Brian Pratt: Fires of prophesy

The approaching mage chuckles as he sees a clear, shimmering bubble appear between them, floating in the air. “What’s that suppose to do?”

He casts another spell and the bubble begins sparkling as if fireflies were contained within. The mage’s face loses its look of confidence and begins to exhibit worry. The sparkles begin increasing in luminosity as the man’s face slowly turns to a look of confusion.

Jiron comes to James’ side and asks, “You okay?”

Exhausted from the spell he just cast, he gasps, “Will be.” The effect of the mage’s earlier spell begins to dissipate and the pain in his legs subsides. Jiron turns to the mage and with knives ready, advances on him once more. James grabs his arm as he starts toward the mage, stopping him and warns, “Don’t touch him or the bubble.”

“Why?” Jiron asks.

Shaking his head, he replies, “No time to explain, we’ve got to get out of here. Now!” he shouts, then lapses into unconsciousness and sags to the ground.

Jiron looks to the mage who is shaking his head with a look of horror as he stares into the bubble, the sparks within gaining size and intensity. “No!” he cries in terror, suddenly dropping to the ground. The bubble is getting brighter and brighter by the second.

From out of the darkness, Tinok and the girls come running toward them. “Get the horses!” Jiron shouts as they approach. He begins to untie the remaining horses from the tree.

“What’s that?” Cassie asks as she makes to approach the bubble.

`“Get away from it!” Jiron yells at her. “James said not to touch it.”

He hollers over to Tinok and says, “Help me get James on a horse.” When he comes over, they lift him up and quickly secure him onto the horse with some rope.

Delia mounts a horse and then looks back over to the mage who is by now whimpering in terror. His hair, once a vivid red has now turned grey and he’s beginning to shrivel in upon himself like a grape having spent too much time in the sun.

Jiron mounts and says, “Tinok, you stay next to James and make sure he doesn’t fall off.” He turns his horse toward the southwest, “Let’s stay close together,” he advises, “and maybe we can survive this.” He glances over to the bubble; the sparks have grown until they now fill the entire bubble with a white light whose intensity is painful to look upon. The mage on the ground is no longer moving and appears dead.

Kicking his horse in the side, Jiron rides through the camp, the others close behind. Out of the darkness ahead of him, several men suddenly appear. Holding on tight, he rides straight through them, knocking them over. He looks back toward the bubble, and the light is now extremely bright, illuminating a large portion of the camp. He can see dozens of men running toward it, one of whom is wearing a cowled robe just like the other mage had. They race past the tents and reach the far side of the camp.

They pass numerous soldiers but none seem to notice them, all eyes are turned to the now brilliantly bright light. The guards at the fringe of the camp take notice of them approaching and command them to stop. A crossbow bolt flies past, nearly striking Tinok as they race through. They flee into the dark grasslands to the southwest of town, leaving the guards behind. They don’t get too far before…

Schtk!

They look back at the sound from the backs of their horses, everyone holds their breath in anticipation of what may happen. Then…

Booooooom!

A giant explosion, ten times the force of what they experienced when that building blew earlier. They feel the concussion wave as it washes over them, luckily they’re far enough away that it doesn’t hit them with enough force to knock them over, just causes their horses to miss a step. They stop and look back at the camp.

Reaching toward the sky is a tower of flame, the roar from which can be heard even though they’re now far away from it. The base of the fire extends throughout the camp in every direction, burning everything within.

They sit there in awe as the flame punches through the clouds and then slowly dissipates, appearing as if it’s sinking back down to the ground.

“Dear god!” Cassie exclaims.

They all glance at the unconscious James and then look to each other. Tinok asks, “Just what have we gotten ourselves into?”

“I don’t know,” Jiron replies, shaking his head as he glances again at James. “I don’t know.” Kicking his horse, he leads them out into the grasslands.

James awakens in the morning light. Sitting up suddenly, his head begins to spin and starts aching as if a hundred little hammers are pounding away on it. He holds his head until the pain has subsided to a more tolerable level and then looks around as he takes in his surroundings. The others are still asleep and five horses are picketed a little ways away from the camp, the saddles had been left on for a quick getaway.

A moment of panic sets in when he can’t locate his backpack, then he realizes he had been using it as a pillow. Opening it up, he reaches in and removes some food along with his water bottle.

Deciding not to wake the others, he sits there and eats while he contemplates the events of the day before. The Empire’s mage almost had me, he thinks to himself. I’m just a rookie compared to them, they’ve probably been doing this for a long time. My spells seemed to be rather ineffective against him, too. Going to have to work on better, more innovative spells, gotta surprise them next time or I’m toast. He remembers his last spell and smiles, I bet he never saw that coming!

Hearing one of the sleepers stirring, he looks over and sees Cassie as she leans up on one arm and looks over in his direction. He holds up some of his food, silently offering it to her, but she just shakes her head no. She grabs her pack and gets up, coming over to sit next to him.

She opens her backpack and takes out some of her own rations and then asks as she begins eating, “You okay?”

“Better,” he replies through a mouthful of food. “The more powerful the spell, the more it takes out of you. Sleeping last night has helped a lot. After I’m done eating, I should be fine, if a little fatigued.”

“That’s good,” she says. “We were all worried about you last night, after you passed out.”

“It’s what happens sometimes,” he tells her. “Just how long did we ride last night?”

“Several hours, I think,” she guesses. “It seemed like a long time. Everyone was getting too tired to stay in the saddle so we stopped here and made camp.”

“We probably shouldn’t stay here too much longer, the Empire will want to find us in a bad way,” he says.

During their conversation, everyone else awakens and joins them for breakfast.

“What was that thing you did last night?” Tinok asks when he settles down next to him.

“You mean the bubble?” James asks.

“Yeah,” he answers. “When it went off, it must’ve taken half their camp with it.”

“Really?” James asks, surprised. “I wasn’t sure what was going to happen to tell you the truth. I’ve never actually done that one before. What happened, exactly?”

He sits there and finishes eating while Tinok relates to him the events after he passed out. When he gets to the description of the explosion, James is quite astonished.

“You see,” he explains when Tinok is done telling him, “I designed the bubble to do two things. One is to absorb the power from any magic spells currently active in the area, and the other is a little more complicated. You see, when a mage casts a spell, he opens a conduit from his core of power, usually only enough to accomplish whatever spell he intends to do. My bubble grabs that flow, pulling the power into itself, while at the same time preventing the mage from closing the conduit. The result is that all the mage’s power is sucked out of him and absorbed into the bubble. That must’ve been what was giving the bubble the light, the mage’s power that it had absorbed.”