Chapter 5

I was still smiling and thinking of Chris when I drove into the garage. Maybe my luck with girls was changing? Shifting focus was surprisingly difficult, but I managed to wipe the smile away and put further thoughts of my now favorite redhead on backburner.

I needed to learn a great deal more. Had the book been evasive? It certainly seemed likely. There were large holes in the information I'd received. I'd just finished securing the trike in the garage, and it was there. It had probably felt me mentally shouting for it.

What is the ratio of archwizard to wizard? I asked mentally. How do they relate to each other? Am I in any way unusual for a potential archwizard? How many books of wizardry are there? What happened to your last student? How may archwizards exist, and how can I find them? What polices archwizards? Questions and more questions ran through my mind.

This book of wizardry was created 7,203 years ago in the laboratories of the Archimagical College. The college still exists, though there are no directions leading there herein, nor spells that would permit such approach. Seven archwizards voluntarily bound themselves to protect it, and they and their books now reside there, in stasis. They may not leave the college, but their powers there are magnified sufficiently to assure safety. They are likely to welcome your presence and aid you, as that is part of their original purpose, to restore and uphold the Conclave.

I did not fail to notice the 'likely'. There were too few guarantees in this business.

It is widely thought that the elemental courts hold at least a few archwizards captive. The archwizardess Kylavria Verthular Amandine Terstar is the keystone for the lock on one of the planar warps demons once used to invade Earth in the War of Shattering, and she still lives. She may be found beneath the northern ice cap. Exact co-ordinates will not be offered at this moment. There are no others.

The last archwizard to utilize this book was Demarthos Alkavrin Kelletar, who perished in battle in 1911 in the Alps. He was facing storm giants, earth drakes and a fane of ice. They caught him at a disadvantage, as he was severely weakened after defeating a demon invasion that erupted following the corruption of an earth cyst by diabolists. He was 296 years old at the time.

An earth cyst is a power center where at least three pure elemental deposits meet at high pressure, never forming less than a kilometer beneath the surface.

Diabolists is the general name by which demon worshipping cultists are known.

There were never many of your potential. The Conclave at its height held only 819 of the immortals.

All archwizard potentials are cerebral persons. The personality types differ. Those who never realize their potential are generally divorced from humanity and unfeeling. They are prone to depression and recklessness. These rarely live beyond 200 and were derisively known as the 'suicide squad'.

Others are boisterous and outgoing, hiding their difference by wallowing in sensuality, art or creative endeavors, and generally represent the face of the Conclave. They were called 'hedonists'.

You represent the most common and numerous variety, with at least a modicum of attachment to humanity and a focus and dedication that are unsurpassed. The type of focus varies widely, with the most common centering on magical research and defense of the Earth. These were the leaders and fingers of the Conclave, and were known as 'maniacs' for their obsessive, suspicious and uncompromising nature. Should you meet another such as yourself, make it a priority to ascertain their focus. Should such prove complementary with yours, you will find co-operation to be almost instinctive and achieve gestalt with ease. Maniac teams are the sole reason humanity exists today.

In the unlikely event that you locate a person with archwizard potential, you will be instructed on the means of creating a copy of this book. You may not otherwise instruct them, as this book is a template key to an archwizard's potential. If anything less might suffice, it remains lost with the gods.

There is no documented correlation between the number of wizards and archwizards. In the days of the Conclave, each archwizard kept between 500 and 10,000 wizards. 500 were the minimum number allowed, and few were interested in maintaining a 'stable' larger than 10,000.

There are legends of terrible conflicts between wizards and their masters in ancient times. From that age grew the power of the Conclave of Archwizards and the Grim Panoply of Salubrious Resolve and Arcane Might, which forced each and every wizard to swear allegiance and eternal loyalty to a single archwizard, and prevented the archwizards from coming into conflict or betraying the Earth. This book contains no more information on the subject. It is likely that no further information is available outside the archives of the Archimagical College itself.

You may make this book available to any person with the potential for wizardry or teach them yourself, and all such will be bound to you for life and beyond. A wizard's loyalty may not be influenced by any means, and though they may be deceived into acting against your orders, plans or well being, they are incapable of dealing you direct harm.

Do not take this to mean that every wizard you meet will be your disciple. The lost archwizards trained many wizards, and these passed their lore on. If there remain any means of gaining the loyalty of practicing wizards, they are most likely hidden in the college.

The binding will not change the basic nature of the disciple, but your actions may adjust their responses and slowly shape them to your will. Complete information will be made available before the first binding, which is formalized upon sexual union and the rituals of the third circle of life. Prior to that, your students will be loyal and accommodating, but not obedient or perfectly resistant to persuasions, nor will you be immune to their assaults.

The only leash on archwizards is the book of wizardry itself. No archwizard may act against the Earth or humanity, nor may archwizards come into conflict. Only one of the gods ever attempted to circumvent this protection, and she was not successful.

If you proceed with the determination and efficiency inherent in your personality type, you should reach archwizard status before your thirtieth birthday.

