To Be Victorious: The Maestro Chronicles Book 6 Read online

  The phenomenon was beyond Daniel’s experience, but then again, no one he ever heard of had gone so fast while casting a spell.

  “The ripples,” Simon spoke in high volume. “Instead of radiating outward, I sense them bending backwards like a cone.”

  “What does that mean?” Tim asked. By the nervous tone in his voice it seemed he wanted to find out if the information was dire or something to celebrate and he was leaning toward dire.

  “It means Daniel has once again done something impossible. We are actually traveling faster than the speed of harmonics!” Simon replied and there was no hiding the awe in his voice.

  Sero was smiling, eyes wide with wonder, and staring out at the stars. The view above was so vast the manta hardly seemed to be moving, in spite of the incredible speed, and the storm below was a gray flickering blur. Daniel did not blame the man for staring.

  Carlos chuckled, as a result of mirth or nerves was difficult to determine. “Our Maestro does the impossible about every other day,” the bodyguard remarked as if the new feat was nothing out of the ordinary, or trying to convince himself that it was so. He did chuckle after all, which rarely happened. After a brief a pause, he then asked, “How did Accomplished Glader get back down?”

  It was a good question. Daniel knew the answer and was about to reply when his friend from childhood took the initiative.

  “He soared the manta downward like an albatross and then. ‘sort of fell back into the Serinian Channel,’ his words,” Tim replied. “Accomplished Hosea Shiloh described it as a fall and Accomplished Benrider used the word ‘crash,’ in his written report.”

  “Manta Two suffered no Damage,” Daniel was quick to inform. “The outer shield protected the vessel and the seat restraints kept the crew from being tossed about.” It seemed best to reassure his crew after the Admiral’s recounting of the event.

  Still, Daniel remembered the huge ocean swells, how big they could get, and did not fancy the idea of smacking hard into one or two of them. He had swallowed enough of his own tongue already on the current mission and although he could regrow it, again, decided the better course would be to limit the risk of biting it off at all. There had to be a better way of getting the ray in the air and back into the water.

  He ceased feeding potential into the emerald and the manta slowed, gliding in the air currents. “I don’t feel the harmonics anymore, we must be slowing down,” Simon shared his perspective. Daniel did not feel the need to verify the obvious and so made no remark.

  The winds buffeted the ray and it was not until they were closer to the clouds that he realized the vessel was descending. Without power to the CAPU, the manta was dropping, yet its wide fins acted like wings. Could they be flapped like those of a bird?

  He manipulated the grip, flapping the fins, trying to gain altitude, but as the manta continued to slow, it also continued to drop closer to the thunderstorm, regardless of how vigorously the fins waved up and down. The only thing his effort was achieving, besides losing altitude, was to make the ride bumpier with every swoop. The rising and falling with each beat made him feel as if he was strapped tightly to a bronco that, try as it might, could not throw off its rider. “Enough of this,” he managed to say without biting his tongue and stabilized the fins, which smoothed out the ride.

  He focused potential into the emerald while angling the fins the way he had been doing when under the water and desiring to go up. The ray climbed higher, which meant the thrusting of the CAPU was the only way to gain altitude, unless he tried to ride thermals the way the ospreys, eagles, falcons, and hawks that were part of the swirl of creatures linked to him often did. Trouble was, none of the spells aboard the manta would allow him to sense a thermal, he did not want to hunt for one, and had no such Melody in his repertoire. In time he could probably compose a suitable Symphonic, but a better idea popped into his head, one that did not require him to compose a new spell.

  They flew beyond the storm and descended, cruising at three hundred SPMs. It had taken four of his seven bolts of personal potential to push the manta beyond the speed of harmonics while also controlling the flight. Of all the Accomplisheds in the Atlantan Guild, only Leah and Sero could duplicate that accomplishment and live. For all practical purposes, the ray had gone fast enough. Someday he hoped climb above the clouds again, perhaps in day light, and see how fast he could push the manta, but not soon. All he desired at the moment was a quiet place to set down and make the alterations.

