Magic Stars (Universe on Fire Book 3), page 9
Serath frowned, he was familiar with all the worlds beyond Ethorrian World Gates, and he had never heard of a people quite like them. “What gate did they come through?”
“It appears like they came through a new one,” the Envoy answered.
Serath glanced at the man in surprise. “The Elvarr do not know how to make new World Gates.”
“Apparently, the outsiders were the ones that made a gate.”
Serath blinked at that, turning his head to look at their table. They didn’t look all that impressive, not at all actually. He could feel that they were all weak in magic, some almost seemed like they had none. But, as interesting as they were, they weren’t his concern, he had more important things to deal with. After they were done here, he could lead a group to this gate of theirs and learn more about them in depth.
“Is everything ready?” Serath asked, changing the topic.
“It is Grandmaster, I’ve just got the confirmation from the last of them.”
“Good,” Serath said. “Let us enjoy this evening then, make sure that no one suspects a thing.”
The Envoy nodded his head and stood up, walking away. Serath remained in his seat, looking at all the Elvarr around him. Soon the Rzan will show them what unity and sacrifice truly mean.
CHAPTER NINE
Jaila walked behind O’nga as they made their way back to their compound. She was glad the outing was over. She didn’t like being among so many people, but O’nga had insisted, saying that Jaila needed to learn to get over her fear of others.
“You did well,” O’nga said. Jaila blinked as she saw that she was walking right next to her now. Her first instinct was to drop her head and take a step back, as she should never walk side by side with her betters, but then she remembered that she wasn’t a slave anymore.
“Thank you,” Jaila whispered.
“Speak up,” O’nga said.
Jaila took a breath and repeated her words, only louder.
“Better,” O’nga said as they walked into the compound. Most of the others headed toward the command vehicle, but O’nga and Jaila headed for their rooms.
She had a room all to herself, which she had never had before. Even while on the Prometheus she had shared a room with O’nga. She didn’t know how to feel about having so much space just for herself, but sometimes she liked it.
“Get some rest,” O’nga said. “We’re getting up early in the morning. I will teach you another script.”
“I will,” Jaila said as she entered her room. O’nga had been teaching her about magic and scripts. She still didn’t quite understand magic and how it was even possible, but she loved it. The only thing that made her sad was that she couldn’t use it, not like how the Dragons and Captain Kane could—but she could help with the scripts, like O’nga.
She closed the doors behind her and entered her room, but she didn’t take more than three steps before she froze.
She wasn’t alone.
“You don’t need to worry. I won’t hurt you,” a familiar voice said from her left.
Jaila turned and was tempted to scream, but a lifetime as a slave made her hold her voice back. There, sitting on the table, was Doctor Adrian Reiss. He smiled at her kindly, and the look in his eyes was gentle. She could tell that he truly didn’t want to hurt her, but still her fear didn’t go away.
“I came to make you an offer,” the Doctor said. “If you accept, you will gain something that your life has robbed you of. If you refuse, I will leave, and you will not remember this conversation.”
Jaila waited, but when he didn’t speak again, she found the courage to speak. “What kind of offer?”
“First, if you accept, I will have you promise never to speak of this meeting and what I give you. I can remove the knowledge from your mind, easily, but giving someone your word and fulfilling a promise, holds its own kind of power. It will tell me what kind of a person you are. What I offer is a chance, a spark, the potential for you to gain power. I do not generally meddle with mortals, as I do not like to help others. I believe that everyone should rise on their own power, by their own choices, but your life has robbed you of those choices. You were born with less than nothing—crippled, such that you would never seek to be greater, and that had been done to you, was not a consequence of your own choices. I do not like that, forced choices… I have had to do suffer through such events enough myself. So I would help you, if you so wish.”
Jaila blinked at his words. She didn’t understand half of what he was talking about, but somehow this man before her seemed so much different than the one she had watched the last couple of days. She realized that this was the real him, and the other just a mask. And he was offering her something, help, a way to gain power…but she didn’t know what kind of power he meant, nor what would it cost.
“In exchange for what?” Jaila asked.
The man smiled a sad smile. “Nothing. I do not need anything. Everything that I want and need I can get on my own, and if not, I do not deserve it. For you, this is just a gift, not a helping hand. I will not be there to guide you and protect you. Gaining power will change you, will change your whole world. I can only remedy the injustice that was your beginning. I will not influence your end.”
Jaila didn’t know if she believed him, but something about his eyes told her that every word he said was the truth. She still didn’t know what it was he was offering her, nor how it would change her, but she had yearned for her entire life to be someone else, someone powerful. Perhaps this was a dream, one that was giving her everything that she wanted to have, but perhaps it wasn’t.
“Yes, I accept,” she whispered shakily.
The man jumped down from the table and then he was in front of her, his palm on her head. “Good. Now, sleep—I have much work to do.”
She felt herself fall asleep, and darkness took her.
