5.2

Castle Blackpool was unusually noisy upon their return. Raucous laughter filled the halls. Dirk frowned. "Vector, did someone forget to inform me there was to be a celebration here?"

The Wizard shook his head. "Of course not. Everyone knows that merrymaking is forbidden in this house. You made that abundantly clear the last time the servants tried to celebrate the cook's birthday. As I recall, you threw those in attendance into the kitchen ovens."

The trio made its way down the hallway toward the source of the commotion. Locating it, the prince threw open a door angrily. The door stopped on a piece of furniture. A mighty shove sent the couch sliding away from the door. He froze instantly at the sight that confronted him. A sharp intake of breath from Vector was the only sound in the room.

Geoff's arms were entwined around one of Zyrdicia's manservants. They had been locked in a kiss when the door opened. Both men's faces turned toward the door now. Geoff's eyes did not seem to register the danger.

"Come on, Ariel. Let's go somewhere with fewer people," the younger Blackpool suggested. His speech was slurred.

"Princey, you've got more teeth in your mouth than a shark!" the other man said, pushing Geoffrey away in disgust.

Dirk's calm facial expression did little to hide the contempt raging in his eyes as he looked at his younger brother. Geoffrey was utterly oblivious to it.

Geoffrey staggered towards the silent elder prince. "Did you know Princess Ariel came to visit?"

Portia saw the danger and tried to hold him back, "Geoff, drinking that stuff makes you see things. You drank way too much of it. Let's get you off to bed and you can sleep it off, hmm?"

"SILENCE!" Dirk commanded. "If you'll all excuse us, I believe I need to have a private conversation with my brother about family honor." His tone was lethal. "Geoffrey, come with me. NOW." As Geoffrey approached, Dirk grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and pulled him out of the room.

"If you hang me from the tower window right now, I'll throw up!" Geoffrey protested.

"Let's hope you choke on that thought, little brother!" The pair disappeared down the hallway into the darkness.

"Oops," Anthony grinned. "The boy can't kiss worth shit. We need to work with him before he ever has a run in with this Ariel girl. I hope the Grumpy One doesn't kill him first. Princey's a sweetheart, kind of dumb but a real sweetheart. "

Vector shook his head and assured, "Geoffrey will be fine, eventually. This is quite normal here."

Portia glanced at a small clock on her wrist. She smiled. "Sorry to run off, but I have a date." She kissed Zyrdicia lightly on the cheek as she exited.

"Already? Be gentle with him, dear!" Zyrdicia called after her.

"Never!" came the reply from the hallway.

Vector cleared his throat. "Zyrdicia, if you do not have other plans for the evening, perhaps I could interest you in a game of Barkin? The game is a rare example of Karteian cerebral recreation. While we play, I would be most interested in learning more about contemporary Lyr. I have not visited the fair city in a very long time."

"Lead the way, Vector. Games delight me."

5.3

In the game room, the Wizard explained the concept of his favorite pastime expertly. She understood the strategy instantly. From the first game, she played well enough to carry on a spirited conversation without falling prey to distraction.

She moved the pieces telekinetically, often without glancing at the board. It was almost as though the board were playing for her as she discussed various topics with the Wizard. She prodded him with questions about the nature of the rules governing local magic. He responded with questions of his own about the city she came from.

Vector was most intrigued. "So the Great Library still exists there? It used to have the most beautiful plazas surrounding it. Fountains of blood, as I recall."

"Most of the old plazas were incorporated into the new structure when it was rebuilt after my....the last fire. The complex is now part of the new University campus. The shell of the Old Library is presently the main Reading Room. It is much bigger than you remember."

"I should like to visit it again someday. I hope you'll share the secret of passage between our world and your own. After the cataclysm, I was told the city was destroyed. Rumors of course persisted..."

"Lyr is like a phoenix. Every time some entity tries to destroy it, the city rises from its own ashes, more beautiful than before. Unfortunately, unless you can teleport off-world first and then cross back over, it is very difficult to pass from your world into the rest of the material plane. Someone sealed you off very well. I would have never discovered it without Zyr's messenger."

"You'll show me the way?"

"Certainly. In fact, after the business in Tronin is successfully completed, I will arrange for reading privileges at the Great Library, if you would like. There is a moratorium on new readers now, but as a member of the governing council, it is a trivial thing for me to circumvent. Of course, most of the magical artifacts will be off-limits until you obtain membership in the Magic Guild."

"The Guild! It endures!" Vector's eyes glittered. As a young Wizard, the Lyrian Magic Guild had been an invaluable resource in locating rare and wondrous spells.

She rolled her eyes. "You are on your own with them. I can help you with the necessary introductions, but I suspect they'll be kinder to you during the membership initiation if you aren't associated with me. I'm the Guild's enfant terrible."

"I would think with your powers you would have extraordinary influence in such an august group of magical practitioners," the Wizard prodded.

