Mercedes Lackey - Winds Of Fury

He had managed a week ago to restore some of the manuscript at least; a clear description of the level of Adept that could tap into the "nodes," though not the safeguards that would make such tapping less hazardous. This was the first time he had seen such descriptions, or the directions on how to use the node-power once he obtained it.

Hopefully, if he were strong enough, the safeguards would not be necessary. He had never once seen Hulda using any such safeguards when she accessed the power of "nodes."

Then again, his more cautious side chided, she could have established those protections before you were in a position to watch her. She could have been hiding them from you.

The spell described was not the same one that Hulda used, of that much he was certain. This spell required the construction of some kind of "portal"; he could only assume that it was a portal to the node-power. That made sense; he already knew that he, at least, could not touch these things directly.

He settled into a chair he often used for his meditations and suppressed a shiver. He recalled only too well the first and last time he had attempted to touch the nodes directly.

He had been able to see these power nexus-points, as well as the lines leading to them, from the time he reached the level of Journeyman. From the time he was first initiated by Hulda into the world of magic, he had been able to see the power that all things created, all the colors and intensities of it. But until Hulda drew power from those points during an attempt to pierce the sky above one of the Valdemar border towns with magic and let loose a plague of poisonous "insects" there, he had not known they were useful for anything. That was when she had told him - a little too proudly, he thought - that he would not be able to copy her example until he was an Adept.

He had tested that himself, when he realized that she was never going to assist him to achieve that status.

The power had been wild and startling; he had known immediately that he did not have the ability to control it at all, much less do so safely. It had felt as if he were suddenly juggling red-hot stones, and he had quickly released his tenuous contact, suddenly grateful that it was so tenuous. He had felt "scorched" for days afterward, and he had never again made the attempt.

But this time - perhaps through this "portal" -

The manuscript had been very clear on one point; that the only energy he would be able to use to form this portal was the energy he contained within himself. A pity, but he saw no reason to doubt it; hence the conscientious effort to fully charge himself, as if for a battle. Now he was as ready as he would ever be.

This room was perfect for use as a mage's private workroom; the wooden floor could be inscribed with chalk for diagrams, the peaked roof allowed a great deal of clearance in the center, and the only furniture was the bookcases, two chairs, and one table. There were no windows that needed to be shut or barred, and the stone walls were thick enough that very little sound penetrated. The old tower had been relegated to storage until he took it over, and most of the servants were unaware it was being used for anything else.

The portal required a physical foundation; he used the frame of one of the bookcases, an empty one, since he did not know what would happen to the contents once the portal was complete.

He sat bolt upright in a chair, took a deep, settling breath, and began.

He raised his hands and closed his eyes. He did not need to see the bookcase; what he wanted was not within the level of the visible, anyway. Within the framework of the bookcase he built another framework. Its carefully spun energy intertwined with the grain of the wood. The new framework was composed of energy taken from Ancar's own reserves.

I call upon the Portal -

Those were the words the spell called for; within the structure of those words he built up his frame of power, building it layer upon layer, making it stronger, spinning more and more of himself into it. The words were a mnemonic, a way of keeping track of the anchoring points for the spell; one for each syllable, there, there, and there, seven points. He concentrated on manipulating the energies exactly as the manuscript had described.

Then he reached the place where the manuscript had ended. From this moment on, he would be working blind.

He hoped that at the proper moment the portal would extend to one of the nodes, and enable him to take in the node's wild power without harm. In fact, he thought of that as he built up his portal, hoping that the thought would be echoed in the power, as often happened in higher magery. It was yet another reason why complete control was paramount to an advanced mage; stray thoughts would always affect the final spell.

Steady now; control and command. You rule the power. Shape it to your will, keep it in your hands.

The interior of the bookcase warped away from him and vanished, leaving behind a lightless void. He began to lose strength, as if his life were bleeding away into the void.

No reason to panic. The manuscript said this would happen. I just have to keep it from taking everything.

Then came the unexpected.

The portal's edges pulsed, then extended tendrils in all directions! Lightninglike extrusions of power began spinning out from his carefully-wrought framework, waving aimlessly, as if they were searching for something.

Then, as a thread of fear traversed his spine, they reacted as if they felt that fear, and began groping after him! And he was paralyzed with weakness, unable to move from his chair!

Gods and demons! No!

He couldn't tell what had gone wrong, or even if this was somehow what was supposed to happen -

No, this couldn't be what was "supposed" to happen; if those tentacles touched him, they would suck the rest of the power from him before he could even blink. He could tell by their color, they had to be kept from him. Something had gone wrong - very, very wrong. This was worse than when he had touched the node - for this thing he had created was part of him, and he could no more cut himself off from it than he could cut off an arm. What now?

The life-energy tentacles reached blindly for him, threatening to create a power-loop that would devour him. All he could think of was that an Adept would know what to do if this spell was going wrong. At this point, he would gladly have welcomed any Adept; Hulda, an Eastern mage, even one of the disgustingly pure White Winds

Adepts. Anyone, so long as they knew what this thing was and how to save him from it!

At that moment, the groping tendrils stopped reaching for him. They hovered and flickered, then responded to his panicked thoughts and reached instead into the void, growing thinner and thinner....

What - ?

Suddenly there was no strength to spare even for a thought; his strength poured from him as from a mortal wound, and he collapsed against the back of his chair. His head spun, his senses began to desert him, and it was all he could do to cling to consciousness and fight the thing he had created.

Then, between one heartbeat and the next, there was a terrible surge of energy back into him and through him. Soundless light exploded against his eyelids; he gasped in pain.

That was too much; he blacked out for a moment, all of his senses overloaded, all of his channels struggling to contain the power that had flooded back into him.

Finally, he took a breath. Another. His lungs still worked; he had not been burned to a cinder after all. He blinked, surprised that he could still see.

And as his eyes focused again, he realized that he was no longer alone in his tower room.

There was something - some kind of not-quite-human creature - collapsed at his feet. The portal was gone, and with it, the back and shelves of the empty bookcase.