The Academy

By Vincent Trigili

The Empire had fallen, and the Imperial Navy was disbanded leaving James with nothing but his nightmares to remind him of the role he once played in The Great War. James must now face his new life in a new era where science and technology must share the stage with sorcery and wizardry, and a new ever-present shadow of evil lurks over the remnants of the once great Empire. A new generation of warriors will be needed to fight this battle. James is determined to be part of that new generation and maybe find freedom from the nightmares that control his life.

This is Volume II of the Lost Tales of Power.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Vincent Trigili
• Release date: Jun 13, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458082527

Vincent Trigili

The Lost Tales of Power is a sci-fi fantasy cross over series written by Vincent Trigili. Vincent is a graduate student at Liberty University, and presently holds undergraduate degrees in Math and Computer Science. Currently, he is working as a senior software developer at Liberty University. Vincent owns and runs the highly popular astronomy forums, Our Dark Skies, and also maintains the associated Facebook page. He has published several astronomy journals, calendars, blog articles, poetry, and photo books over the years and now turns his hand to fiction. The worlds described in The Lost Tales of Power series were born out of Vincent’s long history of creating role playing games in the old pen and paper tradition. He uses the rich history of those worlds he created to imagine an entirely new world for this series. Vincent uses his exposure and history with science and technology to keep the stories in the realm of the possible while balancing that with an eye for fantasy. The early books in the series take place in a futuristic universe that has recently been discovered by a medieval realm; later books in the series will take place in either realm, or perhaps a realm that has yet to be discovered. All of the books are intended to be roughly equivalent to the movie rating PG. This means any teenager or adult should be comfortable reading them, but some of the material, themes and descriptions may be unsuitable for smaller children. Parents are advised to read the books themselves before deciding if their child should be exposed to the contents of the novels.

Book preview

Prologue

James

Alarms were going off all around me as I gripped my dual phase pistols and made a break for the bridge. The enemy had boarded our ship and they were hunting us down, killing us left and right. All around me I could hear the echoes of my fellow shipmates screaming for mercy. The ship smelled like burnt flesh and was filled with thick, black smoke.

I had to get to the bridge; I had to reach my station. I sprinted down the hall, dimly illuminated by emergency lights. The ship was in low power mode due to all the damage we had sustained. Our craft, the Crusader, was the smallest command ship of the assembled fleets and was not faring well under the constant assault, and now those monsters had boarded us. I did not even have the language to name such vile creatures.

I was making for the maintenance shaft at the end of hall three, which would take me up to the bridge on deck fifteen. Turning the corner, I came upon one of those creatures. It was like some mad scientist’s hybrid of multiple kinds of insect. Its massive claws easily tore through and ripped down the door between us and it charged at me.

Without conscious thought, I fired both my weapons over and over at the creature. It screamed: a bone-chilling, soul-wrenching sound that I wish I could forget. I continued to fire my weapons as fast as I could, not daring to pause even to change directions and run. It was enough to force the creature to retreat, but I was sure I had not seriously hurt it.

I did not wait for its return; instead I sprinted with all my strength down the corridor. I had to reach the bridge; everything depended on it. I tried not to notice the mangled remains of my fellow shipmates as I made my run. The smoke and stench made my eyes sting, and my gut was twisting up inside me wanting desperately to jump out through my throat.

On the floor in the corridor I found some abandoned weapons, more powerful than my phase pistols. I tried not to think about the person who had used them prior to me and instead focused on the upgrade in my firepower. I holstered both of my pistols and grabbed a rapid-fire pulse rifle from among the weapons as I continued my mad rush to the maintenance shaft.

As I turned the final corner I saw the entrance. I screamed in shock as I kicked open the hatch and leaped into the shaft: the ladder was white-hot, so that even through my armored gloves I could feel the heat. I tossed my rifle over my shoulder and climbed the ladder faster than I had ever climbed before, determined not to let a little discomfort keep me from my goal.

