by Bob Blink
The tech nodded, and then looked up as one of her fellow medical wizards hurried into the meeting. Quickly she hurried over and whispered into the tech’s ear.
“I guess we won’t know,” she said softly. “He died just a short time ago.”
“How?” Nycoh asked.
“He simply stopped breathing. Almost like the Baldari pass. There was nothing that could be done.”
Daim cursed. “That probably means we can expect the same from the Baldari prisoners. We will have to bring them around one at a time and move quickly if we hope to learn anything. Make certain the Reading team is setup and ready to act as soon as the medications wear off enough to allow moving forward. Oh, and perform an autopsy on that Caster. I want to know more about this strange crystal.”
The first two Baldari who were revived proved to be of no use. By the time the drugs had worn off enough to allow them to be tested, they had been semi-awake for nearly an hour. As had been observed before, the captured prisoners simply shutdown and died before anything could be learned. Uncertain how to proceed, all further attempts had been placed on temporary hold while the situation was studied. Rigo had been brought current on the situation, and was now in the cafeteria with Mitty.
“She’s able to completely block you?” Rigo asked. Mitty had been telling him about her recent lack of success in watching the Brryn woman.
“Not completely,” Mitty explained. “But she is taking care to monitor for my presence. Somehow she had figured out how to sense when I check on her, and frequently she is able to somehow push me away. When that happens I lose all sense of her. Other times when she is unable to do so, she simply does nothing, but turns and appears to be studying me as I watch her.”
Rigo didn’t like that at all. If the woman could somehow learn where Mitty was at any given time she might find a way to target her. Rigo had considered suggesting that Mitty go away somewhere, and cease her attempts to monitor the woman. That way the woman would not have any clue where she might be. Rigo was unable to forget that the Brryn had already sent several of her pet magicians to attempt to kill them. It would be harder to get at them here in the Outpost, but Rigo wasn’t convinced that the place was truly safe any longer. The problem with his plan was he couldn’t function from worry whenever Mitty was very far away. He felt it necessary to be close at hand, just in case. The other issue was, that Mitty simply wouldn’t go. She had said as much in the past, and reiterated her feelings on the matter recently. She felt her unique insight was important, and that she needed to watch and see what the woman was doing. Daim and others agreed, and Rigo knew she was right, but he feared that something might happen to her. The importance of her visions, even restricted as they had become was in the news they had to get to Daim. Mitty was certain that another of the Brryn was starting to wake up. That could prove to be very bad news.
“Good morning, Rigo,” said a voice beside him as someone settled into the seat next to him. “Mitty,” the voice added.
Rigo looked over and saw Koess smiling back at him.
“When did you get back?” Rigo asked.
“Late last night,” Koess replied. “I heard what happened while I was gone. It sounds like this Brryn you told me about is getting out of control.”
“We have to locate her before she can do any more,” Rigo said softly. “We have gained some clues, but we are still operating in the dark.”
“I heard that the Caster who was captured died, as did several of the Baldari,” Koess said. “People say they die because of some kind of mental commands that cause them to shut down somehow.”
“That’s our guess,” agreed Rigo. The news of the deaths and the suspected cause were not a secret around the Outpost.
“Why doesn’t someone simply shield them?” Koess asked as if it was the most obvious thing. “The shield should block them from any kind of control as well as the drugs, and those appear to have worked.”
“That would be nice,” agreed Rigo. “It’s a shame that we don’t know how.”
Rigo had replied almost automatically, but as he spoke the significance of what Koess had just asked sunk in.
“What do you know about shields?” Rigo asked softly. Mitty watched closely. She had sensed the change in Rigo’s attention to Koess that had suddenly taken place.
“Same as everyone,” Koess said. “You raise the barrier, and the enclosed person or space is protected against attack or manipulation.” He looked at Rigo as if wondering why such a basic matter should be questioned.
Almost afraid to ask, Rigo looked closely at Koess. “Can you raise such a barrier?”
Now Koess was suddenly uncomfortable. “I haven’t tried in a while. In the Void magic really didn’t function, and since I’ve been back I’ve been cut off by those odd bands that were put on me. Since being released, I really haven’t tried anything. It seems to make some people nervous. But I assume so, why? I could before, so why not now?”
“How long have you known how to do this?” Rigo asked.
Koess appeared confused, then tried to think.
“The past is somewhat muddled, but maybe it is something I learned while in the Void. There was a lot of knowledge stored there from those who had passed while trapped. It was difficult to extract the knowledge, at least until I learned how, but I had nothing to do and I hoped I might learn something to help me escape. Of course that didn’t happen.”
“I thought you said magic didn’t work while in the Void?” Rigo asked softly.
“It didn’t really. I meant, you could learn and execute the spells, but they didn’t really do anything. After a while I gave up trying to learn more magic and concentrated on history. A lot of the more interesting magic was beyond my ability to learn anyway. I wasn’t advanced enough to be able to perform the spells.”
This was something that they hadn’t considered when talking with Koess earlier. He hadn’t been performing magic since his return, and his earlier explanation about magic being useless, had swept aside any consideration he might have learned something while trapped in the Void.
