The storm hadn’t abated, but the longer he read through the almanac, the easier it became to ignore the sounds outside the window. There was the steady drum of thunder, the flash of lightning. They accentuated each other, an ongoing sense of power and energy that left him tingling.
Sam ran his hand through his hair as he read. Was there something more to understand? So far, there’d been nothing. Back to the beginning, then Sam flipped to the first pages in the almanac and searched again for answers.
Reach into the source. That was the first step of every sequence on every page, but how could he reach into the source without the vrandal?
Sam didn’t know what that was going to involve, only that his attempts continued to fail. He sat in place, looking at the almanac and the writing on the page, seeking anything that would help him understand whether more was possible for him.
The source. Lilith had suggested that though Sam didn’t know whether she was trying to help him or hurt him. What had she said about it? That there was something within him, he would have to find. He was supposed to connect to something familiar.
Could that be the vrandal?
If it was, that would make the writing in the almanac transform. He’d tried that a few times. Each time he’d slipped it on, the writing blurred for a moment, shifting until it changed.
The first time Sam had seen that he hadn’t been completely certain what he was witnessing. But when he took the vrandal off and let the power he’d been pulling through it ease away, those letters changed again. The vrandal altered things for him.
That couldn’t be the source. There had to be something else.
The answers were in the almanac—Sam felt convinced of that. It had to do with how he reached the source and came down to finding something about the energy within him.
Reach into the source. The sentence was the same on each page, but the almanac assumed he knew how to do this.
Thunder rumbled, lightning flashed, both became irritants. With his failure to reach for the power he tried to call, he wanted nothing more than to ignore the storm, but it felt as if the storm battered around him, the steady blast of energy that continued to pulse outward.
Sam got to his feet and stood at the window, but there wasn’t anything more he could see. The sky hadn’t changed in all the time he’d been looking. Not that he expected it to. If he really were in the Barlands, the storms were constant and brutal, the ongoing violence that these lands were known for. It was why the Barlands served as a barrier between Olway and the areas beyond. There was no reason to annex anything else, especially as there wasn’t a way to cross. Now that he knew the Nighlan had attacked at the edge of the Barlands, he understood why Olway had never expanded any further. It wasn’t only about the Barlands. It was about the threat beyond the Barlands.
Sam stared. He could feel the energy out there, but that didn’t change the fatigue within him. All that did was make him even more aware of how he needed to find the answers he knew were there.
Closing his eyes, he began to sway with each burst of thunder. It still rumbled around him, filling him with power, but there was something else within it he thought he could find—and feel. The lightning flashes left him with a sense of that power as well, though he couldn’t see the lightning so much as feel it.
Sam was completely aware of that storm and the power around him. The air was heavy with the charged scent of the storm. He took in several deep breaths and could smell the energy in the air. It was so familiar to him from his time growing up in Erstan. With his eyes still closed, he breathed in and out, the storm crashing around him and giving him a sense of something.
Find the source.
How could he find the source when he didn’t know any way of reaching it?
The storm thundered, and lightning crashed all around Sam as he swayed in front of the window. He breathed in slowly, drawing in the sense of the storm, the energy in the air. Slowly, he felt something within him start to connect.
It was vague at first. For a moment, Sam didn’t know whether what he was detecting was real, but he soon began to feel that same charge in the air.
But this time, it was within himself.
Taking a deep breath, he could feel that energy as it flowed through him, almost as if the energy in the air tried to open something within him.
All he wanted was to understand. All he wanted was to reach for the power within him that had been dammed off and blocked when he was much younger. It was the power within him that Daven had healed and restored Sam’s connection to.
Which told Sam that he had some way of accessing power. He only had to find a way to bridge it, reach within himself, and locate that nature of magic.
Another burst of thunder came. More lightning crackled. This time, it rumbled through him, echoing within.
Sam inhaled and pulled on some aspect of that energy, not knowing what he was doing, only that it flowed from somewhere deep within him… and then he felt it, the power that filled him.
The source.
Chapter Fifteen
Sitting at the table, Sam stared at the almanac in front of him. The first lesson involved reaching into the source, and now that he felt somehow connected to it, he thought he could find an answer.
The door opened, and he looked up expectantly. Instead of Lilith, a balding man dressed in a black jacket and pants walked in. He carried a tray and set it down in front of Sam.
“Where is Lilith?” Sam asked.
The man peered at him over his thin glasses but ignored him and closed the door.
Sam hurried toward the door, slamming into a barrier yet again. Lilith hadn’t lifted it. He turned and headed to the window, then pressed his hand against it to see if there was anything he could draw through. Sam did not attempt to reach for the vrandal that remained in his pocket. He was worried that using the vrandal might shift things and cause him to lose his connection to his power.
