The Reluctant Sorcerer Read online

  A quick and heated debate then ensued as to what should be done about this discovery. Normally, they would have reported it to Shannon, but she was away on a scouting expedition and there was no telling when she would return. The immediate question, therefore, became how best to profit from this situation. It was quickly decided that the best way to profit from it would be to ensure a three-way split, rather than a split with all the brigands. This ran directly counter to Shannon’s articles (no one knew exactly why she called them “articles,” but it was generally thought she chose this term because it sounded slightly more palatable than “rules”); however, what Shannon and the other brigands didn’t know could hardly hurt them. Or, more to the point, it could hardly hurt Long Bill, Fifer Bob, and Silent Fred.

  A cart was obtained and then, after much perspiration and heavy breathing, they managed to lift the time machine up onto the cart, still covered with the parachute, upon which they threw a lot of mud and dirt, so that no one would think anything terribly interesting was underneath it. They then drove the cart to the residence of Blackrune 4, who was the nearest adept and lived alone in the forest about six days travel north.

  All the way, they argued about how best to negotiate the deal, because concluding business arrangements with a sorcerer could be somewhat risky. Adepts, after all, could bargain from a position of considerable strength. It was finally decided to send Fifer Bob to the sorcerer’s residence to initiate the dealings, while Silent Fred and Long Bill waited nearby with the cart. This decision was reached by casting lots, which meant that Fifer Bob was cast from the cart lots of times, until he finally got tired of running after it, only to be dumped off again, and agreed to undertake the task.

  After some cautious negotiation, in which Fifer Bob outdid himself by describing this wonder that fell from the sky, it was arranged for Blackrune 4’s apprentice to accompany Bob back to the cart and see for himself if this mysterious commodity was everything it was cracked up to be. So excited was the apprentice when he returned, for he had never seen anything like it and was convinced it was highly magical, that the deal was quickly concluded, and the three brigands went off in their unloaded cart, well satisfied with the bargain they had struck. At least, they were well satisfied until they were almost halfway home, at which point they discovered that the coins they had been paid in had turned into acoms, at which point Long Bill and Silent Fred took out their frustration on poor Bob by drubbing him soundly and shoving his fife up his nose.

  Realizing they’d been had, they also realized that it would be in their best interests to keep their mouths shut about the whole thing. Not only had they botched a business deal, but they had gone against the articles and tried to cheat their comrades out of their fair share. When they returned to the Roost and, soon afterward, met Brewster, they decided it would be much wiser to keep mum about it than to tell him what they’d done. One brush with a sorcerer was enough for them. They didn’t want to push their luck.

  Meanwhile, Blackrune 4 used all his magic spells of divination in an attempt to find out what this strange new apparatus was. He tried one spell after another, working feverishly for days, until he inadvertently came up with one that magically tapped into the machine’s temporal field and caused a sort of temporal phase loop. Unfortunately, he happened to be inside it at the time, and what happened was that the temporal phase loop pulled him through the space/ time continuum field while the machine remained exactly where it was. In other words, much to the consternation of his apprentice, the machine stayed put while the wizard disappeared.

  When a considerable amount of time had passed and Blackrune 4 did not return, his apprentice decided that whatever this thing was, it was far too powerful to risk having around and that it would probably be best to turn it over to the Guild. Quite aside from which, he still had several years of his apprenticeship left to serve and he’d need to see the Guild Registrar about a transfer.

  So it was that Warrick, in his position as the Grand Director,. wound up with the machine, for Blackrune 4’s apprentice had sought an audience directly with him, certain that this strange device was so powerful and malevolent that only Warrick the White could deal with it. Besides, the apprentice figured it wouldn’t hurt to get in a few brownie points with the G.D.

  Warrick had questioned the apprentice extensively about everything that had happened, including which spells his master had used and, in particular, which one had effected his disappearance, and about the three strange characters who had brought the device to him in the first place. The apprentice did not know their names-for the three brigands had wisely refrained from identifying themselves-but he supposed that they had either found the device somewhere or stolen it.

