Chapter 9 Part 5

The hub of the wheel hung on an axle that was mounted above the molten gold. The rim of the hoop gently caressed the hot metal as the wheel turned slowly. In this way the outer edge and sides of the mirror's frame were coated in unbeaten gold.

Just as Regalus had promised, Ultrecht was genuinely pleased. The application of a hammer to any part of the mirror had worried the mage greatly. The spinning application of the gold assured a symmetry that everyone had to admit was above expectation.

By late afternoon, only the inner surface of the silver remained exposed, and that was by design. Regalus then finally turned back to Ultrecht, Avery and Armegon. "So what is it you want done with the other metal?"

Armegon outlined for Regalus how to handle the uranium. "I have already calculated the critical mass, and Ultrecht knows how much material we have. He’s used magic to augment the furnace to keep the metal molten. When it’s put in the mold, Ultrecht will use magic to halt the fission before it starts. Avery and I will surround the forge with our strongest containment wards in case something should go wrong."

Regalus appeared impressed. "Do you think the metal could explode?"

"That my good dwarf is an understatement of momentous proportions," Armegon answered. "If the uranium goes off, it could wipe out this whole valley in the blink of an eye."

Regalus whistled low and long. "Do you think the magic’ll hold against such an blow?"

"Not for a second," Armegon replied. "We aren't going to try to contain the blast, just redirect it skyward. We might take out a few flies and birds, but that’ll be all."

"Hopefully that won't be required," Ultrecht interrupted. "The spell we will use to control the reaction is not unfamiliar, in fact we have done this thing before. This is the magic that Armegon here used to beat old Blackpuss in the wasteland a while back."

Regalus listened on as Ultrecht and Armegon outlined the procedures they were going to follow. He stopped them once or twice to ask questions, but otherwise followed what they were saying.

The uranium ore was still in its molten form thanks to the magical fire, and as soon as the potions were added to remove the unwanted minerals, the uranium would begin to flow together. As it flowed, it would be funneled into a container inside a magic field. Once complete, the metal would cool, and the container would be broken open. According to Ultrecht that would be quite safe.

Armegon and Ultrecht retired to the forge with Regalus to work the metal. Avery had long since disappeared back to the village, He was needed to try to help the weaker Janusians hang onto what little life was left in them. Only the strong wandered about unhindered by the global fatigue that was the Abomination's doing.

At the approach of midnight, Regalus announced the metal's readiness to be poured. Ultrecht added that the mold was ready as well.

With steady eyes, but hands that shook ever so slightly whether in fear or weariness, none could tell, but Regalus and Armegon poured the volatile metal into the mold. The hot metal steamed as it entered the hollow sphere.

Ultrecht held the sphere in bare hands. The first indication that his spell had misfired would be that the mold would grow warm. As long as the magic held, the mold would not change temperature. The mold itself had been made from leftover silver, and held the enchantment true.

Ultrecht and Armegon locked eyes as the metal poured. When Ultrecht sighed and set the mold on a table to harden, Armegon relaxed too.

"Now we just have to enchant the frame, and set the uranium sphere," Armegon said as he flopped down next to Regalus who after the last few hours of work was totally exhausted. Armegon nudged the dwarf. "Why don't you go get some sleep," he urged. "The only thing left for you to do is set the sphere to the frame, and there’s a lot of magic that has to be cast before then."

Ultrecht went to sleep early that night. While the metals cooled and were set aside, He rested up for the next day.

Armegon showed the finished products to the curious others. Nikki, Calista, and Sam all took turns handling the hoop that would contain the magic. "I can feel the magic in it," Calista exclaimed excitedly. She was not sensitive to magic, and it was the first time she had felt it.

"I don’t doubt it," Armegon said. "Newly formed magic is very easy to detect."

Sam watched his mate as she conversed so equally with the man who had raised him. His memory of the abduction was very short and instantaneous. And, yet almost two thirds of a year had passed in the blink of his mind's eye. Now the shy young girl that he had accidentally proposed to and had eventually betrothed, seemed much older, wiser, and harder than ever before.

In the first few nights after Sam had been freed from his imprisonment, he had come to discover just how muscular and toned Calista had become. Months of hard traveling with a pack on her back had worn away much of the baby fat that had been so appealing to him at first. She had been left with longer hair, browner skin, and eyes that shone with hidden strength.

Avery had discretely informed him of her exploits while he slept. She had become quite a huntress and voyager in his absence. And all that she had done just to get him back. Sam was at once both flattered and impressed. He found the idea of her crossing the world and fighting creatures the likes of which Armegon and Ultrecht would fight very arousing.

They talked late into the evening, before turning in around midnight. The next morning When Sam awoke, Ultrecht was working with the large book that Avery brought back with him from Aspberg. Avery, and Armegon were down by the small stream that flowed out of the mountains. They appeared to be doing laundry. Calista lay quietly at his side. They had slept under the stars that night sharing a blanket. They had both been too tired for anything more than snuggling.

