Chapter 20: Flying Pigs

~~ Delta - Aug/02 - (Earth - Feb/2095) ~~

Lee, Sean, Qu and Helen were in the new dome that housed Jahn’s old ring on Jahnville.

The new dome they had spent the previous week getting finished, led to the departure lounge at the new transportation depot in Futura by a long, wide hall. The ring portal dome was set up similar to Robert’s and had protections so the crystals couldn’t be removed.

This dome was also a dome inside a dome. The crystals were grown in the space between the two domes. It was almost impossible to access them. If by chance they did blow up, they shouldn’t take out the people inside the inner dome. Lee had also put protection spells on the domes should anyone try to blow up the domes deliberately.

Qu was their guinea pig operator for the experiment on this end. Gary was waiting in Clarksville. The operators were housed in a separate control room beside the decon-chamber. The ring also had protection spells so no explosive or potentially dangerous materials could be bought through it.

The operators would get an alarm if any banned substance were in the ring room. The operator with the offending party would lock them in. The offending party would be told that they would be staying there until security found out why they had banned materials and what it was.

They were checking the crystals to see if they were charged. Lee had discovered when she had fixed Wizard Que’s ring that the rings were actually thin layers of the unidentified alloy separated by a semiconducting material. A third layer lined the inside of the ring stack.

Lee hadn’t been able to identify the elements in this layer fully, but she suspected it was made from an exotic-ion compound. Kyle was working on it for her to find her more or at least the essential elements so they could make new rings.

The two alternate layers were similar in design to a huge capacitor. Lee determined they were used to help direct the energies required to produce what she thought of as the transporter bubble. A special layer in the floor reflected the inverse half of the bubble over the top of the other half and provided the base the people stood on as they were transported in time and space.

She believed the third layer interacted with the capacitor type section, like when the Ionic drives interacted with the shield on the ships. That it was responsible for creating the fold through time and space. The rings provide the focus point, and she had noted each ring has a slightly different call home frequencies. So, the where to and from signatures were established.

She had to use different variations of the same base spell depending on the ring she wanted to send the passengers too. Lee believed the control panel she had made could be used by a shield or mage to operate the ring. They simply needed to dial up the destination frequency she had assigned to a portal ring and act as a catalyst to initiate the transference.

The panels she had made here and on Clarksville incorporated one of the crystal balls and one of Kyle’s magically enhanced computers, to do the calculations required. It took some serious calculations to determine were each ring was in relation to its position in the cosmos at the exact time and place the connection was to be made.

No wonder the old wizards had problems with them blowing up if their magic didn’t quite get it right and the available energy was insufficient. It amazed her; the bloody things worked at all. The new operators would control who went where and could communicate directly with the receiving operators.

Safety systems also insured the portals became locked once a destination was entered. No one else could latch onto either ring until the operator and sensors indicated the rings were empty of travellers and free to send or receive again.

She wished to make them useful, but they were not meant for all and sundry to use as a revolving door. Nonetheless, if the delegates and officials could travel between the three worlds a little more quickly when they required, then the wizards would not need to ferry them around. They had better things to do.

The ships would still be used for the general populace or non-official business-like holidays and cargo shipments. She would not be happy if the system got abused. She would have her particular group of Pix and Burgis that now lived on Watson Island monitor the activities and notify her if they thought it was.

They had finished installing her panel the day before and set the crystals to charge. Sean had made the crystals in their purest form, and they charged very fast. They were also linked in with the general electrical system. They also wanted to know if they interfered with the shield that still resided over the main township of Futura and Sparky’s village.

The experiments Hue had conducted led them to believe the impurities, and insufficient layers of the insulating material that the microbes first laid down contributed to them failing and blowing up when discharged too quickly or a failed due to a poor connection.

Lee and Sean were arguing as to who was going to be transported when the crystals dimmed a little, and a piglet appeared in the middle of their ring. Lee went to the control panel and looked at the map. She then highlighted Rahia on the map. “I believe it came from here,” she said.

Sean looked. “But we removed Rah’s ring,” he said with surprise.

Lee nodded. “Yes, but it appears there is another one further south in this mountain. It must be very deep and well protected so we couldn’t find it. I think our Navigator is still alive and has found one of Rah’s hidden caves.”

