Scholar of Magic (Art of the Adept #3) - Michael G. Manning Page 0,234

do it. I agree with her reasoning.”

For some reason everyone seemed to be waiting on Will to make the final call, so he did. “We’ll do that.” They began moving. When did I turn into the leader here? he wondered. Elizabeth Sundy was still barking orders at the students, so he felt some relief. At least I’m not the only one.

The lectern and other furniture had been cleared away, along with the altar table, and now the dais where the high priest normally stood was completely clear of obstructions. “Will, come here,” called Elizabeth. “You’ll stand on this mark, at the center.” She handed him a sheet of parchment. “Can you do this?”

It all started with a spell construct, Ethelgren’s Illumination, with a few alterations. His biggest worry was that he might create the original spell and omit the changes before moving on to the second stage. He nodded. “I can.” He had barely gotten the words out before the scholar had moved on, calling to the new sorcerers who would be participating. “You, over here. You, here.” It went on and on.

She arranged thirteen in a circle around him, those she judged to be the most experienced students, for their jobs required more finesse as they would be providing auxiliary control, guiding the flows of turyn from the rest of the students into channels that would flow around Will in the center.

While she organized the last of them, Will nervously activated the limnthal. “I’m about to start the ritual,” he told Arrogan quietly. “Wish me luck.”

“Fuck luck. Luck will get you killed,” said the ring, speaking softly. “Remember what happened when the dam nearly collapsed on you?”

“Yeah.”

“This is like that. You have to make your own luck.”

“I’m not going to be doing the double draw like I did then, though,” said Will, somewhat confused.

“No, but you’re going to have to step up and do something similar. Controlling the turyn in a ritual like this requires a more advanced technique.”

His heart sped up. “You should have said that before! I don’t know what I’m doing,” he hissed under his breath, hoping no one heard him.

“If you did that, you can do this. The trick here is to keep the turyn away from yourself. Visualize a sort of shell around your core, your body. You want to control the turyn they’re sending in your direction, but you can’t let it slip through and into your inner boundary, otherwise it will undermine your control.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” demanded Will, beginning to panic. “I think you should do this. Take my body.”

“I wasn’t lying when I said I might not be able to give it up. I’m not doing this for you. It’s you or nothing.”

Will said nothing.

Arrogan went on, “You have to think of it this way. You’re keeping the turyn at arm’s length, away from you. There’s so much of it that it will literally tear you apart if it gets too close. So you have to control it at a distance. It sounds harder, but it really—all right, that’s a lie—it is harder, but not as hard as dying.”

“How am I going to control that much energy if I’m keeping it that far away?”

“Ever seen a tornado?”

“What’s that?”

“How about a dust devil?”

Will nodded. “Yes.”

“You’re going to whip the first turyn that comes in around yourself, like a wind-wall spell. Keep it moving, and its momentum will draw the turyn that follows along with it. As long as you don’t falter, the turyn will stick to the pattern.”

“What about the ritual construct?”

“You pick a little turyn out of the storm and use just that. Then let the construct pull more in on its own, sort of like its own independent dust devil within your larger dust devil. As it grows, you feed more of the external to it and eventually it consumes all of it and the ritual finishes.”

He frowned. “Except the ritual construct isn’t a dust devil at all. It’s a static structure.”

“Stop bitching, it’s a metaphor.”

“Don’t