Chapter 7
The violet seals on the Magic Room’s floor gathered loose mana from the air to power themselves. Multiple, circular focal points marked where the Brothers had stood when they created the seals to prevent wanton summonings from damaging the rest of the house. Pearl thought about how much power they would gather after this day’s session.
“Focus,” Theseus commanded. “You can’t afford to let your thoughts wander.”
“Would…be…easier…without…your…yelling.” Sweat dripped down Pearl’s forehead and into her eyes. It stung, but she ignored it. A series of rings made of pure mana floated in between her outstretched hands, interlocked but not touching one another. Outside of her body, Pearl’s mana appeared as cloudy red glass and moved like molten ore. According to Theseus, mana’s color varied from person to person, though it typically came in shades of blue. When Pearl questioned the color of her mana, Theseus had no explanation, though the silence before admitting that suggested otherwise.
The first time she manipulated mana outside her body, Theseus had her create a ball of pure mana. The process varied from creating a ball of fire at one step, and proved much more challenging. Once she gathered the needed mana into her hand, she had to isolate it, so her body didn’t attune it. It pained her cutting a fragment of mana off from the flow throughout her body, like severing a limb. She had lost count of the number of mana orbs that had unintentionally ignited.
But, as with everything Theseus taught her, she mastered it and graduated to different shapes and then complicated arrangements. One after another, she conquered them, albeit after many failures. However, maintaining the nine interlocking rings frustrated her. Nine times she had attempted to move the rings around without letting them touch while keeping them in the same space in the air, and nine times had the rings destabilized and fallen apart, the loose mana falling like mist to the floor.
“Con-cen-trate.”
“Mm…trying…” Pearl grunted. She pushed the mana flow of her body and tried to take absolute control of it, but the harder she strained, the more her mana flow slipped out of her control. Something within her wavered and her heartbeat slammed against the inside of her chest. Her knees trembled, her vision blurred, and sounds muffled. Her body went numb and she didn’t feel her body crash against the stone floor. Violet light filled her world. Theseus lifted her head up and pressed his hand onto her chest. Warmth spread from his hand into her body, then cooled. Her vision snapped back to focus and she snatched Theseus’s collar to hold herself up as she gasped for breath. “What…what was…that?” What happened?”
“Magic withdraw.” Theseus inspected her eyes and pressed two fingers against her neck to check her pulse. “It was bound to happen, though I’m surprised it took you this long.”
“Withdraw? What does that mean?” Pearl’s body temperature fluctuated with each brief, shallow breath, though another surge of mana remedied this.
“Expending too much mana or pulling too much mana into a part of your body will strain your mana flow. To prevent potentially fatal mana exhaustion, your mana flow retracts to your center. The sudden retraction leaves the rest of the body weakened, hence your collapse.” Pearl stood up on her own accord, but Theseus caught her when she staggered. “I think that’s all of the magic training we’ll do for today. No need to push yourself any more tonight.”
Pearl leaned on Theseus as she hobbled up the spiral staircase. She would take care not to push herself when they ventured to the Black Hill. Inspiration struck and an idea popped into her head. “What are the limits of magic?”
“Magic’s chief restraint is its cost. The more powerful the spell, the more mana it requires.”
“Could a group of individuals pool their mana together to cast an even more powerful spell?”
“Group spells do exist. A group of magi can channel mana between one another while chanting an incantation to invoke the spell they want. It requires those involved to chant in unison, and any mistake can be disastrous for all of them. There is another option, where one mage has others channeling mana into him—“
“Or her.”
“—him or her…and then he—“
“Or she.”
“—he or she casts the spell. Why?”
“I was thinking about the Black Hill. Couldn’t you just craft a spell strong enough to destroy the entire hill and the Black Heart within it?”
Theseus chuckled, much to Pearl’s irritation. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t laughing at you. It’s just…I too proposed such an idea during my training. The simplicity of the idea is refreshing. Often, the simplest solutions best the most complicated problems, but go overlooked, like Alexander the Great and the Gordian Knot. However, this is not one of those problems. Your lack of knowledge, on the other hand, is and can be corrected in the study. There’s something to show you before I answer your question.”
