Mighty Hammer Down (24 page)

An idea came into his head suddenly.
Of course there was no moon in the sky, but there was earth beneath
him. He could go anywhere he chose. Again he thought of Alana and
finding some way to prove to her that this was more than a dream.
He closed his eyes and concentrated on the Vindyri capital of
Burnhamheade. When he opened his eyes, everything had
changed.

It was a bright sunny day, with birds
chirping and a cool breeze blowing. He stood at the outskirts of a
mighty city that looked nothing like what he was used to. Instead
of massive marble columns in front of buildings, he saw tall walls
of dull-colored stone. While the colors were muted, the designs
were elegant and quite impressive. There were many places where he
could see elaborate scrollwork protruding from the stone for
embellishment. Instead of rounded archways, the ones here came to a
point, which gave the place a graceful, but slightly aggressive
look, reminding him of the blade of a sword.

Where there were columns, they were
thin and ornate, which reminded him more of the wrists of a woman
than of the stout columns in Medora. They didn’t look to be able to
support much weight, so he assumed that they were more for
decoration than anything else. The windows he saw were pointed
arches with delicate ironwork between the panes of glass. In the
larger buildings, some of the glass had been stained to make
colorful pictures which he thought must light up the insides of the
buildings with a dazzling effect.

One building stood taller than the
rest, near the center of the city. It had a very large and distinct
window if its own, which was round and depicted a scene of a man on
a rearing horse, and above him the seven gods in the clouds. He was
so impressed with the workmanship of the window that he didn’t pay
much attention to the people in the streets. When he finally took a
look around him, he noticed that the people near him were on their
knees bowing. He turned around to see if perhaps the Vindyri King
was behind him, but he saw only more people on their knees. He
cocked his head in confusion as he realized that these people were
bowing to him.

He approached the nearest person to
him, which was a little girl not older than five years. He squatted
and put his hand under her chin, raising her face to meet his eyes.
"Why do you bow?" he asked.

The child raised her eyebrows in a
fearful but respectful expression. She did not shy away, but she
found it hard to speak, as if maybe she were in the presence of her
King. A woman beside her seemed to be paying close attention to the
girl, so Rommus assumed that it was her mother. He turned to her
and asked her the same question.

"Madam, why do you bow to
me?"

Before she could answer, a loud boom
shook the ground. The people jumped at the sound, and Rommus
noticed that he could see through them as if they were ghosts.
Another loud boom and everything around him seemed to fade as well.
He realized that he was probably waking up from his dream, and he
was hearing thunder in the waking world. He struggled to stay
asleep to get some answers from these people, but the sound was too
loud and he couldn’t remain there.

He lied still when he was thrust back
to the real world, hoping that if he remained motionless, he might
slip back into the dream. He took a deep breath and tried to ignore
the world, but the heavy rain beating on the roof and the thunder
rolling overhead would not allow it. Reluctantly he opened his eyes
to the soft glow of firelight. Alana sat across the room in front
of the small fireplace, with her arms hugging her knees, rocking
back and forth. She jumped when she heard him speak.

"I thought you said the buildings in
Vindyrion lacked any ornate design."

"What are you talking
about?"

"You said that the buildings in Medora
were so beautiful, and that the buildings in Vindyrion were boring.
I think they look rather beautiful."

"Oh so you had another dream, did
you?" she asked as she spun herself around to face him. "And what
do the buildings in Vindyrion look like?"

"They were tall, made of flat stone of
muted colors. They had arches, but they were pointed at the top,
not rounded like the ones here. There were some windows that had
colored glass, and one large building that had a huge round window
with the scene of a man on a horse with the seven gods above
him."

Her mouth hung open in amazement.
"That’s Burnhamheade," she said.

"I know it’s Burnhamheade. I went
there on purpose to see if there was something I could describe to
you. Do you believe me now about the dreams?"

"It will be a little harder to prove
than that Rommus. That window is pretty famous in Vindyrion. Word
of it might have reached these parts."

Rommus stretched and covered his mouth
as he yawned. "Well, I’d have to actually see the place to prove it
to myself anyway. Until I can see if it looks like it does in my
head, it’s nothing more than a dream. I do find it odd though that
I have been having these strange visions."

She ran her fingers through her hair
that hung over one shoulder. "Maybe it has something to do with
what the Mages did to you. Or it could be that sword. You never
know what spells are cast on an object like that"

"Have you ever seen any evidence of
magic?" he asked.

"Well of course, the Silver Mages use
magic."

"Have you ever seen them do anything
extraordinary?"

She paused for a while as she thought.
"No, I guess I haven’t. There are plenty of stories about them, but
they are such a secret society that no one knows much about them. I
have never seen them do anything magical with my own
eyes."

"Right, that’s my point. I have never
seen the Medoran Mages practice any magic either, unless you count
whatever it was they tried to do to me as magic, but that’s hard to
say. I think that Mages thrive on the fact that they have a power
over people, but it’s not necessarily a magic power."

"Well what kind of power do you
mean?"

"I think they want everyone to think
that they know magic, and they keep the truth a secret. The truth
is, there is no magic, or at least if there is, they don’t know
anything about it. But fear is a magic of its own."

"I can see the wisdom in that. But how
could they possibly maintain a lie like that? And what are they for
if they can’t really practice magic or talk to the
gods?"

"I don’t know. Let me show you
something." He pulled a coin out of his pocket and showed it to her
in the orange firelight. "See this coin?"

"Yes, I see it."

"This particular coin happens to be
magical. I keep it with me at all times."

