Summer 1, 510 AV, Outer Sunberth
This, Gad figured is a good a place as any. Well, that wasn't entirely true. If it were he'd be back in his room doing this. Gad looked down the hill, to the spot he'd selected. It was a little clearing, with some hills and young trees in between it and the town which would provide cover. Better, it was a short but considerable hike across some rocky terrain. Gad considered that the effort it took to get here was probably more trouble than it was worth even to him, so he felt comfortable letting loose. He found a spot, and snapped a sizable branch covered in green leaves from a young tree. He went over to an area where the grass was scarce and began to brush it thoroughly with his makeshift broom. When he was done, Gad snapped off the green sprigs and other twigs from the branch. He sized it up, and deciding it wasn't long enough, he snatched another stick, and tied them together with strips from a green sapling. Having a stick now that was about five feet long, Gad laid it down on the ground.
The young wizard looked around and spotted a unique looking and weighty rock, which he placed at one end of the stick, and pressed it into the ground that was still soft from Spring showers. Gad went to the other end of the stick, and knelt down. He grabbed another, hand sized twig to use as a stylus. He held the stylus-stick like you would a pen, but placed the five-foot stick's end in-between his knuckles, and pressed, so that the end of the five foot stick that was not in his hands was pushing against the embedded stone. Gad then proceeded to make a line in the clay, but made sure to keep the five-foot stick in contact with the stone, so by the end he had what was more than less a perfect circle, with a diameter of five feet. Grinning at his handiwork, the wizard took his stylus and placed it on the perimeter of the circle, and twisted it 360 degress, until on the perimeter was a smaller circle. He walked directly across from it and did the same, then walked to a point on the circle directly between those two and created another circle. Gad did this until there were sixteen evenly spaced circles along the larger one.
Syna was on the horizon, getting up for the day. Noting the importance of cardinal directions, Gad connected a line from the most Westerly coordinate sphere, to the most Easterly one, and then connected the North, and the South. He then connected each Cardinal sphere to the ones adjacent to it (East to South and North, etc.) until he had a Four circle summoning ring. Gad sighed in appreciation. Now it was time for the hard part. He went to the Northern-most coordinate and stuck his finger in the mud, just outside of the circle. He focused, and at the same time let go of focus entirely, or at least the strain associated with it. He held in his mind the very concept of "Focus" and saw it, reduced to it's most basic, symbolic representation in his mind. That symbol he drew in the clay with his finger. Doing so was not easy. The clay felt as if it stung and fizzled at his touch, and resisted any kind of force he applied to it with a terrible inertia. Thus was the nature of glyphing, when you etch a concept into the very fabric of something's Djed, it tended to resist, Gad realized. It took five minutes for Gad to carve what, to the uninitiated, looked like a simple child's scrawl, less than six inches in size. Gad repeated this task, adding "Accuracy", "Stability", "Control" and "Pleasant". He then repeated this process at every corner of his summoning globe. Each time it took longer, was more difficult, and was more exhausting.
Though he'd started at sun rise, it was two bells to noon before the wizard had finished. Now, for the harder part. Gad recalled, in his mind, the Known Worlds. The absolutely indispensable catalog of coordinates that every Summoner had carved into their brain. Gad considered what he'd try for. Vilemoss could be a valuable commodity in Sunberth, he knew, but he didn't have any equipment to collect it. He wasn't interested in Summoning something so tame, at any rate. That world was too predictable for any mage aiming to improve their skills. No, he'd have to call something more...risky. This was the folly of young Wizards without mentors (and many old Wizards who were mentors themselves); the desire to always expand their craft. Despite his youthful brashness, Gad would select his coordinates with relative cautiousness.
He needed a world with something alive, and active. There was a planet full of Glassbeaks he could try, but no, they were too willful and dangerous. It might seem counter intuitive but he figured a being that could reason might be easier to deal with. Perhaps one of the Diverse? Perhaps not. They were reasonable, in a sense, but that would probably go out of the window once it found out he wasn't planning on paying it. He needed something he could get leverage on. That left one world. Fyrden. It's inhabitants were intelligent, or could at least communicate in words, but there was no risk of a Fyrdenese escaping the Summoning circle; they could not survive in Mizahar without a human supplying the djed through the leash.
