by Frank Morin
Ilse leaned forward, her expression thoughtful. “I might not have phrased it that way. Hamish’s argument is indeed a bit doughy, but he has a point.”
“Please don’t encourage him by speaking bakery-talk,” Verena warned.
Ilse smiled. “I’ll tread carefully. Hamish’s attempt to consider desserts in a deeper way reminded me of how we can use summoned creatures to improve our own senses.”
“I did notice when I summoned that squirrel that my senses were sharper,” Connor admitted.
“Exactly,” she said. “What if we could sharpen our energy-discerning senses through a summoning?”
“What animal can you summon that senses energy?” Verena asked.
“Not an animal, but a different approach to tapping elemental energy,” Kilian said, giving Ilse a little salute of respect. “Very clever, Captain.”
Connor had gotten so used to needing the elements in his mind to access their power that he had overlooked the fact that he could probably still draw upon some of it without calling them into his mind. That’s what he’d done before his second threshold.
“So you’re suggesting I summon a creature entirely out of elements?” The idea sounded sort of like what Harley had done when she summoned that mini-elfonnel serpent that had killed Lukas and crippled Ilse, but he’d never bring that memory up in Ilse’s presence.
“All summonings include the elements. We just wrap them in the illusion of flesh. When you summoned the squirrel, you gave it form using clay, but it was your mind that assumed it must have better senses than your own,” Ilse said. “Somehow you molded it in that way.”
“Fascinating point,” Wolfram said, stroking his mustaches.
“Or I tapped quartzite to my senses without realizing it,” Connor suggested. “That would have improved my senses too.”
“Perhaps, but I suggest you create a summoning with a focus that will improve your ability to see energy,” she said.
Connor loved the unorthodox approach. Ilse was so clever, she didn’t need to rely on thresholds to accelerate her mind.
How to make it happen, though? While he mulled over the idea, he absorbed a little obsidian and tapped it. Verena’s laughter sounded through his mind, easing his tension as his thoughts accelerated. He also gestured at the half-empty crate of smashpacked desserts. “I need thinking food.”
Hamish didn’t even need to reach for the crate, but produced eight smashpacked desserts from various pockets. After considering them for a couple seconds, he selected one and handed it over. “This is an entire batch of cookie dough, smashpacked and then baked.”
Connor popped it into his mouth and tapped a little quartzite to his tongue. His taste buds awakened and flavor burst across his mouth like the rising of the sun. The dessert was made from his favorite shortbread cookies, with a touch of honey and nuts, and the taste was magnified a hundredfold by so much of it being smashpacked together before baking.
Under the rush of sugar euphoria, his obsidian-enhanced thoughts accelerated even further, pushing him into the realm of pure inspiration. Suddenly he knew what he had to do.
He chewed slowly, savoring the sweet, crunchy, sugary perfection of that smashpacked cookie cube as he considered the new ideas filtering through the sugar haze. “I’ve got it.”
Hamish nodded approval. “The way of the cookie for the win every time.”
As Connor closed his eyes he heard Ivor say softly, “Send a dozen of those up to my office.”
80
Sometimes You Need to Look at Your Problems in a Different Light
Connor popped a fresh piece of marble into his mouth and wedged it under his tongue with a practiced motion. He still had plenty of soapstone in his bloodstream. He tapped both affinities, but just a tiny bit, envisioning them the way he used to, as doors set back to back, facing opposite directions. Water was filled with a tiny tempest, while Fire’s door was rimmed with orange flame.
“Why do you attempt to limit us like this?” Water asked in Connor’s mind, although she did not appear in his mindscape.
“You told me I’m on my own. I need to access some of your power, but don’t want to disturb you.”
“Very well,” she said, but her tone suggested she didn’t entirely like the idea of him tapping their power without the close connection they’d enjoyed lately. Maybe she shouldn’t have told him to figure it out on his own, then. Luckily she did not protest. Fire said nothing, so Connor figured he was okay with the arrangement.
