Tomorrow's Spacemage Read online

  "How will they live away from their homes?" asked the battle mage.

  "I can copy them once I see them."

  "Could you copy it now if I gave you the image?" asked the creation mage.

  "Possibly. How would you give it to me?"

  "I've never tried this, but in theory, and given your power, we should be able to combine magic. I'll throw you the copy magic, you take it, and use it to make a copy."

  "Worth a try," said the movement mage.

  "It’s going to take too long," said the battle mage. "They're almost ready. Looks like they're going to do all our homes at once."

  "Jen?"

  "What do you need?"

  "Can you put the village image from the sensors on a screen please?"

  She rushed out. I motioned for the rest of us to follow her, and by the time we reached the bridge, she had the image up on a screen.

  "Point out which is your house," I said to a shocked basics mage.

  He pointed, and I sent my sight in. I found a woman around the same age as he was, and moved her to the house on the island, slightly away from where the girls were talking to my family.

  'More coming' I wrote in dirt at Tasha's feet.

  "Where do you want us Thorn?"

  'Inside. Will move people to the doorway.'

  "No problem. Give us a few seconds."

  I turned to the moving mage, and he pointed. I found his wife and a teenage boy inside, checked if the doorway was clear, and moved them both. Tasha immediately invited them inside.

  In short order, the creating mage's wife and two girls, the healing mage's boy and girl, and the battle mage's wife, were moved and greeted by Tasha. When they were all inside, Tasha stayed in the doorway.

  "What now?"

  I really was going to have to learn how to be heard at a distance. This writing was tedious.

  'Stay inside. Copying the other houses.'

  "Okay."

  She shut the door, and turned to the group standing bewildered in the middle of the room. My parents were already greeting them with hugs. I lingered for a moment, and reluctantly drew my sight back.

  "All safe and sound."

  The five of them looked relieved.

  Nineteen

  With the initial danger passed, I took my time copying the houses, now I knew which ones they were.

  I made a huge point of not copying the soldiers. I placed each house around the meadow, front door opening to the middle, and added front and back gardens. Lastly, I added in fencing behind each house, and moved the animals kept in by them.

  I cast my sight around the result, and put it up on a monitor for the mages to see. They were speechless, especially the moving and creating mages, who'd had no idea this level of creation and moving was possible.

  "Nicely done, young Thorn. There's only one problem though."

  The battle mage looked both impressed, and smug at the same time.

  "What?"

  "Magic on that scale leaves a footprint. Our king will be reeling at the moment, feeling so much magic happening, but not knowing what has been done." He paused. "Ah. Move your sight to the main street."

  I did so, and we looked on as all the soldiers were double timing it back to the castle. The mages were already gone.

  "So he now knows all our families are gone. Will he be able to tell where?"

  "Most likely," said the moving mage.

  I put an invisibility shield over the whole island, and a force wall underneath it. Between both, it would keep all magic but mine out. And if someone did hit it, I'd get a ward warning which would take me straight there to defend the island if need be.

  "What did you just do?" asked the battle mage.

  They could all detect the magic I was doing, apparently.

  "Force wall and invisibility over the island. Not even a nuke can get through it."

  "So why can't you protect your hills with this force wall?" asked the basics mage.

  "Nukes have a side effect which would be very bad," said Jen. Their eyes turned to her. "A nuke has a sickness which kills those not effected by the blast itself. It’s a terrible way to die. Even in our time, not all of this sickness can be treated effectively. Depends on how much exposure you get."

  Their eyes turned to me.

  "I've not had the time to think out how to deal with nukes properly."

  There was a massive ward blast in the back of my mind, and all six of us flinched.

  "What?" asked Jess.

  I looked back at the village on the screen. There were now six gaps, where our houses had once stood.

  "Our king appears to be unhappy with us," said the basics mage, in a flat matter of fact voice.

  I couldn't help it, but started laughing. They each followed me one by one until we all were.

  While the others were still chuckling, I concentrated, and put the houses back. At the same time, I turned down all the wards.

  Almost immediately, all the houses not only vanished, but there was only large holes in the ground left.

  "Fuck it!"

  I not only filled in the holes, I put the houses back, and put a force wall around each of them. As an afterthought, I added channeling to push any energy upward, so as to protect the houses next to them.

  Six bright plumes appeared. I looked out the view downwards, and the top of the mushroom clouds were visible to the naked eye. I indicated, and everyone looked.

  The battle mage looked at me suddenly, his face grave.

  I immediately changed the protection to cover the entire village and all its essential surrounding areas, and sure enough, seconds later, the entire force wall rang like a bell in my mind, and a huge plume rose from it.

  My sight shifted to ground level, and I put the image on a screen.

  "Nuke," said Jen. "That's exactly what they look like after detonation."

  None of the mages could speak. The image shifted as I checked around the village.

  "Shit!" exclaimed Jess.

  All around the village, the ground was blackened.

  "Is this just the king?" I asked.