In the study, he helped Pearl into a chair by the large desk, then spread a map retrieved from one of the shelves flat across the table, wrestling to keep the corners down. Once the map laid flat, he slammed his hand upon it and closed his eyes. The map’s image, a random assortment of lines rather than a map, glowed as Theseus infused them with mana. He lifted his hands and the image on the map rose with them. Pearl gaped as the image in front of her gained another dimension, transforming from a drawing into a sculpture, showing the depth of the Black Hill and its tunnels.
When Theseus spoke of the tunnels beneath the Hill, she imagined them near the surface and growing more complex the deeper they dove. But according to the map, numerous, complicated tunnels rested only a few feet underground. She traced all of the tunnels with her finger to see where they led, disappointed when she discovered that each of the deepest tunnels came to abrupt stops at the same depth.
“How did you get this map?” Pearl asked.
“I was abroad at the time, so I witnessed none of this. But when the Brotherhood deployed its finest battalion to Lightholme to destroy the Black Heart, the battalion’s magi released magic probes to map out the tunnels upon entering. The battalion failed its mission with no survivors. At least, none left the Hill. Their probes, on the other hand, continued to survey the tunnels for several years until something destroyed all of them once they reached the same depth.” He pointed to the sudden cut off in the tunnels. “I suspect these tunnels go even deeper, leading right to the Black Heart, and are probably guarded.”
Pearl studied the map closer. “You can even see the tunnels becoming steeper where the probes were stopped.”
“Precisely. You asked why we don’t use magic to destroy the Black Hill. The answer is we have no idea where the Black Heart is within the tunnels and therefore don’t know how much of the Hill we would need to demolish. If we try to blast it away, we may end up burying the Black Heart under a layer of rubble that would take years to clear. Not that we have the power between the two of us to destroy what we can see on the map.”
“So that’s out of the question,” Pearl grumbled. Theseus pressed the image back into the map and rolled it back up, returning it to its spot on the shelf. “How can we succeed when a whole battalion of Brothers failed to destroy the Black Heart?”
“Because two people draw far less attention and make far less noise than a battalion. We’re going to sneak into the Black Hill, quietly make our way to the Black Heart, and destroy it.”
“Why not send just one person then? Wouldn’t that be even better? Half the people, half the noise.” Pearl imagined Theseus creeping his way through the darkness and driving his sword through a pulsing black heart.”
“But also half the chance of success. Father Alexander developed this two person plan for Brother Gen and me. While one person could better avoid detection, a second person could provide additional protection and the mission can continue if one of the Brothers fall. The benefits outweigh the costs.”
“What if we both fall? What happens if we don’t destroy the Black Heart?”
�
�I don’t know,” Theseus admitted, a grim shadow falling over his face. “The Brotherhood would come looking for the Fire of God. It is the very heart of the Brotherhood and without it, the Brotherhood would likely collapse as the upper echelon breaks away. The Flame is stolen, all of us considered accomplices in its theft in the eyes of Yahweh, and they would be afraid of what the missing Flame would mean for them if He learned the Flame survived the Great Flood. Even if He reclaimed it, He would seek retribution, and the Brothers would scatter and hide themselves from His sight in order to survive.”
“Are they all cowards?”
“Only a fool would not fear the anger of a god,” Theseus warned her. “Their power is great, their reach far. We cannot fathom the scales of their might.”
***
The chill of Fall replaced Summer’s warmth, and the shorter days brought Nightfall earlier. Not wanting either of them to fall ill, Theseus moved their evening activities inside to the Magic Room.
“Meditation is the expansion of one’s consciousness,” Theseus reminded her as they slowed their breaths together. “You’re spreading your mind out in all directions and opening it up. The wider and more open your mind is, the more mana you can absorb.”
“Where does the mana in the air come from?” Pearl asked to Theseus’s displeasure.