Without disturbing his lover, Sam arose and went to join Armegon and Avery. His recollection of the ranger was muddled. Armegon assured him it was due to the spell that he had been under.

Sam, now free of Tyson's magic, found that he liked Avery. Calista had shown great fondness and confidence in the healer. She also had stated recently that she missed Ruk, the huge black bull headed creature that had accompanied him. Sam had not really gotten the chance to get to know the giant warrior, but Calista often spun tales about Ruk's skill in battle and strength. Sam wished that he could have gone with them to that other world.

When Sam approached, Armegon and Avery greeted him. They were indeed washing their extra clothing. Avery offered to do Sam's as well, but Sam assured the ranger that he was well rested and not too tired to do his own chores. For some reason, he and the others had been very tired lately. Nikki had suggested that there might be a sickness going around that weakened those who caught it. Only Ultrecht, Avery, and Armegon did not seem affected by the sickness. Sam found that suspicious.

Armegon and Avery finished their wash and left to join Ultrecht. Sam carried on with his work and directly Nikki and Calista approached. Calista looked pale and leaned on Nikki heavily.

"Don't worry," Nikki told the girl. "It is a part of nature. You can expect to get sick quite often for many weeks."

"Do you still get sick?" Calista asked.

"Occasionally," Nikki replied, "but not as much as I did at first."

"How long until you are due?"

Nikki smiled. "By the end of the month, I would say,"

Calista laughed. "And he still doesn't know?"

"He is so preoccupied with the present course of events, and we have not been intimate since before you left to find the unicorn, that it really is not surprising that he does not know," Nikki said.

"You mean he hasn't shown you any affection?" Calista gazed at Sam sitting in the water with his spare shirt in his hands.

"That is not the case," Nikki defended. "Avery has attempted to start things several times, but I am just not in the mood nor able. He will not force himself on me."

Calista and Nikki shared a private laugh. "My father used to tell me that it was a woman's function in life to make her man as miserable as possible. I hope I do a good job."

Nikki observed Sam for a long moment. "Go ahead," she said to Calista. "I get the feeling that no matter how miserable you make it for him, he’ll keep coming back for more."

Ultrecht sealed the spell closed with a clap of his hands. The magic was done and the sphere was attatched to the hoop. Like a giant ring fashioned for an enormous finger, the frame of the mirror was ready to be tried.

They had discussed long and hard on how to set the uranium's suspension field to trigger itself to dispel. They had to make certain that only the proper conditions would activate the hoop's stored power source. An accidental activation would release the might of the fission driven magic to produce a reflected creature of awesome proportions. It would not do for the mirror to waste its only operation on the reflection of a butterfly or caterpillar or something of that ilk.

It was at Armegon's suggestion that they set the conditions that the mirror could only activate in the wasteland of Gly-ou-vogue, when not being held by a living creature and when the Sword of Justice, Liberator, is within one meter of the hoop. Between those three conditions, there should be no mistake. By noon, Ultrecht declared the work finished and they were ready to put their plan to the test.

"It is a long way to Gly-ou-vogue," Woeden said as Ultrecht Avery and Armegon prepared to leave. "I do not know why you are going to try this anyway. I have told you that my vision of the future showed the solution coming from the Tome of Creation."

"So you did," Ultrecht replied. "And this mirror was constructed using some information that we discovered in the Tome. In fact to animate the reflection and endow it with pseudo-life, required the Tome's knowledge."

Woeden sighed. "I can see that you will not be satisfied until you have failed in this task, so I can only wish you well, but you must promise me that you will take the Tome with you."

Ultrecht laughed. "No problem," he said. "There is no way we are going to let that book out of sight of at least one of us from now on. It is far too dangerous to let it fall into the wrong hands."

"So what are you and the other gods going to do?" Armegon asked as he closed the flap on his backpack.

"Please," Woeden begged, "we are just men. And we are going to wait here to see if you succeed. If not, then we will travel east to meet the Abomination and get the inevitable over with as soon as possible. If you win, I plan to travel to Haganaw and get a position teaching at the university there. The others will go about their own way. I think Thor intends to get into the shipping business when the northern waters freeze again."

"Tell him to go with Regalus," Armegon suggested. "His nephew and I are partners operating out of the Twin Cities."

Avery shouldered his pack and Ultrecht did likewise. They carried the magical device they had constructed in a cart that Yoan had volunteered to pull. "It may take us a long time to get to that wasteland if we walk," the ranger said.

Ultrecht sighed. "If we can get a flying mount, we can make it there faster. We could call for the unicorns or teleport ourselves, but I do not want to expose the mirror to any more magic. The field that holds back that fission reaction is very delicate."

Avery frowned and started walking towards the mountains. "I thought temporal suspension fields were fairly tough."

"They are," Ultrecht agreed as he and the others followed, "but we did not use one here. Those fields are immune to external conditions. We rigged this one to cancel based on external conditions. It is actually a set of stacked hyper slowness spells. We slowed the atomic reactions exponentially. When then right conditions are met, the spells will drop in a chain reaction"

"So how do we get where we’re going?" Yoan asked. He was pulling the cart effortlessly, but the mountains looming ahead did not suggest that effortless condition would last.

