by Tom Larcombe
Crystal Beach
Crow Hill #1
By: Tom Larcombe
Text copyright © 2014, Tom Larcombe
All Rights Reserved
This is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, businesses, places, and events
are the products of the author’s imagination.
Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,
or actual events is purely coincidental.
The town of Crystal Beach, Colorado does not exist except in the imagination of the author and the pages of this book.
Find Tom's other stories on his Amazon Author Page:
Tom Larcombe's Amazon Author Page
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
* * *
Chapter 1
The caw of a crow, followed by a series of staccato pecks on the windowpane, drew Michael's attention from the dead smart phone on his nightstand. It was working when he went to bed, but something had happened to it overnight. A scattering of crystal shards and a darkened screen greeted him when he woke, demonstrating his latest failure.
“You know, Calvin,” he said, opening the window, “when I took you in and healed your wing, I thought you'd return to the wild, not become a permanent house guest.”
Calvin flew into the room and perched on Michael's dresser. Peering into the silvered glass, he preened and performed his morning hygiene, all while watching his reflection in the mirror.
Michael shook his head, suppressed a laugh, then pulled on his clothes while Calvin continued to preen.
“Come on then, we'll go get some breakfast,” Michael said.
He held his arm out and Calvin hopped over to his forearm. Michael was wearing a long sleeved T-shirt. He'd learned, the hard way, that at least some cloth was necessary between Calvin's claws and his arm, despite Calvin being careful whenever he got a ride.
Michael went downstairs while Calvin flicked his head from side to side, trying to keep an eye on everything.
“Eww, that's nasty. You've got that bird sleeping with you now?” Joshua asked.
“Oh, you're on shift? I thought Chris had another week to go on his,” Michael replied.
“Nah, he requested some vacation time so I'm pulling a three week shift instead of two this time. He'll do a three week shift next time and I'll get the extra week off.”
“For your information, Calvin sleeps outside. He wakes me up by knocking on the window, whether or not I'm ready to get up,” Michael said.
“Another late night?”
“Yeah, still trying to wizard-proof some common electronics. Smart phones and tablets are giving me a headache.”
“Quit whining already. You're the only wizard I know of that's figured out how to use most electronics without blowing them out. Speaking of which, thank you again. My daughter just hit puberty and she's got the spark. She complained about the MP3 player being three times as bulky as normal, but she still wears it all the time. As long as I drain the grounding crystal at least once a week, it seems to work fine.”
“No problem. I don't know why you didn't know about that already. I submitted a paper with a list of wizard-friendly modifications for normal electronics to the Board a few years back. It pisses me off that they didn't tell anyone. If I knew they'd keep it to themselves I wouldn't have sent it to them. They're the reason I'm here.”
“Don't start again Michael. I've heard it too many times. I know you feel that they sent you here unjustly.”
“Oh, come off it. They basically imprisoned me because I wanted people to know magic is real.”
“Not going there again Michael. Don't start.”
Joshua turned and left the kitchen. Michael started to call after him, but a tightening of Calvin's claws stopped him.
“You want breakfast, is that it?” Michael asked.
Calvin dipped his beak.
“You understand a lot more than anyone thinks, don't you? I still think you know what I'm saying.”
Calvin tucked his head under his wing.
Michael walked over to the refrigerator, opened it, and ducked his head in. He rummaged around for a moment then shook his head in exasperation.
“Joshua?” he called. “Did you finish the eggs... again?”
“Sorry,” came the reply. “I'll go get some more later on today.”
“What am I supposed to feed Calvin for breakfast? You know he likes egg yolks best.”
A grunted mutter answered him.
“You and that crow. Shouldn't you care more for another person than some stray bird?”
“Yeah, well the bird isn't my personal jailer, is he?” Michael called.
Joshua stayed silent.
Calvin hopped off of Michael's arm and proceeded to peck on a cupboard door. Michael opened the cupboard and scooped out a cup of small sized dog kibble.
“Sorry, I was going to give you an egg yolk on top, but...” Michael said.
Calvin pecked down into the cup, removing a piece of food.
“Okay, okay.”
The cup nicely filled a small metal dish sitting on the floor near the back door. Michael took the water dish beside it and topped that off as well. Calvin taken care of, he turned back to the refrigerator to search out his own breakfast.
He retrieved a small bowl of leftover spaghetti from the refrigerator and proceeded to eat it cold.
One of these days I'll figure out how to get a microwave to work for me, or any other wizard, he thought. But I haven't figured out how to deal with the combination of electromagnetic fields and magic yet. Too many other things to work on and I don't have that much interest since they didn't distribute my earlier discoveries.
He tossed the dish and fork in the sink and went out to the living room.
“So, what's the plan for today?” Joshua asked.
