Thief (The Key to Magic Book 7) Read online

  "Mar will not be fooled for long."

  After a moment, the sorcerer realized that it had not been Waleck that had whispered the words, but himself.

  SIX

  2001 by the Common Reckoning

  (3380 Before the Founding of the Empire)

  A monastery that has never had a name

  "Wait!" Catrlas shouted in sudden alarm, waving at Abbot Shyrln. "There has been a major divergence from the established sequence!"

  The Abbot, his ever-present frown deepening, turned his large frame from the waiting wizard and smacked the back of his right hand into the palm of his left, making the sharp clapping sound that he often used to spur initiates. "Details, Brother Catrlas! "Details!"

  Catrlas did not have to consult the notes that his right hand had autonomously written as the vision unfolded in his skry stone. The final incident remained as clear in his mind as if he were still seeing it.

  "Wizard Zso will be killed if he continues as planned! It appears that an unknown actor has entered the sequence!"

  As the Abbot scurried from the central platform to the Scroll table, Zso shrugged, descended to the floor, and followed.

  Approaching from the opposite side of the long table, the Abbot peered forward at Catrlas' notes, reading them upside down and at a distance, a skill that all senior monks developed. A few of the other scribes, not currently occupied by their own visions, also threw their eyes to Catrlas' section of the Scroll.

  "What do you mean unknown actor?" Shyrln demanded. "Is your skry stone out of adjustment?"

  "No, Abbot Shyrln," Catrlas denied, somewhat defensively. "I saw Zso die, but I could not see the actor. There were cross currents in the ether that I could not overcome."

  Shyrln smacked his hands together again. "Everyone, redirect your observations immediately. Project forward and backwards from this incident. Edit and section the Scroll as required. If a Revision is necessary, we must initiate it as soon as possible!"

  All abbots abhorred Revisions. Revisions often undid significant portions of the established sequence and could erase years of the monk's labors, but all abbots knew, as did all the monks who worked upon the Scroll, that Revisions were inevitable if the world were to be saved.

  After an hour of examining projections, alternative potentials, and probable event chains, the identity of the entity who would assassinate Zso immediately upon his exit from undertime yet remained a mystery.

  "He cannot have come from nowhere!" Abbot Shyrln objected when Catrlas summarized the on-duty scribes' findings.

  News of the aberration had immediately drawn monks from adjacent cells and chambers. The Scroll chamber had filled with senior monks of the various councils, the three living abbots emeritus, and dozens of off-duty scribes, cataloguers, and initiates. The contentious but low key buzzing of the crowd grew in intensity after the Abbot's outburst.

  "The actor has no past or future sequence," Catrlas reiterated, tapping his finger on a note that he himself had added to the Scroll. "The only indication of his or her existence is the act of interference itself."

  "The actor also appears to have gone out of existence only moments after the act," Scribe Bilsnhwlyt proclaimed, eyes locked on his own skry stone. "No ethereal wake exists for the actor."

  "What of consequential turbulence?" the Abbot pressed.

  "None," Catrlas replied.

  "Are we certain that this interference was not coincidental?" Abbot Emeritus Szletes wondered. "Some random encounter with a homicidal madman?"

  Scribe Tlantlanee, two places to Catrlas' left, indicated another passage on a newly spliced Scroll section. "Only moments before the incident, a modified port opened a passage through undertime. It is clear that this portal was used by the actor to arrive at the specific moment needed to intercept Wizard Zso. Therefore, this interference could only have occurred by design."

  "Trace the port," the Abbot ordered. "We eliminate that and we eliminate the appearance of this interfering actor. The sequence will be back to its proper order."

  "I attempted to do so when I discovered it," Tlantlanee replied with a shake of his head. "The bracelet likewise has no discernible origin."

  "There is no problem here," Zso, who had been idling with obvious impatience, weighed in. "Just find me a moment where he is visible to observation prior to the assassination. I will simply kill him before he kills me. We'll be back on track and I can continue with the planned adjustment."

  In Catrlas' experience, the wizard had never shown any hesitation in pursuing the cold blooded murders that adjustments often required and the monk secretly thought Zso to be a soulless psychotic fiend, but the wizard was the sole instrument available to the monks in their quest to reverse the total worldwide destruction of magical civilization and Catrlas, as had all the monks before him, had no choice but to ignore his distaste for the man.

  "There is no such moment," Catrlas said. "All projections show that the actor will anticipate your arrival and defeat you regardless of which moment within the opportunity window you choose to attack him."

  Abbot Shyrln nodded in final decision. "The planned adjustment cannot proceed. It will be necessary to accept this alternate sequence as primary."

  Zso barked a short laugh. "Another hapless Zso cast upon the scrap heap of undertime. "That makes one hundred and forty-two times that I have left an orphaned corpse somewhen, if anyone other than me is keeping count. Well, I don't have all day. Get to work and sort out what I need to do to work around this issue."

