Nightlord: Orb (108 page)

She has a right to her feelings and her priorities.  If she were a soldier, she would have to follow orders.  She’s not a soldier.  She’s my friend.  I’m tempted to add other things, but I’ll let it go with “friend.”

“You’re right,” I told her.  “I’m not happy about it, but you’re right.  If I’m not around to call the shots, fine—come get me.  But if something seriously awful happens to me, will you go ahead and look out for Tianna?”

“I can do that.”

“And if something happens to both Tianna and I, feel free to rip the Palace at Carrillon down to the ground.”

“I have no problem with that,” Mary assured me.

I nodded and looked for something to lighten the conversation.  I stroked my face-fur and wondered if it looked as bushy as it felt.

“Do you think I should shave before I pay a visit?”

“Depends.  Do you want to look like the Demon King they all know and love?”

“You could just
say
‘Absolutely not!’,” I complained.

I called for Dantos and spoke with him directly.  Beltar and I spoke on the mirror.  Mary would have the assistance of my newest knight and the Temple of Shadow if it came down to cases.  I didn’t think I’d need Mary’s help.  If I did, I didn’t think Mary would need their help.  But you never know.

Once we finished our discussions, Mary took over the mirror to start looking around Carrillon, “casing the joint,” as I think it’s called.  I went off to another room and had the mountain make a nice arch, much like it made the sand table, and produce a smooth sheet of silver.  This gate was going to need a dedicated mirror and I could polish the silver while enchanting it.  I was going to need a gate room eventually, so starting it now was a good idea.

Could I get the mountain to squeeze out iridium for the gate?  It can find all sorts of metals—gold, silver, platinum, iron, mercury, copper… Iridium shouldn’t be any different, aside from its rarity.  As for that, all I had to do was identify it properly.  How to identify it to a gigantic pet rock was more of a problem.  Of course, if I had some iridium, I could give it to the mountain and it would then squish it into the metals room—assuming this world even has any iridium.  But without a sample to start from, iridium is one more silvery-white metal.

I should have picked some up before we left.  Well, now I know better.  Maybe I can work the iridium into the arch later.

Once the mountain’s arch-and-mirror growth was in motion, I sent for Sir Sedrick and had him come to my sand table room.  I finished my prototype spells for the sand table while he made his way to see me.  He met me there and I gestured him to a seat.  He waited patiently while I finished connecting spell modules.

“You requested my presence?” he asked, when I straightened up.

“Yes.  I’m working on something and I’d like your help.”

“My wizardry is mediocre,” he warned.  “I have studied some of the basics, but I rely mainly on my sword-arm.”

“It’s not about that.  My project is a magical thing for finding someone, but I’m going to be busy for a while and I’m worried it might be for quite a long while.  I could wind up imprisoned or dead, in fact.”

“Really?” he asked, looking interested.  “Do go on.”

“You remember Tort?”

“The Lady Tort, Consort to the Demon King, Magician of Karvalen.”

“That would be her.”

“Yes, I know of her.  We met some time ago, before you took the throne in Carrillon, but I remember.”

“Good.  When she organized and accomplished my exorcism and escape, she put herself in grave jeopardy on my behalf.  It is possible she sacrificed herself for me, but that is a possibility I cannot and will not accept.  I must believe she is alive somewhere—although where, or why she would be elsewhere, I have no idea.  She’s the one I’m trying to find.”

“And you want me to find her for you?”

“Possibly.  I’d like you to look into it, at least.  Also, there’s the matter of T’yl.  I trust you remember him?”

“Elfin appearance, supercilious, sometimes rude, generally polite only to other magicians and you?”

“I hadn’t noticed him being outright rude all that much.”

“Naturally.”

“Oh.  I suppose I wouldn’t.  Good point.  But you obviously remember him.  He’s missing, too.  Tort is my priority, but while you’re looking around, asking questions, that sort of thing, I’d like anything you can get on T’yl, too.”