“I want to work in the garden some. Then I need to clean the crystals that came from the mine over the last couple of days.”
“Well, once you get involved in the crystal work, I'll run to the store. You can feed your bird an egg yolk for dinner.”
“He's not my bird, he's his own bird. He just... likes it here.”
“Of course he does. He gets food, shelter in bad weather, and you for a servant,” Joshua said.
Michael grimaced.
“But he earns his keep. He keeps the other birds and rodents out of my garden.”
Joshua raised his hands, palms out.
“Whatever,” he said. “It's your dime.”
Michael pulled his MP3 player out and slid it into his pocket. With his alterations, it was too heavy to clip on his belt. He fingered the crystal connected to the back that would draw off any errant energy his magic might generate.
At least the crystal doesn't need to be drained yet. Couple more days probably.
He slid the ear buds in and walked back through the kitchen. The pet door was still in motion and he found Calvin on the steps when he walked out back.
Michael stretched his back and looked out over the garden. The sight of a half-acre of carefully tended plants filled his eyes and an answering grin spread across his face. He pressed the play button an
d eighties rock filled his ears as he began removing weeds.
* * *
Rynn stared out across the classroom, simultaneously keeping an eye on all six of her students. She needed to be ready to contain their efforts if something went wrong. But her attention was divided.
What exactly did dad mean when he warned me that things were going to get hairy? she thought. He hates divination as much as anyone I've ever met. So, how did he find out something like that?
She instinctively formed a shield over Eugene as the flame he'd created in his hand surged up towards the ceiling. It struck the shield and spread out in a star-shaped pattern a few inches before it would have ignited the roof.
“Careful there,” Rynn said, “we don't want to set the school on fire, do we?”
Eugene blushed but didn't say anything. From what Rynn had been told, no teacher in the school had ever heard him speak. He was more than happy to complete assignments and follow directions, but ask him to answer a question and all he would do was scribble the answer on a sheet of paper and then walk it to the teacher's desk.
“Draw back some of your power from it,” Rynn said. “You don't need to give it that much. Remember, control and concentration.”
Eugene's flame shrunk down to a tiny flicker dancing in the palm of his hand. Rynn glanced about the room and found that her other students had various sized flames in their hands, but none were large enough to threaten the building.
“That's enough for today. Remember, don't try to practice this one on your own. You just saw what can happen if your concentration wavers or if you don't retain control. So let's keep this as a classroom exercise for now.”
The students stood and left the room. All except for Eugene, who scribbled something on a sheet of paper and brought it to Rynn. He smiled and offered her the paper
'Be careful. I've had bad dreams recently and you were in them. I think there might be a problem coming and I would rather not have you hurt by it.'
“Thank you Eugene. I've also received another warning recently so I'll certainly be paying attention.”
Eugene nodded emphatically, smiled at her again, and left the classroom.
Rynn tapped her fingernails on the wooden surface of her desk. Her thoughts danced through the possibilities.
Both warnings spoke of danger for me, but they also seemed to relate to a bigger problem. How do I prepare for something when I don't know what it is? Will both dad and Eugene be affected also since they received the warnings?
She grunted her frustration aloud.
I wish I knew what was going on, I hate being in the dark like this.
She heard the sound from her nails change slightly and looked down. There were slits driven into the wood where she'd been tapping. Her red nails, with hints of orange in random places, were undamaged despite the quarter inch holes in the wood. Rynn sighed and gathered her belongings.
Well, one more class today in a couple of hours. I'll just go get lunch and try to keep my eyes open for any problems.
* * *
Michael returned to the house when he finished his weeding.
“Joshua, I'm going to go work on the crystals now.”
“I'll just walk you up to the mine then and run to the store while you're working on them.”
A short walk, less than an eighth of a mile, brought the two of them to a pair of buildings in front of the cliff face that contained the entry to the mine.
The mine had been in continuous operation for more than a hundred years. It originated with a pair of wizards that found numerous clear quartz crystals in the lake down on the plains in front of the cliff. They followed the stream that fed the lake, dug a shaft into the cliff it flowed from, and found even more. When they realized that their mine was going to provide many more crystals than they'd ever need, they set up shop, selling their excess to any wizards that wanted the crystals for power storage or spells. As time passed, they realized that the smoky quartz crystals the mine produced could also be sold, and used as a disguise for the true purpose for the mine.
One of the two buildings in front of the mine was for administration. It was necessary since the mining company employed several people from the town at the base of the hill. The actual mining was always done by hand. Enough wizards passed through the area that the idea of using complex mining equipment was never even considered by the owners.
