The Galactic Mage Read online

  She turned away from him and prodded the azalea she’d been looking at when he came in. It was just that. An azalea. Nothing special about it at all. Nothing. Except that it came from Andalia and not from Earth. She’d really begun to marvel at that over the last week or so. While she was really enjoying trying to classify some of the new species she’d found, it was the old species, the Earthlike species, that had the most significant ramifications in her mind. It seemed so entirely impossible that species could evolve exactly the same on two completely different planets in two entirely different solar systems. The miracle of life itself seemed impossible enough, but for life to happen and evolve on identical pathways seemed entirely beyond belief, and, frankly, gave evidence in her mind that the Andalians had in fact been real, not some Hostile trick. She had always been aware of the debate over the likelihood of such parallel evolution, but, perhaps more than anyone, she was in a position to really begin to understand the reality of such an amazing circumstance.

  “Don’t you think it’s odd,” she said, taking the potted plant and turning to face Roberto again, “that an azalea on Earth could be an azalea on Andalia too? Doesn’t that seem to defy the principles of evolution?”

  He scrunched up one side of his face, pushing his tawny cheek upwards in a contemplative way. “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe there’s just something inevitable about that particular survival technique—whatever it is plants do. You’re the botanist; I don’t know the terms. But, you know, maybe there’s something that goes on along the way that just has to be dealt with in whatever way azaleas deal with stuff, you know? I mean, pretty much everything on Earth breathes air, right? So, we all came to the same strategy there. What’s the difference?”

  She nodded, considering. “True.”

  “I mean, they kinda already argued this out about the Andalians themselves anyway, didn’t they? You know, them being human and all. It’s pretty much the same deal I imagine.”

  “Yes, I’m sure it is. But still. It’s so… odd. I mean, if you look at the diversity of life on Earth, it seems that there would be similar differences on other planets too, exponential differences at that.”

  “Well, I know you’re not a big fan of God, so I won’t spend too much time on this, but, well, that’s where faith comes in. Falls under ‘God’s plan’ in my book. You agnostics got to find your own answers.”

  She gave an ironic half laugh. Sometimes she wished she had faith too. It would help to think her life wasn’t just being wasted out here, that there was a reason rather than just blind and piss-poor luck. She stared down into the azalea’s blooms, stroking its petals gently with a slender-fingered hand. It was a long while before she answered. “Well, whatever it is, it’s very interesting. And this one is the healthiest specimen I’ve ever seen. It’s so much more robust than mine ever are. I’m going to bring a few of mine into the quarantine and see if they’ll cross pollinate.”

  “Hell yes,” Roberto cheered. “Now we’re talking. Earth plants getting it on with alien azaleas. Oh yeah.” He whooped and gently slapped the azalea on one leaf. “My brother,” he said to it. “Get it on.”

  “My God, Roberto, is that all you ever think about?”

  “For the most part,” he conceded, grinning.

  She shook her head, but the smile on her face belied her irritation with his endless prurience. She appreciated his humor more than anything else on the ship.

  “Well, you need to get out of here,” she said. “I’m still on duty for another two hours.” She darted her eyes at the lens in the upper corner of the room indicating that a superior might at any moment notice that she was goofing off.

  “Roger that,” he said. “See you at dinner.”

  She waved him off and went back to work. Returning the Andalian azalea to its place on a shelf at the back of the lab, she brought out the small leafy weed she’d picked on her last day on Andalia, the one she’d picked because the captain called. It was perhaps the least attractive of the samples she’d taken; it was small and flat-leafed, with no bloom and nothing particularly intriguing in its coloration. Its primary appeal lay in the fact that it did not appear to be anything that grew on Earth. It had similarity to many varieties, but seemed to match none. She’d already spent the bulk of two days looking through the computer archives for a genetic match and hadn’t found one, although there were several that were close. Her little weed was almost a dandelion, just a few genes off, and it was almost any one of seven varieties of thistle too, again just a few genes away. What was really fun, at least for her, was that the little plant might even have become some sort of fern had it not taken a side road somewhere in its recent evolutionary past. But it was none of the above. It was simply its own thing. As different from anything found on Earth as the azalea was exactly the same. It was a question and an answer all at once, but she wasn’t quite sure what the question was and therefore had no way to take meaning from the reply. She sighed. Maybe there was something in the soil that could tip her off.

