Gathering of the Titans: The Tol Chronicles Book 2 (34 page)

“The curse is lifted...for now,” he explained to Ai’go’r as he packed up his go bag. “I don’t fully understand the mechanism by which it was cast, so I can’t guarantee that it has been dispelled forever. I am quite certain that the master of the schola, Archmage Ballop’ril, will be keenly interested in your curse, which is in some way I do not comprehend connected with the strange goings-on over in Rebrugge. He and possibly I will most likely return soon.”

“Thank you for your help, Mage. I hope I can get back to business now.”

“I see no evidence of a curse in place at the moment. It is possible that something as simple as rearranging the shelves and bins will hinder its reinstatement. Again, without knowing the precise mechanism of casting I can’t be sure of that. Farewell.”

With that Prond took a step forward and disappeared.

in which Prond receives more education than he can bear

As Prond had suspected, Ballop’ril was very interested in the Rebrugge Event and its relationship to Ai’go’r’s curse. He quizzed his apprentice about it for hours, drilling him for every conceivable detail. He seemed particularly intrigued by the persistence of the ‘feral’ energy streams.

“I have seen references to this kind of behavior in ancient texts, but never any modern evidence of it. This is quite fascinating,” the archmage said.

“What do you suppose is the underlying mechanism?” asked Prond.

“I cannot be certain at this point, but from your account and that of the Rebrugge mage it may well have been tied to a forking in the Dark Energetic Continuum. While such events are probably fairly common in The Slice as a whole, it is so unfathomably enormous that the odds of such a thing occurring in any given location must be beyond astronomically remote. Once in a lifetime doesn’t even begin to describe it: more like once in the lifetime of a
civilization
.”

“A forking of The Slice?”

“Yes. It grew a new appendage, essentially. Doing so subtly redistributes both mass and energy throughout the unimaginable expanse of The Slice itself.”

“Just how large
is
The Slice?”

“No one really knows. Those who have transcended report that it traverses the very physical universe itself. If that is the case, there are no meaningful units with which to express its size. It may as well be infinite, for all it matters to our limited ability to comprehend such scales.”

“How can an infinite object add to itself?” Prond surprised even himself with this query.

Ballop’ril beamed at him. “Excellent question. I don’t know that forking actually adds to the volume of The Slice; it may well simply be a conformational adjustment, like a river changing course. What I do know is that it requires incredible energy to accomplish and the event has a profound effect on anything attached to The Slice at that location. We are actually fortunate that N’plork and the surrounding temperospatial fabric were not destroyed
in toto
as a byproduct.”

Prond sat there in stunned silence for a moment, trying unsuccessfully not to think about this. Narrowly dodging planetary catastrophe always affected him that way. Ballop’ril seemed deep in thought; suddenly he brightened.

“This is the perfect topic for your disquisition!”

Prond stared at him, puzzled. “What ‘disquisition’ are you talking about, Master?”

“Yours, my apprentice. You aren’t just training to be a magus. I would also like for you to attain the degree of
Doctor of Apotropaic Arts
. That will qualify you to teach at any universitas, in addition to opening your own schola. Finally, having a doctoral degree will greatly assist you when at last you come eligible for candidacy as an archmage.

Prond didn’t know quite how to react to this. “Um, what else do I need to do for this doctoral degree?”

“There is also a rather substantial academic component, but you are fulfilling most of that as you advance up the mage hierarchy. There are DAA’s who are not themselves mages and only do research into the magical arts, but I want to see you as a leader in both theory and practice. Remember the book that ‘called to you’ in my library? That text was written by one of the greatest of all scholar-mages. At that point I knew you were destined for that path.”

Prond looked into space for a few moments, considering.

“All right, Master. If that is the path I am to follow, then I will tread it gladly, though I know not the way.” He switched to the formal language of arcane discourse because he found it easier to express himself in that manner sometimes.

