Wizard (The Key to Magic) (3 page)

Beltr felt his jaw tighten. The magic systems of the armor were rated for battlefield conditions and were designed to be able to withstand a direct strike from a Level Six spell.

"Have the armor transported by physical means to the maintenance facility at the Investigative Section. I want a comprehensive flux-level analysis of every single spell system."

Nhilsi raised his eyebrows but nodded. "Yes, sir."

While the EO relayed the orders into his comm, Beltr noted that his pinkish hued vision had begun to show highlights of purple, a telltale sign of increasing light. He waggled his right ring finger in a precise series of loops and the light enhancing spell on his eyes faded. Daylight was just beginning to seep into the alley, brushing soft yellow light along the parapets of the facing buildings. The reactive outer shells of the interdicting Support Officers' armor had already begun to adapt to reflect the dusty ochre brick of the building walls and the grimy olive of the cobbles.

He again considered the perpetrator. There remained the very likely possibility that this felon had not acted alone in his illicit wizardry, but had in fact been aided by some number of confederates. In Beltr's experience, the isolated offender was the aberration rather than the norm. A wizard plus a supporting group plus clandestine action equaled a conspiracy. Whether that conspiracy plotted simple crime or heinous rebellion did not matter; either was a danger to the peace established by the Faction.

Beltr realized that he could not dispose of the perpetrator without first determining with full confidence that no other renegades remained at large to trouble the Commonwealth.

"Enforcement Officer Nhilsi, I am personally going to port the perpetrator to the Investigative Section. You will remain in charge of the situation here. In particular, question any of the inhabitants that exhibit any inordinate interest in our procedures or express any sort of curiosity concerning the offender. Detain all who appear suspect and deliver them for inquisition."

"Yes, sir."

After sending a set of instructions ahead via his comm, Beltr tapped a coded tattoo on his port bracelet to tell it to extend its magic to the perpetrator, then tapped it again to initiate the spell to transfer the two of them directly to the Investigative Section's maximum security inquisition chamber.

When he and the perpetrator appeared on the centered platform under the focused floodlights, he found, as he had ordered, Rhingyll Szck and a squad of enforcement officers waiting in the otherwise featureless space. The officers were not, of course, wearing field armor, but each did have a sidearm and shoulder weapon. Per standard procedure, the men straightaway aimed their shoulder weapons at the perpetrator.

Lying on his side, the perpetrator had ported within the unmarked boundaries of the motion restraint hex. Beltr and the soldiers were warded from the hex, but once it was in place the perpetrator should be entirely immobilized.

"Szck, have your men secure him in a standard examination chair. Remove the hood."

"Should we also remove the manacles and leg irons, sir?"

"No. Dispense with the binding strap but leave the rest in place. Have a medic report here at once. I will need the perpetrator conscious so that we can begin the inquisition immediately."

While four of the enforcement officers hoisted the perpetrator, summoned the reclined chair, and dropped him in place with no wasted motion, the rhingyll ported out for a few seconds and then returned. By design, the chamber's standard wards would not permit comm signals of any type to pass through its walls.

Beltr himself activated the restraint spell, using his own standard issue high level Key.

The medic, a woman in the standard uniform -- multi-pocketed impermeable purple coverall and sealed sanitary boots -- appeared just a moment later on the other side of the recumbent wizard from Beltr. She was tall, short haired, and, not that he deigned to notice such things, lithe and full fleshed. With two large orange trauma bags draped from her shoulders and a number of handheld instruments clipped to her coverall, she appeared to have come prepared for any emergency. Her head swung through a hundred and eighty degree clinical observation of the chamber, dismissing the uninjured Beltr, Szck, and enforcement officers, and then settled her eyes on the perpetrator. She made a head to toe visual examination of the man and then awarded Beltr a nod, but said nothing. Clearly cognizant of inquisition protocols, she made no move to approach her patient.

For the benefit of the recording equipment and the medic, Beltr announced, "The port interdiction ward will now be enabled."

