Chapter 8 Part 1

RETURN TO GLY-UO-VOGUE

"We want to thank you once more for heeding our call so readily," Armegon told the dragon upon whose back he rode. They had summoned Brandor by name and the silver sheened dragon had arrived with a pair of deep bronze colored dragons in accompaniment two hours later. They each had taken one passenger with Ultrecht and Avery riding the bronzes as Brandor had taken Armegon.

"It was our pleasure," Brandor replied. "The word has gotten out. The free peoples of the world are spreading the news. The unicorns are a united nation again and the Kilobel has returned. I think that you will find that you have many allies and friends to help you should you ask."

"I’m sure that not all of the free peoples will go out of their way to aid us," Armegon guessed.

"To aid you, no," Brandor assured him. "But you can probably bet that the more wicked of the ancient races will avoid interfering with you. You act against them in the short run, but should you succeed, they will prosper in the end."

"So your evil brethren, the chromatic family of dragons, will ignore us?" Armegon asked. The idea that evil dragons whose queen was a Duchess of Hell would leave them to their own devices did not seem right.

"If you do not go out of your way to confront them, you may well find yourself unmolested," Brandor replied.

Armegon sighed. Good news in any form was always welcome. They had marched for two days from the cabin before Armegon had suggested summoning flying transport. Oh, Ultrecht had wanted to teleport to the farm, but the warlock's teleportation barrier would detect that and pinpoint their location.

Armegon was not worried about the warlock, but they had decided not to push the inevitable confrontation until they were ready. Since they were obviously going to be out numbered and on the defensive, they decided that it would be tactically unsound to allow their enemies to choose the time and place of the battle.

On a good note, precursory readings of the Tome of Creation had revealed some very enlightening information. They had learned from the Tome, which it turned out was a history book as well as a spell book, that the planet was a terraformed world. The gods had long ago come to Asille from another place and settled there. That explained how the relatively young F type star, which was the original primary of the planet, had an evolved variety of species inhabiting one of its worlds.

Apparently when the gods revolted against the Creator, they lost their ability for interstellar travel. Then the Godking and the gods were imprisoned somehow by the last of the Overlords just as the Creator washed His hands of the situation. The Overlords had used the blue sun to trap the Godking and the gods on Asille. The gods were sentenced to remain until the blue sun burned out.

They flew the rest of the day and when the suns began to set, they landed in a clearing near the mountains. Brandor and the other two dragons, Echlon and Gwarion, departed with the promise to return at sunrise.

Armegon and Avery tended the fire and cooked while Ultrecht deciphered parts of the Tome. "There is much here that is very confused," the mage reported as they ate. "In many places, the pages are nothing more than a collection of random words. There is no way Blackpuss or his brother could make any use of it."

"Well what parts can you decipher?" Avery asked.

"Well there is a section on forced evolution. There was a few scraps of paper with recently written notes in that section. I think they were doing research with it. I suspect that that’s the primary spell they used to make Blackpuss a god. In fact, I think that may have been the whole reason for our arrival to begin with. The spell outlines the requirements to evolve a creature to the next level of existence. It requires the sacrifice of equals or better. Some of the notes outline a plan to summon unknown quasideities from a parallel dimension and siphon their power in the process. Sound familiar?"

"You can't fault them for their lack of ambition," Avery observed.

"I can blame them for quite a few things," Armegon assured him with an unamused smile.

"There is something else, here," Ultrecht held up another scrap of paper with annotations scribbled on it. "Someone has been manipulating the formulas of this evolving spell. It looks like someone is planning to experiment with vampiric evolutionary advancement."

"Nonsense," Avery laughed. "Who’d want to waste time on evolving the undead. Vampires are nuisance enough as they are. Making them more powerful will just make them more trouble to control."

"I’m not sure," Ultrecht mumbled mostly to himself, "but the equations seem to be reflexive, almost as if someone were preparing to cast it upon himself."

"Now that’s ridiculous," Armegon agreed with Avery. "I’m sure that even old Blackpuss isn’t stupid enough to allow an undead access to the Tome."

