by Frank Morin
"I still don't see anything special," Hamish said, dropping back into his chair and studying the powder through the goggles again. "It's just a jumbled mess."
"That's the key," Verena explained as Hamish moved over and handed the goggles to Kilian. "Notice how there's no regular crystalline pattern."
"What does that prove?" Kilian asked.
Verena pointed at a little tray nearby. It held samples of several minerals, including salt and quartz. "Take a look at those."
Kilian examined them each in turn. "This is amazing. These goggles reveal the underlying structure in ways no one has ever seen before."
"From my study, it seems clear that minerals have a structured, crystalline form," Verena explained.
"I still don't see what that proves," Hamish said. "The burned sand isn't crystal. Maybe the heat melted the crystals away."
"It doesn't work that way." Verena pulled over another tray she'd just finished examining. It held samples of most of the different power stones, plus samples that had been burned over intense heat. "Burning the stones didn't alter the mini-tiny-view structure."
Hamish had already looked at them. He pointed at the quartzite sample. "But that one has crystals."
She shook her head. "Individual grains are structured because they're made up of the different minerals in the rock, but the rock itself is a mishmash of those different structure types."
"What are your conclusions then?" Kilian asked, still studying the various samples.
"Rocks are made up of various minerals, but they are not themselves a mineral," Verena explained. "Their mini-tiny structures prove that. They're inconsistent. Every mineral I've studied, on the other hand, has a well-defined structure that remains consistent, even when burned."
Kilian straightened and smiled. "Good work. I believe you're right. We're looking at powdered stone here. Without these new tools, we might never have known for sure."
"Rock or no rock, it's not important until we prove it's a power stone," Hamish pointed out. He'd helped develop the close view goggles, but didn't seem to appreciate that important secrets could be revealed through such tiny samples.
"It's hard to activate most powdered stone," Verena agreed. Sedimentary stones worked best, like the healing sand she sometimes applied to bandages, but igneous stones were notoriously hard to activate when powdered. She suspected it had to do with the distribution of the power.
"But we came up with another idea," Hamish announced, pointing to a steel construct standing nearby. He had dubbed it the Smash Packer and was extremely proud of it and eager to test it on the powder.
He showed Kilian how it worked. Its thick, steel sides tapered down to a small box. Hamish retracted the heavy, steel plug to hang by its chain above the opening. They had lined the inner surfaces of the smasher box with soapstone. When activated, it would form a barrier of water around whatever they wanted to smashpack.
"Since it's hard to activate a powder," Hamish explained. "We're going to try to pack some so tight it thinks it's a whole stone again. Kind of like a forced family reunion."
"I don't think you can make a stone by packing the powder," Kilian said.
"Of course you can," Hamish said. "How do you think metamorphic stones are formed? Rocks get smashpacked underground by so much pressure they change into other rocks."
"We're denying this powder the heat needed to transform," Verena said. The explanation had sounded so much more convincing before Kilian arrived. She hoped they hadn't wasted hours for nothing.
Hamish pulled a pastry out of his pocket and mashed it into the tiny smasher box, then activated the soapstone edges, coating the doomed confection in a pulsing layer of water. "Time to test it."
He touched the quartzite blocks mounted on top of the heavy plug suspended over the smasher box, then released the restraining lever. Air blasted the plug down the smash packer and into the smasher box with a loud crack, rocking the entire smash packer.
Verena extracted the plug, and Hamish reached into the smasher box to retrieve what was left of the pastry. It had been crushed flat, like a wafer-thin piece of bread.
He bit slowly through it and grinned. "Tastes great, and it's super dense."
"The pressure is the key," Verena told Kilian. "Water cannot be compressed, so it transfers all the force into whatever's being smashpacked, but maintains a perimeter that prevents it from shattering."
"Let's give it a try," he said after refusing a bite of Hamish's smashpacked bread.
Verena poured a handful of the charred powder into the smasher box and they repeated the process. The plug smashed down with unrestrained glee into the box of water-coated powder.