Somehow I made it up that shaft and rolled out into the corridor. It was a straight run from there to the bridge. I just needed to keep my head and focus on the goal. I can do this, I thought to myself. I had started down the hall when one of those creatures burst through a wall and charged me.

I did not stop my run. Letting loose a primeval yell, I fired my rifle as fast as I could and blasted my way right through its disgusting body. Then another came and another, and soon they were coming from everywhere. I fired my rifle until it was drained and then used it as a club, still trying to make it to the bridge. All around me I could hear people screaming: James! Please don’t kill us! and James, you are our only hope, save us!

I tried to push on to the bridge, but the creatures kept coming; then one reached me and …

I sat up in bed, dripping with sweat but freezing cold. I looked around and slowly recognized my old bedroom in my parents’ home. I tried to shake the image from my mind and remind myself that I had not even been aboard the Crusader, and nothing I could have done would have saved her that day.

After some time, I got up and headed to my desk, knowing there would be no more sleep for me this night. There was plenty of work to do, and I desperately needed to get my mind off the Crusader. I told myself again that there was nothing I could have done to save her, but that did not quell the screams in my head.

Looking at the discharge paperwork on my desk, I felt a spasm in my gut. I had spent my entire life so far in the Imperial Navy, given it everything I had. I was decorated for honorable and courageous service a dozen times. I had survived a major war with the worst enemy ever conceived of in all our known history, and yet I was quitting.

How could I continue, though? I could not even sleep through the night without hearing the screams of the dying. I had failed the Crusader and her crew. On a ship her size, the crew complement was in the tens of thousands. All of them had families and friends; all of them were lost because I failed. I wondered how many of them had been at the end of their tour and ready to go home. How many had signed up expecting to serve out a full term until they retired around their fourth century of service? Yet because of me, with far less than a quarter of a century in the Navy, they would not serve even one more day.

I had planned to serve another term there, but I just could not do it any longer. My family had no idea why I had come home; I had told them only that I was on leave when I arrived home unannounced. My father was his normal self, completely out of sorts on account of my surprise arrival; but Mom had calmed him down in time for a late dinner.

My current term of service was up, and resigning now meant I would get a full honorable discharge as a distinguished war veteran. Leaving the Navy meant leaving everything I knew, changing my entire life, but it would allow me to move on from that horrible experience. Yet it felt like a coward’s move, running from my fears instead of facing them.

No, I am not a coward, I had to remind myself as I looked at the other paper on my desk, an application form; not just any application, but an application to the one place where I could gain the necessary skills so that I would never again be forced to let good people fall victim to such horrible creatures.

As I completed my discharge paperwork and placed it and the application in the outgoing mail queue, I wondered briefly what my new future would hold. Would my application even be looked at by anyone who mattered? Would they just laugh at it, or would I be seriously considered? The odds were so far against me it was hard to even pretend to myself that I had a chance.

1

James

Everyone had told me not to bother applying for entrance into the school, because almost everyone who applied was rejected without explanation. According to the figures recently released by the school, several million people apply every year and only one thousand are accepted. Of that one thousand, less than a hundred of them were likely to complete the first level of the school; and for most students that took at least ten years, rising to fifteen in some cases. Data had not yet been released on how many applicants were actually gifted with the ability to use magic, nor was it explained how they could possibly know that from the application forms.

It was also unusual for someone like me to apply because I came from a long line of Navy men and women. It was generally assumed that anyone born into our family would dedicate their life to the Navy, but that was all before The Great War between sorcerers and wizards: the war that spilled over into our realm. After that, everything had changed.

For the first time in recent history, the stability of the Empire was threatened not by any external forces but by internal rebellion. As tales spread throughout the realm describing the battles between wizards and sorcerers, it shook people’s faith in the Emperor and marked the beginning of the end of worshiping him as a god. Open rebellion and the slow crumbling of naval power marked the years following the war. When it seemed inevitable that the Empire was doomed to be ripped apart by various groups all vying to replace it, promising great things while pledging to destroy anyone who tried to stop them, the Emperor had made an announcement that shocked the realm.