  She scraped a bit of dirt from the little plant’s roots onto a glass plate and set it under her microscope. She punched up the view on her monitor and shifted to the lens she wanted. She heard the whine of the tiny motor as the nosepiece turned and a moment later the dark micro-world of Andalian soil came into view.

  For the most part it contained exactly what she expected it would, assorted core minerals found throughout the universe and an array of organic material consisting of decomposed plants and some entirely generic bacterium. However, there was one thing that stood out as delightfully new: a fungus, a tiny spore nestled in with all the rest, and just one, apparently dormant, waiting for whatever it was that would bring it back to life. Orli felt the thrill of discovery for about the twentieth time since beginning her work on the Andalian samples. Here was something new again. Another thing to look into and another place to hide from her misery. Maybe she could get a few more weeks out of this one. A few weeks of intrigue that would help her pass the time and avoid thinking about how hopelessly far off having a real life was going to be. And so it was with a thin veil of enthusiasm masking the specter of depression that flitted about the dark places in her mind that Orli set herself upon the spore. Maybe this time the question and the answer would finally line up.

  Chapter 7

  Three days passed before Altin was ready to use the Liquefying Stone again. He took the time to fly into Leekant and see Doctor Leopold about his ribs—the Y-class healer fixed him up splendidly—and he spent a great deal of time over the following two days gathering river rocks and filling two wooden crates with them, making them into seeing stones, each meticulously enchanted with Altin’s combination of light and homing spells. Once he had enough for a few weeks of casting, he was ready to try once more for Luria, this time with the Liquefying Stone.

  On the fourth day after his first use of the Liquefying Stone, he felt that he was sufficiently healthy to have another crack. He spent the bulk of the morning and a portion of the afternoon expanding gourds along the banks of the small creek that meandered out of the woods not too far from Calico Castle to get more comfortable with the amplification offered by Tytamon’s ugly yellow stone. He didn’t want to waste too much strength on such activity, however, and as the sun drooped in the western sky he decided he was ready to get to work. The real work of getting to the moon.

  An hour and a half later found Altin atop his tower, once more gazing upon the bright face of Luria. She was full tonight and cast a pale pink light across the land, her gentle kiss softening stern Mt. Pernolde and setting Calico Castle in a celestial glow. Altin could not have asked for a more propitious night.

  He had the Liquefying Stone in a small wooden bowl now, placed upon the parapet before him and still covered with the cloth. His scrying basin was near the two crates of seeing stones at his feet by the wall, and he’d reviewed all his spells for the last hour of daylight and even a few minutes more by candlelight to be extra sure. Tonight was not a nigh
t to make mistakes.

  He offered a quick prayer to the goddess of luck, hoping that she didn’t hold it against him that he never prayed, and stooped to take a seeing stone from the nearest crate. He plucked the Liquefying Stone from its bowl, and, glancing once more into Luria’s lovely face, began to cast his spell.

  His mind opened to the mana currents, and he could see the dense cloudy vapor seethe and pulse as he reached into its depths with the Liquefying Stone pressed against his flesh. The dangerous mineral made the mana thin, angry seeming, and Altin knew that he was still going to have to take it slow. Watery mana meant he could run much more of it through his mind, but he still had to control the pace—and a few bloated gourds hardly made him master of it yet. He clutched a tendril of mana and pulled it down into the seeing stone, tying it firmly to the heart of the river rock in his hand, then cast his mind outward towards the moon. He looked about for one of his previous seeing stones off of which he might try a hop, but he realized as he did that doing so meant he would in essence be missing the point of the Liquefying Stone.

