by Tom Larcombe
“What? I don't understand,” she said.
“Well, you know how we charge a crystal by leaving it in the sun?” Charles said.
She nodded.
“You can do the same thing with your own body. It's slow, but it's also a sure thing. The memories we use for generating power? Well, sometimes memories don't strike us the same from time to time, so the results may be different. This is a sure, but slow, way to recharge though.”
She glanced over, Ted still looked emaciated, but even so his body seemed to be significantly more relaxed than it had just a few minutes back.
“So, was he on the verge of being completely drained or something?” she asked. “Because if this is a slow way to recharge and he already looks this much better, he must've had absolutely nothing left in his tanks.”
Charles frowned, but nodded.
“Yes, I think he put everything into that last effort. You may not have noticed, but Greg was supporting most of his weight while we were still in the factory. Probably all the way back here also, but I couldn't see them to tell.”
“Is there a problem if you do that? Totally drain yourself?” she asked.
“If you completely drain yourself, there's a good chance you can kill yourself in the process. You feed your life to the magic, one way or another. That's my theory on how we use memories to generate power. They're infused with your life experiences and you're tapping into that. I've heard of people killing themselves by using too much magic, so I imagine it's possible to put so much of yourself into a spell that you end up killing yourself.”
She shuddered at the thought.
“So, how do you avoid that?”
“I've never had a problem with it. From what I've heard it's those people who put their magic above everything else, above the rest of their life, that end up doing it. It becomes their life and when they use life experience to fuel their magic it becomes a massive circle feeding on itself, like Ouroboros.”
“Like what?” she asked.
“Ouroboros? Never heard of him, have you?”
“No, I haven't.”
“Then I know what your next assignment is going to be.”
He stood and walked over to the bookcase, rummaging through the books on the shelf. He removed one and brought it over to her.
“Read the section on Ouroboros first, that's O-U-R-O-B-O-R-O-S, but then read the entire book as well. There's a lot of ancient myths that hold grains of truth, especially for wizards. So it's a good idea for you to be familiar with them.”
The sound of the coffee maker in the kitchen started up, the whir of the blades grinding coffee beans filling the room. Amber glanced down at Ted, but he didn't even flinch at the sound. Greg's head popped out of the kitchen.
“Hey Charles, you want some of this coffee I'm brewing?” he said.
“Please tell me you used cold water, unlike last time,” Charles replied.
“Yeah, yeah, I did it the way you showed me before. Didn't want to listen to you whining about it again. So did you want some or not?”
Charles glared, but headed towards the kitchen anyhow.
“Of course I do, but you're being a tease. You know it takes about ten minutes to brew all the way.”
Greg chuckled.
“Yeah, but I also know you like to loom over the pot, sniffing the aroma, and trying to bully it into brewing faster.”
Charles mock growled at Greg, but disappeared into the kitchen anyhow. Amber looked down at the book she held in her lap, then opened it and looked for Ouroboros.
Hmm, the snake that ate its own tail or... Crap, there's like seventeen different meanings for it, but a lot of them do tie in to what he was saying about it being a feedback circle.
She lost herself in the book for a bit, finding herself surprised at how interesting it was now that she was trying to apply the different myths covered in the book to things she knew in real life. When a hand appeared between her eyes and the book, waving back and forth, she jumped.
“Earth to Amber,” Greg said.
“Oh, sorry, I kinda got caught up in reading this.”
“I noticed,” he said. “I was wondering if you could give me a hand. I want to get all these papers we took back to my place. I can work on going through them while I have the shop open and then Charles can focus on training you and taking care of Ted.”
“Oh, sure. Just let me drop this book off down in my apartment first.”
“Not a problem. We can just grab this stuff and make a detour on our way out of the building.”
She grabbed the second bag of papers and headed out the door with Greg in the lead. After dropping the book off they went outside and turned towards Greg's bookshop.
“Why aren't I more tired?” she asked. “I know I was up all night, so were you for that matter.”
“Two things, we both used magic without draining ourselves all the way, that kind of perks you up. The second is adrenaline. At some point, probably in the next couple of hours, you'll probably stop and fall flat on your face from exhaustion. I'll do the same, that's why I have my employee coming in to cover for me later on today.”
“Am I going to have enough energy to make it home?” she asked.
“If you head back right after we get to my shop you shouldn't have any problems at all. I figure it's a least one hour, but less than two, before it catches up to us.”
“I'm guessing that's based on your previous adventures with Charles?” she asked.
He nodded.
“One of these days I'm going to sit you down and ask you to tell me about those,” she said.
He opened his mouth to reply, but snapped it shut again. After a minute of thought while they continued to walk, he finally answered.
“One of these days, I might just do that,” he said. “I was going to say that you didn't need to know, but after last night I think I'm reconsidering that. I know you told Greg that you were okay, but are you? Really?”