Hamish worked the crank with excited haste, eager to see their success. The smasher hadn't worked as well on the powdered stone as it had on the pastry. Verena extracted two tiny wafers and a handful of muddy powder.
"This should give us enough to test," Verena said, handing one of the little wafers to Hamish.
"Together then," he said.
Verena counted to three, then focused on the little wafer. When she flickered her Builder senses across it, she at first felt nothing. Then she sensed a faint flicker and cried, "I feel something!"
"Me too." Hamish had of course placed his on his tongue.
"Get that out of your mouth," Kilian ordered.
Frowning, he pulled it out and gestured with it. "This is how I work."
Verena ignored the argument. They needed to know. Besides, with how tenuous the connection felt, she doubted they'd get much effect. Anything would be a victory, though, and they had to know. So fighting down a tremor of worry, Verena snapped open the release rate of that ethereal crack in the sort-of stone.
"Nothing," Hamish grumbled, holding his stone close to his eye and peering at it intently.
"What about you?" Kilian asked her.
"Maybe we didn't smashpack it hard enough," she suggested.
Then it turned warm against her hand, and that heat rippled up her arm, setting her hair standing on end.
"Wait, I've got something!" The warmth flared into searing heat a second later, and the muscles of her hand convulsed around the tiny stone.
Verena shrieked, shaking her hand to try to dislodge the burning stone, but unable to open her hand. Hamish started hopping around, shouting. He'd stuck his little wafer back in his mouth, and it sizzled against his tongue.
Verena gasped under a rush of fear so intense, it was like a physical weight. Tears sprang to her eyes, a purplish haze descended over her vision, and her limbs trembled with terror. She wanted to find a corner to hide in, to weep from fear and the agony of her burning hand.
Hamish bumped into her, sparking an overpowering rage. She punched him and he staggered, eyes wild, and he laughed in her face.
"You can't take it!" he snarled, hands lifting into a fighting stance.
It was his fault she was afraid. Destroying him would make the pain go away. She leaped at him, fingernails lashing out to dig at his eyes and to crush his windpipe. She'd show him what it meant to scare her.
He attacked at the same time, powerful hands balled into fists.
Inches away from each other, they were both swept off their feet by a wave of water she never saw coming. It separated her from Hamish and held her, even as she fought savagely to free herself. She had to destroy him, had to stop the terror and quench the pain.
Then the searing heat evaporated and her hand opened, releasing a whiff of noxious fumes. The intense rage and fear vanished, leaving her sagging with exhaustion in the grip of the watery bonds. A choking cough replaced Hamish's crazed laughter when he sucked in a mouthful of water.
"What happened?" Verena asked. Her voice sounded hoarse, as if she'd been screaming and hadn't realized it.
Kilian approached and studied them both. "Are you all right?"
"I'm not sure," she admitted. "But I'm in control."
"Me too," Hamish said, sneezing a blast of water.
"Are yo
u ever?" Kilian asked with a wry grin. He made a sweeping gesture with one hand and the waters receded, leaving Verena and Hamish both dry and on their feet.
"What happened?" Verena asked again.
"It appears you were successful in activating the power stone," Kilian said.
Verena inspected her hand where a pair of fang-shaped burns had seared into her palm, as if she'd been clutching burning teeth instead of a tiny stone. Hamish stuck his tongue out to reveal a similar scar.
"The effects didn't last long," Verena said.
"Who knows how long it would have lasted with a real stone," Kilian said, touching her palm. She flinched, but a second later, healing warmth flowed into her hand and eased the burn. The scar faded to a pair of thin, white lines.
"What about me?" Hamish asked.
"I'm not sticking my hand in that mouth of yours," Kilian said. "I told you not to suck on it."
"It's how I work."
"Be more flexible." Kilian handed Hamish a small piece of sandstone. "Suck on this for a minute."