Holding on to that sense of energy, listening to the storm as it still raged outside, feeling that power as it flowed through him, he pushed his hand against the window to try to free himself from the tower, but the barrier still held. He didn’t know if he’d be able to escape by pushing out through the window or if there was going to have to be some other way. He didn’t care for what was happening here, but he needed to take the time to see if there was anything he could come up with.
So far, Sam had no other answers from the almanac, but now that he could feel the power within him, the energy that seemed tied to the storm, he had to think that there would be some answer out there.
Sam sat back down at the table. He started from the beginning and turned page after page in the almanac. He squeezed his eyes shut, thinking about the writing. His mind raced, and he was on edge. The same energy he could feel from the storm filled him and coursed through him.
He had to slow his mind down. He had to force himself to focus. Once he did that, then he believed he would be able to find the answers he wanted. All of that was tied to better understanding the nature of what was here and what the almanac could teach him.
He had a different challenge than Tara did. With Tara, the almanac described the use of angulation that was incredibly complex. Sam understood the theoretical workings of that angulation but couldn’t recreate it himself. Not without having the arcane arts. Not without being something that he was not. Increasingly, he was convinced that he did not have any access to the arcane arts. Whatever he had, whatever power exists within him, was something different.
In Sam’s case, the almanac described something he had never even used before and not read about or studied at the Academy. He had drawn power through the vrandal, but this was something else.
He needed to see if there was any way to call upon the power and focus on what he was instructed to do.
Reach into the source. He had already done that and held on to that sense, letting that energy flow through him.
Draw the source outward, directing it in a cir
cle around you.
That was something like angulation, though not quite the same.
Sam focused on the source, and he thought about how he could pull that energy from him, but he didn’t know if there was any way of pushing it out. The vrandal had given him some experience pushing power. Could it help him with this again?
Push power out.
He closed his eyes and focused on that energy within him, drawing it up and then squeezing it outward. It came slowly, but it did come. It eased away from him but then began to fill the air around him.
When he used the vrandal, there was always deep green energy in the air. This was different, not the pale white that Tara created either. What came out now was something blue—light blue mixed with streams of darkness.
It wasn’t under his control at all.
He tried to ease away from pushing it out, trying not to force as much outward as he had already done, but he lost control of it. The energy within him faded.
Sam held the almanac and focused on the power within him again. He had to gather that once more to see if he could follow the next instruction. As he looked at the pages, the sense of the storm rumbling around him gave him a similar sense internally. Gradually, power continued to build within him and flow through him.
Once again, he thought about what the almanac instructed. Reach into the source. Draw the source outward, directing it in a circle around you.
Now that he had effectively drawn the power out, he thought he could do so again. Sam breathed out, focusing on the power he was holding on to, and he watched as the blue-gray cloud formed around him. Keeping it from flowing too far seemed necessary, though Sam wasn’t entirely sure what that would involve.
He turned his attention back to the almanac, to the next step. Hold the circle in place, solidifying it. How was he supposed to do that? He could hold the circle, but solidify it?
By using the power that was out there, Sam was aware of the energy and how it created some sort of shell around him.
A barrier.
Could it be that the first use of power for him in the almanac was to create a barrier?
Sam focused, trying to do as instructed and solidify it, but the effort of holding on to the barrier was considerable. Strange that it would tire him so much. As he held on to that power, he could feel something more, though he didn’t know whether that came from within him or not.
Once solidified, turn the circle back toward yourself.
What purpose was there in that?
Sam focused on the circle and tried to turn it back toward himself. Did it even make a difference? He could feel the power that flowed outward, and he was aware of how that energy surged from him. Was it because of anything he was doing or was it a loss of control?
He’d already seen how he could lose control. By not having enough of a hold on the power within him, Sam could feel the energy there and how it flowed. He tried to turn it back toward him, but something was off.
The sense of the energy within him began to fade. The power exploded outward; the barrier collapsed. Sam tried to hold on to it as it crashed around him, but there wasn’t anything he could do. He hadn’t solidified the barrier enough. Would it have held better if he had?
Fatigue washed over him, the same as it had before. Sam stared at the almanac, wondering how long he’d feel that sense of fatigue, but it didn’t really matter. All that mattered was that he had done what the almanac suggested. He was able to follow the instructions on the page.
A smile came to his face. All the time he’d spent working through the almanac, and it had taken his captivity to find the answers. All he had to do was find those answers, return to the Academy, seal off the lock.
Then he could return.
Wasn’t that what he wanted?
He looked over toward the door. Other than a few servants who had come in, Sam had seen Lilith only once since he’d used the lantern. He knew it had angered her, but he didn’t understand why she’d only placed him in this prison and hadn’t done anything more to him.
