Rise of Shadows (30 page)

Craig looked at me and said, “Can she do that?”

“Unlike yourself, she is a magus by birth, and that gives her the right to apply to join,” I said.

Then I had one last idea, one last tool in my bag to use to talk her out of it. “Shea, do you realize that coming with me would mean never again attending a temple of Light service, as they do not exist anywhere in my realm?”

She straightened her back, squared her shoulders, and then said, “Then it is my duty to go and spread the Light.”

I knew then that I had lost and that there was no way of talking her out of it. I was not even sure at this point why I was against her coming; after all, I owed her for all the help she had given me since my arrival here. I could not have made it alone. I sighed, “Very well, if that is what you truly want, then you can come. I cannot promise entry into Alpha Academy. I can only promise you an audience to apply.”

“That is enough; beyond that I leave it in the Light’s hands,” she said.

Then one last thought hit me, “But Shea, you don’t even know the language there, so you won’t be able to talk to anyone.”

“I can fix that,” said Master Mantis.

“How, Master?” I asked.

“It will only take a moment,” he said, and then he placed his hand on her head and urged her to relax. Then after just a few moments he said, “There, all done. I transferred a copy of the language to her mind; she knows it as well as I do now.”

“Well, I guess you can come, then,” I said.

“Then it’s settled,” said Master Mantis. “I need to get you two to the Dust Dragon quickly before they cloak again.”

With that, he opened a blue gate and said, “Hurry now.”

“Shea, this is your last chance to back out,” I said.

She turned and kissed her brother goodbye and said, “Master Mantis, please donate my notes to the wizards’ library, since Dusty can make me a new copy.”

“Certainly, now go!” he said.

With that, we both said one last goodbye and walked through the gate, exiting onto the bridge of the Dust Dragon.

As soon as they noticed we had arrived, Spectra and Flame ran up and gave me a big hug. Shadow and Phoenix gave me hearty slaps on the back. It was several minutes before Shadow said something about Shea. “Shadow, this is Shea. She and her brother risked life and limb to help me get home.”

“Well then, Shea, we owe you at the very least our gratitude for returning our brother to us,” said Shadow.

Brother. Somehow Shadow calling me brother touched me deeply in a way I could not understand.

“
Shadow, she is a magus, but I do not recognize the pattern
,” sent Spectra.

“She is an alchemist,” I said aloud.

“Alchemist?” asked Flame.

“Yes, her power is in making potions,” I said.

Shadow then turned to the comm and said, “Doctor, can you meet us in sickbay please.”

“Doctor?” I asked.

“Yes, we have a lot to fill you in on, but for now we need to get both of you checked out to make sure you are not carrying back any strange diseases,” said Shadow.

“
Shadow, everyone, Shea wants to join us, and I would like to suggest she join our crew,”
I sent.

“
Well, we have two other additions to the crew, so Master Gafar is already planning to join us to scan them. If she is to join us, she will have to submit to that,
” sent Shadow.

“
Of course,”
I sent.

As we headed down towards sickbay, Flame immediately started talking with Shea and asking her all about life where she came from. Shea seemed to enjoy the conversation, and they talked almost non-stop the whole way to sickbay. While we walked, I started to explain over our telepathic network everything I knew about Shea. Master Shadow wanted to know as much as he could about her before he asked the Council whether she could join. He was willing to trust my assessment of her, but he needed something more to pass on.

Once in sickbay the new ship’s doctor began to check us out, and Shadow said, “Shea, Doctor Leslie here just joined us a few days ago, and I am wondering if you can help her?”

Shea looked strangely at Shadow and said, “Master, if there is anything I can do to help, I will try my best,”

“Doctor, can you make up some of that drink you made for me after I fought the electrical elemental? And show Shea how you did it?” he asked.

“Master, of course I will, but are you sure we should waste the illuminescence?” Leslie asked.

“Yes, I think this will be worth it. Just make a small amount, please,” he said.

She then took Shea aside and started to show her how to make the drink. While they were doing that Spectra sent, “
Shadow, it seems there is a similar pattern to their auras, but I am guessing you already knew that.”

