Trail of the Gods_ The Morcyth Saga Book Four - Brian S. Pratt [14]
When he has it set in his head exactly what he wants to do, he releases the magic. The crystal on the workbench before him begins to leech from him. He again sees the now familiar red glow that will eventually deepen into a crimson color.
Allowing the crystal to leech power from him for a minute, he then sends the signature signal to tell it that it shouldn’t leech from him. And sure enough, he feels the leeching abruptly stop. The glow within the crystal stops growing and remains constant. Without the primary source from him, there’s not very much else close at hand to draw from.
One of the many flies in the area lands on the crystal and James watches in wonder as it seems to shrink in on itself and then stops moving. Reaching his fingers to it, he discovers it has died. All its magic has been sucked from it.
Maybe magic isn’t just magic, but the world’s life force? And when a living thing loses all of it, he dies? May have to keep that in mind.
He reaches down and pulls out another of the crystals out of the sack. Flicking the dead fly off the one sitting on the workbench, he picks it up and then heads outside. Moving away from the buildings, he enters the forest and walks further into it another dozen yards or so before stopping.
For his next experiment, he doesn’t want to be too close to anyone or anything. He sets the crystal that’s already glowing on a stump and then walks over to a fallen log several feet away and sets down the other crystal.
Backing away to a safe distance, he casts the same set of spells on the new crystal as he had on the previous one. When he’s done with the spells, he watches as the second crystal begins to glow. At the first feeling of it leeching from him, he sends the signal telling it not to leech from him and in a moment, it stops.
He watches the two crystals for several minutes, until neither seem to be behaving erratically as the two earlier had just before they exploded. It worked! Grinning to himself, he turns to leave the forest. He’ll come back tomorrow to see what’s happened, he needs to find out the effects of leaving them active for a prolonged time.
Back at the house he finds lunch almost ready so he washes up and goes into the front room to relax until it’s ready.
Illan comes in through the front door and sees him sitting in his favorite spot by the window. “I’ve left Uther and Jorry out by the road,” he tells him. “We may have to have a permanent presence there to keep people away.”
“More showed up?” he asks him.
“You could say that,” he says. “A bunch of kids who heard you were here wanted to come and ‘see’ the mage. Like it or not, you’re attracting a lot of people.”
“Maybe we could sell souvenirs,” he says, jokingly.
“Souvenirs?” he asks.
“It’s something people can buy to remember coming here,” he explains. “Maybe we could make a shirt that says, ‘I came to see the mage but only got this lousy shirt’.” He starts laughing at the picture of a farmer wearing it as he leads a team of plow horses.
“Maybe,” he says, actually sounding interested.
“No!” James blurts out. “I was just kidding. We start doing something like that and they will flock here from all over. No, we will turn them away nicely, if we can.”
“Okay, you’re the boss,” he says with a smile.
About that time, Ezra calls them in to the dining room for lunch. “Where’s Miko?” he asks as they get up to go eat.
“I have him monitoring the smokehouse,” Illan replies. “Have to make sure the fire stays constant so the meat smokes evenly and cooks just right.”
“I bet he loves that,” comments James.
“Actually, he’s been very interested in the whole process,” Illan tells him.
They sit down to a quick meal of cheese, bread and some meat off the carcasses they’ve been smoking. James savors the smoky quality to it.
James slices off two pieces of bread and makes