Free Magic (complete)

Chapter 16

Anders stood in his doorway, frozen in shock. There on his bed laid three leather books, slightly singed but otherwise in good condition. Next to them was a small rust colored quartz, the last one he needed. He eventually stepped forward, brushing a finger on the smooth leather. It wasn't an illusion or a trick. His books were all three there.

He shut his door and hungrily drank in every page while rubbing the hard quartz in his palm. The smell of the ink, the texture of the paper, the crystal digging into his skin. Every test, every experiment, every source he had found in the dark hours of the empty library.

"All of it." He brushed his fingers over the last page once he had flipped through everything. "It's all here."

His chest swelled with excitement. The air crackled with energy around him. He had a hard time containing the excited lightning from bursting out of his body and consuming the room.

"Anders!" A gruff voice commanded from the hallway. The distinct authority of a soldier's order chilled his spine. His heart stopped, did the wind mage change his mind and turn them in for fighting? He threw the books and stone under his pillow and opened the door.

"Storm comin'. Get out here." Three guards waited for him to open his door. They were dressed not in their usual chainmail, but thick leather brigandine. He sighed and raised his arms to be patted down. He wasn't in trouble at all.

They escorted him to the roof access once they determined he didn't have anything hidden on his person. One of them unlocked the hatch and climbed up first, followed by Anders, then the other two. Half a dozen other leather clad soldiers waited on the far corners of the keep.

Wind ruffled Anders's hair. Fat grey clouds were indeed rolling through the sky. The crackling in his room wasn't his excitement, it was the storm. Between the brawl with Cerdic and his research turning up he hadn't noticed the weather sweeping through.

"Stand back, you don't want to be near 'im." Anders turned to see what the guard meant, but he was talking to the younger member of their group. He removed his brown robes, and boots, leaving them by the hatch into the keep. His breeches were already in bad shape and would need replacing soon anyway. Anders walked towards the middle of the roof. Singe marks littered the stone, something Harlow probably would have found fascinating if they could have been seen at night. He took a deep breath and focused on the sky. A light rain was just beginning and the thick clouds were almost over Whitethorn.

They waited, it was half a bell before the first bolt struck. As long as he lived Anders would never get used to the surge of nature. Whatever lightning he might have was nothing like the real thing. It made him feel small, powerless. It brought back horrible thoughts of the first time the lightning hit him, the day he found his power.

"Hells!" The newer guard exclaimed. Anders ignored him. The disgust of him walking in and out of lightning as though it were no more than sunlight unsettled most people. He couldn't contain his own energy and absorb the storm's as well. Sparks danced around him in a spider web of light. The storm's rage filled him, the foreign surge felt a little different than his own magic, but still ran through his bones.

No sooner had the first strike finished when a second slammed into him. The roof was filled with tendrils of lightning, his eyes glowed with the extra power. Even the tattoo on his neck shone brighter with the extra power to draw on.

After what seemed to be ages, the storm was finished. Anders's breaches were in tatters and he was soaked. The fun part now was waiting until he dried out enough to dissipate his power. He couldn't take a step without surging jolts of lightning through the rain puddles. He sat down and watched the sea breeze blow the storm over the water. The wind helped dry the stone quickly and when he decided it was safe to do so, he walked towards the north wall. There a huge chunk of granite sat, nearly as tall as Anders himself. He approached the stone and put his hand on it's rough surface. It wasn't polished, it wasn't carved, it wasn't pretty. It was placed there for him.

He let off his power into the stone. Unlike iron or copper or even certain gemstones, the granite felt dead to his power. A void that could eat everything he had and still never hold a spark of power. He wouldn't be allowed back to his rooms until he let off all the energy he just absorbed.

He started swaying in place before he realized he was draining too much. A soldier brought him his boots and robes and another gave him a drink from his flask. They finally let him back inside and no sooner did he realize that he had climbed down the ladder when he fell into bed asleep.

Anders lost weight over the next couple days. He slept through most of the day after the storm, but as soon as he woke up he dug the books and quarts from under his pillow. He spent more than an hour adjusting the last quartz into it's fittings and securing the whole piece. Every stone, every gem, every magnetized rock was gone over again and again. Scrupulously chosen for size, ability to store power, and how well it flowed with the other stones, his project was at an end.

The days blended together, he overworked himself, draining too much of his newly recovered power. He slept on and off, in three days time Anders finally held in his hands the charts and finished descriptions of every substance he could get his hands on and how it interacted with lightning magic. The device still needed a case, or it could kill anyone but him who touched it. But there was still just under two weeks to finish that part.

"Now, to see if it all works together." Anders lifted his heavy arms and held his palms over one of the stones. Gently, he let flow his remaining power into the first piece of hematite.

It took, as it normally would. Hematite accepted lightning magic easier than almost any other substance, but it would immediately expel it from the other side. In his device, his power was taken, and then sent out the copper wire to the next stone. After the hematite was a russet colored ferruginous quartz, it was less easy to feed power to, but much better at storing it once it was accepted. One by one the wire, the quartz, and the stones caught his power. It looped through every part of the device, and then back into the first stone again. It took, Anders held his breath as he felt the power travel. It was going in a circuit, not trying to escape, but moving continuously from stone to quartz, to stone again.

"Thank Sage." He said breathed. He flopped forward on his desk, snoring.