“I
suspected as much. Shea could be a great resource for us, if I am right,
” sent Shadow.

“
What do you mean?”
I asked.

“
We believe Doctor Leslie to be an alchemist like Shea, though until now we did not have a name for it,”
he sent. Then he noticed that Shea and the doctor were finished and asked, “Shea, what do you think of that drink?”

“Master Shadow, I am amazed. In all my years of study I could never find a recipe for an illuminescence potion, and there it is!” said Shea.

“Shea, Leslie only just discovered her powers, and we know nothing about them. If you join our crew, would you be willing to teach her?” he asked.

She gasped and said, “Master, are you saying that there are no others like us here?”

“Shea, we are all very young in the world of magic, so there is much we don’t know. Do you remember that I told you I had never heard of a healing potion? That is because they do not exist here; well, not until now, I guess,” I said.

She turned to Leslie and asked, “Mistress, how many recipes do you know?”

“Please, just call me Doctor, or Doc,” said Leslie. “This is the only one, and I only know it because they had been using it before I came along. They tell me I do something to it that makes it much more potent, but I do not know what or how.”

Shea looked at Shadow and said, “Master, may I ask her to try to make something else as a test?”

“If she is willing, go ahead,” said Shadow.

The doctor was willing, so Shea walked her through making a healing potion from some of the ingredients in her bag. Once they were finished, she held up the potion and tasted a tiny drop of it, then said, “Well done. You certainly have the gift.”

“What did I make?” asked Doctor Leslie.

“A mild healing potion. It is very effective at treating minor injuries,” she said.

After that, there was a little more discussion about alchemy, and Doctor Leslie finished checking our health. It was nearing night-time, so Flame showed Shea to a room and stayed with her to teach her how to use the computers and other devices in her room.

Since we could communicate telepathically, telling Shadow everything that happened while I was in the Korshalemian Realm took only moments, and he in turn told me all about what had happened while I was away. For completeness, I also turned over the datapad with all my logs on it, but not before making sure that he knew about Shea’s book being on it. I did not want anything to happen to it by mistake. Once that was settled, I headed back to my room to get cleaned up for the first time in what seemed like ages. I wanted to go to bed, but Shadow called me to his office for a chat.

When I entered the office, it was just himself and Doctor Leslie. After I settled in, Shadow asked Doctor Leslie to give her report from her examination of Shea and myself.

“First, Master Dusty here is fine. He has lost some weight, but nothing to be concerned about. All of his stats are within normal limits for him, based on your records,” she said.

“Great, what about Shea?” he asked.

“Shea is a bit of a different story,” she said. “Shea stated her age at twenty-seven years old, but she has the body of a woman four times that age. I assume that is because she comes from a culture where the life span of a human is much shorter than it is here.”

“So, what does that mean?” I asked.

“I am not sure; at best it means she will die young, perhaps only live to three hundred or so, but that is assuming that our medicine can adjust her body more along the lines of normal humans here. Otherwise, I would guess that she might not even make it to seventy,” she said.

“Seventy?” I exclaimed as I jumped up. Shadow quickly grabbed my shoulder and sat me back down so that the doctor could finish.

“Yes, seventy, maybe as much as a hundred, which is likely a lot longer than anyone else from her culture will ever live. She also has some other medical issues that we can easily handle, though I will have to do some research on their treatment, as we have not seen them in many ages.”

I just sat there stunned. I hadn’t known Shea for very long, but thought of her as a dear friend, and this was bad news. To be struck down at a mere seventy years old was unimaginable. “Does she know?” I asked.

“Master, I asked her how long her family members lived, and if she makes it to seventy she will have outlived everyone she knows by a long shot. Please understand, this is normal for her and her people.”

“But you can fix it, right?” I asked.

“Master, if she lets me I will try. That is the best I can say at this point,” she said. “I have already put a call in to Headmaster Rannor for assistance with her case; if anyone can help it will be him.”