She started to give him a glib reply, then realized that Greg was probably one of the few people in the world that she got along with who might actually understand what she was feeling.
“Yes... No... I'm not sure. I don't really feel guilty or anything, but I do keep flashing back to it. Every time I do I almost feel like throwing up.”
He nodded.
“That's about as good as you can expect, at least while keeping any form of conscience. Just remember, whenever you flash back to it, what Charles' shoulder looked like. Think of what would have happened if any of us were hit with a bunch of those lightning bolts. What you saw was only the part that got through his shields, it would've been a lot worse without them, he grounded most of it out.”
“Shields?” she asked.
“I'm sure Charles has mentioned those to you,” Greg said.
“Yeah, he did, but he also said they weren't something I could manage yet and dropped the subject.”
“Well, if he said you can't manage it yet, he's probably right. It's not my place to tell you more about it, plus I'm Fire and Spirit, you're Air and Earth with a touch of Spirit. Anything I could tell you about my shields might not apply to you. Better to wait until Charles gets to it himself, or maybe Kathryn. Since your gift is all about Air Magic and protection, you might be able to pick up some form of shield with Air Magic more quickly than one with Earth.”
“I haven't seen Kathryn in days,” Amber said, “Alicia either, I wonder what's up with that?”
Greg shrugged.
“No clue,” he said.
They walked in silence for a minute or two before Amber's curiosity overwhelmed her. She opened the bag she was carrying and looked at the top sheet of paper.
“What the hell is this?” she asked.
“What?”
She slid the paper out and handed it to him.
“What language is that in?” she asked.
He looked at it for a moment, then cursed under his breath.
“English, but I think it's in som
e sort of code. I can tell getting any information from this stuff is going to be much harder than I'd hoped.”
Damn it! I'd been hoping to find out something about my parents from this. Well, maybe he'll be able to crack the code.
“You any good with codes?” she asked.
Greg shook his head.
“Never had any interest in them before. Guess I'll be doing some research before anything else.”
When they arrived at his shop, Amber handed him the bag and turned back around, mindful of his earlier warning. She made it back to her apartment just fine, grabbed a Coke and settled in with her new book. She was reading along when the exhaustion hit and she realized she was nodding off. There was just enough time to set the book down and stretch out on her futon before it overtook her completely.
* * *
She could see the night sky through her tiny window when she woke up. With a groan, she rolled off the futon and unsteadily made her way to the shower. A good twenty minutes later she felt much better as well as more awake. After she put on a fresh set of clothes she made her way up to Charles' apartment.
It took him a few minutes to answer the door and when he did, his eyes were a bit blurry and unfocused.
“Oh Amber, come on in. Maybe you can help me with this if I can show you how it's done.”
“With what?”
“I'm transferring energy to Ted. I don't know any Water Wizards I trust enough to call them to come heal him, so the next best thing is to make sure he has enough power for his body to heal itself. So, I've been transferring some of mine to him.”
As Charles spoke, his eyes slowly focused in again. He blinked several times, squeezed them shut, and when he opened them they looked almost normal.
“That's better. I kind of get lost doing that, takes some really intense concentration.”
“So, how do you do it?”
He proceeded to explain the process to her and let her try. After several attempts that left her straining for the concentration, she had a thought. She remembered Ted hurling the balls of flame that had distracted the Air Wizard, potentially saving the lives of her and her friends. As the remembered feelings of terror and relief poured into her, she focused on letting the energy flow through her and into Ted. That did the trick and she sat there once the connection was established, thinking and remembering, allowing the energy created from re-experiencing her memories to flow to the wounded Fire Wizard.
When she was finished, she started to stand, but Charles handed her a glass of water, or at least she thought it was water. When she took a drink it tasted both salty and sweet, not like the plain water she expected. She spluttered, spraying the drink back out of her mouth.
“What is this?” she said.
“Something to help you recover from transferring energy. It can leave you dizzy or with a headache sometimes.”
“Why didn't you warn me sooner?”
“I didn't think you'd actually manage it. I've seen people take months to learn that one and you picked it up in five minutes.”
“Oh,” Amber said.
“So drink up, I know it doesn't taste that great, but you'll be glad you did.”
She hadn't noticed yet, but thinking about it she realized that she was indeed light-headed. She tried to stand anyway and that was when the headache struck and the room began to spin. She gasped in pain, then forced herself to lift the drink to her mouth again. After guzzling the whole thing down she handed the glass back to Charles.
“I thought you said that would take care of it,” she said.
“It takes a minute or two.”
Her hands went to her temples and she squeezed her eyes shut, trying hard to force the pain away. It may have been only a minute or two later, but it felt much longer than that, when the headache started to ease and the room stopped spinning.
“Next time, warn me first,” she said.
“Next time, I'll have you drink that before you try. It helps even more if you drink it first.”
“What is that anyhow, salt and sugar in water?”
