Battle Mage: Winds of Change (The High King: A Tale of Alus Book 11) (12 page)

For those watching the process, they could see the metal shifting at the corners and as magic began to form glowing runes, the welds disappeared into smooth metal. The flow of the magic needed the metal to become one piece as if even the clean welds would have prevented the circuit he needed to create.

Several minutes passed as the owl exerted control over the entire frame at once. Ashleen waited for his nod to add energy to the mage, but the request never came. Those watching could feel the magic within the gate. It was powerful and mysterious. No one who was in the courtyard could say that they could have recreated the spell even after watching the mage as closely as they could. The onlookers could feel the magic and see the results, but how Sebastian had actually made the new gate, they had no idea.

Opening his eyes, the mage let out a sigh feeling contentment that it was finished.

Ashleen whispered, "You managed to do it all by yourself."

Half question and half statement, the girl was in awe of what the mage had done alone. She could feel the power of his magic still appearing strong within the battle mage even though he had used a large amount of power in the undertaking.

Sebastian stood nodding to Ashleen. He didn't say anything at that time to avoid anyone else noticing what he had actually achieved. Knowing that the spell should have exhausted him, the mage felt fine though he was beginning to feel thirsty. His throat felt a bit raw like he had been giving a speech for an hour, but Sebastian knew that once he had drunk something and had a bite to eat he would be fine.

"Well, that's it. All we need to do is lift it into position and have the earth wizards secure it into the stone walls."

Given their cue to lift the frame, the team worked to lift and then set the base. The earth wizards made the earth open beneath the anchoring rods letting the team settle the metal frame. Stone walls lifted along the new towers to hold the sides of the gate also as the side pins were held in place.

"We will finish anchoring the frame once we have built the wall across the top," Wizard Zeben stated for the assembled earth wizards who were looking tired after all their work. "I think we need to break for lunch first, but can you show me how this will work?"

The wizard was one of the portal wizards as well as an earth wizard. His duty would be to make sure the gate was used properly.

"Place your hand there," Sebastian stated pointing to an exact point on the right side of the frame as they faced it from what would be the outside of a portal. "Can you feel the rune? It should feel loose to you compared to the rest of the frame."

The wizard felt with his magic. Earth wizards were close to metal as well. If it came from within the ground, they could usually relate to it and use the material.

Nodding, Zeben replied, "It's strange. The metal feels solid, but it's like a gap in the magic. Well, not a gap exactly, but a weak point maybe?"

"Let's give it a try then," Sebastian stated. "Door."

The magic came to him without Ashleen's assistance and felt easy. Only creating a small window, the owl watched as the much larger frame came alive with his portal. They looked at the cloudy back of the gateway.

"Fireball," Serrena called out like a battle mage and hurled her magic at the surface of the portal. The flames scattered along its facade running down the rear of the gate like it was solid stone.

When she noticed all the eyes on her, the young woman shrugged and replied with a grin, "It was just begging to be tested."

Shaking his head at Serrena, Sebastian tried something with his portal window. He created a loop within the magic. As the owl secured the spell, he found the pressure of maintaining the portal drop to almost nothing. Like using a pulley to reduce the power needed to move a load, the magic was also akin to his air shield spell. The mage could maintain that spell all day with minimal effort letting it essentially feed off itself. A little of his magic was needed to keep the spell active, but he could regenerate as much energy as was lost even without eating or drinking to keep his strength up throughout the day.

Sebastian stepped towards the larger gate leaving the smaller window active in the air. He could feel eyes on him as the owl managed to remove himself from holding the gate close by, which few had managed so far.

Motioning Zeben to follow, the mage informed the wizard, "Use your magic to make the lock rotate. You can make it go up or down within the frame to flip the portal to this side. When you finish, you simply flip it back to secure the gate against intruders."

Zeben frowned at the explanation, but moved to the portal touching the frame where he had felt the difference in the magic. Channeling his power into the lock, the wizard lifted his hand as if he could physically turn the lock. In just a moment, the portal changed from the dull pearl appearance of the back to the golden glow of the open side of the magical doorway.

There were gasps from the assembled wizards and mages. Most hadn't seen his scaled down demonstration of the locks and gates before. To see something so large just switch its nature was astonishing to anyone who had been exposed to portal magic previously. It had been tested by others, especially in the last few days since Sebastian had pointed out the difference of the rear and front of the gates. They were solid constructs except the entry, which was limited by its size.

A gate was set and immovable, or so they had thought before seeing the giant gate turn on a magical axis.

"Impressive," the wizard stated seeing what his magic combined with the lock could do.

"Rotate it again to seal the area off," the mage reminded the wizard.

Zeben did as he was told and flipped the portal so they were looking at the solid back of the gate once more.

Releasing the magic holding the window, Sebastian let the gate disappear into nothingness. His appetite was beginning to increase revealing that the combination of spells was starting to affect him now; but he had achieved more than he would have believed was possible before trying them both.

"I will leave it to you to show the other portal wizards how to use it. Leave it set this way until someone needs to use it, then use the lock to make the gate turn. When it is put back, the enemy will find that they either have to retreat through the portal or fight through our defenses designed to hold them there."

"Once we are finished, no enemy will have time to escape unless they retreat," the earth wizard nodded as he knew how formidable the defenses were planned to become by the time construction was finished.

With no tools to gather, the battle mage looked up at the sun shining down on them and said, "Well, I guess that it is a good time to go have lunch. Unless there are any other questions, Zeben, I leave the gate to you."

