Journeyman: The Force of the Gods: Part I (34 page)

This wasn’t the time to be sitting around avidly listening to Atlosreg telling stories of the Founding Flame, however, and a little reluctantly, he called time.

‘We should be getting on our way.’

‘Yes.’ Atlosreg accepted the change of direction in conversation as intended, or at least apparently he did. They went outside.

‘Are we going to protect ourselves in some way before we go?’ Said Atlosreg.

‘It might be an idea. Just in case they think you’re hostile. Though there are some pretty good magicians there, even most Werosaian armour spells don’t last more than a few minutes.’

‘A few minutes can be a long time if they are used wisely,’ said Atlosreg, already beginning to cast armour and speed spells on himself.

‘I guess.’ Peter didn’t see much point in trying to protect himself. If they took offence to him being there, or him bringing Atlosreg along, he intended to surrender immediately. He was taking his satchel, containing his wands, his two-stick, and the other simple and interesting things he had accumulated over the years, but he was only taking those because he took them everywhere.

Atlosreg must have noticed this, Peter assumed, but he didn’t give any outward sign whether he had or not.

They were at the stone Peter had laid, which was the point to which any portals into and away from Knifestone were to be anchored.

‘I hope,’ said Peter as he opened the portal to the Guild, ‘they’re understanding and know what to do.’

‘So do I,’ said Atlosreg.

They stepped through, and the portal closed behind them.

Peter hurriedly led Atlosreg to Eddie’s office, ignoring all greetings and demands to know about the outsider. He was single-minded in his intent: he wasn’t stopping until he got to Eddie’s office.

It didn’t take them long to get to the door with the long gauge. Peter didn’t knock or wait; he simply opened the door as if it were simply a way into the next corridor along, and closed it behind himself and Atlosreg.

‘Eddie.’

‘What do you want?’ Eddie had been reading some handwritten documents, possibly reports or letters.

‘To apologize. I fucked up.’

‘No change there then.’ There wasn’t any humour in Eddie’s face.

‘There is a very real problem,’ said Atlosreg. ‘We have been to Werosain, and Rechsdhoubnom himself came to… meet us. He attacked Peter –’

‘Then what the
fuck
are you doing here?’ Yelled Eddie, instantly livid. ‘You need to get right out of here and hide away!’ He stood up and began attempting to physically force Atlosreg and Peter out of the room. ‘He could have put a spell on you to track you or anything…’ He trailed off at a look from Peter.

‘He didn’t, we’re protected and cleansed and Knifestone is probably about as well-protected as your library,’ said Peter. ‘We came to warn you. He might be feeling a lot more vulnerable now that his world has been infiltrated, and he might try and send direct attacks to this place. They know secrets about the Guild that even
you
don’t know, things that are so crucial to them that they would raze the whole place just to keep us from even
knowing
about them.’

Eddie stopped and sat back down. ‘You’re a fucking joker,’ he said. ‘There isn’t anything about the Guild that we don’t know. We
are
the Guild.’

Peter looked at Atlosreg, but Atlosreg shook his head: he wasn’t to tell Eddie about the Flame – or at least not yet.

‘We’re here to tell you to protect the place, even more than it’s protected now,’ said Peter, trying not to sound desperate. ‘In case they come. I’d even suggest you bring the people over from Scotland, because you’re going to need all the help you can get – and as few vulnerabilities as you can get away with.’

‘I should have you arrested,’ said Eddie, ‘and
hanged!
’

‘I’ll happily come back when you’ve got a gallows. Just get all the spellwork you can on this place.’

Eddie’s hands were clenched into tight fists. ‘Gallows! I’ll hang you by your
balls
from the ceiling if you’re right about us being in danger. Now fuck off, out of my office!’

That seemed to be about the best he could have hoped for. ‘Than–’

‘FUCK OFF.’

Not wanting to find out how intimidating a third invitation to leave was likely to be, Peter and Atlosreg left the room. However, rather than leading him back to the entrance and opening the portal home to Knifestone, Peter led Atlosreg to the tomb.

‘There’s magic here of a kind I’ve never seen before, or even heard about,’ he said to Atlosreg as they descended into the large round hollow at the bottom of the Guild.

Right on cue, the magic began to take its effect on Peter, making him feel slightly giddy as he walked slowly onward toward the tomb at the exact centre. Atlosreg, did not follow.

‘It is not just magic,’ said Atlosreg, with a reverence which he seemingly couldn’t help but betray.

Peter turned back and looked at Atlosreg’s dark frame by the wall.

‘What do you mean?’

He bowed his head slightly for a few seconds. ‘Have you never wondered what magic is?’

‘I know what magic is.’

‘So. What is it?’

Peter frowned. ‘Residual energy. And the technique by which that energy is manipulated.’

Atlosreg laughed, triumphant. ‘Residual from
what
?’

Peter stood and thought, but nothing came to his mind except the obvious. It troubled him suddenly that, until now, he hadn’t ever stopped to wonder.

‘…Creation?’

‘Exactly.’ The frail frame shifted slightly, becoming tall, strong, and proud. ‘What is in this room is not merely magic. It is the creative force of the gods.’

Peter sat down. He didn’t realize he had until he felt the cold earth against his backside. ‘The force of the gods…’ What gods?

Atlosreg didn’t elaborate. Instead he slowly, humbly, began to approach the tomb.

‘You want to know how it is opened.’ It wasn’t a question, Peter noted, but a statement.

‘Yes.’

‘There is no magic to open it. Your magical rules don’t apply here, and neither do mine. There is a way to open it, but it is more basic than anything you will have heard about before.’

‘How do you mean, basic?’

