trans_9 | The Tower of High Socery, Redux

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The Tower of High Socery, Redux

The Tower of High Sorcery didn't look much different these days from a distance, but up close the wizard's efforts showed.

The gates stood permanently open, now, but an obvious sign cautioned all visitors not to enter the cordoned-off areas. A magic mouth repeated those instructions, firmly but politely, to those who might not bother with reading in their haste to explore. Inside, Aibghalien had carefully cordoned every door, archway, or passage where spells would act against nonmagical sorts in any way. Still, that left a large area in the courtyard, the inner halls, and a large audience chamber where people could safely travel.

It was in the latter chamber that the wizard stood, pondering a lunar calendar that depicted the motions of three moons across the sky and their phases in exquisite detail.

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"The more I hear of your world, the more I'm glad I wasn't born on it," he said, chuckling. "We elves never had gods to begin with. Magic was in our blood."

He made a gesture, causing the chart to roll itself up. "This Tower... what can you tell me about it that I can't guess?" he said. "There's a great deal of... something here. Some appeal or call that runs deeper than simply my natural curiosity.

"It has its problems, but it's not all bad," Kang shrugged. "Every world does. You just learn to deal with them."

He paused, thinking, "Honestly, I don't really know much about it. No draconian was ever allowed here, both because of our history and none of us being mages. None of us except a few auraks ever really wanted to visit this place anyways."

"True, but given my particular calling, the problem of 'gods being intricately involved with and necessary to magic' would be hell," he said with a grin. ""And what you know is more than what I know. It's not... notoriously evil or anything, I assume. I won't say it's all good, given what you've said of how mages of all sorts worked together here..."

Kang laughed, smiling wryly, "You know, I used to think that I got my magic from the gods. I'd pray to Takhisis every night. So, when she left with the others, and magic didn't work for months, I thought I'd never be able to cast again. I didn't take it too well. The others figured out the truth and kept it from me, because they didn't... want to hurt me. But, circumstances led to me finding out, and I chose to abstain from magic, personally. I'd tied it so closely to my faith in the Dark Queen that it was near impossible to separate it, and I'd lost any faith I ever had in her."

He shook his head. "Until this ship, and strange things, magic-wise, began happening to me. Mei-Xing pointed out to me that it was stupid to not use my magic against the Ohm, and I realized she was right." She'd been very blunt about it, but she had been right.

"No, magic itself is neither good nor evil. It's what it's used for, and good and evil are subjective."

"That's an interesting statement coming from a person whose magic-users are explicitly required to declare an ethical allegiance," he said. To him, it was fairly obvious that dragon heritage, that touch of the supernatural, was the component that permitted Kang to use sorcery -- but on his own world, such things were quite clear-cut and obvious, so he certainly couldn't judge.

"I'm not sure I agree entirely. Some magics, I think, have no nature but evil. Most of the darker half of necromancy, for example..." He shook his head to put such thoughts from his mind. "Mostly, yes, though. Magic itself generally has no leanings, only purposes to which it is put."

"They're required to choose what color they wear as well, from what I remember, and they're not allowed to switch without informing the Heads of the Orders," Kang shrugged. "I don't think the ones that do regardless get a light punishment."

He walked over to one of the nearby tapestries, depicting a scene of metallic dragons fighting chromatics in the air and looked up at it, "You may have a point there. I always disliked necromancy."

"Practicing it is enough to see a veritable blood hunt, amongst the elves -- and most of the wiser humans, I'll even grant that."

He turned away from his research to look at what Kang was viewing. "Dragons. Tell me about dragons from your world. Everything I read seems, forgive me, completely unbelievable from my perspective."

"Dragons... that might take a while. Legends say that the good god Paladine created the metallics, and the evil goddess Takhisis created the chromatics," Kang pointed at each type as he spoke. "Gold, silver, brass, bronze, and copper. Red, blue, green, black and white."

There was a tiny amount of bitterness in his tone when he mentioned the metallic types, and his scales clicked. He obviously wasn't fond of them.

"Golds and reds breathe fire. Silvers and whites breathe ice, brasses and greens deadly gas, bronzes and blues lightning, and coppers and blacks acid. I've worked with some before, and fought against others."

"So there really are ten different types of dragons. I had thought that might have been an exaggeration or a mischaracterization from legend... but they were real, weren't they. A daily fact of existence..."

