by David Yazel
He sat up and blinked blearily around him. "What is so very important that I should be disturbed during my repast?", he inquired into the air, "Are the acolytes acting up again?" He sat up and pulled his robe around him. "Well!?"
"Very sorry, sir," spoke a melodious voice, "A sixth order disturbance has been detected some two hundred miles east of here and you are on call this evening."
The color drained from Tennison’s face. "sixth order, did you say?"
"Yes sir. Mage Iterial reported a disruption in his weather working about two minutes ago. He was quite adamant about the power levels," The voice took on a slightly amused tone, "He also adds that he can’t be expected to meet the forecast deadlines with this kind of interruption."
Tennison rolled his eyes at that; Mage Iterial was covering his ass again, it wasn’t as if he ever did meet the forecast deadlines.
"OK, I’ll look into it. Oh, call Braddok and have him pop over. Thanks."
"Yes sir." There was a soft chime and the voice faded away.
He pulled off his robe and kicked his slippers into the corner. Sitting on the edge of the couch he pulled on his new leather leggings and laced them tightly all the way up. Renna had given them to him just a couple of days ago at his birthday party, as if at his age he needed to be reminded just how old he was getting. She tried to tell him that a hundred was a good age and that he still had half his life ahead of him. That wasn’t what was bothering him, however. The fact that he had spent the majority of his first century studying with little to show except a wall full of diplomas and plaques bothered him more than a little.
Admittingly, he was young to have reached Master status; the question now was what he was going to DO with it. Research was beginning to bore him and the really exciting, cutting edge stuff he would actually be interested in delving into was proscribed; unless, of course, he didn’t mind working somewhere where he wouldn’t inadvertently kill someone if he blew himself up.
He stood up and donned a linen shirt and soft leather jerkin, tucking the heavy gold chain and jeweled medallion which was his badge of office and declaration of Mastery under his shirt. As he straightened, he caught his reflection in the mirror and grimaced. He was lean, with an olive complexion and long dark hair which he kept bound with a simple leather thong. He liked to think of himself as suave and mysterious. Unfortunately the long lashes, strong jaw and startling white teeth made him a trifle too good looking for that. Oh, it was fine for the ladies, but he wished he cut a sterner figure for the acolytes, whom he suspected didn’t take him as seriously as they did some of his fellow Masters, with their furrowed brows and long white beards.
There was a whoosh of displaced air and Braddok materialized, looking a bit disheveled. "You wanted me, Ten?" Where Tennison was dark, Braddok was light, sporting bright blonde hair he kept close cropped to his skull and a full beard of the same hue.
"That secretary of yours got me out of bed at a very awkward juncture, if you know what I mean. You have got to do something about her, Ten, I think she thoroughly enjoyed interrupting me."
Tennison glanced at Braddok as he walked over to a glass case hanging on the wall. "There has been a 6th order disturbance detected east of here and we are going to investigate." He placed his index finger against the case lock and sub-vocalized the key spell. With a click the case sprang open to reveal an array of wands, rings, gems and various and sundry other magical paraphernalia. "We are leaving in two minutes so you had better get ready."
Braddok grinned and struck a heroic pose, "I am always ready, Ten, you know that! I don’t know why you use those things anyway." he said as Tennison selected a red wand from the case and slid it into his belt. "You shouldn’t rely on anything but your own wits and memory. One of these days you are going to get into trouble when one of your crutches fail you. Then where will you be?"
Tennison grinned back. Many a long night they had spent arguing this very subject. They both ignored the fact that the real reason Braddok avoided the use of magical apparatus in his work had more to do with his avoidance of the long, tedious and difficult process required to construct them rather than the purity of magical conjuring.
Tennison look at Braddok, who was admiring himself in the mirror.
"Catch", he said, and tossed him a ring with a brilliant cut emerald and heavy gold band.
Braddok caught the ring one handed and gave a muffled shriek as green fire sprang from the ring and flowed smoothly up his arm, covering his entire body in a matter of seconds before sinking into his flesh and disappearing.
He glared at his friend who was convulsed with laughter. "You asshole! You scared the living shit out of me!" He looked down at his right hand and found the ring already in place, looking innocent and quiet. No amount of tugging would dislodge it.
"It won’t come off so you might as well stop wasting your time." Tennison fastened a heavy black cloak around his neck walked through the door to the adjoining room.
Where his study was comfortable and cluttered, this room was clearly meant for serious business. The room was dominated by a huge pentagram in the middle of the floor. The pentagram was solid gold set into polished marble, measuring twenty feet from tip to tip. Lining two of the walls from floor to ceiling was an impressive library of massive leather bound tomes. The remaining two walls consisted of a single long workbench, covered with tools and ongoing projects.
Braddok followed him into the room. "What is this thing?" He held up his hand and tried a quick passive probe into the ring. Nothing. Frowning, he tried again, this time invoking a forth order active probe.
He sent Tennison a quizzical look. "I can’t pick up anything from the ring. After that light show I would have figured that I would at least pick up a residual heartbeat.
