“The concepts involved are completely new to me,” agreed Kulgan. “Anyway, I had neutralized that spell so I could read the letter without fear of magical traps, common to private messages written by magicians. The language was of course strange, and I employed a spell from another scroll to translate it. Even understanding the language through that spell, I don’t fully understand everything discussed.
“A magician named Fanatha was traveling by ship to a city on his homeworld. Several days out to sea, they were struck by a severe storm. The ship lost its mast, and many of the crew were washed overboard. The magician took a brief time to pen the scroll—it was written in a hasty hand—and cast the spells upon it. It seems this man could have left the ship at any time and returned to his home or some other place of safety, but was enjoined from doing so by his concern for the ship and its cargo. I am not clear on this point, but the tone of the letter suggested that risking his life for the others on the ship was somehow unusual. Another puzzling thing was a mention of his duty to someone he called the ‘Warlord.’ I may be reaching for straws, but the tone leads me to think this was a matter of honor or a promise, not some personal duty. In any event he penned the note, sealed it, and was then going to undertake to move the ship magically.”
Tully shook his head in disbelief. “Incredible.”
“And as we understand magic, impossible,” Kulgan added excitedly.
Pug noticed that the magician’s professional interest was not shared by the Duke, who looked openly troubled. The boy remembered Tully’s comments on what magic of that magnitude meant if these people were to invade the Kingdom. The magician continued, “These people possess powers about which we can only speculate. The magician was very clear on a number of points—his ability to compress so many ideas into so short a message shows an unusually organized mind.
“He took great pains to reassure his wife he would do everything in his power to return. He referred to opening a rift to the ‘new world, because—and I don’t fully understand this—a bridge was already established, and some device he possessed lacked some capacity or another to move the ship on his own world. From all indications, it was a most desperate gamble. He placed a second spell on the scroll—and this is what caught me in the end. I thought by neutralizing the first spell I had countered the second also, but I was in error. The second spell was designed to activate as soon as someone had finished reading the scroll aloud, another unheard-of piece of magical art. The spell caused an other of these rifts to open, so the message would be transported to a place called ‘the Assembly’ and from there to his wife. I was nearly caught in the rift with the message.”
Pug stepped forward. Without thinking, he blurted, “Then those hands might have been his friends trying to find him.”
Kulgan looked at his apprentice and nodded. “A possibility In any event, we can derive much from this episode. These Tsurani have the ability to control magic that we can only hint at in our speculation. We know a little about the occurrences of rifts, and nothing of their nature.”
The Duke looked surprised. “Please explain.”
Kulgan drew deep on his pipe, then said, “Magic, by its nature, is unstable. Occasionally a spell will become warped—why, we don’t know —to such a degree, it . . . tears at the very fabric of the world. For a brief time a rift occurs, and a passage is formed, going somewhere. Little else is known about such occurrences, except that they involve tremendous releases of energy.”
Tully said, “There are theories, but no one understands why every so often a spell, or magic device, suddenly explodes in this fashion and why this instability in reality is created. There have been several occurrences like this, but we have only secondhand observations to go on. Those who witnessed the creation of these rifts died or vanished.”
Kulgan picked up the narrative again “It’s considered axiomatic that they were destroyed along with anything within several feet of the rift.”
He looked thoughtful for a moment. “By rights I should have been killed when that rift appeared in my study.”
The Duke interrupted. “From your description, these rifts, as you call them, are dangerous.”
Kulgan nodded. “Unpredictable, as well. They are one of the most uncontrollable forces ever discovered. If these people know how to manufacture them and control them as well, to act as a gate between worlds, and can pass through them safely, then they have arts of the most powerful sort.”
Tully said, “We’ve suspected something of the nature of rifts before, but this is the first time we’ve had anything remotely like hard evidence.”
Kulgan said, “Bah! Strange people and unknown objects have appeared suddenly from time to time over the years, Tully. This would certainly explain where they came from.”
Tully appeared unwilling to concede the point. “Theory only, Kulgan, not proof. The people have all been dead, and the devices . . . no one understands the two or three that were not burned and twisted beyond recognition.”