Echoes of the Fourth Magic (17 page)

“What the hell are you doing?” the captain shouted above a chorus of wondering murmurs.

“Silence!” Belexus commanded abruptly, and the others, taken aback by the sudden power in the calm ranger’s voice, did indeed quiet. Reinheiser and especially Mitchell grew nervous, though, for they recognized that they were in a precarious situation, surrounded by two grim warriors, one of whom was angry at Mitchell, and they were helpless in the complete darkness. Only Del held calm in his trust of the rangers.

“Take hold o’ the hand o’ the man in front of ye and follow me lead,” Belexus instructed. He grabbed Del’s hand and, after Andovar called from the back that the chain was complete, led them into the room beyond. Andovar shut the door and they heard the dancing music of a swift-running stream. They stood silent in anticipation for several seconds, but neither Belexus nor Andovar made any move or offered any explanation.

“Well?” Mitchell snapped, strung out with anxiety.

“Behold ye the home o’ Bellerian,” Belexus answered flatly.

“It’s awfully dark,” Del said.

“Ye be wantin’ light?” Belexus chuckled. “Then ask for it.” Over by the door, Andovar began to laugh.

“Would you please light your torch?” Del asked, not quite understanding what the ranger might be hinting at.

“Do no’ ask me,” Belexus replied, straining to hold back his own laughter.” Tis the room ye should be asking.”

“What?”

“The room,” Belexus repeated calmly and in all apparent seriousness.

“But be asking it politely,” Andovar added. “Take care ye do’no’ offend it!”

“Okay, I’ll play your game,” Del said, his confusion turning to curiosity. Billy and Reinheiser, too, were no longer afraid, sensing that the rangers had something amazing in store for them, something of which Belexus was obviously very proud. Mitchell, though, fumed, having no patience for surprises or for jokes made at his expense, and he perceived these mysterious actions by the rangers as an attempt to pay him back for his earlier insults.

Del thought for a moment about what to say, deciding that if he was going to play along, he was going to do it in grand style. “O Great Room!” he began, but he was interrupted by the laughter of Andovar.

“Quiet!” Del shouted, a smile crossing his face.

“O Great Room!” he began again. “We humbly beseech you to shed your magnificent light upon us!” Instantly, the room lit up with blinding white light, its intensity stinging the eyes of the four ancients—Belexus and Andovar knew enough to close their eyes tightly when Del had said “magnificent.”

Mitchell yelled in anger, snapping his eyes shut. “Damn it!”

“Light!” Belexus commanded, and the brightness of the room immediately mellowed. Andovar opened his eyes and jumped in front of the men.

“Behold ye,” he cried, “the magical chamber of Bellerian, Ranger Lord o’ Avalon!”

As their eyes adjusted, the men were treated to a sight they would never forget, a vision so wondrous that even Mitchell lost his anger.

They stood in a domed chamber, its floor smooth white marble streaked with red-brown veins. A gully several feet across and running from wall to wall parallel to the door, divided the room, the water singing its melody from within. A marble bridge arched delicately over the midpoint of the gully and, therefore, over the exact center of the floor. Incredibly, the posts and handrails of the bridge, though also made of marble, were shaped into intricate twists and turns, and Del instinctively knew at once that only magic could have worked stone in that manner.

On the wall opposite the door, the men saw beautifully crafted furniture; a desk, chair, and bookcase, all adorned with bas reliefs of dragons and wizards and arcane runes, and overfilled with scrolls and parchments. Off to the side stood a small cabinet and Bellerian’s bed, many-pillowed and covered with purple satiny sheets.

Most magnificent of all, though, were the curving walls and ceiling of the room. Constructed of translucent, many-faceted crystal, these were the source of the light, a magical glow flashing through them in brilliant reflections of spectral color. Rainbow rows of gemstones, all polished to a sparkling glitter, ran up the walls like many-hued ladders of starlight and converged at the center of the ceiling in a kaleidoscopic burst. Just below this, suspended in midair, hung a clear crystal ball rotating slowly on an unseen axis. Set in its center was a huge, six-sided emerald, perfectly cut, almost as if it, like the shaping of the bridge’s rails, had been formed naturally to that design.

Mitchell stood dumbfounded at the magnificence before him, having no witticisms sufficient to retaliate against this place of beauty.

“We are but a simple folk!” Andovar chuckled proudly.

