Highmage's Plight (Highmage’s Plight Series Book 1) (6 page)

“My question is simpler: how soon can he send me back?”

Balfour shook his head, “The Gate’s been sealed for millennia – since the Great War. Gee-orj, I must ask this. I was going to for personal reasons but now I must know for others as well.”

He looked deeply into George’s eyes as he asked, “Did you heal Casber immediately after his accident?”

George paused a moment, then shrugged and said, “Yes.”

“What were his injuries?”

The staff glistened and Balfour mentally heard, ‘Broken ankle, two fractured ribs—’

And images unlike anything he had ever imagined filled his mind, he saw the damage inside Casber’s body.

“And his arm snapped when I grabbed hold,” George finished.

“By the Gate, you’re a healing mage!”

“What? Oh, definitely not. Staff and I just did some basic first-aid.”

“First-aid?”

“Look, I’m an archaeologist. You need lots of skills and training to be out in the field. It can be rather dangerous and those with DHR computers are expected to handle minor emergencies.”

“Casber’s injuries were truly minor to you?”

“Um, yes.”

“Can you teach me these spells?”

“No spells. I don’t do magic, my friend. I’m just an archaeologist.”

“Archea-gist, this means you are a mage?” Balfour said.

“No, I’m a seeker of things past, I uncover history.”
Love to uncover history, just didn’t imagine walking into some kind of fable.

“Uncovering history and you can heal and fight off wyverns single handedly?”

‘He used both hands!’ Staff quipped.

George glared at his staff and Balfour burst out laughing.

“There’s no spells, just knowing how to use your mind. And you’ve got the necessary talent. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be able to hear Staff.”

“So, you can teach me.”

“Balfour, I—”

“You need a guide to the Empire. The Summoning is drawing you, and you need someone to be there in case it temporarily cripples you.”

“What?!”

“That’s what I read in the book about it at the Healer’s Hall. It was referred to as a minor side effect.”

“Wonderful! Oh, that’s just wonderful. Bad dreams and headaches aren’t enough, huh?”

Balfour paused, “So on our way, you can teach me this…human mage healing.”

“It’s not magic.”

“You will teach me then?”

“It’s not as simple as that, Balfour,” George replied.

‘He means that I need to teach you.’

“Staff, stay out of this,” George muttered.

‘George, we need him. He can teach us about this world and we can teach him. Fair trade.’

“Take me with you, uncle Bal!” Casber pleaded in the Elder’s tent.

“I can’t, Cas. You’re too young and who will take care of your grandfather with me gone? You want me to trust Cort or Niel?”

Casber looked to his grandfather for support. He only smiled, jovially begging, “Please, anything but that, boy!”

“But—but—”

“You can sleep here, lad,” his grandfather said. “No more petty torments from your brother or cousins.”

Casber’s eyes went wide, delighted by this turn of events, as his uncle went to a small intricately carved chest that was part of a set his grandfather said they always had to handle with care. They were elf made and very precious. Balfour opened it and took out a necklace with a lovely polished quartz stone.

The Elder cautiously asked, “Bal, are you sure?”

His uncle Balfour nodded. He offered it to Casber.

“This was my mother’s. It has warded against harm. She gave it to me before she died. Wear it always. It will keep you from mage harm, and may even serve as a reminder not to sit on the edge of a cliff.”

Balfour dared not look at the old man’s face, but Casber saw his grandfather’s tears.

“I won’t. I promise! I’ll wear it always!” Casber assured.

Balfour clasped it about his neck then shooed him out.

Casber cast one last look back as Balfour bade him a tearful farewell.

“You are leaving,” Daffyd du Winome said.

“That I am,” George answered.

“Good and with my eldest brother, which is better still.”

George looked at him. “You hate him?”

“No. I just don’t know him. Oh, we all trust him with our lives. His skills will be missed but we’ve my niece to marry off and there’s those who are skilled and single who can join our clan as the bride price.”

“Life’s that simple?”

“Simple enough, except for Casber. He’ll want to go with you.”

“He won’t be.”

“As long as we understand each other.”

George nodded as Casber’s father, Daffyd, left him, then turned to see Casber, half hidden behind the brush.

“Uh, I didn’t mean to eavesdrop. It’s just that when I saw you with Papa—” Casber began.

Laughing, George nodded, “Of course not, that would have been rude.”

Together, George and Casber walked down the path to the waterfall, a gentle breeze blowing. The clan drew their spring water from this place. Casber sat down on the nearby rocks and watched the water cascade down.

“I, I never said thank you for saving my life.”

George smiled, “There’s no need, my friend.”

“Do you have to go? I mean, you could marry my cousin – we wouldn’t lose uncle Balfour as our healer then!”

“Uh, I can’t.”
What an idea
, he thought. “I’ve got to make my way home.”

“Is it far?”

“Very.”

The boy nodded. They sat and watched the clear, flowing water. George suffered a moment of dizziness, saw double, gripped his staff tightly, and it flared with light. George shook his head. The Summoning was apparently nudging him to get a move on.

