and found none. The disc was non-magical.
It was no accident that Aquitain was a magical item artificer. His trade had been assured when his grandfather discovered he had a talent for picking the best crystals and gemstones to imbue with magic when creating magical devices. He had always been able to mentally visualise the inside crystalline materials, and had soon learnt by trial and error what distinguished a good crystal from a poor one for the purposes of his trade. His talent was referred to in the game as crystal vision. It was a rather rare talent, but one that some of the finest item makers had claimed to have.
Using his crystal vision he looked into the disk and found a variation in some internal property of the stone that gave a pattern that any wizard would recognise as the ancient symbol for the element of air. He thought a little more about the material the disk was made of. He had seen it before but never used it as it had an unusual property. He asked the shaman to hold a metal knife blade near the disk and saw that the blade was attracted to it. He now had an idea how the disk might work as a key, but wanted one final confirmation.
Through the mindlink he asked the three wizards whether any of them had some powdered iron. It was used as an ingredient for creating fire magic effects. Gaston came to his rescue with a small quantity of the substance and a piece of parchment. He had Gaston place the parchment over the smooth side of the disk and sprinkle the iron powder over the parchment, then tap it. Almost miraculously the iron powder displayed the symbol of the element for air, and he knew the secret of the amulet. It was a key. The next problem was to find out how and where to use it.
‘I am having strong thoughts that you are not the brother of K’wala but K’wala himself,’ said Kami. ‘I was not knowing that the amulet was holding such secrets.’
‘Has some of your lore been lost?’ asked Aquitain.
‘My master was killed accidentally while I was being a young shaman. I am thinking that there were things that I did not learn from him about this place,’ replied Kami.
‘That’s not good. We’ll have to work them out,’ said Aquitain.
‘What are you going to do?’ asked Miranda.
‘It’s a game Mandy. It’s a big magical puzzle to work out. If we can get in we can save the children and learn a little about the Founts. So let’s poke it and see what happens.’
‘You’re not going to send anyone in there are you?’ she asked.
‘Yes I am. Haven’t you wondered why Granddad sent Goth? I’m guessing that he knew something like this would happen so he sent us a magical tool. Goth is immune to most magic and physically tough as well. We can use it to probe the defences and see if we can work out a way to defeat them.’
He informed everyone that he was going to send in Goth and they all watched with great interest. He stood with Miranda and Zephira about fifty paces back from the eastern entrance, and Zephira sent in the big metal construct. The moment it stepped onto the eastern pathway a huge bolt of lightning shot at it out of the ball at the apex of the structure. The thunderous sound made everyone jump and it echoed across the jungle causing panic amongst the birds in the trees but it didn’t affect Goth one bit, it just kept walking. Zephira had directed it to circumnavigate the temple and then return.
A few seconds later, huge pieces of ice appeared out of nowhere above Goth and rained down on it, smashing into it mercilessly. But Goth was built for punishment, and while it took a few dents it kept on moving through the icy slush.
A further few seconds and the whole temple and its grounds seemed to burst into flame and burn for several seconds, turning the water to steam and incinerating all the leaves, branches, weeds and anything else that would burn. Goth was unaffected, and kept walking until he disappeared from view behind the temple.
Moments later a thick yellow-brown fog filled the grounds, blocking off all vision.
‘This isn’t good,’ said Aquitain. ‘That’s an acid fog. That would harm Goth if it were to stay in it too long, and the fact that we can
’t see worries me as well.’
They waited, and there came a sudden, huge crash as if Goth had run into a stone wall, then a few seconds later another crash and then a third, as Goth partially staggered and partially fell out of the edge of the temple grounds. Behind it stood a huge animated mound of rock, which disappeared back into the fog, that soon after began to dissipate. When the fog had cleared there was no sign of the huge stone elemental.
‘Merciful Lady, I’m glad you didn’t send anyone in there. They would have had no chance,’ said Miranda.