"Come on Rommus, you just told me that
you don’t believe in magic."

"No, I didn’t say that. If you paid
close attention, I said that there is no magic, or if there is, the
Mages don’t know about it. I never said I didn’t
believe."

"Okay then, what does your magic coin
do?"

He placed the coin in his left hand
and closed it tightly. When he opened it, it was gone. She was
startled at the sight.

"Where did it go?" she
asked.

"It didn’t go anywhere, it’s still
here." He closed his hand again and turned it over. He then tapped
it with the fingers of his other hand. When he turned his hand over
and opened it again, the coin was in his palm.

She reached out and took the coin and
examined it. "I don’t know what to say Rommus. Is it really
magical?"

"It is and it isn’t. It’s about
perception."

"Well that comment alone leads me to
believe that it’s not really magic. How did you do it
then?"

He smiled at her obvious intelligence.
"I admit, it’s a trick, but it really is magic too. When I put the
coin in my hand, I only pretended to do so. It stayed in my right
hand the whole time, but I was careful to hide it from your view.
When it seemed to reappear in my left hand, I had carefully dropped
it and caught it when I turned my left hand over. Then I tapped my
fist to make it seem like I was exercising some magical power over
the coin, and then I revealed the coin to you in my left
palm."

"So it’s a trick. I don’t see how it
can be magical then," she said as she handed the coin back to
him.

"It’s magical because for a minute,
you believed it was magical. A trick, performed as magic, is the
same as magic."

She twisted her face in confusion. "I
still don’t understand."

"You have to realize that you don’t
know the nature of all things. When we discussed the moon and the
sun in the sky, you claimed that Oderion made those things happen.
In a way, those are magical events for you. For me, they’re not. I
understand the way it works, so I know it’s not magic. Do you see
what I mean?"

Thunder boomed and shook the room. "I
do, but who’s to say you’re right and I’m wrong?"

"That’s exactly my point.
It’s about perception, not reality. If I never told you the secret
to this coin trick, you might have gone on believing that I had a
magical power
¾
albeit a very useless one. But
understanding the nature of the coin and what I can do with it
means that I can manipulate your perceptions, and there is power in
that. Some would call that power magic."

She stared into his eyes for a while
as if trying to unlock the mysteries inside him. "You’re a lot
smarter than I took you for at first, Rommus Tirinius. That makes
sense to me. But if that’s all true, then how can we be sure what
reality really is?"

"That’s a complicated question. I
can’t say for sure I know much about reality, but I can say that I
live my life in the pursuit of it. Underneath of everything, there
is truth. It may not always be easy to find, but everything is
built on truth."

"But in your theory, the Mages are
built on a lie."

"No, I don’t mean that sort of truth
when I say that. I don’t mean that everything is truthful; I mean
that when you pull back all the curtains, there is a reality that
those lies are built upon. This coin is real. My knowledge of how
to use the coin is real. But using those two truths, I can tell a
lie. I can manipulate your reality to suit me. Do you know what I
mean?"

"I think so. I never thought of
anything like this before. Where did you learn this?"

"I learned the trick from my father
when I was a boy, but I came up with the theory on my own many
years ago. I have had a lot of time alone to think about such
boring things."

She laughed and leaned back so that
she could cross her feet out in front of her on the floor. "I
wouldn’t call that sort of thing boring, but I guess some people
might. So if the Mages are tricking people into thinking they have
these powers, what is their purpose? What are they trying to
accomplish?"

"I don’t know. I can’t say for sure
that they don’t really have magical powers; it’s just what I think.
Either way, they are comfortable in letting people believe they do,
so it only makes sense that they have an agenda. I don’t know what
it could be, but they seem to like the power they have, so perhaps
their agenda is simply to have more power. Making people fear them
just enhances their control over them."

"So maybe they intend to eventually
rule Medora? Or the Silver Mages might wish to rule
Vindyrion?"

"It’s possible. Or perhaps they work
together in efforts to rule all the lands. All we can do is guess.
But I can’t imagine that the Medoran or Vindyri armies would let
them come to power. I know the Medorans fear them, but the Legions
would slaughter them if they thought they posed a
threat."

She was quiet for a while as she
stared at her feet in thought. "What do you think the Mages wanted
with you?" she asked.

"I think you already asked me that. I
really don’t know. I am only significant because I am a Tirinius,
and the son of the General. And the fact that we were both attacked
on the same day might mean something, but then again it might not.
If the Mages were behind both attempts, then my guess is that they
want to cripple the Medoran army for some reason. The fact that a
Vindyri woman was used to try to assassinate my father right before
we sent men to help the Vindyri in battle seems strange to me too.
Maybe the Mages want the Legions in disarray so that they can make
some kind of move and overthrow the Empire."

"Do you think that could really
happen?"

"No, I don’t think so. I
think the might of the army is much too great. It’s not like the
whole army could have the wool pulled over their eyes at once.
There are plenty of soldiers who remain suspicious of everyone at
all times. They wouldn’t let a few Mages get away with taking over
the Empire. Even if they somehow did, the army would not be loyal
to them. The Mages might run things for a while, but eventually,
soldiers
¾
Medoran or
otherwise
¾
would come to destroy
them."

They both sat for a while and listened
to the relentless rain batter the roof. Lightning flashed outside
the small window and thunder continued to shake the ground as if
the mountains in the north were crumbling. The storm seemed to get
worse as time wore on, and Rommus was beginning to think that they
would have to stay in the camp for more than one night. It didn’t
really matter how long it took them to get to Reyth, but he was not
comfortable staying in Medora, and wanted to be on his
way.