Mage Prime (Book 2) (31 page)

Once they were away from the entrance, Dhoum gave the torch a vigorous shaking and switched it on. “Like the robe. You must have pleased somebody to earn that.”

Karryl grinned. “I suppose I must have, but I really want to get back into my old clothes. I haven’t had the chance until now. Can you hold on a while?”

Dhoum moved close to Karryl and turned brown-flecked amber eyes up into his face. Karryl could have sworn there was a smirk under all that luxuriant russet hair.

His companion raised a finger. “I’m afraid, Master Magician, that you’re stuck with it. Anyway, you should be proud to wear it. Only fully qualified magicians are entitled to wear embroidered robes. I for one am very pleased and Master Symon certainly will be. It means we can get on and do things we couldn’t do before. So, let’s get going. We can be there by nightfall.”

Karryl peered into the darkness. “Where are we going now?”

Holding the torch high, Dhoum chuckled. “Why! Down another tunnel of course, but this time we go home the quick way, after a little diversion.”

After about half an hour, the tunnel began to widen out and grow lighter. Dhoum switched off the torch. A few paces brought them out onto a wide shelf about halfway up the rocky side of an enormous crater. Karryl guessed it was at least a mile wide. He looked down, to see small clouds and thick tendrils of yellow smoke drifting up out of the numerous fissures which patterned the floor far below. The rising stench of bad eggs caught in his throat, forcing him to cover his nose and mouth with his hand.

His voice struggled out on a wheeze. “It’s a volcano! What are we doing here?”

Dhoum’s voluminous robe failed to disguise the shrug. “Nothing. Just passing through, but it’s the ideal place for you to learn instantaneous relocation.”

Karryl’s eyebrows shot up. “You mean, like Areel does? I didn’t know you could do it!”

Another hearty chuckle echoed around the walls of the great crater. “Areel explained to me a while ago how it’s done. Quite simple really, when you break it down. It’s like this.”

He went on to explain the procedure, and Karryl was forced to agree. It was quite simple. It was only when Dhoum suddenly vanished, and reappeared waving to him from the other side of the crater, that he realised his own prowess was about to be severely tested. He waved back and committed. It was then he found out how truly hard rock can be, as he landed on his rump at Dhoum’s feet.

The Grrybhñnös pulled him up, chuckling as Karryl rubbed his bruised posterior. “You really need to work on your positioning. Most undignified for a Mage-Prime. Now, let’s get going.”

He led the way through a crevice in the rock face, and switched on his torch to reveal another tunnel.

Karryl groaned. “I thought we were going the quick way.”

Dhoum gave a long-suffering sigh. “We are. When we get through this tunnel and I’ve shown you what’s at the other end, then we can whisk ourselves right back to Vellethen. The faster we go through
here
, the sooner we get
there
. And anyway, my feet are getting hot.”

With that, he barrelled off down the tunnel, leaving Karryl jogging steadily along behind, following the silver-blue light of the torch. A short way in, the floor began to slope very gently downwards enabling Grrybñnös and Mage to set a fair turn of speed. They hurried along without speaking for about an hour. It was then that Karryl first began to feel the tremulous vibrations beneath his feet. A little further on he heard and felt the first sonorous rumble. A short while later, others louder and more insistent were disturbing the increasingly warm air now wafting continuously into his face. By the time he caught up with Dhoum, who had stopped where the tunnel widened out into a small cavern, Karryl had become accustomed to the tremors’ regular frequency. He had just hitched up the hem of his robe and was rubbing at his tired calf muscles when the next one boomed. The deep rolling note seemed to come from directly beneath him.

He waited until the reverberations had died away and he could hear himself speak. “Is that what I think it is?”

Dhoum rolled his eyes. “Depends on what you think it is.”

Karryl wiped his hands across his sweaty face. “We’re right inside a volcano, aren’t we?”

“Not right inside. That would be not only foolhardy but also unbearable. The actual heart of the volcano is about two miles away, maybe a little more.”

Karryl frowned and gestured back towards the tunnel. “Wasn’t that it, the one we relocated across?”

His hairy companion raised his hands and gave a derogatory snort. “Good grief, no. That was only a small blown out crater. It might build another cone sometime in the far distant future. As it is, it’s been puffing and fuming like an old Geffendrogger for the last hundred years or so. What you’re going to see is far more impressive.”

Karryl wagged a finger. “That’s not the first time I’ve heard you mention it. What
is
a Geffendrogger?”

Dhoum’s hearty chuckle filled the little cavern, and he rubbed his long, four-fingered hands together. “Wait and see. If things go according to plan, you’ll more than likely meet one. Now, let’s get moving. One more very short tunnel and then you’ll see what Master Tukrin was going to show you before he was attacked.”