  Eschewing the previous stones, he aimed his mind at the heart of where Luria ought to be, like an archer targeting an invisible buck, then fixed a line of mana into the vague ambiguity of the intervening night.

  He braced himself for the strain of a blind teleport and, pulling back on the strand of mana in his mental grip, he let the seeing stone go with a snap of emptied space. He opened his eyes as he let it go, and was surprised at how little pain the teleport had caused. It stung, but only a fraction of how much this ambiguous casting normally did. The softened mana seemed to have the unexpected benefit of mitigating the pain that came with casting incongruent spells. This was a pleasant surprise. Perhaps the Liquefying Stone forgave the breaking of some rules, or at least bent them around a bit.

  He set the Liquefying Stone back in the bowl and covered it with the little towel, then went to his basin and cast the simple scrying spell that would find the seeing stone that he’d just cast away. Sure enough, there it was. But, just like all the other times, Luria looked no different from the vantage afforded by the stone than it did for Altin standing in his tower now.

  But he was not deterred. He was used to this, and he hadn’t tried very hard. He hadn’t pushed the Liquefying Stone’s effects at all. He nodded at the image of the seeing stone floating in the darkness reflected in the basin and set his jaw. The Liquefying Stone was going to help, but he was still going to have to do the work.

  He took another river rock from the crate and, reclaiming the Liquefying Stone, he prepared for a second try. He decided to go for distance rather than skipping off the last, and this time he allowed a bit more mana to run into his head. He thickened the strand of mana streaking into space, making a rope of it rather than a thread, and when he drew it back, he actually released it with a grunt, practically shouting the last word of the chant that let it go.

  The release was awesome and, while uncomfortable due to ambiguity, it still did not cause the normal degree of discomfort that blind casting always had. Altin was growing increasingly optimistic as the resonance of the stone’s arrival out in space echoed back along the mana stream.

  He dropped the Liquefying Stone back into the bowl and flipped the towel over it again. Returning to the water basin he quickly conjured up the vision of the little orbiting stone. Not much different than last time. But this time, Altin was almost convinced, there was something new. Luria seemed to be, maybe, just maybe, filling the water in the basin a little bit more than it had before. Just a little. He couldn’t even be sure. But his heart began to pound. He reached down and measured the distance between the edge of the bright pink disk shimmering in the water and the wooden sides of the basin. Four fingers of water in between. He would pay closer attention to that detail after the next cast.

  With a growing sense of hope, he forced himself to calm, resuming his place before the wooden bowl. He took another seeing stone and the yellow amplifying rock and began to cast again. This time he allowed himself to gather more mana at the start, not just planting a cord of mana into the center of the seeing stone, but completely encasing it in a beam of mana, thick as his thigh, before sending that beam up into the night, once more seeking the place where Luria ought to be. When he drew it back, he put every ounce of his mental strength into the pull, and then he let it go.

  It vanished with a crisp pop and Altin actually staggered back from the energy of the release. The seeing stone hit the other end of Altin’s mana line hard, and he could feel it as it echoed in his head, different this time, a new feeling, a sense of progress.

  He stuffed and buried the Liquefying Stone back in its bowl and scrambled to find his latest seeing stone in the basin’s watery eye. When he finally called it up, he did not need his fingers to tell him that he was close. The little stone hung dead center in the image like a freckle on Luria’s face, which was now a bright disc of light that entirely filled the basin’s view.

  Altin let out a whoop. Finally! He’d finally made a dent. He couldn’t believe it. He’d hoped he would. He’d dreamed he would. He’d calculated theoretically that he would. But always there was the doubt. And now it actually seemed as if it might come true, all the dreams, all the years of work, and just when hope was wearing thin. He leapt about the tower in bounds of glee for a few moments, waving his arms in the air and defying Luria to stop him now. But he didn’t let elation carry him away.

