Steel And Flame (Book 1) (54 page)

“Doesn’t sound like my kind of person.”

“Good.  Keep the differences in mind if you get
tempted.”

“Differences?”

“Between chopping their head off in combat and slowly
pealing them like a tomato in a dark room.”

Marik’s stomach churned at the imagery.  “I don’t
think I’ll ever need to worry about the temptation,” he assured.

“Good,” Tollaf repeated.  “There’s whole schools of
magic who hunt down harvesters when they learn of one.  You need to watch your
skin if you ever have to fight one.  They’re the most merciless of any sort
you’ll ever encounter.”

“I’ll keep it in mind.”  Tollaf had actually managed
to keep his words simple for a change, allowing Marik to understand most of
what he said.  The last comment caught his attention, prompting him to ask,
“What was that about schools a moment ago?”

Tollaf shrugged.  “There’s a few schools of magic here
and there, and damned difficult to find.  They don’t like to be found.  Usually
they’re founded by magic users with a bent toward the scholarly, or ones out to
save the world from injustice.  They teach their apprentices their own ethical
codes and morals, and only teach magics they approve of.  They call themselves
schools, but any year where there’s as many as ten mages altogether is a
prosperous year indeed.”

“Well, that doesn’t sound so bad.  Compared with other
forms of learning I could name.”

“Too bad for you they have standards.”

“How many are there?”

“Who knows?  The only one in Galemar I know of is
Winds of the Summer Sun.”

“That’s their name?”  Marik was incredulous.  The name
sounded unbearably pompous.

“Not a bad bunch, actually.  They spend most of their
time trying to convince the weather to rain or not to, depending on the needs
of the farmers around them.”

“I can think of two baronies who would pay through the
nose for that right now.”

“The problem with weather-working is how damned
difficult it is.  They have to create massive energy reservoirs over eightdays
to power the spells.  It’s incredibly difficult because, in essence, they are
attempting to alter a single facet of an unimaginably complex network of
systems.  You’ve been struggling to work your own tiny shield.  Can you begin
to imagine the scope of working to influence something the size of the entire
sky?”

“No.”

“Then you need to practice more.  Spend the morning
working on your shield.  I’ll tell you when Caresse is ready to set up.”

*        *        *        *        *

 “Whoa-ah!  Are you all right?”  Caresse ran to Marik,
who lay flat on the ground in the horses’ vale with a dazed expression. 
“Marik?”

Marik’s head spun when he rose to a sitting position. 
He rubbed the back of his skull.  “Damn, Caresse!  I thought you were going to
go easy.”

“Umm…I did go easy, Marik.  You didn’t tie your shield
properly.  You need to do that, so you do.”  Once she saw she had not hurt the
apprentice mage, her ever present grin returned.  “But you should have seen
yourself.  It was very funny!”

“I’m laughing on the inside.”

Caresse was a hard person to stay mad at.  Her natural
cheerfulness, energy and exuberance never deserted her for long.  She viewed
life as one constant adventure, with new chapters being written every day. 
Boisterously accepting the charge, she had agreed to help Marik with practice
exercises when Tollaf assigned her the job.

Her attitude was very tomboyish, as was her garb, and
she moved with a lithe grace unlike the women he had grown up around.  She also
talked in a peculiar way that Marik had yet to place.  Neither her build or
skin suggested an exotic origin and she was only two years older than he.  The
brown shock of hair that spent all its time looking for an opportunity to fall
into her eyes did so again.  Caresse pushed it back with an unthinking sweep of
her hand.

“You really need to be careful about such things.  If
you don’t bind it properly, it doesn’t help you at all.”

“So I see.  Let’s try that one again.”

“Indeed, that is the spirit!”

Marik concentrated on the working.  His proficiency
had increased until he no longer needed to close his eyes.  The visualization
methods from his mental training held him in good stead once he’d grown
accustomed to this strange way of using them.  No doubt his progress would have
been non-existent had he not practiced mental imagery for a year hence.  As
with everything else, the longer he worked at it, the easier it became.

He drew the energy he needed from within himself,
sparing a moment for a sour thought that the old man had been right about this
as well.  The sensation now felt like releasing a held breath rather than the
internal shuffling of his organs.  Marik held the energy in his unseen hands,
quickly molding it into the bowl that would protect his front quadrant.  This
time he remembered to tie it firmly to his core.

“Ready?  Here we go!”

With his magesight, Marik saw Caresse gather the power
she needed in the wink of an eye.  Blending it with her own energy took barely
another wink, then she hurled it at Marik’s shield.  Caresse struck with raw
force, the power unshaped into a specific attack.  It connected almost as a
physical blow from an unseen source, like the force rod Tollaf had used to
knock his feet from under him in the workroom.

Caresse sent it against Marik’s shield rather than
forming it into a physical object.  This was so he could feel the pure energy
and make the required adjustments.  Such as now.  A small section had eroded. 
Marik quickly drew the power needed to reform that corner and maintain the
shield’s integrity.

“Good!  Now we’ll do a little more, we shall!”

The flow of power against his shield increased,
collapsing it much faster.  No longer merely eroding, his shield deformed under
the torrent, the center pushed inward as though a leather ball had been
squeezed from its outside.

But Marik knew what to do.  He built a reinforcement
between the shield and himself, duplicating the original form.  Marik pushed it
forward, blending the two into one stronger shield.  As long as he had the
strength and the energy, he could keep reforming his shield from within as it
peeled away from without.

Caresse ceased her assault.  “I think you have picked
up the knack for it.”

“I think so.  I’m finally used to it.”