  To test this information, for he was nothing if not a careful adept, Warrick compelled the apprentice to step into the machine while he spoke the spell Blackrune 4 had cast just before he disappeared. And, sure enough, with a crackling of static discharges and a strange smell of ozone in the air, accompanied by a small thunderclap, the apprentice had disappeared from sight while the machine remained exactly where it was. It had not, after all, been designed to be activated by magical remote control and one can never tell what electrical appliances are liable to do if they are not operated according to instructions.

  The bewildered apprentice appeared in the center of Houston Street in New York City’s Greenwich Village, where his unusual appearance excited no comment whatsoever, and after an extremely confusing period of about two weeks, he wound up living with a cute nineteen-year-old performance artist and singing lead vocals in a thrash rock band. Unfortunately, his former master, Blackrune 4, had considerably greater problems in adapting to his new environment.

  Busted for vagrancy in Los Angeles, he spent a great deal of time ranting and raving in the county jail, unable to understand why none of his spells would work and screaming over and over again, “I am Blackrune 4! I am Blackrune 4, I tell you!” This only complicated matters, because the LAPD assumed by these outbursts that he was confessing to being a grafitti artist and he was sentenced to thirty days in the slam and six weeks community service.

  Meanwhile, Warrick continued-albeit very carefully- seeking to divine the purpose of the curious apparatus. Clearly, it was an object of great power and whoever had made it was undoubtedly a very powerful adept, perhaps even more powerful than Warrick, for the construction of the device was baffling. This was a rather unsettling notion.

  As Grand Director, Warrick knew all the senior members of the Guild and he did not think any of them would be capable of constructing such a device. It was beyond his comprehension. The curious, bubble-shaped dome looked as if it had been made from glass, but it was not glass. It was made from some mysterious substance the like of which he had never seen before. He was at a loss to explain the bright, metallic ring that encircled the device. What was it? How had it been made? What was its purpose? And if the exterior of the device was baffling, then its interior was even more so.

  Warrick hesitated to enter the glasslike bubble enclosure, for he did not wish to disappear himself, but he stood outside it and looked in, his gaze traveling over the control panels and lingering on the instrumentation, and he was very much impressed. He had no idea what any of it meant, but it was easy to see that whoever had made this strange and frightening device possessed knowledge and skill that was far beyond his own. And this was not good. Not good at all.

  It did not seem possible that one or more of the other members of the Guild could have secretly developed their powers to such a level. Surely, he would have known about it, for he had an extensive network of spies, assassins, and informants. He liked to keep tabs on the competition. He had also devised a spell to detect auras, so that in the event he ever encountered magic other than his own, he could read the aura of the spellcaster. He was familiar with the auras of all the senior members of the Guild, and of many of the junior members, as well, but this mysterious piece of apparatus had no aura. It gave off emanations of t
remendous power, but he could detect no magical aura whatsoever, which meant that the adept who had constructed it had found a way to either conceal his aura or to block spells of detection. Worrisome. Very worrisome, indeed.

  Warrick tried every divination spell he knew-while remaining what he hoped was a safe distance away. He tried the Postulations of Padrick the Prognosticator, the Chant of Carvin the Clairvoyant, the Divination of Devon the Determinator, and the Ritual of Ravenwing the Revenant, all to no avail. He consulted each and every ancient scroll and vellum tome he owned and nothing seemed to help. Clearly, this was some sort of entirely new kind of magic, more powerful than anything he had ever encountered or even heard of. His anxiety increased and he started losing sleep and chewing on his fingernails.

  He had not told anyone else about this strange and baffling device that had come into his possession. With the exceptions of Blackrune 4 and his apprentice, who had disappeared into the unknown, only his troll familiar, Teddy, knew about it. And, of course, the three mysterious strangers who had brought the device to Blackrune 4 in the first place. Warrick wondered if anyone else knew about it. Obviously, whoever had made it knew and was probably looking for it.

