The Weaving of Wells (Osric's Wand, Book Four)

by Jack D. Albrecht Jr.

  “Hey, Gus,” Osric yelled out with feigned urgency. Gus turned quickly, losing his focus on his ability causing the Wand-Maker sight to deactivate. When he noted the stream of strands cease flowing through the green orbs of Gus’s gift, Osric smiled. Osric picked up a small stone and threw it at the prairie dog, causing Gus to shriek in surprise and scuttle to his left. Osric smiled even wider, as he had seen exactly what he had hoped to. At the back of Gus’s skull, the small purple orb of the Portentist gift had flared up to warn Gus of the danger, and Osric had detected the nearly imperceptible flow of magic through that gift as well.

  “Hey! What did you do that for?” Gus yelled, his gruff voice echoing off the partial domed ceiling.

  “Sorry, but I think you will forgive me when you see what I just saw. How come you never taught me this before?” Osric was only teasing somewhat, as he genuinely couldn’t believe that Gus had never pointed out how magic was channeled through natural abilities just as it was channeled through a wand. “Come over here.”

  Gus shuffled his feet, watching Osric to be sure he wasn’t armed with more rocks. When he was close, Osric knelt down on the ground.

  “Use your Wand-Maker sight, and watch the orbs for my sight very closely. Are you looking at them?” Gus merely harrumphed in response, but Osric took it as an affirmative. Osric activated his ability, looking at the strands in the stone just as Gus had been. “Do you see it? Did you know that’s how they worked?”

  Gus’s ear was twitching rhythmically as he stared at Osric’s eyes, and it took him a moment to form words.

  “I must give you more credit than you deserve, you idiot. You think if I had ever seen that before, I would have failed to mention it to you? I taught you everything about your Wand-Maker gift that I could while we were trying to solve the ultimate wand mystery! This is not something I would have left out.”

  “It’s the same with the Portentist ability. That’s why I threw the rock at you, to check it out. Uh, sorry.”

  “You are obviously forgiven, although you could have chosen a more gentle means of triggering it, don’t you think?”

  “It was the first thing that came to mind.” Osric deactivated his Wand-Maker sight, and Gus gasped with glee.

  “It turned off! How is it that I’ve never seen this before? Surely I have been examining you while you used one of your abilities.”

  “Maybe the exponential growth of power that accompanies the new acquisition of gifts has strengthened our sight to the point where we can see it now, and before you just couldn’t have noticed it?” Osric couldn’t see any other explanation. It seemed obvious that the gifts must have always worked this way, but he had never noticed it before either. However, Osric wasn’t sure if he had ever studied the orbs of the innate gifts closely enough in someone while they were active that he would have noticed it.

  “Yeah, that might explain it. It’s phenomenal, although I’m not sure if it was worth throwing a rock at my head. What good does it do us right now? We gotta get you inside this well, not sit around ogling each other’s gifts.”

  “Well, that depends,” said Osric. “I think it might help a great deal, but I will need to conduct an experiment first. Are you up to letting me manipulate one of your abilities?”

  “You are out of your gift-riddled mind, boy. I’m not gonna let you experiment with the magic that makes me up. What if you break something? I might never be able to use my gifts again!” Gus began backing slowly away from Osric, back toward the other side of the structure. Osric laughed, although he wasn’t confident enough that Gus was wrong to attempt the experiment against the old Wand-Maker’s will.

  From across the room, Aridis’s voice drifted softly under the oppressive heat of the mid’day sun. Storm clouds were gathering overhead, and the distant rumble of thunder nearly drowned out his words.

  “You can do your experiment on me.”

  “Aridis, are you sure?” Bridgett had been following the conversation closely. “Osric, do you think it’s safe? Is Gus right to worry that it might interfere with the ability’s function?”

  “I don’t believe so, although there is always a risk when we attempt new uses for or new methods of doing magic. Aridis knows that.” Osric hesitated to make any guarantees, but he really wanted to try what he had in mind. He was fairly confident that there would be no adverse effects.

  “It’s all right, Bridgett. I trust Osric to know when my mind cannot take what he intends, and if it will aid our mission then it is a necessary risk.” Aridis rose from his seat against the wall and walked over to Osric. “Go ahead.”

