The Fire and The Storm - The Nexus of Kellaran #2 novel Chapter 111

Part 17

“I’m full.” Talia stated as she floated, turning in place to watch her daughter’s blazing flight. “Alilia, are you close?”

“No. I’ve never tried to find my limits that way, so I don’t know what they are.” Alilia responded with a shrug. “I found them by accident when I was young of course, when I developed fevers that could only be cured by casting the excess power, one way or another. But I haven’t let that happen for millennia, and I’ve never tried to measure it in any way.”

“I may as well pass you my excess then.” Talia told her as she started passing power to her trio-mate with a Push spell.

“This may take a very long time, even with what you’re giving me.” Alilia frowned. “And I’m running out of patience.”

She cast a Speaking to Smogin; Regent of The People of Life, and had him arrange for a few hundred volunteers from her people to pass her some of their spare power. He had them ready in a moment, and she cast a Pull spell to draw the energy.

“Ahh, that’s nice. I’ll be ready in a minute.” she reported.

“We’re almost ready.” Talia announced to the children. “When we are, gather here and I’ll cast the Translocation with power I’ve got stored in items. That way we’ll be fully charged when we get there, and we’ll be sure that we can get enough power from the wizard’s power stone to run our Levitations and Pure Breath and what-not, and keep us topped up. I’d rather we didn’t have to take power from others for this; I think that might be a dangerous complication.”

The children sent the psionic equivalent of a nod, and Fire hurried to complete her survey.

Soon Alilia wiped her brow and stated; “All right, that’s it.”

The children rejoined them in a blink, and Talia Translocated the six of them with a quick farewell to the local Sentries.

They emerged over the immense blue glass bowl of the Focus Mountain reflector. It was a windy day, but the only clouds visible were hovering above distant volcanoes.

Povon, Kragorram, and Karz had already arrived, and were hovering beside the research facility on the north rim of the crater, where Povon and Kragorram were conversing through a huge open window with some of the researchers who were gathered there.

They could all hear the occasional distant thumps, roars, and various other sounds of huge destructive spells being tested on the weapons range in the valley beyond the north rim, but Alilia quickly became irritated by it and blocked the noise from coming past the rim.

Mark cast the spell that allowed him to see the reflected warlock’s power directly, and his children copied him a moment later, then they all followed him as he flew toward a location about six meters above the focus.

The reflected power looked like two blue cones of light that met at their points, one pointing up and the other pointing down. The upper, down-pointing cone was blocked by Mark’s warlock-power collecting stone, which floated two meters above the focus, until Mark Moved the stone a few meters to the side. Then the upper cone shone up into the sky until it faded into invisibility about a kilometer above them. The cones were a bit asymmetrical, since it was almost two hours after noon here. The focus itself; where the two points met, was so bright that it was difficult to look at directly.

“You don’t want to be right in the actual focus.” Mark explained as he flew. “It’s way too intense there. But if you stay at the right distance from it, you should really enjoy this.”

They entered the upper cone of blue light, and it was like stepping into a perfectly warm shower after being chilled by a cold day, only even more pleasurable. Mark found he was a bit too low, and rose thirty centimeters to decrease the intensity.

“Ahh, this is really nice!” Val cooed as she closed her eyes to concentrate on the sensation.