As the sure, steady strength of water flowed through him, spicy flavor grew in his mouth. He was grateful that tapping marble no longer burned, and enjoyed its vibrant spicy taste. He’d overlooked that of late, so distracted by conversations with the living elementals.
Tapping both, he combined them and sought the raw, fundamental powers of strum and magnis. His senses expanded and he felt faint currents of strum around him. He sensed no strong magnis fields anywhere nearby, but could pinpoint the location of every steel item in the room.
Gathering the power of strum and magnis into a small, intense ball of energy in his chest, he drove it out exactly the same way he always did when summoning. This time, instead of directing that energy into a pile of clay using granite, he tapped limestone and called forth a globe of absolute darkness. He drove the dual power of strum and magnis into that globe and willed it to life.
The air above the table in front of him burst into light, with hundreds of tiny rainbows erupting into view, one atop another so fast they hung in the air, the colors building and deepening beyond anything he’d seen without quartzite. Hamish gaped, dropping a fork he’d stuck in his mouth in lieu of another sweetbread. The others gasped, and Verena breathed, “Beautiful.”
It was beautiful, but it wasn’t working. The construct fought him, pushing against his control like an unruly animal, refusing to enter a cage. Connor pushed harder, but the energy rippled around his mental fingers, threatening to slip away entirely. Bits of light erupted across the room, bouncing wildly and sending his friends ducking, their expressions of wonder fading to concern.
The process was just so weird, so unfocused. Trying to combine limestone with strum and magnis was unusual enough, but doing it in an amorphous sphere was just too much. He realized he was going to fail.
So he envisioned the globe of darkness as a miniature pedra.
Immediately the wild light show winked out, replaced by absolute darkness that flowed into the shape of a double-jawed flying monster, no longer than Connor’s forearm. It was so dark, it seemed to suck light into it, and the room noticeably darkened. As it took shape, the forces of strum and magnis poured into it and bonded with it, becoming the most unique summoning Connor had ever heard of.
The air cracked with a tiny thunderbolt, and Connor smelled a faint scent of cool breezes through evergreens. The black pedra settled to the tabletop and crouched, eyeing the crowd of gaping people.
Connor laughed, exulting. “Yes!”
He petted the pedra. Its skin was slick, as if coated with a thin layer of oil, and he grinned, but had to look away. Staring at the summoned pedra too long made his eyes ache.
“Wow,” Hamish grinned, leaning close to study the pedra. It opened its big outer jaw flaps to reveal the smaller inner jaws with razor-sharp fangs and growled. He poked at sweetbread at it, and it snapped its jaws closed over the bread, cleanly severing half of it.
“What affinities did you use?” Verena asked, her eyes glowing with wonder.
“Strum and magnis, wrapped in limestone.” Connor felt a surge of pride at the approving looks from his friends.
Even Evander looked pleased and said, “May we find illumination of truth upon the wings of darkness.”
Kilian reached out to stroke one sable wing. “Very good, Connor. A clever choice.”
“I hope so. In my last ascension I noticed I can see light no one else can. I’m hoping through the senses of this creature I can see the sylfaen and the convergence points.”
“And feel them through their interaction with strum and magnis,” Ilse said with a nod.
“Well, give it a go,” Ivor encouraged.
Hamish said, “And I’ll track it with one of mini sightscreen flyers from the Bumblebee.”
“Good idea,” Verena said. “Project the image onto the wall.”
“Bumblebee?” Mistress Four asked with a frown.
Connor let Verena explain about their flock of tiny, remotely controlled flying craft that could project views onto nearby walls through paired stones that she and Hamish controlled. He closed his eyes and focused on the invisible link tethering the summoned pedra to him. His consciousness rushed into it, and suddenly he was that creature.
