The Whitefire Crossing - By Courtney Schafer Page 0,142
exile?”
Simon glanced back. “Foolish as Ruslan is in personal matters, I don’t deny he possesses a viper’s cunning. Especially when faced with the certainty of a rival’s power soon far outstripping his.”
“But...you both are master akheli.” Once fully trained, a mage’s power remains relatively constant, a function of innate talent, imagination, and strength of will, Ruslan had said. “How could your magic suddenly grow to overshadow his?”
A cold light sparked in Simon’s eyes. “Tell me, Kiran, what do you know of the Well of the World?”
The immense confluence beneath Ninavel...Kiran frowned, and said slowly, “Ninavel’s confluence is unique in size. No greater single source of magical energy has ever been identified.”
Simon nodded. “Yet even the akheli must tiptoe about its edges, barely touching its potential. Imagine if a mage could access the confluence forces directly, without need for cumbersome intermediaries such as these.” He waved a dismissive hand at the silver links.
“That’s impossible.” To touch the confluence energies directly would be like an untalented man plunging into an inferno.
Simon gave him a condescending look. “Yet Tainted children do it every day.”
“That’s not the same—the Taint only operates on the physical plane,” Kiran protested.
“Limited as the ability is, they bend the confluence to their will with hardly a thought.”
“You claim you found a way for a mage to do the same?” Kiran made every word a study in skepticism. Simon didn’t appear to share Ruslan’s hot temper, but he might share Ruslan’s eagerness to demonstrate superiority.
“After long years of experiments—yes. I designed a series of spells, cast upon the confluence itself, to bind the energies to my own ikilhia...” Naked yearning showed on Simon’s face, before his expression hardened. “But after I cast the first spell, Sechaveh—” he spat the name—“interfered. He took exception to the amount of ikilhia needed for the spellcasting, complaining I would destroy the productivity of his precious mines.”
Kiran swallowed. Sechaveh hadn’t blinked an eye when Ruslan killed thirty men for Mikail’s akhelashva ritual. Hundreds must have died in Simon’s casting to draw his attention. And Simon had said that spell was only the first of a series...his nausea increased.
“So Sechaveh told Ruslan what you hoped to accomplish...” Kiran could well believe Ruslan would have hastened to prevent a rival from gaining such advantage. “And you fled to Alathia before Ruslan could cast against you?”
Simon snorted. “Ruslan was the craven one, not I. Sechaveh set his tame mages upon me—and then Ruslan came, claiming sympathy for a fellow akheli and saying we had tolerated Sechaveh’s shortsighted rules long enough. He cast with me against Sechaveh so I would let him into my counsel—and then the sneaking coward struck down my apprentices rather than face me himself.”
“Hardly cowardice, when in one stroke he removed your ability to cast channeled magic.” Kiran strove to match Ruslan’s arrogance. “I think you the coward, hiding from Ruslan for twenty years.”
“Waiting, rather, for the right opportunity,” Simon said. “Which you have so kindly provided me.” He shook his head. “Still. Twenty years without true magic, my research stagnated without Tainted and formerly Tainted subjects to experiment with...Ruslan will pay for every moment of my wasted time.”
Kiran still didn’t see how. He stared at the partially completed pattern as Simon bent to set out another series of silver rods. All Simon’s talk of the confluence made him wonder...he pressed his back against stone and concentrated.
Beyond the block on his power, a deep, slow pulse of earth energy. The cave must sit over a minor confluence point. Though the confluence beneath Ninavel dwarfed all others, weaker points lay widely scattered throughout western Arkennland. Unlike Ninavel’s confluence, the forces here were tame enough to touch directly. Even so, without a partner to channel the energies during his casting, Simon would be restricted to crude, brute force methods. He must intend something more powerful and subtle, against Ruslan...but what?
The pattern section Simon had just finished looked oddly familiar, silver lines coiling in complex tangles toward a wide circle at the center...
Understanding hit Kiran with the force of a magefire strike, the spell exploding into shape in his mind.
“You mean to focus this location’s earth-power all through me—through my mark-binding link, at Ruslan.”
Simon’s face filled with malicious delight. “Very good, Kiran. I see Ruslan’s teaching was not completely inadequate.”
The pieces fell into place with terrible precision. “That’s why you needed the memory! You needed to see the channel pattern he used when he created the link, so you could properly harmonize yours with it!”