Casber coughed, shaking his head also to clear his dizziness, then rose to follow George, who gave him a quick hug.

“I must be on my way. Your uncle Balfour told me we’ve daylight enough that if we leave soon we can reach the nearest Way Stop before dark.”

Casber nodded, wiping tears from his eyes. “I, I think, I’ll just stay here awhile longer.”

“Of course. Goodbye, my friend.”

The boy nodded and sat back down, muttering, “It’s not fair.”

‘Fair, fair.’

The polished quartz stone glowed beneath his shirt. It was no longer what it had been. It was something more and it was learning.

The clan and their patriarch said their farewells to their guest and Balfour. The elfblood gave quick kisses to his sister-in-laws and nieces, his nephews offered him a firm arm grip, which brought smiles.

Casber watched at a distance, pausing at the edge of the camp to see them off. He closed his eyes. Life would be better than before. No one would laugh at him or call him a dreamer anymore. He would live in his grandfather’s tent and watch over him, likely learn more from him than any of the other youngsters in the clan. He smiled. Yes, life would be much better.

He then imagined hearing the sound of hoof beats and had a dreamy image of a white horse with a glowing horn jutting from its forehead. It came to a halt, turned to gaze at him.

There was a moment of shocked reaction, ‘You.’

He blinked, coming out of his reverie, thinking,
I’d best not mention any odd daydreams to grandfather any time soon. I don’t want to spoil it.

Lord Ryff, a Sire of Cathart, sighed as he drew back the reins.
Too far from home
, he thought, as he looked about.

No member of his house cared to meet his gaze as the entourage of wagons and armed escort came to a halt along the Caravan Road in the southeastern Crescent Lands, which lay between the Empire and the Barrier Mountains.

Circling high above soared a bird of ill omen. He stared at up at the rare falc, so far from its northern climes. He glanced away before dismounting his horse without comment. His black liveried daughter Se'and paused a moment, trying to find something to say, failing, and quickly leading away her father’s mount.

Ryff hardly noticed. His thoughts elsewhere.

The fey bird was a grim harbinger, difficult to ignore. It had been following them for weeks, ever since they had left the Empire and begun traveling back down the Caravan Road. The way was long and arduous, but contemplating the alternative of taking ship once more threatened a worse fate. He heard the sound of coughing from the nearest wagon and winced. His son lay near death.

He had taken the boy to the Empire in hopes that their renowned healers could somehow miraculously cure him. But no sooner had they arrived then they were told otherwise.

“M'lord,” murmured his older half sister De'ohr, the Household’s Mother Shaman.

Turning, he pondered, “Do you think that falc is somehow attracted to our parade of five score sisters or do you think it truly just follows in the wake of Vyss’ impending death?”

Swallowing hard, the shaman replied, “I would prefer to think it seeks to honor us.”

He glanced away. “Is it time?”

“Soon, M'lord. In any case, we should proceed no farther.”

With a nod, Ryff marched toward his son's wagon. He would spend what time he could with the boy.

Se'and chose to lead the patrol rather than linger. It was too painful to wait, accomplishing nothing more. No one questioned her choice as she fought back tears, leaving the care of her lord sire's mount to a younger ister. She quickly mounted and took command of the group of sisters heading out on patrol.

Urging the horse to a canter, Se'and sought to forget the pall that hovered over each of the sisters. Best do what needed doing, the last thing they needed now was to be raided in these uncivilized lands.

The seven sisters followed close behind the only full-blood sister to Vyss Secondson, who had been hailed as a child of prophecy, the one who would break the Curse that prevented the few men of Cathart from normally siring more than a single son in a generation, or occasionally killed such sons before they could ever father a single child. It was a prophecy that would likely go unfulfilled for yet another ten generations at the very least. But by then her people would likely have perished.

The patrol headed eastward through the rolling hills, which led to the mountain range that they had run parallel to for days now – the range that bordered the Great Waste.

George and Balfour’s mountain-bred horses plodded down the trail. George grimaced with each stride and finally brought his mount to a halt.

His elfblooded companion glanced back and chuckled, “Don't tell me you need another break already?”

George glared as he dismounted rather gingerly.

“Balfour, please, don't start. I've told you I'm not used to riding, at least, not riding anything that travels on four legs, anyway.”

The Barrier Mountains that were the elfblood's home towered in the distance behind them as Balfour nodded and said, “At least you don't fall off anymore.”

“Should I feel honored by the fact, my dear student? It isn’t as if that didn’t give you a chance to heal my bruises. Or are you just upset that I'm not giving you a chance to practice mending my broken bones?”

“That injured stray sheep was good enough for that purpose,” Balfour replied with a grin as he dismounted and walked beside his dun colored mount, “Gee-orj, my only question is who’s teaching whom?”

George took his staff from his saddle strap, reins in his other hand, and led his mount down the trail. The staff sparkled as George walked, bespeaking them both.