  The spell, Find All, made him aware of the ocean a span below, yet was useless for sensing anything above the ray, simply because everything up there was far out of range. He concentrated on what was below, hoping to find what he needed.

  Energy, focused in a broad cone, emanated downward from right behind him, covering an area one hundred spans across at sea level. After half a mark transpired, the caster said, “Maestro, I sense an island eighty-eight spans to the south.”

  “Thank you, Simon,” Daniel replied, and then banked the ray to the south.

  “I didn’t know you were looking for an island,” Tim revealed his surprise at hearing the Chief Aid’s announcement.”

  Daniel looked back, deciding the ray was high enough that it would be impossible to crash into anything ahead of it. “He often anticipates my needs.”

  “The rest of us have been enjoying the view and the much smoother ride,” Tim replied, looking to Simon. “How did you know he wanted an island?” The Admiral asked but gave no time for the question to be answered before adding, “Daniel, why do you want an island?”

  A small, closed-mouthed, smile appeared on Simon’s face. “I keep in mind what his goals are and think of ways to attain them. Beyond that, I watch what he does, especially in situations like we are in now. After traveling faster than the speed of harmonics and then testing ways of gaining altitude, our Maestro did nothing more than travel at the same height and speed for half a mark. His goal after completing the tests was to take what he learned and improve the manta’s capabilities. Since he did not turn us around to go back to the Benhannon Naval Facility, I figured he was hoping to find a place closer.”

  “Now you see why he is my Chief Aid,” Daniel said and brought his attention back on what was ahead, they were approaching the island.

  He cut the thrust of the CAPU and soared in a broad downward spiral above the isle that was shaped like a crescent moon, about seven spans long, east to west, and one wide. Osprey Vision made it easier to see in the dark, far better than the naked-eye view through the contoured observation window. Circling once more, he hit the waves, and the ray skipped like a stone across a pond, bouncing from swell to swell, jostling him and his passengers, until the manta came to a stop and sank beneath the surface.

  “Like Manta Two, the vehicle suffered no damage, and the restraints kept us from personal injury,” Carlos remarked. “But, Maestro, hitting the water so roughly is going to make the desire to fly a ray less inviting. I nearly bit my tongue.”

  Daniel, sympathizing with the complaint, swam the manta over a coral reef, and beached the ray in the sandy surf near the center of the crescent. Waves rolled in and out, splashing the back of the half submerged vehicle. “Everybody out,” he ordered and watched as Sero focused a spell at the roof of the compartment.

  A contoured hatched formed and then opened up, revealing the night sky. A step ladder formed in the space between the two center seats, stretching from the deck to the ceiling. Daniel waited for each person to climb out before unstrapping the restraints, removing the wristband, and making his way off the manta, and then onto the beach. Moonlight reflected off the waves that were rushing to the shore and the branches of palm trees swayed in the moderate breeze. His personal shield kept him cool, but did not prevent him from breathing in the humid air.

  The people around him must have known he was deep in thought because nobody said a word. Even in the moonlight he could see the anticipation in their eyes, confident that their Maestro knew exactly what he was
doing and that whatever it was would be amazing.

  No pressure. That’s what I get for doing what was considered to be impossible too many times. It’s becoming a challenge to live up to the growing expectations.

  Whether or not what he did impressed those who were watching him, he knew his modification would be an improvement. With that in mind, he summoned potential and levitated the ray fully out of the water, moved it about fifty paces inland, and then lowered it onto the sand.

  “See, he doesn’t even need that diamond-bladed crescendo sheathed at his belt to lift up and float a vessel from the water,” Simon apparently felt the need to point out the obvious.

  Daniel glanced at his Chief Aid. “May I borrow your baton?”

  The eyes of the Battencayan-born Accomplished widened in momentary surprise, although he recovered quickly. Clearly he had not anticipated the request, especially after his last remark, not that Daniel had expected him to, seeing as the man had no way of knowing what modifications were to be made. Still, the request had been timed to see how the Chief Aid would react, and it was worth it. Simon’s left eyebrow arched up quizzically as he reached into his cloak, whipped out his ebony baton, a cubit long with a two finger-length gold cap on the end, and tossed it toward his Maestro, who then snatched it out of the air.