* * *
Remi heard the shouting from the other side of the compound. It was early morning, and she had just gotten out of bed. The shouting, however, startled her, and she blinked outside of her room into the courtyard and then down to the floor, not even taking the time to put clothes on—she was only wearing briefs and a sports bra. She ran into the building and looked around, seeing a commotion next to O’nga and Jaila’s rooms. She ran over and saw Dario already there.
“What is it?” she asked.
“We don’t know,” Dario answered. “Jaila’s room just spontaneously caught on fire.”
“What?” she asked, alarmed. Did someone sabotage the compound? Did we miss a spell?
“Only her pillow, not anything serious. The problem is that we don’t know how it happened.”
Remi frowned and walked inside. She saw Captain Kane sitting across from Jaila, who looked terrified sitting in the chair. O’nga stood next to her, a looming presence. The only other person in the room was Doctor Adrian Reiss.
“Remarkable,” the Doctor said as he used his wrist unit. He looked at the terrified-looking Jaila and winked at her. “No need to be alarmed. Everything is going to be fine.”
Remi was surprised at his gentle tone, but she guessed that consoling someone in distress was normal. The thought hadn’t even entered her mind.
“It can’t be,” Kane said. “Yet I can feel it.”
Remi walked over and then stopped—she got the same feeling from the alien girl that she got from everyone who had magic. That was something she hadn’t ever felt from her. “She has magic?”
“It would seem so,” Kane said.
“It is so,” the Doctor clarified.
“It isn’t possible,” Remi broke in.
“I know,” Kane said. “We don’t know when she was born, she doesn’t even know her exact age… It is possible that she had been born after we opened the portal, but she was nowhere near Earth.”
“Could it be something about Ethorria?” Remi asked.
“I just don’t know,” Kane said. He turned to look at Jaila, who was looking at the Doctor with a wide look in her eyes. Jaila had some human-like features. She had a mane of a hair that was as thick as her wrist covering her head, falling down to about her waist. Her eyes were separated a bit more than they were in humans, and were almost twice as large, with her wide and flat nose in between them falling down to just above the mouth. The most striking part of her, though, was her deep burgundy skin color. She couldn’t really read her expression with exact precision, but something was clearly bothering her.
“Jaila,” Remi started, making the young girl turn to look at her. It was a bit ironic; Remi was probably around the same age as she was, but the alien girl was so shy and scared all the time that she seemed much younger. “Do you know how you set fire to the pillow?”
“I…I was asleep. I remember dreaming that I was cold, and when I woke up my pillow was on fire,” Jaila said quickly and barely above a whisper.
Remi frowned at that. “Can that happen with magic-capable people?”
Kane glanced at O’nga, who answered. “Magic requires an effort of will. It might be possible to do it in your sleep, but it is unlikely.”
“There is something… Her magic, it feels familiar. I have felt something like it before, I just can’t quite remember,” Kane said.
“You are correct, Captain,” the Doctor confirmed. “Her readings are slightly different than yours or the Dragons’, or even the Elvarr mages. I don’t know why.” He shrugged.
“I want you to keep working with her. Do all the tests you need. We need to know how this happened. But in the meantime… Jaila, we are going to need to teach you magic. And we don’t know how.” Kane sighed.
“We could ask the Emerith Council,” Remi suggested. “They do run an academy.”
O’nga looked unhappy with that, but didn’t comment.
“I don’t know…” Kane said finally. “Maybe just giving her spellscripts will be enough?”
“Let us try first,” Dario said. “We know everything that humanity knows about magic.”
Remi glanced at him, then at Anna and Emma, who had arrived while they were talking. Kane mulled it over but then sighed and nodded. “All right, try to teach her enough so that she doesn’t kill herself. We will wait until we manage to make a deal with the Elvarr, and once we have teachers on Earth she can learn with the rest of our magically capable people.”
He then turned to look at the lead scientist. “Adrian, can you please try and find out why this happened, and how?”
“Of course, Captain, no problem, already working on it!”
With that, all of them left, leaving the young girl with O’nga and the Doctor.
CHAPTER TEN
Kane sat in one of the receiving rooms inside their compound. Next to him were Myers and Remi, and across from them sat three Elvarr from the Enroki tribe, including their chief, Sentos Plainwalker. It had been several hours since their incident with Jaila, and the sun was almost near its peak.
“We are honored that you have invited us. Not many care to speak with us,” Sentos said.
Kane nodded. Remi had already reported everything that she learned from Vilariarin. “We’ve heard about the others…being reluctant in interacting with you. May I ask why that is?”
“They consider us backward, our use of magic simple. Mages are in most cases more powerful, are capable of great wonders. Shamans… We seek more spiritual achievements,” Sentos said.
“I understand. There are many on my world who devote themselves to the spiritual, to attempting to achieve enlightenment.”
Sentos looked surprised. “And they are not looked down on?”
“Perhaps by some, but most think of them as wise. They seek their advice in navigating their everyday lives,” Kane said.
“This is much different than how such things are looked on here,” Sentos said sadly.
“That is their loss,” Remi said.