The world lurched to his new point of view, staring up at the huge humans gathered around the flat wooden table. Pedra-Connor’s senses expanded many times, but did not threaten to overwhelm him like when he tapped quartzite. He tasted hundreds of scents, including his friends, and cataloged them without having to think about it. He could have listed the contents of the crates of smashpacked cubes, and knew exactly what everyone had eaten from the scents still clinging to their faces and clothing.
Sounds seemed exceptionally sharp, but he couldn’t hear as far as he could with quartzite. That didn’t bother him, because he was more focused on what he could see. Light streamed past in stunning colors. The air was full to bursting with the spectrum of light far broader than any living pedra, any living person, or even any other Pathfinder could see. In addition to the visible spectrum, he noted streams of light ranging deep into realms beyond any physical sight.
Strum and magnis filled him, giving him life and fueling his senses as fully as limestone. Through those primal forces, he recognized streams of charged light in various frequencies pouring past. Physical light bounced around the room until it reached him. None of it bounced away, but was absorbed by his absolutely black skin, its energy drawn into his body to replenish him. The stronger, invisible streams of light passed right through people and objects, and often right through walls, although most bounced off of the heavy stones.
He absorbed it all, and that process helped him understand it. He sensed how strum and magnis influenced those various wavelengths of light and energy, and gained vital insights into how to reproduce those wavelengths should he need to. He sensed great power in them, and grasped how to increase power by increasing the energy but decreasing the wavelength of any light he chose to emit. If he pushed the limits far enough, he sensed vast potential.
That unique view of the world was fascinating, but not what he sought. While the humans talked in their slow way, he gathered himself and leaped into the air, tiny wings flapping powerfully. He circled the room a couple of times and roared with the joy of flight.
Okay, that was one aspect of being a tiny flying creature that wasn’t nearly as epic as everything else he was experiencing. His voice came out as a high-pitched squeak that made some of the humans chuckle, and at least one of the females exclaim, “Oh, it’s so cute!”
One of the humans noticed that the window was closed and drew it open. He flashed through it, restraining the urge to try roaring again. Next time, he’d apply a little quartzite to the mix too so he could control his voice. He’d roar so loud he’d shatter windows.
As Pedra-Connor ascended rapidly above the great palace and the sprawling expanse of the city, he forgot about the wonders of flight, the miracle of sensing wind currents and riding them. His eyes were drawn upward so far he would have fallen over backward if not for the benefit of his long, serpentine neck.
The sky was ablaze with light, packed even denser than in that conference room. And high above the tangled mass of beams of light bouncing all around shone pure white brilliance. He absorbed all wavelengths, but a vast river of energy high above emitted more than he could ever consume. In frequencies beyond the ken of mortal men, light filled the expanse. It rushed overhead, but remained aloft and aloof from the surface.
The sylfaen.
Pedra-Connor roared again, not caring how squeaky it sounded. He couldn’t restrain his glee. His gamble had paid off! He could see it.
The sylfaen really existed, like a vast river of energy flowing high above the planet. It was beautiful and enticing. If he could reach it, how much power could he absorb? How many secrets could he understand?
He beat his little wings as hard and fast as he could, grateful that he was not limited to the frailty of flesh and blood. While elemental force filled him and fresh energy absorbed into his jet-black skin, he could fly with all his might without ever growing tired. So he drew deep from his reserves and shot into the sky like a living black arrow.
In seconds he left Merkland far behind, rising thousands, then tens of thousands of feet. The land fell away beneath him, but he continued to climb. The air became thin, but he didn’t need air, and his wings could still find purchase, pulling against the invisible frequencies of light and energy that fueled him. So he continued, higher and higher, far beyond the limit of even the most powerful Builder mechanical.
As if from a great distance, he heard Hamish’s voice. “I’ve lost him. He’s just too fast, climbing too high.”
The rest of the conversation faded away. A tiny part of him wondered if he should return to explain what he was seeing, but he decided they could wait. Reaching the sylfaen was all that mattered.
