The Weight of Magic, page 20
part #1 of Restriction Series
“I’m nearly of age,” Torian interrupted.
“Is that right?”
Torian immediately regretted saying that as soon as he did. He felt like a child trying to prove to his parents that he was old enough, as why would Aldrich care how old he was? Then again, Aldrich had called him a boy, and Torian had reacted the way that he always had when people called him young. He was young, but he was tired of feeling that way.
“Regardless,” Aldrich said, “I figured that you had been wandering for a lot longer.”
“My town was attacked,” he said.
“Let me guess. Tamish?”
Torian had never heard of that town, and he shook his head. “Not there. Sarot.”
“That’s not too far from here, is it?” Aldrich glanced over to one of the wolves. It was a large wolf, Torian noted, looking to be nearly a hand taller than the next largest of them. This one had a triangular-shaped head, with tufted ears, and though the fur was a dark gray, there were patches of light scattered throughout. “What are you doing out here?” Aldrich asked.
“They captured my people,” Torian replied. “We were marched away. Presumably toward Corsalt, but I’m not sure. We didn’t get that far before some of us tried to get free.”
“That would be a smart decision.”
“We thought we were going to overpower them.”
“Not so smart,” the man said.
“They killed everyone.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “And captured our sahir.”
They might already be dead.
“How many?”
“I don’t know. Our town wasn’t very large. Only a thousand people or so.”
“No. How many of them are sahir?”
“A couple of instructors at the school,” he began, wondering if it made sense for him to reveal this to Aldrich, as he didn’t know this man at all, “and a few students showed potential. Like I said, we weren’t a large town. We thought we were protected where we were.”
“And you probably were. Well, you were until Tamish started gaining influence.”
“That’s not a town?”
“What? No. Tamish is a person. He styles himself as someone of power, and unfortunately, he may have acquired some at this point. As much as it pains me to admit.”
“Who is he?”
“I just told you who he is. Now, take a seat over here. I’m going to grab some of my supplies so that you can eat and fill your belly. Then you can be on your way.”
Torian blinked. Be on his way?
“But the wolf guided me here.”
The man stopped what he was doing, looking around before his gaze settled on the wolf that Torian had traveled with. “Is that right? Well, perhaps we should talk more about that. But first…”
He slipped away from Torian, leaving Torian to watch the wolves around him. None of them seemed threatening, despite the stories about the shadow wolves. There was nothing dangerous here for him that he could tell. Or maybe it was just that he was not a threat. He was exhausted, hungry, thirsty, and weak, so the wolves probably realized that he was no real danger. He sank down to the ground near the wolf that had guided him here, leaning forward on crossed legs to rest his head.
It didn’t take long before he fell asleep.
Torian had been tired from his walk the night before and exhausted from drawing upon power, forcing that weight inside of him to shift. He had been working more than he ever had before, though it had been desperation that had driven him. As he slept, dreams came to him. In those dreams, he saw the darkness around the attacker that had stormed through Sarot, destruction following him. A name lingered in his mind, though he didn’t know if it was Tamish or not. Other visions slipped through him, and he thought of his father following him into the trees and the massive form of one of the oak trees starting to collapse behind him.
When he came awake, Torian was still groggy, but he felt better than before. The smell of smoke drifted to him, and he blinked, hurriedly rubbing the sleep from his eyes. His heart hammering as panic set in that he might have been caught in an attack.
Instead, he saw Aldrich tending to a small fire, the flames crackling gently. The smell of roasted meat drifted to his nose, and there was a pot of steaming water resting on the ground near him, with two cups set off to each side. Where had Aldrich gotten those?
“You awake?”
Aldrich hadn’t even turned. How had he known that Torian had awoken? He didn’t think he’d been that noisy. He’d fallen asleep sitting up, resting his elbows on his knees, but must have tipped over at some point while sleeping. He hadn’t made that much of a commotion when he came awake.
“I am. I’m sorry I fell asleep.”
“Well, I imagine it was a long night. If you traveled as far as you claim you did, you had to have been tired.” He nodded toward one of the wolves. It was the same wolf that had guided him here. “You ended up here, though. So you must have done something right.”
Torian stretched, trying to shake some of the stiffness from his muscles. It was partly from how he’d fallen asleep, but some of that was from the soreness of his walk and the fact that he’d been moving so much lately.
“Give me a few minutes, and the rabbit will be ready.”
“Thank you. I haven’t eaten much over the last few days.”
“Then you’re not going to want to eat too fast. When you go a couple of days without eating, you have to come back at it slowly. Otherwise, you get sick. Trust me, it’s not something that you want to experience. Maybe have a few bites and then let it rest, and then have a few more bites. Take your time at it.”
Torian nodded.
“And have a cup of tea. It’s still pretty hot, so be careful, but it should wake you up a little bit.”
Torian took one of the cups and held it in his hands, welcoming the warmth as it radiated through the cup. It was pleasant, as the night had turned a little cool, though not cold. He breathed in the steam and immediately felt better. He took a tentative sip, resting for a moment, and looked up as Aldrich appeared, handing him a skewer of meat.
