Phoenix Rising (35 page)

Poplock glanced at Tobimar, whose grin reflected his own feelings. “Oh, don’t apologize for
that
, Majesty,” Poplock said. “That’s at least a few hundred miles we won’t have to hop on our own.”

Xavier snickered. “Yeah, I can just see me and Tobimar hopping that far. Not.”

He looked over at the older woman who was checking various symbols around the circle carven atop the small tower. “So, we just stand in this circle and then
poof
, we’ll be at this lake?”

Wyneth Aurin looked at Xavier with a raised eyebrow, tucking a strand of brown hair back behind her ear. “Yes, that is the essence of it. You seem surprised.”

“Well . . . I guess I
shouldn’t
be, with everything else I’ve seen here. But why can’t you just zap us over to the Broken Hills or this Evanwyl in one shot?”

“If we knew the answer to that question, we might well be able to solve the problem,” Toron answered, while Wyneth went back to her preparations. “Once it
was
possible to go such distances. Since Dalthunia was conquered, there has been increasing interference or diversion of the various means of fast travel.”

“So someone or something in Dalthunia is messing it up for everyone?”

“That was, indeed, the initial assumption; however, some of the few communications we have received from Dalthunia indicate that they are just as frustrated by this turn of events as we are, and in fact originally believed it was some attempt by either the Dragon King or the Archmage to cripple
their
capabilities.”

Poplock rocked pensively. “So that means either the timing’s a coincidence, or whatever force is doing that is hidden inside Dalthunia and hasn’t told the new owners.”

“Yes.”

Wyneth straightened. “All preparations are complete. Please stand in the center.”

Tobimar and Xavier walked to the center; as he was sitting on Tobimar’s shoulder, Poplock was saved the effort of doing so.

“Farewell, and may your quests be successful, Xavier Ross, Tobimar Silverun, Poplock Duckweed,” Toron said with a bow.

“Thank you, Toron. And good luck to you too,” Tobimar said; Xavier echoed him, as did Poplock.

Toron nodded, and Poplock saw Wyneth reach her hand over one of the symbols—

Before them lay a vast expanse of pure blue water, surface ruffled by waves, with huge wooden piers extending a seemingly impossible distance; Poplock guessed it was half a mile from the shore to the end of the East Pier.

“Holy sh . . . er, crap,” Xavier said, staring. “It
worked
.”

While a few of the nearer people had glanced at them in mild surprise, their arrival hadn’t apparently startled anyone, despite the crowds on the waterfront this morning. Looking down, Poplock could see the reason; they had been transported to a smaller pentacle which was roped off from the main dock, and he could see a sign reserving this for quick transport from the Castle.

Tobimar didn’t look exactly
surprised
, and neither was Poplock, but the instant transformation of the world around them
was
impressive. “Worked perfectly. We’ve saved like a couple weeks of walking right there!”

A Malasand—an amphibious semi-humanoid person, common in waterside towns—jogged up to them as they exited the pentagram. He gave a quick turn-salute, and Poplock noticed that he wore a uniform with the matching-pier symbol of the guardsmen of the Lake Twins. “Welcome to East Twin, sirs,” he said. “Is there . . . new news from the Castle?”

Poplock turned around and reached into the top side pocket of Tobimar’s pack. “Here,” he said, dragging out a heavy, thick green envelope with tiny symbols written along the edges. “The King gave this to us—you should take it to the Lord of the Eastern Lake, he said.”

“Thank you.” The guard took the envelope and put it in a small case at his side that had a lock on it. “Are you returning?”

“No, we’ve got a long trip ahead of us,” Xavier said, still staring at the waves and the almost countless ships and boats of every size.

The Malasand saluted again and trotted off farther inland—presumably, Poplock guessed, to wherever the Lord was.

“Okay,” Xavier said, “I guess we have to cross here, right?”

“Right,” Poplock said. “Across to the West Twin, then we’ve got a lot of walking on the Great Roads, all the way to Dalthunia.”

“Is this really a
lake
?” Xavier asked after a few moments as they walked up the huge pier. “I mean, this smells almost oceany, and those waves aren’t small.”