  Progress. He’d made progress. But he was still not there. He did know, however, or at least began to know, just what it was that the Liquefying Stone could do for him and his quest. So with a deep breath to calm himself and to center his mind back to the discipline required for the task, he set himself to landing a seeing stone on the moon.

  It took him the bulk of the evening to do it too, but finally, as Luria was threatening to leave him behind, to duck behind the woods for yet another night, Altin got it done. His use of the Liquefying Stone had gotten better and stronger with each successive cast. By the end of the evening he was launching stones at Luria with strands of mana that were more akin to ancient oak trunks than anything that might be called a thread. And so it was that two hours before dawn, he finally let a seeing stone go with such force that the recoil down the mana stream told him without looking that he had in fact finally landed on the moon. There was no distant echo this time. The reverberation he got was that of a solid hit, a dull thud like a sack of grain dropped into the dirt. There could be no mistake.

  He tossed the Liquefying Stone back into the bowl and covered it quickly, hustling to the basin to confirm what he was sure he already knew. And there it was. Lying on the ground. Lying on red ground, reddish soil that looked dusty and dry, like rust. There were a couple of pebbles, also red, but no blades of grass or even different colored rocks. Just red. But it was wonderful, and he was ecstatic.

  But it was not enough. Altin wanted to see more. The scrying basin limited him to just a forward view, point to point, which happened to be looking directly into the dirt, so he could see nothing more. The whole point of casting these seeing stones out there with their enchanted homing spells was so that he could use them to become “familiar” with an area, thus allowing him to cast a real seeing spell, one with sight, sound and mobility. Once he’d done that, once he checked it out a bit, then he could finally go himself. But first he had to see, and despite his being exhausted from casting all night long, he knew he had enough strength to do this much more. Raw emotion would give him the strength his body lacked.

  He had to go downstairs to the shelf above his bed to get his notes on the seeing spell that he intended to use. The candle on the table had burned out hours before, and it was annoying that he had to take the time to replace it with another one. He was amazed at how much strength conjuring that small flame took, and he realized that without the Liquefying Stone in his grip, he was already past his limits. That last cast had taken everything he had. He closed his eyes and drew in several deep breat
hs. He had to have the strength for one last cast. He couldn’t leave that stone up there for another entire day. He simply could not bear the wait. He had to have some strength left, some. Just enough, the Liquefying Stone could do the rest.

  He forced the little flame to appear on the candle with a snarl of effort, and once its flickering light filled the darkness, he took it to his bed and retrieved the book for which he’d come. He nearly staggered returning to the table and flopped down into a chair, absently noticing that the little mouse had apparently been hard at work on yesterday’s bread during the course of the long night.

  He flipped through the pages and found the spell he was looking for. It was a fairly complicated spell and it took him nearly an hour to read it through to the point where he was sure he had its every measure down. At length he was convinced he did, and pushed himself doggedly up, teetering as he rose, and took two stumbling steps towards the stairs before collapsing to the floor. The last thing he saw was the little mouse’s face sniffing out at him from the hole near the stairs as it prepared for another foray up to Altin’s bread.

  “Master Altin. Master Altin.” Pernie’s soft and frightened voice came creeping slowly into Altin’s dreamless sleep. “Wake up, Master Altin. Please, wake up.” Her tiny hand gripped his shoulder and shook him repeatedly, a tinge in her squeaky voice suggesting that if Altin didn’t wake up soon, didn’t get off the floor, she was going to send another wave of shrieks echoing around the keep. She was terribly distraught.

  Altin slowly came to, his ears ringing and eyes feeling as if they might burst like pumpkins beneath a giant’s boot. His head pounded and for a moment he thought he might throw up. He closed his eyes again, rolling over onto his back and trying to breathe through the waves of nausea. Pernie’s hand still trembled upon his shoulder as she continued to shake him. “Master Altin, get up. You’re scaring me, Master Altin. And you’re bleeding from your nose. Please get up.”