To convince Rori thatthis was possible, Aquitain sang his modified song and created adome shaped air shield around himself, then had Rori throw rocks athim. He also added an innovation. He made the shield visible bycolouring it. Once Rori and the others could actually see and touchthe air shield, their confidence in the operation skyrocketed.
They practised all theevening, only stopping for an hour to eat and then continuingnon-stop with all of four teams competing against each other to seewho could move and get into position around the mock fountains thequickest.
Rori, after a littlepractice, found it easy to manipulate the size, shape and evencolour of the air shield, but was less competent at controlling theamount of power he received, and Aquitain was continually worriedthat he would go into power narcosis and end up like Miranda.
By midnight everyone,including Aquitain, was exhausted, so he gave them the remainder ofthe night off to rest and rejoined Miranda and the others sittingaround a fire.
‘If I were the enemy Iwould attack us in the early hours of the morning, so I want plentyof guards; and everyone should sleep close to their weapons.However, if there aren’t too many people inside the temple they mayjust decide to sit and wait until we decide to leave. It’s unlikelythey will have worked out that we might be able to switch off thedefences from the outside.’
Chapter 37 TheSkirmish
The dawn found Aquitainand Miranda sitting together in meditation, mentally preparing forthe assault on the temple. Aquitain’s source was lower than hewould have liked, as he had spent a lot of power training Rori andthe fountain assault team the previous evening, and his body hadn’thad enough time to fully recover the loss; however, there were alot of little people to take power from, so he wasn’t overlyworried.
There were also plentyof observers to watch the attempt to switch off the fountain as thefirst team arrived at the edge of the temple grounds opposite theair fountain. The four little people and Rori were surprisinglycalm. The five stood in a circle holding hands. Three facedoutwards and two into the circle. They had drilled enough timesthat they implicitly believed it would go off without a hitch. Theyignored the possibility that if Rori faltered once they would allbe dead.
Kami assembled all theJeti people to sing and the operation began. Aquitain mindlinkedonly with Miranda, Kami and Rori, as he wanted as few distractionsa possible while Miranda acted as a conductor. All the others wereordered to keep absolutely quiet, but it was hardly necessary asthey were like an audience in a circus waiting for the mainattraction.
At Miranda’s signalKami led the singers in the courage song to inspire everyone, andthen after a minute or two switched to the power song usingAquitain as the focus. As dozens of thin power lines establishedbetween him and the little people he felt the power build.
It was like having anenormous source second to his own, and when he mentally merged thetwo he had more power at his disposal than ever before. It was easyto see how people could become drunk with power. He carefullycreated a power line to Rori as they had done a dozen times theprevious day, and Rori created a silver reflective dome-shapedairshield to cover the team and stepped one foot into the templegrounds.
There was a thunderousexplosion as a lightning bolt hit the shield and everyone heldtheir breath with their hearts racing. No one would have wanted toexchange places with these poor unfortunates; then suddenly theshield cleared and the team ran quickly to the fountain surroundingit, and a new translucent airshield formed, completely enclosingboth the team and the fountain. The grounds again filled with theroar of crashing chunks of ice, which brutally smashed onto theshield but, deflected off it, rocked the ground and shattered intosmaller chunks.
The air shield changedback to its mirror-like appearance just in time as a firestormerupted around the palace grounds and this was followed by the acidstorm. This was the part that Aquitain was really worried about.Would the stone elemental smash through the airshield? Surprisinglythe stone elemental didn’t even appear, but after the acid cloudhad disappeared and the lightning had struck again, the teamquickly moved out of the grounds back to Aquitain, with thefountain still working.
Aquitain was suddenlyworried that he had got the keys wrong or that they didn’t work,but it wasn’t that at all. It was too dark inside the airshield tosee what they were doing. They needed light inside the dome.Aquitain could have kicked himself. He had thought of all the majorproblems, but ignored the simplest. Unless they could see theycouldn’t place the keys. Placing light on Rori quickly solved theproblem and the team went into action again but this time achievedthe desired results, and the fountain was switched off.
Everyone gave atremendous cheer when the team returned. This time they struttedlike the true heroes they were, with Rori glowing with light like aminiature champion of the gods. All the Jeti people singers wereovercome with joy. They had succeeded in what all had thoughtimpossible.
They had done somethingthe big people couldn’t do with all their magic. They gained a newrespect in the eyes of the big people and the Crin. The littlepeople had shown that they too had great courage. It was a lessonthey wouldn’t soon forget, and they were all aware that it was alldue to the spirit bear. He had shown them what they could do whenthey worked together. He was their hero.
The three wizards werealso impressed. While they had heard vague stories of mind wizardmind concerts they had dismissed them as unlikely. The concept hadjust seemed too improbable. They had now not only witnessed a mindconcert, but a really impressive display of team magic from asource they’d thought had no magic, and their own Wizard Captainhad orchestrated it all.
He’d suddenly gainedtheir professional respect alongside the fear he had instilled inthem earlier. He had proved his competence and they looked forwardwith interest to seeing how he planned to deal with
