Spectra's Gambit (7 page)

“Yes, completely,” said Doctor Hawthorne.

“Now what?” asked Doctor Leslie.

“We call Master Kellyn for advice,” I said.

Spectra hesitated, then said, “Yeah, that is probably the right thing to do.”

“Do we try to separate the spirit from the ship?” asked Doctor Leslie.

“Why would we?” asked Spectra.

“Well, I mean, it’s trapped. Shouldn’t we free it?” asked Doctor Leslie.

“Trapped? Maybe, but trapped in the same way your spirit is trapped in your body,” she answered.

Doctor Leslie started to say something, then cut herself off. After a few more tries she eventually said, “I guess it is just hard to get my mind around a living spaceship.”

“It is hard for all of us,” I said. “I will contact the Council and seek advice before we do anything. Until then, I think it is best that only Spectra and I board Nemesis, and always together.”

“Agreed. My staff will be instructed to stay clear,” said Doctor Hawthorne. “You wizards sure keep things interesting around here!”

Spectra and I retired to our quarters, and I contacted the Council. Master Kellyn agreed to come out and look into our situation first thing in the morning. After sending a quick report to Master Shadow on the day’s events, Spectra and I retired for the evening.

The next morning, Master Kellyn and Shea gated in and met us for breakfast. “Shea!” I said, surprised and happy to see her.

Spectra ran over and gave Shea a big hug. She looked at Master Kellyn, and I could tell she was unsure how to approach her. Master Kellyn was a master-level spiritualist, and the only person in the entire realm who could teach Spectra anything. She was also second only to Grandmaster Vydor in authority over the entire realm. Her power and authority were overwhelming.

“Oh, don’t be like that,” said Master Kellyn as she pulled Spectra in for a hug. “We are family, remember?”

“Yes, Master,” said Spectra softly as she gazed into Kellyn’s eyes.

While we ate, we filled Master Kellyn in on everything we knew about Nemesis.

“So we left him with Nanny and have not been back yet,” said Spectra.

“Nanny?” asked Shea.

“Nanny is a friendly spirit. She watched over me when I was little and alone,” said Spectra.

“Where did she come from?” asked Shea.

“I assume from my parents, but I don’t actually know. I have no memory of life without her. I would have died if she were not there for me. She found me food and shelter, and often protected me when I was too weak to stand alone as a child,” said Spectra.

“She sounds wonderful,” said Master Kellyn. “I can’t wait to meet her!”

Shea always looked calm and under control, but there was something about her questioning that made me think she was a bit concerned about meeting Nanny. Soon it was time to head to Nemesis, and as we approached Shea said, “Spectra, Dusty, you two should go first and introduce us.”

“Good idea,” said Spectra.

As we approached Nemesis, Nanny came flying out to meet us. “Spectra! Dusty! It’s good to see you kids!”

“Nanny, I ceased being a child decades ago,” chided Spectra.

“Nonsense,” she said. “Oh, I see you’ve brought guests?”

Spectra stepped to the side and said, “This is Shea. I told you all about her.”

“A cleric?” said Nanny with obvious hurt in her voice. “You never said she was a cleric!”

Before Spectra could react, Shea moved forward and bowed deeply to Nanny. “I am High Priestess Shea, of Light. I am honored to finally meet the spirit who so lovingly kept Spectra safe.” Her voice was gentle and calming. I could listen to it all day long. Worry and fear always melted away in her presence.

Nanny was taken aback for a moment, then broke into a smile and said, “Oh, forgive me, honored one. I should have checked your aura before reacting. It’s just that I have not seen a priestess of Light in this realm before.”

Shea stood and smiled. “I believe I am the only one, but hope to teach others. You're a Dinjini, aren’t you?”

“A what?” I asked.

“Yes, honored one,” she said.

“Please, just Shea,” she said in that gentle voice of hers. “And this is Master Kellyn.”

“Empress!” said Nanny, who fell prostrate before Master Kellyn and was silent.

Master Kellyn looked baffled and turned to Shea for help, but Shea just grinned. “Please, Nanny, I’m just Kellyn.”

“Empress, you may not know it yet, but you are far more than ‘just Kellyn,’” said Nanny without moving.

