by Frank Morin
“The first thing you need to understand about superfracking is rest.”
“I’ve slept most of the past couple days. I think that’s enough, don’t you?”
“I’m talking about rest in a different way, a way that few fast movers can understand. Just as stilling seems counterintuitive, so does the key to superfracking. In order to unleash super speed, you need to create an enormous pool of energy first. You cannot simply call upon super speed in the instant you need it. Not even max-tapping provides enough.”
“Is that why you looked like you were napping so much before we sprung out trap on your mom?”
“Exactly.”
“You did the same thing on the way to Jagdish.”
Kilian nodded with a grin. “I wasn’t sure what to expect and I thought we might need the advantage.”
“So how does this work?” Connor asked, more intrigued than ever.
“In some ways it’s sort of like stilling. But, instead of applying that stilling power to the life forces of others to siphon energy, we actually tap both the inner and the outer aspects of basalt at the same time.”
“I hadn’t even realized that was possible,” Connor admitted. Although as he thought about it, he had tapped both inner and outer quartzite more than once. That seemed different, though, because one enhanced his senses, while the other connected him with air.
“It’s a subtle truth, and the key to making this work. When you tap both, you apply the effect of stilling not to another person’s life or even to your own life force, but directly to the energy of your affinity.”
It was so simple, but so profound. Connor loved it. “Could we apply stilling to other affinities to maximize them too?”
The question caught Kilian by surprise and he frowned. “I’m actually not sure. I’ve never tried it with any other stone.”
Connor chuckled. “There’s always another secret, isn’t there?”
“Always,” Kilian agreed with another grin. “Ready to give it a try?”
“Oh, yeah.”
It took Connor a few attempts to figure out the trick to it. He could tap either inner-focused or outer-focused basalt easily. The trick was in applying the one to the other. The first time he tried it, he applied stilling to himself and nearly knocked himself unconscious. After that, he struggled to get inner-focused basalt to feed into external-focused basalt. He kept snuffing out his external-focused basalt as soon as he made the connection.
In some ways it was kind of like trying to burp, hiccup, and sneeze at the same time. He had managed that combination more than once by accident, and twice while near Hamish. Hamish had been extremely impressed and although he claimed to have mastered the technique himself, Connor had never actually witnessed him do it.
Eventually he managed the trick with basalt. He couldn’t simply seize the entire power of the stone at once without overwhelming his connection. He watched Kilian, who stood in a very relaxed pose, eyes half closed, looking like he was dozing on his feet. That gave Connor the idea that he needed to tap inner basalt, but not actually apply it anywhere. He always instinctively applied it to his legs as soon as he tapped it because why tap basalt and not run?
When he finally managed to tap it but not apply it, but let himself fall into a relaxed state like Kilian, he finally managed to make the connection between basalt speed and stilling. The conduit became a flood, and energy roared out from the basalt, through stilling and back to himself, pooling inside him in a similar way to the energy he got when stilling other people.
There was a subtle difference though. After studying it for a few seconds he realized that energy was still connected back to basalt, available to tap with the rest of basalt speed.
He laughed with the thrill of the discovery. “This is amazing. I wouldn’t have imagined I could multiple-tap basalt. What do I do with it now?”
Kilian roused himself and said, “As you probably noticed, you can only absorb a tiny fraction of your available basalt energy this way. So it takes quite a bit of time to store the energy you’ll require to superfrack. I still have some left over from this morning so I can demonstrate the technique, but you’ll most likely have to get up early tomorrow and spend a bunch of time prepping it.”
“What are you talking about? I feel like I’ve already drained almost my entire measure of basalt.”
Kilian shook his head, looking disgusted. “Of course you can do it immediately. Why wouldn’t you? You’ve mastered all the other deep arcane stuff that I never knew about. Why not master my last big secret trick?”
As if Connor would ever believe he didn’t have more secret tricks.
“Are you annoyed?” Connor asked with a grin. He so rarely got to rattle the ancient Dawnus. It was a lot of fun.
Kilian blew out a breath. “Not really. It’s just I keep having to revise my expectations with you.”
“They say nimbleness of mind is the first thing to go with old age,” Connor chuckled.
“I’ll show you nimbleness of mind,” Kilian warned.
Connor held up his hands in surrender. “Just kidding. So how do we use this power?”
“Now that you have it, you need to apply it to the parts of your body that you want to superfrack. You’ll need to make sure you apply it more generally than you usually do with basalt, particularly in your neck and back. Leaping into motion that fast can be very painful if you’re not prepared.”
Sounded like fun. Connor was more excited than ever to give it a try.
Eagerly, Connor tapped basalt and felt the conduit between his normal basalt energy and that pool that had built up inside of him. He tapped it generously to his legs, then to most of the rest of his body, just to be safe. And to help accelerate his reaction timing, he also absorbed a little obsidian and tapped that too.
Then he unleashed superfracking.
