The next morning, Arkie is inseparable from his teddy bear. Wherever he goes, he drags it along behind. “That was a good idea,” states his father as he watches him toddle across the floor. He glances up to James, who has just left his bedroom.
“He does seem to like it,” he agrees. Moving into the kitchen, Ezra gives him a quick breakfast before he heads out to the forest where the stool marked with the ‘X’ lies. He casts the spell of concealment upon it he worked out last night before dinner.
Once it’s cast, James returns to the workshop and picks up the mirror lying on his workbench. Concentrating hard, he attempts to locate it. The image settles upon the spot where he knows it to lie but sees a black spot where it should be.
That’s no good! Whoever is looking will know where it is even if they can’t see it! Canceling the spell he sits back and considers the problem once more. He needs to prevent someone’s magic from even knowing where it is, not just being unable to see it. Maybe warp the magic around it, so whatever spell is cast will pass it by as if it wasn’t even there? Perhaps.
Excited by the idea, he tries to come up with a way for it to work, keeping in mind that the box will need to be able to absorb magic from the surrounding area in order to sustain the spells. If the magic is unable to be drawn to the box by the crystals due to the effect of the concealing spell, then he’s got a problem.
He considers the problem and then a thought comes to him. Is there a difference between magic at large in the natural world, and magic that is being manipulated by a mage? Could there be some slight alteration that he can exploit to make this work?
The difference could be likened to a river and a lake. A river being the force driven by a mage, and the lake being the static magic in every living thing.
So intent is he in trying to figure this out, that he doesn’t even realize it’s getting close to noon until Ezra sends Miko out to retrieve him for lunch. “But I’ve almost got it!” he exclaims to Miko.
“She said to get you or we don’t eat, so get you I will,” he says. “It’ll wait a few minutes longer James, you need to keep up your strength.”
Feeling slightly light headed from the intense concentration he’s been doing all morning, he says, “You may be right. I think I could use a break.”
“What do you say we go and take a bath after lunch?” he suggests. “You haven’t taken one for several days, that’s not like you.”
Suddenly feeling quite dirty, he says, “You’re on.” He walks with him back to the house where Miko holds the door open for him.
With a quick, “Sorry” to everyone, he takes his seat and the meal commences. Afterward, he and Miko, along with Illan and Jiron go out to his bathing pool.
They settle in and are ten minutes into it when they hear someone approaching. He hears Miko give a short intake of breath and looks up. There stands Errin several feet away and she’s looking in their direction with a smile on her face.
“Get along with you!” Illan hollers over to her from where he sits naked in the water.
Giving them all a mischievous grin, she continues with her patrol and soon disappears in the trees. They can hear her begin to whistle a merry tune.
“She’s got more pluck than any of the others,” Illan tells them.
“I have to agree,” adds Jiron. “Definitely more dedicated and takes to instruction better than the rest.”
“Women can be fierce fighters,” comments James. “Why, where I come from they tell of a band of women, Amazons they’re called and…” For the rest of the time they spend in the bathing pool, they argue the various merits and handicaps of having women fight. The consensus seems to be, that though they don’t figure into the armies of this world, they can be good fighters.
After they get out of the bathing pool, James heads back to his workshop, resolving to figure this whole thing out before going to bed tonight.
“Need any help?” Miko asks when he sees the direction James is heading.
“No,” he replies. “Not with this, anyway. Thanks.”
“Alright,” he says. “Might go and see if I can’t bag some rabbits, Tersa asked me earlier if I could.”
“Why?” he asks.
“She said their fur would be good for her teddy bears,” he explains.
Nodding, James says, “They would at that.” Leaving Miko behind, he makes for his workshop. Good to see she’s taking a real interest in this.
Entering his workshop he begins working on the problem. It takes him the rest of the evening and almost the entire following day before he gets it to work. Ezra had sent Miko to fetch him for dinner but he didn’t even bother answering his call, so engrossed was he. She finally relented and allowed everyone else to eat and was mollified by Miko bringing him out a large platter of food to the workshop.
When exhaustion finally takes him, he falls asleep at his workbench. In the morning when he wakes up, he’s disoriented at first, not realizing where he is. Then he recognizes his workshop and resumes working.
Just before dinner of the third day, he has everything set. He’s taken one of his crystals that had been charging and places it upon the stool in the woods. The crystal has been infused with spells which he believes will hide the stool from any type of magical searches.
Holding his breath, he picks up his mirror and lets the magic flow as he concentrates on finding the stool. The mirror remains normal, the image never even so much as flickers.
Excited, he puts more and more magic into it as he steps up to more intense searching. Still, the mirror remains blank. Finally, he’s putting so much magic into it that his head begins to hurt and his vision starts growing hazy. Suddenly, the image in the mirror begins to shimmer and with a loud crack, the glass in the mirror shatters.
“Yeah!” he yells as he stands up quickly. But the intense use of the magic has weakened him greatly and his legs fail to hold him. Crashing to the floor he lies there, bruised but smiling. It worked!
The door to the workshop opens up and Fifer comes in, sword in hand. Seeing James lying on the floor and the shattered mirror on the workbench, he begins to sound the alarm.
“It’s okay,” James croaks from where he lies on the floor.
Pausing, Fifer comes closer to hear him better and asks, “What?”
“Don’t worry,” he tells him. “Everything is alright.”
“You don’t look alright,” he says, returning his sword to its sheath.
Jiron rushes into the workshop and Fifer says, “He’s okay.”
Giving James a cursory glance, he asks, “Do too much again?”
James nods as Fifer helps him to his stool before the workbench. Sitting down, he rests an arm on the top to keep himself steady. “I had to,” he explains. “I had to see if it would work even with everything I had working against it.” Giving them a smile, he adds, “And it did!”
“Congratulations,” Jiron says. “Now, let’s get you inside to rest.”
“No, no, no,” protests James. “I’m not that bad off, just give me a moment to catch my breath. I need to go see what happened to the crystal which was hiding the stool I was searching for.”
“We’ll go with you,” Fifer says.
“If you want,” he tells them. “But I’m okay.”
After resting a moment to regain some of his strength, he gets up and finds his legs are still a trifle wobbly. Jiron lends him a hand and they make their way into the forest to where the stool sits.
The crystal sitting on top of it, the one whose spells prevented him from seeing the stool in his mirror, still has a barely discernable glow within it. It would seem the effort to counter what James had been doing took almost all of its power. Had James possessed more power, then the crystal would’ve exhausted its internal supply and the spell would have failed.
James cancels the spells of concealment that are still active in the crystal and replaces them with the slow leech spell. He then takes it over to where the other crystals are sitting in the woods absorbing power. The other crystals have a deep crimson glow within them, indicating they have maxed out their capacity.
Leaving them there, they return to the house where Ezra has dinner almost prepared. She’s setting a bowl full of steamed tubers on the table when the door opens and turns to see him being helped in through the door. Taking in his condition, she gives a small shake of her head.