“Chief Mage Tollaf will be pleased to hear that, so he
will.  I know he wants you to begin working with the lines as soon as you can.”

“I don’t know about that, but I’m ready for whatever’s
next.”  He still remembered the blinding headache that had plagued him after
his first encounter.

“No, you are ready!”

“Ready to have my head examined at any rate.”

“Doh-ah?”

“Never mind.  You were going to show me your other
talent next.”

“Yes, my geomancy.  Indeed, so it is different.  The
chief mage asked that I show it to you if you were ready.  Are you ready?”

“As ready as I’m ever likely to be.”

Marik began raising his shield until Caresse stopped
him.  “No, no, there’s no need for that, not at all!  That simple shield would
not be able to handle the elemental energies.”

“Then what am I supposed to do?”

“Just watch.  See with the eyes of your talent so you
may tell one from another when you must.  Are you ready?”

“I guess,” Marik said, wondering what would happen.

“Okay!  Here I go!  Stone will be first.”

Marik watched what the young woman did, unsure he
understood.  To his magesight, Caresse appeared to be melting or deforming
slightly.  Her actual shape remained the same.  Only her aura turned strange.

Most of it slid down Caresse’s body to pool at her
feet on the small stone patch she stood upon.  The blackness of the rock looked
a dead thing to Marik’s sight, but this particular stone took on life under her
influence.  It held no glowing aura like everything else, yet the black
deadness gradually seemed less deep.  Lightening, it shifted until it bore a
dark gray color.

“Watch closely, you must.  I will twice demonstrate
stone.”

Under his magesight, Marik watched while Caresse
firmed whatever grip she had over the stone’s soul.  She retracted her aura
slightly, as if to withdraw it back to herself, and the ground beneath Marik’s
feet moved.

The massive buried boulder, for that is what the stone
patch in the grass truly was, rose from its resting place a half-foot before
Caresse released her grip on it.  Once she did, it sank back to its previous
position.

“And now the other,” Caresse panted while the two
wobbled, nearly falling.  She bent to retrieve a stick that had fallen from a
tree along the vale’s ridge.  It reached a foot in length and had dried, having
died during the summer.  “Watch again, you should.”

Caresse held the stick out, withdrawing her aura to
herself.  This time she left the ground where the gods had intended it to be. 
Instead she pulled off a portion of the grayness she had coaxed from the
stone.  Marik recognized it as a different form of energy, unlike the etheric
energy he could use.  As he watched Caresse work, he knew deep inside that this
door would forever remain closed to him.  No amount of practice would allow him
to touch this type of power, much less use it.  He felt relief at the
instinctive knowledge.

Marik watched her bring the grayness she had withdrawn
from the stone to the stick in her hands.  She wrapped it around the wood,
enclosing it within the sheen of elemental power.  With a mysterious twisting
of her abilities, she forced the energy into the wood, saturating it, blending,
becoming one.  Caresse severed her link with the stone and sat down.

“Hoowee, that’s very tiring, so it is!  Here you go,
Marik.  Take a look.”

After closing his mage’s eyes, Marik viewed the world
resplendent in its normal colors.  He took the stick from Caresse, not entirely
surprised to find a stone replica.  Had this come from an artisan’s hands,
people across the kingdom would marvel at the level of craftsmanship required
to carve such a delicate and incredibly realistic branch from rock.  Marik
could see the bark flecks that protected the tree limb, and could clearly
define the wood grain where the bark had chipped away.

He handed the stone stick back to her.  “How hard is
that to do?  Could a wizard do that to a person?”

“I imagine so.  My geomancy is stronger than my mage
talent, but the awakening of the secret heart and drawing of elemental essence
is a very difficult matter!  Even harder with stone than the other elements. 
It sleeps deep, it does.”

“So a stronger geomancer could attack me that way? 
Then how do I defend myself if my shield is useless?”

“Doh-ah?”

“Didn’t you tell me my defense would be ripped apart
by your energies?”

“If you had used that shield, indeed yes.”

“So I can’t defend against such an attack.”  Marik
felt his spine crawl in a familiar fashion.

“Use a different shield, you should.”

“What?”

“That one you have been using is suitable for errant
or wild energies, especially etheric ones.  You are good at that now, indeed
you are.  When we return to the chief mage, it will be time to learn another
shield.”

“Another shield?  There’s more?”

Caresse cocked her head.  “Hasn’t the chief mage told
you this?”

Had he?  Marik tried to remember.  The old man might
have mentioned something to that effect but he could not bring the memory fully
to life.

“I don’t remember,” he admitted.

“There are many other types of shielding to protect
you, and those around you.  They are not so different from the basic shield,
and no harder once you have them learned.  You alter their nature to defend
against specific types of energy or different shapes.”

“Shapes?”

“Indeed, yes!  Many attacking spells are simple energy
of different shapes.  Your shield can handle waves of energy, but if I had
formed my power into a spear and attacked, I could have burst it like a foamy
bubble.  Same power, different effect.”

“Why isn’t anything ever easy anymore?”

“It is not hard!  Once you learn, it is very simple!”

“For you, maybe.  Are we done?”

“No indeed!  Now I’ll show you water.”

“I thought you were exhausted.”

“Water is much easier than stone, so it is, and we
will be refreshed for the walk back.”

“Refreshed?”  Did he want to know?

“Watch and see, you should!  Come!”

Caresse leapt to her feet, surprisingly energetic for
an exhausted person.  She led Marik to the pond occupying the vale’s east end
and started working.  Marik watched her blend her aura with the terrain.  This
time she coaxed the water and unveiled its hidden shine quicker than the
stone’s.