Читать книгу The Cracks in the Aether - Robert Reginald - Страница 13

CHAPTER EIGHT

“‘THE OTHERWORLDS ARE NOT AT ALL WHAT YOU IMAGINE’”

I began making preparations for what I needed to do. I had the training and ability to seal my abode from every interference, both temporal and magical. Already I’d put in place a certain level of protection to preserve my privacy and possessions, some of which could have been dangerous in the wrong hands. No one could now enter my estate without my permission—and this was true even of the greatest Magi Magorum. But I went even further, and restricted access to my home to no one but myself and to those whom I permitted entrance, and even then, only with utterance of certain passwords and incantations. A magical seal of this type was almost impossible to penetrate, for it could be made to loop in upon itself, thereby increasing exponentially the energy required to break it.

I spent the next week doing those things that were necessary to prepare my house and life and laboratory for a prolonged absence. Just once was I called to Paltyrrha, and I dutifully reported to Her Majesty as required, and made those prognostications that were asked of me, politely and skillfully. The Queen was entirely satisfied, even if I wasn’t. I assiduously avoided engaging with anyone else at Court.

I also tried several times to contact the woman held captive in the Otherworlds, but without success. My dream-quests were equally fruitless—and Scooter discouraged me from continuing them, saying that my soul could easily be stolen from me, unless I was anchored to a waking reality.

But before I could proceed, I really needed more information about the Otherworlds, and the place to get it, I knew, was at the University of Julianople, my old Alma Mater. It’d been some years since my last visit—I marveled at the passage of time—and I found myself anticipating the journey with some excitement. Once again I left Scooter in charge of my home—there were things that it needed to do in my absence.

The great city of Julianople was dedicated by the Emperor Constantine i in the year 330, but it was his nephew, Julian i the Great, who built much of the edifice that we see today, making it the largest metropolis of the ancient world, with well over a million inhabitants at the time of its rechristening in the year 411 of the Christian Era. I’d spent six glorious years of my youth exploring its galleries and libraries and performance halls and architecture—and still I never touched more than a fraction of the whole. Who can forget the Bridge of Sighs or the Cathedral of Saint-Sophia or the Barrhônês Garden in the Autokratorial Palace? That time was the happiest of my life, I think.

The man I wanted to see was one of my old professors, Doctor Remírdas Árbogast, who’d been responsible for teaching that most dreaded of courses, Magical Philosophy. I remember suffering through that final exam, the worst I ever took, and having nightmares about it for years thereafter. There were nine students in that class. Three suffered breakdowns before the end of the term, two failed the course and had to retake it—one of them three times—and the other four, myself included, barely scraped by with passing grades.

But we learned—oh, did we learn! We learned about ethics and limits and choices and…so many different things. And we learned about the Otherworlds. Now that I’d had the perspective of working for many years in the field, I wanted to enhance my knowledge of such matters with a sprinkling of the good doctor’s wisdom.

We met at the Three Wise Men, a tavern catering to the school’s teaching assistants and professors.

“Oridión the Morpheús.” The voice emanated from a dimly-lit corner near the back of the establishment. “You haven’t changed very much.”

I didn’t know whether that was an insult or compliment—with Doctor A., it could be either—or both.

“Most of my students are glad to see the back of me,” he continued. “Very few ever return for seconds.”

He motioned me to the bench at the other side of the table. “This is on me,” he said, “In honor of a rare, even subtle occasion.”

I ordered the Menville Mash: it had an understated flavor, but as with many good things, it just kept on giving.

I sipped the frothy brew when it was delivered, and enjoyed the splash of pungent herb and airy ale against the back of my throat.

“I wish to know more about the Otherworlds,” I said. Árbogast was not the kind of mage who favored the dillydallytant.

“Indeed.” He buried his head in his mug, and then looked up again, his goatee flecked with white foam. “Why?”

“I want to travel there.”

“So have many others. Very few have returned.”

“That doesn’t bother me,” I said.

“Then it must be treasure of one sort of another,” the professor said. “I never pegged you for a gawker after gold, so it’s something else. Knowledge? No, you were never that much interested in the whys and wherefores, only the hows. Fame? I think not.”

He looked at me more carefully then, studying my face and form and figure, as one might examine an insect under glass.

“Ah!” he finally exclaimed. “Now I see! You have, I note, been living on your own for quite some time. And time is the problem, isn’t it? You are finally beginning to wonder if this is all there is, if time is leaving you behind. Were you a religious man, I’d say you were having a crisis of faith. But religious or not, it’s still a crisis—of self, perhaps. So there must be a woman involved.”

