by SK Benton
He then walked through the center of his animation, causing it to slightly disrupt, with it continuing after millions of wafting particles realigned themselves into the imagery.
"My children, the reality of it all is that magic is simply… this."
Draagh flicked a finger at the middle of the room, causing the animated galaxy to morph into an ominous-looking rotating object, sphere-shaped, with numerous appendages ending in serrated claws, knives, and apparent sensors for optical, auditory and other readouts. It resembled a rolling ball of death; able to destroy anything that would be unfortunate enough to get in its way.
The object moved around, parts of its massive body spinning like a gyroscope, and then became smaller, which in reality was the hologram zooming out. Suddenly, it was joined by dozens, then hundreds, then thousands, and then millions of machines like itself, the machines becoming smaller and smaller as the view decreased in magnification. This kept going on and on, until there was only a beautiful magenta-colored ribbon of particles surrounding a chair, levitating it in the air.
As the view backed off even further, a minor-mage, human in appearance, was rotating his hand and affecting the movement of the chair by skillfully manipulating the ribbon of particles around it. He then thrust out his hand, clenched his fist and pulled it back while twisting his arm, causing the chair to spin madly about, rotating on all axes. Finishing the demonstration by quickly reciting the cantus ignincatatio perdere, he caused the chair to ignite, and the trio watched as it burned to ashes in a matter of seconds.
"Holy crap!" said Max. "They're nanobots. Magic is nanobot technology..."
Chapter 16 - Recon Time
Being an experienced and educated military officer, Jennie Escalante understood the concept of nanotechnology, as it had permeated science and industry on Azul. Nanotechnology was used in medicine, in industry, to repair broken arteries and to weld conduit seams in underwater pressures unapproachable by man - but now, this whole new revelation that magic, which was a new concept to her in the first place, was also an extremely advanced (and old) form of technology made her head spin.
Draagh looked at the two with mild interest, waiting for one of them to say something, and was met with silence until Max stepped to the side and looked at them both, saying, "We can do this. Jennie, we're going to save Azul. We have the power."
Jennie looked at him, and said in a low, monotone voice, "Gunnarsson, do you realize how dorky that sounds?"
The two pupils played with basic spells, and as they understood the nature of magic they felt more confident in harnessing its abilities. It was just a collective of subatomic-sized machines, which in mass quantities could lift, burn or freeze things, cause lethal doses of radiation, or even repair a ruptured spleen. These were not miracles, as miracles were of things not understood by man. Even though they understood nanotechnology, they were also mind-blown by the complexity. No doctor on Azul had a telepathic interface with any of his medical nanobots, yet Draagh could easily melt someone's head with a mere thought (with Jennie asking Draagh for a demonstration of that particular skill on more than one occasion). They trained daily for the following week, learning as much as possible, spending time together in the evenings, going over manuscripts and testing new spells. Jennie graduated from the simple wand, to using a spiked, metal gauntlet, which without magical abilities would have been a formidable weapon in its own right, but with magic infused into it the device became a power-punching mitten of instantaneous death. Max moved onto more advanced cantuses, combining them into compound spells that performed various functions, such as creating impenetrable force fields, changing visible light to ultraviolet, or cooking someone right where he stood with unimaginable radiation levels. Jennie's favorite new spell that Max had mastered was one that made an enemy's head explode. Her sense of humor was gruesome, but Max took it all in stride, glad to have the beautiful woman as an ally, and not an enemy, as she was when they first met.
###
Every other day they would spend half of the training hours on the battle pitch. They needed to constantly hone their new skills in conjunction with their lycan capabilities. The rest of the day was dedicated to magical practice and learning. One afternoon, after having completed a difficult obstacle course, which included flaming arrows being shot at them while they navigated through barbed wire, Max and Jennie sat off to the side and chatted a bit.
"Gunnarsson, do you think that swords will be of any use to us on Azul? I mean, we can't fly, and charged weapons would give us greater range, wouldn't they?" asked Jennie.
Max thought for a moment, and then said, "You know, with gravicantuses and movericantuses I am sure we can get in close, and quickly back out. After all, I plan on keeping you pretty darned close when we're fighting the enemy."
Jennie gave him a grin and said, "Yeah, I'm sure you'll want to keep me around -who else is gonna save your ass?"
They both chuckled lightly and went back to the obstacle course, where three newly-turned lycans were trying desperately to catch up with their otherworldly counterparts. Jennie watched as Max stopped what he was doing and went over to help one of the newbies. Max gave him some kind and methodical instructions, for which the youth, who was a local boy and fortunate enough to have been selected, showed great appreciation.
Aw, Gunnarsson, she thought to herself, you would have been a great big brother.
It wasn't but a moment later that Jennie noticed the small girl who had lit her stick on fire at the end of their mock battle. It seemed the little one had been ghosting her during the training sessions. Jennie never had a sibling, and being an orphan, had a lonely childhood, so she wanted to somehow reach out to the child, but the girl would only appear for a moment and then disappear from sight.
