THE VROL TRILOGY (25 page)

"
Undaincantatio lux
!" he cried out,
illuminating his window, only to see Jennie crouching on the ledge
with a huge smile on her face, wearing nothing more than some
short-shorts and a tank top. She had her hair down over her
shoulders, which was unusual, but her most striking feature were
her huge, brown eyes that mesmerized Max as they glowed in the
light of his cantus.

He walked over and opened the window,
allowing her to drop down into his room, as he desperately tried to
not stare at her perfect breasts poking out from her rather small
shirt.

"Hmm, Mr. Mage is busy with his fan
club tonight, eh?" she giggled, tapping him twice on the chest with
her fingertips as she teasingly circled him.

"You were spying on us? What a brat!
Anyway, I had to turn her down. I'm sure you saw that much. I have
a lot more on my plate than I can handle, so the last thing I need
is a relationship."

"Oh…" said Jennie, looking away, "so, I
guess she's pretty much out of the picture then, right?"

"I'm sure she'll be fine, and will find
a... hey! Do you hear that?" he exclaimed while dropping his voice
to a low whisper. Max and Jennie both hushed themselves and dropped
to crouching positions, listening intently. Then, looking at each
other, they burst out laughing.

"Oh my God!" Jennie screeched quietly.
"She's with Draagh!"

Max's jaw dropped, and the two fell to
the floor, chortling like little children. After a few minutes they
recouped themselves, and then started playing with the
undacantuses, Max with his hands, making complex designs with balls
of light, and Jennie using her wand, making impressive displays of
sparkles. It was almost as if they were reliving lost days of their
childhood, with Jennie enjoying it the more of the two, as her
childhood was pretty uneventful compared to Max's.

###

The next morning Draagh seemed pleased
with himself at breakfast, but Max and Jennie acted like they knew
nothing, not desiring to invite any voluntary information from the
old mage's escapades the night before.

"So, my young ones, did we sleep well
last night?"

"Oh yes, sir," said Jennie.

"Yup, like a rock," added
Max.

All three enjoyed their breakfasts of
meat, porridge, and yerba mate, with Draagh trying the beverage at
Jennie's insistence.

"I find this a bit amargo
(
bitter
), but
pleasing."

Max and Jennie sucked their mate down
through the homemade bombillas they had made the night before,
using wood, a pocket knife, and a minor ignicantus to burn tiny
filtration holes in the bulbous ends of the straws.

Going back to the main hall, all three
sat down at the large, oaken table, where Draagh began his lesson
plan.

"Today we shall go over some more
advanced spells, specifically ones that Jennie can perform with the
tools I have provided. We will also examine other things, but first
I would like to show you visuals of magic in action."

Draagh stood up and waved his arm out
in a great, swooping motion, conjuring a large three-dimensional
hologram in the middle of the room, which showed demonstrations of
various incantations. The two watched with rapt interest, as Draagh
sat back and admired his two young pupils. They were learning
quickly, and there was much hope for their world, but only if
Bagatelle could convince the Security Council to retrofit the
entire Azul military armada with SSCC technology. That being said,
he wasn't so sure that would happen. There were those of traitorous
mind on Azul, and they all carried the recessive vampire
gene.

Max and Jennie noticed that with some
cantuses there would be a flowing stream of particles, in different
colors, depending on the incantation, such as a light blue for
freezing spells, or red for heating spells. In some spells, the
particles seemed to be ambient, but in others they seemed to be the
cause of the intended reaction.

After finishing the
holo-vid, Max and Jennie, seated a little closer to each other than
in previous days, looked at Draagh, almost to be saying,
"
Huh? Is that it
?" when Draagh walked around his conjured
hologram.

"Draagh, what are those particles? Are
they magical particles? They seem to be everywhere," asked
Jennie.

The ancient wizard nodded and said,
"Yes, my dear. That would be correct. You see, in order to
understand the technical mechanics of magic, one must see a magic
particle itself, and as magic exists on worlds that have no
technology, which in itself is a false statement, these worlds have
no magnification because they have not advanced to that level of
technical expertise, even though they have it, in a magical
sense."

Max and Jennie stared at Draagh, trying
to understand, as he contradicted himself while talking in circles.
Before either could ask any further questions, he swung his arm at
the hologram, wiping the vid out of existence.

"My children, technology is magic, and
magic is technology, but on a scale not understandable by anyone
from this world. As you both come from future-past, I am certain
that you will absorb this very well. Yes, quite well I am
certain."

The ancient mage again
swept his hand around and conjured up a mass of planets, moons and
suns, all rotating in a galaxy-like system. As the animation
played, he cleared his throat and continued.


 |

"My kind has been in
existence for eons, our creator being timeless. He has always been
and shall always be - the Alpha and the Omega, if I remember my
ancient Greek. Mankind, in his short existence, has always assigned
vague mysticisms to the unknown. Sometimes for the good, such as
the existence of what they call
God
, to whom we refer to as
Jah
. And sometimes for
the bad, such as innocent women burned at the stake or drowned,
having been accused of being witches. The sad part of it is that
was when magic didn't even exist on Earth! Sad, quite sad, indeed.
Mankind reacts with fear to that for which he has no knowledge.
Galileo was brought before the Catholic Inquisition's Tribunal
after he had correctly surmised that the sun is the center of
Earth's solar system, and not Earth, as was stated in the Bible -
the Church's belief being derived from a single passage that was
written by a man with the hygienic habits of a chicken. In any
case, it is not only mankind, but also other species throughout the
ages. Man fears what he does not know, and it is for this reason
that most people do not know the true nature of magic. We leave it
be, we allow them to harness its wonders - to heal and defend, to
protect and attack, and to create light in order to challenge the
darkness."

