Pool of Radiance - James M. Ward [1]
Whenever she felt discouraged, her old master would remind her of her great promise. Whenever she grew tired of the rigors of memorizing spells or performing the dozens of routine tasks that made up her day, she would receive a magical message from him, reminding her that promise means nothing without diligence.
At the moment, Shal stood on the grounds of Ranthor's keep, struggling with a Weather Control spell he had encouraged her to try once she had mastered the Burning Hands spell. She faced the wind, just as Ranthor had instructed, and tried to visualize it. Her mind pictured the wind as pale, violet-white wisps of cloudlike material, and she imagined herself collecting the wisps within the exaggerated reach of her gesturing hands and molding them into a flat sheet so thin and so swift-moving that it could slice her enemies in two. Next she envisioned a solid wall of force that would push back her opponents. Then a churning funnel cloud that would suck them into its whirling vortex. Finally she intoned the words to the spell, taking care to match the inflection indicated in the runes she had so painstakingly memorized.
Unfortunately, each time she tried the spell, the results were the same. There was no wall of force… not even a good strong gust. There was no cyclone… not even a tiny dust devil. There was just a faint whoosh, and instantly the wind would pass by and out of her reach.
Tired and discouraged, Shal left the wind to its own devices and went inside the tower. She wished Ranthor were present to give her some of his usual valuable advice and support-some clue, anything. She wished, plain and simple, that he was back from his mission so she could stop worrying about him.
The day after Shal had mastered the Burning Hands spell, the same day Ranthor had suggested she try her hand at Weather Control, her master had departed. Shal had been in Ranthor's spell-casting chamber working on a Lightning spell. She knew she wasn't ready yet to attempt the spell outside. She wanted merely to create one little bolt that would arc between the conductor she had positioned on the crux of Ranthor's casting stand and the copper spike she'd fastened to a nearby shelf of components.
She meditated for a moment to help her mind focus, then traced and retraced with her eyes the path that she wanted the lightning to follow. Finally she lifted her hands and spoke, with all the intensity she could muster, the words of the spell. A crystal orb on a nearby shelf of components began to blaze red, growing steadily. With the final word of the spell still on her tongue, Shal screamed for Ranthor, and immediately the lightning began to pulse about the room, rattling the jars of magical components and sending several crashing to the floor. Her aging master rushed into the chamber as fast as his rheumatism-ridden legs could carry him. In one hand, he held a wand, its tip glowing with a molten fire, and in the other, he held a small bag of sparkling dust, no doubt some powerful weapon he had grabbed to use against whatever horror he found in the spell-casting area.
When he entered the room, he found Shal braced against the wall, an expression of stark terror on her face, pointing at the glowing crystal. He took one look and began to laugh, first a light, whispering snicker, then a full belly laugh. "Shal, my student of three years, do you not yet know that wizards use orbs to contact each other? That is simply my old friend Denlor calling me," Ranthor explained, pointing at the crystal. He breathed a single arcane syllable, and the orb rose into the air and began to float toward Shal. Despite her teacher's amusement, Shal could feel the hairs rise on the back of her neck as the glowing orb drifted closer.
"Pick it up, Shal." Ranthor removed the bronze cone from the center of the three-legged casting stand and pointed at the crux where the three legs met and crossed. "Pick it up," he repeated when she hesitated. "Put it here."
Shal expected nothing less than for her fingers to