The First Spark

by T J Trapp

  Alec spent the first part of the day making tricrystals. He knew a three-dimensional pattern would generate a stronger focus than a flat pattern, but it had never been possible to make a large enough single tricrystal that didn’t shatter. The distributed tricrystal pattern of his current medallion opened the possibility of making a three-dimensional focus medallion. He wanted to try it for the top of his new staff.

  He created one-hundred-fifty-seven small tricrystals. Then he started creating a complex pattern. It was very difficult to create the complex shape by feel. With a supercomputer, he could have calculated the correct pattern easily, he thought ruefully. With just his hands, eyes, and senses, however, it was a long process. He would focus and create a tiny glass thread and attach a tricrystal to the thread. Then he would repeat the process. By the time Erin returned from hunting, he had almost finished what looked like a pin cushion. She watched as he placed the last tricrystal in place. He stepped back and smiled at her. As a last check, he felt the dark energy. It was an extremely strong focus. He then fused it into a single diamond.

  “Ooh,” Erin said appreciatively, not exactly sure what he was making, or why.

  “Tomorrow, when we have more light, I can finish this,” he said. “I don’t think it will take me very long.”

  “It’s too bad we don’t have a lantern so that you could work at night. I didn’t think to get one from the slavers’ camp. We haven’t even a candle.”

  How stupid I’ve been! “I think I can make one,” he said. He scooped a handful of sand and laid it on a flat rock.

  “Something new,” he said, waving his arms dramatically in an imitation of a cartoon wizard. “I am going to make a fluorescing globe that uses a small tricrystal to generate light. I used to make these as sensors for the dark energy concentrators back home. “

  Focus – and he had a translucent round globe. Then he created a small tricrystal in the bottom and an internal wicking path inside the globe. Focus – and he had an internal fluorescing media. Next came a catalyst at the top of the globe. Then he picked it up and focused on the tiny tricrystal in the globe. The globe lit in his hands.

  “Nice,” Erin smiled.

  Alec handed the globe to her and it stayed lit. She turned it over in her hand, in wonder. The only artificial light she had ever seen was from an oil lantern or candle. The steady light of the globe looked like true magic to her, and it did not burn her hand as a candle could.

  “I watched, and saw, and felt what you did, but I don’t know how you did it or why it works; I could never repeat it,” she said in wonder, the bluish light highlighting her cheekbones and dark brows.

  “It’s easy,” he said. “It is a simple chemical reaction. I built a globe and then made a fluorescing material inside. When it reacts …” He stopped his explanation. On reflection, it wasn’t simple. He had a PhD from a good university, had spent over ten years studying this stuff, and still had a hard time understanding the basics of the process. Today he had just improvised on a process that had been developed long ago by others and then used to measure dark energy.

  “Well, maybe it isn’t so simple,” he acknowledged, “but they are easy to use. I’ll show you.” Alec took the globe and felt the focus. He let the energy drain from the crystal. The globe went dark. He handed the globe back to Erin.

  “Now just feel the crystal and let a little energy flow into it.”

  She did and jumped when the crystal glowed for her, almost dropping it. “Ahhh!” She stared at it with wonder.

  “How long does the light last?” she asked.

  “If you stay within about twenty feet of it … three or four paces from it … and don’t release the energy, it will last indefinitely,” he answered. “But if you go farther away the energy will start bleeding off, depending on how good our focus crystal is. Then it will go dim. This one should last for a couple of hours.”

  “Oh,” she said, trying hard to understand what he was telling her. “Three or four paces.”

  “Let’s make a couple more while we are at it. You can make them, and I’ll help you with each step.”

  By late in the evening they had three more good globes. Erin could replicate each step in the process with Alec’s guidance but had no idea why the step was required. Her ability to focus dark energy was significantly less than Alec’s, but with practice she could focus well enough to make the globes. They discarded a pile of rejects that, for various reasons, hadn’t worked.

  Erin sat back on her heels and admired her handiwork, the small globe in her hand glowing softly in the twilight. “Did you know that you are a good teacher?” she said.

  He smiled. “Thanks.” He looked intently at the globes, now throbbing with light. “At one time, I thought that’s what I wanted to be in life. A teacher. Teach kids about science. But then I moved into research and found it more exciting than teaching. But I always enjoyed teaching when I did it in graduate school.”

  “You taught other would-be wizards?” Erin exclaimed, impressed. “Were they your apprentices?”

  “Well, I was teaching others about science,” he said thoughtfully. “I guess you might call that ‘the study of wizardry.’ After they finish school, they go out and find jobs in the real world. But at home we have a different system that doesn’t involve apprentices. I guess. Maybe it used to, in times gone by. But now it is correct that the older, more experienced people, like me, teach the younger scientists. So maybe they are apprentices.” Maybe Alder was the wizard, and I was his apprentice.

  The sun was well towards mid-morning when they finally roused the next morning. After a leisurely and tasty meal of fresh game and roasted roots, Alec returned to work on his staff. He wanted it to be available if they encountered any more problems. Making a new staff was easier this time. He was much more comfortable using dark energy, and the new medallion was stronger than his original one.