  "For that," said the battle mage, "it would take every mage he has. And I warrant all of them are exhausted. Come to think of it, why aren’t you?"

  "That was nothing for him," said Jen.

  Eyebrows went up, but they didn’t comment.

  "What should we do now?" I asked them.

  "You're asking us?"

  The basics mage seemed quite put out.

  "You live here."

  "And you don’t?" asked the healing mage.

  "Technically, no. I live on an island half way around the world, where I sent your families. And thousands of years in the future."

  "You’d go back there?" asked the moving mage.

  "When everyone is safe, yes. The girls will need to be taken back. And for the distance the jump is, I’d not want to just send them, in case something went wrong. Once I'm there, assuming things haven't changed too much, I'll most likely stay. It is a bit primitive here after all."

  I grinned at them, and they pretended not to be offended.

  Twenty

  The six of us appeared outside the castle gates.

  A lot of discussion had decided we needed to deal with the king now. Letting him have time to restore himself, and add his returning battle mages into his group magic, wasn't a good thing. Not because the combined magical power would actually be a threat to me, but because anything could happen when so much power was concentrated, and innocents could be hurt as a result.

  I had a force bubble around us, and arrow shafts began bouncing off almost immediately. The two weakest mages, basics and healing, in terms of battle usefulness, were behind me. Battle, moving, and creating, who were actually trained for battle, were behind them, and their main job was watching our rear. The formation was a triangle, with me being the point.

  I could have taken us straight in, through the king's shields around his throne room, but was persuaded not having
soldiers all around us would be better. For them.

  The arrows stopped shortly after all the archers went down from a force punch. I’d been careful not to hit them too hard. These were soldiers, not pirates. Subtle but important distinction.

  The foot soldiers among them also went down, with the clatter of a dropped mixture of weapons.

  "Allow me," said the moving mage, and an arch appeared in the middle of the huge doors.

  "My turn," added the creation mage, and ornate woodwork surrounded the hole, keeping the rest of the doors intact, and making the arch safe.

  With a huge roar, a portcullis behind the doors dropped down.

  "Oh please," said the battle mage, and the entire portcullis was blasted backwards, crashing its length down on the brickwork beyond.

  A moment later, and it vanished completely.

  "Show off," muttered the basics mage, looking in my direction.

  As a formation, we moved in through the now passable gateway. I was stifling a chuckle, since I could have made the whole lot disappear, but instead, we were starting to work as a team, which was definitely something I hadn't expected. Then again, they were a team, and I was the interloper. And as such, they needed to function as they normally would. And I was powering the shield after all, where normally, one of them would probably shield the others while they did exactly what they had done.

  It was an interesting lesson in medieval battle magic. And for all I knew, they'd done this sort of thing before.

  The bailey was littered with bodies and weapons. We stepped over them, and moved towards the main door to the keep.

  The basics mage stepped past me, and the doors fell outwards. He returned to his place.

  "Even I can do hinges," he said.

  The battle mage was grinning, and the others joined in. I motioned us forwards again.

  Inside, the entire ground floor was one large throne room, and court. At the far end, looking very fatigued, but sitting ramrod straight on the throne, was the king. Around the walls, thirty four mages stood, several moving behind us as we walked further in.

  For the first time ever, not counting our little group, I was surrounded by powerful mages. The power in the air was intoxicating. I breathed it in, gulping it like I'd drink something sweet.

  The king frowned, as if what he saw on my face was the opposite of what he expected.

  "Kneel before your king!" rang out from the other mage who'd tried to kill me the day before.

  I put him down in the middle of the desert. My sight showed me it still was a desert, not much changed in fact, except for none of my previous handiwork was there. Yet. He looked around in horror, seeing nothing distinguishing in any direction.

  There was a collective gasp around the court, and the king rose to his feet. I flicked a finger in his direction, just for show, and he sat back down heavily. He should have gone completely over backwards, which showed just how much power he could draw on to protect himself.

  Fireballs erupted from all directions, and bounced off my force wall.

  The battle mage turned in a rapid circle, and all the flame died as if water had been poured on it. Under normal circumstances, that amount of flame could have burnt down the whole keep. Presumably they thought they could control it. I caught the battle mage's eye, and motioned no with a head shake. He resumed his position.

  The next barrage of fireballs all veered off course, rising to merge above me into a single huge ball. I let it burn there for a moment, before casting it back out through the doors we'd come in, two of the mages diving out of the way moments before the doors vanished, and the fireball shot outwards, to smash into the barbican. When the fire vanished shortly after, there was nothing recognizable left out there. Too bad about the arch.

  Before they could do it again, I force punched all of them at the same time.

  Six of them went down, and the rest staggered for a moment, but stayed on their feet.

  The king was grinning now. It died quickly, as my second and harder punch, floored the rest of them. Now he looked worried, left to contend with me on his own.

  I advanced into the room, my escorts following along, until I was at the steps leading up to the throne. The steps and platform vanished, leaving the throne to crash down to floor level. The king managed to stabilize the landing, and stay sitting, giving me an expression I interpreted as 'is that all you've got?'