“Soldiers o’ the spirit,” Belexus added.

“This is unbelievable!” Del cried when his breath came back.

“Incredible,” Reinheiser agreed. “How could you possibly have made this?”

“Twas made by no hands of ourne,” Andovar answered.

“Then who?” Reinheiser pressed, eager, almost frantic, to know what power in Aielle was capable of creating something like this.

Andovar seemed unsure of how to answer the physicist. He and Belexus exchanged questioning glances, wondering how much they should say to the strangers. The men noted the caution in Belexus’ reply.

“We do’no’ know,” he said. “Bellerian says only that it was made by a friend.”

“Sit, then,” Andovar said, quickly changing the subject, “and know yerself blessed in seeing the power o’ the Emerald Room!”

Anxious for more of this wondrous place, the men readily complied. As they made themselves comfortable on some plush furs that Belexus had brought along, Andovar walked to the middle of the bridge. When everyone was settled, he looked up at the crystal ball and spoke to it.

“Blue!” he commanded, and instantly the room was bathed in blue light, gleaming through the crystal walls.

“Red!” Andovar said, and the room obeyed.

He looked at the strangers, and their amazed expressions urged him on with his demonstration. “The water!” he ordered with proud conviction, and the room went black. Then the walls of the gully lit up, the light dancing enchantingly through the water of the stream in flickering designs about the room. Every now and then came a silver flash as a cave fish flitted by.

“Dark!” Andovar cried, and the room went black yet again.

“Witness to the night, Andovar,” came Belexus’ request.

“By yer wish,” Andovar replied. A quiet hush held for a
moment. Finally, when Andovar felt himself prepared, he raised his eyes in the blackness toward the crystal ball and called clearly, “Witness to the night!”

The room remained dark for a second. Then a crimson ball, a perfect representation of the setting sun, appeared low on the wall opposite the door and the room lit up accordingly. The ball sank quickly behind an illusionary landscape turning the western sky of the dome fiery red in a beautiful sunset highlighted by the black silhouette of a lone cloud.

Soon the red dissipated into the deep blue of dreamy twilight, and dots of light, stars, made their first twinkling appearance all about the sky. Blue deepened to black and soon a million stars shone clearly. The men stared in blank amazement as a huge, silvery moon rose on the wall directly behind them and made its way overhead. Soon it, too, disappeared behind the room’s horizon, and gradually the room began to lighten until the first rays of dawn peeped from the wall behind the men. With this first hint of sunlight, Andovar’s request was completed and the room faded to darkness.

“Light,” Andovar commanded to bring back the normal illumination.

“My God, Belexus,” Del whispered.

“Magnificent!” Reinheiser exclaimed. “I must know more.”

“Me sire’ll be glad ye’re pleased,” Belexus said, but he halted Reinheiser’s coming stream of questions with a wave of his hand. “Ye must be resting now,” he explained. “The night’s been winding long as we tarry and me and Andovar huv duties before dawnslight.”

“When will you return?” Del asked.

“On the two-morn, the day behind the morrow’s night,” Belexus answered. “We’ll be coming for ye when the time’s for going. Until then, ye stay here and rest. Ye’ll find yer food in a sack under the table o’er the bridge.”

“Steps go into the brook where it flows out o’ the room
by the wall,” Andovar added, pointing to the wall on the right. “There’s for washing. Back against the pull, she’s drinkin’ clean.”

“Ask o’ the room as pleases ye,” Belexus said. “But be wary, for ’tis the strength o’ yer own mind that truly brings the changes.” His voice went low with seriousness. “And being a friend, I warn ye, hoping ye’ll heed me words: the tomes and scrolls across the way are alone for the eyes o’ Bellerian. They’ll no abide the gaze o’ any other.”

With that, the rangers bowed low in farewell and departed, and the four men heard Belexus lock the door behind him.

“Better than any planetarium I’ve ever seen,” Del declared with a wide smile, obviously enchanted with the place.

“I don’t get it,” Mitchell said, confused but certainly not enchanted. “They walk around with swords though they’ve got the technology to do this.”

“This room has nothing to do with technology, Captain,” Reinheiser offered.

“Oh, really,” Mitchell snapped, suspecting the direction of Reinheiser’s doubts. “Then how does it work?”

“The man Andovar named it,” Reinheiser answered, hesitating as if he was making a reluctant concession. “Magic.”

