Chapter 37: Diversion

Mikal

I wasn’t sure if I was excited or not.

The shuttle we had could seat and sleep twelve. On board were myself, and my three guard consorts, Teal, Sage and Bonica. Phil, Cyan, Ant, Celadon, Angel, Kerri, Cookie and Biscuit made up the rest of my party.

My consorts now wore the four gem sets that were called High Shield sets. They were set up a little differently to other sets as Lore and Psychic were both at the top, and Energy and Physic were on the bottom. I’d had a lot of fun making the sets and then with the girls once they wore them. I felt comfortable with them being with me.

On our approach to Amity, Zara had made contact with an orbiting ship called JJ. We became worried when we learnt that Zarka wasn’t in the system. She had told JJ that she wished to go check out something and had warped off with her two consorts nearly four months ago, local time.

Zara told JJ where she planned to go next and told her to pass it onto Zarka and tell her that I would be here and we needed her to contact one of us. Zara planned to keep going since she had tossed us out in the shuttle.

JJ brought her and us up to date with what was happening on the planet, as we went our separate ways. I was looking forward to meeting this Lord Storm and more importantly David, Kelli and Sarah. Apparently, I had a new sister called Trista. Storm was also carrying my sister Sarah’s child. He was also now a shifter as were most of the wizards in both sets.

A piece of news that had interested us was that they believed someone who’d had similar genetic makeup to Sarah’s had also come here in the past. Zara believed it was more like mine. She wondered if this might have also contributed to the variation in time anomalies.

She postulated that one of Tory’s first attempts that went missing had managed to get here the same way that I had. The fact that person arrived here several centuries before I was interesting. It looked like I was going to have fun trying to find all of their kids and off-spring to fix them.

The fact that Storm and a young man called Sable had helped Crystal also had us all intrigued. JJ told us that they now had three boxes from the second Pix set and they were all damaged and didn’t have entities. Storm and the other Pix wizards couldn’t fix them as Zara had warned me that they couldn’t.

Crystal now has a High Mage’s box, and she was getting better. I was delighted as it meant that I didn’t have to claim a woman that I’d never met, as my paramour. I remembered the image of the woman I had glimpsed in the crystal ball, but I doubted it was Crystal. That would just be too weird if it was.

We had a discussion at the table as to what we were going to do, as it seemed the cataclysm Zara feared had been diverted. Zara wasn’t so sure. She still believed all wasn’t well on Amity and wished us to continue anyway. She pointed out that three boxes of one set were missing.

While we were discussing what we had learnt, JJ reported that Storm had finally entered the last section of Torus that had been contaminated and they found the fourth box and the missing book boxes that were part of the Lore and Energy pair. This box was also devoid of an entity. The other two boxes for Physics and Nature were still missing.

It looked like I might have to find them, while I was here too.

While Zara took us to Amity, I’d put extra energy into studying all the magic that I could.

I’d even begun reading through the other books in my box to learn all about what a Queen could and couldn’t do. Over the years, I’d perused some of the diaries but not all of them. It was rare that I had this much time to devote to myself and I really got into some of the stories of the past Queens.

I also learn they didn’t always copy some of what they had discovered across to the magic books and I was surprised by how much new information I gained from their diaries. The diaries of the second last to Queen of the Morgan box, Ophelia, were the most compelling reading.

The last Queen, Rohan, had only been in possession of them for about fifty years. She came across as very ill equipped to handle many of the situations that plagued her. Ophelia had been a Queen for over three thousand years. It was interesting to note that Rohan wasn’t related to Ophelia.

Ophelia’s diary’s indicated that she had been a new Queen when the prophesy stating that one of the suns would blow up, was fulfilled. She had spent a lot of time investigating how this could have happened.

She determined that a militant faction that had been expelled from their system to a different star system nearly a thousand year before were responsible. They had contrived to send a small ship disguised as a comet. It was filled with hydrazine and sent into the smallest of the three suns of the Keltrian star system.