‘Isn’t it enough that I have to share your pain?! George, this – thing you call being “saddle sore” is no more a pleasure for me than you. At least let me desensitize you to—’

“What? Don't tell me you've suddenly realized that being alive is not all it's cracked up to be.”

There was a moment of utter mental silence then the staff glistened ever so faintly.

‘I am beginning to think I would have been better off enrapport with anyone else's mind but yours, George.’

Balfour fought to hide his grin at the look on his companion's face. Privately, the elfblood found himself continually astonished by both the man and his enchanted staff, or, as he reminded himself, the “damned computer” as Gee-orj referred to it.

“I am not going to get into an argument with a machine with delusions of grandeur, I just won't.”

Staff offered instead, ‘Balfour, let us at least be productive and continue today's lessons.’

“Please!” Balfour gushed.

George paid little attention to the enrapport lectures and Balfour's verbal replies about what he already knew from his years of training at the Imperial Healers Hall. Those years of frustration had led to him leaving the Hall and the Empire. Balfour du Winome, an elfblood and son of the all too human Elder of the Clan Winome, was unable to perform the slightest mageries necessary to practice the healing arts the Empire was so renowned for.

It was difficult for George Bradley, “Gee-orj” as Balfour and his kin came to pronounce it, to imagine that the people of this world commonly depended on magic to heal wounds and worse. This entire world was so vastly, shockingly, different than Earth. George was an archaeologist with Terran University who found himself falling across the universe to wherever the hell this was: a world settled by a crashed colony ship, a world inhabited by Elves who apparently had changed the laws of science enough that mankind had gone through a great many changes and been left, by appearances, a primitive people. He was lucky to have made a friend in Balfour as he followed the pull of the enchantment that called him ever northwestward toward the Empire.

George had been shocked to recognize the very human talents for healing Balfour displayed, but never was able to utilize. After all, Balfour had always taken for granted that it must be a person of elvin blood who could utter a spell to effect the healing magicks. Balfour and expressed his knowledge that it was impossible for humans to ever “do magic.”

Meeting George had challenged those preconceptions, although, on one point George was adamant: “I don’t do magic!” Human talents were based in “science,” a word Balfour was gaining a healthy respect for, but one that also carried a connotation across the Crescent Lands and the Empire that equalled pity in its reference to the old legends of the human religion that had failed its people so long ago.

George Bradley's study of the past had not prepared him to confront the twisted reality in which he found himself. He had learned about ancient civilizations through what they left behind, the objects and remnants of structures, bits of stone, shards of glass or pottery, their use of plastics, or combustion engines, any number of a thousand other things that, for an archaeologist of his caliber enrapport with a computer, could explore to create a vivid picture of the life in Earth’s past.

Still, none of his skills or experience could have prepared him finding himself living so primitively in a world where the laws of physics governed the laws of the universe. Instead, magic ruled this land and his DHR model computer staff was behaving oddly to say the least, and its technical and natural abilities were somehow magnified to an unheard of level by this magic.

He had gone from a dig in northern Europe to this world, one where humanity, with some degree of technology, had fought a terrible war ages past against elves and their magicks, and had nearly been annihilated. The Great Waste lay on the opposite side of the mountain range behind them, a vast desert that George had come to know all too well.

‘Let us review surgical technique,’ Staff continued. Images flashed through George's mind.

Balfour's expression was almost radiant as he absorbed the lesson like so many others. Day or night, awake or asleep, he learned from the now living machine that was an extension of George's mind. The computer's designers, had they seen it, would never have believed it possible. George almost wished Staff wasn't conscious, then winced as he considered remounting and riding down the trail.

As George was dreading the prospect of remounting his horse his staff suddenly flared and he cried out.

The by-now-all-too-familiar agony gripped him: the Summoning became his world. His mental barriers were struck aside. He heard Balfour's shout of alarm distantly as he fought the enchantment’s affects.

‘Warning! Rapport levels unstable! George, I am trying to block the magnitude of the Summoning, but I need your conscious help! George, help me! Trying emergency shutdown of humanistic systems!’

George groaned and clutched his chest as the computer shut down his heart. His horse leapt brush as it raced off the trail south eastward pell-mell. The enchantment that gripped him dropped away. Apparently George’s imminent death was far from the spell’s desired outcome.

George nearly fell from the saddle as his blazing staff announced, ‘Reinitializing sinus rhythm. Sorry about that, George, but it was the only thing left to try.’

He grunted, holding the saddle horn and reins for dear life. Hoof beats pounded behind him as his elfblooded companion raced to catch up.

“Gee-orj! You alright?”

He struggled for breath then finally muttered, “Stopping my heart, uh, seemed a bit excessive.”

‘The spell was over-riding your body…and our horses too! I’ll do it again if I have to!’

In the back of George’s mind he could feel the Summoning quail, recognizing a boundary too dangerous to try crossing ever again.