  With a little work, he finished the new staff. Again, it had a narrow metal core and a fibrous outer surface. He clad the bottom in a metal boot. As a final addition, he fastened the diamond focus medallion that he had fabricated the previous day to the top of the staff. He reshaped the crystal surfaces so that it could glow like the lights they had made last night. He pulled a little power through the focus in the diamond. He could feel how clean and crisp it felt compared to either of his other two medallions. Three-dimensional focus medallions are more powerful, he realized. Then he focused and pushed a little dark energy into the diamond. It glowed brightly for a second. It shimmered as he rotated it and the light reflected from the various facets.

  Erin had been watching the end of the process. “Now you truly look like a Great Wizard,” she said, clapping her hands together. “You are my Great Wizard and my Great Warrior,” she said with emphasis. Then she looked a little concerned at what she had just said.

  By this time, it was late enough that it wasn’t worth the effort to break camp and travel. Erin was very interested in Alec’s background and spent the time that afternoon extracting the story of his life. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to tell her, it was just hard to tell, and it didn’t seem interesting to him. It turned out to be far harder to explain things like cell phones and moon landings than he would have imagined. He was determined to not resort to calling it ‘magic,’ but could see that for every step forward away from ‘magic’ he would fall two steps backward in another area. He could see that much of his explanations were so far from Erin’s framework of knowledge that she struggled to understand.

  Erin was most interested in his family story. He told her his mother’s story.

  “Well, my mother met my father in college … school … like ‘wizard school’ … and she said that he was tall and handsome and that she fell dearly in love with him. They got married … they consorted … and then she became pregnant with me!” Erin nodded. She understood this kind of story much better than stories about dark energy and wizarding. “And then …” Alec shrugged.

  “What happen
ed then?” she asked, leaning forward, sensing that something disturbing had happened.

  “And then, before I was born, my father left Mom, and she never saw him again.”

  Erin put her hand on his knee. “Where did he go?”

  “It was like he just disappeared. No one ever saw him again.”

  “Oh,” said Erin softly.

  “So, it was just Mom and me. My father left Mom a large sum of money … coins … so she had enough money to raise me. I had a good life, but I always wondered about my father. Mom didn’t talk much about him. I spent a lot of time with my grandfather – Mom’s dad – and we went hunting and such. I grew up in a place called ‘Washington State.’ On one side of the state there were trees and mountains and on the other side there were open plains and grass lands, sort of like this stuff, but dryer and hotter.” He looked around at the endless Grassland.

  “Did you father come back?” Erin asked.

  “No, he never did. I’ve never seen my father. I only know his name.”

  ✽✽✽

  The next day was uneventful as they rode across the plains. Alec spent time thinking about the continual fighting they had experienced. He had never been a pacifist or joined in the college protest movements, but never liked to fight.

  “Erin, fighting here will change. The sword and the spear cannot match up with the death rod. In my world, the death rod replaced those long ago, and then the death rod was replaced with even more terrible weapons. If one army’s death rods can be countered by wizards, then the other side will use their own wizards to make stronger weapons.” He frowned and sighed.

  This issue of fighting bothered Alec for the remainder of the day as he stared blankly at the rear end of the drung. Erin could see he was lost in thought and didn’t try to engage him in idle chatter.

  That night, after eating, he told Erin he had some ideas for defending against other wizards. “We should practice,” he said. Need to think about how this would work.

  “All right,” she said. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Okay. Use your medallion and fling a rock at me.” He took several paces away from her. “Not a big one.” He couldn’t see what she was doing. “And be sure to miss me, don’t hit me!” he yelled.

  The rock zipped by him, and Alec felt a touch of dark energy. “Okay, now send a few more!”

  The next two rocks zipped by as Alec felt the dark energy flow. On the third rock, he felt the energy flow start, and then he started to smooth the flow out. The rock froze in mid-air, suspended in space, held by the dark energy flow.

  “Try to make it move!”

  Erin tried again to make the rock move, and nothing happened. Then Alec relaxed and released his dark energy focus. The rock came zipping by his head.

  12 – Consort

  The next afternoon, one of the wagon’s wheels broke, obviously a common event since the wagon came with spare parts for repairs. After trying unsuccessfully to repair it in the conventional way, Alec decided to cheat. With the use of a dab of dark energy, the wagon wheel was repaired, and they were traveling again.

  After that, Alec became very conscientious about inspecting the wagon each morning. When he saw any part that looked even slightly suspicious, he used dark energy to rework it or replace it with a better part. Over the next three days, he went over the wagon and made an essentially new wagon. The only thing he wasn’t happy with was the sleeve between the wagon and the axle. He kept trying to imagine how he could replace the sleeve with a roller-bearing arrangement, but finally decided it was easier to keep fixing the sleeve and use dark energy to create more of a grease-like substance to lubricate the joint.

  Late one afternoon, they could see a mountain peak on the horizon. “That is Mt. Eras,” said Erin. “It is the tallest peak in the mountains on this side of my homeland. We will continue to travel across the Grasslands until we get closer to the mountains and then we will go along the edge of the mountains. Eventually the mountains turn into low hills and the Grassland ends and a forest begins. In a couple of days, just before the Grasslands and forest meet, we will find a trail. There will be a good trail from then on, and we might even encounter some of my people. We will have three days of travel after we join the trail.”