Once Ophelia learnt of this, she had initiated the program to build the wheelships and get as many people as far away as possible. She had her people spent many years researching the forgotten technology. The first ten ships were sent in as many directions from Keltria to find new worlds for the people on the six planets.

Once a wheelship had located a suitable system, she sent as many people as she could to that system. She even instigated a program for collecting potential wizards and populating slower ships, which were called settlement ships. They took anywhere between ten years to hundreds of years to get to the new systems.

The wheelships sent probes into potential systems they passed and left a space-gate between close systems so other ships could follow them once they were built. If the probes relayed back a world that was suitable, a settlement ship was jumped to the nearest gate left by a wheelships, and then these ships made their way to the system and the planet in question.

The wheelships would stop along the way and terraform suitable worlds, and on the better worlds, they even stayed for twenty-five years so the occupants could have children. They often left the children behind to nurture the worlds and wait for settlement ships to turn up or for people to arrive in smaller batches using the transportation rings they put on the planets.

Ophelia described the struggles she had getting people to move. She had been a Queen on Planet 1, the Pix home world. She learn the shifters and races like the Grandteli who for whatever reason were living on the heavy gravity worlds were the easiest to get to move, especially if a planet with lighter gravity similar to Planet 4 was found.

The Grandteli, Burgis, faeries and shifters from their home planets were also her next best options. Many of the older wizards told her she was being a scare monger. The Prols and Genteli were the hardest to convince until the first sun flares started to occur and they finally realised that the little red sun was eventually going to blow up.

Ophelia was pissed off that it took half of Planet 2, the Prols home world, being fried to get them to act. This occurred more than two and half thousand years into her reign. Societies then started to break down as fear took hold and the people blamed the wizards. Things got worse when the magical people started to desert the ungrateful people.

She and her paramour had gotten sick from radiation on Planet 2 when they had been trying to help the Prols, and while she lasted, she did all she could to help the people escape. They had left their boxes with the Pix Empress and taken the death when she realised the Empress wasn’t able to cure her. She had left it too long to seek help.

Her successor, Queen Rohan, told of how she had been picked to take Ophelia place. She seemed to believe she wasn’t good enough to be a Queen but the choices the Empress was left with made her a candidate, and she took up the mantle of trying to emulate her predecessor.

When they heard about Torus breaking up, she went to help, as they knew the ship wasn’t supposed to be in that system long and only a small number of people were to stay, and the rest were on their way to another system one of the other wheelships had located.

She had tried to jump the sections to the next system when something very bad happened and somehow her section had been split from the rest. That was her last entry. I could only surmise she didn’t survive the landing for her boxes to have still been on the section of the ship that I had found.

It must have been a terrifying time that she lived through.

Zara called me when we were nearing Amity.

“Mikal, I just received a message from Zarka. She left a beacon and I have just come in range of it. She said she had to go find someone and would let JJ know when she was back in the system. She was hoping to be back a month ago. We think she may have run into trouble, so we are going to Earth to find out why she hasn’t returned.”

Earth was more or less on their way to where Davin wished to go, so it made sense. I wished her luck. As we approached Amity, I had an odd feeling come over me. “Zara, show me a map* of Amity,” I asked.

[*Map in is the Preface]

A huge globe appeared in front of me, and it started turning slowly. I studied it intently for several minutes. I stopped it and zoomed in on an area, and then I grinned. “Take the others to Nickel City, I’ll meet them there shortly,” I said, and then I blinked.

I think my bodyguards will be severely pissed at me for blinking off without them, but I felt I had to go somewhere and I needed to go alone. I’d picked the overgrown road, as it seemed a safe place to end up. The road ran alongside a wide river that was fed from the massive mountain range in front of me.

I looked at the odd square buildings. They were made from a form of red clay, and the buildings jutted out from the steep sides of the mountain. I could see where the road wound its way up the range on the side of the river I was on.

