01 - The Price of Talent (28 page)

              Claudius led me to the end of this hallway and opened the nearest door. Inside was a small room, Claudius went in and lit a lamp. With the light from the lamp on inside I could see two chairs, one a large worn leather chair, the other a simple wooden one.

“Tyr, why don’t you sit in the wooden chair?” he said.

              Not knowing what else to do, I walked over to the wooden chair and sat down. When I got closer to the chair I saw that it was bolted to the floor, and it had leather straps on it. Not liking the look of it, but not knowing what else to do, I sat on the chair. Claudius followed me in and, when I was seated, used the straps to tie me to the chair.

“What is the meaning of this?” I asked.

“You and I are going to have a discussion, I’m going to ask you to try and do some things using only your powers, and it helps if you are physically restrained.”

“How does that help?” I asked.

“Our first instincts are to react to things physically,” he said. “In order to test the limits of your powers, we need to restrain you from doing that. That way, you are forced to react only with magic.”

              He then pulled the chair close to me, sat down and pulled out a wand. I had heard about wizards and witches using wands in story books, but had never seen one in real life. This wand was about a foot long, made of metal and came to a very sharp point. If you imagine a foot long knitting needle, you will have a pretty decent idea.

“This is a wand, Tyr,” he said. “One made for a very particular purpose. Storybooks say wands are magic, but the reality is they are just a way to help focus magical energies. This one is actually just a ferrous metal shell with a copper center. If you look closely at the point, you can see it changes to copper.”

“So, it’s just a large needle made of two metals?” I asked.

“Exactly,” he said. “It by itself has no magical properties. Only in the hands of someone who is gifted, does it do anything special.”

“So, what does that one do?” I asked.

“This one is made to conduct lightning easily,” he said. “The human body is not a good conductor of electric energies, so holding a ferrous or copper wand can help focus them better.”

“So, why do you have one out now?” I asked.

“I have brought it with me to see if you are capable of focusing electrical energy,” he said.

“I’ve only ever seen lightning during a storm,” I said. “How can I create something I have only seen briefly a few times and know nothing about?”

“You create fire, do you know much about it?” He asked.

“I know that it is created with extreme heat,” I said.

“It’s a lot more complicated than that, Tyr,” he replied. “If it was just a matter of heat, then why doesn’t water burn?”

“Because it’s a liquid,” I replied.

“Oil is a liquid and it burns,” he said. “That lamp right over there is burning oil right now. Because of that, the wick doesn’t burn away into nothing.”

“What are you getting at?” I asked, suddenly curious.

“Fire needs energy, but also something that can burn,” he said. “The energy needed to catalyze the reaction can come from you, flint sparks or a match. But the thing that burns is external.”

“So then what does this have to do with lightning?”

“Lightning is different,” he said. “In many ways it is raw energy, but it is also like fire, in that it does not come from you, it is created by outside conditions. What you do is focus energy through the wand, and it will arc to the nearest conductive surface. You are affecting an object in the outside world, and it reacts, like lighting a fire. I want to see if you can do it. But first, I must show you how it’s done.”

              With that he leaned forward in his chair, rolled up my sleeve and held the wand a few inches above it. He then concentrated for a couple of seconds and then I felt the hairs on my arm start to stand up. I could feel the aura of the power emanating from the wand. Then, in a flash, there was a spark that arced from the tip of the wand to my arm.

“Ow! God dammit! That hurts!” I sad in surprise.

“Of course it did, though it was not enough to cause any lasting damage,” said Claudius. “But the important thing is, did you feel it? The energy? How it slowly built up and then discharged? That is the nature of lightning. From the little spark you just experienced, to the giant lightning bolts of a thunderstorm that can split trees and burn down forests. It is that feeling that will allow you to channel it.”

“I don’t have a wand,” I said. “How will I do that?”

“Well, first I will loan you this,” he said handing me the wand. “Now let me pull something over for you to use…”

              And with that he got up and walked out of the door. He came back a minute later and was carrying a small staff. It was made of metal as well, had a ball at the top and a flat stand on the bottom so it could stand upright on the ground. He then placed it in front of me on the ground.

“I want you to hold the wand within an inch or two of the ball at the top of that staff,” he said. “Try to focus your energies into and through the wand. Focus on it like it was a wick to a lamp or the tinder of a fire. But instead of heat, try and recreate that charged feeling you felt before it shocked you.”

              He then handed me the wand and stepped back. I did as I was told and held the wand within a few inches of the ball at the top of the staff. Then I focused on the wand and tried to channel power through it. This didn’t accomplish much. After a few minutes of trying, the wand started to get really hot. I dropped it when I burned my fingers.

              As I was still strapped to the chair, I couldn’t do much to pick up the wand again. Claudius walked over and stopped before picking up the wand.

“You were focusing heat into the wand,” he said. “That’s why you burnt your fingers. You need to focus on what you felt when I shocked you. I will repeat it for you just to make sure you know the feeling.”