“The way will be illumined even as you traverse it,” answered Ballop’ril, “For you are one of the rare ones who carry with them their own light—the flame of wisdom—and a hunger for learning I have not seen for many years. The first step in your path will be to study the Rebrugge Event in depth, until you become the world’s leading expert on it. It will be your life for a while.”

Prond shrugged. “As you command. To do so I will need to spend some time in Rebrugge itself.”

“Agreed. Pack for an extended voyage. I authorize you to use an open-ended translocation spell for this. Please report back no less often than every two days. Take copious notes and think hard on every tidbit you uncover. Make no assumptions; take every finding for what it is. In this way you will see only what is really there to be seen.”

“I will follow your teachings, Master.”

“Above all else, do not pre-judge. There are motives and mechanisms at work in The Slice that we as mortal creatures cannot begin to comprehend. Take the facts for what they are and draw conclusions based on what you empirically know to be true, nothing else.” Ballop’ril fished around in the pocket of his robe. “Here, you’ll need this,” he said, handing him a small metal object on a fine silver chain. Prond was too preoccupied with preparations to ask him what it was for, exactly.

Prond paused at the perimeter EE and CoME had established around the former grocer’s warehouse, now a shimmering, wavering hemisphere of surreality. Ballop’ril had arranged for Prond to have complete access to the site; the only person granted that freedom. Everyone else was to keep a healthy distance, which was not a restriction that would need active enforcement, as the very air here was disorienting and disturbed all the senses at once. It took Prond over an hour of meditation to discipline his mental resources sufficiently to venture into that whirling maw of unreason.

He began his study at the outside, intending to peel the layers back one by one. His first encounter was with the interface between the phenomenon and the ‘normal’ universe: a wavering, multicolored barrier that resembled the skin of a sapon bubble. Prond reached out and touched it, ever so gently. It offered no resistance, but his finger and hand seemed to siphon off some of the radiance and he felt euphoria at the contact. He withdrew his hand but the radiance came with it, clinging to him like fine gossamer.

He took detailed observations and recorded them all in the palm-sized weatherproof data journal magically linked to his mind so that it would record his thoughts when he phrased them properly to trigger the transfer. This saved time and ensured that the maximum data could be gathered even when hands were busy with other tasks.

Once Prond had gathered all the useful information he could about the outer shell, he took a deep breath and pushed his way gently into the wavering barrier. The euphoria hit him full force, but he closed his eyes and willed it not to affect his detachment. After a long minute he acclimated and the euphoria moderated into a gentle buzzing.

As he wormed his way further in, stopping every meter or so to take notes and reaffirm his bearings, Prond noticed that he could no longer see the surrounding structures of Rebrugge, although the swirling envelope had seemed translucent from the exterior. The entirety of here and now was defined by and encompassed within a sphere that seemed to travel with him, yet evolve as he moved nearer to what he reckoned to be the center of the swirling, pulsing energy sink.

Prond was finding it increasingly difficult to maintain any sense of direction or even basic plumb/level proprioception. It was as though gravity, momentum, and inertia had taken on random values that changed with no logical pattern. He could not tell where he stood with respect to the ground; he could walk around a full circle in a plane perpendicular to where he estimated gravity should be. It was so disturbing that he wondered if he were going insane. He began to panic: he wanted out desperately but had no idea which way out was. Logic told him that any direction he went should take him out of the hemisphere—it had only seemed to be around ten meters in diameter—yet he walked in as straight a line as he could manage for a full five minutes and made no visible progress whatever.

He stopped and collected his wits.
Take the facts for what they are and draw conclusions based on what you empirically know to be true
, Ballop’ril had warned him. Fine. What he empirically knew to be true was that he no longer occupied the same general coordinates in spacetime as his starting point. He also knew that wherever he was now, either the laws of motion and gravity were different here or his ability to perceive the order in them had been smashed against the rocks.