He nodded.
“Then next time, just give me an electrolyte drink, okay? There's only about twenty different ones available out there.”
“Hmm, I wonder if that would actually work? This is just something I was taught back when I was still learning magic.”
“It's been a long time since then. Seriously, check at the grocery store next time you go shopping. I bet you can get the same effect with a lot better taste.”
“I thought I was supposed to be the one teaching here,” Charles said, a grin on his face.
“You are, that suggestion is just like... support or something, right?”
The two of them settled into talking, Amber asking questions about the portions of the book she'd read before she collapsed.
* * *
It was several days before Ted was feeling up to a long talk, and when he finally was Charles decided to wait until Greg was there as well. He told Amber that he was sure Greg would have more questions than he could think of himself. Amber was impatient about it, but she understood why he'd made the call he did. Nevertheless she had to twit him about it.
“Really, we're waiting until Greg closes his store for the evening?” she asked.
“Yes,” Charles replied, “I don't want Ted to have to go through telling us everything twice, so we'll wait. Learn a little patience, you'll find it useful in the long run.”
She grinned at him, then sighed heavily and plopped onto the couch.
“You're just giving me a hard time, aren't you?” he said.
She nodded and grinned at him again. Her mood was much better than it had been since she'd actually slept well the night before, without the nightmares of the two preceding nights.
Ted was actually up and walking around when Greg arrived. He was only painfully thin now, instead of emaciated, and his insistence on moving around to keep himself from stiffening up showed that he was fairly coherent as well.
“I wanted to start off by thanking you, all of you, for getting me out of there. Melanie and Robert were fully enthralled, but even before then they'd willingly worked for him,” Ted said.
“Melanie and Robert?” Amber asked.
“The Water and Air Wizards, the ones we fought. They spent years enforcing his dictates before he decided he didn't trust them any more and enthralled them. He was riding them during the fight, that's why they weren't as dangerous as they might have been otherwise.”
That was less dangerous, Amber thought. I'd hate to have seen them when they were more dangerous. The woman wasn't that scary, although cutting metal with a sword of ice... She would've been a lot more scary if she'd gotten close. But the Air Wizard, Robert?
She shivered mentally, missing a little of Ted's talk.
“... but he was always kissing their asses. You'd think an Earth Wizard would have a little more pride, but no, Melanie had him twisted around her little finger.”
“So you were all enthralled and kept there?”
Ted nodded.
“Yes, he kept us enthralled and working, constantly applying conservation spells and hooks to all the crystals. He had a different hook designed for each element and all four were placed on each crystal. The hooks don't draw any power until activated, and the conservation spell wasn't a standard one, so no-one would notice the hooks were even there, they were all integrated together.”
“You keep saying 'he',” Charles said. “Who is it? What's his name?”
“He's paranoid. In almost ten years, I never once heard his name. It was always 'master' when we had to speak to him, or 'he' when we were speaking with someone else.”
“Not only paranoid, but efficient about it,” Greg said.
Ted nodded.
“So, how did you end up there in the first place?” Charles asked.
“I went looking for work. When my mentor died his family inherited his house, where I'd been living. They gave me a month to get on my own feet s
o I listened to a rumor and followed it trying to find work. It was even pretty good for a few months. We were working with infusing crystals with different spells. The pay was pretty good and I was learning new things. Unfortunately I learned too well. I was the best person there at infusing the spells and one day the boss asked if I wanted a promotion. Of course I said yes. I thought I'd earned it.”
Ted stopped for a moment, lost in his own memories.
“But I went to the interview and the next thing I knew I was up in that room you found me in. My mind was so tightly wrapped in magic that I had problems even thinking for myself. I kept working at it over time, stealing a bit of the power we were allowed to use for the crystals in order to chip away at the bindings on my mind. When the compulsion to call in the alarm kicked in, it sapped away a bit more of the power on my bindings and I was able to snap them finally. You were there for the rest.”
“But why did you immediately attack Melanie when you saw her?” Amber asked.
“The bitch noticed that I was chipping away at the power controlling me almost five years ago. I was almost out then when she reported me to him. She cost me another five years of my life and Robert would do anything for her, so he had to go too.”
When they dug down into it, the only truly useful information he could supply was that there was another factory or something up north a ways. That's where Ted had worked before he was enthralled and he was pretty sure the same person owned it.
“I always thought it was weird,” he said. “The power for all the spells we infused was provided by a lot of wizards whose only job was to lie back in a chair and be drained of power on a daily basis. But I heard them talking about their work like they were doing something else. I never understood it then, but I'm pretty sure now that they were all enthralled as well, convinced they were doing something other than just being wizard batteries.”
“Doing something else?” Greg asked.
“Yeah, they talked about working the assembly line, or about how their desks were full of paperwork they had to catch up on, right after getting out of a chair they'd spent the last eight hours sitting in.”