Читать книгу The Cracks in the Aether - Robert Reginald - Страница 11

CHAPTER SIX

“I ONLY DOUBT HER

HISTORY AND HER SINCERITY”

But to make such a change in my station, I’d first have to know a great deal more about the situation—not as I might envision it, were I writing this tale, but as it actually existed.

The sky-orb was such a simple device—really just a refinement and reduction of the old thro-mirror so popular in earlier days. It allowed limited communication across the æthernet—or could be used, as I had employed it recently, to scan for passageways into the Otherworlds.

I’d been taught at University that the Otherworlds were alternate realities to our own existence. No one seemed to know exactly how they were formed or organized, or even how many of them might fill the ætherspace; but we knew they existed because men like me had ventured both deliberately and accidentally into the void—and some few of these had even actually returned, bearing tales of grand adventures in the places “beyond beyond.”

I’d ferreted out every account of these journeys in the Bibliotheca Magica during my student years, and had been stirred as never before by the glorious tales of these grand adventurers: the redoubtable Maximus Pomptinus, the unbowed Asinus Vetulus, the enigmatic Melanchthôn Malitiosus, the seeker-after-knowledge Doctor Scarabbaios, the sword of justice Prince Théodoric d’Aistolfe, the venturer-into-othertimes Elissa of Adrianople, and the accidental time traveler Don Cesarino Copacabana, to name but a few.

Before I could join their ranks, however, I had to find some way of strengthening the communication link between myself and the woman, and confirming exactly where she was. Without such basic information, I was as helpless as she.

I’d once heard of a mage who’d taken several sky-orbs and strung them together as a linked chain. I asked Scooter for his advice.

“Master,” it said, “what you propose is certainly possible. But why do this? You know nothing of this woman. She might even be a spirit seeking to ensnare a stray soul.”

“I don’t believe that,” I said. “I could feel her pain through my dream. That was true—it couldn’t have been faked.”

“Even so,” Scooter said, “even so…Master, she may regard you as her only possible way of escaping this…this trap, or whatever it is, since you don’t actually know.”

“I understand the risk.”

“Do you? Do you really? You know nothing about the Otherworlds.”

“And you know more?” I asked. “You’re a creature of the Spiritworlds, Scooter. You’ve never even been to the Otherworlds.”

My companion looked at me then in that sly way it had. Its long whiskers curled up on either side, and I swear it grinned at me—except, of course, that wherrets can’t really grin (I think).

“Very well,” the creature said. “Yes, Master, you can connect two sky-orbs together, or even three, although balancing the energies of three would be difficult even for a Class vii Mage. I would suggest you try matching a pair of them first.”

I’d never attempted this particular trick before, but I soon discovered exactly what Scooter meant. When employing a sky-orb, one must focus all one’s attention on the specus of the thing—the center of its being—then seize hold of it while turning the stream of its essence elsewhere. Trying to control two of the spheres at once—coordinating their energies into one fixed probe to illuminate the æther—well, it proved nigh unto impossible.

I had to attempt the trick over and over and over again before I finally got it right—and just holding the beam true to its course required all my strength.

“Scooter!” I gasped. “Help!”

It swiftly moved into my consciousness then, loaning me some of its energy. With the wherret’s assistance, I was finally able to send my soul deep into the ætherspace, looking for that unique vibration that I recalled from my dreamtime. But still it took me several hours of searching to find it.

“Help me!” It was that eerie voice once again.

“Where are you?” I asked.

Silence lengthened into eternity.

“Here.” The reply was hesitant, almost timorous. “I am here. Focus on my voice. Are you the one who came before?”

I used the power of the conjoined sky-orbs to trace the sound of the woman’s soul to its source.

“I am,” I said.

And then I was there!

The room was large, I sensed, fashioned of the same red brick that I’d encountered before. Arrow slits in the walls allowed the sun to penetrate the darkness—so brightly, in fact, that I could not discern anything clearly.

Then I realized what the woman had done: she’d created a makeshift thro-mirror from an open container of wine or water. So long as the sun touched the still, slack surface of the liquid, the contact could be maintained. It was a brilliant artifice, one bespeaking a desperate situation—and a very high level of magical attainment. Sustaining such a link for even a small amount of time would require an enormous expenditure of energy.

In the searing beam of the sun I could barely make out the half-moon image of the mage hovering above the magic cup, her lower face enshrouded by an opaque veil, her dark hair pulled back from her forehead by what appeared to be a gold diadem impressed with arcane symbols. I could not see the eyes hidden in shadow.

“I see you!” she suddenly exclaimed. “I see you! At long last! Oh, thank the Goddess Almighty, I see you! Oh…!”

Then the link was cut, abruptly and without warning.

“Where are you?” I asked. “Are you there?”

Very faintly I heard: “I’m here. But the sun begins to wane. Try again soon….”

And that was all.

I closed down the orbs.

“You see,” I said to my companion. “She’s real. She’s actually out there.”

“I have no doubt of her reality, Master,” Scooter said. “I have no doubt either of her desperation. I only doubt her history and her sincerity.”