Chapter 10

“So, did you find out when in time you are now?” Cara asked.

“No,” Tom replied, shaking his head.

He then remembered his smartwatch, so he flicked the top of it. Esky and Cara could see that he was rather shocked at what the screen told him. “10th of May Twenty-one hundred? How the fuck did I get this far into the future?” gasped Tom.

“Well, you did say that the bus driver brought you to a place where you could become a wizard,” Cara pointed out calmly.

She had taken over serving the coffee that a steward had brought in for them on a trolley. The large coffee pot was with a jug of milk and a bowl of sugar cubes. A plate held an assortment of sweet-biscuits. Three large coffee cups each sitting on a small plate with a teaspoon were beside the plate.

Tom looked at the two people in shock. “We have wizards in this time? I thought that technology and magic didn’t go together.”

“Not true, magical energy is just a form of energy that we as humans forgot existed or how to use,” Esky pointed out. “However, not everyone can become a wizard. Some people only have limited abilities, and some have none.”

“How do you know if you have any ability?” Tom asked as he gratefully accepted the steaming cup. He happily poured in a good quantity of milk and added a sugar cube. He only drank tea or coffee black if he had to.

“Well, some people who have strong abilities can sometimes use them to a degree. In this time, a wizard or a mage who has the ability, can touch you and determine if a magical box or item will go to you or not.”

“if you’re in the vicinity of a magical item that wants to go to you it will call to you. Some people say they hear the entity in the magic items singing to them. It can be a little different for others,” Esky informed Tom, as Cara handed the Captain his cup.

As he bent forwards in his chair to select an Iced VoVo biscuit from the tray, he was pleased they still existed, Tom asked as nonchalantly as he could, “Is the singing anything like what I’m hearing coming from the wall behind your desk?”

Cara and Esky both glanced at the large painting of a seventeenth century, Spanish Galleon that was behind Esky’s desk. The painting was a metre high and half as long again wide. As he looked back at Tom, who was happily chewing on the biscuit, Esky asked, “What did you say your name was again?”

Tom swallowed, “Tomas James White.”

Esky frowned and got up. He went over to the painting and waved his hand at it. It disappeared, and a block of open-fronted compartments, six long and four high appeared. Half of them had metallic-looking boxes sitting in them.

There was something different about these boxes from the ones that Esky and his wife Tahoora had received. Each of the dark-bronze coloured metal boxes was 30cm long by 15cm wide and 10cm deep. He tried to move one, but it wouldn’t budge.

“Do any of the boxes glow?” Esky asked as he turned to look at Tom.

Tom frowned and got up. He walked over to the wall and looked at the boxes. He pointed to a box. “Well, I guess it’s yours. You can take it from the wall if it wishes to go to you.”

“Um, that one seems to want me to take it too,” Tom said and pointed to another box.

“Well the boxes have minds of their own, so I guess you can have it too if you can remove it,” Esky replied with a grin.

Tom slipped the first box from the pigeonhole in the wall and put it on Esky’s desk. Then he removed the second box and put it beside the first. “What do I do now?” he asked.

“Well, Queen Lee had me put my hand on the box and say a little pledge before I asked the box to open. Repeat after me, ‘I promise that I will learn to serve and act, in the best interests of all peoples, to the best of my abilities’.”

Tom put his hand on the box he felt was his and repeated the pledge and then told the box to open, which it dutifully did. Cara and Esky had to peer into the box with Tom to see just what was in it.

“Wow!” Tom said as he lifted out the vambrace that was floating at the top of the box. He was surprised that the metal sleeve was very flexible, more like it was a thin metallic cloth.

Tom pulled it over his right hand. It settled just behind his wrist and stopped short of his elbow by a few centimetres. The brace then tightened on Tom’s arm. He gasped as he felt the power of the item and its entity infuse his body.

He was amazed at the feelings in his body and the contentment of the alien being that he felt settle in his head and just barely touching on his consciousness.

He then thought to look at the item more closely. Three large magical gems with their gold embossed symbols were embedded into the bronzed mesh near both ends of the brace with a large bare space between them.

Just behind both sets of gems were a row of five, smaller, square-cut Quaz crystals. Esky explained to Tom what the crystals were called and that they were used to store magical and even electrical energy in.

He then told Tom that the diamond, the opal, and the topaz near his wrist were for the disciplines of Lore, Nature and Psychic. They had the symbols of an open book, a leaf, and an eye, respectfully.

The ruby and the amethyst at the other end were for Energy and Physics. Their symbols were a flaming torch and what looked like small waves. He was only missing the gem for Earth, being an emerald and its symbol being a hill, to be a Lord Wizard.

“The thing is, I’m not sure what the third red and black gem is. I know that some items have special gems, so I guess this is one. They are said to enhance your disciplines and often represent the Queen or Empress that you serve.”

“Queen Wizard Lee recently told us that there is a special type of mage called a Paladin, and I have the feeling that this item is for one of them. However, because it has five disciplines, I guess you’re a High Paladin.”