Kane cleared his throat. “We asked you here for several reasons, but the main one is to see if you are open to any kind of trade deals or agreements. We are always on the lookout for anything regarding magic.”
“We’ve asked around about your kind some,” Sentos admitted. “Not many would speak with us, and of those who did, few knew anything about you beyond what we all saw last night. Your use of spellscripts makes them think you as savages. To them magic is a sacred thing, and to have it crippled in such a manner… It makes them look at you in a bad light.”
Sentos paused, but Kane didn’t speak, as he could tell that the old Elvarr was just gathering his thoughts. “From a friend to our people, we have learned a bit more about you. Is it true that your world had no magic prior to your coming here?”
“That is true, yes,” Kane answered. “Our achievements and advancements were focused in the mastery of materials and construction, all without magic.”
“We have seen your strange…ah, carriages?”
“There are several names for what they are, but ‘vehicles’ suits this purpose,” Myers added.
Sentos nodded. “Vehicles. Some don’t even have magic, and yet I have been told that they can move?”
“Yes, our science and technology is advanced. It had to be, as we had no magic,” Kane said.
“Incredible. We have never seen anything like it,” Sentos commented. “But what do you think you can gain from us?”
“Your way of using magic, for one. As I said we are looking for anything relating to magic.”
“Don’t you already have spellscripts? We have seen you in the company of a Wanderer; they are generally very skilled at those things, no matter what the other Elvarr think. And you are dealing with Emerith Council, are you not? The mage way is more powerful than what we could teach you.”
Kane chuckled. “Just because something is more powerful does not mean that it is better. We don’t know much about magic, and we would like to learn all that we can.”
Sentos looked taken aback at Kane’s comment. “That is a view that we haven’t encountered in a long time. But perhaps a better question is, then, what can you offer us?”
“It depends on what you need,” Kane said. “We were told that you are a nomadic people, that you travel the plains. We have resources and inventions that could help your way of life—tents that can be set up quickly and are extremely well suited to protecting you from the elements, weapons that do not require magic but are just as devastating. Anything and everything that you might need, we could provide. Our world is large, and we have a lot to offer.”
The shaman thought about it for a long minute before responding. “We are a simple people, but we do see the way the winds change. We have never really been welcome here; others look down on us, perhaps not in the same way that they look down on the Wanderers, but they do all the same. And with the arrival of the Rzan… War is coming, and we are not suited to fight in it. Our numbers are small, and our magic not well versed for combat. We have already decided that it is time for us to leave the plains. Our plan was to go south, to seek new lands, but that had always been meant to be a reprieve, and we knew war would find us again. We had asked the worlds beyond the great World Gates, but none would allow us to their world. If you would let us bring our tribe through to your lands, we would be willing to teach you everything that we know of magic.”
Kane blinked at that. He hadn’t expected them to just ask for what essentially amounted to asylum, certainly not at their first meeting, but he could understand it. The Rzan had started making their moves, and the Enroki probably felt like they had little time.
“That is something that we can discuss. I will need to contact my superiors, but I see no reason why you would not be allowed passage. Tell me, how many people are there in your tribe?”
“We are three hundred and six souls,” Sentos said.
Kane’s eyes widened, and he almost laughed it was such a small number. Taking them in wouldn’t even be any kind of a drain on their resources. They could even set aside land for them somewhere on Earth, and in return they would gain more people with knowledge of magic. Their deal with the Wanderers had paid off a thousand fold—he wondered how much they would learn from the Enroki.
* * *
Remi and Kane sat in the command room. They had just finished their talk with the Admiral two days after they had had their talk with the Enroki chief. The UTS Council had thought about the request, and had decided to allow the Enroki to Earth. To Remi it hadn’t really been much of a decision, as it was a great deal that would help Earth immensely.
She looked at the Captain. He had been asking for her advice on many things, which she figured she was here for, and he had been taking her advice more often than not, as if he had been listening to her orders and not the other way around.
Then it clicked in her mind—that was exactly what it was. She chuckled and shook her head. The UTS Council was sneaky, but she understood. They wanted to test the Dragons, and this way they were testing their ability to make decisions in the field without having her think that she was making the decisions, all while she gained practical experience. She wondered what Ethan was doing on Senka. She knew that he was still attached to Captain Kane’s wife, Aiko, and that he was helping with the designs of new ships and creating a doctrine for their Fleet.
Captain Kane looked at her when she chuckled, one of his eyebrows raised. “What’s funny?”
Remi waved her hand. “It’s nothing.”
He narrowed his eyes and snorted himself. “You figured it out,” he told her. “I guess I won the bet.”
“Bet?” Remi asked.
“Yeah, I had a bet with Aiko about which one of you would be the first to realize that we’re following your lead,” Kane told her. “She just sent me a message telling me how your brother still has no idea.”
“Well, Ethan is a bit slow.” Remi smiled. “So, are you going to be taking direct orders from me now?”
“Hah! You still lack experience. I admit you are very smart and capable, more so than me by a long shot, but while you are technically able to make decisions, I can override them if I feel that you are making a mistake.”
