The Chronicles of Brendan Earle, Apprentice Mage.

The Oven Door Slams

Adam

Alabama 3, ‘Converted’. Don’t ask me why, but the rolling chorus, “Let’s go back to church” was running through my mind all the way over the sea. I didn’t know how many we had with us, but I’d have put money on there being five hundred dragons, with as many Duergar riding them. We’d got one of everyone in this world flying to possible battle with the bad guys, who were the same thousand in different bodies, multiplied many times over. I didn’t want to think about that, it gave me a headache.

I don’t know what I’d expected of the entry into the Western Lands. Passport control was unlikely, but I’d have thought some sort of flying defences would have shown up. How could Maldon just let us mount a major attack on his territory and not throw something massive at us to stop it? It beggared the imagination. It felt as if we’d invented the air force and he hadn’t got around to it yet.

The landscape was less impressive than I’d expected. Somehow the towns we passed were smaller and less well cared for than what I’d seen in the Mage lands. They also were very empty of any kind of fighting forces. Surely he’d known we were coming. Why was there no sign of anything to stop us? Did he want us to get through?

His tower showed up a long time before we got to the city it formed the centrepiece of. An impossibly long thread of something was reflecting the sun still rising behind us. He’d clearly been going for a tallest building in the universe prize. We were flying for a long time before the enormity of the thing started to strike. It wasn’t just that it wasn’t getting any smaller; it was that I could see clouds below the top of the tower.

It took us another fifteen minutes of flying before we were close enough to see a way in. Long before then I was convinced this thing couldn’t stand by itself. Even if that only meant this world’s magic, it was still, by the rules of this world, a massive display of energy.  You had to wonder at the mentality wasting power on this kind of show, maintaining a thing that made Jack’s beanstalk look puny. It really had someone to convince.

Near the top of the tower, where the air was thin, was a circular balcony which skirted the top. At one point it widened out to an area about the size of a small back garden, big enough for a cocktail party for people who carried their own oxygen. Not quite big enough for a dragon to land on comfortably, so Pa’alst hovered close to the edge and I climbed from his neck very carefully and scrambled over into the marbled area.

As I got in, I felt something like spider web brushing my cheek and noticed a distinct increase in the air pressure and warmth on the inside. Made sense, someone who’d go to this amount of trouble to give themselves a world-class view wouldn’t want to suffer while enjoying it.

Phoebe jumped down a second later. I’d wanted her to stay outside, but she wasn’t having it. Udaam tried to join us, but found the spider wall had become stronger and he couldn’t push his way through.

“We’re okay,” I called to him, “Take the dragon-flight and try to scare up some of the local dragons. Find out what’s going on and see if you can’t start a revolt. We’ll come out through the front doors, don’t worry. See you later.”

He wasn’t very happy, but headed off to work up some local mayhem. We moved towards a set of French windows that lead into the main part of the tower. The room inside was done in shades of brownish red. The furniture was antique. It looked like someone’s idea of a French King’s private living room to my eye; a Louis the something’s place where someone with a lot of money went when they were relaxing. It was a large room, though it didn’t seem it, as it stretched around the curve of the building.

Maybe I was showing my prejudices, but it didn’t go with the mad emperor theme of building such a high tower. This was making claims to a bit of antiquity, but not for the mediaeval style that most of the Land had been done in.