  “All right.” Osric nodded, formulating a plan as he assessed Aridis for gifts. In the time the old man had spent with Osric at the Aranthian headquarters, Aridis had formed a few fully functioning gifts, and he had several fledgling gifts that would still take a while to become mature. One of the fully developed gifts that Osric recognized and felt comfortable with for his experiment was the Air Elementalist ability. The gift was rooted in a small white orb in the back of Aridis’s throat, and there were no other full gifts located nearby. “Aridis, I want you to come stand over here and face away from Gus and Bridgett. I will be right next to you, and I just want you to relax.” Osric led the old man out to the crumbling stone road between the buildings. Gus and Bridgett remained inside, but with one side of the structure completely collapsed they could watch the experiment while staying out of the way.

  Aridis stood still, gazing out at the forest that surrounded his home not too far from where they stood. His shoulders were relaxed and his back was slightly curved, and he leaned his weight comfortably on his walking stick. If he had any trepidation about the experiment, it was not evident in his posture. Osric focused his mind on that small white orb, concentrating on the origin of Aridis’s ability to manipulate the air. Carefully, channeling as little magic as possible in an attempt to minimize the risks, Osric pushed strands through Aridis’s ability the same way he would channel magic through his wand. It was an exercise in intent, and most people on Archana thought little of the mechanics of using a wand. Osric, however, had studied the function and process of wand-casting in great detail, striving to understand everything he could about how wands work and how to use one more effectively. It was one thing to channel magic through an object that was designed for it, but Osric was attempting to channel magic through something that he did not understand—and that something was located inside his friend’s body. He could not be too careful.

  As Osric channeled the strands through the orb, the dirt at Aridis’s feet swirled up into a small, twisting cloud, but it lasted only the length of a breath and then settled back to the ground. Aridis swayed slightly, but he steadied himself on his walking stick quickly and glanced over at Osric.

  “That was mildly unsettling. Did it work, whatever you were trying to do?”

  “Yes, it did,” Osric said with a grin. “Would you mind if I tried it again, with a bit more oomph this time?”

  “Once more, but if the discomfort is proportional to the oomph, as you call it, then once more will be all I can handle,” Aridis said, bracing himself with both hands on his staff.

  “I will try not to overdo it.” Osric focused again, narrowing all of his concentration to the small orb in Aridis’s throat. This time, he channeled a steady stream of strands through the orb, though it would only be enough power when using his wand to perhaps levitate a small stone or to light a candle. The response was significantly greater than he had expected, though. The air was still behind Aridis; not even a breeze drifted through the ruins or lifted Bridgett’s hair from her shoulders. Yet, in front of the old man a gust of wind burst forth, kicking up small rocks, laying grass flat along the cracks of the path, and stirring up the closest edge of the forest as leaves swirled around and then drifted down to the ground. Startled, Osric cut off the stream of magic and rushed over to Aridis with concern.

  “Are you all right? I didn’t expect it to be that strong. It is definitely
not proportional to the power used with a wand to cast spells.” Osric put his hands on Aridis’s shoulders to help steady him, but the old man looked over with a smile.

  “It was no worse that time than the first, though I still don’t know what you did. We should be hurrying, though, because it sounds like the storm is moving in quickly, and we don’t want to be caught out in these ruins in the dark either.” Aridis walked slowly back to the ruins of the dome, humming softly to himself. Osric followed with excitement in his steps.

  “Aridis, were you aware that you could control the air?” Bridgett lent him her arm as he stepped back up onto the stone floor of the building.

  “What? What do you mean?” Aridis looked at her with a furrowed brow.

  “The ability that Osric tested his theory on was that of the Air Elementalist, and it was your ability he used. Did you even know you had it?” Bridgett asked. Aridis shook his head, glancing over at Osric for confirmation.

  “It’s true. And now I think I know how to get us into the well. You were brave to let me try it, and I really hope it pays off.” Osric rushed over and picked up the book. “Gus, did you see what I did? Did you see how it worked?”

