Balancer (Advent Mage Cycle) (35 page)

I went straight to the amphitheater first, wanting to get a feel for how difficult moving it would be. Moving anything on the earth path was easier, granted, but it was still a pretty large building. It was going to take some effort on my part.

When I reached it, I got my first surprise for the morning. Sallah was waiting for me, standing near the entrance, and the amphitheater was already separated from the bedrock and ready to be moved. It had to be her handiwork. “Sallah, you didn’t have to go to the trouble,” I protested and waved a hand to indicate what she had done.

“Nonsense, I needed to get a good look at how it was put in there since I’m the one putting it back,” she responded with an easy smile. “And good morning to you too, cousin.”

“Good morning,” I returned dryly. “Well, since you know about the building, I assume that Chatta contacted you at some point or another to tell you about the wedding.”

“She certainly did. Yesterday, actually. We’re all quite excited to be part of the actual wedding party.” Leaning forward slightly, she lowered her voice to a confidential tone. “I’m glad that she’s pairing up Hayel with Don. He’s had an unholy crush on her for ages but has never made a move. Chatta got to know Hayel quite well this past winter, and she said the interest is mutual, so we’re hoping the wedding will get those two in motion.”

Ah-ha! So that was the other couple that Chatta was matchmaking. She never did explain why I had Don on my side. Now I know. “Leave it to my fiancée to use her wedding to match up other people…. Actually, question for you. I know it’s been a couple of months but with everything else going on I’d put it out of mind. How’s the exiled queen doing?”

“Noisy,” Sallah answered with a roll of the eyes. “She’s completely pinned, powerless, and she doesn’t like it one bit. It’s not a challenge to keep her locked up here, though. A few of us put our heads together and made an automated system that delivers food to her three times a day and cleans up after her. At first she had an absolute fit with all of the magic but she’s gotten used to it by now. Don’t look so troubled by this, Garth. We prefer to have her here whining than in Chahir stirring up trouble.”

That…was a definite point.

She inclined her head toward the amphitheater. “We can talk more later. I think you need to get this building to Chatta. She gave me an idea of what she wants to do to decorate it, and frankly, I’m not sure if all of that can be done in one week. She needs all the time she can get.”

So her decorations were that extensive, eh…somehow I wasn’t surprised. “Right.”

“Tell her I’ll come later today to help,” Sallah added as I gathered up magic around me, preparing to move the building.

I gave her a casual salute in acknowledgement as I sank into the ground, the amphitheater coming with me. The first few minutes, I had to focus, as I wasn’t accustomed to going down the support pillar of Coven Ordan. There were some major ley lines in the pillar that I had to dodge and dodging anything with a building in tow was not an easy task. It was like trying to hop rope with a fifty-pound ball and chain attached.

It wasn’t until I was well clear of Coven Ordan, on the familiar path through Chahir, that I realized I was going to get more than I bargained for. Part of the stone built into the amphitheater, as I had learned previously, was connected to a stone monument on the Isle of Strae. The first time I had touched it left me reeling and a bit dazed.

The sensation was magnified times ten when it was in the earth.

I wasn’t even touching any part of the stone, and already I felt the effect it was having on me. It was like I was being drawn in two different directions at once. Part of me answered the native stone from Coven Ordan. The other part was pulled toward the Isle of Strae, where the majority of the stone had been harvested. I was constantly being bombarded by strange sensations and odd power fluctuations. To say it was disorienting would be a vast understatement. Embedded in the fabric of that stone were…
impressions
, faint echoes of the past. In this quiet space under the world’s surface, I could feel those echoes clearly. What was frustrating was that I could only
feel
, not
see
those faint impressions from the stone. It probably had something to do with how I sensed magic. It felt like I was trying to identify something by touch alone in murky water. I was torn between trying to focus on it harder, or ignoring it altogether for my sanity.

Finally, about the time I reached the Blackover Mountains, I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to surface and take a break.