I admitted nothing. “I wish to travel to the Otherworlds,” I repeated, “and return.”

“Then you are a fool, Morpheús. Be content with what you have. You’ve done better than ninety-nine out of a hundred students. In mid-life you’ve already achieved high office. What more do you want?”

“Love?” I ventured.

“An empty gesture, a silly thing that prances and prattles and then goes pfft, a mere posture of lustration. What can love give you that knowledge will not?”

“Someone warm to ease the cold nights?” I said. I was beginning to get irritated, but Doctor Árbogast always had that effect on me. “In truth, I want to find a better way to live my life. I tire of the lie my existence has become.”

He frowned, and then shook his head. “I see that you will not readily be amused,” he finally said. “Very well: the best work on the subject is Probatikos’s The Music of the Spheres. There’s a copy in the library. I’d also suggest a little-known tract, De Transmundis Aliis, by Sillius Funambulus.”

“I’ll certainly look at these,” I said. “But what can you tell me, Professor?”

“I would tell you not to go, but I see that such advice, however sound, will not be heeded. I still remember when Doctor Scarabbaios returned from the æthersphere a half century ago, and the stir that he created on the one occasion when he spoke to the assembled faculty.

“‘The Otherworlds,’ he said, ‘are not at all what you imagine.’

“I questioned him closely during the days that followed, but he wouldn’t give me many details of his experiences—and his memoir, which was published during the time you were taking classes here, while entertaining and at times amusing, revealed very few hard facts.

“My sense, however, is that nothing in his experience contradicted the general idea of the Otherworlds that has emerged in the last few decades.

“Travel through the transit mirrors is relatively easy on our own world, particularly for a mage with basic training. With a few precautions and some advanced study, most mages can master a transit to—and return from—the nearby Otherworlds, those that are most similar in nature to our own.

“The difficulty arises when the separation in time and space becomes ever greater. Accidental or deliberate passages to such worlds can happen infrequently, but returning to Nova Europa from them is extraordinarily difficult—and the measure of difficulty increases with each degree of separation.

“For convenience’s sake, we class those worlds nearest to our own as being members of the First Circle or Sphere. Those created by the splitting of universes prior to one thousand years ago we place in the Second Circle. Those occasioned by splits occurring more than ten thousand years ago are part of the Third Circle. Those breaking off before one hundred thousand years ago are regarded as constituting the Fourth Circle. And those which derive from impossibly ancient times comprise what we call the Fifth Circle. There may be an infinite number of these—no one really knows.

“On each of these worlds, their geography may be the same or at least similar to ours, but their languages, histories, even their races may be entirely different.”

“How can I reach a particular world?” I asked.

“I don’t know.” It was a startling admission from a man whose scholarly knowledge I respected above all others. “We’ve tried several experiments over the years, with many notable failures and no true successes. When I asked Doctor Scarabbaios the same question, he said: ‘You really don’t want to know’.”

“You mean—he’s still alive?”

“Yes,” my former teacher replied, “but he has become reclusive in his old age, and will see no one without an appointment—and such appointments are not readily obtainable by anyone, even me. I’ve encountered him just once in the last few decades, when he came here during the Scriborial Festival two years ago—you know, the one where Apothecarius Magicus Franz von Jarmank was honored?

“However, there is a possibility. Doctor Scarabbaios once served as the Librarian at the University, and he still maintains a passion for rare and odd tomes of magical lore. He’ll do almost anything to find a new one.”

“Even answer my questions?” I asked.

“If anything will gain access to his home and his knowledge, it’s a book that he hasn’t seen before. But I warn you, finding one could be a task worthy of the Labors of Hercules. His collection is said to exceed 35,000 volumes.”

“35,000! So many?”

“Now you understand. Alas, I have to leave you, Oridión”—very few people in the world called me by my true given name—“to teach my next seminar. If you succeed in your quest, please do come back and talk to me once more. My lust, such as it is, has always been for understanding the nuances of la philosophie magique. Perhaps you can unveil a window or two to help enlighten this old soul.”

“I’ll do so,” I promised. “Thank you for your time, Professor.”

Afterwards, I located the two works that Doctor Árbogast had recommended, and found them useful, in a theoretical sort of way. Whether they’d provide any practical advice, however, seemed a bit dubious.

The good doctor had also given me the contact nodes to reach Doctor Scarabbaios. I returned home in good spirits. All I had to do now was to find a book that the old librarian had never seen. This would be easy, I thought.

Of course, I seriously underestimated the difficulty.