The Rings of Salammis

History Lesson - Part 1

     "Sir," said the freckle faced young private eagerly. "Sir, I think I've found it."

     Captain Arun and Pondar Walton went to stand behind the observer and peer over his shoulders into the Lens of Farseeing, which had been turned all the way to the left to look out of the corner of the single long window that formed one of the room's long walls. The lenses had been designed to look straight ahead, at the awesomely beautiful hemisphere of Tharia that rose above the smallest moon's unsettlingly close horizon and the wizard hadn't been sure whether the window would permit the sixty degree angle necessary to see the strange object Weeden had found. The one furthest to the right had just enough window to make it possible, though, thus making it unnecessary to unbolt one of the lens frames and move it to a new position, something that many wizards feared would interfere with its functioning, perhaps irrevocably.

     The object revealed in the lens was spherical and had apparently taken a heavy beating during the course of its life. The dull white material of which it was composed was blackened and scarred on one side, as if it had been exposed to a blast of tremendous heat. Other than that, though, it was smooth and featureless, illuminated on one side by the red and yellow suns so that it looked eerily like a strange, unknown world.

     "Looks like a dirty gribird egg," said the Captain gruffly, not wanting to reveal his nervousness and uncertainty to the men under his command. "What is it?"

     "I have no idea," replied the wizard, straightening up as much as the curvature of his spine allowed. "The sum total of my knowledge is that it's artificial and about ten feet across." He was also apprehensive and nervous, not liking the possibility that it might really be a spaceship after all and that events might be about to move out of their control. It was real, then. It wasn’t a mirage created by the Helm of Farsensing. Now that they can confirm that there really was an object out there, he could go and tell Saturn.

     They went to the other end of the room, where another of the lenses had been turned all the way to the right, in an attempt to spot the second of the two objects. “Have you found it?” asked Pondar.

     "I've found something," replied the baby faced private, making a minute adjustment to the control wheels. "Be damned if I know what it is, though."

     Pondar scowled at the man's familiar attitude, then dropped it from his mind as he saw the image in the lens. It resembled a coin seen nearly edge on, with a milled edge and a large hole through the centre. It was revolving slowly like a science fiction space station.

     "That looks like writing around the edge," said the private as soon as he could see again. "Can't quite make out what it says."

     Pondar, however, could only stare in stunned surprise, at a complete loss for words for the first time in his adult life. Something must have communicated itself to the young soldier, though, because he looked around, suddenly certain that something wasn't right. "Sir?" he asked hesitantly. "Sir, are you all right?"

     "It can't be," muttered Pondar at last, his wide eyed gaze fixed on the image in the lens, oblivious to everything else. "It can't be."

     "Sir?" repeated the soldier with growing concern. He glanced at the other observers, still busy with the day to day observation of the homeworld, spying on the enemies of Belthar, and one or two of them gave him shrugs of sympathy, secretly glad that the old wizard was his problem, not theirs. He was still wondering what to do when Pondar swore a blistering oath and swept out of the room.

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     "It's a teleportation arch," he told the assembled group two hours later.

     He had almost run down the spiral staircase to the moon city and the teleportation cubicle it contained. Arriving at the cubicle in Tara, the capital of Belthar, he had commandeered a fast horse and carriage to take him to the city's Fellowship cubicle, teleporting to Pargonn and then to Lexandria Valley. A three stage journey that he could once have made in an instant with a single spoken word. Over two years now, he thought in anger, and we're still no nearer to understanding the cause of the interference affecting long range magic. The situation was quite intolerable, and it was high time something was done about it.

      As if losing that much time wasn't bad enough, he had then had to lose even more as he made the formal request for an unusual assembly of the senior wizards, a ceremony that took nearly half an hour and that the Master of Ceremonies, roused from his study of the Book of Forms, insisted on following to the very last letter. Still, the time lost speaking the ancient words and performing the required actions (which, on this occasion, included opening and closing the Master's door three times, in between banging on it with a knobbly wooden staff that served no other purpose) was more than made up for by the Master of Ceremonies knowing exactly where each of the senior members of staff and other interested parties were, and thereby being able to send word immediately to demand their attendance. If Pondar had had to track each of them down individually, he might still have been at it an hour from now.

     The other wizards present, who included Saturn, Natan Crowley, the Director and Seskip Tonn, the Head Proctor, stared in shock and surprise, but Colonel Valeron Hort, most senior of the Beltharans in the valley, and the shae Rin Wellin merely looked baffled. "A teleportation arch?" asked Hort. "What's that? Like a teleportation chamber?"

     "A more primitive way of teleporting over long distances," replied Saturn, his single eye staring straight ahead as he considered the mystery. "Used way back in the very dawn of wizardry and long since abandoned as too dangerous. The cubicles we use today are safer. Superior in every way."

     "In what way are they unsafe?" asked the soldier. "I need to know if I'm to understand this thing."

     Saturn shared a glance with the Director, who nodded, giving him permission to divulge the information. Information that the University had kept to itself for several thousand years. The University had spent a great deal of time and energy trying to sell the idea that wizardry was a safe, acceptable profession, no different from plumbing or carpentry, and any suggestion that magic could be dangerous was stamped on firmly. The Colonel was right, though. He needed to know this, and so Saturn turned back to the soldier and began to explain.