A huge arched carriageway spanned the river and joined the two sides of the city together. I could see that some of the buildings still had a form of glass in some windows and others were bare. I let out my senses and decided that I needed to be higher.

I blinked again and reappeared 1km higher up the mountain on top of someone’s house. It was an awesome view to the east. I turned and smiled when I saw on the other side of the house was an access road and the massive arched entrance to a cavern on the other side of the road with room for carriages to park in front.

I blinked to the entrance. I pulled my wand and entered curiously. I stopped several metres into the cavern and let my eyes adjust. It took me several minutes to realise that the cavern had been used as a marketplace.

The cavern must have been at least 150m in depth and about 80m wide in the front. It narrowed, as it got deeper. People had built two tiers of shops along the side walls. The people walked along the roof of the lower tier to access the shops above.

Several sets of stairs led up to the second floor as I moved deeper into the cavern. The large area on the ground was open, and I could see where other stalls had been set up. I could see the worn-in walking areas around the middle section despite the dirt and vegetation that has blown in over the centuries.

There was evidence that animals had used the cavern, but I didn’t feel the presence of large animals or people. This city had been deserted a long time ago. I created a large light globe and set it aloft as I wandered down the central walkway.

I stopped about three-quarters of the way down and veered towards one of the stores on my right. The shops down the back of the cavern were in better condition, and less debris had made it this far. The doors of the shops down here were shut, and most still held the remanets of locks and hasps.

The shop that had attracted me still had a spell on it. I investigated the spell and removed it. It wasn’t very complicated. I noted that a crystal was embedded in the doorframe. The spell had hidden the door from the casual observer.

When I entered, I was surprised by the contents. I could feel the other spells in here and realised it was an apothecary shop. One of the new arrives on Torus had built a little shop that was very similar, and she liked to experiment with the properties of different plants and chemicals.

The people of my race didn’t tend to need a lot of medical facilities, but since we did have some non-magical people, we had this need. I’d liked to potter around in her little shop, as she’d point out new plants and insects that had appeared even though Tory said they were not in her original supply of seeds and genetic materials.

I replaced the old crystal over the door and added a few new ones in the shop, as well as new protection and preservation spells on the store. Time permitting I’d very much like to come back here, as I didn’t know what half the stuff in here really was.

I found my way to the back of the shop and found another magically concealed door. It led to a passage that dropped me lower and headed back into the mountain. I followed and then noted it veered off to my right. I followed it for a long way and finally entered into another cavern.

I sent up two light globes so I could get a better look and was surprised to find a ship similar to the shuttle that Zara had put us in. Someone had collapsed the outer wall of the cavern to seal its contents from prying eyes. I pulled enough rocks into the cavern to create a passage for me.

I checked the outside and determined I could widen the opening to create a ledge and a cover to allow passage of the craft in and out of the cavern. The cavern would open into the deep ravine that the river flowed down on its way to and then through the city.

My new opening would be imposable to see from the city, and I surmised even JJ would be hard pressed to locate it unless she was able to follow the ship home. With the new big opening letting in a lot more light, I could now see the craft better.

I walked around it. I pressed on the side to open it and waited until the ramp was down and the side doors open before entering it. It was filled with big storage containers taking up most of the hold. I let out my senses, but I couldn’t feel any humans on this ship.

I tried the elevator, to my surprise the light over it lit up, and the doors opened for me. I stepped in, and it cycled the airlock and took me to the bridge. When the doors opened on both sides of me, I could enter either the bridge or the crew area.

I peeked into the bridge and noted it had four central seats set in their curve in the front and then two rows of similar seats behind and slightly offset from each other so all of the crew could see out the front.

Electrical panels filled the curved back walls up to the high and wide viewing area, and they started lighting up as I looked around. The lights in the room also brightened as I poked around. I exited the helm and entered the crew area.