Giving the torch a vigorous shake, Dhoum sidled through a crevice in the cavern wall. Being nearly twice as tall as Dhoum, Karryl had to bend low to get through. To his relief, the tunnel beyond had plenty of head-room and was also, as Dhoum had said, very short. In only a few minutes he was standing beside him on a wide gallery circling the full circumference of a huge cavern which, Karryl estimated, was a good two hundred paces across.

As he watched, strangely dressed people, both men and women, emerged from various entrances at the back of the gallery and descended long, multi-flighted staircases to the floor far below. Others would leave the floor and climb the staircases, usually stopping to speak briefly to those coming down. From where he was standing, those down on the floor appeared no larger than industrious insects as they moved busily about the massive chamber, turning wheels, pushing and pulling levers and checking glass discs attached to long pipes leading to and from a number of tall, wide cylinders.

Dhoum raised himself up onto his hind legs so that he could see over the guard rail. “Impressive isn’t it?”

Before Karryl could answer, another of the sonorous booms rolled and reverberated round the chamber. He waited until the noise subsided. “It probably would be if I knew what I was looking at.”

Without offering an explanation, Dhoum returned to all fours and set off along the gallery towards one of the staircases. He called over his shoulder. “Follow me. I’ll show you something and then you’ll understand, I hope.”

With his hands on the floor Dhoum lowered his head, and with all six limbs in perfectly synchronised motion, rippled swiftly down the stairs like a giant hairy caterpillar. Karryl found it very difficult not to fall about laughing as he watched Dhoum negotiate the staircase, although he had to admit that his hirsute companion’s method was considerably faster than his own would be.

At the bottom, Dhoum returned to four legs and called up to Karryl who was still barely halfway down. “Bet you can’t do that.”

Karryl laughed out loud as he tried not to step on the back hem of his robe. “I’m not even going to try.”

Safely down, he followed Dhoum across the smooth stone floor and along a corridor between a bewildering array of pipes, large metal boxes and cylinders. A couple of the strangely dressed people raised a hand in greeting before crossing the chamber to join them. Dhoum introduced Karryl, and the couple took them to a small room. There, they helped Karryl to wriggle into a one piece suit of thick white material. To Karryl’s surprise, although he realised later that he shouldn’t have been surprised at all, Dhoum had his own specially made suit. He slid into it with far less trouble, before handing Karryl a kind of hooded cape with a clear rectangular panel set in the front. He then led the way to the far side of the chamber, stopping in front of a heavy looking wheel set into the wall.

He looked up at Karryl. “Can you turn that to the left. I can’t quite reach.”

The young Mage put down his hood, and grasped the wheel. After some initial resistance it began to move smoothly and easily. After three or four turns it stopped and Karryl heard a short loud hiss followed by a thump. A section of the wall began to swing slowly towards them. The two donned their strange hoods and stepped through. The chamber they entered was tiny in comparison, no more than twenty paces across. The air inside was dry and very hot. The gallery was continuous with no other access onto it, and no stairways leading down. With a soft, sighing thud the door closed behind them. Dhoum moved along the gallery a short way then raised himself on his back legs once more as Karryl joined him in looking down over the railing. Although the faceplate restricted his vision, he could still see enough to fill him with fear and awe in equal proportions.

Many feet below ran a slowly moving stream of molten lava, its thickness gliding in sinuous waves through the broad channel it had created through the solid rock. Its fiery glare bathed the chamber in a malevolent scarlet and crimson glow. Even with the protection of the suit Karryl could feel the intensity of the searing heat as a constant rush of sulphurous air blasted up towards them. He staggered backwards against the gallery wall, but not before the terrifying and awesome sight below had registered on his mind.

Dhoum turned quickly and headed for the door. “That’s enough. Time to leave.”

With a wry smile, Karryl hurried the few steps along the gallery and took hold of the wheel. “Just what I was thinking.”

The door was barely ajar before they slipped through and back into the main chamber. The door closed behind them with a heavy thump. Karryl turned the wheel until it would go no further and the door was locked.

Leaning against one of the massive pipes he removed his hood and gestured towards the firmly closed door. “What were we looking at in there?”

Without answering, Dhoum set off down the long corridor between the massive pipes, back to the tiny room where they wriggled out of their protective suits. Instead of climbing back up to the gallery Dhoum beckoned Karryl to follow, and led the way to a blank section of wall. Firmly he pressed his four-fingered hand flat against it. As in the tunnel at Thermera, a skilfully crafted and disguised door swung slowly open on a central pivot, admitting a welcome draught of cooler air. They hurried through into the darkness of the tunnel beyond.