Michael had considered obtaining some of the mechanized equipment used for mining himself, and trying to harden it against magical energies, until he looked at the price. He made a decent salary in his position with the mine. It was more than enough to supply the electronics that he was constantly tinkering with, but it didn't even come close to what he'd need to purchase the equipment he looked at.
He walked into the second building, the one used to store the clear quartz crystals found in the mine. His job involved some of the mine's administrative details, but was primarily to work on the raw crystals. When they were discovered they tended to be filled with chaotic energies that weren't suitable for wizards to work with. In some cases there was enough energy present to endanger a wizard that tried to use it. Michael's main job was to drain those energies, leaving a clean crystal for others to use.
Even after the Board had removed much of his magical strength as punishment for youthful indiscretions, he was still highly talented at the manipulation of energy. That skill made him ideal for this position, plus it allowed the Board to keep him under their thumbs since they owned a majority stake in the mine.
He opened the locked door to the room where the raw crystals were stored and walked in, closing the door behind him.
Twenty-five to do this time. They must've found a pocket of them. Looks like the fragment bucket needs to be treated again as well. I guess they weren't being careful when they found the pocket.
Michael picked up the largest of the crystals and sat down. He detached a portion of his consciousness and slid it into the crystal. Slowly, he imposed a form of order on the chaotic energies within. When he was done, he set the crystal to the side and picked up the next largest.
Two hours later he finished with the last of the larger crystals. He withdrew a crystal of his own from his pocket and slowly transferred the energy from each of the crystals he'd just worked on into his own.
If the Board knew I could do this, they'd probably want me to charge some of the mine's crystals so they could sell them that way. They'd be worth a lot more with a full charge. But what the Board doesn't know can't hurt me. If they knew how many fully charged crystals I had stored away from doing this, I'd probably be in more trouble.
He shrugged and turned to the bucket of fragments. The smaller pieces didn't contain enough energy for him to bother doing more than just draining them. He enveloped the bucket with his consciousness and created a magical conduit that would simply drain the energy into the earth beneath him, grounding it out. By the next time he was back here, they'd be clean and ready to go. Wizards normally used the crystal fragments with their students, letting them get a feel for working with the small crystals before graduating them to ones that stored enough energy to be dangerous. The students destroyed enough of the fragments over the course of their studies that there was a constant demand for them.
He was sweating by the time he left the room. The exertion left him with a faint headache, but he was sure that anytime he worked this hard with magic he felt his power growing stronger. It was nowhere near the level he used to have, but it was more than the Board had intended to leave him with.
As he exited the building, he glanced out over the town of Crystal Beach, population eight hundred, give or take a few since people were always coming and going. It was built surrounding the lake whose beach shimmered with tiny bits of quartz and made for a picturesque view from here on the hill that stood north of the town. Unfortunately for Michael, the impact of the view had worn off years ago.
Joshua was sitting in a chair on the porch.
“You all done
then?” he asked.
“Yeah, they had bunch this time.”
Joshua's reply dripped with sarcasm.
“Good for them.”
“Wow, bitter much dude? Remember those things pay both our salaries.”
“Yeah, well I got your eggs. You wouldn't believe what they're charging for those things now. Four dollars a dozen! I feel like I just got legally robbed.”
“Everything's more expensive than it used to be,” Michael replied.
They started walking back to the house.
“Tell me about it,” Joshua said. “Gas is up a buck a gallon over the past month alone. The only consolation is that the stock market is going up right along with everything else.”
“You still gambling on that?”
Joshua sniffed and refused to answer.
* * *
Rynn was still on edge when she finished teaching her classes for the day. She believed the warnings given to her, but she couldn't feel any approaching danger herself. When she returned to her room, she paced for a while.
What now? Do I stay on edge and prepare for who knows what? Do I dare ignore the warnings? I don't think that would be smart, but how do I get ready for something when I don't know what that something is?
She pulled a small backpack out of her closet. It was her father's gift to her when she left home, many years ago. She still remembered the words that accompanied it.
“There have been times when the only thing I could do was leave as quickly as I could. I was frequently not prepared for it. This will help, if you ever encounter a similar situation.”
She glanced through the bag, mentally inventorying the current contents. They weren't all the originals, many of the items in it had shelf lives that had required they be switched out. She'd faithfully done so, once a year. The items she moved into it weren't always identical, but they served similar purposes to the ones she'd removed.
The food should be good still. I've got energy bars and a few freeze dried meals as well as some bullion cubes that were all put in fresh last year. The mess kit is still the original one dad gave me, as is the knife. The first aid kit I replaced two years back. Most of the rest is still the original, non-perishable items he gave me with the bag. I need to add some water though. I'll fill both canteens and then put bottled water into any empty spaces that can take it. If I need to leave quickly to avoid a problem, I'll have everything ready to grab and go.