In the crew area, two large rooms took up the back wall. In front of them were two more rooms, one was used for storage and the other was a laboratory. A kitchen, dining area and lounge area were then spaced across from one side of the ship to the other. You walked passed two rooms on each side of the wide hall to get to the communal area.

I checked out each room as I worked my way down the ship to the stern. The four front rooms all had huge beds in them, and two of them looked like whoever had been using them had just left. There were even discarded clothes on the bed in one room.

This was an opulently furnished ship, and I wondered to whom it had belonged. The preservation spells were very strong on the ship, and I wondered how the ship could still have power, as I was sure it had been in this cavern for a very long time.

I found the small herb gardens and plants in the communal area had overgrown before they had run out of nutrients and finally died. Old dead leaf matter littered the floor and furniture. However, the room didn’t smell musty or stale.

The kitchen still had an abundance of food in it. I found this curious, as it seemed the people who had come here couldn’t have been on the ship long before it was abandoned. The fact the possessions of the previous crew were still in their rooms was also worrying. What had happened here?

I froze when I heard a noise. My heart rate jumped alarmingly, and I spun around ready to defend myself. I had to blink several times at the little android that stood in front of me. It was barely 100cm tall, and it was gold in colour.

It had a very human face and even wore a form of dress I would associate with a high class of servant from one of David’s historical movies of old England. It even wore buckled shoes and a very sharp coat with tails and a white shirt with a starched collar a red bow tie.

It bowed low, and once it straightened, it looked up into my face. “Your Majesty, I’m so sorry that you find your ship in such a state. I know not why we had been shut down. I shall check the other servants, and as soon as they are repowered, I shall get this mess cleaned up.”

“My ship?” I asked it.

The android looked at me curiously and even tipped its head slightly. “Why is one such as yourself wearing a Pix Queen’s items?” it asked me in turn.

We both looked at each other and then it said, “Oh!”

“Oh?” I repeated feeling very stupid.

“Excuse me a moment, your Majesty,” it said and then closed its eyes.

I watched it and wondered what it was doing, and then I felt a new presence in the room. I jumped when the disembodied voice said, “Welcome aboard, Empress. May I ask who our new Empress is?”

Okay, now I was confused. I knew about Empresses but as far as I knew, I was a Queen, or as in my case, I called myself a Regent. I looked down at the android when it replied, “Xia, he is wearing Rohan’s Pix Queen’s items. As far I was aware, a shapeshifter couldn’t claim such a box let alone the Empresses box from Planet 2.”

“Well, since he is aboard this ship the Alexan box must have called him, Boo. You will have to find out,” Xia replied with a superior tone.

“Please come with me, your Majesty,” Boo said in sufferance, and it turned and walked towards one of the back rooms. I followed as I couldn’t find a reason not to. It led me into the room on the right, and over to a blank wall.

“Please place your hand on the wall, your Majesty,” Boo asked me.

Playing along, I did so. The wall shimmered and disappeared. I stood there and stared at the array of boxes that were placed on the shelves. I shivered as the largest box in the central most shelf purred at me in a soft, sultry voice into my head, “Ooh, you’re lovely.”

I looked at the android for help. It shrugged and said, “She wants you, so I guess for the first time in history the Empress’s box from Planet 2 will have a shifter as its owner. Even though the Prols home world has always had a Pix owner.”

“Planet 2 as I understand doesn’t exist anymore,” I replied. “This planet is called Amity. But I was born on a different planet in a different solar system called Torus. From what I understand the two Sextets’ that are here are linked to the Morgan Regent’s box and the items I’m wearing.”

Xia said, “Yes, we know about Planet 2. Queen Ophelia tried to rescue the Empress from there, but she only lived long enough to anchor her boxes to this ship. The other boxes you see are those she was able to pull to her from other magical people as they died during the solar flare that decimated Planet 2.”

“The box under her’s is her Magnate’s box. It’s a bit like an apprentices box is to a wizards box in a decad set of wizards, but it is as powerful as a Queen’s box. If the Alexan Empress’s box can call you, then there must be a decad or two on this planet as well.”