As he continued to climb, the land spread below him like an enormous map on General Wolfram’s table. He flapped his outer jaws with the wonder of seeing the land so open. Not even in the Hawk had they seen so much. He picked out mountains that he recognized, from Donleavy far to the south to the gleaming white walls of Merkland directly beneath him, shrunk to a tiny glowing pearl.
Looking north, he spotted the vast trading city of Altkalen in Granadure. Farther still, he could see all the way up into Varvakis, to a lake so vast it seemed like an inland sea. At the eastern edges of his vision he noticed the mountains of Althing, with Dagmanson nestled in the arms of one of them and the Three Sisters flowing south. To the west he could look far into Ravinder and even down into the endless sands of the Sehrazad desert. Nearly the entire continent spread below him, but the sylfaen seemed just as far above him as when he started his climb.
So Pedra-Connor paused, sensing he’d never reach it that way. He felt a deep sense of frustration, but a bright point of pure white light drew his eye. It was centered over the ruins of the Carraig. Other points of light began to appear, spreading across the continent like glowing pins. One was situated in southern Obrion, and Connor guessed that was the quarry where Evander mentioned he had defeated a slumbering elfonnel and taken a stone from him.
Another was far closer, appearing between Crann and Merkland, while several more appeared in Granadure. One was located near Altkalen, while another was located in the mountains near the capital of Edderitz. Still others were spread into the nations of the Arishat League, but as he studied the various points of light he noticed slight differences.
The ones in the Arishat League were all pure white, but several of those scattered throughout Obrion and Granadure actually emitted faint variations in color.
“The convergence points,” Connor guessed. He heard his own voice from his far-distant body speak the words in a faint whisper.
Verena’s voice sounded close to his human ears, and despite the distance he heard every syllable. “Where are you? What are you seeing?”
It was too hard to speak that way. He sensed that if he got distracted by a conversation he could easily lose his connection to the pedra, so said, “Soon.”
Then focused entirely on his pedra form. Now that he was hovering, concentrating, he noticed that the pure-white sylfaen river of energy was made up of bands of every color, mixed together into that white whole. It flowed slowly past, far overhead, filling the expanse of the heavens, but he sensed its power like the hints of a distant breeze. The sight was awe-inspiring and a little intimidating. He’d never imag
ined everything surrounded by a vast blanket of raw energy.
Rainbow-colored whirlwinds of light extended down from that unbroken blanket of sylfaen like funnel clouds in an enormous storm. Narrow and delicate-looking but clearly containing vast energy, they touched down upon the ground. The connections at those convergence points seemed as dainty as ballerinas dancing on their toes.
He had to see.
Pedra-Connor tipped into a dive. With gravity assisting the powerful driving of his wings, he dove faster and faster, shooting back into thicker air like a pure black meteor. Friction against the air heated his skin, but could not harm him, so he plunged ever faster. In seconds, he crossed miles, trailing thunder, aiming for the convergence point situated south of Merkland.
Finally he had to slow, or he’d risk smashing himself flat against the ground. Ten thousand feet above the mountainous terrain, he flared his wings. The strain was intense and would have ripped any flesh-and-blood creature asunder. Speed bled away, but he only barely managed to slow to a hover about five hundred feet from the ground.
Invigorated by the experience, he slowly winged closer to the pillar of the convergence. There he noticed other faint energy fields flowing horizontally out from it, coursing along the surface of the ground like water. The first was red. The second, a little higher above the earth, green.
Streaks of brown marred those energy fields like swirls of paint. Intrigued, he landed near where the convergence touched down to the earth, a high plateau several miles from the Macantact river. The huge, rocky expense appeared void of human habitation. That close, the convergence of sylfaen energy blazed like a white-hot pillar, a quarter of a mile in diameter. His entire pedra body shook from the dense sheets of light plunging into it. He felt super-filled with power, and suddenly wished he was bigger.
Even though he stood on solid ground, his senses extended down through the earth. Those highest-energy wavelengths of light were not limited by earth, but plunged through and he could sense them. Deep in the earth, he finally spotted what he’d hoped to find.