‘Yes I agree. It’s an interesting challenge, isn’t it?’ replied Aquitain calmly. ‘I think we have all the resources we need to solve the problem, but let me think about the details a little.’
Five minutes later he had Alpha grow legs and sent it to examine the nearest two fountains, telling Miranda that it was too small to trigger the temple defences, then when Alpha returned without incident he announced he had a plan to get in, but it would need a little preparation first. He asked Miranda to fly to the Jeti village and their mine and get him some components, and he asked Kami to have his warriors make him four disks of wood, the same size as Kami’s amulet but about two fingers thick.
Then came the tricky part. He needed Kami and three other little people to deactivate each of the fountains. To do that, he would have to somehow shield the four from the effects of the temple’s defences. He had a plan but it depended to a large extent on how much Kami was prepared to cooperate.
First he had to find out how good Kami was at manipulating their shield song, and this was where his plan came unstuck. He explained what he wanted Kami to do and Kami told him he couldn’t do it nor would he if he could, as it was too dangerous. He could see the old shaman was afraid, and he didn’t really blame him. They weren’t used to manipulating magic at all, let alone on the grand scale that Aquitain was proposing.
The real problem was that Kami was set in his ways. He had done the same things the way that his shaman master had taught him for his whole life. That was the way knowledge was passed on from generation to generation. Aquitain was asking him to make changes and he couldn’t, their system wasn’t flexible enough.
However, it might be possible to make changes in the way Rori worked, as he was still learning; so he asked Kami whether he could borrow Rori to teach him some magic. Kami pointed out that only the Chief made decisions like that, and he would likely refuse.
Aquitain was feeling more than a little frustrated by the time Miranda flew back with the components he had asked her to get. He knew he could now make the keys that would switch the fountains off, but somehow he had to convince the little people to be a part of it. He told Miranda of his plan and of the problems, and she smiled and said,
‘It’s reassuring to know that there are still some things that spirit bears can’t do. I think I can solve your problem, Tain. You want Rori to assist you, leave it to me!’ and she went off to talk to Loma.
Then she and Loma went to talk to the Jeti chief and they sat talking for an hour before she returned to Aquitain, who was directing work on building his keys. He had drafted the two young wizards and Gaston to help him in this part, mainly because it was easier to explain to them what he wanted done.
The job would have been simple in any workshop, but in the field it was more difficult though still possible. The little people had made him four disks of wood, and he had the wizards carve channels into the disks in the shapes of the four elements. They then heated the bee’s wax that Miranda had brought back from the village, mixed in the powered rock that had stuck to a knife blade drawn across the floor in the mine, and poured the mixture into the channels carved into the wooden disks. When the wax cooled they had four keys that Aquitain hoped would replicate the effect of Kami’s amulet.
Kami wasn’t convinced until Aquitain showed the old shaman that when the air key was covered by parchment and iron powder poured over it, the same symbol showed as was in his amulet. When Kami finally nodded, Aquitain was relieved. It was absolutely imperative to keep the old shaman on their side, as he had the final say in all tribal matters of religion and magic.
Miranda’s solution to getting Rori to help was quite ingenious. When she had been at the Jeti village after bees’ wax, she’d had a chance to talk to many of the Jeti woman. They were very afraid about what might happen to the males who had rebelled the night before. The chief had taken them with him to the temple, and they were to prove themselves worthy of staying in the village or else would become outcasts, which was a death sentence.
She realised that if she could get Loma to suggest to the Jeti chief that he might ascertain the rebels’ value by allowing them to enter the temple to switch off the fountains, and he could take them into his tribe, which was very depleted of men at the moment. This would remove a serious problem from the Jeti village, and substantially help the Barra people. However, he also needed Rori’s help as a temporary Barra shaman, to help them sing. He pointed out that since jungle cats had killed many of his people, the Jeti people owed him a great deal of help.