  SEVEN

  7025 by the Common Reckoning

  (Fourthday, Waning, 1st Wintermoon, 1644 After the Founding of the Empire)

  Orbital B

  Carrying the -- likely unneeded -- charts and diagrams that she had printed out at his urging, Prim followed Walis into the conference room.

  Having tarried to make one last review of the calculations, the two of them were amongst the last to arrive. Project Leader Oyraebos and the various committee chairpersons and section leaders were already seated at the large oval table. The fixed seats in the rows around the walls of the hexagonal compartment were filled with a few experts who had been asked to be present should clarifications be required and a large number of spectators. The regular Progress Committee meetings were one of the more popular of a limited number of diversions available on Orbital B.

  Walis, once again automatically presuming that she would be diligently following, did not bother to glance back at her, but went quickly to a seat on the right side of the table.

  In apparent meek compliance with his presumption, Prim did so and settled with a neutral expression into a chair in the row just behind him.

  It still irked her that he had come to take her presence and cooperation, both professionally and personally, for granted, but she had accepted that her current status -- he was a Proctor and she a Participant -- automatically relegated her, official pronouncements notwithstanding, to a subordinate role. Being a second class citizen was distasteful, but there was nothing that she could do, at least at the moment, to change it.

  In addition, the results of the simple diagnostic spell that she had applied that morning had caused her to make a radical reassessment of her own goals. It had confirmed that she was indeed pregnant with Walis' child and it therefore seemed unwise to follow through with her half-hearted plots to strangle him while he slept.

  She considered herself, almost above all else, a realist. While she could cast a few low ranked combat spells, she was not a sorcerer by any means; her magic would not by itself keep her safe. The world below was now without any doubt a crude, violent, and barbaric place. Physical power would soon once again become an important, if not primary, determiner of social and economic status. It was clear to her that the civilized conventions that had awarded her an equality of privilege in the life before could no longer be relied upon once the return to the surface had begun. Having a physically imposing male with significant influence in the governing structure as a bulwark b
etween her child -- and, by her own analysis, inevitable other children -- and a dangerous environment was the only smart choice.

  Besides, it was not as if he were totally insufferable. Although he tended towards a certain pig-headedness that had generated several vociferous disagreements in their private quarters, he was generally a solicitous companion and in her estimation would prove a dutiful father and a diligent provider.

  But that did not mean that she was not going to make him suffer for his boneheaded behavior.

  Project Leader Oyraebos rapped on the table with a gavel molded from artificial composite. "If everyone will take their seats, we will begin."

  After a few minutes of people sorting themselves out, quiet reigned and the sorcerer nodded to the Secretary, a slight man named Tredglas, who was also chairman of the Economic Revenue and Resource Committee.

  Tredglas read from a skry stone hovering next to him. "The first item on the Agenda for today is the report of the Medic Section regarding genetic samples acquired from individuals of various socio-economic groups on world."

  Walis got to his feet and Prim shifted slightly to the side so that his broad back would not block her view of the expressions of the committee members facing her on the opposite side of the table. She would have to guess the reactions of those on her side from their posture and body language.

  While she would be able to derive some data from the section leaders and subcommittee chairpersons, she primarily wanted to be able to observe the Project Leader, who was seated straight across from Walis.

  Reading paragraphs directly from the written report which he and Prim had spent much of the night finalizing, Walis spent a number of minutes outlining the sampling methodology, briefly describing the geographic locations from which the samples had been secured, and providing a full list of the testing techniques applied.

  Save for the Project Leader and the chairwoman of the Societal Evaluation Committee, most of those seated around the table appeared to focus little on the details that the Leader of the Medic Section provided. All, Prim felt certain, were primarily interested in the conclusions that would be presented from the end of the report.

  Almost uniformly, the audience was likewise less than enthralled with the reams of technical jargon that Walis rattled off, but all appeared fastened to their seats nonetheless.

  As Prim had secretly traded earlier drafts of the report to various of those present in exchange for future favors, promises of support, and specific pending privileges, there was no doubt in her mind but that fact-based rumors regarding those conclusions had already spread to every member of the hierarchy, if not to every compartment of the Orbital.

  "... and, as you can see," Walis said finally, "the margin of error associated with our conclusions is on the order of less than one tenth of one percent. Furthermore, I would like to emphasize that the conclusions that we have derived have met with the full, unanimous approval of all members of the Medic Section."

  Walis tapped his skry stone to flip to the last page.

  "Conclusion Number One: Due to their inherent genetic limitations, ninety-seven point eight percent of the ground based population is incapable of performing any type of magic and cannot sense ethereal flux in any way. These genetic abnormalities cannot be corrected with any currently known medical spell or treatment."

  Neither the people seated at the table nor those in the audience showed any surprise. It had been widely known that the majority of the grounders were Magic Deficient.

  "Conclusion Number Two: The faulty genes are dominant in all populations sampled. Projecting no deviation in current trends, in twenty-two to twenty-six generations practically all existing traces of genes associated with ethereal flux manipulation and awareness, those that are required to cause a person to be Magic Proficient, will be naturally eliminated from all populations in all locations on the planet. The predominance of Magic Deficient genes will occur even in the rare instances where active efforts are being expended to sustain Magic Proficient lineages."