Like everyone, I know exactly where I was when he made that announcement. I was at my post on the bridge of the still undefeated Dragon Claw. We were on our way to reinforce those protecting the capital planet. The Emperor’s broadcast overrode every channel on every communications station in the entire realm.

Attention, good people. Lend me your ear for a brief moment. I come before you not as your god but as a man just like you. Put down your weapons, I beg, and listen for just a moment, was how he began. The shock of that humble opening was reported to have silenced all weapons and debates everywhere. "Many things have changed in recent years, and the universe we once knew, the rules and beliefs we once held are no longer valid. Therefore I am declaring the end of an era, and henceforth all calendars should be reset so that the day of our victory over the sorcerers marks the beginning of a new era. This entails doing away with many of our old ways, including the archaic notion that I am some kind of deity. I am no god, merely an old man doing his best to keep all of you safe. We need a new system of government, as the previous one can no longer keep the peace in our realm. Let us not forget that we must remain united to defend ourselves. The sorcerers have been pushed back for the present but they are not gone for good, and we still have many old enemies from our own realm who will attempt to take advantage of our inner struggles for their own gain.

To bring us back to the united power that we once were, I am dividing the Empire into twenty-five districts based on the standard tax divisions. Each district will be self-governed by a local government of their own choosing, and each district will send two representatives to a united council. This council will be the new ruling body of the realm. In order to realize this goal, I ask all of you to unite in peace under the present laws and protections for a period of five years to allow each district to slowly take local control and choose their representatives to send to the first meeting of the council. At that first meeting we will create a constitution which will be the governing law for all districts that agree to it. The present High Command is already disbanded, and I am creating a diplomatic staff to handle the massive organization and administration that this will entail. As each district becomes ready to regulate themselves, they should contact the capital for more details and information. Thank you for listening, and let us work together to build a greater and better future.

With that the fighting ended. Suddenly no one had reason to fight anyone else, as the Emperor had given everyone all they demanded and much more. Over the next few years, while the local governments took control, the big question on everyone’s mind was whether Grandmaster Vydor would join the council. No one had heard much from him since the war, though it was rumored that he and the other wizards had built a large fortress to work from.

It took over ten years before the first council could meet, and once it did it opened with a screaming match. The Emperor had drawn up a plan for the new government which he seemed to assume would be rubber-stamped, but each district had devised their own scheme which they wanted to follow. After the first day of screaming and shouting, the Emperor announced that Grandmaster Vydor wished to address the new council. While the Emperor had lost his aura of power, Grandmaster Vydor had not: his mere name was known to silence a crowd.

He appeared floating before the council in his full formal robes. Honored Representatives of the Empire, why do you attack each other in this way? Why shout each other down? Have you already forgotten the lessons we learned in the war? United you stand in power, divided you fall. Look around these chambers. Everyone here was your brother before we were attacked. Why make them your enemy now? Did we win the war with the sorcerers just for the opportunity to destroy each other? He paused there. They say not a single member of the council replied to his questions, but all sat in stunned silence. After that he continued: I suggest you go to your rooms, get some rest, and start again tomorrow as friends; and when you draw up your new plan of government, I ask that you honor the Empire’s pledge to stand with the wizards against our mutual enemy. Now I leave you with this benediction: may the real god of this universe bless you and guide you to create a better future for all the realms.

The next day when they met again the tone was much more muted. They had a lot of issues to work out, but they took Grandmaster Vydor’s words to heart and worked together on it. It took them two years to craft and approve the constitution. In the end, only twenty of the twenty-five districts now known as nations pledged to join. It transpired that the Zalionian districts all chose to break off and stand alone under Emperor Zalith; however, they did eventually agree to an alliance with us, which made everyone breathe a bit easier.