He leaped away so fast, he left his breath behind and doubted he would ever find it again. The land blurred past, many times faster than he had ever moved before, faster than when he flew, faster than he ever dreamed possible. His legs were such a blur it felt like they had just disappeared and turned into a whirlwind.
He laughed as he shot across the plateau, running north. But he was moving so fast that he reached the deep chasm separating the plateau from the broken peak of Badurach way too soon.
He was not aimed for the causeway.
Connor decided to stop, but by the time he made that choice, he had already shot right over the edge and flew across the chasm. Shouting in surprise, he instinctively tapped slate.
Just in time. He slammed into the cliff on the far side of the chasm like a stone cast from the world’s biggest sling. If not for slate, he would’ve splattered in spectacular fashion.
With slate, he sank into the rock, sliding halfway through the peak before he could skid to a stop, surrounded by unbroken stone. There he laughed again, the sound echoing awesomely in the tiny void where he stood. He had always loved basalt, but superfracking was super fun.
He turned and superfracked the other way.
He shot out of the mountain, angled slightly higher to make it easier to cross the chasm. But again he underestimated how fast he was moving and he shot into the sky like an inverted comet. He flew right over Kilian, who stood at the lip of the chasm, hands on hips, looking at the smudge mark were Connor had disappeared a moment ago.
Connor whooped as he flew across half the plateau before landing. He tried landing in a run like he usually did with basalt, but was still superfracking. As a result, he ended up running circles so fast that he lost all sense of direction and felt like his head was going to simply fly off in a random direction. He managed to untap basalt before killing himself, and collapsed to the ground, laughing uncontrollably.
He felt like he was going to throw up, and got into the ready position. He was on his hands and knees so wouldn’t get extreme distance, but he had vowed years ago never to waste an opportunity to make the attempt.
His stomach di
dn’t cooperate, but settled from its wild spinning even before his thoughts did. That was disappointing. He was glad Hamish had not been there to witness his failure.
Kilian skidded to a stop nearby, appearing so fast Connor didn’t even see him coming. He was laughing too, and he wiped tears from his eyes. “That was the most spectacular failure I’ve ever seen.”
“Good thing I had slate or you’d be scraping me off that cliff.”
When Kilian caught his breath and composure he said, “I can’t believe I didn’t think that one through. You’ve been picking things up so fast I forgot that when you struggle, you tend to fail pretty epically. Next time you try this, make sure you’re pointing in a direction that has no major obstacles.”
Connor nodded. “I think I’ll try running down the Macantact next time.”
“Good idea. Come on, there’s really nothing between us and Merkland. Let’s see how fast we can get back.”
Connor jumped to his feet, grinning. “With superfracking, I bet we could get there before we even leave here.”
Kilian laughed again then said, “And you haven’t even seen everything we can do with it.”
“What else can we do?” Connor asked eagerly.
“Catch me and maybe I’ll tell you.”
Kilian leaped away in a full superfracked sprint.
Connor immediately give chase. He never caught Kilian, but he beat his own laughter to Merkland.
9
When Simple Poisoning Is No Longer Enough
Ailsa held up a small piece of slate she was roughly sculpting into a fist and sighed. She hated working so fast and producing such slipshod work, but there was no alternative. The queen demanded as many sculpted stones as possible with their inner vortexes magnified to at least five times, and she only had a couple of days to complete the job.
She was working fast, but not as fast as she could have. She wasn’t about to commit her best efforts to providing the stones the queen’s army would use against her friends. She could not outright deny the queen’s orders, but no one but Ailsa knew just how fast she could work if she was truly motivated.
Still, the bin beside her worktable already held several completed stones. She had been ordered to work with both slate and soapstone, and decided to alternate between the two. The downside to that was that both major battle affinities would enjoy enough stones to grant them a significant advantage. The upside was that neither of those elements would have so many sculpted stones that they would simply overwhelm all opposition.
The door to her workroom creaked and she glanced up to see Craigroy enter.
Surprising. Although they met daily to discuss their progress in searching for a spy among the queen’s subjects and for Ailsa to give Craigroy the tiny daily dose of antidote he needed to stay alive, he had never dared venture into her workroom before.
She put down her tools and gave him a cool look. “I’m busy.”
Craigroy glanced at the small pile of rough stones. “And no doubt working your hardest.”
She extended her tools. “Think you can do better?”
He chuckled and shook his head. “Of course not. This is your domain, your place of strength. I could never compete with you here.”
“Then why have you come? You’re not due for another dose until tomorrow.”
He drew a little closer, his good humor fading. “Why don’t you just give me the full antidote now?”
They had discussed that on more than one occasion. Craigroy hated that she held such leverage against him. Most people in such a situation would have felt more terrified of dying, but not the great spymaster of Merkland. He hated losing control and knowing that someone had bested him.
“I’m assuming this unexpected visit is somehow related to the little show you pulled the other day.”