“Yes, a person called Storm Green from the planet called Earth that is in another solar system came here through a portal and claimed the Lord Wizard’s box from the original settlers here. Another Earthling, David James, brought a set of sextet boxes here from Torus.”

“I believe an Earth woman called Crystal, had claimed a box from a different sextet that was already here. However, it was contaminated, and she had to give it up. Storm has collected four of those boxes, but two boxes from that sextet are still missing.”

“At least one of them must be claimed. So who are the two queens here?” Xia said.

I shook my head and replied, “As far as I know, they aren’t. The wheelship Zara came and fetched me from my planet. She then brought me here to fix the broken boxes because there were no Queens here. Queen Rohan’s boxes were on my planet.”

The android looked at me horrified. “How long have they had more than two sets activated here with no Queens?”

“Well, JJ said it’s been about four months since David and Storm completed filling their sets. Storm’s decad set had apparently been here a long time and unclaimed since about the time you came here when they had a Wizards War. He claimed it about a year ago.”

“David brought his set from my planet about six months ago. That set was supposed to be for the people staying on Amity. But the wizard who corrupted Torus and those on three of the sections didn’t survive. We rescued about ninety survivors from a fourth section about twenty-five years ago on my time scale.”

“I believe Crystal had claimed her Pix box over a thousand years ago, but she left here after a year. She has been back here for twenty-five years, and she said that her box came from a section of Torus that is on the island she lives on.”

“Lord Storm had some of his decad’s apprentice wizard boxes claimed for about the same amount of time by locals. But the people using them were not good wizards, and he had to remove the boxes from their possession to complete his decad,” I said.

Boo replied, “One of the other boxes of the other sextet must still be claimed for the Alexan box to be able to call you. Either that or a wizard from a second decad is active. There must be at least one box from two sets from one type claimed and one from the other type.”

“What second decad?” I asked.

“Please take a seat, your Majesty. I’ll get you a cup of tea while Zia explains,” Boo said. I sat on the bed and Boo left.

Zia then said, “Torus was transporting survivors from Planet 2 and magical beings from Planet 1. Queen Rohan had put this ship in one of the sections. We were not to tell the occupants of Torus of our cargo. We had two Shields on board at all times.”

“After Torus broke up several sections were transported here. When our section hit the atmosphere, this ship was expelled from the hold unexpectedly, and it was damaged in the process. The Shields had to help me land us. They sealed the cavern and created a passage to the Cavern Markets.”

“A mage they had befriended suggested her shop was a safe exit due to her spells. We had been here about seven days when they didn’t come back. They had us power down to a minimum when they were not on board. I stayed active for another thirty days to complete repairs, but then my systems went into hibernation mode.”

“According to my system that was over two thousand and three hundred of the years here. If the Shields came back at all, then they should have woken me. I have no knowledge of them doing so. Only a Queen’s Shield, a Queen or a potential Empress can enter this ship.”

“As to the other decad, to my knowledge, we had a potential new Lord Wizard aboard Torus. We also had a full sextet on board from Planet 1 as they were the original crew on Torus. To reduce the possibility of conflict, she and her apprentice had elected to not claim their boxes, and they went into hibernation until Torus got to her next destination.”

“Their presence wasn’t common knowledge, and their boxes were not put on me. Queen Rowen had a decad Queen and two of her decads from Planet 2 that was going to transport to the new planet once a link was established. I doubt this occurred since Torus was sabotaged unless they went via another ship when contact with Torus was lost.”

“So because I wear Rohan’s bling you were brought out of hibernation,” I stated.

“Correct,” Xia said.

“How can you still work after all this time and are you a controller like Torus was?” I asked her.

“Yes I am a form of controller, but I wasn’t linked to Torus, as I’m a Queen’s ship. I was also very young when she put this ship on Torus as the old controller had died when Ophelia perished. This ship had also been extensively modified and updated after the contamination from the flare.”