The Jeti chief didn’t need much convincing to release the rebels, but he wasn’t keen about losing Rori, as his people had developed a growing faith in the young shaman’s assistant and definitely saw him as their next shaman. However, he had to agree that giving Rori more responsibility would prepare him for his shamanic duties more quickly, and eventually he capitulated.
Poor little Rori didn’t know what was happening. One moment he was sitting chatting with his new girlfriend, the next the spirit bear and Kami appeared out of thin air. They told him he had been elevated to acting shaman of the Barra tribe, to grab his belongings and say goodbye to his family, and they were off. Rori was both terribly excited and afraid at the same time. He wasn’t sure whether he was ready for the responsibility yet, but he had little choice. The chief and Kami had decided he was ready, so therefore he would do his best.
In the late afternoon Aquitain finally had his fountain deactivation team. Rori plus seventeen reluctant volunteers, who solidly believed they were going to die. They had witnessed what had happened to Goth, and thought that no one could come through that alive; however, the alternative was also bleak. To be banished from their tribe for rebellion was a death sentence. Helping the spirit bear offered the slight possibility of surviving, so they had taken it.
Aquitain’s first problem was to build up confidence in his team so they would become convinced that they could do it. The way he decided to do this was to break them into four teams of four and have them get the materials to construct a mock up of one of the fountains, while he was giving special tuition to Rori. The one left over was given the job of supervising the others.
While Rori was small and had little power, he was enthusiastic and trusted Aquitain completely. Aquitain had to teach Rori two things. First, how to control power channelled to him from Aquitain, and then how to use it to not only create an air shield but to reform it to a required shape by altering the shield song.
To convince Rori that this was possible, Aquitain sang his modified song and created a dome shaped air shield around himself, then had Rori throw rocks at him. He also added an innovation. He made the shield visible by colouring it. Once Rori and the others could actually see and touch the air shield, their confidence in the operation skyrocketed.
They practised all the evening, only stopping for an hour to eat and then continuing non-stop with all of four teams competing against each other to see who could move and get into position around the mock fountains the quickest.
Rori, after a little practice, found it easy to manipulate the size, shape and even colour of the air shield, but was less competent at controlling the amount of power he received, and Aquitain was continually worried that he would go into power narcosis and end up like Miranda.
By midnight everyone, including Aquitain, was exhausted, so he gave them the remainder of the night off to rest and rejoined Miranda and the others sitting around a fire.
‘If I were the enemy I would attack us in the early hours of the morning, so I want plenty of guards; and everyone should sleep close to their weapons. However, if there aren’t too many people inside the temple they may just decide to sit and wait until we decide to leave. It’s unlikely they will have worked out that we might be able to switch off the defences from the outside.’
Chapter 37 The Skirmish
The dawn found Aquitain and Miranda sitting together in meditation, mentally preparing for the assault on the temple. Aquitain’s source was lower than he would have liked, as he had spent a lot of power training Rori and the fountain assault team the previous evening, and his body hadn’t had enough time to fully recover the loss; however, there were a lot of little people to take power from, so he wasn’t overly worried.
There were also plenty of observers to watch the attempt to switch off the fountain as the first team arrived at the edge of the temple grounds opposite the air fountain. The four little people and Rori were surprisingly calm. The five stood in a circle holding hands. Three faced outwards and two into the circle. They had drilled enough times that they implicitly believed it would go off without a hitch. They ignored the possibility that if Rori faltered once they would all be dead.
Kami assembled all the Jeti people to sing and the operation began. Aquitain mindlinked only with Miranda, Kami and Rori, as he wanted as few distractions a possible while Miranda acted as a conductor. All the others were ordered to keep absolutely quiet, but it was hardly necessary as they were like an audience in a circus waiting for the main attraction.
At Miranda’s signal Kami led the singers in the courage song to inspire everyone, and then after a minute or two switched to the power song using Aquitain as the focus. As dozens of thin power lines established between him and the little people he felt the power build.
