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To Dream of Darkness

A story by DoggyStyle57

Chapter 35, Written February 2012

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Chapter 35 - There is a hole in your world...

For the next week and a half, Sarina and Ashley spent every day at the rented workshop, working with Lady Portia on variations of the spells for making Portals. Ashley would resume her elemental form, and curl up comfortably in the workshop's forge, observing and occasionally making a constructive comment or a suggestion about a different way to do a spell. Sarina studied various texts, copying many different spells into a blank book as she learned them, so she could keep a copy of the rarer and more esoteric texts that Lady Portia, as a specialist in portals and teleportation, had collected. Although for appearance sake Sarina still wore all-black mourning clothes while on the street, once in the workshop she set aside her hat and veil, and concentrated on the tasks at hand.

What Lady Portia had assumed would be the hardest part of the more advanced spells was something that seemed to come naturally for Sarina - complex mathematical formulae and geometric calculations to determine the exact distance between two points, as well as the differences in longitude, latitude and altitude between them. But Sarina proved to have a gift at such three-dimensional calculations, and rarely did she even need to work them out on paper. She would just look at the figures and formulae, and give the answer, to a surprising degree of accuracy.

"How do you manage that?" Lady Portia asked one day. "How can you just look at an angle and tell me the measurement of it, to half a degree or better?"

"I don't really know," Sarina replied. "I didn't study anything beyond very simple mathematics until I was fourteen, and yet when I did, as soon as my tutor showed me the textbooks, it all just seemed to make sense. It's the same with most spells, for me. If I read it once, or watch it done once, I can usually repeat it exactly. In six years of being tutored here, I completed more than twelve years worth of mathematical sciences, and at the same time I learned all my other lessons at a similar rate. The only areas I can't seem to grasp are biology and medicine. Science or magic that deal with living things seem to somehow be blocked for me."

"Well, your ability with spatial calculations is certainly remarkable," Lady Portia said. "You'll be as good as I am, with another year or two's practice, and I've been doing this for more than twenty years. Now, do you feel up for a challenge today?"

"Always. What spell do you want me to demonstrate?" Sarina asked.

"First, I want you to create a viewing portal, just to the far side of the alley door. Make it undetectable, and then pivot the portal's facing direction, to look to the left and right in the alley, while I watch over your shoulder," the canine mage requested.

Sarina cast the spell, and a shimmering oval of light appeared in front of her, similar in size to a doorway. Through it she could see a brick wall. The perspective turned to the left, looking at where the alley met the street. Then it turned to the right, and Sarina saw something she didn't expect. In that direction, the alley should have ended in a weathered grey board fence, and several dustbins. But what she saw was the same view that she had seen in the other direction - a street entrance that she knew should be to the left of the alley door. She could even see the storefront across the street!

"You've cast a spell out there, haven't you? An illusion?" Sarina asked.

"Not an illusion, no. It's an application of a portal spell that I haven't taught you yet. Go out there and investigate it," Portia instructed.

Sarina stepped through the portal that she had made, leaving it open but concealed behind her. She looked in the direction that the street was supposed to be, and could see a lady in a red dress looking at something in the storefront window.

She turned the other direction, and was facing herself! Not five feet away was a second Sarina standing in the alley. Beyond the second Sarina she could still see the lady in the red dress across the street, and the storefront that she knew was behind her.

"A mirror spell?" she asked.

"Yes, but, not quite," said the disembodied voice of Lady Portia, through Sarina's portal. "Look carefully. What is it that makes this not an ordinary mirror?"

"Well, I can't see an edge to it at all. Not even where it touches the ground. And the walls seem to have a seamless flow of brick. I can't see where the reflective surface is, though I imagine it has to be halfway between where I am and my apparent doppelganger over there. There's no glare off the surface of glass, and no distortion. Wait! I can still read the sign on the store front that is behind me! It isn't reversed!" Sarina said. She held up her right hand, and the mirror Sarina also did so, but with the hand on the opposite side of her body! "It is a non-reversing mirror? Like I am viewing the scene behind me from the position I seem to be at down the alley?"

"Pick up a stone, and throw it at the Sarina that you see over there," Portia said. "Try to break the mirror. What do you think will happen?"

Sarina bent and picked up a stone, seeing her copy do the same thing down the alley. "If it's a variation of a portal spell, then there is no surface to break," she said. She threw the stone, and at the same moment saw the 'other Sarina' throw her stone. The two rocks passed in mid flight, in each case passing Sarina on her left side. Sarina looked down, and said, "That is the same rock that I threw. If I had thrown it intending to hit the 'imposter', it would have hit me, wouldn't it?"

The mirror effect vanished, and Lady Portia now stood at the blind end of the alley, in front of the dustbins. "Very good! Quick! You have me trapped! Cast a spell at me!"

Sarina raised her hand, and paused, saying, "I still detect magic somewhere between us. Faint, but there. That spell, or a variation of it, is still there, isn't it?"

"Toss the rock instead, and see," Lady Portia said with a grin.

Sarina picked up the rock, and threw it at the canine mage. It got to about the place where the two stones had passed before, and instantly reversed course, coming back at her as if thrown from the position the second Sarina had been seen at, moments earlier. "Fascinating! And it works for spells as well?" she said, as she cast a weak fire bolt at an angle down the alley, and watched it reflect off an unseen surface and return to strike the alley wall to her left, burning off some dirt but leaving the wall undamaged.

"Just so," Lady Portia said, as she walked forward. "And now, find me!" There was a moment of distortion in the air, and the mage vanished! Sarina could still see the fenced-off end of the alley, and the dustbins. But the mage was gone!