Giving a nod to the man, Sebastian picked up the barely touched work basket before offering Ashleen an arm like a gentleman. He led the rest of his team figuring that they could eat lunch at the Black Smith Inn. There were other restaurants that they had visited throughout the city, but it was as close as most to the guild and the mage needed to evaluate what had been done before moving on to the next city and its gate.

Chapter 7- Folded Strength

Sebastian sat at the table tapping his lip with paper wrapped graphite. The common writing tool among wizards and scholars, if the work was likely to be temporary, the variation of pencil waited to write in the book of blank paper. He had started the book after he had figured out how to copy the runes from the merfolk.

Placing the pencil on the table, the mage leafed through the pages of drawings. All copies of the runes drawn by hand, Sebastian looked at them looking for the common uniting factor as if there was a key to the strange writing from beneath the waves. He hadn't truly had a chance to do much more than write them down since copying those he could find onto his body.

Ashleen sat in her chair with her bare right heel hooking enough of the seat to fold it tight against her rear as the wilder continued to look at him pondering something. They hadn't spoken much as they walked back from the guild hall, but she obviously had questions and Sebastian could assume what they were, though he had no answers.

Feeling the tension between the couple, the remainder of his team had chosen another table where their conversation wouldn't interrupt the owl's study or Ashleen's stares. She nursed a mug of prapple juice as they waited for the restaurant staff to bring them their meals, but he wasn't sure that the girl had taken more than a sip from her drink.

"How did you cast those spells and not need to eat or drink heavily at the very least?" the blonde haired Kardorian questioned finally.

His eyes remained on the pages as he compared the runes to each other, but the owl answered without appearing too distracted, "I haven't truly pushed myself since we realized that something was beginning to happen in how I stored my magic. Since you and Serrena shouldered the bulk of the work, I decided to test myself a bit.

"Of course, the portal spell has been getting easier for me with each use too. Harder spells, like the wind riding spell, were the same way when I first learned them." His eyes met her blue gaze as he spoke a little lower to avoid being heard beyond the table. Keeping talk of the staff and pulling from the earth between them, Sebastian hoped to keep the discussion between them. Ashleen and Yara knew of the power boost from using it, as did Darius; but the immortal had discovered the cheat long before he was born anyway. Few who had seen him use a staff had attributed the piece of wood to his increases in power as far as he knew, and that was for the best if Darius' spoke the truth. The high wizard had no reason to lie. Sebastian still used the trick on occasion and Darius knew it, so the warning had only limited the expansion of the idea. Since the mage had worried over the repercussions before meeting Darius, nothing had truly changed aside from being told that he was right to worry.

"I didn't figure out how to ride the winds by myself until after meeting you and using a staff to draw the extra power into me. Just like the portal spell, until today; I needed either the earth or a wizard to give me the extra push.

"After a time, I managed to use my magic more efficiently to use the spell with just my energy. I guess that I am to that point with the portal spell."

"You bound this one in some way, didn't you?" Ashleen asked keeping her voice low as well. She knew that what Sebastian did required a certain amount of secrecy. Releasing spells before they were ready could harm those they were intended for, like his fellow battle mages.

History was full of stories of wizards who had died using spells that they weren't ready for or which hadn't been tested enough. He was cautious, though Sebastian wondered at times if he kept things to himself out of a certain selfish part of his nature as well.

It wasn't that the owl wasn't willing to share; but there were times where the lack of gratitude from his fellow mages and the unreasonable demand to continue finding new spells for them, when they did nothing to deserve his help, grew grating. Shaking his head to clear the thoughts, the mage replied, "I tied it off like my air shield. Once it is made, like the shield, you can create a loop for the magic to maintain itself with minimal effort from the wizard holding the spell."

Her eyes grew wide. The air wilder knew the spell he meant and could do the same with it. After helping Sebastian cast the portal spell, however, she had yet to master the magic to create a doorway by herself. Like Darius and the students he had tried to teach, they were finding that helping with portal magic didn't necessarily mean a wizard could learn to cast the spell. The gestures and theory of thought required to make a gate were there for everyone, but actually achieving one was very hard and limited to a small amount of wizards.

"Teaching the others who can create portals how to do that will make it so much easier then," Ashleen stated with appreciation. "If the caster can tie it off like that, then they won't need the extra power of an assistant beyond the initial casting of the doorway, right?"

"Are you trying to get out of having to help me in the future?" he chuckled at her summation of his adjustment to the spell.

Giving him a sigh of annoyance, the girl replied, "You already made a gate without me. I am already obsolete as your battery."

They lapsed into quiet for a moment and Sebastian considered her comment of being a battery for the mage. Wizards could channel power into items like a corrinut to draw power from or use the power stored for a delayed action. He had even used the large nuts to hold magic making them into small percussion bombs. Charging dozens he had collapsed tunnels in the enemy fortress to create a distraction in one area while he had freed Rilena and a pair of wizards from a prison chamber.

With thoughts of charging corrinuts and lodestones in mind, the mage wondered if there was a way of creating a rune that might be able to hold a charge for the caster to draw from in times of need. A reservoir of magic held in a rune could make a mage more powerful. It might even give them a chance to cast spells on a wizard's level, though that might be asking too much.

"Great, you're thinking again. If I can't keep you grounded to here and now...," Ashleen let the thought fall away unfinished. She didn't look completely unhappy, but Sebastian smiled at the girl to ease her mind.