Hmmm, I wonder who that is.
The next morning they learned that the magical nanobots, as Max and Jennie called them, were semi-organic and self-replicating. They were also tuned to certain frequencies. That was how Earth's magic had been reactivated - by changing the frequency of every single one of the bots on the planet - the planet's energy, as their teacher had earlier called it.
Draagh told them that the process only took days to complete, as each nanobot was connected to the other, facilitating a global network. His people then had to construct complex equipment, enabling Socrates access to the world - something akin to a frequency translator. This made access to Socrates slower than usual, but still enabled mages to engage the intelligence network in near real-time. Another thing they learned about the bots is that not all were the same. Most were of a standard, workhorse variety, able to perform a myriad of functions, but those that enabled, for example, teleportation or advanced wavelength attacks, were of different builds, and not as plentiful, thereby resulting in a more time-consuming effort to cantus spells of these types. This is precisely why Draagh used his staff for 4D time slips - the amount of data being sent to the limited number of bots was immeasurable (he also frequently used his staff for 3D porting, but this was not necessary. He once said it just looked cool). Another thing about the bots was that some existed in the atmosphere, but others existed inside living things, one such type being the salubots, which monitored health and assisted in healing. Lycans and vampires had very different salubots in their systems, with those of the lycans being strong and superior, while the vampire variety barely kept them alive at the expense of rapid healing, hence, their constantly rotting flesh.
Furthering their lessons, Draagh had introduced Max to the basic concepts of his staff. Max asked when he would get one, and with a grin, Draagh responded, "When you are as old as dirt, my boy."
Jennie was learning to do simultaneous cantuses, such as wearing the gauntlet on her left hand and punching something, while shooting flames at it with her wand. She also learned some shortcuts, which pleased Draagh, as he had a tendency to shorten phrases, and thought she was quite brilliant for attempting to do so with her cantuses. Not all worked. In fact, a couple backfired, a
s attested by the housekeepers who were required to clean the animal guts and tar off the walls in the main hall. She also tied her wand to her katana, with admirable results, such as when she once pointed her sword at a large melon on a table in the dining area, levitated it to her position. She then sliced it into pieces in the air, and set each piece back down onto individual plates in front of lycan soldiers. She received three marriage proposals for that feat of skill. Max was impressed with the feat, but not the proposals.
Joining with his two students, Draagh explained that as they would one day leave the world of the Rhönen Dominion, they would need to enhance their training and solidify their skills with some fieldwork. This excited Jennie, who had been itching to get out of the castle. Max was not for it or against it, completely confident in what he already learned, but did agree that it could be beneficial to them all.
They were to go on a recon mission with a group of Krynos' finest warriors, to see if Vladros had more of his agents hanging around a local village of normals, and to meet with the town mayor. Krynos had troops making regular rounds in the local villages for the protection of the people, who were all part of the Dominion, but Vladros was a bitterly jealous and vicious vampire, bent on the destruction of the lycans (nothing new there). However, he couldn't simply drain all of the normals, as he would then no longer have a food supply; normal human blood was the only nourishment their systems could tolerate. He had to keep them alive and procreating.
###
Far to the north of the safety and comfort of the Dominion, in a dungeon below Vladros' dilapidated castle, Ryder Johnson sat on the cold, stone floor of his cell, sipping on a small bowl of rancid blood that the jail keepers gave him.
This tastes like crap, he thought to himself. It was the blood of a normal who died days earlier, so the vital fluid already began to putrefy. The only reason it hadn't coagulated was because all vampires had an anti-coagulant protein in their saliva, and someone had apparently spit in that particular batch of vital fluid. Still, it satiated his hunger, which had been overwhelming since his crash. He had no idea where he was, but wanted to get out, eliminate Gunnarsson, locate his ship, and then find the dega bitch who wasted his time on useless dates.
As he stared at the pool of semi-congealed red liquid in his bowl, he was startled by a voice outside the cell, around the corner and out of visual range.
"Your name is weak," said the voice, "and I have an incredibly low tolerance for weakness."
Johnson lifted his head up once he heard the voice, and responded while looking to the darkness, saying, "You want weak? Come on inside, ass-hat."
"Ah," came the voice, hidden from around the corner, "you attempt to portray strength, but is it just a ruse?"
Johnson looked in the direction of the voice and said, "What do you think? What do I have to lose? I'm locked up in this shitty cell, drinking rotten blood, and even though I find it disgusting, it kills my hunger. I just want to get out and find someone so I can kill him slowly."
"Slowly? As in torture?" asked the voice.
"Yes. I want to watch him suffer. Who are you and where am I?"
Vladros walked out from around the corner, but not the corner from where Johnson thought the voice came from. That much surprised him, but what startled him even more was the man's appearance. He was tall, pale and had a misshapen face, with rotten flecks of flesh hanging from his chin. Wearing tightly fitting black leather garb with a long, elegant black cape, he gave Johnson a creepy, horrific stare from near-dead looking eyes.