“Why must you ask questions when you should be silent?”” he grumbled. “The theory is that at the beginning of all things, there was a singular source of mana, which dispersed and is now shared by all things. At any time, throughout all existence, the amount of mana remains constant, for mana cannot be destroyed. When you cast a fireball, the mana used to create it doesn’t disappear with the fireball. It disperses into the air around it. For a brief time, this mana is inactive and unusable, but over time it regains its potency.”
“What caused the mana to disperse?”
“Later. I have entertained one question already. Now, hush and focus.”
They sat on opposite sides of the room’s seals. The metal door stood ajar, allowing fresh air and, more importantly, fresh mana to enter the room. Pearl slowed and deepened her breath as she crossed her legs and tilted her head up towards the ceiling. She thought of white snow to clear her mind and felt it stretch out beyond the confines of her body, stretching out of Lightholme into the forest in all directions. Her slow and powerful heartbeats shook the ground beneath her like the footsteps of a giant.
Then, something tugged at her mind, on the edge of her consciousness. Pearl’s heart leapt in terror, but the thundering beat continued, another heart thumping in her mind. She pulled her mind back to her body, but something else pulled it away towards the other heartbeat, which grew louder and more grotesque the closer her consciousness drew. Pearl struggled to free her mind from this foreign presence and open her eyes. With the full force of her will, she lifted her eyelids.
Darkness. Nothing, but darkness. She raised her hand to her face to see if she had opened her eyes. The Magic Room, Theseus, everything else had fallen away. Everything save the heartbeat, echoing through the darkness. She found herself standing, but couldn’t remember standing up.
“Hello?” Pearl called out, uncertain anyone would answer.
A hand grabbed her shoulder. She would have jumped, but its touch froze her in place. Warm breath slithered across her neck as someone behind her whispered into her ear. “Hello, Pearl. You have something of mine.”
Venomous intent laced his calm voice, each word worming into her thoughts. She tried to answer, but her lips wouldn’t move. Another hand, fire-hot, yet sending a chill down her spine, reached around and covered her mouth. “Sh-sh-ssshush. Don’t talk. Listen. You have something that belongs to me and I have something you want. Something you’ve wanted for oh so long.”
He waited for her to respond and laughed when she didn’t, his laughter swallowing her. He enjoyed his power over her. “What’s the matter? Can’t guess? What a shame…oh well, I thought you would be interested in seeing your family again.”
The hand clenched her shoulder and twisted her around. A green and blue moon hung in the black, star-dotted night. Houses of different sizes and color, and made of different materials sat on the greenest grass Pearl had ever seen along a gray stone path wrapping around a lake-like patch of black stone. She looked around, bewildered by her sudden arrival in the place of her dreams, searching for the man who must have brought her here. But as she walked around, the impossibility of being here without sleeping dawned on her.
Music drifted through the air coming from the blue house to Pearl’s left, just as it did in her dreams. She walked to the door and opened it, but found herself in her old room in New Bethlehem. It looked as it did when she left it to escort Mrs. Graham through the forest. She peeked out into the hallway and saw someone standing in the main room.
“Pearl.” The voice came from every direction.
“Who..?” She studied the person in her house. “Father?”
The person turned their head as if they heard her. As she stepped closer, the person stretched, growing taller, thinner and, somehow, more familiar.
“Father?” The person looked at her, their face featureless and smooth.
“Pearl.” The slender person grabbed their face and peeled it away like a mask, revealing the face of her father. Her smile faded when it reached up and grabbed its face again. She tried to speak, but nothing came out. The person lifted the mask of her father’s face, and Theseus’s face slept under it. Pearl raised her hand to his face and his eyes snapped open.
“Pearl!” Pearl jolted awake at the sound of her name and found herself looking up at Theseus.
Chapter 8
Theseus’s fingers pressed firm against Pearl’s head as he mumbled notes of what he felt to himself. His eyes, shut tight most of the time, relaxed at random times, like brief reprieves during a prolonged suffering. He released her head with a deep huff. “And yet another lesson added to your routine.”