He then walked through the center of
his animation, causing it to slightly disrupt, with it continuing
after millions of wafting particles realigned themselves into the
imagery.

"My children, the reality of it all is
that magic is simply… this."

Draagh flicked a finger at the middle
of the room, causing the animated galaxy to morph into an
ominous-looking rotating object, sphere-shaped, with numerous
appendages ending in serrated claws, knives, and apparent sensors
for optical, auditory and other readouts. It resembled a rolling
ball of death; able to destroy anything that would be unfortunate
enough to get in its way.

The object moved around, parts of its
massive body spinning like a gyroscope, and then became smaller,
which in reality was the hologram zooming out. Suddenly, it was
joined by dozens, then hundreds, then thousands, and then millions
of machines like itself, the machines becoming smaller and smaller
as the view decreased in magnification. This kept going on and on,
until there was only a beautiful magenta-colored ribbon of
particles surrounding a chair, levitating it in the air.

As the view backed off even
further, a minor-mage, human in appearance, was rotating his hand
and affecting the movement of the chair by skillfully manipulating
the ribbon of particles around it. He then thrust out his hand,
clenched his fist and pulled it back while twisting his arm,
causing the chair to spin madly about, rotating on all axes.
Finishing the demonstration by quickly reciting the cantus
ignincatatio perdere
, he
caused the chair to ignite, and the trio watched as it burned to
ashes in a matter of seconds.

"Holy crap!" said Max. "They're
nanobots. Magic is nanobot technology..."

Chapter 16 - Recon Time

Being an experienced and educated
military officer, Jennie Escalante understood the concept of
nanotechnology, as it had permeated science and industry on Azul.
Nanotechnology was used in medicine, in industry, to repair broken
arteries and to weld conduit seams in underwater pressures
unapproachable by man - but now, this whole new revelation that
magic, which was a new concept to her in the first place, was also
an extremely advanced (and old) form of technology made her head
spin.

Draagh looked at the two with mild
interest, waiting for one of them to say something, and was met
with silence until Max stepped to the side and looked at them both,
saying, "We can do this. Jennie, we're going to save Azul. We have
the power."

Jennie looked at him, and said in a
low, monotone voice, "Gunnarsson, do you realize how dorky that
sounds?"

The two pupils played with basic
spells, and as they understood the nature of magic they felt more
confident in harnessing its abilities. It was just a collective of
subatomic-sized machines, which in mass quantities could lift, burn
or freeze things, cause lethal doses of radiation, or even repair a
ruptured spleen. These were not miracles, as miracles were of
things not understood by man. Even though they understood
nanotechnology, they were also mind-blown by the complexity. No
doctor on Azul had a telepathic interface with any of his medical
nanobots, yet Draagh could easily melt someone's head with a mere
thought (with Jennie asking Draagh for a demonstration of that
particular skill on more than one occasion). They trained daily for
the following week, learning as much as possible, spending time
together in the evenings, going over manuscripts and testing new
spells. Jennie graduated from the simple wand, to using a spiked,
metal gauntlet, which without magical abilities would have been a
formidable weapon in its own right, but with magic infused into it
the device became a power-punching mitten of instantaneous death.
Max moved onto more advanced cantuses, combining them into compound
spells that performed various functions, such as creating
impenetrable force fields, changing visible light to ultraviolet,
or cooking someone right where he stood with unimaginable radiation
levels. Jennie's favorite new spell that Max had mastered was one
that made an enemy's head explode. Her sense of humor was gruesome,
but Max took it all in stride, glad to have the beautiful woman as
an ally, and not an enemy, as she was when they first
met.

###

Every other day they would spend half
of the training hours on the battle pitch. They needed to
constantly hone their new skills in conjunction with their lycan
capabilities. The rest of the day was dedicated to magical practice
and learning. One afternoon, after having completed a difficult
obstacle course, which included flaming arrows being shot at them
while they navigated through barbed wire, Max and Jennie sat off to
the side and chatted a bit.

"Gunnarsson, do you think
that swords will be of any use to us on Azul? I mean, we can't fly,
and charged weapons would give us greater range, wouldn't they?"
asked Jennie.



Max thought for a moment, and then
said, "You know, with gravicantuses and movericantuses I am sure we
can get in close, and quickly back out. After all, I plan on
keeping you pretty darned close when we're fighting the
enemy."

Jennie gave him a grin and said, "Yeah,
I'm sure you'll want to keep me around -who else is gonna save your
ass?"

They both chuckled lightly and went
back to the obstacle course, where three newly-turned lycans were
trying desperately to catch up with their otherworldly
counterparts. Jennie watched as Max stopped what he was doing and
went over to help one of the newbies. Max gave him some kind and
methodical instructions, for which the youth, who was a local boy
and fortunate enough to have been selected, showed great
appreciation.

Aw,
Gunnarsson
, she thought to herself,
you would have been a great big
brother
.

It wasn't but a moment later that Jennie
noticed the small girl who had lit her stick on fire at the end of
their mock battle. It seemed the little one had been ghosting her
during the training sessions. Jennie never had a sibling, and being
an orphan, had a lonely childhood, so she wanted to somehow reach
out to the child, but the girl would only appear for a moment and
then disappear from sight.

Hmmm, I wonder who that
is.

The next morning they
learned that the magical
nanobots
, as Max and Jennie called
them, were semi-organic and self-replicating. They were also tuned
to certain frequencies. That was how Earth's magic had been
reactivated - by changing the frequency of every single one of the
bots on the planet - the planet's
energy
, as their teacher had earlier
called it.