I walked away from the building, giving myself a little distance, rubbing at my arms and shoulders in an effort to still the tingling sensation in my skin. What was
with
that stone? I knew that Raile had explained that it was altered by all of the magic it had soaked in during the last great battles on the Isle, but still…! The stone reminded me somehow of the Jaunten genetic inheritance. There wasn’t any true memory associated with it, but I could feel the age and vibrancy, as if it were somehow alive. If stone could talk, I was sure it would reveal quite a history to me, but even Earth Mages couldn’t chat with rock. I wondered idly if the Gardeners could.

This wasn’t good. At this rate, I’d be distracted at a critical moment and bumble right into a ley line, which would get me fried. If that happened, my fiancée would be really mad at me.

The only thing that I could think to do was to put up a shield around it. I turned and went back to the building, putting up the most dense and tight shield that I could manage around just that section of stone. The shield half-worked. It wasn’t nearly as distracting as it was before, but I could still clearly sense it. Worse, I was still above ground at this point. Would the shield become even less effective as soon as I was back on the earth path?

Moving the amphitheater had sounded so easy this morning. So why was it so much harder now that I was actually doing it?

Deciding that I really didn’t want to risk it, I left the amphitheater where it was to head back to Coven Ordan. I had friends and family there, and I was not too proud to ask for help.

Instead of building a bridge for myself to get back into Coven Ordan, I went straight back up the support column. I headed for Sallah and Aral’s house as soon as I broke the surface of the street. Aral was the one who answered my knock, genuinely puzzled to see me.

“Garth, what are you doing here? I thought Sallah said you already left with the amphitheater over an hour ago!”

“I did,” I responded wryly. “I ran into some trouble, and I am going to need some help getting that beast back to Del’Hain.”

Aral nodded as if he understood exactly what was happening, and opened the screen door to let me in. He turned over his shoulder and called out, “Sallah, Garth is back and he needs our help.”

Sallah emerged from the kitchen, carrying baby Anna in her arms. She was a perfect miniature image of her mother, with her beautiful black curls, and those transfixing green eyes. She smiled at me, and held out her chubby little arms indicating she was all in favor of being held by another one of her army of adoring fans. It wouldn’t be very many years before the boys would be knocking on the Bender front door. “Garth, what happened, is everything alright?” Sallah looked worried, as she handed the baby to me.

“That building packs a real punch above ground, but it really hits its stride when you get it down on the earth path. I only made it as far as the Blackover Mountains before I had to resurface. I tried putting a shield around it, but you can still feel the emanations above ground, which means it won’t be much help underground. So, I thought I’d come back here to get some help.” I looked questioningly at them.

Aral and Sallah exchanged glances, and nodded together at the same time. “Of course we’ll help you, Garth!” Aral gave me an easy smile, as if I had asked to borrow a hammer instead looking for help wrangling a rouge building. “Why don’t we sit down and have something to eat, and you can fill us in on what happened.”

As we ate lunch, we discussed what we were facing once we got the building underground again. Aral listened intently, then commented, “It makes sense that the emanations would increase once the stone was in more direct contact with the earth. Did you notice if there was any difference when you passed closer to any ley lines in the area?”

“To tell you the truth,” I admitted, ”I really didn’t notice, I had my hands full just trying to stay on course and keep the noise in my head down to a dull roar.”

“I bet if all three of us were to wrap it up, and layer our shielding, we could move it more comfortably between us, and still get it safely to Del’Hain before midafternoon,” Sallah stated with a confidence I wished I felt. She hadn’t been underground with it like I had.

“Sounds good to me,” I said.

“Alright, let me drop Anna off over at Don’s and we can head out.”

Aral and I waited in the front lawn chatting about shielding techniques while we waited for Sallah to come back. Ten minutes later she came back, and with barely a “ready?” for warning, I felt Sallah reach out with her magic and take us down. It was an odd sensation for me. It was the first time I had ever traveled the earth path as a passenger. It was nice. I could definitely get used to having someone else chauffer me around for a change.