“What do you mean?” Pearl touched her head, trying to discern for herself whatever Theseus had discovered.
“Your mental defenses are feeble at best.” They sat in one of the lower level rooms they had skipped during Pearl’s tour of Lightholme. Though small, the room’s white wooden floor, ceiling and walls distorted Pearl’s perception and made its dimensions ambiguous. The wall right behind Theseus seemed miles away. She lost track of the door the moment it closed and disappeared into the wall. According to Theseus, the enchanted walls stopped mental attacks from entering or exiting the room. “Something in the Black Hill, no doubt the Black Heart, targeted you during your meditations when you’re mentally most vulnerable. Bringing you to this room is the only reason you’re even conscious right now. Here, we will train your mind to protect itself while you meditate or sleep, and exercise your conscious mental defenses.”
“Meaning?”
“Your ability to protect your mind when you’re awake.” He ground his teeth together, and Pearl knew why. Every delay compounded against his patience, so every day he grew more irritable and anxious. At one point, he had suggested forcibly implanting knowledge into Pearl’s mind to expedite her training, though he talked himself out of it moments after proposing the idea. “With enough training, you can turn these skills against others, attacking their minds with your own. Though, as weak as our mind is, that’s not happening anytime soon.”
“What’s it like attacking someone’s mind?”
Theseus took a deep breath and thought before he answered. “You expand your mind beyond your body, as if you were meditating, but then you give it a direction, a target, another mind. In order to do any damage, your mind must be strong enough to break through their mental defenses. Imagine a spear piercing a sheet of ice which grows thicker the stronger their mental defenses are. Once through, most assailants attempt to damage their target’s mind enough to render them useless. However, a skilled psychic can shape the thoughts of others undetected and can even control weaker minds. It’s a po
werful skill to have, but few possess the mental capacity to accomplish even minor psychic feats. So stop squinting at me before you burst a damn blood vessel.”
“Sorry. So…why did the Black Heart show me what it showed me? Why my dream and my old room? And why did it offer my family?”
“Uncertainty on your part makes its infiltration easier. If you can’t distinguish an intrusion from your own thoughts, how can you protect yourself?” The man with no face still haunted Pearl’s thoughts. She couldn’t remember having ever seen him, yet something at the edge of remembrance gnawed at her attention. “As for its offer to reunite you with your family, it most likely wanted to invoke an emotional response and break any concentration you had on defending your mind. I’m sorry, Pearl. It was nothing, but an empty promise.”
“Don’t apologize. I didn’t have my hopes up,” she lied. “Teach me how to protect my mind.”
The basics of mental defense proved easier said than done. Theseus would attempt to find a way into her mind, so to protect herself, she had to imagine an unbreakable, multi-sided solid object surrounding her. She imagined herself inside a hollow stone and waited for Theseus’s assault. Despite proclaiming himself a weak psychic, having only a few basic techniques after a near-lifetime of practice, Theseus broke through Pearl’s hollow stone within seconds. Pearl had expected a pointed thrust of thoughts at her mind, an overwhelming brute force like the Black Heart’s attack. Instead, Theseus struck with a torrent, wrapping and circling around the stone, sawing it open. She tried again, this time wrapping her mind within a ball of metal, but Theseus hammered at the ball until it shattered open, despite Pearl’s efforts to keep it whole. Blood dripped out of Pearl’s nose as she thought of a place nothing could get into, some place safe.
An idea came to her, one she felt foolish for forgetting and she readied herself, giving Theseus the go ahead to attack her. He crashed against her defenses, first with a single, ordinary mental thrust, then with a chopping sensation, and then with a circular band wrapped around her that constricted and spun, trying to crush and cut at the same time. But her defenses stood and she pushed back to repel him. Theseus’s face turned red with a shade of purple appearing on his cheeks as he strained to break through.
The Lamplighter (Lamplighter Saga Book 0) Page 8