"I agree," Ultrecht said, "but I’m just telling you what this paper reads as."

"Say," Avery sat up with inspiration. "Didn't that god wannabe tell you that something we got in that prison world would help us out here?"

Armegon nodded. "Yes he did. Ultrecht do you have that bag of junk with you?"

Ultrecht pulled the magic sack from his pack and passed it to the other mage. Armegon reached inside and began pulling trinkets out.

"If you find the answer to life, the universe and everything in there," Avery said as he settled down under a blanket, "let me know in the morning." With that he lay back and dozed off. When he was awaken much later by Armegon, the stars in the sky indicated that only a few hours of darkness were left. Avery took his turn on watch and noted that Ultrecht had fallen asleep with the Tome cradled possessively in his arms.

Armegon turned in immediately and Avery set about the task of building up the fire. Although it was not cold, the flame provided a comforting light. Likewise Avery was certain that the fire was not needed for protection either. The scent of the three dragons was still in the air and no animal of the wild would be out on the prowl under those conditions.

Avery mixed a small vial of concentrated stock into a pot of water to make soup enough for the three of them. Then, when the breakfast was ready, he helped himself to a generous portion. When the suns broke over the horizon, the ranger woke Ultrecht and let Armegon sleep a little longer.

"So what did you learn?"

Ultrecht sighed. "You have to read it to believe it," he replied. "Do you remember that thin piece of mica that we got back in that spider place?"

"The Tower of Ice?"

"Yeah, well when that sheet of mica is placed over the pages of the Tome, the writing changes drastically. Some letters disappear and others appear where there were none before. We think that it is some kind of polarization and interference pattern of light. The moons and fire were not really strong enough to read very well, but the suns should provide enough light to read by."

"I guess you'll find out soon enough," Avery commented. "The dragons will be back shortly, but we still have enough time for you to do a little reading."

"I'll have a bit of that stew first," Ultrecht decided as he nosed the aroma coming from the pot.

Later, while Armegon was breaking his own fast, Ultrecht used the thin sheet of transparent mica to read the Tome. The result was both astounding and enlightening.
"It seems that there is a lot of information here about that evolutionary spell," Ultrecht said. "But some of the text is mostly about the difference of true evolution and false evolution."

"What’s the difference," Armegon asked.

"True evolution," Ultrecht explained, "comes from the merging of life forms. False evolution comes from the absorption and death of other life forms."

"So if what Tyson told us is true," Armegon started.

"Right," Ultrecht agreed. "Tyson said that Blackpuss planned to gain his godhood by stealing the powers of others when they died. That means he is not really a god."

"None of them are," Avery reminded him. "The whole lot of them have used false evolution. They didn’t know that part of the Tome."

"So how does one engage in true evolution?" Armegon asked.

"There is a spell here in the hidden part of the Tome. It outlines the mergence. It also states that the spell has an upper limit. It can not evolve past the level of an Overlord."

"That makes sense," Armegon said finishing his meal. "Since the Overlords are the direct minions of the Creator, it’s logical to assume that they’re as high on the evolutionary scale as anyone could get."

"That really must be some kind of spell," Avery marveled.

"Actually it’s very simple," Ultrecht refuted. "The spell is neither complex nor does it utilize verbal or sematic components that we could not synthesize or substitute. The only thing that makes it so inaccessible is the fact that the Tome itself is a material component."

"The book is part of the spell?" Armegon asked incredulously.

"It would seem so. Apparently the Tome itself supplies part of the spell's power. It’s almost as if the Tome itself casts part of the spell." Ultrecht had a distant look about him. "Amazing," he said.

"Are there any other spells in the Tome?"

Ultrecht looked at Armegon. "Oh, yes, there are literally dozens of spells. I read the narrative of a spell this morning called 'genesis'. It has a six day duration and a casting time of several hundred millennia. For some spells, I’m still clueless about what they do."

"For example?"

"There is a spell called 'apocalypse' in here, and another one called 'quantum force' and a third called 'genetic recombination'."

"Now those are some intriguing spell names," Armegon agreed. "If they mean anything remotely like what we think they mean, these spells should never be seen by mortal or immortal eyes."