“The largest lake I know of on the continent, although there are rumors of an even larger one to the far north, somewhere very far west of Skysand,” Tobimar answered, as he led them to a point on the dock where several people were waiting in a line.

“Skysand’s where you’re from, right?” At Tobimar’s nod, Xavier looked over to Poplock. “What about you?”

“My home?” He tried to keep from looking too sad. “It was called Pondsparkle. You heard about the attacks, must have seen—”

“Yeah. Didn’t know your hometown was in the middle of that, though. I’m sorry.”

“We’ll go back and fix things up one day,” Poplock said with certainty, gripping Tobimar’s shoulder a bit tighter as the Prince paid for two full-size and one small fare on
Circle
, a large lake ferry. “Blackwart told us that was our special place, and he won’t let us lose it forever.”

He saw Xavier’s mouth twitch, restraining a familiar smile. “Blackwart? Who’s that, one of the kings or something?”

He’s from a completely different world
, Poplock reminded himself, warding off his usual annoyance at the ignorance of the bigger people. “Um, no, he’s our god. God and patron of the Toads and anyone else who wants to follow him. A lot of elementalists, Forestals, those kinds of people follow him. And Shargamor and Eonae, of course.” They made their way up
Circle
’s long deck and stood near the prow.

Xavier looked up. “They’re taking in the sails—I guess they’ll use magic to go against the wind?”

“Most ships on Heart of Water have magic to help do that, yes, and the regular ferries would all have to if they want to have anything like a schedule,” Tobimar said.

“So, um,” Xavier went on, looking oddly . . . embarrassed? Confused? Poplock couldn’t quite figure it out . . . “Do you . . . I mean, what’s your god, Tobimar?”

“The Skysands have followed Terian, the Light in the Darkness, for as long as we’ve been in Skysand, maybe before,” Tobimar said proudly. “What about you?”

“Um,” and now the nervous look was strong enough for Poplock to recognize it.
It’s that look humans get when talking about something that they think is really delicate or maybe crazy.
“Well, I don’t have one. I don’t believe in gods.”

For a moment Poplock couldn’t quite wring
meaning
out of the words. The words themselves were familiar, but put together . . . “What do you
mean
you don’t believe in gods? That’s . . . that’s like saying you don’t believe in this boat we’re standing on!” He could see Tobimar was equally dumbfounded.

Xavier, meanwhile, was obviously trying to look apologetic in the face of something he couldn’t quite accept. “Look, Pop, Toby, I can
see
this deck, but I’ve never seen a god, or ever seen them
do
anything.”

“
Never?
” Poplock was astounded. “Don’t you have temples and holy emissaries in your world?”

“Well, sure, but all they do is
talk
, you know.”

Tobimar had finally found his voice. “I . . . begin to realize that we have not yet fully understood just how very different your world is from ours, Xavier. Let me clarify, just to be sure: in your world, your priests do not heal the wounded and the sick, or seek out the truth for the rulers, or use the powers of the gods to hold back and destroy evil?”

“No, not really,” Xavier said, his tone that of a man picking his way through a nest of snares. “I mean . . . well, there’s some that
claim
to do a lot of that, but I’ve never seen it and there’s never been any good evidence. The best stories of that come from a long time ago when there wasn’t much idea of
proving
anything.” A pause. “So . . . yours do?”

The discussion of the different worlds continued as
Circle
crossed the huge lake Heart of Water, all the way through dinner in the West Gate Inn, and resumed the next morning as they set out on the long walking part of their journey.

Poplock found himself alternately pitying the people of Earth, envying them, and being completely baffled by them. The feelings were obviously mirrored by Xavier’s reactions to Zarathan.

“So everything in your world seems to run on these ‘electronics’ you say aren’t magic, but certainly
sound
like magic to me,” Tobimar was saying the next day, as the sun was dropping away before them and the shadows were starting to lengthen. “I wish I could see some of this. We can show you magic, and the gods will reveal themselves to you sooner or later, but your world remains on the other side of the Great Seal . . . unless by some chance your mission succeeds.”

Xavier looked thoughtful. “You know, I
could
show you something.” He brought out a strange object, like a stretched oval, mostly black with silver highlights. A large rectangular area in the center was black, shiny, but without feature; on each end were some raised areas with various symbols on them. “This is my LTP—LumiTainment Portable. It’s a videogame handheld console.”