So that settled it. Gad started at the Northern point, drawing a "6" then a "7", "0", and so on until he had the full coordinates going around the circle. "Six Seven, Zero One, Nine Eight, Four Seven, One Zero, Four Eight, Five Four, Five Three." Gad checked and double checked his coordinates, as being off by even a single digit could have disastrous effects. Thus satisfied, but also with a healthy sense of trepidation, Gad retrieved his shaving razor and cut a slit on the tip of of his right index finger. He touched it to the rim of the circle, and a sense of lighting shot through his body, and a strange vibration that made he feel as if he was some kind of bug being smeared by the boot of the Gods across space and time. It lasted for only a second, then there was a flash, and then smoke smelling of oil popped from the lines in the ground, steaming up around what had turned suddenly into a shimmering, amorphous pool of radiance. "Come forward." Said Gad.
***
Gad sighed. Then yawned. Then did a weird combination of the two that made him hiccup. Two bells later, and nothing. He was getting tired, waiting here for an inter-dimensional fish to bite his figurative hook. But, they just weren't biting today, it seemed. He got an itch on his face, and had to lean over to brush his itchy nose against his shoulder. His hands weren't exactly operative right then. A few minutes after portal had opened, he'd decided it would be good to brush up on his Projection. Using the red earthy clay as a medium, he'd painted a glyph symbolizing "Release" on each of his palms with the opposite finger, and on the wrists as well. Slowly, and surely, he backed up the djedic channels that flowed through the body, and excreted his astral hands by starting at the joint and working his way down to the finger tips, until they were free.
Once they were floating about, the clay dried up and crumbled off of the surface of his skin leaving nothing but an iron-y red residue outline of the arcane symbols. For a few moments, all he did was stretch his magic muscles, moving and rotating the hands in the air, and grasping and un-grasping nothing. Once he'd done his warm up, he set to a more taxing activity. Gad sent his magical manipulators to the absolute tip of his range, and picked up a pebble in each. They felling was like holding out a rock the size of your head, in each hand, with your arms stretched out as far as possible. Gad's brow sweat dropped into his eyes, and he winced, but didn't falter. He took note of the increased sensation he got when he projected. As he strained, the texture, temperature, weight, and every other property that would be perceptible to his normal sense of touch was magnified. At first, as always, the sensation was novel, as he strained it registered as noticeably uncomfortable. He was breathing heavily, but he regulated it. As he drew the pebbles inward, the strain was relieved. He set the two pebbles next to each other, in front of where he'd been sitting crisscrossed.
After awhile going on like this, he had collected a nice little collection of varied pebbles, small rocks and tiny stones, all sitting in a pile at the end of his lap. He'd made sure to pause and stretch his hands out, relax his astral fingers, and even -every so often- shake his limp physical hands in order to keep the juices pumping. Gad now levitated a hand over the loosely stacked little rocks, and formed his fingers to flick one from the top of the pile. He was aiming for the center of the vacant summoning circle a couple yards in front of him, but the force sent the stone just under a foot. He alternated hands, flicking the pebbles away until he'd nearly exhausted his supply.
Now it was that he'd finally attracted the attention of an other-worlder. From beyond the pale mirror he heard a croaking, crooning grumble. A small, silvery hump pushed up out of the liquid glow. The metalloid entity bubbled in incoherency for a few moments, then started to take shape. The top of the being began to form an orb, and it's shinny silver form started to become narrow just bellow this ball. It formed something like an overly simplified neck and head, but in size it was all under two feet. At least, what was poking through the portal, as the creature had yet to fully emerge. As soon as the bust of Fyrdenese had formed, it slumped over to one side, leaning away from gad. It slowly began to rotate around, scanning the horizon, until the bulbous end- what Gad assumed was the head- was pointing at him.
On him, it stopped. A few ticks, and a closed eye seemed to float forward. Then another, this one drooping and lopsided. Then a puckered mouth, also slowly moving from it's anatomically accurate position, and finally a nose that was so off it would've been comical it Gad didn't find it creepy as Hai. Gad looked side long at the thing, a sneer of disgusted fascination on his face. He uncrossed his legs at moved to scoot back. The metal things eyes shot open, revealing pupil-less vacancies the in the same indistinguishable chrome as the rest of it's body, and it's puckered mouth belched a girlish "Boo!" It then chattered out a shrill laugh that sounded like a small child laughing into a big, tin, watering bucket.