  There were simply too many things that Warrick Morgannan did not know. He did not know who had made the strange device. He did not know how it had been made. He did not know how whoever had made it was able to mask the aura of his handiwork or why no warding spell had been placed upon it, for Warrick could detect no magical safeguards protecting the device. Of course, with something this dangerous and powerful, perhaps its maker thought no protection was required. And if whoever made it was as powerful as Warrick suspected, as powerful as he (or possibly she) would have to be in order to make such a thing, then how had those three mysterious strangers managed to get their hands on it? Somehow, he had to find those three strangers, for they were surely the keys to this mystery. He had obtained a detailed description of them from the apprentice and he had sent word to all his spies, assassins, and informants, instructing them to be on the lookout for anyone matching those descriptions. Whoever those three strangers were, they were not to be harmed. If they could not be apprehended, they were to be followed discreetly and identified, and then he would take over from there. But so far, there had been no word of them.

  For hours and days on end, Warrick sat and simply stared at the device intently, as if such intense scrutiny could somehow penetrate its mysteries. At first, he thought that perhaps it might be some sort of execution device, but he had quickly discarded that idea. Why go to so much trouble merely to kill people? There were far easier ways to do that, both with magic and without, and they were numerous, so what would be the point? Blackrune 4 and his apprentice had disappeared without a trace. No lingering auras from them could be detected, so it did not seem as if they had been transmuted somehow, or rendered invisible. But if they had not been killed or transformed, what had become of them? Where had they disappeared to? His magic having failed him, in frustration, Warrick turned to logical deduction, a much more complicated discipline. If one stepped into the bubble-shaped dome enclosure of the device, and the device was activated, then one simply disappeared. If whoever was in the device was not killed or transmuted, then he had to be somewhere. So logic seemed to dictate that the strange device was an apparatus for sending people somewhere. Only where and how? And once they were sent there, what happened to them? Was there any way they could return? Warrick could think of nothing else. He had to solve this mystery somehow and divine the secrets of this marvelous and frightening apparatus. He had to discover who had been responsible for its creation, for whoever it was unquestionably possessed far greater power than he did. A Guild member? Warrick did not think so. A Guild member who had attained such power could easily have deposed him as Grand Director and would not have hesitated to do so. Therefore... it was an adept who was not a member of the Guild.

  And that, thought Warrick, was even more unsettling than the idea of one of the other Guild members becoming more powerful than he was, for it suggested that the creator of this device had gained his knowledge and skill independently of the Guild, without ever having served the requisite apprenticeship, or taken the exams, or being sanctioned as a practicing adept. It meant this was an unregistered adept, one completely outside the authority of the Guild. One who did not pay dues.

  For someone to disregard the entire Guild so completely ... it was simply unthinkable. It suggested that whoever this adept might be, he possessed such power that he did not consider the Guild a threat. That seemed impossible. How could anyone hope to stand against the combined powers of the Guild? Of course, the members of the Guild had never combined their powers before. There had never been any reason for them to do so, and sorcerers being a competitive lot, it had never even occurred to them to try. However, that was quite beside the point. No one adept could possibly hope to stand against all the rest of them together, no more than one man, no matter how brave and strong, could hope to stand against an entire army.

  There simply had to be another explanation. Warrick racked his brain to find it. He had to solve this mystery and discover how to gain mastery over the power of the device, and the adept who had created it. He could think of almost nothing else. He had become obsessed with it.

  “I am not obsessed,” said Warrick irritably. “I am merely intrigued.” “What, Master?” said the troll.

  “I said that I am not obsessed, merely intrigued,” repeated Warrick.

  “But, Master, I said nothing!” the troll protested, shrugging his hairy little shoulders elaborately.

