and began using his turyn to amplify it.
Initially he only succeeded in completely dampening the resonance. The vibration he introduced was similar, but its timing was off by just enough that it canceled out its twin, resulting in a profound and almost startling silence. Will made note of it for future exploration, then corrected his mistake. By tuning the resonance up and down slightly, he eventually matched the exact frequency that the gate seemed to hold onto.
He knew when he had it because the energy immediately ramped up and the wood slowly began to visibly shiver. Interesting, he thought. I wonder how far this could go? First increasing his turyn absorption, Will then began adding more energy into the wild magic.
The gate drank it in, and its shivering gradually transformed into a frenetic shaking that seemed as though it might cause the wood to literally rip itself free of the stone and iron that framed it. Dust rained down around him, and the walls of the gatehouse began to groan with a strange sound he had never heard in stone before.
The soldiers holding the ram had stopped their work, too fascinated by what he was doing, but Will was suddenly taken by the realization that what he was doing might be dangerous to everyone in the vicinity. Turning his head, he voiced an order, “You men should withdraw a short distance. I’m not sure what—”
Will never finished his sentence, as the massive ironbound gate chose that moment to explode, sending sharp flinders of wood in every direction at high speed. Men died and blood ran thick as the front ranks of soldiers manning the ram were impaled by hundreds of spear-like splinters. Will himself, being directly in front of the gate, took the worst of it, and only the fact that he’d been using an iron-body transformation prevented his instantaneous demise.
He found himself lying supine a few feet from where he’d been standing. Staring upward, he could see that nothing remained of the gate, and the stone arch above it had been grievously damaged. A massive crack had formed where some of the stone had been blown away, and it spread rapidly along the stone ceiling within the gatehouse. From the corner of his eye, he could see similar cracks in the walls where large chunks of stone had been ripped free.
Looks like the whole thing might collapse in on itself, the spectator in the back of his head observed quietly. At the same time, he realized he was going to be beneath some portion of that collapsing structure. This might not be the best place for resting, he thought.
In slow motion, the gatehouse that guarded the main entrance to the city of Maldon shuddered and slipped, falling inward, and despite his best intentions and its seeming slowness, Will found himself utterly unable to move in time.
“Fuck.” His final remark slipped out as he used the only spell that might save him, a force-dome. He watched as a truly immense slab of stone blocks that remained stubbornly cemented together fell directly on it, then felt his spell fail under the strain. There was a moment’s pain, and then the world went black.
Surprisingly, his eyes opened again a moment later, though Will wasn’t sure if he’d gone unconscious and reawakened, or whether he’d merely closed his eyes before the sky had been blotted out. He tried to lift a hand to check his head and see if it had been cracked open, only to discover that he was pinned. There was almost no light, but a tiny amount found him through cracks in the stone detritus, enough to see once he’d adjusted his vision.
The coughing started a few seconds later as he inhaled some of the cloud of dust that hung around him. I’ve been buried alive. How silly. Will would have laughed if his lungs hadn’t already been fully occupied with trying to clear themselves.
Eventually the dust settled, as did his coughing fits, and in the meantime, he was able to ascertain that he still retained both arms and both legs. Experimentally, he wiggled his fingers and toes just to be sure. A chilling thought came to him then. What if I’m just imagining it? He’d heard that sometimes people still felt their legs after losing them.
He pushed that thought aside, deciding that he felt both too much and not enough pain for that to be the case. He wasn’t sure if his logic was sound, but he wasn’t going