  That evening Alec’s curiosity about the rings got the better of him, and he asked, “You have used the rings to help us before. Show me how the ring works. I mean if that’s okay.”

  Erin held out her hand, the ring sitting dully on her finger. They tested it with various truth, half-truths, and outright falsehoods.

  “In my world, we can fly through the air.”

  Erin looked surprised but said, “true.”

  Erin continued, “I am a toothless old hag that has trapped you with a magic charm.”

  “I know better,” said Alec, “but I don’t sense anything.”

  Alec nodded and said, “In my world, I can use a cell phone to talk to someone anywhere in the world.”

  Again, Erin looked surprised but said, “true.”

  “My world only has one moon, and we can travel to it.”

  “Partially true,” said Erin.

  “I am a Princess, and my mother is the Queen,” she said smiling slyly.

  “You are my Princess, but I can’t tell anything with my ring,” said Alec sweetly. Then, unexpectedly and unbidden, Alec blurted “I love you and want to spend my life with you.”

  “I have hoped you felt that way,” said Erin quietly, “and I love you and want the same.” She allowed Alec to sense her feelings to know she was speaking the truth.

  “I can sense you are a Princess among warriors. I don’t think I am good enough for a Princess,” Alec added, dejectedly.

  Erin laughed. “I felt the opposite. I did not think a mere Princess was good enough for a Great Wizard.”

  Alec grabbed Erin and hugged her tightly. “I knew when I escaped the slavers that my life would not be worth living without you.”

  “What about your other person? I do not want to take you from her.”

  “Sarah? I have thought about her. Sarah and I never had a bond. I always felt she was more interested in keeping tabs on me than on loving me. I suspect that by now she has moved on and found someone else. You and I are meant to be together.”

  “You are my very own Great Wizard. Mine and no one else’s,” said Erin, smiling at him. Then, still looking into his eyes, her smile faded.

  Alec could still feel that Erin was concerned. “Is something still bothering you?”

  She looked at him, and said simply, “Yes.” She paused, choosing her words carefully. “There are things about me that I haven’t made clear.” Her dark eyes searched his face.

  Alec swallowed. Fearing the worst, he said, “I am with you.” Then, “Maybe I can help you with … whatever it is.”

  “I told you my father was one of the leaders of our people. I didn’t tell you about my mother. She is the Queen of our people.” Erin threw her head back a little.

  Alec took this in stride; it seemed less of a problem than he was expecting. No wonder that she seems so … regal.

  “So, your father is … was … the King?”

  “No, silly,” said Erin. “We do not have kings in Theland. In our land, the Queen is the true ruler. Her consort – ‘husband’ I think you say – is a member of the Council, but not the ruler. I am the Queen’s daughter and so I am next in line to be the ruler of Theland after my mother.”

  “So, you are the Princess,” Alec said softly. Slowly the significance of this began to sink in. “Should I be bowing to you?” said Alec, only half in jest.

  “What? ‘Bowing’?” asked Erin, not understanding.

  “In my country, we do not have rulers as you do,” Alec said. “We do not have kings or queens. But in the olden days, in other countries in my world, there were kings and queens. Very powerful. Some places still have them.” Alec bowed deeply, and then went through a brief description of the customs of European royalty. Erin
listened with amusement.

  “We have nothing like that,” she said, laughing. “They have customs like that in some of the surrounding lands, like Gott, but we do not. Those customs seem so silly.”

  “What does the Queen do?” Growing up in the United States, Alec wasn’t sure what any queen did.

  “It is simple,” Erin explained. “The Queen lives in Freeland City, in the center of Theland. Her role is to make decisions for the good of Theland. The Queen can determine who is speaking the truth, and the people know that she speaks the truth. If some issue comes up, regarding our safety or the welfare of our people, then the Council brings recommendations to the Queen. The Queen considers the recommendations and then brings her decision to our people. They know it is the truth when the Queen speaks.”

  “How does she determine the truth?” asked Alec.

  “There are two ways. The Queen can use the Stone of Truth. It lights with a golden glow when we tell the truth. With it, the people can see the glow and know that we speak the truth.”

  “The ring – this ring – also allows Mother and I to sense feelings. We can tell when someone is telling the truth. There used to be five sets of rings. Over time three sets have been lost. Now, my mother the Queen has one set, and I have the only other set – the rings we are wearing.”

  “Then life is wonderful,” said Alec, hugging her tightly.

  “Not quite,” said Erin in a more confident voice. “There is one more issue. Since I am next in line to be Queen, I will be forced to consort when I return from this trip. The Council has already told me that. The future Queen must be pure when she consorts.”

  “Pure?” He thought of her experience in the nomad camp. And, of course, her relationship with him.

  “Yes, we have thought for centuries about what that means. Wars have been fought over it. We agree that the future Queen can have sexual relations with someone before consorting, but after the Queen and her consort are bonded, her consort must be the only living person to have had relations with her. That way, there can be no false claims brought by former lovers.”