by Paul Edwards
Chapter Nine
"Jesus H Christ! Ya coulda said something," Harry yelled at Shelley.
We were all standing in the center of Shelley's little cabin.
I looked at my hands , they were shaking so hard I feared I had contracted some kind of neurological disorder.
"My God Shelley! What were you thinking..." I said.
Shelley smiled at us both, "relax, it was perfectly safe, besides if I had told you guys the truth we'd still be in the forest."
"I thought it was fun," Gwen said meekly.
Harry and I both stared at her incredulously.
"Please don't do that again," I said.
"Geez, it was a twenty foot long rocket... what did ya think was going to happen?" Shelley said with an annoyed look.
In retrospect she did have a valid point.
I woke up early the next morning before all the others, I quietly crept to the door and then carefully opened it until a small crack was visible. It was light outside but I could see that we were still enveloped in a thick fog.
I swung the door completely open, the fog was so thick I could only see the ground for a few feet. I heard a roar overhead as a dragon passed close by, I saw an orange light appear in the distance, glow for a few seconds then fade.
The dragons were still hunting us.
The fog must cover an enormous area, I thought to myself, the dragons probably searched for us all night but their fireballs had not gotten anywhere near.
I closed the door then crept to the cabins small bathroom, I closed the door disrobed and stepped into the shower.
When I emerged from the bathroom after my shower I saw that everyone else had gotten up, Shelley was eating a bowl of cereal while Gwen and Harry were gazing out the open door.
"Don't make too much noise, the dragons are still hunting us and they may have good hearing," I said softly.
"I hear more than two," Gwen said.
"That's not good."
"What next?" Shelley asked.
"We will proceed on foot for now, I will use a spell I have to keep us on course, I also have this," I flicked the squares on my bracelet and three brass coins appeared in midair, I caught them as they fell.
"Put them in your pocket," I said as I handed one to each person, "I will be able to find you with these if we get separated."
Gwen and Harry shut the door, and the three of us joined Shelley eating breakfast.
It was a half hour later when we were all standing outside preparing to depart, Shelley dispelled the cabin and then conjured up a long rope with which she proceeded to tie around each of ours waist.
I was in the lead Shelley in the rear, Gwen was second last so that Shelley could keep an eye on her, we all drew our weapons.
When we were ready I conjured up my direction spell and a faint glowing disk appeared above my bracelet, there was an arrow that rotated in the center of the disk like a compass. The arrow would always point in the proper direction for us to walk, unlike a compass it kept track of any deviations in our course and corrected them.
I cautiously started moving forward.
We traveled for only a few minutes before we came to a small hill, we walked to the top of it and then down the other side only to end up at the base of another, and so it went.
The hills got larger as the time passed and the temperature started to descend, I noticed the ground had started to give away to outcroppings of rock occasionally, soon there was more rock than ground.
When we stopped for lunch Shelley and I conjured up warm coats for everyone, we made sure the color and markings matched the grey rock we were walking through, I had noticed the fog was starting to thin.
It was late in the afternoon when the fog completely disappeared and we saw the terrain we were walking through clearly, we were at the base of a large mountain range, I could see the snow capped peaks of the larger mountains in the distance.
"Look at all the dragons," Gwen said pointing to the sky.
I saw dozens of the winged creatures circling high above some of the mountain peaks, I hoped our camouflage was adequate enough to fool them.
"We should stop for the night," I said.
"There's a sheltered area over by that cliff," Shelley said pointing.
We walked over to the area and then waited while Shelley conjured up our shelter, we all collapsed into the comfortable chairs after we had entered. The hours of walking up and down steep hills had exhausted us.
"Well we found the mountains... now how to find the Ka?" I asked.
"I have an idea," Harry replied.
"What?"
"I had a friend who used to race sailboats, he told me once that he had lost all his navigation equipment on a race to Hawaii, he said he found the island by following all the jet contrails."
"How does that help us?"