This precaution was normally unnecessary, but considering the demonstrated magical prowess of the prisoner, he felt it unwise to take any risks. The interdiction ward would remain in place for two hours and no one, either inside the chamber or outside of it, could disable it without a Master Key until the interval had passed. As the chamber had no physical exits of any sort -- even the interior atmosphere was generated by spells -- no one would be able to enter or leave. In the improbable event that the perpetrator should be able to free himself from the restraining magics and incapacitate or kill everyone else within, he would still be trapped within a reinforced metal-ceramic composite enclosure whose blast resistant walls would survive forces that would bring down the rest of the building while an alarm sounded to alert every Compliance Officer in the city.

Beltr made the appropriate arcane gesture to initiate the ward, then spoke to the woman. "Medic --"

"Emergency Medical Technician Second Class Prim Olfew," the woman supplied.

He took this preemptory introduction to mean that she was not the sort of person who was content to remain an anonymous non-entity.

"Medic Olfew," he resumed without ire, "revive the perpetrator."

Olfew shrugged her shoulders to allow the trauma bags to slide to the floor then took a knee beside the chair and made a waving pass with what Beltr readily recognized as a metabolic skry stone.

She glanced at the readout. "The subject was struck unconscious by a physical blow and not by a spell. Please confirm." It was clear that she was also mindful of the recording equipment.

"This is correct," Beltr said.

Olfew frowned as she continued to stare at the readout.

"Is there some problem, medic?"

"High order regenerative magic has recently been used on both legs and right arm."

"Meaning?"

"The subject was previously a triple amputee."

"And this is usual in what way?"

"Current medical standards call for traumatic limb injuries to be repaired immediately. Amputation is performed only when the proper medical apparatus and personnel are not available. This would indicate that the subject was in a remote area when he suffered his injury."

"Information noted."

Olfew exchanged the skry stone for another instrument which she pointed briefly at the perpetrators head. "A concussion, but no hemorrhage. I recommend that the brain injury be repaired. This will allow the subject to awaken without the use of stimulants. Is this treatment authorized?"

As a member of the Medical Directorate, Olfew was not technically subject to Beltr's direct command. However, every rational person in the Faction deferred to a Compliance Officer.

He saw no reason to object. "Treatment is authorized."

Olfew removed an object that looked like nothing more than a river washed flat stone, placed it against the perpetrator's temple, and cast, "Gho-nhish-mhal-dyu-wahr."

After consulting her skry stone again, Olfew stood up and took two steps back.

The perpetrator's eyes snapped open and his entire body stiffened as he struggled against the restraint hex and his manacles, but after a few seconds he abandoned his resistance, assumed a relaxed pose, and gave every outward indication of total submission. The hex prevented him from turning his head, but his gaze swept across those that were in his field of view: Beltr, Olfew, Szck, and two of the enforcement officers. After a moment, he worked his jaw in an obvious test of the limitations of the hex and then asked a question in a calm tone.

The language that the man used was completely unfamiliar to Beltr. "What is that? Anyone recognize it?"

"Very guttural," Szck opined. "Sounds primitive."

"To me, it's similar to one of those clannish tongues that the Holders used," Medic Olfew suggested.

Making a mental note to later investigate why Olfew might be familiar with the eradicated Holder movement, Beltr addressed the perpetrator. "Do you speak Common? Can you understand me?"

The man replied in the language that he had used before, but his demeanor indicated incomprehension.

"Medic Olfew, do you have the capability with your portable equipment to inject educational micro-nodes?"

"Yes, Compliance Officer Beltr."

"I presume you have a comprehensive Common dose?"

"Indeed. My standard kit contains all major modern languages, a broad swath of mathematics, and also some --"

"Excellent. Administer it. Make sure that the nodes are set to dissipate upon completion of task."

"You understand that the ability to speak the language will only be temporary? Depending upon physiological factors, it may last no more than ten days. Flux induced language cannot produce long term skill and is normally administered only as a learning aid."

