Brian Pratt - Trail of the Gods

“Sure,” he says as he gets down from his horse. Holding the reins in his hand, he follows him over to where the house is being constructed.

“The cistern you wanted us to put in on the second floor is going to need more support than we had originally anticipated,” he says.

James ties his horse to a wagon parked nearby loaded with lumber and other building supplies while he follows Sean within the skeletal construction.

He shows him where the additional support beams are going to need to be placed. “I’m afraid it will shorten your reception area by a foot, but I don’t think we have a choice,” he says.

“Very well,” he tells him. “If we need to sacrifice a foot, so be it.”

“It won’t be completely wasted, however,” he explains. Bringing him closer, he shows where the pipes are being set to allow the water to flow from the cistern above to a smaller tank below. “We can reroute the pipes to run within the new support area, so will save some room there.”

“Good thinking,” James says, agreeing to the idea.

“Never seen anyone do this before,” he tells him.

“Well, the idea is to have water in the house without having to go outside to fetch it,” James says. He had to explain this several times before Sean was able to understand the rationale behind it when he first started the construction project. He wanted at least partially running water, and a way to heat it for baths in the winter time.

“Other than that, we’re running right on schedule,” he says. “We should be able to finish the main house by fall and the rest before Solstice.”

“Excellent,” comments James. “You’re doing a great job.”

“Thank you sir,” Sean replies.

James leaves him to his work as he goes back and retrieves his horse. The barn not being too far, he decides to just walk him over to it. Jiron has already taken care of his horse and has gone to the house by the time James enters the barn. His is the first stall, being master of the house definitely has its perks. Of course in the winter time, he may want the last stall to be as far from the cold as possible.

The sound of Roland splitting more firewood can be heard while he removes the saddle and tack. A quick brushing and his horse is set. Leaving the barn, he checks in with Ezra and finds lunch still an hour away so he heads over to his workshop.

The ruined workbench has been removed, probably chopped into kindling. Not good for much else now anyway. Inside he takes out another of the crystals and sets it on the workbench before him. The spell he applied last time had worked beautifully, as long as there isn’t another crystal in close proximity.

Maybe I could incorporate a ‘signature’ of some kind within each of the crystals that would prohibit another from leeching from it. If so, that would solve the problem.

He finally comes up with an idea. When the crystal feels a drain on it, it will send a signal to the source. Each crystal will be set up to recognize that signal and when they receive that signal from a source of power they’re attempting to leech from, they’ll stop.

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 himself a sandwich. Everyone else has begun to copy him ever since the first time they saw him do it. They like the idea they can make it anyway they choose from the selections Ezra has prepared.

It being so hot, James has been trying to remember how his grandparents had made homemade ice cream, but hasn’t had any luck. He usually showed up about the time to crank the handle. Once he asked his grandparents why they didn’t just buy an electric one, they said it never turned out as good.

After lunch, he returns to where he left the crystals and Jiron decides to tag along. When they get there, they find both of the crystals have reached a deep crimson glow. Also, around each is an almost perfect circle of wilted vegetation.