“In hibernation mode, this ship and I require very little power. The Shields had created a vent and dropped a thermal cable into the ground for me. We were not sure how long I would have to remain hidden until Queen Rohan came to get me. We were unaware that she had perished. Our link becomes tenuous to non-existent when we are separated by great distances.”

“Neither Rohan nor Ophelia mention in their diaries that the boxes you have here were in their possession,” I said as I glance over at the boxes.

“Well, Ophelia didn’t want people to know she had them. They had been entrusted to her by the Alexan Empress who ruled Planet 2. I found that they were on board because the Empress left a message in the old data system. She said that when they were needed the right person would find them. I guess that is you. By the way what name do I call you?” she asked politely.

Just then, Boo came back. He had been busy as the big tray was loaded down with food. I watched as it floated towards me. When it stopped, he said, “I hope this food is to your liking as I don’t know what your preferences are.”

“The other three servants have been awakened, and they are busy cleaning up the ship in preparation for your instructions, your Majesty,” he finished with a bow.

“Boo,” I said. “My name is Mikal. I’m not big on using fancy titles, as we didn’t do it on my planet.”

Boo frowned and looked at me carefully, “Very well, Mikal. When we don’t have other dignitaries aboard, I shall use your name if it pleases you. Mikal, my I ask what your plans are if you don’t mind?”

I sipped the hot beverage and found it was very tasty. On the tray with the pot of tea, Boo had placed a plate of fancy pastries, a bowl of fruit pieces with thick cream, two different salads, a selection of cold-cut meats and a selection of different cheeses.

I tasted each salad and then the meats and cheeses. Happy, I piled up the plate, and I started to eat. I was surprised how hungry I was. I looked at Boo, and once I had emptied my mouth, I replied, “Well, I’m probably going to have to do some grovelling first.”

I happily piled more food into my mouth as I looked at Boo’s shocked face. I gather Queens did grovel where he came from. “I came here without my Shields,” I explained between mouthfuls.

Xia chuckled, and Boo shook his head in understanding. Boo said, “They can be rather odd about their Queens taking off without them. Considering what it takes to kill a Queen or an Empress for that matter, they really aren’t that necessary. However, they were traditional on the home worlds.”

“So Zara informed me,” I replied. In my case, they were convenient bedfellows. I looked over at the boxes again and frowned. “Bloody hell,” I said. I looked back at Boo and said, “What level does it take to satisfy an Empress sexually and magically?”

“Your paramour should be able to upgrade to become your Magnate or one of your new consorts,” Boo replied.

“I don’t have a paramour, only the three Shields,” I replied.

“Oh! Well, that may be a problem. You may need to ask the Empresses’ box if it knows of any suitable candidates here,” Boo replied.

“So how many consorts can I have and what is their status?” I asked.

“Ten consort boxes can be created. As you can see, we only have three consort boxes. You will need to make more. They are equivalent to Lord Wizards in power, but they can’t build new boxes above High Mage level unless they already held a higher title when an Empress claims them as consorts or her Magnate.”

“Magnates are equivalent in power to a Queen. They are all considered equal in power no matter which type they are. The consorts often run the Empresses City State. While the Empress runs the planet. Queens tend to oversee continents.”

“Lord Wizards and High Wizards tend to run nations on the continents that are held by their Queen. The number of Queens and their sets depends on the planet, and the population but no planet in Keltria had more than ten Queens.”

“Decad Queens tend to have one paramour, and they control two to four decads. Any more and a new Queen is required. A fifth decad can be made for her consorts. Sextet Queens have a paramour and control two to five sextets, and their sixth sextet is for their consorts.”

“It isn’t unusual for Shields to become consorts as they often oversee military and policing requirements. Perhaps your three Shields can claim these boxes. That should do until you find your Magnate if that helps,” Boo replied.

“Would me claiming them as consorts assist with the problem here of bad magicians and corrupt magical items?” I asked.