  Daniel levitated sand into the air and summed potential, casting the spell, Change It. In moments the sand was shaped, solidified, and transformed into an exact replica of Simon’s baton, the one Daniel made when he first learned how to create a class one crescendo during his brief stay in Aakadon, and before he became persona non grata. After removing a disk-shaped piece of amber from an inner pocket of his topaz blue cloak, he summed the potential, playing the Symphonic, Jet of Air, in his mind. He focused the spell into the amber, added a Da Capo, and then attached the gem to the gold cap of the baton.

  The Chief Aid nodded, his unspoken question having been answered, Daniel handed back the borrowed crescendo, and then climbed into the manta. After situating himself at the console, he fused the new CPA to the control stick and cast another spell to extend the crescendo part of the CAPU. The ebony grew longer, stretching down beneath the deck, and then split off, one part continued straight down below where he sat at the front of the ray, and into the outer skin of the vehicle. The other part went towards the back end of the crew compartment, where it split yet again, this time to the right and left, and then down into the outer skin, giving him three balance points from which the jets of air would be focused.

  For a moment he was tempted to make the test flight right away, while Tim, Simon, Carlos, and Sero stood waiting on the beach. He had not yet determined whether or not the focus of each new jet needed to be broadened or sharpened to a narrower focal point. As it was, the new CAPU matched the capabilities of the rear CAPU, except the new one had an amplification factor of six rather than seven.

  “Come aboard,” he called in a spell-amplified voice that surely sounded much louder inside the vessel than it possibly could on the outside.

  His personal shield spell did not extend to his eardrums; fortunately they did not rupture, although he did have a slight ringing in his ears that persisted until the last of his crew members climbed down the ladder. Each person quickly took the seat he had occupied before disembarking.

  He still did not know if the focal points of the new CAPU would provide a smooth lift off or a stable flight, but decided, with a smile, that his crew deserved the opportunity to experience the joy of finding out along with him. He was fairly confident the modification would work and so felt it safe enough to go through with the test flight, otherwise he would not have invited the others back aboard. Perhaps Sherree did have some justification for being concerned about him jumping into danger.

  “What modifications did you make?” Tim asked a reasonable question, seeing as from the outside very little had changed about the manta. The three new focal points were on the bottom of the ray and only visible when looking up from underwater or from beneath, after being suspended in the air.

  “I see you have added another crescendo to the control stick with an amber gem on top of the gold portion,” Simon shared his observation. “What does the new Crescendo Powered Amulet do?”

  Daniel put on the wristband and the manta came back to life, activating the shield, air, and panoramic view. “Sero, would you close the hatch?” he asked without answering the Chief Aid’s question. Talk was cheap and actions could speak for themselves.

  “Certainly, Maestro,” replied the Four-bolt.

  The Demfilian-born Accomplished glowed with potential and focused a narrow beam at the contoured hatch, causing it the close, and reform seamlessly into the upper body of the ray. The ladder shrank back down into the deck.

  Daniel brought his thumb down on the amber, but instead of flooding a massive amount of energy into the gem, he sent a tiny trickle. At first nothing seemed to be happening, but as he increased the flow, the spell, Find All, allowed him to sense granules of sand beneath the ray being displaced by the three jets of air.

  Time to add more heft. He decided, and did so until Manta One began to rise up into the air. At ten cubits above the beach, he smiled at how well balanced the flows from the new CAPU kept the vehicle. Clearly, the focus point of each cone-shaped jet of air was broad enough to provide a gentle push off from the ground.

  “We are hovering perfectly still in the air,” Carlos said, and chuckled. This time there was no doubt good humor had caused the display of emotion.

  “I am picturing a flock of mantas swooping down on enemy ground forces and decimating them. The Serpent Guild will no longer rule the sky,” Tim said in a merry tone.