  “Yeah, boy, I saw it. You sure know how to put on a show when you have an idea.” Gus was shaking his head, but he gazed at Osric with something approaching awe.

  “Good, because I need you to do it, only to me this time. I want you to trigger my Seer ability so I can try to identify the proper symbols for this well’s entrance.”

  “Why don’t you just bring a Seer out here like you did with Chanda for the other wells?” Gus asked, although he was already approaching Osric with his Wand-Maker sight activated trying to locate the little blue orb of the Seer gift among all the others near the back of Osric’s head.

  “Because there is no way to know if her gift will be triggered. This way, we know for sure it will be and we just have to try to control what it shows me. I will sit here, directly above the actual well that contains the strands, and we will hope that it uses that to determine what I see when you trigger the gift. You are just working as a catalyst. I need a true vision with the ability in order to trust what I see.” Osric crossed his feet in front of him, sitting comfortably in the exact center of the structure. He laid the book on his lap, although he kept the book closed in order to prevent the vision from focusing on a specific page in the book—that could lead to seeing a different well instead of getting him into this one.

  “Okay, here we go.” Gus stood behind Osric, focusing on the blue orb. He channeled the magic, but he knew immediately that he was being more aggressive with his strands than Osric had been, and he let it calm down before continuing. It took Gus only a moment to get control of the flow of strands and to feel confident that he could keep it steady and slow, but he had no idea if it was working. Osric was sitting quietly with his eyes closed, and there was no outward indication that he was having a Seer’s vision other than a very subtle, rapid twitch of his left eyeball beneath the lid. When the twitch spread to Osric’s left hand and foot as well, Gus ceased feeding the steady stream of strands into Osric’s gift and began to fear that he had done permanent damage to the man. After several moments of tension and anxiety for everyone present, Osric opened his eyes and spoke.

  “Wow, perhaps I didn’t think that through very well before I let you try it.”

  “Are you all there, boy? How’s your head? Did I scramble your brains? What were you thinking, letting me do that? And what in strands was I thinking not giving you my standard ‘we can’t be toying around with untested magic without considering the potential dire consequences’ speech? We’re both idiots!” Gus was rambling, but Osric was grinning from ear to ear.

  “Gus, remember how I described the power lock with Legati as being so euphoric it was almost unbearably painful?” Osric waited for Gus to stop mumbling and to focus on the fact that Osric was speaking an intelligible sentence and thus his brains were intact.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, this was not like that.” Osric laughed as he watched Gus’s brow furrow and his ear begin to twitch. “It was incredible and unexpected, though, and you will have to try it sometime. How long were you triggering my gift?”

  “Not long, maybe ten breaths. Why?” Gus was moving slowly around Osric, gazing at his head and each of his gifts with his Wand-Maker sight, looking for any signs of damage from the experiment. He began to calm down when he had reassured himself three times that everything looked as it should, considering how strange it is to see more than one gift in any one person.

  “It felt like half the day. I had flashes of so many different visions it was impossible to keep them straight or to even attempt to analyze or interpret them.”

  “Did you see anything about the well? I don’t think I want to try that again,” Gus said.

  “I’m not sure. I did see a strange symbol in many of the visions that stood out to me as important. It was as if my Portentist ability was triggering for the tiny amount of time that the symbol was visible. It was really disorienting, but maybe the symbol means something?”

  Gus jumped up on the book in Osric’s lap and threw his weight in order to pull the cover open. He stood on Osric’s leg and began flipping through the pages.

  “Do you see the symbol anywhere in here? What did it look like?”

  Osric lifted Gus up, moved him off his lap, and then set the book on the ground between them. He gazed down at the pages, looking for a familiar image from his visions.

  “It looked like a circle with three dots inside of it. It was small, and almost always in the lower left corner of my sight. It never quite seemed to belong.”

  “There are so many symbols in this book, how can anyone make any sense out of it? I can’t tell what is writing, what is a key to get into a well, and what is just a kid scribbling in a book!” Gus crossed his arms over his small chest and growled down at the pages.

