July 30 / Riecoltsan 7
While he recovered from his injuries, Alboim worked on his circle drawing. Basic circles over and over until they were permanently seared into his mind. Now, other than a long purplish scar that ran along the length of his right hand and to his elbow, he was recovered and could once again actually work with his arwa and etere.
He sat cross-legged, eyes closed, back straight, concentrating on his inner sight; over the past week, he’d done this a thousand times, and, Oswalt was right, his arwa was much easier to sense now. It billowed like backlit mist, rich, warm, royal hues. Purple and red shades dominated, with splashes of orange, yellow, and even the occasional blue. Is it just me, or does my etere core seem denser somehow? An improvised headband kept sweat from his eyes, and already his shirt was damp, but it was nowhere near as bad as that first session, the day of the lightning storm.
Maybe it worked like muscles. Lifting weights actually damaged the muscle; the body’s response was to build back better and stronger. I’ll ask at lunch.
“Excellent.” Oswalt pronounced. “I think you are ready for the next step. Harralt?”
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“Yes.” He placed a simple talisman, ‘light,’ the basis for mage-lights. “Now, gently, take the barest strand of your arwa, and just barely brush against your etere core. If you start to feel any strain, break off the connection. We most definitely do not want another arwa-scorching.”
With his mind, he funneled a tiny wisp of orange arwa, the closest to him, though he was everywhere and nowhere in this inner void filled with his magic core and essence, to the etere. Instead of the sandbag, it felt more like pressure on over-tight muscles. He used to make Agatha walk on his back after a hard day at the Sallé, and it felt a lot like that. Painful, but a good pain, pent up energy and tightness bleeding away.
Light made his eyelids red, and he began tracing the darker lines of his veins.
He heard the sound of the door opening, and Oswalt telling Suzise. “Run. Go to Elspith and tell her to come right away. She is going to want to see this with her own eyes.”
Harralt tapped him on his shoulder. “Open your eyes.”
The light emanating from the talisman was easily as bright as a stage spotlight. He gasped in shock, and with his broken concentration, the link was gone. The light winked out, and the talisman turned black, blowing away in the current formed by his panting breath.
“Forget everything I ever said about needing to be able to draw complicated circles in order to be a competent mage. If you have that much power, you can just brute-force almost anything you want to do.”