While Hamish treated his tongue, Kilian said, "Those stones triggered dramatic reactions from both of you. What happened?"
"At first, it just hurt," Verena explained. "Then I was overwhelmed with fear, mixed with rage."
"I felt the rage," Hamish said. "But not the fear. It was more a feeling of victory, like the best celebration in the world."
"It appears the rage is the linking factor," Kilian said. "That same rage overwhelmed the elfonnel. I couldn't control it, didn't want to for a while. Only getting a mountain dropped on my head knocked me out of the frenzy."
Verena was about to sink into a chair, but gestured Kilian to take it instead. He didn't object. "So the stone triggers uncontrollable aggression?"
"It also seems to magnify other emotions," Hamish pointed out. "It affected your fear and my joy, turning them crazy-intense."
"Imagine the chaos such stones could wreak in an army if dropped into a group of soldiers," Kilian said, his expression grave.
"Don't you dare," Verena exclaimed. "They'd rip themselves apart. They wouldn't be able to stop."
"Don't worry," Kilian said. "I would never condone such a tactic. It would be barbarous."
"Are you thinking that Dougal would do it?" Hamish asked.
"I have no doubt he would if he knew the possibility existed," Kilian said.
"But he has no Builders," Verena objected.
"None that we know about," Kilian said.
She shuddered to think of the destruction Builded rampager stones could cause. "By the Tallan's blessed memory, let's pray they don't ever discover it."
"We need to know what they do know," Hamish said.
Kilian nodded. "Agreed. It's time I interrogate the prisoners."
Chapter 46
As they waited for a prisoner, Hamish looked up from where he'd been pacing the workroom, sucking on a caramel-coated piece of soapstone and wondering how to tap the euphoria of porphyry without triggering that crazy rage.
"Just thinking about rage," he said. "Dougal's going to be furious when he finds out his rampagers are destroyed."
"I'm planning on that," Kilian said. "If he has more rampagers, I hope to goad him into using them recklessly so we can destroy them."
"As long as they're sent against us instead of getting unleashed on defenseless villages," Verena said.
"He'll know it was me," Kilian said. "That makes the contest more personal than it has ever been. Now that I know the secret, he'll know I'll be coming for him. He'll either send rampagers to assassinate us, or keep them close as his final guard."
"If he thinks you're coming after him, he'll keep them for defense." Hamish liked to test himself against Kilian, but if he knew the Dawnus was planning to kill him, he'd already be running. "So when do we leave to get him?"
"All in good time," Kilian said, his eyes flashing with pinpoints of fire. "But on our timetable, not his."
A pair of hulking Rumblers entered the workroom, leading one of the captured rampagers. The woman was heavily chained, barely able to walk. She looked miserable, her eyes wild, her hands shaking.
Kilian displayed the pinch of rampager powder he held in his palm. Her eyes fastened upon it with a terrible hunger and she lunged against the restraints, dragging the surprised Rumblers forward a step. She started to pant, drool dripping from her mouth.
"You want some of this?" Kilian asked.
"Give it to me!" Her voice held an edge of desperation, as if she hadn't eaten for a week.
Verena took a step closer to the wild woman. "You can't bear not to have it, can you?"
The woman tore her eyes off the powder long enough to glance at her. "It hurts," she whimpered. "Every day it must feast on my soul, or it eats away my heart."
Hamish decided maybe he didn't want to suck on porphyry after all.
Verena said, "It's even worse than the addiction that some of the chew leaf sniffers develop."
"People sniff leaves?" Hamish asked. "That's insane."
"You're one to talk, rock licker," Verena retorted.
Hamish grunted. "There's a vast difference between tasting power stones and sniffing a useless leaf. Even you taste them."
"Enough," Kilian chided. "Licking or sniffing, addictions are dangerous. We must exercise additional caution when working with the stone."
"Give me some," the woman begged again, straining against the Rumblers.
"You must give me something first," Kilian said, unmoved by the pitiful act. "First, tell me what stone this is."