So it came to be that, two decades after the war, the Navy was to be split up and sections of it given to each district. It was then that I decided to take an early retirement. When my parents finally found out they were gravely disappointed. They had fully expected me to join our new nation’s navy and continue the family tradition until I was too old to serve, perhaps another four centuries or so, but I had other plans. I wanted to go to Grandmaster Vydor’s newly-created school and stand in defense of the realm as a whole instead of just our little nation.

At first my father did not worry too much about it. He figured I would be rejected just like millions of others were, and then I would do the sensible thing and sign up with the new navy. After all, he had served until his four hundred twenty-fifth birthday, just as his father before him. Three years passed without a word from the school, so I was losing hope when a message finally came from the Academy. I am not sure which of us was the more shocked when we heard that I had been accepted, but that certainly changed his attitude. He grew angry and told me that no son of his would ever turn his back on the navy. My father assured me that if I went through with this, he would remove me from the family. I was unsure how he might go about that, but his reaction was a crushing blow to my excitement. For months I pleaded with him to reconsider, to no avail.

When the day finally came for me to leave, he called me aside into his private study. I expected him to recommence his attack, but he sat there behind his big, wooden desk just looking at me in silence. That desk always brought back memories of my grandfather, who used to sit there just as my father did in his turn. It had been in the family for many generations, always passed down to the firstborn son. As a child I had dreamed of the day when I would sit behind it, but in the face of my father’s anger I had begun to doubt that the desk would ever pass to me.

Son, I have been talking with one of my old friends about your plans to go to Grandmaster Vydor’s school. He knew Grandmaster Vydor well before the war, and I was surprised to hear quite a different account of how things went than we see on the broadcasts. I am quite impressed with what I have learned about him, especially the strategies he used in the war. I hope they have a class dedicated to how he ran the conflict, because it is a pattern of the right way to do it. He had a broad picture of what must be done, but did not burden the troops with micromanaged detail. But you were there and you know all that. I learned something else which you never told me: it appears that you were responsible for the decision which won the war for us.

When he said that, the memory of that battle came rushing back to me …

I was on the bridge of the Dragon Claw watching in awe the battle between Grandmaster Vydor and the grandmaster sorcerer. We had tried to measure the level of power being used in the fight, but it was off all our meters. It might as well be two gods out there, commented one officer. The captain replied, And just think, they are still new at this.

Captain, surely we can assist them? They are so evenly-matched right now; if we can help even a little it could tip the scales in their favor, I suggested.

You are right, James! Bring all weapons on all ships back online! Master Kellyn said that energy-based weapons would work on those creatures we’ve just fought, so why not on him? Target the center of the darkness and fire at will! called out the captain.

Grandmaster Vydor had said later that they could not have won the fight without the help provided by the fleet at that critical moment. Sir, you have told me many times that a true warrior never boasts but lets his record stand for itself.

He beamed with pride at that remark. They say that it’s virtually impossible to graduate from the school, and they expect fewer than ten percent of those they let in to even reach the first level of their forces.

Yes, sir, was all I said. I was unsure what conclusion he was leading up to.

Well, if my son were to attend this school, I would fully expect him to graduate at the top of his class, he said.

I sat in silence, not knowing what to reply. He eventually resumed speaking.

Son, it sounds as if this Grandmaster Vydor is a true example of what navy men should be, and for you to study under him at the most difficult school in the realm would make our family proud. I was wrong about him, and I underestimated you. Attend the school with my blessing, and be sure to report in regularly. I will be very interested to hear how he runs things there.

Thank you, sir. I will not let you down, nor the honor of our family. They say it takes ten to twelve years merely to get through their equivalent of boot camp, so there may not be much in the way of shining reports for a long time to come.

He smiled at that, and I knew he was remembering when he had left to join the Naval Academy for the first time. After a manly hug and handshake, I left to catch the shuttle to the school.