“You’re as sick as the rest of them,” the disgusted captain declared.

“Perhaps,” Reinheiser retaliated. “But I know what lies plain before me. Think of all that has happened to us,” he continued in open defiance. “You yourself carry the scars of bullet wounds that should have killed you instantly, and yet you stand here talking to me. How, Captain? How is that possible?”

“I don’t know!” Mitchell shouted. “Maybe they’re advanced medically—or maybe these scars aren’t real!”

“An illusion?” Reinheiser retorted. “Yes, of course, this whole experience could be an illusion. Or perhaps a dream.”

“Yes!” Mitchell cried, seeing the revelation.

“No!” Reinheiser shouted right back at him. “Don’t you see the trap, Captain? Why is this an illusion? Perhaps the illusion was our lives before the
Unicorn.”

“That’s crap.”

“Of course it is,” Reinheiser agreed. “And it is also ridiculous to think that this land, Aielle, is imaginary. An image that persists for days, weeks, is not an illusion, it is reality. And as insane as this all seems, it is truly happening.”

“I wouldn’t expect this of you,” Del said to Reinheiser. “I mean, you being a scientist, devoted to laws and precise calculations. I didn’t think there was room in your world for something as illogical as all this.”

“Laws, measurements,” Reinheiser snorted. “They are only tools. They have their uses, but they are limited. No, there is something else here. I can feel it, I can taste it. There is a power here, a magic in the air, that the laws of science as we understand them cannot explain.”

“Bah!” Mitchell blurted, throwing up his hands and storming away.

Reinheiser shook his head, his ensuing smile reflecting pity for the ignorant man.

Despite the tense atmosphere, they all slept better that night than they had since the Halls of the Colonnae.

The next day proved difficult for Mitchell. As anxious as he was to get this whole business over with, certain that its end would somehow bring about a reasonable explanation and a return to normalcy, the frustration of sitting and waiting quickly became more than he could bear.

That day was anything but boring for Reinheiser. He set to work with enthusiasm, testing the limitations of the room’s power. That would have been absorbing enough to satisfy him if the parchments and scrolls on the desk had not been a constant torment to his insatiable curiosity. He stayed away from them, though, for he believed in this magic he had witnessed and, not yet understanding it, respected it enough to heed Belexus’ warning.

Del and Billy spent the day recuperating from the trials
of their weeks on the road. They were both excited and charmed by this strange world in spite of its dangers, in spite of their recent losses. Especially Del. But being forced to accept one impossibility after another had created intense pressures, and both of them needed to unwind. They talked with nostalgic fondness about old times and wondered what was yet to come, all the while enjoying the show provided by Reinheiser’s experiments.

“Maybe I was wrong about him,” Del said, noting the physicist’s enthusiasm as he worked the lights and illusions.

“No you weren’t,” Billy answered with flat certainty.

“But look at him.” Del smiled. “He’s thrilled about this whole thing.”

“His old rules are defective. They don’t explain what’s going on, so he’s trying to find new ones that can. That’s all there is to it.”

“I don’t know,” Del argued. “He threw out that Mr. Computer act of his and got emotional last night, even defended this completely impossible place against Mitchell. That’s not the Reinheiser I know.”

“Emotional?” Billy replied. “No, you’ve got it wrong. He got excited, but he never lost control of his emotions. He found a new toy to play with, a new frontier to explore. It was the same way on the
Unicorn
when he figured out the time distortion and thought we were going to find an advanced society. There’s nothing wrong with being curious or wanting to learn, but Reinheiser’s got this self-destructive need to know absolutely everything about absolutely everything.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Del sighed. “I just thought there might be hope for him.”

“Believe me, buddy,” Billy said, “that snake is as cold-blooded as ever.”

   No one visited the men that day. But that night as they slept, Bellerian came and woke Del. He motioned Del to keep quiet and led him out into the torchlit tunnel.

“By the words o’ me son, I can put me trust in ye,” Bellerian said after he had silently closed the door.

“You can,” Del replied, intrigued, hoping that Bellerian would ask something of him. Though he knew little of the rangers and their ways, and understood not at all their dedication to the unknown duty that Andovar had hinted at, Del realized that these men were unquestionably honorable. And recognizing in them the qualities of the proud and principled heroes that his calculating and mysteryless world so desperately needed, he was anxious to prove himself worthy of their company and respect. “I owe the rangers my life. I won’t betray you.”