  “It’s okay, Gus. I will look through it. I’ll let you know when I find something,” Osric said. Gus stared up at him with a look of angry refusal to sit idle while Osric looked through the book. “Hey, I have an idea.” Osric took out his wand, held the image of the circle firmly in his mind, and then cast a summoning spell on the book. To his delight, rather than having the book flip up into his hand, the pages started turning rapidly on their own. When it stopped, in the lower left corner of the page, Osric saw the small circle with three dots from his visions.

  “Looks like your crazy experiment worked after all. Not that I think it was a good idea or anything.”

  “Looks that way.” Osric smiled, letting Gus go back to grumbling about the irresponsible nature of Osric’s magic use. He scanned the page, looking for something recognizable other than the small symbol, but he couldn’t make sense of it. Bridgett walked over to see what he had found with the spell, and he looked up at her hoping she would enlighten him, or kiss him, or both. At least she wasn’t glaring at him anymore the way she had when he divulged his plans.

  “Trevar was able to determine that each section of the book is organized the same way. If this page is the description of this well, then this here should describe the location.” She pointed to a section of symbols on the top of the right page. “This should have something to do with its origin—we assume so, anyway. We don’t really know.” She pointed to the bottom of the left page. “And this should be the sequence we use to open the door.” Bridgett rested her fingers lightly under a line of seven symbols near the bottom of the right page. Shall we give it a try?” She tossed the small stick of stone she had borrowed from Trevar into the air and caught it again with a smile. Osric scrambled to his feet and glanced around, excited to be making progress.

  “Trevar didn’t mind, did he?” Osric asked.

  “I didn’t exactly tell him that I would be taking you into the well. He still hasn’t been able to explain why someone is allowed into the well and why another isn’t. It has something to do with an extra strand, but he doe
sn’t seem to know what will happen if you try to go inside. Although we should be careful, I assume that there is nothing preventing you from entering, other than the traditions of the guardians of the well. Still, I thought it best to borrow the stone rod rather than bringing Trevar along to try opening the well. He would try to stop you from entering.”

  “Bridgett, you know I have to get inside, right? This will all be for nothing if I can’t get into the well.”

  “I know. I won’t try to stop you, but please be careful. I would hate to get the door open just to lose you as a result.” Bridgett reached out and touched his cheek with the back of her fingers. Osric closed his eyes briefly, relieved that she seemed to have forgiven him for risking his life in this plan and grateful that she was there to help him. Still, he would prefer if she were safe in Stanton instead.

  “Where should we write the symbols?” Osric asked. All of the wells that he had been to had been accessed from the side, but everything he could see with the Stone-Sight indicated that the entirety of the structure of the well was beneath them. He had no idea how to open a door without first having a wall.

  “Hmm, I’m not really sure. Maybe we should try the floor, er the ceiling?” Bridgett’s smile faded as she considered the possibility of falling through a hole in the stone in order to get into the well. It had little appeal for her, but even less for letting Osric do it. He was never careful enough for her liking.

  “Why don’t we just dig down and find the wall?” Gus was no longer scowling or mumbling, and he looked up at them both as if they had no brain between them.

  “That would likely cause the ruins to crumble further and bury us all. I suggest we don’t disturb the stone if we don’t have to, and that includes removing the soil that is holding it all in place.” Aridis sounded tired, but he spoke with authority. He knew more about the ruins than any of them, and Osric nodded, indicating that he would find another way in. While Gus and Aridis argued about the fragility of the ruins, Bridgett began drawing the seven symbols from the book on the floor of the circular room close to the section of wall that was still standing. Just as she finished the seventh, Osric noticed what she was doing. He screamed and grabbed wildly as Bridgett slipped into an oval-shaped hole that had appeared suddenly beneath her. He managed to catch her wrist, and her weight pulled him toward the opening. Combined with his momentum from lunging to catch her, Osric was helpless to stop their motion and he fell forward to his knees. He grimaced in pain as his chest hit the stone and his arm was nearly pulled from its socket, but he held tight and did not allow her to fall. He was calling her name as she clung to his wrist with her free hand when Gus and Aridis realized what was happening and rushed to Osric’s side. Aridis was crawling toward the hole, trying to find a way to help when Bridgett shouted out that she needed a wand.