"To the top of the ridge," Avery told him. "I think we can hitch a ride if we ask politely." The ranger winked at the young centaur. "We know a couple of dragons who might be willing to give us a lift."

"If we can get in touch with them," Armegon interrupted. "It’s a very, very long way to the Orkons."

"We’ll find a way," Avery assured them. "Even if we have to polymorph Armegon into a roc to carry us."

"Over my dead body!" Armegon insisted. "You two’re never going to get me to submit to a polymorph ever again."

Avery leaned back and glanced at Yoan. "The last time we turned him into a whale to carry us across a wide body of water. There was still time left on the spell when we got there, so we turned him into a ...well, lets just say we amused ourselves at his expense."

"The point is that they played a nasty joke on me after I had selflessly aided them," Armegon stammered. "That won't happen again."

Yoan followed solemnly listening to the story. It made for good conversation and passed the time. Before he knew it, Yoan was halfway up the side of the ridge. He was getting very tired though, and he reluctantly asked to stop and rest. His three companions glanced at each other then relented. It was obvious that they were not tired. Yoan was disturbed. He had been feeling weary during the last week, but he had not dreamed it would be that bad. He had pulled many carts up the hills and they had never tired him out before.

They let Yoan rest for a quarter of an hour then resumed their trek. Finally, they reached the crest of the ridge. The mountain was much smaller than Mount Gale in the distance, but it was high enough that they could see all around and it was low enough that they could cross the entire Savanah range at that point. That was why the Janusians called it Pass Mountain.

"Do you want to try to summon Brandor and the other dragons?" Armegon asked.
Avery shook his head negatively. "They’d take several days to get here, and they would be worn out when they arrived. No, I think I’ll try imposing on someone else."

The ranger climbed atop a rock outcropping and pulled a branch of mistletoe from his pouch. He sprinkled it with water from a small flask he also took from his pouch and waved the branch skyward. Suddenly Avery clapped his hands together sharply and the sound boomed like a crack of mighty thunder. The noise echoed up and down the range for several long minutes.

"That was a neat trick," Ultrecht complimented. "Was that a druidic derivation of an glamour?"

Avery replaced his flask. "Oh, no," he said. "That was real. There was no illusion involved at all."

"Wait a minute," Armegon interrupted. "In order to have a real thunderclap, there must be a lightning bolt, and that I did not see."

"I understand," Ultrecht stated with approval. "It was a druidic spell. He did not create a thunderclap, he mimicked a creature of nature."

"A kilobel," Armegon exclaimed understanding. "Do you think Sounder will do it?"

"I think you are going to find out sooner than you realize," Yoan said pointing towards the towering Mount Gale.

They followed his gesture and noted the unmistakable shape of a large flying birdlike creature soaring across the mountain's peak. The sight was accompanied by a second roll of thunder that rattled the trees and scrub brush.

As Sounder of the Charge made his landing, Yoan fell to his knees in reverent admiration of a creature from ancient legends that had not been seen in centuries.

"Ah, my friends," the great thunderbird said fondly. "It is good to see you again, though I had hoped against hope that the cry I had heard was that of another kilobel. I would give everything to be in the company of my own kind again."

"I am afraid that that is a request beyond our abilities," Armegon said sadly. "Creation is a power reserved for only One. But if we could create another life, you know that we would for you and we would do so with no strings attached."

The huge bird bent its head close and focused one eye on Armegon. "What do you want. You of all people don't strike me as the type to flatter without reason."

"He has you pegged," Avery laughed.

"Sounder of the Charge," Armegon asked, "how would you like to sound the charge one more time and deliver us to Gly-ou-vogue. There is a monster there that is destroying this world and we intend to fight it."

The kilobel flexed its wings. "Gly-ou-vogue is a long way from here," he said. "But even though I am free to roam, I am still alone. I am a prisoner of loneliness and my race is dead." The great and once proud thunderbird seemed tired and droopy. "I will carry you. If for no other reason than to insure that the future, if there is one, remembers the kilobel and that they died fighting in the name of the Creator."

"Rest up my friend," Ultrecht said with a pat on the beak. "When you are ready, we will go."

An hour later, Yoan watched as the mightiest creature of the Janusian legends carried three passengers and their precious cargo aloft. They climbed high into the afternoon sky and then turned east as if fleeing the setting suns. Within several long moments, they were completely out of sight.

Yoan, hunt master of the Glade, left the cart atop Pass Mountain and began the trip back into the valley. He would have quite a tale to tell his children if the world survived long enough for him to have children.

It was beginning to get dark when he finally returned to camp. There were of course many there who wanted to know what had happened. They had all heard the thunder on a clear day. Yoan was happy to oblige them all with a tale of how he convinced the great thunderbird to give passage to three travelers.