  This did generate a slight stir in some members of the audience. That horrible suspicion had been widely circulated and this official confirmation, though not earth shattering, was still disturbing.

  "Conclusion Number Three: The probability that introduction of Magic Proficient genes into the ground populations on even the most extreme scale --"

  The Leader of the Security Section, Dhavosh, a blocky man who was a head and a half taller than anyone else in the room, raised a hand and Walis immediately yielded the floor.

  "Medic Section Leader," Dhavosh asked in his iron hammer voice, "would you please clarify what you mean exactly by 'most extreme scale'?"

  Dhavosh had read a second draft of the report in its entirety and Prim thought his question had been prompted by a desire to drive home the gravity of the situation to the less militantly inclined members of the committee.

  "Most extreme scale," Walis explained evenly, "refers to a scenario whereby all fertile Project males inseminate as many ground females as possible within their lifetimes and all fertile Project females produce offspring by as many ground males as possible within their productive lifetimes."

  Enough protest and noise rose from the audience that Project Leader Oyraebos had to rap his gavel once.

  When she could be heard, Chairwoman Lyrsee of the Social Integration Committee, who had three adolescent daughters, was still of child bearing age, and had a Participant husband, demanded, "You are referring to unattached adults, are you not?"

  "No," Walis said. "We included everyone in this scenario with the assumption that all Proctors and Participants would contribute once sexually mature."

  Another minor uproar solicited three raps of the Project Leader's gavel. Oyraebos then spoke loudly and firmly.

  "In order to allow Medic Section Leader Walis to complete his remarks, I suggest that we refrain from further questions and comments until his presentation has been concluded."

  There were some glares from the audience, but everyone remained quiet.

  Walis found his place on his skry stone and began again. "Conclusion Number Three: The probability that introduction of MP genes into the ground populations on even the most extreme scale with all available resources would result in a reversal or retardation of the degenerative trends currently existing is less than one-hundredth of one percent."

  This time, no amount of gavel rapping could contain the outbursts and it took almost half an hour for the general outrage to burn itself out. When order had finally been re-established, the Project Leader admonished the audience that any further breach of decorum would compel him to order the Security Section to clear the chamber of all but committee members.

  However, the discussion that took place amongst the members of the committee afterwards was hardly less restrained than the audience's reaction.

  Walis indicated, once he regained the floor, that the Medic Section did not have sufficient data to recommend any specific course of action in light of the report's conclusions, and then he sat down.

  Chairwoman Deldris, a stout woman of about thirty, burst out immediately, "There are almost thirteen million of them and less than three thousand of us! We would be a drop of ink to a sea of paper. It would be an abomination to the ideals and purposes of the Project to dilute our genetic superiority!"

  "My children will not be brood sows!" Chairwoman Lyrsee declared with a fierceness that promised physical violence.

  "The point here," Section Leader Dhavosh growled, "is that we cannot apply the Project's standard techniques to the current situation! We would be breeding ourselves out of existence!"

  "It would be the final death of magic and of all that is good!" another cried.

  And then it went on in a less positive vein from there.

  Prim watched as more vented their indignation, but could see that a consensus already existed against the previously generally held inclination to bring the backwards hordes of the surface back into the light of magical civi
lization by means of the time honored methods of the Project.

  Eventually, Oyraebos, who had expressed no opinion on the matter, rapped his gavel to cut off debate and then asked, "Is there a motion before us in regards to the report of the Medic Section? If not, then we should move on."

  Section Leader Dhavosh spoke at once. "I move that we immediately amend the Project Code of Conduct to prohibit any unauthorized couplings between Project members and grounders until such a time as our numbers naturally increase sufficiently to require reevaluation of the situation."

  Dhavosh's motion received more than one lightning second and the subsequent quick voice vote was resoundingly in the affirmative.

  Prim noted, however, that Sorcerer Oyraebos did not add his voice to the ayes, remaining apparently content to simply declare the result. After the act had been recorded, he stood to address his next remarks to the entire chamber.

  "Of necessity, we must face the fact that when we move to the surface we will face a situation in which we possess the superior technology of magic and the overwhelming majority of those around us do not. We must not succumb to the inevitable temptation to use this power to subjugate our unruly and ignorant neighbors -- to become, in effect, overlords of a disabled underclass -- but must strive to present ourselves as benign teachers, working to improve the lives of the masses who will never be able to fully enjoy the benefits of magic."

  This idealistic admonition drew a polite round of applause, but Prim judged that the warcry It is them or us! had already been planted in the minds of many.

  EIGHT

  17th Year of the Phaelle’n Ascension, 348th Day of Glorious Work

  Year One of the New Age of Magic

  (Eleventhday, Waning, 3rd Springmoon, 1645 After the Founding of the Empire)

  Plythtwaelndt Fortress, north of Mhevyr