"Before this is over, we may have to use one of those spells," Ultrecht said.

"Before this is over, we may have to take measures to see to it that those spells are never used," Avery added. The mages glared at him and he defiantly glared back. "Like it or not, we have to be prepared to destroy either that book or that sheet of mica to prevent the wrong hands from gaining access to those spells."

Armegon hung his head and reluctantly agreed. "You’re right, of course. But there’s no reason to suspect that the book can even be destroyed at all."

"As much as it pains me to agree," Ultrecht too conceded, "in all honesty I must. If the book can not be destroyed, then the viewing page must. But if it is really part of the Tome, it may be just as difficult to destroy as the Tome may be."

"If the Tome of Creation can not be destroyed," Avery suggested, "then we must place it somewhere where it can’t be retrieved.

"Where?" Ultrecht asked.

"I don’t know," Avery admitted, "but we’d better think of some place."

"We can think of a hiding place for the Tome later," Armegon interrupted. "In case you’ve forgotten, we have a trip to continue and our rides have arrived."

Brandor, the great silver dragon soared out of the clouds near the mountain crests flanked by the two bronze hued dragons from the day before. The light of the two suns glinted off their scales in a dazzling display of color as the dragons wheeled and descended on outstretched wings.

The great beasts touched the ground with the gracefulness of centuries of experience. Armegon, Ultrecht and Avery approached and mounted the ancient creatures. When they were once again airborne, they winged southward again and continued their journey.
Armegon and Brandor flew in the lead position. Looking over his shoulder. Armegon noted that Avery and the bronze colored dragon he rode were discussing a subject and laughing in the process. The other bronze dragon, the one Ultrecht rode, flew nearby and was also taking an active part in the subject. Ultrecht had strapped himself upon the dragon's back securely and was busy poking through a knapsack. "We seem to get along quite well together," Brandor commented over his massive shoulder. A bright jewel-like eye blinked back at the mage.

"Your people are wise and compassionate," Armegon told the silver head as it swung back into the wind. "Like you, we’d rather avoid what is to come, but it’s being thrust upon us."

"Fear not," the silver dragon replied. "you will not stand alone at the end. Even now our leaders meet in a secret place to discuss how best we can render aid. The king of dragons meets with the last Kilobel, the phoenix, the lord of the sea giants, the leader of the winged horses and Ganatar, whom you freed."

"Giants?"

"From the far islands," Brandor explained. "They tend to be reclusive. They were among the eldest of the free peoples."

"Back home," Armegon said, "the giants were all real pains in the rear end."

Brandor laughed. "They are pains, but not out of malice. In general, they are quite stupid. The only reason they are at the conference is so that they can be told what to do. They are quite strong."

Armegon struck hard at the dragon's shoulder. The great creature would consider the gesture as a firm pat on the back. "It’ll be a great comfort to know that we have allies somewhere," Armegon replied. "Just tell your people to keep their distance if magic starts flying. We are preparing some very heavy duty spells and we really don’t know what’s going to happen when we cast them."

"I will see to it that our people are warned," Brandor assured.

The day passed quickly and soon they landed in the southern parts of the Orkon range. "We aren't very far from my ranch," Armegon noted. "We could divert there for a couple of hours tomorrow morning if you would like to."

"Why?" Ultrecht asked.

"No reason," Armegon answered. "I just thought it might be a good idea to check up on the place."

"We’re better off not knowing," Avery suggested. "If we go and find problems, you’ll want to spend time correcting them. We can't afford to waste time. Even if you don’t stay to correct the problems, they’ll worry you when we need you to be concentrating on something else."

"Okay, okay," Armegon surrendered. "We move on without delay." He kicked at the blanket on his feet and untangled it from a nearby root. Then he pulled it up over his shoulder and head leaving Ultrecht and Avery in a state of amusement.

Avery grinned and tossed Ultrecht a blanket as well. "I'll take first watch," he offered. "You get some sleep." The mage nodded and copied Armegon's example. Avery built the fire up and sat back to listen to the sounds of the darkness.