  “Voices,” Warrick mumbled, glancing all around him. “Voices in the ether.” “But I heard nothing, Master!” Teddy said, picking his nose nervously. Trolls were gifted with a remarkable sense of smell, and when they grew anxious or nervous, they often picked their noses to clear the nasal passageways and make sure they could smell anyone trying to sneak up on them.

  “Hmmm,” said Warrick with a frown. “Come to think of it, I heard nothing, too. But there was a voice. I... sensed it.” Teddy’s eyes grew wide, or more to the point, they grew wider, for trolls have rather wide eyes to begin with and when they get surprised, their eyes don’t simply open wider, as humans eyes do, they actually move farther apart. If you’re not used to it, this produces a rather disconcerting effect.

  “Talking about your eyes now,” Warrick said, narrowing his own in the accepted human fashion.

  “My eyes?” said Teddy, glancing around with alarm and picking his nose furiously. “What does it want with my eyes?” “I’m sure I don’t know,” Warrick replied. “It was- ... describing them. It seems to have stopped now.” “I’m frightened, Master.” “Nothing to be frightened about,” said Warrick. “Voices in the ether cannot harm you.” He frowned again. “At least, I do not think they can.” “You mean you do not know. Master?” Teddy asked with wonder. “But you are the most wise and powerful sorcerer in all the twenty-seven kingdoms! How can there be anything you do not know?” “There is much I do not know, Teddy,” Warrick replied. “I merely know more than most people. Yet there are some, it would appear, who know even more than I.” He glanced at the time machine and scowled. “Things have been most peculiar since that time machine came into my possession. Most peculiar, indeed.” “Time machine. Master?” Teddy said.

  “What?” “You said, time machine. Master.” “I did, didn’t I?” said Warrick, looking puzzled. “Time machine.... Time machine.... I wonder what it means. And I wonder how I knew to call it that.” “Perhaps the the voice told you. Master,” offered the troll helpfully.

  “The voice,” said Warrick. “Aye... the voice. I sense a presence, Teddy. It seems to come and go, but most surely do I sense it.” “What sort of presence. Master?” “An ominiscient presence.” “A god?” asked Teddy fearfully.

  “A sort of god, perhaps,” said Warrick, staring up at the ceiling. “Not unlike a minor deity.” “What does it do?” asked Teddy, trembling.
r />   “I am not certain,” Warrick replied, furrowing his brow. “It seems to observe. And comment. It troubles me.” He crossed the room and stood in front of the mysterious apparatus, staring at it thoughtfully.

  “No, sorry, it won’t work,” said Warrick.

  “What won’t work. Master?” asked the troll.

  “Calling it a mysterious apparatus. I already know it is called a time machine. Only I am not certain what that means. Time’ I know the meaning of, but what is the meaning of ‘machine’?” H” walked around it, slowly, rubbing his chin as he thought out loud.

  “Machine, machine.” He shook his head. “A device or contrivance of some kind? Hmmm. Time machine. A device for time?” He was uncomfortably close to the concept of a watch, but he was on the wrong track. Besides, devices for telling time had not yet been invented.

  “You mean a watch?” said Teddy.

  “Don’t be silly, that hasn’t been invented yet,” said Warrick. Then he frowned. “A watch,” he said. “Now what in thunder is a watch?” He turned quickly, as if expecting to see someone sneaking up behind him. ‘ ‘Something very strange is happening.” “I sense nothing. Master.” “That is because you are not a powerful adept,” said Warrick. “Nevertheless, it seems to be affecting you, somehow.” “It is? Make it stop. Master!” “I am not certain if I can,” said Warrick, glancing about uncertainly. “You have felt nothing, sensed nothing before this?” “I feel nothing and sense nothing now. Master!” “Hmmm. Curious. You are unaware of it, yet for a moment, you seemed affected. Perhaps because you were influenced by my own sensitivity. That could be a possible explanation. But whatever it is, it all started when this... this time machine came into my possession. Somehow, I am going to get to the bottom of this.” And chances were he would, too.