‘More…’ Atlosreg paused, apparently struggling to find the right way to word what he was trying to describe. ‘More down to the truth. You have to resonate and harmonize with the most basic concepts of reality.’

It seemed suddenly to Peter as though Atlosreg was talking about more complex science than he should know. Resonate with the basic concepts of reality? That wasn’t even the kind of phrase Atlosreg should be able to understand, let alone originate. ‘So,’ he said, ‘how would I do that?’

‘With sound.’

‘Sound…’

‘Sound.’

How did he even know about this sort of thing? Even for someone who had been privy to some of the things he did know, like how to build the doorway from Knifestone to Werosain, but if there really was a “creative force of the gods” which transcended even magic…

‘How do you know about this?’

‘We have to know about it so we can protect it, like I said before.’

That was all he said.

Peter walked around the tomb slowly, wondering how sound could resonate and harmonize with reality, wondering and wondering until it struck him: it was the most obvious thing he could have possibly realized.

‘Music?’

Atlosreg nodded very slightly. ‘Yes. Played on a simple kind of flute.’

How simple… Peter wondered. He slipped his hand into his satchel and withdrew the bamboo flute he had made while he was on trial, and held it up. ‘Something like this?’

‘Similar, but that would not work.’ There was something in Atlosreg’s tone of voice which seemed to be taking pity on Peter for not knowing about these things. It was a little embarrassing to Peter.

‘Why not?’

‘It needs to be something primitive, something so primitive it would be possible that could happen naturally. But you need to make it, because if there are any in this world, there will be no hope of you getting to look at them, let alone hold them or use them.’

‘So, how do I make it more primitive than out of a reed?’

‘A bird’s bone.’

Wait: that sounded familiar. In his youth, Peter had read news articles about archaic bone flutes being found, instruments which were so old that it was disputed as to whether they were actually purpose-made musical instruments or simply damaged bones. And Atlosreg was right: some of these instruments being in excess of fifty thousand years old, there wasn’t going to be a chance in hell of him seeing one in person.

‘So what do I do, go and buy some meat…?’

‘Kill it yourself. Cook it. Eat it. Save the bones.’

Peter couldn’t help but laugh: for a moment he could have almost been taking instruction on how to make the best gravy.

They turned away to leave the tomb, ascending into the higher levels and slowly walking toward the entrance of the underground monastery.

‘So I need to, what, find a bird and kill it? Find a farm, or what? What kind of bird do I need?’

‘Something large,’ said Atlosreg patiently, ‘but apart from that it is not important what kind of bird it is. Eagle, turkey, goose, anything big enough to have a bone big enough to make a flute from.’

‘And what makes it into something that can be used to cast magic?’

‘Purity.’ Atlosreg left it at that, remaining silent until they were both safely back on Knifestone.

He and Peter just sat thinking for the rest of the day, though Peter didn’t have the first idea what Atlosreg was thinking about. Himself, he was thinking about how much trouble he had very nearly been in with Eddie, and potentially with the rest of the Guild. He felt beyond lucky that Atlosreg and himself hadn’t been arrested – or attacked. He was also thinking about how much more he must have to learn if there was – as there appeared to be – an entire superset of magic, something greater of which magic as he knew it was only a small part.

It was fairly obvious that whatever he was going to use the flute for wasn’t going to be the same as this so-called “force of the gods,” but it was clearly not the same kind of power as the magic he had been used to using for so many years now, either. The notion of magic being so much bigger than he had known before was an exciting one, but also a daunting one. It made him feel tiny, insignificant.

He went to bed, expecting the half-dozen trains of thought down which he was concurrently wandering to keep him awake all night. However, almost as soon as he got into bed, he found himself waking up the following morning. It was as though the daytime had been turned back on while he was in the act of getting into bed.

It was something of a slow morning at first, with Peter feeling tired and sluggish and not quite being able to identify any particular reason. However, as the morning wore on and approached midday, he began to remember fragments of dreams. Nothing particularly strange or disturbing; nothing worth remembering, and he doubted he would. As he pottered and went about his routine of waking up, he was increasingly aware that Atlosreg was patiently waiting for him to be ready for something.

‘I think turkeys would be a good idea,’ said Atlosreg, breaking the silence after lunch. ‘They are very big, so you should find some fairly large bones in them.’

‘Okay,’ replied Peter, ‘we just have to look for a farm or something then, right?’

‘Yes.’

Sometimes Atlosreg seemed not to be even slightly interested in maintaining any modicum of conversation, but on those occasions Peter had to remind himself that, after all, Atlosreg
had
spent eighty years confined in mental institutions and care homes, surrounded by people with whom conversation was likely to have been challenging at best.

In the afternoon, they set about looking for farms where turkeys were reared. It was one of those things, Peter thought, which would have been far better facilitated by the use of an Internet connection, and when that day’s efforts turned out no usable information, he decided that the following day he would set about finding one.

Libraries were the most obvious option he could think about; otherwise he would have to pay for some kind of hardware and a connection, and for the sake of locating one single piece of information, it wasn’t worth it.

For the sake of knowing his way around, he used a portal to travel nearby to where he had lived before becoming a magician. It was highly unlikely that he would bump into anyone he knew, and after six years it was even more unlikely that if he did they would recognize him. He had to subtly persuade the computer to allow him to use it without the need to log in, but for a seasoned magician who was fore-armed with a good knowledge of computers – out-of-date though that knowledge was – it was little more than a moment’s
effort
.

When he had been younger, he remembered, this had been where some of the children’s books had been kept. Logging into the computer in front of him, he looked around and saw all sorts of people sitting around, eyes glued to the glass panels which were their windows to the world. He felt sorry for them; for most of these people, this is what a library was, and books weren’t really a part of it.