"I would be surprised if you picked up anything at all from that, Braddok. It operates entirely from the second quantum level."
Braddok’s jaw dropped. "You’re pulling my leg, right?"
"Nope. What do you think I have been spending all my research time on in the last twenty years? You know quantum mechanics is a passion with me.
"I know, but why haven’t you told me you had perfected it? Shit Ten, this is big news! You should let everyone know."
Tennison shook his head. "Unfortunately I have not been able to consistently stabilize the flux between the two levels. As you know, the only level we can operate directly on is the first quantum level. I have constructed some first level tools which let me manipulate the second level, but the two react to cause a disharmonious tertiary harmonic which eventually causes the system to collapse.
He nodded at the ring. "That was my first stable system. It should provide protection even against sixth order magics. Too bad I haven’t had the opportunity to test it yet." He ignored Braddok’s horrified expression and walked into the pentagram. A circle with a six foot diameter was inscribed in the exact center, Tennison positioned himself a few feet outside the circle and closed his eyes.
As Braddok walked over and stood beside him, the area inside the circle shimmered and lost focus, as if there was heat rising from a hot baked road on a summer’s day. Braddok, out of academic curiosity, shifted his sight to the plane of astral magics and watched as Tennison implemented the mechanics of a Far Seeing spell.
First came the standard framework spell which described and defined the limits of the spell, in this case a circle with the same radius as that inscribed in the floor. Then a spell of transformation was applied and bound within the framework, allowing Tennison to control all of the matter within the limits of the spell circle.
From his vantage point in astral plane Braddok saw a gleaming translucent cylinder with a silvery hue standing on end, six feet in diameter and twelve feet high. When Tennison triggered the transformation spell, all the matter within the cylinder became actively bound to the spell and took on a reddish color.
The next part was the trickiest. Braddok saw Tennison manipulate the transformation spell until he had control over the reflective characteristics of every bound molecule. He then divided the cylinder into two pieces, with every molecule in the bottom half linked to every one in the top half.
Tennison tightened the constraints of the top portion of the cylinder until it had sunk to a sphere the size of a small marble. With one last adjustment to allow for spatial control, he sent the small sphere hurdling out the window and into the open air.
Braddok shifted his sight back to the room just as Tennison opened his eyes and stretched. "It will take a couple of minutes for the probe to get to the location of the disturbance."
Braddok nodded and glanced into the circle. The probe had leveled off at ten thousand feet and was moving east at a rapid rate. The cylinder showed the landscape flowing by, dominated by alternating forests and checker board farms.
"Who do you think is fooling around with sixth order magics?" he asked Tennison, who was pacing back and forth pensively.
"I don’t know, but it must be something unusual if it is disrupting Iterial’s weather working."
"Is that who reported it? " Braddok laughed and sobered, "Shit, Ten, he’s probably overreacting; you know how he is."
"No, no I don’t think so Brad." Tennison was staring into the cylinder, all the color gone from his face.
Braddok turned to see what had affected his friend. On the edge of the horizon was a column of fire. The probe was still at least fifty miles away and even at that distance they could see the intensity of the heat boiling away the atmosphere. The magnitude of the fire dwarfed the imagination. Clouds were rushing from all directions into the pillar, only to be shredded and thrust upward by the violence of the continuing inferno.
At ten miles Tennison slowed the approach of the probe and they studied the ongoing disaster. Wind swept the ground at hurricane velocities, shrubs and debris flung pell-mell through the air as gusts ripped them from the soil. The probe passed what remained of a house, crushed by the ferocity of the winds.
Tennison increased power to the probe’s containment field as the wind started to fray at its integrity. At one mile Tennison stopped the probe and brought it down to the ground. From the surface and at this distance the fire covered the horizon. Nearly a quarter of a mile across, the flames shot straight up for more than five miles.
"I have never seen anything like this before," Braddok murmured, "Not even when Atlik blew himself up trying to dry out a marsh."
"Yes. That was one big explosion. This seems to a continuous blaze, as if something was maintaining it." Tennison probed the into the fire, but found his efforts shunted aside. "Yes there is definitely something in there. I can sense something, but it is like nothing I have felt before."
Tennison turned to Braddok. "This is a disaster. There are people in this area which are dying. I want you to invoke an emergency council and start preparing for relief duties. As soon as I put that fire out, I want every available body there for search and rescue operations."
Braddok grabbed his arm, "You can’t seriously be considering dealing with this, this thing by yourself can you?"
Tennison snapped his fingers and a iron shod staff appeared in his hands. "I don’t see as if we have a choice. One of us has to summon help, and dealing with the fire can’t be put off. "
He looked at Braddok seriously, "We both know who is more likely to survive this."
The looked at each other for a long second and then Braddok nodded sharply. "OK, but if I get things together on this end and you are still not back I am coming after you."
Tennison grinned, "I wouldn’t have it any other way." He moved over to stand in front of the cylinder and triggered the transportation sub-spell, turning the distant probe into temporary teleport receiver. With one last glance around him he stepped into the circle and vanished.
