Mageborn The Line of Illeniel, Michael Manning [best ebook reader for laptop txt] 📗

I couldn’t be in two places at once, and it was at least a six hour ride from one end to the other.

This also ignored the fact that I had a fair idea that so many violent uses of power would exhaust me before I had completed either task. What I needed was a way to set the explosions up in advance. My previous experiments with enchanting had given me an idea though. I had created a paring knife that drew in heat energy and stored it. Unfortunately it had exploded spectacularly after drawing in more energy than the enchantment could contain. I thought I could replicate that feat by removing the ‘heat absorbing’ component. Essentially I would set runes upon a small object to store energy, which I would provide, and then release it at the appropriate time. Depending upon the runes I used I thought I could manipulate the type of release, fire, light, etc...

I tried it first using a small block of wood. I inscribed it with simple runes to contain the power and encircled those with a second set of symbols. Hopefully those would channel the energy released into a fiery explosion. Once I had it ready I began focusing my will upon it, pouring as much energy into it as I thought it could contain.

Fortunately I had the sense to try my experiment outside while holding a strong shield around myself. Before I had managed to get half the energy within it that I ‘thought’ it could contain it blew up in my face. I was sent tumbling back almost twenty feet while flames raged around me. My shield protected me from the worst of it but two trees nearby lost most of their leaves. I made a note to have them cut down. We would need the lumber anyway.

I tried again, this time maintaining a more respectable distance. It was a bit harder charging it with power from twenty feet away, but I managed without too much difficulty. This one also exploded at about the same time. Although the explosion was impressive, even at twenty feet it knocked me down, it was still nowhere near what I hoped to achieve.

I used a larger piece of wood for my third test, reasoning that perhaps the overall size of the object might be related to the energy it could contain. It did hold a bit more before it blew up, but still I wasn’t satisfied. Finally it occurred to me to use a different material, so I tried using a rock the size of my fist.

This time the explosion was powerful enough, even at twenty feet to send me flying. The force of it threw me into a tree and caused my shield to collapse, a shard of stone tore a lovely gash in my cheek. I won’t go into what I said when that happened, but I had been studying my swearing diligently ever since the day Cyhan had inspired me with his nautical prowess.

By this time my ‘show’ had drawn some spectators, my father among them. “You nearly killed yourself that time,” he said clapping me on the back. “Keep working at it and you’ll succeed I’m sure.”

“Thanks Dad,” I said sourly.

“Try doing it downhill over there, there’s a big boulder you can shelter behind. That way you’ll have something stronger to shield you from the blast,” he suggested.

I could have kicked myself for not thinking of that already, “Good idea, but I’m still not getting what I want out of this thing.” I explained what I had been doing. Although he knew nothing of magic my father was very experienced in many other ways. I thought he might have a better idea. Turns out I was right.

“Sounds like the strength of the material is the key, or maybe the density,” he mused, “either way you won’t find anything stronger or denser than iron around here.”

“I don’t want to destroy your bar stock,” I told him.

“Nah... just use some of the slag left over from when we made those necklaces of yours. I probably have twenty or thirty pounds of the stuff waiting to be re-smelted,” he offered. Slag was the bits of melted iron and dross left over from casting objects. Unless it was re-used it was nearly useless.

After a short search I found a piece the size of a child’s fist. It was highly fractured and would probably shatter the first time a hammer struck it but it might do perfectly for my test. This time I gave myself a thirty foot safe zone and hid behind the boulder he had pointed out. I poured power into it for almost fifteen minutes without results. I had already put in twice what I thought I would need for a decent explosion and still it was holding it. That suited me fine since I planned to stop and create a second spell to release the energy on command later, but I thought I should find out what the tolerance was before doing that. I didn’t want to have any accidents later by trying to put more in than they would hold.

Another five minutes and it finally shattered. The resulting explosion deafened me and shook the ground. I’m pretty sure the boulder saved my life. When I peeked over the top to look at the result I was shocked. The ground for ten feet around the center was gone, leaving a deep depression. Beyond that the grass and soil had been scoured clean for another fifteen feet. The side of the boulder facing the explosion was blackened and pocked with holes where debris had struck it.

Penny ran up and seemed to be yelling something at me, but I couldn’t hear her over the constant ringing in my head, “What?!” I shouted back. I couldn’t hear myself either. Eventually she gave up and led me back to the castle where she found some paper to write on.

“Are you stupid?” she wrote in her barely legible script.

“Maybe,”