“Please, no bowing, and if you must use a title, ‘Master Kellyn’ will do fine.”

Nanny floated back upright, turned to Spectra and said. “The company you keep is far beyond what I could ever have hoped for. I am so proud of you!”

“Nanny, they would like to meet Nemesis,” I said, rescuing Spectra from what I knew she felt to be an awkward moment.

“Of course! After you left, I found a common room on this vessel. It’s not fitting for present company, but I cleaned it up the best I could” After that she was gone.

“I guess we should head to the common room?” I asked.

Spectra chuckled. “Yes.”

Once on board I could feel Nemesis watching us, but he did not come out at all. We gathered around a table in some comfortable chairs and talked with Nanny for a brief while.

“I think we will have to call Nemesis in. He is watching, but playing shy,”
sent Spectra over our private telepathic network.

“Go for it,”
sent Master Kellyn.

“Nemesis, please join us. Perhaps you could use the viewing screen,” suggested Spectra.

There was silence for a while, and then a voice over the comm. system said, “Hi.”

Master Kellyn replied, “Nemesis, I am Master Kellyn. I am honored to finally meet you.”

“Master Kellyn? Is this the one you told me about, Master Spectra?” asked Nemesis.

“Yes, and Shea is here, too,” said Spectra.

“Do you mind if I scan you and add you to my memory so I can recognize you next time?” asked Nemesis.

“Go ahead,” said Master Kellyn.

They talked for a while with both Shea and Master Kellyn asking questions from time to time and Nanny occasionally piping in to help Nemesis out. He did not seem to have any knowledge of anything before he came onto this ship.

“Okay, I have seen enough for now. Let’s retire back to the station for now
,
”
sent Master Kellyn.

“Nemesis, we have to go for a while. We will be back, and Nanny will stay with you, okay?” said Spectra.

“Please hurry back,” said Nemesis.

“Oh, he’ll be fine. You kids run off and take care of whatever it is you need to and I will see if I can find something passable for dinner later,” said Nanny.

“Sounds like we have dinner plans,” I said with a chuckle.

Spectra just shook her head and we disembarked. Once in a secure conference room on the station Spectra said, “Master Kellyn, what do you think?” Her tone was a bit nervous. I was sure no one else could tell, but I had grown good at reading her over the years. What I couldn’t tell was why she was nervous.

“Well, Spectra, I agree with your original report. Nemesis is bound to that ship, making it alive in a way. I am not sure where he came from or how he became bound.”

“Masters, he is, or rather was, a Shapeless,” said Shea.

“A Shapeless?” I asked.

“Yes, raw spirit energy that has never been bound. They float around until they can find something to bind with. Usually it's a statue or other inanimate object. Once they do that, they take on the characteristics of that object and usually wreak havoc until they are destroyed,” said Shea.

“Destroyed?” said Spectra.

“Yes. Typically they develop a hatred of all life of any kind and go on a rampage, but Nemesis is different in that regard. I don’t understand why,” said Shea.

“But we can’t just destroy him!” said Spectra.

“No, we can’t,” said Master Kellyn.

“Oh, no, I am not suggesting we should. I just don’t understand how all this happened. He seems to have not only bonded with the ship, but also with you two,” said Shea.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Master, at this point you and Master Spectra are effectively his parents,” said Shea. “At least he sees you that way. He is picking up on your personality traits.”

“What do you suggest we do?” asked Master Kellyn.

“Master, we do not really have much choice. We either set him free to find his own way, or we have Spectra and Dusty raise him as their child,” said Shea.

“We can’t send him away!” said Spectra.

“Then it is settled. We will keep him for now and see where this goes. I suggest you move your team onto Nemesis full-time and train him up as one of our own. I will send a team of our best engineers out to see what we can do about upgrading him to something more in line with our technology,” said Master Kellyn. “Maybe in a week or two, to give you time to work with him some more before the refitting.”

“Will it hurt him?” I asked.

“It might,” said Shea. “But we can turn him off, or isolate systems as we work on them. It’s not very different from
treating a living person. I will be on hand to make sure it is as gentle as possible.”