Speaking of rocks, something very much like a boulder loomed up from the swirling fabric of situational reality on his right and Prond sat upon it to take some notes. At least his data journal seemed to be functioning normally. He tried to describe his surroundings, but irritatingly any one particular aspect he looked at cycled through multiple physical characteristics so quickly that he couldn’t find words to pin any of it down. He was trying to describe a rainbow to a creature born without eyes. Worse, the rainbow kept changing colors, many of them completely new to him.

If this was indeed The Slice, he could not comprehend why any archmage would choose to transcend and live here forever. It was all far too confusing. Suddenly, as he stared off into the impossible convolutions of space and time that constantly enveloped him and had done so since before his personal eternity began, Prond became aware of a shape that was static. This seemed so wrong that he couldn’t wrap his brain around it at first.

The shape was in no hurry to define itself, but finally it moved in a manner that brought it closer to him (he hesitated to say ‘it moved forward’ because that was far too determinative) and resolved into a strange smooth-skinned biped that looked oddly familiar. As this was the first geometric manifestation Prond had encountered in a while that he could come up with terms to describe, he scribbled furiously; it stood there patiently, waiting for him to finish.

“I’m surprised you are still able to think clearly in this mess,” the figure said to him, finally. While Prond heard the words and could define each of them, they were not conveying any meaning. He puzzled over this new concept: that an obviously grammatically correct statement in a language he spoke employing words he knew well from a voice he recognized as such could create no cognitive impression. They just sat there, lumps in his cerebral cortex, and refused to form any recognizable mental pictures. He shook his head at the apparition helplessly.

The unknown figure, or person, or whatever it was, took pity on Prond and led him gently away. The scenery was unchanged for a moment, but then, miraculously, collapsed back down to three recognizable spatial dimensions with at least nominally consistent physical laws governing them. Prond stood there blinking, trying to get to grips with objective normality, which now seemed grossly foreign and incomprehensible.

As manageable cognition seeped back in, Prond looked around and noticed that, while height, width, and depth seemed to have returned to their accustomed duties, the surroundings to which they applied were no longer at all sane. Soaring spires, floating bags with tendrils trailing from them;seemingly solid physical structures that flowed and bent with an otherwise undetectable wind...his day was just getting odder and odder. The figure, which had finished resolving itself, was quite definitely related to that transcendent mage who had helped them out in Pyfox’s cavern and the Kopyrewt. At least, he had the same creepy smooth skin and slender build, although he seemed more substantial. Prond looked at him questioningly.

“Mage of the First Tier?” the figure said in response, “I would have expected someone a little more advanced to be investigating this, to be honest. Still, it is good experience for you. A question, then: do you know where you are?”

Prond turned in a complete circle, seeing nothing whatever during that circuit that he had ever seen before. He gave the only answer that made any sense to him. “The Slice?”

Oloi, for it was he, smiled approvingly. “Yes, indeed. Well done. Someone on the material plane punched a hole in The Slice. Not a wise thing to do; such ruptures usually end up taking a parsec or so of local spacetime with them. Why, exactly,
are
you here?”

Prond still wasn’t feeling very polysyllabic. “Sent to take notes.” He held up his data journal, “For DAA,” he added by way of explication.

“Ah, academic degree. Very salutary. I will presume Ballop’ril is the master of your schola. Virtually no one else would send an MFT to investigate an n-dimensional rift.”

Prond nodded in the affirmative.

“So,” Oloi continued, “How are you meant to get back to N’plork?”

Prond gave him the most completely blank look in his repertoire.

“Oh, dear. Did Ballop’ril not give you an interdimensional translocation enchantment?”

Prond thought about this and suddenly remembered the necklace the archmage had handed him. He extracted it from his pocket.

“Ah, there it is,” said Oloi, beaming, “Capital. You don’t have to use it immediately, but I would not wait more than a half-day. The longer you are here, the more your body will adjust to The Slice. If you wait too long, you will not be able to return to Primus.

You have not yet the skill to transcend, so you will in effect starve to death, as there is nothing here to eat but manna, which you cannot digest in biological form.”