2

Seven Magi

In a dark room made completely from stone, seven magi gathered around a large, shallow bowl. The bowl was filled with some highly viscous silver liquid. The bowl itself was also made of stone and sat on a large pedestal fashioned in the likeness of a hand, though bizarre and twisted. It was at least two meters in diameter and stood a meter above the floor.

Each of the magi wore thick, heavy robes so black they were almost impossible to see, even in the best of lighting. It was as if all the light in the room fell into them and could not escape. The only distinction between the magi was in the subtle color of their hoods and the style of their staves.

One magus raised his staff in the air and began to chant as the rest stood watching. His hood was a deep red, barely discernable from black. His staff was the color of driftwood and resembled a comet. It glowed faintly red as he chanted.

As the chant reached a crescendo he lowered his staff so that the tip of it barely touched the liquid in the bowl. The liquid began to spin, picking up speed to match the rhythm of his chant, yet the bowl itself seemed to stay perfectly still.

As the red-hooded magus returned his staff to his side an image slowly came into focus in the spinning liquid. The scene displayed was of a large transport hub in orbit around a stony, dead world. The gathered magi watched a shuttlecraft of some kind approach the station, dock, and eventually leave.

The magi continued to watch the scene in total silence as if it were the most important thing that had ever been shown to anyone. After a while the red-hooded magus uttered a command word, and the scene in the bowl changed. The new focus of the bowl’s attention was a young, fit human in rather mundane clothing, standing in a long line of creatures of many races in various kinds of garb. He seemed nervous and was constantly looking around as if he expected something bad to happen at any time.

Eventually the human reached the front of the line and was ushered through a security checkpoint. As he passed through it he looked over his shoulder, as if wondering who was following him and seeing no one there.

He senses us, one magus said.

Impossible, said another.

It matters not, said a third.

The human then worked his way through the crowds, obviously looking for something, constantly glancing over his shoulder and checking the people around him. Something was clearly bothering him.

Soon he made it to another line of people who were dressed in similar nondescript clothing. It was a line to board another shuttle, and it was slowly moving forward. When all the people were on the shuttle the scene in the bowl shifted to follow the eventual launch, and as it approached the planet which was its destination the image in the bowl began to get blurry and eventually became completely fogged over.

The red-hooded magus raised his staff and said a single command word which caused the liquid to slowly stop spinning. So it begins again, was all he said.

3

James

The school turned out to be nothing like the Naval Academy. In fact, nothing in my life could have prepared me for what faced me when I arrived. Prospects, the title given to all the incoming students, were given the lowest of the low positions. We did the work that was done by robots back on my homeworld, as it was considered to be below the dignity of any person to perform such tasks. We were required to clean up after livestock, shear sheep, make clothes, and do all the servile tasks necessary to run the school. This was a major culture shock, for me at least; I grew up on the capital planet and had spent my entire adult life in space. I had never seen a cow before, and knew nothing about how to care for one. I knew what my father would tell me if I complained: he would say, I do not care if your job is washing the bolts on the floor of the bathroom, you will do it to the best of your ability, and excel beyond all who have come before. So that was exactly what I determined to do.

There were a few bright spots in those first years at the Academy. I still remember our first lesson at the school that had anything to do with magic at all. It came in our third year there. We were all ushered into a large lecture hall lit only by candles and lanterns. When I had first arrived at the school the smoke from them stung my eyes and brought back memories I did not wish to remember, but over time I got used to the constant smoke and only noticed it in passing.

Once we had all settled in, an ancient-looking man stood to address us. He said, Prospects, congratulations on making it thus far in this fine school. Over half of your classmates have already given up, but you carry on. To have reached even this stage puts you head and shoulders above most people in your realm. He paused here a moment as if to gather his thoughts and then continued. Prospects, the years ahead will continue to grow harder and harder, and the desire to leave will grow in each of you. We see many depart each year without ever making it to their first class in the powers they came here to learn. Eventually you will understand why we operate the way we do, but for now we just ask that you continue to work hard and do your best.

He stepped off the stage, and I