You will not lose your humanity by means of magic. The changes time and possession of great power will force upon you are likely to alter you beyond the limits of your present understanding.

Wizards generally live four to six centuries, though favored and capable servants are usually rejuvenated by their archwizard. The binding ceremony invariably involves sexual union.

As an archwizard you will be able to exchange minds and bodies, thus binding male disciples will not be limited by the present bounds of your sexuality.

By Jove! The bloody book was calling me childish because I wasn't willing to have sex with guys. Anger seethed for a moment, before I managed to dismiss it as irrelevant. After a few centuries of regular sex, I probably wouldn't retain this attitude. Probably.

Archwizard before thirty sounded good. I knew I could manage that, barring the unforeseen, because the book knew me better than anything and anyone could. I now had a strong enough connection to it that I 'felt' that it was not capable of lying to me, or presenting anything with less than complete factual precision. I now believed that it couldn't even lie by omission, nor could it allow me to gain a false impression or retain incorrect assumptions. I knew that this could be a form of subtle manipulation, but it was very difficult to retain a suspicious attitude when the feeling of knowing was so very strong.

I did not fail to heed the warning embodied by the death of my predecessor. I needed as large a stable of wizards as possible, and...

More words appeared before my eyes, You are capable of initiating disciples here and now, though you may not bind them until you complete the first enhancement rituals. It is distinctly recommended that you retain your virginity until the first ritual and choose a virgin as your partner. This will significantly improve the results.

Reading your impressions, there is a 93.6% chance that Christine possesses wizard potential. There is 89.1% chance that your sister is a potential wizard. The superficial nature of your interaction with most females precludes further analysis, but it is a virtual certainty that at least one of your sister's friends is a potential, and a proper search of your high school should furnish you with at least a score of possible candidates. Recall that males have greater potential in general, but females are more numerous. Wizardly potential is not rare, but the discipline and mentally agility to advance beyond student status is.

It is recommended that you initiate a minimum number of wizards at present. An arcane confluence will alert the elemental courts, rogue demons and independent wizards. Secure the allegiance of those closest to you, and go no further. Yes, the book of wizardry is imbued with tactical and strategic advisory capabilities, considerably in advance of humanity's computers.

A grid map of my home and the area around it appeared for a moment, followed by an extremely detailed map of Stettin Park liberally dotted with strange markings.

The markings on the battlemap form a key you will be able to read with ease once you master the first circle of mind. Mastery of a circle is accomplished by learning all the spells of that circle available in this book. Breaking a circle grants you improved facility with the spells available within its bounds.

Well, I could certainly understand why the book had kept the information back. Too many shocks aren't good for one's system. This was a major one. The one biggest, most important basic value I'd grown up with was the autonomy and freedom of the individual. For a minute I'd thought of wizards as tokens to gather, like the figures in a computer game, building armies as in most strategy games. Explore, gather resources, build, develop, seek, destroy.

This was no computer game. The mention of Chris and Lee shook me. I was basically going to be a slavemaster. It made me almost physically ill. Benevolent or not, there was no sense in being politically correct about it. The uncompromising way the book had put it made things crystal clear.

But there was just no way around it. There was no other way to gather enough power to survive the early years, where discovery would mean certain destruction or worse if I remained on my own. Even a full archwizard NEEDED that sort of support, and my suspicious and less than social nature left no other avenue. Caesar had learned exactly what trust bought you in such circumstances. There was no margin for lying to myself and I didn't even try to delude myself.

Sex with hundreds of women (and never mind what else) had never been part of my fantasies. It was pure silliness. No one could handle more than two girls, or perhaps three, assuming they had decent sexual appetites.

And my own sister! The very reason I wasn't exactly terribly sanguine about relationships with anything female. We'd had a nice enough relationship until three years ago, when she turned absolutely poisonous. Quite enough to make me doubly wary of girls.

Oh, she was a looker, all right. Mom said that when I was a baby, I was blond and blue eyed, like her and Lee, and the colours had gradually darkened to its present dark and brown, respectively. You just couldn't fail to notice the fact that Lee had developed just fine, thank you, not with the tatters of clothing she wore. Haut couture fashions for fourteen year olds these days seem to focus on 'less is more', and Lee is as fashionable and popular as they get. Or so I assumed from the snatches of girl-giggle-conversation pieces I'd caught on the fringes of the over perfumed gaggle of jail bait she brought home, all too often for my taste.

Adolescent fantasies and porn aside, incest wasn't really my thing. Not because of the rules, which were a burst dam and honoured more in the breach anyway, considering what took place in reality, nor out of some outraged sense of morality. I remember the genetic problems with inbreeding perfectly well, though that seemed irrelevant. I was troubled because I wasn't at all attracted to my mother, and my sister's physical attractiveness did not match her insides. At least the goat buggered piece of braided cretinoid coprocephalic matter hadn't mentioned Ellen. Probably because, I looked down, Adults' wizardly potential is frozen. No one over twenty-five years of age can learn magic, and few over twenty.