“Can you show me this?” Rigo asked.
Koess smiled. “Sure. It would be fun to actually do something once again. I’ve not tried anything because everyone seems so jittery around me.”
The three of them left and headed down to one of the test areas in the lower levels. Rigo set an old vase up on a pedestal and walked back over to Koess.
“You claim that people, things, even large structures can be protected with these shields.”
Koess nodded as though it should be obvious.
“Try and shield that vase,” Rigo said. “I am going to try and destroy it while you are shielding it.”
Koess turned and looked at the cracked vase sitting across the room. Rigo noted a brief shimmering around the object, then the air returned to normal. He could see a faint fuzziness around the vase.
“Are you ready?” he asked Koess.
The younger wizard nodded.
Rigo unleashed a weak beam of Brightfire. He couldn’t see blasting the vase with full power, and fully expected to see it blasted to dust by the restrained beam he had released. Much to his surprise, the Brightfire struck the side of the vase, or at least close to the side, and the energy of the magic was deflected, a colored glow appearing around the vase much as he’d seen around Shym and Burke during the attacks. After recovering from his surprise, he triggered another release, this time the Brightfire strong and white hot. The glow around the vase intensified, but the vase remained unharmed.
Rigo cursed. If they had only known this a few days earlier.
“How about Greenfire?” he asked Koess.
“Of course,” Koess replied.
Calling his staff to him, Rigo triggered a strong beam of the more potent green energy, only to find even that had no luck blasting through to the vase.
“I’ll be damned,” Rigo said, as he turned to Koess.
By now Koess realized that his ability to create
the shield was something important that the others didn’t know.
“You can’t make a shield, can you?” Koess asked.
Rigo shook his head. “None of us can. Well, Nycoh can make a kind of barrier, that can turn aside some of the attacks, but nothing like this, and not around something other than herself. Can you show me how to do this?”
“Sure. Of course. It’s like the rest of our magic and easily passed along. There are some differences though.”
“What kind of differences?” Rigo asked.
Koess scratched his head. “I hadn’t thought about it before, but now that we are focused on it, the shields violate one of the basic principles of our understanding of magic.”
Rigo waited for Koess to continue.
“All other magic we use is limited to a single spell active at a time. You cannot create Brightfire and a Bypass simultaneously. The last spell executed is the one that will persist. One can erect a protective shield, and still trigger other magic at the same time.”
“Try and teach me how to do this,” Rigo asked.
Koess smiled and clasped hands with Rigo. A few moments later he stepped away as Rigo searched around in his mind for the new information. Risos, he thought. It’s that simple.
Making certain that Koess had removed his own barrier around the vase, Rigo attempted to shield it himself. He saw the brief shimmer he now associated with the formation of the shield. Then, to also test Koess’s claim that he could shield and fight, he triggered Greenfire. As before, the vase stood unharmed.
“You try,” Rigo commanded, wanting to see if he could shield against someone else’s attack.
Eager to help, Koess triggered his own Greenfire, which splashed against Rigo’s shield to no avail. It wasn’t even difficult. Rigo didn’t feel any need to fight against the power being directed to the shield he created. Somehow it did all the work.
“You may have just changed the balance of the battle,” Rigo said. “The ability to protect against attack was the one major advantage still in the hands of the enemy. We need to distribute this to every wizard.”
Rigo was thinking through the implications. Wizards could easily learn this. Casters could not. There was probably a spell, but it would have to be found and taught. He’d need to show Ash’urn. Sometimes knowing a thing existed and what to look for helped. They would have to guide their search and see what could be located. It was too bad that Koess wasn’t a Caster. He might have learned that as well.
The light was slow to dawn. At first the thought nagged at Rigo and he tried to push it away. It refused to be treated in such a manner, and pushed back. Finally he took a look at it, and gasped. Koess wasn’t a Caster. Casting had been unknown when he had disappeared and he hadn’t had time to learn it since returning. Unless he picked up that knowledge while in the Void as well. But even then he didn’t have a staff or any kinds of symbols to aid him. He had just triggered Greenfire in an attempt to breach Rigo’s shield around the vase. Greenfire! Only Casters with the appropriate string of glyphs could trigger it.
“Your Greenfire,” Rigo asked Koess. “It is based in inherent magic as well?”
“Of course,” Koess asked. “I wondered why you use the Casting method, but assumed you must have a reason. Yours was more powerful than mine and I thought that might be why.”
‘That’s probably attributable to individual ability,” Rigo said. “Can you show me the inherent approach?”
“You don’t know that either?” Koess asked.
“No, none of us do,” Rigo responded. “I think we are going to need to sit down and see just what else you have picked up and think the rest of us know.”
Moments later, after the second melding of the day, Rigo was in control of both shields and inherent Greenfire.
“Let’s go find Daim, Nycoh, and some of the others. They need to learn of this immediately.”