"I am Lord Vladros, the leader of this world. Tell me who you are and where you come from."
Vladros listened to Johnson for over an hour, piecing a puzzle together from what the former lieutenant told him, and after some thought decided to not kill his prisoner. Rather, he wanted to put him to good use, as that was his nature - to use and continue.
"I have listened to your story, and although it sounds untrue, I have had experience with a mage who can do those things. His kind is called the Prīmulī, and he is only one step below Jah - he whom we despise even more than the lycans. While this mage is quite dangerous, he has weaknesses, his primary one being the fact that he values life. To defeat him is simple. Destroy those he loves and he will buckle. It is easier to destroy than it is to create."
Johnson looked at the vampire leader and asked, "Where am I, and what have I become?"
"You are a vampire - a lover of death and taker of the blood, and from what you have told me, you indeed love death, though your distaste for blood shall wane as time passes on. Come with me and I shall show you more."
A prison guard came out of the shadows and opened Johnson's cell door, allowing him to accompany Lord Vladros out of the dungeon, and into the darkness above.
###
Max and Jennie dressed down in leather, quadrinium battle armor and katanas, preparing to go to the local villages and visit with the normals, who, by the way, adored the lycans. In fact, it was considered quite an honor to be accepted into the clan, as they were known to be noble, strong and kind. If a normal was brought into the clan, and had family in the village, it was well known that he or she would be able to care for their family well, as lycans soldiers were paid handsomely for their duties.
The recon team met down in the common area of the castle, and all were glad to see Jennie, one of the few female lycan warriors ever known, and certainly the most beautiful. Donus was to lead the recon team, and shouted out when he saw Jennie and Max.
"My friends! Come! Accompany me at the point!"
The two offworlders trotted over to Donus' location and stood with him in the lead position, prepared to get out and have some fun. The Massive gate of the castle opened and the lycans burst out onto the wide pathway, long ago created by the continual footsteps of those seeking a better life.
As the group, two dozen in size, rambled down a narrowing path, various team members bounded off to check trees for signs of enemy scent. Max thought that looked fun, and started to make great leaps in the forest, narrowly missing trees as he flew through the foliage. Perched near the top of a large pine, he looked down at the marching group of lycans, unable to see Jennie.
"Hey Gunnarsson," she said, hanging upside-down from a branch right next to him. "Having a blast? I know I am!" She let go, falling multiple meters, and quietly landed on the mossy forest floor. She laughed and looked up to where Max was, but not seeing him, she only heard his voice.
"Hey, are you looking for someone?" he asked from behind her position, as he casually leaned up against a tree.
"Ooh, you're fast, but not fast enough!" she yelped as she bounded out forward, catching up with the group while laughing.
Their hearts were racing as they played like children who had been let out after weeks of rain. Max was elated because Jennie seemed happy, and that their relationship was improving on a daily basis. Jennie was just content to get out of the castle.
In any normal situation, Donus would have commanded those who had split off from the group to come back, but Max and Jennie were enjoying their first time out of the castle. They were also quite special, a well-known fact throughout Krynos' military. The two bounded out ahead, smelling and touching, listening and howling. Max started to pay a bit more attention to his surroundings, and not Jennie's shapely posterior, after he nearly did a face dump into a tree
Not too long after they left they arrived at the village, with various normals walking about, working and selling goods and foodstuffs. A blacksmith pounded away at his iron works with loud, clanging noises, as smoke rose out of chimneys of quaint huts lining the muddy, unpaved main thoroughfare. Max found it to be beautifully archaic, and quite different from the world into which he was born. Jennie pranced down the road, waving and greeting little children, all of whom showed no fear of the marching lycan soldiers. It was apparent that these people enjoyed the protection of the Dominion, and relations between the castle and the hamlet were quite good.
Donus broke
off from his group and went to one of the larger buildings, calling Max and Jennie to go with him. Even though the building was larger than most of the others, it still comprised of a single floor, just like all the others. Knocking before entering, the three found a portly normal male, eloquently dressed in various fabrics and leathers, seated behind a modest desk that was overflowing with stacks of manuscripts.
"Ah, Donus, good sir," exclaimed the plump man of fairly advanced age, his short, white hair accentuated by green eyes, "so good to see you again. Please! Please, come and have a seat."
Then, noticing Jennie, he said, "Please by all means, introduce me to this rarity of nature. It is not often we are visited by someone of such bold beauty."
Jennie would have blushed, had she not felt that the older gentleman was being a bit perverted, but took a seat on a rickety wooden chair. Donus and Max chose chairs that seemed to be more stable.
"Mayor Stein," started Donus, "these are visitors to the Dominion, Max Gunnarsson, and his companion, Jennie Escalante. They join us as we make our rounds."