“I believe he just used the ring there to discharge the crystals. I bet it had protections spells on it like the dragons’ caves. Hopefully, Rah’s spells keep him out of the treasure caverns until we can get there. I don’t think we would have gotten into his other cave the first time if it wasn’t for the fact the box had already picked Kyle, even though he hadn’t opened it.”

“Who the hell is this Navigator anyway?” Sean asked.

“I think the reason the pig turned up here is telling. I think a certain Queen and I need to have a little chat,” Lee said. She handed Helen to Sean and disappeared.

Lee appeared in the faerie village and made herself comfortable on the platform, as she waited for her daughter to appear. She didn’t have to wait long.

“You wanted to see me, mother?” Sparky said as she and Ross joined her.

“Yes, you need to tell me about how the wizards supposedly died?” Lee said.

Sparky looked at Ross, and they knew the gig was up when Lee used the word ‘supposedly’. Sighing, she made herself comfortable as Lee enclosed them in a privacy shield. This was not a conversation either party, wished overheard.

Sparky started off, “After we were sent here, my ancestor whom I’m named after, was elected by the other faerie Queens to be the one to deal with the wizards’ crimes. My Granddame told me that they also knew Jahn had hidden the apprentice’s boxes but not where.”

“He had not made an effort to replace the apprentices. Many believed he was worried he would get ousted. Many believed that if the box had been available when Rah became a wizard, he would have in fact become the Lord Wizard.”

“Normally a wizard only becomes the next Lord Wizard if the Lord dies or has been released because they are no longer suitable. It has been recorded that the magical items will desert a High Lord or the other wizards if a better candidate came along. No one knows why the box chose to go to Jahn and didn’t go to Rah when the old Lord died.”

“At the time they shifted planets, Jahn had a son, Johan, who had strong energies, and it was believed that Jahn feared that the boy would surpass him as the High Lord. The boxes normally pick the person with the highest energy and suitability available.”

“From what my Granddame told me I don’t believe that Jahn was anywhere near as powerful as you are, mum. Anyway, we had a device that allowed us to compel a person with magical energies. Mine got destroyed in the fire, which killed my family, so you don’t have to worry about it, mum.”

“My ancestor compelled Johan to read his father’s books and find a spell to send him back to Earth. With the Queen’s help, because we could read the books back then, they found a spell.”

“I can’t read the books properly because skills from too long ago don’t get passed on if they are not used every so often. I can see the writing but not read it, except for a few words. That is why I couldn’t help you and Kyle even though I really wanted too.”

“Here on Jahnville, it took them a couple of years to find the ingredients required to assist with the spell. Once they had the six faerie Queens here and Johan, set a trap for Jahn. When he arrived, they enacted the spell, and he disappeared, never to be heard from again.”

“They expected that Johan would become the new Lord, but he couldn’t open the box. No one could until you came. Our people dispersed in case Jahn did find a way to come back. The box should have returned to his treasure cave or the Ring, but for some reason, it didn’t.”

“My ancestors had passed the knowledge onto the other Royal Faeries on the other continents. Some of them were successful before my ancestress. Lord Wizards are tricky to trap and kill.”

Lee nodded. She suspected the fact Jahn’s cave hadn’t been on this planet had something to do with why the boxes couldn’t return. “If he found or could get to a hidden mage box on Earth, could he have survived this long?”

Sparky and Ross thought about this. Ross answered, “Yes, from my family’s history books, they age faster than wizards do at about one Earth year for about forty to fifty years, instead of about twice that rate for wizards.”

“As he was a Genteli it is very possible. It also depends how old he was when he became the Lord. If he managed to open a mage box within say thirty years at most of getting back to Earth, then he could still be alive.”

“My grandmother told me he was in his mid-eighties when he became a mage. He was a mage for over three hundred years and then the Lord Wizard for just over four hundred years so he would have been in his mid-nineties in Genteli age when he was sent back.”

“He probably would be over a hundred and twenty to one hundred and fifty-odd Genteli years of age so would look like a human who was in their sixties or possibly even older depending on how long it took him to find the mage box.”

Lee nodded. From the description, the ship’s crew supplied he did look in his sixties human wise. This is very old looking for a Genteli. “Do you know if other wizards could make the wizards items? The books mostly suggest only the Lord Wizard could, but I read some other references as well?”