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“I found some shelter,” he tells him. “I left the horses there.”

Nodding, James turns to look at him. “We better get them. This storm isn’t going to last much longer.”

Taking him by the hand, Jiron says, “This way.” As he leads him through the raging storm, the winds that had begun to whip the sand violently begin to gradually subside.

Several mages lie unconscious on the floor around the Table of Sight. The master in charge has been fighting James’ control of the winds until the High Lord Magus arrives. Still an hour behind him, they had begun to be affected by the winds.

The master retains visual lock on their quarry and watches as the other man leads him through the ruins of Baerustin. When they enter the building wherein their horses were left, he sees his chance to hold them until his lord arrives.

Just then, a First Circle mage comes hurrying through the door. “The caravan is here,” he announces.

“Finally,” exclaims the master. “I need them now! Hurry and bring the slaves to me.”

“Yes, sir,” the First says then backs out of the room. He runs down the corridor until he reaches the courtyard outside.

On the far side of the courtyard the porters of the caravan have already begun unloading the various goods purchased by the school. The First comes up to the caravan master and says, “You’re late!”

“My apologies good master,” the caravan master says humbly.

The First notices the pallor of his face. “You don’t look too good,” he states.

“Been feeling down last couple of days,” he explains. “I think the cook used bad meat or something and made us all sick.”

“Where is the cook?” he asks.

“Killed him for poisoning us,” the caravan master replies. “Tossed his body somewhere back along the road.”

“I need the slaves now,” says the First.

“Let us untie them for you,” the caravan master says as he begins to signal to his men.

Shaking his head, the First says, “Never mind that.” Not willing to wait the minutes his men would take, the First uses one of the first spells he ever learned. Summoning the magic, he casts a spell of breaking to free the slaves all at once. The casting of the spell triggers the seeds of destruction which James had planted in the wagon beds a week before.

Ka-Boom! Boom! Boom!

Three massive explosions of immense proportions detonate all at once. The force of it literally takes out a third of the school and collapses the room containing the Table of Sight. Taken unawares, his concentration firmly on what he was about to do to hold James, the master at the Table doesn’t react in time and is crushed by the falling stone of the ceiling. The same stone which takes his life smashes through the Table, destroying it.

Stone and rock launched into the air by the blast begins to fall on the rest of the school. Massive chunks of stone rip through roofs and cause even further damage as buildings which were already weakened by the blast are struck by the falling stone and give way.

One building of particular importance, the library, had been in close proximity to the blast when it went off. Filled with tomes older than memory, the basis for which magic works and knowledge gleaned through a millennium of research, is now nothing more than a gaping hole. Along with the rocks coming back to land, myriad pieces of paper blasted from thousands of books rain down as well.

All of a sudden, the resistance to the storm disappears. “It’s stopped,” James tells Jiron as they enter the building where the horses were left.

“What’s stopped,” asks Jiron.

“It feels like whoever was working against me isn’t any more,” he clarifies. Sending out the magic, he begins working the storm once more into a frenzy.

Realizing James is once again planning on staying and working the storm, Jiron has them move to the back of the room where the horses are to stay. If the storm becomes as bad as the last one James created, he wants them as far away from its effects as they can. James slips back into deep concentration as he resumes intensifying the storm.

After a half hour, the storm is