As the door closed behind them, Dhoum clicked on the torch. “That’s better. Now we can cool off and hear ourselves think. In answer to your question, you have just been allowed a glimpse of the full unbridled raw power of nature. It’s what Thermera is all about, and what Tukrin wanted to show you.”

Karryl frowned and blew out his cheeks. “It’s a bit dangerous isn’t it, being in there with all that going underneath?”

“Any kind of power, whether magical, physical or elemental, is dangerous if uncontrolled. What you have just seen, the molten lava flow that rises up from the heart of the volcano, has merely been harnessed, a very small part of its power providing some of the essentials for life in Thermera.”

While Dhoum picked at little bits of singed russet hair which had escaped the protection of his suit, Karryl pondered. “I think I can understand now what Tukrin was telling me. And now I know a bit more about you, I know what he meant when he said that it was only due to you and others like you that Thermera even exists.”

Dhoum looked askance and gave what might have been a shrug. “It was an on-going project. I simply took it in hand, made it work and brought it up to date. Now, if you’ve recovered, let’s get you and your shiny red face back to Vellethen.”

Karryl’s fingers went self-consciously to his nose and cheeks. “I didn’t think we’d been in there long enough for that. D’you think I could get away with saying I flew too close to the sun?”

Dhoum’s amber eyes twinkled. “Not unless you can convince Symon that you can turn yourself into a bird. Anyway, it’ll probably fade in about an hour. It’ll take us that long to get through this tunnel. Then we’ll be in the open air and we can be off. I think we’ll find that Symon has already arrived.”

Giving the dimming torch an energetic shake, he set off down the narrow tunnel with Karryl close on his heels.

The crisp mountain air was a welcome contrast to the dry heated air of the tunnel, and Karryl breathed deeply. Far below, he could see the spray mist above a wide river seething and foaming along the bottom of a deep, narrow gorge on its way to the ocean. He turned and looked up. The mountain towered above them, its crags and lesser peaks starkly outlined against an ice-blue sky.

He moved to stand beside Dhoum on the wide ledge and pointed across the gorge. “What’s on the other side of there?”

The Grrybhñnös lifted his head and rubbed at his golden throat patch. “More mountains. Not as big as this one though. We’re right in the middle of a mountain range. Beyond that are acres of scree, a huge bottomless lake, a few hundred acres of birch and pine forest rising up to a range of low hills, then the city of Thermera.”

Seemingly lost in thought, Karryl watched the river for a while before he spoke. “Are we going back to Thermera?”

Dhoum grunted and hitched at his robe. “Only to pick up transport to Torgaard; we shan’t be visiting. Now, if you’ve done sight-seeing, focus on the tower we first arrived at in Thermera and let’s get going.”

The air shimmered. High above, a soaring mountain eagle eyed the empty ledge as a potential site for an eyrie.

* * *

There was no sign of Dhoum. Karryl walked around the chamber, even peering down the shaft which had transported them to the lower levels. He headed back towards the portal.

From behind a pillar a russet-haired amber-eyed face peered round at him. “I didn’t think it necessary to specify inside or outside.”

Karryl grinned and joined Dhoum to wait for the shining pathway to appear in front of the arched portal. He barely had time to look down at the robed figures moving about far below, or recall the warmth of their welcome. From behind a distant tower a rapidly approaching iridescent globe appeared. Within seconds it had expanded into a large, shining white sphere poised at the foot of a shimmering path.

Looking back over his shoulder, the ever avuncular Dhoum gave Karryl one of his rare, slow blinks. “This will be your chance to see what you missed on the way in.”

With that, he turned and stepped casually through the white wall of the sphere, to vanish from sight. After one more long wistful look around Karryl followed him in.

They sped over the rooftops of Thermera towards the vast ocean which lay beyond. There was still plenty of the day left, and Karryl was keen to see what he had missed on his night-time flight from Torgaard. Dhoum had already settled back and closed his eyes like a seasoned traveller well accustomed to the sights. Karryl watched the huge volcanic island of Thermera gradually fall behind them until it was no more than a bump on the horizon. Making himself comfortable, he felt the warm floor moulding itself to his body as he began to scan the ocean far below. At first, the most numerous of its occupants appeared to be icebergs, sailing the dark green waters in majestic blue and white splendour. Karryl marvelled at the sight as he recalled that two thirds of their impressive bulk lay below the surface.

Dhoum shifted position and knelt beside him. “Want a closer look?”

“Can we do that?”

The Grrybhñnõs placed a hand on a darker area in the curved wall of the sphere. “Reduce altitude by half, circle once slowly, radius two miles.”

The sphere made a gradual curving descent, skimming heart-stoppingly close to the tip of a massive berg, before beginning its circle of the floe-strewn water and the fields of ice-boulders below them. Seeing something move, off-white against white at the edge of the ice-field, Karryl stayed focussed on it as they flew quietly and serenely over.