It was at this point, Gad was very happy he'd forgotten bring something for lunch. You see, the thing was, if he'd had eaten something, it might have been digested by now. And he probably would've shyked all in his trousers. In instinct he slapped his astral hands against his mouth to muffle his bewilderment. However, the fast sudden jolt caused them strain and the things almost instantly became heavy, lethargic, and unresponsive. Gad dropped the astral hands to a maintainable height just off the ground, and began the re-attachment process of putting his astral and physical bodies back together again. Over his grunts of minor exertion, you could hear the the cackle of the Fyrdenese creature. Gad could hear his teeth crunch and grind and felt the tendons in his skull and jaw flex and tense. He didn't think it was all that funny.
"Why have you summoned me, Mizaharian?" It squeaked-squealed in a metallic tinted voice. It shifted side to side, and it's fluid silver form shimmered in the afternoon sun. Gad took note of it's reluctance to fully step
through the summoning ring.
"Just to speak, cross the threshold. I won't hurt you."
"Mhm, you say. Ask your questions, I can hear you fine, like this."
"Well, keeping the portal open like that causes strain. It'd be better if you came across fully, allowed me to close it, and then reopen it again when it's time for you to leave. You can stay in the circle, of course." Gad completed the left hand, and flexed. It's response was slow and delayed, like on an icy day. He set about completing connection on his right hand. "You have to be able to tell, I'm not that skilled. I don't need to be making enemies on other-worlds. I have nothing to gain from deceiving you." Gad bowed his head down a little, but kept eyes matched with the blob's pseudo-face.
The mercurial entity seemed to bob up and down in accordance and the rest of it's gooey form was pulled up through the golden mire of magic that was serving as the point of contact between Mizahar and Fyrden. Once he was through, Gad let the portal close. The summoning ring remained, and served as a receptacle of Gad's Djed. He could see a sort of bubble or skin that was draped over the creature, arising from the perimeter of the summoning circle. Gad nodded, satisfied that everything was intact. If there had been no bubble, the Fyrden would be dying right that moment. This leash would serve as a temporary Djed-based atmosphere for the Fyrden while he was present on Mizahar. "What do you want?"
"Tell me about your world."
"Hmph. It is round, not unlike your own."
"Don't be cute." The creature shifted in apparent discomfort.
"Tf. There is light and dark."
"Day and night?"
"No." Gad's brows furrowed at this answer, but it wasn't until he moved his hand in a 'come on' motion that the Fyrdenese creature continued. "There is a light-face, and a dark-face. Two sides of one. Fire and ice, white and black."
"Are you saying half the planet is dark? And the other is-.."
"Blinding luminance. I am a Light Facer. Those who stand in defiance of the sun."
"Does that mean there are Dark Facers? What do you know about them?"
"They live on the dark side." It's voice dripped with the impression of tediousness. "They are three in kind. Like us. Ask them if you want more to know."
"I see. You don't exactly get along with the them, huh?"
"Observant." Sarcasm.
"Well, fine. Tell me more about the Light Facers. You said three in kind?"
"Yes. I will enumerate them for you, curious wizard. The ethereal Avavali, the liquid Sarawanki, and the superior metalloids; the Pascid."
"And that's you."
"Yes. These are enough questions-"
"Wait! I have more."
"I am sure. Your ignorance is infinite. However, my patience is finite. Return me to my home."
"...Fine." Gad pressed the wound he'd made earlier with his shaving razor and was able to draw out a drop of crimson. He touched his finger to the edge of the summoning circle and again he felt his djed run out of his body, and he smelled the camphor and oil of transdimensional travel. The ring bubbled up with the radiant gel that seemed to mediate the space between spaces. The Pascid slowly began to sink into the shining stuff. "Maybe I'll summon you again sometime."
"I should hope not." Gad shrugged. He wondered if all the Pascid were like that. Once the otherworldly little cretin was through, the wizard damaged the summoning circle by brushing dirt over it and drawing random lines through it. It'd take a wizard's eye to even suspect what it had been. Gad looked around, over his shoulders, making sure he was unseen. No, there was no one there. The wizard made his way back to town, considering the information the Pascid had relinquished. |
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by Gad on January 22nd, 2014, 2:47 am 
Was a thrill to read! Reminded me a lot of the Bartimaeus Trilogy.