Sarina picked up another rock. She threw it down the alley, and it hit a dustbin by the end fence. "What sort of trick is this now? She just dropped the spell and teleported away? I suppose I could try to trace her teleportation spell, and see where she went," she said to herself. She walked to the far end of the alley and back, trying to detect the spell used, and sense where the teleport spell had sent the mage. But she got no indication that any portal or teleport spell had been used to leave the area. Just a faint aura of magic, consistent with more powerful spells having been used there recently.

Suddenly Sarina felt a small stone strike her back. She turned and saw a pebble skittering to a halt on the alley floor, apparently after bouncing off her lower back. "Are you still here, Lady Portia?" she asked cautiously. "I didn't detect a spell taking you away from here, but I don't detect invisibility or illusion, either."

"Nor would you be likely to detect I was here, until it was far too late," came Lady Portia's voice from less than a foot away. The canine mage's disembodied hand appeared out of nowhere, followed by her arm, and tapped Sarina on the shoulder, before retreating back into nothing. "There is a hole in your world." The mage's amused voice said.

"You're right there in front of me, yet I can't see or sense you, without trying to read your thoughts. No, not even then! Amazing... You can affect me, yet I can walk right through where you apparently are? How?" Sarina asked.

"Turn around, and face the alley's street entrance. Then back up, slowly, while looking carefully at the street. Tell me what seems wrong," said Lady Portia's voice.

Sarina did as she was told, and at a certain point, it seemed the position of the street entrance of the alley jumped about two feet farther from her. She stepped closer to the street, and saw the jump-effect again. Then she looked down, carefully, and examined the ground. She smiled, and said, "A hole, indeed! About two feet across, I would guess. I can see a slight line here on the ground, where the surface of the ground doesn't quite match. I would never have seen it if I wasn't looking right in that spot. This wouldn't be as convincing on rough, open ground, or in an open area, and not enclosed by evenly-textured walls, would it? You have a portal on either side of you, about two feet apart!"

"Excellent observations! Perfect marks, so far!" Lady Portia said. "So based on what you have observed, what are the weaknesses of this as a defense? How could you still attack me?"

"From the side, or above, or below? Portals are flat, right? At least the ones you have taught me to use so far are. So I could fly over your suspected position, and look down to see you between the two portals?"

"Just so. But there are other weaknesses to this as a defense. How could you affect me from where you stand, without out-flanking my position? Think, and it will come to you," said the voice of the mage.

Sarina thought a moment, and then said, "I can think of three ways, actually. A large area-affect cloud of gas, flames or other harmful conjured matter, cast above or to the side of your suspected position, would likely spill over the top or sides of the portals and into the unprotected area. But you could conceivably cast similar bypass portals on all sides, so what comes from above would go into the ground below you, and what comes from the side would also bypass you."

"Excellent! And quite correct. I just did that, and I am now in a box of similarly crafted sides. No spell or object cast at me from any direction can reach me. What are the other two ways to attack me?

"But you can apparently see me, and hear me, correct? So I could still attack you with sound, or with light!" Sarina raised a hand, and a blinding flare of light burst from her hand.

Lady Portia reappeared, covering her eyes. "Ow! That was very well done! Stung like crazy, too. Thank you for doing that instead of a sound-based attack, however. I'd rather see colored spots floating in the air for several minutes instead of being deafened, or having my ears ringing for hours. And well done also on choosing a way to demonstrate that you could attack me, in a way which harmed no innocent bystanders!"

You will show me how to do these spells?" Sarina asked hopefully.

"Not directly, no. I want you to figure them out for yourself. That will be your 'extra credit' assignment, due tomorrow," Lady Portia said. "I have taught you all the pieces that you need to know. You just need to determine how to put them together, to do what I demonstrated. I am certain you'll be up to the task. Show me you can do that, and then I will show you one final trick for making a portal to the far side of the world, or to a place you have never been before, and are uncertain of the exact location of."

===

Sarina stayed up all night, pausing only long enough for dinner. She was still awake and at the workshop when Lady Portia arrived the next morning.

"Can you do the spells?" Lady Portia asked, as soon as the door was closed.

"Yes, and more," Sarina replied, as she vanished from sight there in the workshop.

"Very good! I don't see any distortion of distance to the far wall at all. The room looks almost exactly as it did before you cast the spell, except you don't appear to be in it," Lady Portia said. "Only one fault. The direction of the floor planks changed by ninety degrees in the place where you were standing. You put one portal between those two pillars that form an arch between us. But the second portal isn't behind you. It's to your right side, showing me the side wall, and the floor past that pair of pillars, which is quite similar to the space you apparently vanished from. Well done!"

Sarina reappeared, and said, "Forgot about the floor. Took me a while to make the two walls match, to the last brick's shading. I can do the others, too. The non reversing mirror is a portal facing me going out, and another accepting what comes through it just in front of that, but concealed, as you had me do to look in the alley. So from one side, you see a non-reversed reflection of what is on that side. From the other side, you see nothing. The bypass portals are also see-through from within the pair or box of portals. You can cast spells out, but not be hit by incoming spells. But to see to attack, and to hear your victims, you have to allow light and sound not to be affected."

"Excellent. And what more did you discover?" Lady Portia asked.

"You don't have to be vulnerable to sound, if you are willing not to hear your opponent except by what passes around the sides of the portals," Sarina said proudly. "And if you are willing to not see them, and to use other means to target your attacks, you can keep light-based attacks from you as well. The spell might even be modifiable to pass only certain levels of light or sound, so above a certain brightness or loudness, it is muted."

"The student has become the teacher! I hadn't thought of modulating the level of light or sound that comes through the portal, but you are right, it could be done. Well done indeed. Sit down, and I will teach you your final lesson," Lady Portia said, smiling with pride at her pupil's accomplishments.