  "Who are you?" he demanded, remaining seated.

  "Don't you know? You did try to kill me yesterday."

  "They told me Thorn was back, but you're not Thorn. Who are you? What are you?"

  "Ah, but I am Thorn. Older, wiser, and I know a few things now. Your fault of course."

  I grinned at him.

  "You do sound like him, but Thorn was a boy. You're a man. A boy doesn’t become a man in only one day."

  "A day for you. It's been seven years for me. Didn’t anyone warn you that pushing massive amounts of energy into someone about to jump, could cause almost anything to happen? Especially when it's someone who's not really sure what he's doing, except trying to avoid being killed for no apparent reason."

  "No reason? It should have been obvious. Anyone showing great potential in the arcane arts must be proven loyal, before training is allowed."

  "Poppycock!"

  "What the hell is that?"

  "Bullshit then."

  "You expect someone who is a serious rival for my crown to not be made loyal first?"

  "What the fuck are you talking about? I was a kid. Rival for your crown? I hardly knew you existed. I never wanted your crown. I've turned down a crown already. All you had to do was be nice to me, and I’d have been a great asset for you on the battlefield one day. All I wanted was to be a battle mage. But no, you tried to kill me, even as I was asking what was going on."

  The others were looking at me strangely, and I realized my voice had become angry. I toned it down.

  "You’re an idiot," I told him. "All I needed was a welcoming word, and the masters I knew. Once they had my training in hand, you could have started taking an interest, and adding to what they gave me. But no. You’re a tyrant, and acted like one."

  "What are you?"

  "Your judge!"

  Twenty One

  "I will not be judged!"

  In one movement he stood, and hurled a giant fireball at me.

  Instead of taking it, I moved everyone to the desert. An arena appeared, my mages in a viewing box on one side, the king's mages in a larger one on the other. I made sure they couldn’t escape from it, and for the moment at least, they were still out cold.

  The king was standing a good way from me, now starting to look surprised. He'd expected to burn me to a crisp, not find himself in an arena.

  "What is this?" he demanded.

  "Since you want to fight me, I thought I'd give you an arena to do it in. Go on, give it your best shot."

  I stood there, force wall around me, and let him have at me. He threw fireball after fireball, not waiting for each one to hit, before firing off the next one. I stood there, and took them.

  A dozen knives came at me between fireballs, and they simply bounced off my wall. So did a dozen swords, a dozen morning stars, a ballistae bolt, and finally after a major fireball which blackened the ground for nearly half the arena around me, a chunk of rock bigger than anything I knew of which could throw it.

  When the fire cleared, I was still standing there, looking bored.

  The mages with me were stunned. The king's mages, now mostly up and trying to understand what was going on, started throwing magic at me themselves, which simply stopped at the force wall they didn’t know was there around their viewing box.

  The ground below me vanished, forcing me to move. For a few seconds the king thought he'd finally gotten me, but his mages started pointing behind him, and he turned to find me there, still looking bored. I idly filled the hole back in, but I don’t think he noticed.

  I could see him gathering energy to him,
his face flushed, fists clenched, and before he could finish whatever he was building, I dropped him into a hole. It must have been some sort of force punch, because the ground started dropping in a line towards me, as if what was holding it up was vanishing, causing everything on top to fall in. I jumped aside as it reached me, and continued on until it reached the arena, where the force wall stopped it, even though it was underground.

  He appeared on my right hand side, and this time sent lightning at me. I stood there, and absorbed it all into my wall.

  For a moment, his jaw dropped, showing his amazement. Then he leapt at me, a sword appearing in his hands. The sword bounced off my wall, followed a second later by the king himself.

  He picked himself up, looked me in the eyes, and raised his right hand. He pushed it against the invisible wall, and I could see magic flair around him as he tried to determine how it functioned, and what he could do to beat it. The magic died, and he stepped back, lowering his arm to his side.

  "Fight me, damn it!"

  "I'm not here to fight you. I'm here to judge you."

  "You will not judge me."

  "How many mages have you killed because they would not bend a knee to you?"

  I could see him fighting the compulsion to answer. I upped the compulsion level.

  "How many!"

  "Nine," he exclaimed involuntarily.

  "How many people have you executed to obtain and remain in power?"

  "I don’t know!"

  "A guilty plea has been given."

  "Guilty? The only thing I'm guilty of is not killing you the moment they determined you had the power."

  Which sort of summed him up. I was sorry the girls weren't here. He was exactly what I was afraid of becoming, if I had any real political power given to me. Or if I somehow went mad, and contrived a rationale to take it.

  "How far can you move yourself?"

  "I'm not telling you."

  I sighed, getting weary of playing with him. I'd been trying to find out if he could be redeemed or not. All political entities kill for what they think are good reasons. He was no different. Which wasn’t true. He was different, since his reign wasn’t political, it was an abuse of personal power. Without more power than those around him, he'd never have been allowed to lead. He led now because no-one had been able to stop him.