"The dragons... they might be protecting the Ka, if we look at their flight patterns we may be able to deduce where it is."
" That's a good idea," Shelley said.
"Well it'll wait until tomorrow, I'm exhausted," I tilted my head back into the comfortable chair and fell asleep.
I woke up in darkness, my stomach was growling, I was lying in a bed. I must have been more exhausted than I thought since I did not remember getting up out of the chair and crawling into it.
I quietly got up and conjured a tiny light, I was still in my clothes, I walked over to the refrigerator opened it and made myself a sandwich, I grabbed a bottle of beer closed the fridge door and walked outside.
It was cold, but the air was perfectly calm so it was tolerable, there was a bright crescent on the moon lighting the rocks and mountains in an eerie white glow.
I could see dragons high in the sky, there were only three of them, they were soaring effortlessly barely nudging the air with their enormous wings.
I followed the course of their flight to see if I could discern some kind of pattern, I saw none, again their flight was much like the desert vultures I had watched in my youth.
I shuddered a bit, the vultures had been looking for a meal.
I finished my sandwich, and took a swig of beer, sandwiches were a great idea, I thought to myself, I wondered who invented them.
I finished my beer and went back inside and back to bed.
I woke up alone in the cabin, I sat up and saw that all the other beds had been made. I felt a bit guilty since I was always an early riser and usually felt a bit smug when watching others sitting on their beds wiping the sleep from their eyes.
I dressed quickly and walked out the cabins door, I could tell by the quality of the sunlight that it was still fairly early in the morning. I saw my three companions sitting together on small stools, Harry and Shelley were observing the flying dragons with binoculars. Gwen had a large pad of paper and was writing down their observations on it.
I walked over and looked at the pad, I saw a crude representation of the mountain peaks and a number of lines which I assumed was the flight course of each dragon.
I saw that all the lines seemed to start from a single area between two peaks.
Shelley and Harry put down their binoculars and traced their fingers on the pad showing Gwen where to draw a line, Shelley looked up when she saw me.
"I think we found it," she said.
"I see," I replied, "good work."
"How do we get to it, that's the big problem," said Harry.
"Have you noticed any of the dragons walking?" I asked.
"No," they said in unison.
"So if they always fly, we just need a way to block their view of us... I have just the spell."
The three of them stood up from their stools, Shelley then dispersed them as well as the binoculars. Shelley handed me the pad of paper with the flight trails on it, I used it to set the direction spell on my bracelet.
I tossed the pad back into our little shelter then closed the door, Shelley then dispersed it as well. I summoned up one of my small flying craft, it was basically just a small
wooden boat like structure.
"Everybody get in quickly, before the see us," I said.
We clambered into the small flyer and sat down, I pulled one of the crafts control levers and it rose about five feet in the air, I then activated another spell with my bracelet and two large rectangular gray screens appeared above and below the boat.
"the screen above shows what the screen below is facing, the dragons will just see the rocks of the mountains," I said.
"Unless they get too close and see the parallax effect," Shelley said.
"We will use the time slowing spell if that happens."
I nudged the craft forward and followed the glowing arrow on my wrist, I keep us very low to the ground and followed the contours of the land.
Shelley used a periscope spell to see if the dragons noticed us, their flights were still just random gliding.
It took many hours of tedious flying to make progress through the mountains, I had to change course many times in order to find mountain passes in order to keep our altitude low so the dragons would not see us.
It was only when the sun had reached its peak and had started to set that I started to discern a very faint path on the ground, it became more and more defined the longer I followed it.
The sun was setting when the path turned into a road paved in flag stones, the stones were cracked and weathered and looked as if they had not been trod on for many years.
"Kem stop! Look!" Shelley hissed in my ear.
I looked to where she was pointing and saw what looked like a large arched doorway that must have been a hundred feet high, we were probably a mile away.
In front of the doorway I saw three large creatures, two were curled up and looked like they were sleeping, one was slowly walking sniffing the ground, it suddenly spread open and stretched its enormous wings.
