The Baldari (Book 3) (37 page)

The Casters on the far side were reacting to Shym’s death.  No longer were they moving sluggishly and without purpose, but they had suddenly started to move aggressively, as if searching for who might have done this.  Obviously, whoever controlled them, was well aware that Shym had been killed.

“Shut it down!” Daim commanded.

Suline looked at him, and quickly closed the
Doorway
.  It disappeared along with the view of what was happening in the far off place.

“That was remarkable,” Nycoh said.  “We must find away to duplicate Suline’s ability.”

“They know we have learned of their location,” cursed Daim.  “It might have been better to let Shym go and keep our secret.”

“The Brryn would have known the first time we went there,” Nycoh said with certainty. 

“But now they will use a different location,” maintained Daim.

“Possibility,” Rigo agreed, “but what we have learned was worth it.  Besides, we can still go there and see what is nearby.  We are closer to finding them than ever before.  It’s a trade I’d make any day, and Shym will no longer be a problem.”

“They will be cautious going forward in any event,” Jeen said.  “We have hurt them more than they expected, and now we have struck them deep in their own territory.  They have been immune there before.  We have shown them otherwise.  Perhaps we have bought ourselves some time.”

Daim looked like he wanted to disagree, when Mitty spotted them and hurried over.  She had come looking for Rigo, sensing he had returned.

“You surprised her,” Mitty blurted out.  “She couldn’t understand how you could have been waiting for her.  I’m certain of it.”

“You’ve been watching her,” Rigo said.  He didn’t like for her to do that when he wasn’t around to keep an eye on her.  Now that he saw what a
Ghost Doorway
could do, he was even more concerned that the Brryn might be able to target Mitty if they figured out where she was.

“She knew you have been watching her,” Jeen said.  “Why wouldn’t she suspect we might have a Seer who could point to her intended target.”

“Perhaps for all their powers, the Brryn have no knowledge of Seers and what they can do,” Mitty suggested.

No follow-up attacks took place in Pagner, but even so, the amount of damage defied anything the residents had seen in their lifetime.  It would take years to repair the devastation, not to mention the country suddenly found itself leaderless.  The younger brother of King Briz was informed of the tragedy, and while he agreed to temporarily act as the leader, he indicated that a new king would have to be chosen as soon as circumstances permitted.  He had no desire to fill the role, something that would have upset his father greatly as it meant handing the kingdom over to another family.

The fires were finally brought under control, and the long task of locating and burying the dead began.  A force of wizards was kept on patrol, armed with the alert bracelets which would allow them to call for support should the Baldari and the Brryn’s captured magicians reappear. 

The handful of prisoners were examined late in the day of the attack.  Surprisingly, the sedated Baldari were still alive, several glass after they had been taken into custody.  That suggested the theory that they were being driven into spontaneous death by some kind of mental control was valid.  Those charged with questioning them hoped that this long after their capture, the entity that had controlled them would have given them up for lost, and would no longer be paying attention.  That might allow them to live longer, perhaps long enough to reveal something of value.

The more disturbing discovery was the condition of the lone Caster they had taken alive.  As the drugs that had kept him tranquilized were terminated, he slowly regained consciousness but remained in a semi-comatose condition.  At first it was believe that something, perhaps even a reaction to the medicines was responsible, but a more careful check revealed otherwise.

“There is some kind of crystal embedded into his brain,” the medical technician explained.

“How is that possible?” Daim asked.

“I don’t know.  It is beyond our ability to place such a thing.  It is so deep and so closely integrated that one would have expected it to kill him when it was implanted.”

“Do you know what it does?” Nycoh asked, although she was certain what the function had to be.  The Brryn used the crystal somehow to control the Caster.  Now that he was no longer under her control, it left him listless and barely functional.

“Almost certainly it has something to do with how he is being controlled and forced to act against his own friends,” the tech replied, giving voice to Nycoh’s own thoughts.

“Can it be removed?” Daim asked.

“We can do a lot, but I cannot see such an attempt being successful.  Any attempt would almost certainly be a death sentence.  When we attempted to scan the crystal, it flared with magic that caused the man to spasm and stop breathing momentarily.  If you wish we can attempt to quickly extract it, but I won’t promise any kind of success.”

Daim shook his head.  “Let’s see what we can learn by the Reading first.  If we have no success, we can readdress the matter.”

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.”