Brian Pratt - Trail of the Gods

Satisfied, he sets the crystal down on the workbench. He picks up another of the crystals and takes it over to the test table to see if he can duplicate the results. Setting it down, he moves away from it and casts the spell again.

This time, the leeching of power is much less. Odd, he thinks to himself. I would’ve thought it would be the same.

He watches the crystal and the reddish glow begins to form within, just as the previous one. As it reaches the deep crimson color, it begins subsiding again as if it’s losing power.

The leeching abruptly stops and he watches as the red glow within the crystal begins pulsating from light to dark. Gradually, almost imperceptible, he starts feeling a vibration in the air.

Taking a few steps back from the crystal, he looks around the room for the source of the vibration. Suddenly, his eyes fall upon the first crystal that’s lying on his workbench. It too is going from light to dark and back again. They’re leeching each other!

The vibration in the air begins to get worse and he can see the two crystals begin to vibrate where they sit. Casting out his magic, he tries to stop each of the crystal’s active spells. But instead, his magic is sucked into them, each taking half and almost seems to be fighting for what the other had taken.

Cutting off his magic, he looks to the crystals and now both are a deep crimson after having taken more of his magic. The vibration increases and a high pitched tone can be heard.

Realizing he may not have much time, he dives for the door and hits the ground outside just as both crystals explode at the same time. The resultant explosion is by far the worse yet of any failed experiment and actually cracks one of the walls of his workshop.

As he gets up off the ground, he sees the girls coming out of the kitchen door and Jiron and Roland running around the side of the house. Roland has his axe ready and Jiron’s knives are out as he looks for attackers.

James holds up his hands and says, “It’s okay, I’m alright.”

“What happened?” Tersa asks as she comes to his side.

“Just another experiment that didn’t go quite the way I planned,” he explains.

Replacing his knives, Jiron says, “You need to be more careful.”

“I know, but there’s no one to teach me about this stuff,” he tells them. “I try to be, but magic isn’t exactly the easiest thing to work with.”

“Probably why there’re darn few mages in the world,” Roland adds.

Nodding his head, James replies, “Most likely.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Ezra asks. When she gets an affirmative from him, she says, “Alright then, just don’t do it again.” Then she turns and with Tersa in tow, returns to the house.

“Let’s see what happened,” Jiron says as he moves toward the workshop.

The interior of the workshop is a shambles. His desk now has a large hole in it and the test table has completely disintegrated, shards and pieces of wood coat every surface of the workshop. The other crystals that had been lying on the workbench are gone, most likely are part of the crystal shards scattered all over. He checks the sack of crystals on the floor and finds them unscathed, much to his relief.

“Man, what a mess,” exclaims Roland as he enters the ruined workshop. Shaking his head, he picks up a broom in a corner and begins to sweep up the debris.

“Here,” Jiron says to James as he takes one end of the ruined workbench, “let’s take this out.”

Taking the other side, James lifts it up and they carry it out where they set it down along the side of the building. When they come back in, Roland pauses in his sweeping and says to James, “You go on in the house while I clean this up. You look like you could use a rest.”

Suddenly feeling how tired he really is, he replies, “Thanks, I think I’ll do just that.”

“We’ll get this place cleaned up and you can start again tomorrow,” Jiron assures him.

“Alright,” he says and then leaves them to finish cleaning up the mess. Returning to the house, he’s greeted by Ezra in the kitchen with a cup of ale. Taking it, he says, “Thank you.” He then moves on out to the front room where he sits in a chair by the window and stares out while he sips his ale.

The spells had taken more out of him than he realized, must’ve been concentrating too much on the effects of the spells and less on the effects they were having on him. He sits back and relaxes as he thinks of what went wrong.

When the second one began to leech from its surroundings, of course it would take magic from the other one. Then when the first began to drop in power, it started leeching from the second, and so forth.

The strain of working against each other must’ve been what caused them to begin vibrating and ultimately explode. Going to have to find a way around that.

He must’ve dozed off for a while, for when he comes awake, it’s near dusk and he sees Illan coming back with the hunters. They have several large game animals and Miko seems very happy with himself. Getting out of the chair, he opens the door and goes outside.

“James!” hollers Miko exuberantly when he sees him come out. Rushing over, he says, “I got the biggest one!”

Uther comes up behind him and claps him on the shoulder. “He sure did,” he affirms. “Put us all to shame.” Giving James a grin and a wink, he returns to the others who are taking the animals around back where they’ll begin getting them ready for the fire.

“You better go with them,” James tells Miko. “If you killed it, you better help butcher it.”

“You’re right!” he says as he turns and rushes to follow them.

James grins at the exuberance of his friend. He’s sure come along way since James first found him on the streets of Bearn. The changes the Fire had wrought doesn’t seem to bother him the way it does James. Guess most boys wish to grow up quickly.

He walks around the house to the workshop and again sees the ruined workbench sitting outside. When he goes inside, he’s amazed at just how well they have already cleaned up most of the mess. They even brought in another workbench for him, though not nearly as nice as the other one had been.

His sack of crystals rests on the floor beside the new desk. Going over to it, he reaches inside and pulls one out. Holding it up, he peers within it, not really looking for anything.

From the door, he hears Jiron says, “Haven’t you had enough for one day?”

Turning to him, James gives him a sheepish grin and shrugs. “I hadn’t planned on doing anything more tonight,” he replies. “Just came to see how the workshop turned out.” Glancing around, he continues, “You guys did a good job, thanks.”

“Not a problem,” he says. “Just try not to make it a habit.”

“I won’t,” assures James. “Promise.”

“Tersa said that dinner’s almost ready,” he tells him. The aroma from the house makes his stomach cramp and growl.

“Then let’s go. I’m starved.” Leading the way, they go into the kitchen and find that dinner is about ready to be served. The table is set and many of the dishes are already upon the table. They don’t take their seats, instead they move on into the front room to wait until all is ready. One of Ezra’s rules is no one sits down until everything is on the table. Miko had tried in the beginning and was thumped in the head with one of her spoons.

When the meal is finally ready, everyone comes to the table except Miko, Illan and Uther. They’re still out getting the animals ready for the smokehouse. One of the dishes on the table is boiled tubers, one of Ezra’s favorites. One of these days, James plans to suggest mashed tubers and gravy. He hasn’t seen anything like that since coming here, seems too simple an idea to not have been tried.