It boggled the mind. Enough so that he had to put a hand to his forehead, shut his eyes, and simply try to come to grips with it.

"And yet none of those dragons resemble Celena, or what legend tells of Cerilian dragons."

Kang nodded, "Yes, they're real. I'm proof enough of that; my kind were created from the stolen eggs of metallic dragons. I don't think I'd told you before." It had never really come up in conversation with them, oddly.

"Dragons differ from world to world. You should hear some of the legends humans on Earth have about them, of eating princesses or hoarding treasure. Though, the treasure bit is true of some of the Krynnish dragons. Especially reds, from what I hear."

"My kingdom has a mountain range in that legend says grew from the bones of the mightiest dragon of all time," he said quietly. "I believe that, to be honest, given their magical strength. To hear all this..."

But then he chuckled. "You know, I imagine this will sound bizarre to you in turn, but in a lot of ways you're much more comprehensible than the full dragon experience."

"You might have read it already, but for a time on Krynn, people believed dragons to be myth. Until they returned for the War of the Lance, at least," Kang said dryly. "The metallics didn't show up until a few years after the chromatics, to fight against them."

He blinked, and turned to look at Aibghalien, "Comprehensible? What do you mean by that?"

"You're NOT a creature of legend and myth, draconic though your heritage might be," he said, grinning. "You should have seen me stumbling over myself when Celena first showed up at my lab. I haven't been that babbling a wreck since I was forty."

Kang snorted, "You should be glad that it was Celena, and not a Krynnish chromatic that was the first dragon you ever met. They're not fond of elves, generally. She seems to have grown quite fond of you, though. And honestly, I'd rather not have any Krynnish dragons, metallic or chromatic, to deal with here."

The ominous silence lasted only a moment, but ought to be quite enough to instill a sinking feeling in Kang that was, frankly, quite justified.

"There IS one, I'm afraid," he said after that moment. "A bronze one. Going by the name of Crucible. And very much from Krynn."

Kang went perfectly still for several seconds before looking at Aibghalien with an unreadable expression, "Are you serious?" His voice had gone disturbingly calm.

"If I was going to lie, I wouldn't have picked the name Crucible," Aibghalien said. "But yes, I happened to notice a dragon, they having become something I've taken a bit of an interest in, and he explicitly mentioned your world."

It isn't as if he took pleasure in being the bearer of bad news.

"Where the hell has he been hiding? He's no small dragon - polymorph. He must be using polymorph. But who or what? And why is he hiding?" Kang let out a string of curses. "It figures, that out of anyone from my world that would show up, it's a Hero of the Lance, a dark elf, Bight, and a metallic dragon. Not just any type either, but a goddamn bronze. Of course it wouldn't be anyone I actually want to see, like my mate or a fellow draconian."

He was venting, but he didn't care. Why a bronze, of all things?

Edited 2011-05-04 21:26 (UTC)

"Krynn dragons can do that?!" Why hadn't he figured it out? If the magic system was consistent, and both Kang and the Tower proved that to most reasonable degrees they were, then of course dragons should have the ability to polymorph. A month of meticulously compensating for Celena's inability to do so naturally had biased and blinded him.

He hit the bridge of his nose with the heel of his hand. "I'm an idiot for not figuring that out. But -- I'll make sure it isn't a problem. Not that I can necessarily make it comfortable for you, but I won't allow anything to come of the past history."

"Yes, they can. They've got natural talent at magic, more than any other race on Krynn." Cursing again, Kang's wings rustled uneasily. Any of the people that had recently woken up, that he hadn't spoken to yet, could be Crucible.

"Oh, he knows I'm here," he said somewhat bitterly. "He knows who I am back on Krynn, and what I'm doing here."

Bight had to know that Crucible was on the ship.

"If there's anything I can do to help the situation?" he said. Not that he had any idea what precisely was involved or necessary, but...

Kang's tail lashed once, and he shook his head, obviously pissed, "There's nothing you can do. If you'll excuse me, I need to have a talk with someone about this matter."

He turned to leave, and then paused to dig a book out of the bag at his hip and toss it on the table. "Before I forget, I found this on XaXing. I thought you might like it." And with that, he didn't say another word as he walked out of the Tower.

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The Tower of High Socery, Redux

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