“Indeed. You’re a clever operator and I respect the fact that you wish to be left alone and for your past to stay in the past. You’ve made that point clear, and I’m willing to agree to an accord not to interfere there. In return I require freedom to make my own decisions and to craft my own place in this court.”
If Ailsa could imagine any possible way that she could actually trust Craigroy, the offer would be tempting, but he was a spy and a professional liar. She knew far more than he suspected about him and his activities serving High Lord Dougal. No doubt there was much she did not know, but if he understood even a fraction of what she did know, he would plot to remove her as soon as possible.
Ailsa’s position as a counselor to the queen was as secure as anyone’s could be when serving such an unstable monarch, but Craigroy would not settle for anything less than supplanting her and taking that premier position for himself. It was simply his nature, and as much as he tried to disguise it, he could never act differently. To ask him to do so would be like asking the wolf to guard a pasture full of lambs without slaughtering them all.
So she said, “I’m afraid you would have to offer me more than a simple promise. I think things are going quite well. You provide useful intelligence, and I make sure it reaches our queen’s ears. You benefit because she does not slaughter you for bringing her intelligence through a vile Builder mechanical.”
“I would appreciate your concern for my well-being if you had not also poisoned me.”
“Sometimes one must take difficult medicine before one can be cured. In your case, your illness is assuming that you belong in the throne room at all.”
His eyes turned icy and he said in a soft, threatening voice, “My place is exactly where I see fit to make it. Just as I would not challenge you here in the heart of your domain, I’m warning you as a respected opponent not to challenge me further. I have made my career out of destroying those who get in my way. I suspect we could both prosper in the queen’s court, but not if you continue to insist upon trying to control me and take advantage of my intelligence.”
Ailsa had not expected him to make such a bold, open threat. He prospered in the shadows, not in open confrontation. Had he simply exhausted more subtle means of trying to cast off her control? That suggested she did have him in a tight spot, which was what she had assumed until his little stunt in the throne room.
Or was he clever enough to recognize the queen had been hurt far more severely than she had admitted? Perhaps he suspected she was vulnerable, or simply so distracted by the challenges of defeating the surprisingly resilient rebellion that he felt it time to make his move? Either way, he was clearly planning to take their conflict to the next level.
“You’re being inconsistent, Craigroy. In one breath you say that you believe we could both prosper, but in the next breath you threaten to destroy me. It would not seem wise for me to release my hold on you in the face of such threats.”
He nodded slowly. “Fine. I offered you a chance as a professional courtesy. I did not expect you to take it, but by offering it I consider my life debt paid.”
“Your life debt is paid when I say it is,” she said, her tone as cold as his had been earlier.
“Not in this case, not with so much dependent upon the outcome of the current conflict. You’re officially warned, Ailsa. I will discover your secrets and I will reveal them to the queen. I don’t know how you’ve concealed them thus far, but I’ll make her see that you are not to be trusted.”
Ailsa laughed, projecting an air of calm, honest mirth. “You’re a fine one to talk about trust. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”
Craigroy actually made a tiny bow before turning and striding from the room. Ailsa got back to work, but her mind chewed over that surprising exchange. Had Craigroy spoken in earnest? She could not imagine he might have, but he had exhibited more honor than she would have expected. It had to be a lie, a carefully crafted illusion prepared to throw her off and perhaps underestimate him.
Either way, she could no longer count on the simple threat of death by poisoning to stop him. Should she stop providing the antidote?
That offered the easiest solution, but p
erhaps not the simplest. If Craigroy suddenly died, the queen might suspect the spies that they were supposed to be hunting. Would she bother to inspect his body? Could she sense the presence of the poison and possibly ascertain its makeup? Would she put the pieces together and suspect Ailsa?
She did not dare take that risk. Not yet. If Craigroy proved too much of a distraction, she could always exercise that option. Perhaps even convince Aonghus that Craigroy was somehow a threat.
That actually offered a lot of advantages. Aonghus had seemed completely destabilized by the loss of marble and the subsequent forced establishment of a new affinity with slate. Was he susceptible now to suggestions that might drive him to an uncontrollable rage? One second of Aonghus’ fury could squash Craigroy like a bug.
Or squash Ailsa.
As she completed the next rough sculpture and reached for a piece of soapstone, a new idea popped into her mind. A little smile played across her lips as she considered how to put the simple but elegant plan into action.
If she played it right, she might accomplish several objectives.
10
Countdown to the Apocalypse
As Connor neared the bridge over the Macantact, just north of Merkland, he slowed to a jog, wondering if Kilian had actually done him a favor by teaching him how to superfrack. He loved running with basalt, but now that he knew how to go really fast, he wasn’t sure he would ever feel as satisfied with what he used to think was his top speed.
Then again, super-fracked speed was so terrifyingly fast he definitely needed to practice more. He might be able to regenerate from injuries that would prove fatal to anyone else, but getting splattered still wouldn’t be fun. Worse, he might accidentally run right through someone and kill them instead. Once he mastered it, basalt might again take the place as his favorite speed affinity.