              He then picked up the wand. Noticing it was still quite hot, he waved it around in the air some. Then he held it above my arm again, and I quickly felt that rising crackling energy. I realized you felt the same thing right before a thunder storm starts. Just as this revelation popped into my mind, a solid, and much larger jolt of energy zapped from the wand to my arm. This time I didn’t curse. I just gasped. The pain was much more intense. All my muscles clenched and unclenched leaving me feeling more than a little stiff and sore.

“Now focus on that feeling!” Said Claudius, a little impatiently. “Recreate it and focus!”

              He gave me back the wand and stepped even further back this time. So far that he was near the doorway. Not knowing what else to do, but starting to realize I was likely to get an even more severe jolt if I did not cooperate, I tried again. This time I focused, and tried to recreate that feeling. I focused like I did when I made a fire, but focused not on heat, but on that crackling charged feeling I had right before I got shocked. It took what felt like minutes, but soon I could feel the hairs on my arms standing up. Then the hair on my legs. I even felt the hair on my head stand up. Then, just as I was getting worried…

              There was a loud crack and a dazzling light. For a second I couldn’t see. I may have lost consciousness. But when I opened my eyes and focused them on the room, I was, if you pardon the expression, shocked. The staff with the ball on the end was gone. There was a puddle of molten scorched metal on the floor in its place. The bolts on my chair that secured it to the floor had also melted partially. The leather chair Claudius had sat in was now so much kindling and fluff floating around the room. Even the wand was partially melted. Claudius was lying on the door in the hall beyond, trying to sit up and shaking his head.

“Well, I guess that’s an emphatic ‘yes’ on whether or not you can channel electricity,” he said. “But I’m leaning towards ‘no’ on your ability to control it.”

“It took me months of practice to be able to light a fire without blowing something up…” I admitted, still dazed from the serious electrical jolt I had given everything in the vicinity of the room.

“This would have been good to know beforehand…” said Claudius, now having picked himself up off the floor. “Still, you showed promise with electricity. Now let’s see how you are with telekinesis.”

              With that he turned and left the room. Again, a few minutes, later he returned carrying a small card table. He carefully placed it over the now cooling puddle of metal on the floor. Then he took a small ball, really just a child’s toy, and placed it on the table. Then he motioned out the door, to which a guard walked in with another chair to replace the one I had blown away. The guard then left, and Claudius took his seat on the new chair.

“Now, I want you to try and move the ball from the middle of the table towards me,” he said. “But first I’m going to show you how.”

              With that he sat back in the chair and stared down at the little ball. In short order, the ball started to roll towards me, then came to a stop before it came to the end of the table.

“As you can see, I just used force to move the ball without touching it,” he said. “This is usually just a parlor trick done by traveling mummers or theater troops. But here I want you to do it for real. The key is to reach out with your mind and just nudge the ball. When it comes close to the end of the table, nudge it enough the other way to stop it.”

“How should I be thinking about it to make this happen?” I asked.

“Well, with fire you are concentrating on heat energy and the feeling of heat, with lightning you are concentrating on that crackling electrical feeling, with pure telekinetic force you are focusing on the object itself and the feeling of motion,” responded Claudius.

              With that in mind I started concentrating. Unfortunately, Claudius interrupted me.

“Just a thought,” he said, while getting up and getting behind the chair. “Just a little protection.”

              Quite a vote of confidence. But I began concentrating again. I focused on the ball, the feeling of motion and tried to release my powers like I did when I lit a fire. Unfortunately, the result of this was the ball getting scorched a little on one side. So, changing tactics, I thought about releasing my power like a finger flicking the ball. This had the desired effect. At least partially. The ball shot forward off the table and bounced off the chair.

“Well, it’s a start anyway,” said Claudius. “When you get the hang of electricity and motion, then we can train you to work with colder temperatures, ice and the like.”

“If I can manage fire, surely I can manage ice,” I said.

“This is… a common misperception,” said Claudius. “Ice is not the opposite of fire. Fire is the product of heat energy causing a burning reaction in a flammable material. Ice is formed when heat energy is removed from water changing it from a liquid to a solid. So while you can draw energy away from an area to create ice, to use it effectively as a weapon you need to both be able to form a useful item with the ice or throw it with telekinesis. In order to effectively wield cold and ice, you need to have mastered fire and telekinesis.”

“Interesting,” I said.

              I had not thought about using cold as a weapon before. Really, until I had lit a guard on fire out of desperation, I had not thought about using my powers at all as a weapon. Still, the ability to make things out of ice and use them telepathically had my imagination astir. Mostly it was focusing on icicles used as projectiles. After all, everyone knows not to stand under icicles for fear of one breaking and falling.

“Anyway, that’s enough for today I think,” said Claudius. “You managed to move the ball without destroying anything, so I think we will not press our luck. Now, let me untie you and lead you back to your room.”

              Once I was untied, I stood up off the chair. As soon as I stood, I felt quite light headed, not quite faint, but not quite steady on my feet.