Gavin unfolded the parchment and read the document, his eyes widening. “Kalinor gave her to me?”
Kiri’s head shot up, and she stared at Gavin, her eyes wide and jaw slack.
“I can be persuasive when I have to be,” Marcus said.
The expression Marcus directed at Gavin shifted to one of appraisal, and he lifted his arms to cross them against his chest. “I have a test for you. No…that’s not quite right; let’s call it a diagnostic.”
The old wizard lifted his right hand and cupped it as if he were holding a sphere. Only a slight tension around his eyes showed the concentration he exerted, but a pinpoint of light formed, hovering just above his palm. Over the next few moments, that pinpoint grew into an orb of gold-colored power about the size of an apple.
The tingling Gavin had been feeling since waking up in the alley went wild mere heartbeats after the pinpoint formed, and it intensified as the orb grew. The tingling seemed to take on a resonance, though. Gavin felt a resonance with the orb, but he felt a strong resonance with Marcus as well. Gavin also felt a weaker resonance with what seemed to be the world around him, so faint it almost didn’t warrant the label of ‘resonance.’
“All wizards have a connection to the ambient magic. We can feel workings of the Art, and even the presence of other wizards. We call this sense our skathos,” Marcus said, holding the orb above his palm. “Now, tell me what this feels like to you.”
“Ever since I woke up in the alley, I’ve felt a strange tingling across my entire body. That makes it worse.”
Marcus nodded, smiling just a bit. “Good.” He released the orb, and it faded into wisps of light before disappearing completely. “Now, I want you to try it. Focus on that tingling you feel; it is the physical manifestation of your skathos and your connection to the power all wizards manipulate. You should find a core of it in the pit of your chest. Focus on that, and gather it in your arm. Then, push it out through your hand and hold it just above your palm. Force it to take the shape of an orb.”
“Okay. I’ll try.” Gavin closed his eyes and focused on that tingling sensation. He immersed himself in it and followed its flow and ebb. Sure enough, there was a core of seething power at what felt like the very center of his soul. Gavin reached for that core and pulled it out of its resting place, wrapped all the tingling in his body around it and pushed it down his right arm.
The moment that core of power seemed near the surface of his body, Gavin felt his awareness explode. Through his skathos, he saw Marcus as a roiling, seething font of power similar to his own. Ovir…Ovir was different; he saw Ovir more as a window through which his god’s power shone like the rays of a bright, cloudless day. He then became aware of something not too far over his right shoulder that blazed like a sun. All of this, Gavin felt he could draw into him and use toward creating the orb; he chose not to do so.
Okay, I have it in my arm…now, just to push it out through my hand and make an orb. Whew, this is rough, Gavin thought.
Gavin frowned as he exerted his focus and concentration on pushing the tingling ball of seething power down his arm and out through his hand. He felt it flow out of his hand and start to join the ambient magic; it took a lot of effort to hold it above his hand and force it into an orb. Gavin could feel himself breaking into a sweat.
Marcus stood in silence as he watched the orb of power form over Gavin’s hand. He watched Gavin start sweating from the effort, and he watched as that roiling, seething orb rolled into an egg-shaped oval on occasion. It was then that things turned interesting.
The flames above the sconces flared in brightness for a moment before fading down to half their former light, and those flames angled toward the orb like plants growing toward the sun. Soon, the room began losing its warmth, and Marcus felt the orb reaching out toward the ambient magics that were woven throughout the city.
Gavin’s orb started about the size of an orange that would shift into an egg every so often as it spun. When the sconces flared and faded, that orange exploded to the size of a honeydew. When the room started taking on the chill of mid-Spring outside, that honeydew exploded into an over-sized watermelon.
Ovir and Kiri gaped at the orb of power and kept directing concerned glances to Marcus each time it changed.
Marcus couldn’t contain his pride any longer. “Gavin, my boy, open your eyes! Don’t lose your focus, but open your eyes!”
Gavin opened his eyes, and the shock of what he saw almost caused his will to slip. A roiling mass of incandescence seethed six inches above the palm of his hand. In mere heartbeats, Gavin saw every color of the rainbow and then some shift through the orb.
“My god, Marcus, what is this?”
“That, my boy, is power…raw power. That is what wizards manipulate to create the effects the Words of Power produce. It is the source of that tingling you feel.” Marcus’s expression became that of a child faced with a feast of sweets. “By the gods, Gavin, it’s going to be fun training you. There hasn’t been a wizard like you in thousands of years.”
“Uhm, Marcus?”
“Yes, my boy?” Marcus’s gaze was still intent upon the orb.
“How do I stop it?”
Marcus laughed. “Yes, that could seem a bit tricky. Search through the sphere; find the core of your power, and pull it back to you. Then, tell me what all you feel connected to you.”
Gavin closed his eyes and concentrated on the sphere. It was difficult to tell the difference between his core of power and what he had drawn in, but he did indeed find it. Extricating it from the seething fury without a catastrophic collapse took a bit of work, but within a few moments, Gavin had that tingling sensation across his body once more…though the tingling was very strong in the right side of his torso. The sphere collapsed in on itself, shrinking almost to one-third its former size.
“Okay, okay…what do I still feel connected? I feel something…it’s a little weird…it feels almost like a mesh or a blanket or a weave that extends throughout the whole city. I don’t know why, but I think it’s defensive or protective somehow. I feel…I feel something under the temple, deep under the temple; it seems to run through the substrata of this whole region, like a river or lake. There’s something not too far southwest of here that blazes like the sun and another high above it.”
Marcus blinked and tore his gaze away from the orb. “What did you say, boy? What was that last part?”
“There’s a source of power not too far southwest of us that blazes like a sun, and there’s another high above it. The one high above, though, feels distant like it’s hidden somehow.”
Marcus blanched. “You’re sensing the Citadel; that’s not possible.” Marcus then shook his head, as if to clear it, and continued, “Never mind that. In your mind, focus on spreading the power you’ve drawn across that mesh you felt. Then, concentrate, and release the power.”
The sphere above Gavin’s hand unfolded from itself, becoming a mesh and looking much like a fishing net, and dissipated. The sconces returned to their normal brightness, and the room’s warmth returned.
“Gavin, do you remember the mark that burned itself into the slaver’s forehead when he tried to brand you?” Marcus asked.
Gavin nodded, saying, “Yes, I do.”
“Gavin, the mark that was burned into the slaver’s forehead was your family’s House glyph. It also happens to be my House glyph. I have no idea how, but there is no doubt we are related.”