"August group? Please. They're a bunch of fools. I can do in three words what takes their best five hundred. I make a sport of publishing poisonous critiques of their individual methodological weaknesses in the Guild journal. Its editor hides when he sees my messenger now."

"Weaknesses?"

"Because they play at being mighty practitioners of the dark arts, but scarcely understand the spells they dutifully recite. They parrot flowery, ancient incantations in musty tomes and call it 'High Magic.' 'Monkey Magic' is closer to the truth. My former mentor, Azriok, pointed to such foolishness as evidence that man is unworthy of the gift of magic."

Vector's eyes narrowed. Was she testing him? He felt suddenly ill at ease. "Explain."

"Magic is energy, not recitation. Natural talent, simple focus and emotion are sufficient to access limitless power. The other Guild members pretend that its practice is very complicated and requires long years of grueling study. That lie is preposterous. Power is not in obediently aping the rituals of past generations; it is properly in creating your own. Becoming fluent in the language of magic requires liberation from slavish attachments to groups, objects and books." She watched the Wizard's face carefully.

Vector's mind raced. He hungered for her knowledge of the words of the Sephiroth. It would unlock Tenaebran magic for him and might sever his need for the monocle. The power could free him both from the prince and the Council.

She sensed his thoughts. "You are too old to learn new tricks, Wizard. Men sell their souls for such knowledge, but I can see that you bartered yours away long ago. You have no currency to trade in with the Sephiroth. Tell me, how do you school your prince in the use of your monocle?"

"School him? He fumbles with its power blindly. Royal blood and luck account for any success he has with it." Vector's voice was filled with contempt.

"Royal blood? Surely you jest. You know by now that I have a low threshold for hocus-pocus bullshit. Royal blood sounds like the hoax you use to keep him from learning that he is a latent telepath. You've never told him, have you?"

Vector's eyes widened. "Of course not. Nor his father before him. It runs in their family, as well as in a few of the other royal families in the region. They all believe their blood has an inherent magic to it. They have no idea the trait has nothing to do with their titles. A carefully bred lineage preserves the illusion wonderfully. Our social structure in large measure relies on the illusion. How did you know?"

"He wouldn't have been able to focus his mind to send energy from a container like the monocle if he did not have the ability at some level," she answered. He also would not have been able to cast me out of his mind when we first met, she thought. "And in serving royalty, the continent's Wizards keep the purported leaders dependent and in the dark. And you consequently maintain a stranglehold on magic. Charming. Your secret is safe with me. Though if they ever discover how you keep them weak, I would imagine all hell would break loose in Aperans."

"Doubtful. Even if they were to learn the truth, they would never know how to access the abilities. The Council was very careful. We would all go to great lengths to maintain the status quo. You mentioned Azriok a moment ago. Summoning an entity such as that is reputedly deadly."

"Lately it has been, for him," she laughed. "Calling Azriok is hardly dangerous in this world. He cannot answer. He is banned from this plane for 567 more years. He was careless enough to let me slay his material form in this world, so he's out of the game for awhile here."

Vector was impressed beyond measure. Summoning a Sephiroth was a burning aspiration of the Wizard, one deferred since his loss of the monocle. He had never actually heard of any Wizard successfully accomplishing the task and living to tell about it. It was the Holy Grail of High Magic in his opinion. "So you have actually had the honor of interacting an earthly manifestation of the Fairest Sephiroth?" he whispered.

"The Fairest Sephiroth," she smiled. "He loves to be called that. I am no longer convinced that it was much of an honor, but the answer to that would definitely be yes. You could safely say that I interacted every inch of his most recent earthly manifestation. We used to be very close. Enough about that. Vector, if you've been serving royalty for so many years, do they ever give you a vacation?"

The Wizard's face turned glum. "Not really. The current ruler keeps me abysmally busy. 'Fly me here, conjure me this, summon me that!' He tends to be quite nasty when he doesn't get his way. Besides, he depends on me utterly. Were I to leave him unattended to pursue an extended personal sojourn, I shudder to think what sort of trouble he would get into with my monocle."

She seemed to understand him at that moment. It occurred to her that in keeping the prince dependent, Vector quite possibly damned himself. She realized that she would probably kill herself were she in the Wizard's shoes. To never travel, to cringe perpetually at the prince's threats and to constantly cajole his fragile ego--it seemed frightful. Even more frightful to be forced to live under such circumstances while serving a hated enemy, an enemy who had usurped the Wizard's own magic. Were she capable of the emotion, she would have pitied Vector. As things were, she merely wanted him out of the way while she had work to do.

When she spoke again, her expression was deceptively kind. "Perhaps while I am here, I can help you arrange some time to yourself. I think I can more than fill your prince's quota of magic. Hopefully my presence, though brief, will take some of the pressure off of you. Though I won't have time to help with the Library reading privileges until I am finished here, I will show you how to find Lyr now. I suspect that when you find the city you will want to have time to enjoy it. There is no place quite like it. Given the manner in which I offended you in delivering the ugly message the other night, I feel it's the least I can do."