“I will make your quarters on the ship private before I leave so you will have some time alone without him,” said Master Kellyn. “Meanwhile, do not forget your mission. An entire race is depending on you.”

The next morning we had breakfast with our team on the station to brief them on Nemesis before we all moved onto the ship. When I had brought everyone up to date, Jade asked, “So, Master Dusty, if I understand you right, we are basically to treat this spirit as we would a brand new student?”

“Yes, I guess that will work,” I said. “Mainly, the key is to make sure it ends up being a good spirit, otherwise we could have a very serious problem on our hands.”

“In a couple of weeks, once we have established a good rapport with Nemesis, engineers from home will use the new gate to bring out tools and equipment and upgrade Nemesis’ hardware to something more like what we’re used to dealing with,” said Spectra.

The way she said that produced a random thought in my head. “You know, magic seems to be getting weaker as it stabilizes.”

“What do you mean?” asked Spectra.

“Well, take gating, for example: it used to take only one gate to transport across great distances, and now it requires two fixed gates. Or teleportation: advanced journeymen wizards like Flame and Master Shadow used to be able to teleport without clear line-of-sight, but now even they need it,” I said.

“Since the sealing of the weave and the destruction of the tables, the laws of reality are settling back down and order is being restored,” she said. “Magic is improving.”

“Improving?” I asked.

“I was talking with Mantis about this before we left on our honeymoon. He pointed out that we were extraordinarily lucky not to have more magical accidents than we did. For a period there when the weave was healing, there was an element of chaos in all magic,” she said.

“Sure, we’ve all heard the tales of spells going wild, though I have never seen any first-hand, but how does that explain the fact it’s getting weaker?” I asked.

“Well, it is not getting weaker. It is stabilizing and in a sense becoming stronger, or at least safer. Take teleportation, for example. When a magus teleports they are essentially converted to energy, beamed a set distance, and then converted back into a magus. In a chaotic system, you could randomly bounce around and, with enough skill, end up in the right place. In a stable system you travel in a line and don’t have to worry about materializing in a wall,” she said.

“If that was such a danger, why did we not hear about it more often?” I asked.

“We did, but mostly in the early days, before the Academy was opened. By the time you and I were climbing the ranks in the Academy magic had stabilized quite a lot, and we were taught the tools we needed in order to reduce the chances of tapping into that chaos effect. The combination of both helped reduce the odds of error,” she said.

“I suppose so. I wonder how many more changes we will face when all is said and done?” asked Jade.

“No one knows, but I think all the dramatic ones are behind us,” said Spectra.

“Still, it seems like it would give a magus an advantage if they could still somehow tap that element of chaos,” mused Jade.

“There is only one thing more hated among wizards than spiritual magic, and that is chaos magic. Even the sorcerers shun it,” said Spectra.

“Chaos magic?” asked Jade.

“Yes. It is exceedingly rare, even more rare than spellweaving, but occasionally a magus is born with the ability to introduce error and instability into reality. They can deliberately do things like the ricochet teleport, but it is by far the most dangerous of all the arts. Of those born with this skill, almost none live long enough to make much of it. So in a sense all magi during the early days of magic worked chaos magic, but without knowing or understanding it,” said Spectra.

The look on Jade’s face made me suspect he was thinking about trying chaos magic himself, so I decided I had better get us back on course. “Now, we must not lose sight of why we are out here. An entire race of people depends on us staying focused on our core mission. While we need to train Nemesis, we cannot make that our only focus.”

“Also, while we are out here, we are free from any restriction on learning spiritual magic. I want us to prove to the others that we can use our powers without turning into necromancers. Dusty and I will teach you the spiritualist spell line, and I want you to do your best to focus all your study time on that spell line. We will save the Cathratinairians and prove ourselves at the same time,” said Spectra.

“Why does anyone want to kill them off anyway?” asked Kymberly.

“That’s a great question, but right now no one knows the answer. I think we will have to figure that out if we are to have a chance to find and stop them,” said Spectra.

“Let’s move this conversation onto the Nemesis,” I said. I wanted Nemesis to hear us working to save a race. I felt it would be a good example of how we band together to help each other.