A short time later the ability had been passed to a number of others. Nycoh was the most introspective of the new ability, thinking she saw a means of expanding her ability of triggering multiple spells simultaneously using clues hidden in the shielding spell. Already she could do something of the sort with casting and the interlocked spells on the staff, but with inherent magic she might be even more flexible.
“We will have to put a team to work testing the capabilities of this shield,” Daim said, immensely pleased with the new discovery. “Jeen, Daria and Suline are experimenting with the Ghost Doorway to see what can be done. I wish there were some way to pass that skill to others, but even Nycoh says she can’t duplicate it. This spell is even more important.” He grinned at Koess. For the first time Daim was certain that Koess wasn’t somehow linked to the Brryn and slipped into their midst.
“Ghost Doorway?” Koess asked.
Rigo explained what Suline could do.
“Have you any knowledge of such a thing from the Void?” Rigo asked.
Koess shook his head. “Nothing I encountered while there hinted at such a thing. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, and I may have simply missed it, but it is a new concept to me.”
“Maybe we have something even the Brryn don’t know about,” Daim said hopefully. “We certainly surprised Shym with it.”
“Did you learn of anything that could defeat a shield?” Nycoh asked.
Koess nodded. “There are such spells. They were part of the magic that was beyond my ability to learn. There is a triple helix beam, a very complex structure that will pass through the shield and cut it off. There is also a strange spell that produces what looks almost like a dark black wave speckled with shimmering flares of color. It will overcome the most powerful of protective spells. I am of the impression that nothing can stand against it.”
Nycoh looked at Daim. “That is not good news. If the Brryn know of such spells, our newly acquired protection might not be so useful as we hope.”
“It is unfortunate that we have no access to this knowledge, but from what Koess has told us, we might not be able to exercise it even if we knew. For the moment, we need to learn more about what we have just learned, and what else Koess might know that can help us.”
Rigo explained how the matter had come up, and Koess’s idea for shielding the Baldari. If he were correct, they might have a means of keeping them alive long enough to learn something.
“Magic doesn’t work the same,” Jeen explained when Rigo found them testing Suline’s Doorway. “On most Bypass, everyone has learned that magic won’t operate through it. Send a bolt of Brightfire at an open portal, and the magic acts as if no Bypass is present, simply passing by and striking whatever is on the far side locally. No one has ever succeeded in sending magic through a portal. With the Ghost Doorway, where one can see what’s on the far side, we had hoped it would be different. It is, but not how we expected. Instead of ignoring the Doorway as in all other cases, or passing through like Daria’s arrows, the magic appears to somehow dissipate at the interface, causing no harm either on this side or the far side.”
“But weapons do?” Rigo asked.
“Anything material can be passed through,” Jeen agreed. “We have thrown rocks, shot arrows, tossed spears, heaved boiling caustic. And they all go through as one would expect. The real benefit is that one can see what is on the far side and target it as though it was here with us.”
“What about swords and knives?”
“If thrown, they will pass through, but if attached to a person, the entire entity must be on this side or the other. There is no reaching through and swinging a sword at something while staying on this side. Too far away, and nothing appears on the far side. Too close, and both sword and swordsman go through to the other side.”
“It is remarkable to watch,” Jeen said. “We have tested with the exit only a short distance away. The arrows shot seem to simply materialize in the air. It would have to be startling to someone who wasn’t expecting it. We could use the effect even with normal Doorways, although many arrows would have to be fired simult
aneously in hopes of scoring a hit.”
“One added advantage is that no one can fire back,” Daria said. “Like any other Doorway, it is one way, except for those who have passed through. The Ghost Doorway allows travelers to pull themselves back with merely a wish, very unlike the standard Doorway.”
Rigo smiled. “I think it is about time to take this war to the enemy,” he said softly.
Chapter 49
The protective barriers, or shields, were more versatile than one might have expected. They were also easier to use. Koess had been correct. A shield around the Baldari allowed them to live once the sedation was removed. Whoever or whatever controlled them normally appeared to be unaware of their state, and as a result they continued to survive. That had been the positive step. Beyond that, any attempt at interrogation was useless. There was no common language that would allow the interrogators to communicate with the Baldari, and after the first few minutes, the Baldari lost any interest in the proceedings. They returned to the back of the cell, where they squatted and sat together, pointedly ignoring the people who were trying to talk with them. What was surprising to all, was the complete lack of hostility they showed toward their captors, a complete switch from the normal reaction expected. Some thought it was because they were unarmed and helpless, but others thought the matter went deeper.
An attempt at a Reading also went poorly. The Baldari were very different than normal humans, and the means by which they communicated so foreign, that little of use was obtained. The Baldari appeared to know little of where they were, what had brought them here, and who was controlling them. Confusion was the most common result of one of the Reading sessions. The seven Baldari they had captured appeared to be simple fighters, or perhaps farmers turned fighter. The only common thread, they appeared to come from several different villages, was a mental picture of an older, somewhat scarred Baldari, who they considered their leader. Perhaps if they had his mind to probe, more might be learned. In the meantime, they had to decide what to do with seven Baldari prisoners. For now they left them together in a large, protected cell, fed them regularly, and watched for any change in status.