I guess dragons could walk after all.
"I will activate the time spell, we will walk the rest of the way," I said.
I lowered the craft until the screen below it was very close to the ground and threw out a rope ladder, the screen could be walked on.
We all quickly departed the flying craft walked on the screen and then hopped onto the road, I activated the time spell once we had assembled into a small group.
The world went silent and the one dragon that had been walking froze in place.
We stood in front of the enormous doorway after twenty minutes of walking, I felt my heart hammering in my chest as I saw the dragons so close, even though they were frozen in place I could still feel their large black pupil-less eyes staring at me.
They were magnificent creatures, their iridescent scales glowed in the fading sunlight.
We walked through the door way and entered a breathtakingly enormous room with a high arched ceiling, it reminded me of a great cathedral. There was some kind of diffuse light illuminating everything, I could not tell where it was emanating from.
"Look, a normal sized doorway," Shelley pointed to a much smaller arched doorway at the end of the room about two hundred feet away.
We traveled as fast as we could to reach it, I had the feeling of being watched all the way to the doorway. We quickly went through it, I saw a large wooden door on hinges on the other side. I swung it shut and lowered its large bronze latch into place.
I deactivated the time spell and waited for a few seconds, I could not hear any roaring or the stopping of large feet.
We had made it past the dragons.
The room behind the door was not a room, it was the start of what looked like a large maze, the walls of the maze were constructed of large black rectangular blocks of granite about nine feet high and four feet wide, the ceiling was a further five feet above.
The blocks were entirely covered in a magical text which had been carved into it. I started reading some of the spells but they were of such a complexity and length that only the author could ever have been able to discern their purpose.
"These spells are huge," Shelley said as ran her fingers over the carved letters.
"What are they for?" Harry asked.
I noticed that Harry didn't seem to be examining the spells very closely, and I had the distinct impression that he had little comprehension of them.
I walked over to Shelley and then grabbed her elbow, I used a pretence of finding something interesting in order to pull her out of earshot of Harry.
"I haven't seen Harry do a single spell since we've been together, isn't that odd?" I whispered to her.
"Well he never said he was a good sorcerer, you how dangerous having a little knowledge is."
"He asked me on the ship if I was able to tell him my name, does that mean anything?"
Shelley's expression changed suddenly as if she had an epiphany.
"He's bluffing... that's a very old myth of magic, that powerful beings could not reveal their names or others would be able to control them."
"Oh... that's an odd bit of logic," I said.
"Ya... the opposite is probably more true... don't tell powerful beings your own name... or anything."
"What should we do?"
"Well he's harmless, and he has been helpful."
"But he's the only reason we're here," I said.
"Originally... and we still have to be sure he knows nothing," Shelley replied.
We had to stop our conversation, Gwen and Harry had walked over to where we were standing.
"What are all the spells for?" Harry asked again.
"We don't know, they are very complex," I said.
We continued walking through the corridor passing various openings leading to other similar corridors with even more writings.
"If it's a maze couldn't we just put one hand on a wall and follow it," Gwen asked.
"Not if it's magical," I replied.
We soon came to a large wall that stretched all the way to the ceiling, it was clear of any writing, I looked down the length of it and saw that the blocks of the maze stopped about six feet from it. I could see the edges of the black granite blocks as they stretched for what looked liked hundreds of feet, they were about a foot thick.
It reminded me of pictures I had seen of the large computer rooms of the modern era, with their rows and rows of electrical equipment.
We walked down the corridor towards the front of the room, I looked down the down the aisles of blocks as we passed them, they were all the same, row upon row of magical script.
We arrived at the front of the room after a ten minute walk, it was a large open area in the middle of which there was a large glowing orb surrounded by two smaller orbs, there were small threads attaching the smaller orbs to the larger one.
"It's a model of Hathor," Gwen said excitedly.
I cautiously walked closer in order to examine it, I saw clouds and dark blue seas on the surface of the orbs, one half of each orb was dark, I saw the lighted outlines of cities glowing on the surface.