It smelled amazing. At this point, Torian suspected that anything would smell amazing, and he carefully nibbled at one of the hunks of meat on the skewer, savoring the taste and swallowing it quickly. Though Aldrich had warned him to eat slowly, he devoured everything on the skewer quickly. His stomach ached, but it felt like a good ache.
“Careful. You eat too much, and you’re going to end up throwing up. Now, we can catch another rabbit, but it takes a little while to cook it up.”
“I think I’m fine. Thank you.”
“Get over here near the fire,” Aldrich said. “Then you can tell me what happened in your town. And I can tell you about Tamish.” He glanced over to Torian. “Because I have a feeling you saw him.”
Torian nodded slowly. “I don’t know if it was him or not, but there was somebody who came into our town and caused massive destruction. Different than the soldiers. He was terrifying.” His voice had fallen to a whisper. “He was dressed all in gray. I didn’t get a look at his face, but I saw his eyes. They were dark brown, almost black. And there was…” He shivered, taking a sip of the tea to calm himself.
“I can’t say with certainty if it’s Tamish or not. I wouldn’t recognize him that way.”
“How would you recognize him?”
Aldrich didn’t answer, only pulling another skewer away from the fire and handing it over to Torian.
He was too hungry to ignore the food and quickly ate the rabbit that he’d been offered, wiping some of the grease off his chin. Torian glanced back to see the wolves around him. Some seemed to be watching as if they were trying to decide what he was doing, though he couldn’t help but feel as if he were imagining that.
As he ate, Torian started to look around the clearing when he realized that he wasn’t alone with Aldrich. There was another person there. Torian stared for a moment until he realized that he recognized the other person.
“Jakob?” he whispered.
There was no answer.
At first.
Then Aldrich turned to him.
“When you’re done, you can tell me about how you got out.” A look flashed in his eyes that Torian couldn’t quite follow.
What he could follow was that Aldrich pressed his hands into a strange contorted shape, then released it. A burst of energy washed over Torian, though it wasn’t any kind of energy that he’d felt before. This was a powerful wave that slipped outward, striking him, then pushed Torian over where he couldn’t move.
Chapter 23
THE WEIGHT OF FAILURE
Aldrich didn’t move, though Torian wasn’t sure if he needed to do so, as he obviously had some intrinsic power that he sent washing out from him. That power held Torian down with enough control that he couldn’t even imagine getting up. It wasn’t painful, but it was powerful.
The wolves had not moved.
“You wouldn’t have been brought here unless they detected something, so I’d like to go through what it is that brought you here. If you provide the right answer, then I release the binding, but if you do not, then I will continue to hold it until I’m satisfied that you don’t mean to harm those with me.”
Those with him?
As far as Torian had been able to tell, the only ones with Aldrich were the wolves, and Torian wouldn’t—and probably couldn’t—do anything to the wolves. “I followed the wolf. That’s why I’m here,” he said, hating the way that his voice sounded. It was almost as if his own voice betrayed him to mock his claim of almost being of age. He wasn’t almost anything when he sounded like this. “I just wanted to get away from the attack and thought the wolf would help with that. I can go if you want.”
The pressure on his chest persisted, squeezing him so that he couldn’t breathe—and couldn’t even think about trying to push on the weight inside of him to release the power so that he might be able to find a way out. Could that be intentional? If so, it suggested that Aldrich knew what Torian was capable of doing.
“Talk to me about your friend,” he said, tipping his head toward where Jakob lay asleep. “He doesn’t have your training. The wolves wouldn’t have brought him.”
It was strange that Aldrich was more concerned about Jakob than he was about Torian, but maybe it was because Jakob didn’t have any ability as a sahir. Even stranger was the fact that he didn’t deny the fact that the wolves were responsible for bringing Torian to him, nor did he deny what Torian had done.
“He’s a friend of mine from Sarot. I’ve known him since childhood.”
Aldrich looked up. His eyes narrowed, and there was a flicker of darkness in the back of his eyes. “Are you sure you know him?”
“I’ve known him for as long as I can remember. He’s a friend.”
Jakob must be suffering in the same way, having the same invisible pressure squeezing down upon him. Jakob wouldn’t have any understanding of what Aldrich did to him, though Torian couldn’t claim to have any great understanding, either. The technique that Aldrich had used was beyond Torian.
“Tell me about this friend,” he demanded.
Torian looked over to where Jakob was lying, unmoving.
Ever since they had reached whatever this strange place was, he had thought that they had finally found safety. Despite the wolves that had guided him here, Torian couldn’t shake the thought that there was a way for them to be safe with Aldrich. He had provided rabbit, tea, and he seemed to know things.
But that had been a mistake for him to believe.
Torian saw that now.
“What are you going to do to him?”