Then again, with the barriers around the room, there wasn’t anything for them to be concerned about. He wasn’t much of a threat. He was captured, and he couldn’t go anywhere. The door was blocked, and the window was a promise of something more that he couldn’t even reach beyond. If he could find some pattern within the almanac that helped him defeat barriers, then he might be able to escape.
That would have to be it.
While sitting in place, the energy he’d spent began to build up within him. It took a little while, but slowly he felt restored. This process reminded him of the times when the power of the vrandal was used up as if it had limits.
Sam was tempted to reach for the vrandal again to see if he could do anything with it, but he hesitated. He didn’t want to disrupt what he’d accomplished. And he had accomplished something.
He turned his attention back to the almanac and started working through what it instructed again.
Reach into the source.
Sam was able to do that.
Draw the source outward, directing it in a circle around you.
He maintained the circle around himself. Doing so now was easier than it had been before. He could feel the power as it flowed away from him.
Hold the circle in place, solidifying it.
Holding it in place was easy enough now that he’d done it more than once and had a sense of what was required. The solidifying piece was harder, but that seemed to be the key to the next step. Sam wasn’t entirely sure what that was going to take, but he struggled with trying to hold on to the circle of power and firm it up.
How was he to solidify it?
The cloud, he realized. Could he push something more into that cloud so he could call upon that energy and know what was happening?
He strained, and something shifted. It happened slowly, but Sam felt it take hold.
The circle had solidified.
Once solidified, turn the circle back toward yourself.
That was the part he wasn’t sure he could do. He thought he understood what the instructions were asking, but how was he going to pull it back toward himself?
There would have to be some way of calling on that power. Sam focused on the solid circle and then tried to draw it back. The color within the circle started to fade. For a moment, he hesitated, worried that he’d made a mistake, but then he realized that was what was supposed to happen.
The color came out from the barrier, then disappeared. Sam held on to it.
Fatigue started to wash through him, but it was different than before. This was one he could understand, could tolerate. Maintaining the circle around him didn’t take nearly as much energy as he would have expected.
Sam focused on that power, and he let that energy surround him. He could feel not only the power and the way it was holding steady but also the solid nature of the barrier he had created.
The solidification and the drawing of the power back toward himself were key steps. He hadn’t just created the barrier; he had made it invisible—at least invisible enough that someone else wouldn’t be able to see what he was doing.
Would he be able to maintain it, though? Lilith had been able to hold on to a barrier like this for a long time. He had seen the way she used that energy and that power, and he had felt how solid she had made the barrier. If Lilith could do that, then could he?
The better question would be whether he could push out and call back that power quickly enough that someone wouldn’t know what he was doing. Speed seemed to be part of Lilith’s magic. He suspected that her barriers were similar to what he had just created, but he had never been aware of anything when she formed them. There had been no cloud of color, nothing that revealed her power before the barrier took hold. If he could figure out what she did and learn that technique, then he might be able to use it without someone even knowing. That would be his next step.
The energy started to fade from him, and Sam allowed it to dissipate.
When it was released, he turned to the next page of the almanac. He had created a barrier, and he thought he knew the technique of doing so again. Now it was time for him to keep going.
He looked over at the door. They knew he was going to keep working at this. They knew that he wanted those answers as well.
What choice did he have?
He couldn’t leave until he found them, anyway.
Which meant that he had turned his attention back to the almanac. It was time to have a breakthrough.
Sam had been sitting in the room for hours, possibly days. There were times when he dozed off, losing track of time altogether and focusing only on the kind of power he felt inside. Reaching into the source had become much easier than it had been at first. The longer he felt that energy around him, the thunder and lightning that left some part of him on edge and vibrating with power, the easier it was for him to feel a similar sense within himself.
He had to embrace that.
Every so often, Sam attempted to create another barrier. It was a basic pattern, something he would need to use if it came down to it. He created the barrier easier each time he did it, so he began to focus on speed. He wanted to push out that power as quickly as possible and draw it back to remove the color. Each time he tried it, he did so much more rapidly. It happened now with little more than a thought.
Practice. That was all it took. Tara had said the same thing about using the arcane arts, and since he’d read as much as he had about them, Sam suspected he would be able to progress rapidly.
The problem was that what he read about didn’t fit with what he knew about the arcane arts. He had to use a similar technique, but it wasn’t the same. Sam continued to focus on the power: pushing it out, calling it back, and relaxing.
As he turned his attention toward other pages, he learned more uses for power. Most of them seemed to build upon what he had learned on the first page. Not only was there the barrier, but there was a technique where he swept the energy out around him. In the confines of the room, Sam could feel that energy crash into the walls. He had no idea what something like that was useful for, other than possibly in an attack.
Alchemist Illusion (The Alchemist Book 3) Page 15