  “We probably will attack in that fashion after I decide it is time to reveal the existence of the rays,” Daniel replied. “Once I do, Tarin Conn is likely to create something worse than the skyships to counter our mantas.”

  “Tarin Conn is dead,” Simon stated flatly. “Up until three days ago he had a habit of teleporting into a battle zone and summing all of his potential. Even though he could not focus energy beyond the shield you placed on him, the harmonics were so powerful everyone on both sides would fall to the ground. It was mostly a terror tactic but quite unnerving for those who experienced it, and effective. It has been days since we felt spells of such magnitude and the Dark Maestro has not appeared at any battlefronts. He must be dead.”

  Tim and Simon had been with Daniel three days earlier when, after the last major Ripple event, the Chief Aid had stated, “I know, Taron Conn is still safely shielded,” and Daniel had replied, “No, he is not.” Sero and Carlos were off duty and not in the office at that time.

  The bodyguard barked out a laugh. “Accomplished Trenca, I have grown accustomed to hearing you draw conclusions from seemingly obscure happenstance, yet this is farfetched even for you. Just because the Dark Maestro has refrained from popping in unexpectedly for a few days does not mean he is dead. It probably means he is preparing for a more meaningful attack. The picture in my mind is more like what Admiral Dukane just stated, flocks of Atlantan Guild rays devastating enemy targets on the ground, hundreds of spans from any river, sea, or ocean. I am also considering our Maestro’s caution over revealing the mantas and share his concern over what Tarin Conn might create to counter them. What I do not consider or believe is that Tarin Conn will die just because someone wishes him dead. If that were so, he would have died long ago in the ancient tomb we call Kelgotha.”

  Daniel turned around and looked Simon in the eyes and the young man flinched as if he had been slapped. There was something about gazing into the disapproving eyes of the Chosen Vessel that made people exceedingly uncomfortable and that was exactly how Daniel wanted his Chief Aid to feel. “We cannot speculate Tarin Conn to death. Bring me proof he is dead and I will rejoice with you and be most glad to have been proven wrong. Until then, we will make our plans and decisions based on the belief that Tarin Conn is very much alive and dangerous.”

 
Simon’s eyes lowered, fixing on the deck below Daniel’s chair. Clearly, he realized it was no time for a cheeky remark and that he had been speaking against orders. After a few moments of staring at whatever spot he had chosen to focus on, he looked up and said, “My speculation was farfetched. I want so much to think of him as being dead, that sometimes I fantasize about it. You have enough real concerns on your plate to consume without me adding raw speculations. It is my desire and duty to help you, not be a hindrance.”

  Daniel gave him a quick affirmative nod of the head. “You have proved very helpful in the past and I have no doubt you will be so in the future.”

  A long pause in conversation ended when Tim asked, “Have we finished the tests? Are there anymore improvements you want to make?”

  Daniel was satisfied with what he had accomplished. “I am open to suggestions. Are there any modifications or maneuvers you think I should make or try? If so, now is the time to speak up, otherwise I am ready to head back.”

  It was past mid-night and they were a long way from the Benhannon Naval Facility. He hoped to return soon and possibly sleep in the bungalow.

  “The manta is perfect as far as I can see,” Tim shared his evaluation.

  “I agree with Admiral Dukane.” Carlos gave his approval.

  Sero turned his head to the right, looking Daniel in the eyes. “I have no suggestions for improvement. The manta ray is more formidable now than it was when we started out.”

  A hand came to rest on Daniel’s right shoulder and was removed after having gained his attention. “I have no suggestions regarding improvements to the Manta, but I believe you should consider creating a base here on this island. Doing so would give the Atlantan Guild a strong presence near the east coast of the continent. On the surface we can have Wager-class patrol boats and beneath we can make an underwater port for the mantas.”

  Daniel turned his head to the rear and nodded, pleased his sandy-haired friend had bounced back from speaking about what should be kept quiet to actually again being a help. “In the morning I will order the Department of Design and Development to begin work on the new installation. I am sure Conductor Togan will be delighted to have such an ambitious project.”