"I don't think it's a model, I thinks it's a representation in normal time," I said.
"Here is a control panel," Shelley yelled out.
I walked over to the large table like structure she was standing in front of, the surface of the table was covered in hundreds of levers and small wheels, there was writing underneath each control, I didn't understand the language.
Shelley reached out to touch one of the levers.
"Leave that alone!" a disembodied voice yelled out, Shelley jerked her hand back in surprise.
"Who's there?" I yelled"
Suddenly we were surrounded by a dozen floating glass orbs, they were about four inches in diameter and had been colored to look like eyeballs.
The floating eyes flew around us but kept their gaze locked onto us much like a real eye would if someone was looking at something while moving.
"Who are the intruders?" the voice asked, it sounded different this time but it was still the voice of an older male.
"Who are you?" I asked.
"I am the intelligence, now answer the question po
sed," the voice subtly was different again, it's tone was one of impatience and arrogance.
"We are travelers, we have come to try to fix the problems of this world."
The floating eyeballs jerked suddenly as if they had been stung.
"This world is perfection, it is whole, it is good," it said, again with a tinge of arrogance.
I moved my hand to my bracelet, I had a feeling of unease and was going to activate the time slow spell.
One of the glass eyes flew over my hand and a large electrical spark jumped from it to my hand, a jolt of pain surged up my arm causing me to jerk it back.
"There will be no magic!" The voice yelled in anger," if you persist I will increase the lightning's pressure."
"Um... Ok... we'll just be leaving then," I said as I signaled the others to follow me.
The eyeballs instantly flew around us and blocked our exit.
"You will not leave, you will stay forever," the voice's tone reminded me of a frustrated parent disciplining a child, again it was subtly different as if another person had spoken.
"This isn't good," Shelley said.
"What do you intend to do with us?" Harry asked.
"You will wait until it is over," the voice said matter-of-factly.
"What's over?"
"Your lives."
"You are going to starve us to death?" Shelley asked.
"You will be permitted sustenance."
"This is crazy, we're just supposed to wait until we die?" Shelley said.
I looked around the area to see if there was another exit we could run too, there wasn't, I did notice though that some of the granite panels had large areas with no writing on them.
I cautiously walked over and examined them, three of the eyeballs followed, they watched me but did not interfere, one of them observed my fingers as I ran them over the clear surface.
"Find something?" Shelley was beside me.
"I feel beeswax... they must have mixed it with a black dye and used it to fill in some of the writing," I said.
"So someone took parts out... maybe that had something to do with Moses' disagreement with the other sorcerers. Who is this person were talking too?" Shelley asked.
"I don't think it's a person."
"Then what is it?" Harry asked, both he and Gwen had joined us.
"I think it's a spell based on an idea I once had."
"Your collective intelligence idea... right?" Shelley said.
"Yes."
"What was the idea?" Harry asked.
"I had a theory about intelligence, I got it while watching a flock of birds... you know when they group together and swoop and move as one... I thought that maybe intelligence wasn't a big complicated thing but a bunch of little things cooperating... and... this is hard to explain... that it was ephemeral, it was created by all these little things working together but they were completely oblivious to it."
"How does that make a spell?" Shelley asked.
"Well... you know those contests were you have to guess how many things are in a jar?"
"Ya, like jelly beans."
"Well if you take everybody's guess and average them you will usually get a really good answer, so I theorized that instead of this being just some sort of statistical oddity, it was an example of a greater intelligence being created by amalgamating everyone's guess."
"How would that work in a spell?"
"Using magic I could compress the decision making process, I would create an effect of a person in a room waiting to hear a question, but use hundreds or thousands of people, then I would collect all their answers and distill them down to a consensus."
"How would you do that?"
"Um... exactly... that's why I never created the spell."
"So this thing is a collection of thousands of people making decisions?" Gwen asked.
"I think so, I think that's why its voice is always changing."