Dhoum looked where Karryl was looking. “Hmmm. Ice-bear. Very rare. You’re lucky to see one.”

As if sensing their presence above it, the huge bear pushed itself up onto its hind legs. Raising its great paws it lifted its muzzle and sniffed the air. Satisfied that nothing was amiss it dropped back to all fours and ambled off. Karryl watched it until it was no longer visible, its white fur an almost perfect camouflage in this snowy vastness.

Its circle complete, the sphere returned to its prescribed course. Maintaining the lower altitude it sped away, out across open water leaving the floes and icebergs behind. For many hours they flew, the ocean below them sparkling in the orange light of a low hanging sun. Islands appeared on the horizon and almost instantly disappeared. It was after one rather large rocky mass vanished before they had even reached it that Karryl suspected time was being manipulated.

He looked accusingly at Dhoum. “Are you doing that?”

Dhoum stroked thoughtfully at his muzzle. “No-o-o-o. I noticed it a while ago. I think somebody wants us back rather faster than we anticipated. Let’s find out.”

Once again he placed his hand on the dark area in the wall of the sphere. “Reduce speed and ascend to normal altitude.”

The only visible response was the smoky grey patch fading away, leaving the wall uniformly clear.

The Grrybhñnös huffed and pulled back his hand. “Humph! That answered that! Well, as we no longer have control we might as well enjoy the view, such as it is.”

The water below them was now a flat and featureless blue-green blur, the lurid orange sun appearing to tremble as it hung just above the horizon. Karryl looked out in all directions but the sheer speed of their transport reduced anything on which he may have been able to focus to quivering lines and shimmering blurs.

The look he gave Dhoum spoke volumes. “Are we going to crash?”

Dhoum gave him a long look. “After everything you’ve just been through? That’s very, very doubtful. We might slow down a bit quick though, so I suggest you get yourself settled. I suspect we’re nearly at Torgaard.”

Lying back and stretching out his legs, Karryl felt the comforting warmth of the floor reposition as it gently but firmly moulded itself to cradle his body. Dhoum crouched low beside him, the long hair of his face brushing the floor. Eyes closed, Karryl relaxed a little in the floor’s embrace.

* * *

It was almost dark when he awoke. Surprised that he had fallen asleep so easily, he peered into the dusk.

He gave the still sleeping Dhoum a nudge. “Dhoum! I think we’ve arrived.”

His companion made a low rumbling noise and opened his eyes. Standing up he vigorously shook himself, robe and russet hair flying in all directions, then joined Karryl in peering through the clear wall of the sphere. Far below them, domed roofs glowed eerily in the near darkness. As they watched, Torgaard’s tall central building appeared ahead of them, its graceful arched portals illuminated by a soft and welcoming light. Like a ship entering a safe harbour, the sphere rode quickly and smoothly to a stop in front of one of the portals, a shining walk-way appearing in the air between.

Karryl and Dhoum stepped through the sphere’s wall, hurried along the walk-way and through the portal into the wide, purple and white mosaic-floored corridor. Solen stood waiting for them. Briefly he clasped hands with the two arrivals, but made no move to lead them to the lower levels. Deep concern showed in the tutor’s blue eyes.

He looked first at Karryl then rested his gaze on Dhoum. “We regret the unseemly haste of your return journey. We wish you could have remained here a little longer as was our intention, but events have rendered this impossible. Master Symon has gone ahead of you. It is now vital that you follow him back to your own land. Your birds are flying, gentle Dhoum. Their minds conveyed to me great concern.”

The Grrybhñnös turned dark blue eyes on Karryl. “Solen is right. When the birds fly of their own will, something has seriously disturbed them. Let’s hope we’re not too late to do anything about it.”

Karryl opened his mouth, but Dhoum asked the question. “Did they reveal the cause of their concern?”

Solen shook his head. “They would only disclose that they had been sent aloft to hasten the return of yourself and Master Karryl. Therefore I will detain you no longer. The sphere is waiting to take you over the valley to your departure point.”

Karryl looked towards the portal. The sphere in which they had arrived was indeed still hovering, a small iridescent, rainbow-hued orb at the end of the glistening pathway.

After clasping Karryl’s hand once more, Solen gestured towards it. “Go now. Perhaps some-day, you will visit us again.”

With a lump in his throat, Karryl could do no more than nod mutely, before following Dhoum out through the portal and onto the pathway. Sensing their approach, the orb’s rainbow colours merged into gleaming white, its size increasing until it was large enough for them both to enter. They rode in thoughtful silence. Minutes later the sphere touched gently down on the hillside across the valley from the city. Standing on the soft green grass they watched the white and perfect sphere until it was out of sight.