The time seemed to pass quickly as we talked and caught up with each other’s lives. About an hour into the journey I felt us slowing, and looked at Sallah as she brought us up about a stone’s throw from the building.

“Well, what do you think?” I asked, open to anything they had to say. We walked around the structure, trying to find the best way to transport it, without getting ourselves too beat up in the process.

“I think we should try securing it from three separate points,” Aral ventured. “It would be like a triangle, if we each overlapped our hold on it. We could overlap our shields too; with them touching they would be stronger than if we put them in a single layer.” He looked at us to see if we had any other thoughts to add.

“One of us will have to steer, while the other two hold, but it should work alright,” Sallah said. “Let’s try this slowly, until we get a feel for how it is going to handle, and if the echoed harmonics of the stone are going to be a problem with concentration.”

“You steer, Sallah, and Garth and I will hold the interval of the linked power webs. We should try to make our shields as dense as possible, so less of the residual power will leak through to us.” Aral shot his wife a kiss, and headed off to position himself on the far side of the building.

“I think he’s right,” I added my vote of confidence in her abilities. “I’ll go pick out my spot and be ready to link up with the two of you. Because we will have our magic woven together, we shouldn’t have any problems talking back and forth. Let me know when you are ready to begin.”

I wasn’t really nervous, just excited at trying out something new. This was different a different type of merging than what we had done weeks before. Then it had been more a channeling of power. But this, this was not so much giving power as sharing and linking. The power flow between the three of us would be equal. I bet there were accounts of Mages working together to solve a problem like this in the books we had found hidden under the Library in Chahir. I would have to look that up when I got a few minutes I didn’t know what to do with. For now we were on our own, and the three of us would have to rely on each other to get this done. I could feel Sallah and Aral starting to draw on their powers, so I reached within to summon mine. I had no trouble matching my output with theirs, and the shield began to form around the building. When it was all meshed together we slowly began to sink into the earth.

“Is everyone alright?” I heard Sallah’s voice as clearly as if she were standing right beside me. “Fine,” I called, with Aral’s response almost in tandem with mine. “Okay,” she replied, a little tension bleeding though in her voice. “Here we go, next stop Del’Hain!”

I braced myself, waiting for the stone to take up its attempt to talk again. To my relief, while I could still feel it, it was much more tolerable than when I tried it by myself.

“Wow,” called Aral, “I can see what you were talking about, Garth. That stone is definitely projecting some pretty strong impressions.”

“This is nothing Aral; with the two of you here it is almost bashful and retiring. I can take this level all day long. What about you, Sallah? Any problems coordinating and steering?”

“It is different to be sure, but I am getting the hang of it. I can’t believe how much is still getting through our shielding at this level of power, and with all three of us projecting against it. My hat is off to you, Garth, for getting it as far as you did.”

“I would say it was nothing, but that’d be lying through my teeth.”

I heard both of them laugh before our conversation returned to where we had left off. The rest of the trip flew by, and then Sallah asked where she should raise us up to the surface.

“Can you hand control over to me, without it causing problems?” I asked, knowing it would be easier to do it myself than to try and talk her into the right place.

“Sure thing,” she answered immediately. “Let me know when you are ready to assume control.”

I reached out with my senses, and felt her aura there in the mix of our shared powers. I eased in next to her, and felt her gradually withdraw to let me take over. She was right; this was a very different sensation from anything else I had experienced before.

”Hey Aral,” I called out amazed, “You should try this, this is really incredible!”

“I’m right here next to you, Garth, I am experiencing the same thing you are. I never even dreamed this was possible before. I will definitely write a few lines about this trip in my journal tonight!”

~*~

Chatta waited expectantly at the drop sight, nearly bouncing on her toes from excitement. “How was it?”

“Tricky,” I answered dryly, exchanging a chaste hello kiss with her. “Remember the part of the building that’s directly connected with the stone monument on the Isle of Strae?”