Aldrich leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. He pressed the tips of his fingers together but nothing else. It was not a pattern Torian recognized. Still, it seemed as if a faint glow began to work along Aldrich’s arms, heading down toward his fingertips. That might merely be reflected light from the fire, as he couldn’t be certain, but he thought that it was light from intrinsic power Aldrich possessed.
“I’m going to get answers from one of you. And until I do, you will stay like that.”
He got to his feet, heading over toward Jakob. Three of the shadow wolves followed him, creating a ring around Aldrich so that Torian couldn’t see anything. His mind worked through various scenarios of what they were doing to Jakob, which was worse than even seeing what they were doing.
He didn’t hear anything. If Aldrich was as powerful as Torian believed, it was possible that he wouldn’t be able to hear anything anyway. He might command the wind and keep Torian from picking up on anything.
At one point, one of the shadow wolves slipped closer to him, and Torian flicked his gaze up to see that it was the wolf that had guided him here.
“You can go away. I didn’t hurt you. He doesn’t need to hurt us.”
The wolf settled onto the ground, resting its head on its paws, watching Torian.
He tried to move, and he realized that though he felt the weight of whatever pattern Aldrich had placed on him, it was not so heavy that he couldn’t shift the weight inside of himself. There was some aspect of that which lingered. All he had to do was focus on that. And maybe that was what he needed to do anyway.
Prove to Aldrich that he was no danger.
But if he did this, wouldn’t it prove to him that he was a danger?
Torian needed to have access to some of that power, if only so that he could protect himself and protect Jakob. He focused on the weight inside of him. The lessons that Willa and Gaspel had given him came to the forefront of his mind. Willa, in particular, had provided insight on how to focus on the energy deep inside of him, but she had also believed that he didn’t have the necessary ability to use that power easily.
Gaspel had taught him how to use his power a little bit more than he had learned before, but Torian still didn’t have consistent control. That was the main issue that he had. He could access the primary patterns and occasionally first-tier patterns, but rarely was he successful with anything more than that. Had Gaspel more time to work with him, he might have been able to help, only he had not.
His flight through the forest with Jakob had proven that he had power, even if he couldn’t reach it as quickly and easily as others from the school could. What he could reach would be enough. It had to be.
That weight settled deep inside him, and Torian strained against what he knew was there. He had always imagined it as something of a massive boulder settling down deep inside him, and this was no different. The only difference was that he needed to press it upward, and he had to find some part of him to help shift that power.
How could he do that easily?
He could feel something distantly. Perhaps it was nothing more than the trembling energy of what Aldrich did to Jakob, but whatever it was that he detected left him worried for his friend. He could not leave him.
The weight squeezed.
It seemed to him that the band around him was not that dissimilar to the weight inside of him. Neither were visible, and both seemed almost impossible for him to move on his own. He felt for the one inside of him and started to push, using the techniques that he had learned in the school on how to slide some of that power away. Then he thought about what Gaspel had said during their captivity and how he had to endure. It wasn’t all about strength, though Torian believed that strength was a large part of it.
The weight shifted.
It wasn’t much. Merely a crack. But what he could do was draw upon some of that power, and he held it inside of himself. There were pathways for the energy inside of him, and that was an additional aspect of what the school taught, helping him learn how to draw those pathways and find a way to harness the power within him so that he could use it most effectively. And as he drew upon it now, he could feel it flowing through those pathways. He didn’t have his hands together so that he could form even so much as a primary pattern, but maybe that didn’t matter.
He pushed again.
Having some of that energy inside of him made it easier to push again. That was not a lesson that he had learned in school. Surprisingly, that had been a lesson that he had learned while running from the soldiers, fearing for his life and that of his friend.
It felt like the pathways inside of him opened up, granting him additional strength so that he could continue to push on more of that power and draw it out, a loop so that one aspect of power begot another. Torian felt freed of some of that energy and continued to push as much as he could, straining to release it through him.
What was he going to do with it, though? Without having a means of concentrating it, it didn’t matter.
The channels within him flowed, filling with more and more of that power. As he shifted the weight inside of him, he could feel those channels surging. It became uncomfortable.
This was a mistake. Torian should have thought about the consequences of holding onto that power and what would happen if he had it but could not unleash it.
Was he going to burn some part of him out?
The only thing he could do would be to press his fingertips together, but that wasn’t enough to direct the power. The pathways inside of him required a circuit to be completed. He couldn’t form that without having his hands together.
Firelight reflected off him, and Torian swallowed.
Somewhere nearby, there was a soft and mournful whine. It came from one of the shadow wolves, he suspected, as if they were aware of what he was doing. He had to react quickly, only he wasn’t sure how he could do so. He had to bring his hands together to concentrate the power. But the weight on him made it difficult to do even that. Why couldn’t he treat that weight as if it were the same weight that he had dealt with before?
Torian heaved.
Much like the weight pressing down upon him, this one felt similar, though the form of it was different. Whereas the internal weight felt like a boulder that tamped down some fountain of power, what he felt around him was like straps.