“So, you lost your magicians and you can’t find them?”

“That’s not how I’d put it.  They’re my friends.  I want to make sure they’re okay.”

“But that’s how it is.”

“Well… yes.”

“I will discover what I can.  Would you prefer I rescue them, if they need rescuing?  Or do you want to do it?”

“I’m not proud.  If you think you can do it, go for it.  Be sure to keep someone here informed if I’m not handy.  You do still have that mirror, right?”

“I do.  And I will be honored to be of service.”  He smiled at me.  “You’re going to owe me favors.”

“I know.  Let me know what I can do for you.”

“I will.  I’m saving up for something big.”

“You have only to say the word.”

“Have you any thoughts on where to begin?”

“Offhand?  Let me think.”  I gave it some thought and paced in a circle around the sand table.  “T’yl was in residence here, in the palace of Karvalen, up until he disappeared.  Someone might know something—last seen leaving the city sort of thing.  Both of them are magicians, so someone in Arondel might know more.  As a last resort, I might ask Bob.”  I paused and thought about it.  “Actually, asking Bob might not be such a bad idea.  T’yl had an elf-body, last I checked, with some humanizing alterations.”

“I am hesitant to consult with an elf,” the Hero cautioned.  I sympathized.

“I’ll get you a token.  He’ll know you have my authority and he’ll be helpful.  I have every confidence in his loyalty.”

“Do I want to know why?”

“Probably not.”

“You mentioned a token?” he asked, changing the subject.

I found a coin, one of the silver pentagons with what was probably meant to be my face on it.  A few minutes of work and it had an imprint shaped like my hand on both sides—one dented inward, the other pushed outward.  Bob would recognize it, I felt sure.

“There you go,” I said, handing it to Sedrick.  “I’ll call ahead and let Bob know you’re working for me, too.  Let’s see about getting you some money—not to pay you, but to smooth the way in your investigations.”

“I will appreciate whatever you may afford.  I believe I will begin by asking questions here, in Karvalen.  If this proves fruitless, Vathula will be next—it’s closest—and then Arondel.”

“Sound thinking.  Wait here a minute.”  I left him and dashed up to the metals room.

Cracks in the walls still oozed metal.  The mountain didn’t fill the room up with lumps of it during my absence.  It stopped when the piles stacked up to the height of the metal veins.  This left a lot of metal in the room.  No iron—it was probably appearing as if by magic in one of the smithy rooms.  No copper, either—same probability; it’s the main component for brass and bronze.  A pool of mercury occupied one corner.  Piles of gold and silver lumps heaped themselves against the walls.  A smaller mounds of platinum and other metals were spaced around the room.

I’m going to get some iridium for the mountain and ask about it.  I swear I am.  Right now, though, I’m not sure it hasn’t already squeezed out a small pile of it.  That’s the problem with a lot of metals; they look a lot like each other until you do something esoteric, occult, or arcane to them.  I’ll have to test them and see… later.

I gathered some lumps of gold.  Firebrand helped me slice the larger ones down into smaller pieces.  I brought a double handful of the stuff back down to Sedrick.  He grunted as I dumped the precious metal into his hands.

“There you go.  If you ever need more, say so.”

“I’ll keep it in mind, Sire,” he replied.  “Right now, I need to find some strong pouches.”

“Ask Laisa,” I advised.  “She’ll know.”

“Right away.”

“Good.  I leave it in your hands.  If I discover anything, I’ll be sure to let you know.”

“Excellent.”  He bowed and hurried off, trying not to lose chunks of gold.

I went back to my spell-work.  I knuckled down and got busy with the spells on the sand table.

My first three spells were reflectors and already established.  They roamed slowly around the edge of the world, connected to each other and the mountain with locator spells.  Rather than spherical pulses, the energy of the locators were focused into beams—think of laser beams, scanning as they sweep slowly around.  I was proud of that.  It let me link multiple spells together over vast distances.

