Free Magic (complete)

Chapter 13

Anders was still up working on his notes when a paper slid under his doorway. He glanced at it, stretching his arms over is head, yawning. He stiffly got up from his chair and opened the door. What he expected was Jak. What he saw was no one.

"What in Shadow's realm..?" Anders looked down the hall each way. It was empty. He shut his door and picked up the parchment.

Meet me on the Roof

~Harlow

Anders blew out the candle on his desk and left his room. The hallway was short, and being on the top floor he quickly reached the hatch in the stairway that pulled down a ladder to the roof. Anders looked around. There wasn't a soul in sight, he was free to try the roof. From past experience he knew it should by all rights be locked, but he reached up and pulled the chain that dropped down the ladder with ease. There were no guards, nothing stopped him from going up and breathing in the night air.

Anders peered over the stone frame of the roof access. Standing a few yards away was a little form watching the stars. He continued through the hatch and drew it closed with the rope pulley.

"Ah, you were awake. I wasn't sure so I left a note as quietly as I could." Harlow waved Anders over to his spot, which was a thick blanket on the flat stone roof of the keep. There were meat pies laid out and two wineskins. A tapered brass tube on a stand was set up facing the moon.

"Harlow?" Anders approached and took a seat. "What's going on?" The view of the night landscape around Whitethorn was eerie. Being outside at all unsettled him, it felt as if he could float right off the roof.

"I was studying the stars in this part of the world. I loose myself in thought when I do this sometimes, and tonight my thoughts wandered to you." He had a black cloak pulled around his shoulders, but underneath still wore his gold and white coat. His small frame swam in the excess fabric.

Anders stared at Harlow who was making notes in a small book. Harlow kept on for a moment, before looking back at the boy mage.

"Oh! I suppose you want to know why I called you here." He put down his charcoal and notebook. "Just company I suppose. I work with a number of mages and I can't say I've met a lightning mage like you before. Can I ask you a few questions?"

"I suppose that couldn't hurt, if I could ask a few questions back?" Anders felt uneasy being asked on a secluded roof in the middle of the night by a strange, STRANGE man he had met only once. Maybe a few questions of his own would ease his mind.

"As is only fair, of course my boy." Harlow took a drink from a wineskin and offered the other to Anders. "Its cider, if you like. Now, what is the longest you can remember using your power continuously? Let me phrase it another way too, have you ever cast forth a bolt of power and held it for a period of time?"

"Well, a minute or so I suppose. With lightning you don't really need it longer than that." Anders answered.

"I see, and would you be willing to try an experiment of sorts?" Harlow was digging in his coat for something.

"I guess I could depending on what it is." Anders watched Harlow continue to dig around for something. "Where do you come from? I mean, you don't seem to be from Selstad."

"I lived in Shahasir most of my life, a city in Nummelin. I now travel however, studying the world around us and visiting like-minded scholars." Harlow drew his framed lenses from his coat and perched them on his nose. "Ah, here we are. What I propose is to see how long you can hold a stream of power directed at this iron ball. Of course you can do a small amount of power, it is not potency of your power I would like to measure but continuance of your hold on it."