Convergence - The Last Science #2.2 - Heroes and Villains

Interlude VII - Call of Destiny - VI

  A rustle and a buzzing sound jerked Lani awake.

  "Oh, sorry!" said Riley, glancing over. She was already wriggling out from under her blanket, pulling her jacket and vest back on. "I was hoping that the vibrate wouldn't get ya."

  "I'm a light sleeper," he replied, blinking hard to try and clear away his groggy vision. He sat up, looking out at the dim pale light of dawn before the sunrise. "You sleep okay?"

  "I'm a light sleeper too, actually, but that was the best sleep I've had in weeks," she replied. "I was in London up until yesterday. I missed the outdoors so much."

  "I think I've still got some getting used to," Lani added, stretching out his sore shoulders.

  "Oh, man." She winced "Yeah, the cold and the hard ground isn't gonna be great for that."

  "It's okay." Absolutely nothing could have made the night any better for Lani, after all. He could still feel his mana, the primal power like a beacon of warm light within his soul. "How long til the sunrise?"

  She grinned. "About ten minutes til it really starts to heat up. We're right on time."

  They set up the chairs outside, and Riley got out another tripod and prepared a camera.

  "How many of those do you have?" Lani asked, whistling. They looked pretty expensive.

  "Enough," she winked. "If it makes you feel any better, I don't own them. They're from my employer."

  While she set about fiddling with the camera, Lani decided to try a bit of magic. He decided moving something would probably be the easiest to start with. Tapping into the mana within his soul, Lani reached out for a brown leaf hanging above Riley's head. He poked and prodded it with his mind, and with a tiny snap it fell free. As it twirled, Lani kept poking it to keep it on course.

  It fell right onto the top of the camera, perfectly on target.

  "Hey," Riley murmured, picking it up. "Where'd you come from?"

  Lani smiled. She tossed the leaf aside and went back to the camera.

  It was easy, way easier than he'd expected. From the bits of the book he'd seen, plus the stories he'd heard from Jeremy, Lani expected magic to be a difficult task, even the basics taking weeks of practice. Am I just lucky? Or did she bless me somehow?

  Are the spirits helping me?

  The piece of parchment—a fragment of the book, he now realized—had taught him a particular kind of magic. Something to do with the spirits he'd felt surrounding him as he awakened, those infinite entities filling up the world around him. Lani closed his eyes and concentrated. He called to them with his mind, called to the spirits and asked them to come forth.

  One in particular presented itself, a pale wisp of a thing. It wasn't what he expected—not tied to any part of the earth or sea, but a mystical presence given vague shape and form. Lani opened his eyes, and there it was.

  A soft, translucent shape, pale blue as the sky. It had no face, no real identifying features at all. The spirit appeared as a blob, almost smokey in its appearance. Lani reached out slowly with his hand, inching his fingers toward the edge of its floating essence.

  The moment they touched, it felt like plunging his hand into ice.

  Lani refused to recoil, holding his hand in place. The spirit didn't move—didn't react in the slightest. He felt like it was waiting for him to tell it what to do. After all, he'd called it forth. It would be rude to keep it there without giving it instruction or dismissing it.

  A click of the camera reminded him where he was. Lani told the spirit to disperse, without a word passing through his lips. He felt a response, almost like an acknowledgment, come back to his mind from the spirit.

  It vanished, a faint puff of smoke spreading out from where it had disappeared into the void. The smoke dissipated as it spread, gone in only a few seconds.

  "Incredible," said Riley.

  "Yeah," he agreed, though he wasn't looking at the sunrise at all.