See, the idea was to have fixed spells on the mountain—three at the edge of the upper courtyard, acting as fixed navigational points.  Three mobile spells out at the Edge, following it as they worked their way around the world, would beam information to each other and to the mountain as they moved.  Eventually, they would scan the whole world.

I considered having them orbit up and over, tracking along the firmament, but I’m cautious about doing
anything
with the shield defending the world from the hungry demons outside.  Call me overcautious, but I’ve been in a fight with those Things.  It’s not an experience I’d care to repeat.

As the mobile spells worked their way around, they would act in much the same way as a reflector.  The fixed spells on the mountain emitted a basic detection beam at each of the roving spells, changing the angle by a minute amount with each pulse as the reflectors orbited.  Eventually, these detection beams would sweep like a scanning laser over everything—ground, water, trees, the works.  With all that information fed into my sand table, it could display a map of the world.

This would not, by itself, find anything shielded from locator spells.  What it would do is find any area blocked from such spells—the black balloons in the stadium.

If the sand table displayed the world, except for a half-dozen “holes,” then I would have a good start on places where Tort or T’yl might be.  Some I might be able to peek into with a scrying spell.  Location-blocking shields don’t stop scrying portals, and vice versa.  Others I might be able to look into with a combination of scrying spell and telescope—the spy satellite method.  With others, perhaps I could use something like a psychic link with a bird to fly in and look around—the
viksagi
shamans did something like that, or tried to, during the Battle of Crag Keep.

I have lots of options for looking someplace over.  The trouble, as always, is finding the place!

A related problem was the time it would take.  The spells floating around the world, following the contours of the Edge, might take a while.

This whole setup was harder to coordinate than I anticipated.  Flinging the spells out to the Edge wasn’t the problem.  Immaterial constructs like a spell matrix don’t have to worry about mere physical issues such as air resistance or the speed of sound.  They traversed the distance almost instantly.  My real problem was the information links back to the mountain.  All these information-processing spells needed to communicate with each other to send their detection beams, relay the information, and keep a track of all the relative movements of everything else, all while coordinating with each other.  It’s a network of spells, all talking to each other at the same time and relaying their location information to the sand table.

If it sounds complicated, you’re getting the picture.

I’d only tested it on the small-scale, mapping the sand table itself.  It was really only a proof of concept.  Scaling it up might have some problems.

Still, if it didn’t work, I’d at least be able to start debugging its program.  I did manage to put it all together—eventually.  I could have used another pair of hands and a prehensile nose, though.  Fortunately, I had the presence of mind to lock the door; the mountain welded the pivot-door shut for me.  If someone had walked in and disturbed my concentration during those few hours, I might not have been as patient and understanding as I should be.

It started working.

I watched as narrow wedges started to appear on the sand table.  Terrain?  Land, sea, hills, forests?  Yes… not too clear, but it wasn’t designed for high-resolution scanning and all the fiddly details.  Blank, flat sand stayed smooth and unbroken until the leading edge of the scanning satellite-spells crept over it.  Grains leaped up all along the lines between mountain and Edge, revealing a map of the world with agonizing slowness.

But it
was
working, or seemed to be.  It wasn’t an example of high-resolution imagery or of lightning swiftness, but it worked!

Watching it wouldn’t make it scan faster.  Although, if I added more scanning satellite spells to roam the Edge… which would take more networking to integrate each one with all the others…

I can be patient as long as I can see progress.  This was progress.  Now I needed to leave it alone and let it do its job.

The power requirements for building the scanner array weren’t too bad.  I wasn’t tired in the sense of feeling drained.  It was more of a concentration thing.  I spend hours on end focused on magical projects.  Whether they cost me in terms of energy or not, there’s a pleasant feeling that goes with completing it and sitting back, relaxing from the intense concentration.  So I took a brief break, worked some kinks out of my neck and shoulders, and checked with Laisa about something to eat.