After that, everything was a bit of a blur. I know that they tried to console me, but eventually I just left. I wanted to be alone for a while. I went into my room and climbed into my bed, which felt like the height of luxury after what I had been through. I reached up and turned on my sunlamp; oh, how I had missed my lamp. I could never really sleep well in the dark; it just seemed too unnatural.

Over the next week, Flame worked closely with Shea, teaching her what she needed to know about living on a modern starship. She was also helping her adjust to the culture here, and the two of them became nigh inseparable. I was very glad to see them hit it off so well. Shea really needed a friend here besides just me.

For my part, I spent the week working with Spectra and Darius, trying to find the next tear to seal. Darius believed that there were four more to seal, and Master Shadow wanted to close them all as soon as possible. He suspected that the sorcerers were using them to tap power for use in this realm. If true, he felt that would explain why they seemed to have far greater access to magic than we did and far sooner than we did.

“Darius, an idea has just occurred to me. Does the tear have to be in the middle of empty space?” I asked.

“Interesting question, Master Dusty. I suppose not,” he said.

“What are you thinking?” asked Spectra.

“Well, I was just thinking about how Master Shadow thinks the sorcerers are using the tears for power, and how the Great War played out. We never did find out why they chose to attack Arken IV, right?” I said.

“No, I guess not,” said Darius. “It is a tear in reality itself, so I doubt physical mass would have any impact on it.”

“Then what if one of these tears was inside that planet?” I asked.

Darius thought about that for a while and then said, “That would explain why they were digging down towards the planet’s core. They could tap a lot of power through the rocks, but it would be a lot more efficient if they could reach it,” he said. “It would also explain the sudden burst in growth of magical powers that came to everyone on that planet.”

“How so?” I asked.

“Well, Master, the entire planet would have been infused with power from the tear, which any magus would have absorbed it without even trying,” he said.

Shadow had explained to me that the sorcerers could, at least in theory, use the tears as powerful batteries to draw energy from. This would allow them much greater feats of magic than they could normally pull off. “That makes sense, but when they left the planet they still had power,” I said.

“Yes, once their powers were unlocked by the events surrounding that planet, they could tap the natural weave of power as all magi do,” he said.

“But we closed the other tear with a gravity bubble. Wouldn’t the gravity from the planet collapse the tear?” asked Spectra.

“No, Master, because that gravity is stable. The bubble worked because we radically and rapidly changed the local gravity. The big question is: if that is the case, how are we going to close it?” he asked.

That was a very good question, but I had one that I thought needed to be asked first. “But how could there be a tear in solid matter?”

“I don’t know, Master, but it's a tear in the substance of reality itself, so it’s hard to guess what limits it might have,” said Darius.

We talked for a while about this, and then I asked, “Spectra, can you overlay all of our data on the map and center it on Arken IV?”

“Sure,” she said.

I watched as the data appeared on the screens, and, sure enough, Arken IV was a hive of unexplained activity. Not a huge one, but there were definitely indications that something was going on there.

“Master Dusty, it looks like your suspicion might be right. We will need to talk to Master Shadow and go check it out,” said Darius. “Of course, one big problem we will face will be getting to the tear, as the planet is probably still cooling down from the bombardment.”

Before we could talk much about that, Master Gafar walked into the room with Shadow. I jumped to my feet and greeted them.

“How goes the hunt?” asked Shadow.

“Very well, we think Dusty found a tear,” said Spectra. She then explained our theory to them.

“Good work, team,” said Shadow.

“Arken IV is way out of your reach,” said Master Gafar. “And it falls in space controlled by the Emperor, so it would be best if Grandmaster Vydor checked it out instead.”

“Gafar, if Grandmaster Vydor finds anything, that information could be very useful for us to have as we hunt for others,” said Shadow.

Even though I knew the reason for it, I could not help but be surprised at the lack of the title Master in Shadow’s comment. Shadow had explained to me that under the new structure of Battle Wizards, Shadow was Master Gafar’s peer in authority, while still being under the Wizard’s Council itself, but it still bothered me to think of the authority structure that way because being one rank below Shadow made me Master Mantis’ peer. I could not accept that I was that high up the chain. No, I was fine with being at the bottom where I belonged.