The last words might as well have been in Ancient Sauran for all the meaning they carried. “What does
that
mean?”

“It means I can play games on this thing without having to be at home. Games made for it, that is.”

Tobimar took the LTP gently, turned it over, passed his right hand over it with a look of concentration, then let Poplock look at it. Poplock studied it for a few moments and did the usual mumbled scans. There wasn’t a sign of magic on it anywhere. “Well, then, can you show us? As far as I can tell, it’s a really funny-looking and not very good mirror, and that’s it.”

The young man from Zaralandar hesitated. “Well . . . I guess so. I just hate to use up the last of the batteries. But I suppose this is as good a time as any.” He took the LTP back and touched a barely noticeable stud on one side. To Poplock’s startlement, light suddenly glowed from the formerly black central region, and a chime of music echoed out. More music—sounding like an orchestra heard from a distance—streamed from the LTP and brilliant scenes of moving images appeared, showing landscapes of fantastic design and people performing momentary feats of combat and magic of surprising skill and versatility.

Poplock bounced over to Xavier’s shoulder and down, mumbling the scans again. Still there was no sign of magic of any type.
And it’s active now, so even things like gemcalling or hidden symbols would be sensed.
“It really
isn’t
magic!”

“Told you.”

“This is . . . a game?” Tobimar said, looking at it more closely.

“Yeah—this is Chrono Victory, one of my favorites so far—I haven’t finished it yet. I could start a new game and show you how it works when we camp.”

“That would be . . . very interesting, I think,” Tobimar said.

Poplock bounced his agreement. “I’m
really
fascinated by this. I know, to you our magic and things must be really exciting, but this is something new to us!”

Xavier laughed. “Sure, I understand.”

A few hours later they set up camp, using the self-anchoring tents Tobimar had picked out with Poplock’s help before they left Zarathanton. The Skysand prince brought out some of the packed meals Toron had given them. “We’ll have to either buy food along the way, or do some hunting and picking,” he said, “but no reason we can’t relax tonight.”

“Yeah, no big rush.”

Once the dinner was finished, Xavier brought out the LTP. “Here we go. I’ll start it running and give us a new game start. It’s got a tutorial—a teaching sequence, you know?—at the beginning, but I’ll bet it makes all kinds of assumptions about what you know.” He spent a few minutes telling them about what the raised areas on the sides did; they controlled the performance of various actions in the moving world of the game, something that Poplock thought was very ingenious.
I wonder . . . I could see something like this being a lot of fun. Have to see if there’s some easy way to do this with the right magic. Alchemy or symbolism, maybe with some illusion-shapers, maybe?

The game finished a pretty introduction sequence and they began selecting aspects of a character to play. Xavier glanced down. “Well, we’ve got started and to the first save point. But I don’t know how long it’ll run.” He pointed to something blinking red in a corner of the LTP. “Batteries are almost dead.”

“There’s something
alive
in there?” Poplock backed away from the LTP.

“What? No, no!” Xavier laughed. “That’s just an expression, you know, like when you’re finished with a discussion or something and you say the topic’s dead?” He pushed the little stud on the side and the LTP shimmered and went dark again; the boy then flipped the LTP over and opened a hidden compartment underneath, removing a flat, rectangular silvery object with writing on it. “That’s a battery. It holds electricity, stores it, you know, and then gives it to the LTP when it’s on.”

“And it’s almost out of electricity?” Any elementalist worth
anything
knew about electricity—lightning, the little sparks from rubbing some things together, stuff like that—but this was something new, something that used electricity to work.

“Yeah. My guess is there’s maybe twenty, thirty minutes left of play before it goes dark.”

Poplock turned the little object over, flicked his tongue over various points.
Ooch. That
sour
taste. Definitely a little electricity across those areas.

“Hey!” Xavier said with concern. “Don’t, like, bite it or anything. It’s the only battery I have.”

The Toad looked thoughtfully down. “I might be able to make it work better.”

“What?” The boy stared at him. “Are you serious? You don’t even know how it’s
built
. Honestly, I don’t either.”