"If I do, you'll give me some?"
He nodded.
"Porphyry." She barely got the word out before screaming for him to give her powder.
Kilian took a pinch of the powdered stone and placed it against her throat. She shuddered, then relaxed, a look of ecstasy on her face. For a second her skin turned purplish, then the color receded.
"What have you done to it?" she exclaimed. "It feels all but spent."
"Blame Carrot Face," Hamish said. "He set it on fire."
She moaned. "I need more."
"What else can you tell me about the stone?" Kilian asked.
"Anything," she shrieked. "It's a primary affinity stone. We were tested as children."
"How?" Hamish asked.
"The birthing houses," she whimpered. "Some children from promising families are secretly tested with porphyry first."
"That's horrible," Hamish exclaimed, imagining babies in thrall to the rage of porphyry, their little bodies mutating.
"What is she talking about?" Verena asked.
"In Obrion, all children are tested at birth," Hamish explained. "Commoners with strong curses can be detected that way. They're taken by the high lords and raised in their service."
Verena's face paled, then her expression turned angry. "I'm going to kill Dougal."
"Me first," Hamish said, stoking a similar rage. "It's my people he's using."
"Give me more," the woman begged, and Kilian again pressed a tiny bit to her throat, which only seemed to add to her desperation for more.
"How do you stay in control when transformed?" Kilian asked.
The woman giggled hysterically. "Not firm like reining a horse, but on the cusp of disaster. More like rafting a torrent. The best you can hope for is aiming in the general direction you want and pray for the best."
That sounded pretty incredible if not for the murderous addiction aspect.
They questioned her further, and Verena took notes, but Hamish didn't care so much for details about quantity to duration burn charting and things like that. He had heard enough. Porphyry was the first evil power stone he'd heard of, and it enraged him to think about High Lord Dougal using his own subjects as unclaimed monsters.
When they completed the interrogation, Kilian granted the woman a little more powder. Not enough to allow a change, but perhaps enough to take the edge off her withdrawal.
"We must interview each of the others the same way,"
he said. "The addiction may explain why they've been acting so wild. They will be sick with the need for it. With the promise of a little powder, they'll talk."
Verena nodded. "We'll see if the others corroborate her description."
"I suspect they will," Kilian said, pacing over to the sack of charred powder and considering the purplish dust. "We must tread cautiously, my friends. This stone destroys even those who establish affinity with it."
"I hope Connor is careful," Verena said.
"If he finds any of this, he'll try it." That truth was abundantly obvious.
"That would be extremely bad," Kilian said. "Even if he established rudimentary control, there may be dangers we don't yet know about."
"You need to send Ilse another letter before it's too late," Verena urged.
"I will, but the risks of porphyry are not his greatest danger."
"What could be worse?" Verena asked. "He could lose control and kill a lot of people."
"He could kill more if we don't get him out of that school soon."
Hamish didn't like the turn in the conversation. "Are you talking about that Evander character Ilse mentioned in that last report?"
"No," Kilian said. "Most of the time, that boy's more a plotter than a killer. If Connor's careful, he won't drive Evander to murder."
Hamish shared an astonished look with Verena. From what he'd heard, Evander was perhaps the oldest person in Obrion. How could Kilian call him a boy?
"You're talking about Connor raising an elfonnel," Verena exclaimed. "You hinted at it before. You're honestly afraid it might happen."
"The possibility worries me," Kilian admitted. "Connor might indeed one day ascend through the requisite thresholds of power that would allow him to raise an elfonnel. However, my fear is that Dougal may have uncovered one of the secrets buried after the Tallan Wars. There is a way for one with the proper set of affinities to push another's mind and wrest control over their will, forcing them to raise an elfonnel."
"That would've been good to know sooner," Hamish exclaimed.
"It is one of the deep secrets," Kilian said. "I wouldn't have shared my fear with you now if you hadn't already witnessed an elfonnel losing control. You understand the consequences."