"Yes, yes, that is fine." Beltr did not see any need to add that he did not expect that the captured wizard would live out the week.

Maintaining her distance, Olfew pointed a tubular device at the perpetrator for a few seconds, then nodded at Beltr.

Beltr addressed the man once more. "Do you understand me now?"

A look of surprise passed briefly across the captive's face. "Yes."

His pronunciation, being rather neutral and correct, did not have the midlands urban inflection that was most widespread in Dhiloeckmyur, but Beltr saw no problem with this as he thought the common speech of the denizens of the city to be decadent, slothful, and a product of indolent thinking.

Interestingly, the perpetrator contented himself with this simple answer and appeared to be waiting for Beltr to speak again. Often, offenders brought in for an inquisition were full of frantic questions. At the very least, a legal resident of the Commonwealth would have requested to have the counsel of an advocate.

"What is your name?"

"Plydro."

None of the monitoring equipment that whispered constantly in Beltr's ear reported any physiological indications of falsehood, but that did not mean that the perpetrator was not lying and Beltr's gut told him that the utterly unfamiliar and foreign-sounding name was a complete fabrication.

"What is your residential province?"

"I am not from here."

"Which state then?"

"The Republic of Pyra."

Again no reports of falsehood, but this statement was patently untrue.

"I happen to know that by governmental mandate all Pyrai are taught Common in secondary school. Why is it that you were unable to understand me before the micro-nodes were administered?"

Beltr watched the perpetrator's face, but the other's placid features evidenced no distress at the exposure of his lies.

"I have only recently been released from
stasis
. My tongue is one only spoken on the island where I was born."

An alarm beeped insistently in Beltr's ear and then an automated message played.
"Intelligence Section Bulletin: the word 'stasis' is a censored term. Isolate and silence individual immediately. Do not interrogate."

The priority of his investigation gave Beltr the authority to ignore this automated order and he chose to do so. He did not know what "stasis" meant, but trying to find out at a future point was no doubt ill-advised and likely dangerous; the Intelligence Section was famous for making people disappear without a trace, regardless of their status or position.

Rather than attempt to chip away at the perpetrator's facade of deception, Beltr decided to put everything out in the open and see how the man reacted.

"The practice of wizardry without a dispensation is a grievous violation of the Internal Magical Restrictions of the Oaurlervy Faction Commonwealth and is punishable by summary execution. I am prepared to enact that sentence immediately."

In an unexpected display of bravado, the perpetrator produced a broad, toothy smile that struck Beltr as more predatory than jovial.

Then the lights in the chamber went out.

THREE

Mar snap cast
The Knife Fighter's Dirge
as the overhead lamps, ethereal in nature and possessed of an uncomplicated admix of three similar sound-colors, failed in response to a thick wash of steadfast burping-gray flux. Contrary to his expectations, this left the strange space so utterly dark that he might as well have been blind. He had guessed that the cell in which he had awoken might be in the dungeons of a fortress, but he had never known a place so well sealed that no hint of light whatsoever could be perceived. Even inside the bowels of the massive Mhajhkaeirii'n palace on a moonless night a suggestion of illumination was always present -- reflected starlight peeking around corners, a distant candle leaking under a door, the fading embers of a hearth oozing across the floor. For a person like him who had spent a life learning to navigate after dusk, those faint wisps of light were as useful as lanterns.

Rather than trouble him, though, this impenetrable gloom was almost a comfort. When he had come to, he had felt an immediate and near paralyzing fear. Unbidden and unwanted, memories of his last imprisonment had seized his thoughts. The horror and agony of his Khalarii'n execution were never very deeply buried and not being able to see helped him shrug off that nightmare and focus on his immediate and primary need: escape.

His bindings were formidable. Chained with steel and enclosed by a magic that made him feel as if he were buried in sand, he was unable to move more than a third of a fingerlength in any direction.