The Master's Chair (The Chronicles of Terah)

by Morgan, Mackenzie

  “Magnificent storm. Did you enjoy it?” Glendymere asked.

  “I don’t know what to say. It was the most incredible experience I’ve ever had,” Kevin said, almost in a whisper.

  “And there are a lot more experiences out there waiting for you that are just as incredible as that one.” Glendymere stood quietly for a few minutes to let Kevin savor the feeling. Then he said, “I felt a change in you this morning. I thought you were ready for this. I hope you don’t mind, but I scanned your memories to see what caused the change. Yvonne is a delightful woman. I’m glad you finally met her.”

  Glendymere knelt for Kevin to climb back up. As soon as Kevin was seated, he rose into the sky and soared off to the north. After a while, he continued, “And I’m glad that you’ve come to terms with your doubts. We’ll talk more about that later, but you’re right, the only way you’re going to get through this without either killing another sorcerer or getting killed yourself is to be so good that no one would be willing to risk challenging you.”

  “Do you think I can do it?”

  “I don’t know. Possibly. Your elven blood gives you an advantage in the raw talent area, but the real key is hard work. You’ll have to practice and practice, and then when it’s perfect, you’ll have to practice some more, and it won’t end until you pass the Master’s Chair on to your heir. But for now, take it one day at a time and don’t try to look too far ahead. Let me worry about the future.”

  ~ ~ ~ ~

  By the time Kevin and Glendymere returned to Willow Canyon, Blalick and Chris were almost finished installing the stove. It was a small potbellied stove with room on top for either a coffee pot or a saucepan, but not both. They had put it in a corner so that a natural crevice could be used for the chimney.

  Glendymere raised his eyebrows and said, “You know, if you wanted hot water, all you had to do was say so. I’m sort of the original furnace.”

  Kevin laughed and Chris said, “I never even thought of that. Oh well, at least this way we won’t have to bother you when we want a cup of coffee.”

  Then Glendymere yawned carefully and settled down for his afternoon nap while Kevin and Chris went to their room for lunch. While they were eating, Kevin told Chris about the storm and how its power seemed to surge through him. “It was almost like I was part of the storm, not just in it. I’ve never felt anything quite like it. I felt the rain all around me, but when I came out of it, I was completely dry. It was almost like my mind was there but my body wasn’t. Really weird, but amazing.”

  After lunch, he sat down at the table and focused his attention on the candle for over an hour with no luck. Then they tried the seeing eye, but that was futile, too. After a short stretch break, Kevin sat back down at the table with the pebble in front of him and concentrated on it for another hour. By then it was getting close to 5:00.

  Chris pulled his chair out across the table from Kevin, sat down, leaned back, and stretched his legs out under the table. “Give it a rest. You’ve been at this all afternoon. You accomplished one task today; you joined with the wind. Be happy with that and let’s knock it off for today.”

  “I just feel so frustrated,” Kevin said in exasperation. “This morning was the most exhilarating experience of my life. I felt like I could do anything, but now … I just don’t know what else I’m supposed to do. How do you make a pebble move anyway?”

  “You’re probably trying too hard. It can’t be that tough or no one would ever get the hang of it. Maybe if you relax a bit,” Chris suggested.

  “Relax?! I suppose you think that stone will just move by itself, huh?” Kevin flicked his hand towards the pebble, and the pebble flew off the table, straight into the middle of Chris’s forehead. “Chris! Are you okay?” Kevin sputtered as he jumped up from his chair.

  Chris just sat there, stunned. He gingerly felt his forehead with his fingertips, and then looked at them to see if there was any blood on them. When he realized that he wasn’t bleeding, he started rubbing the spot where the pebble hit and grinned, “Well, you just accomplished the second of the tasks. You definitely moved that pebble!”

  “I did, didn’t I?” Kevin said in a dazed voice as he sank back down in his chair. “But how? What did I do that worked?”

  “Well, for one thing, you weren’t concentrating so hard. You were talking to me. What did you see in your mind right before it flew off the table?” Chris asked.

  Kevin thought for a minute, and when he spoke, he was talking to himself more than to Chris. “When I said ‘move by itself,’ I got a mental image of the stone taking off – almost just like it did.”

  “Okay, there’s your answer. Just imagine that same thing again, only wait until I move out of the way this time. I think I’ll stand behind you. It should be safe enough there,” Chris said as he got up and walked over behind Kevin. “Go on, try it again.”

  “I’m afraid to. I’m afraid that that was just a fluke and it’ll never happen again,” Kevin admitted.

  “So what have you got to lose? It never happened before, did it? Go ahead. Just picture your hand reaching out for it and pushing it along. Don’t try to force it. Be gentle,” Chris said quietly.

  Kevin turned back to the table and took a deep breath. This time he didn’t try to block out all other thoughts. He didn’t lose sight of everything else around him like he had done every time before. He just pictured the stone moving along the table. After a few seconds, the small stone scooted along the table for about six inches.

  “You did it! Kevin, you really did it! And this time it wasn’t a fluke! You’ve got it. You’ve really got it! I can’t wait to tell everyone! I can’t believe how exciting this is!” Chris was jumping around the room in his excitement. “We’ve got to wake Glendymere up and tell him!”

  “You’ve already done that,” Glendymere said with a laugh. “I think things should start moving along nicely now. See you tomorrow.”

  “See you in the morning,” Kevin said in as steady a voice as he could manage as he began to slowly gather their things together. What he really wanted to do was to dance around the room and whoop and holler, just like Chris.

  Chapter 32

  The First Month

  The next morning, a big goose egg had come up on Chris’s forehead. Joan came into the kitchen while Chris was making the coffee and asked him what had happened.

  “Do you remember the four tasks that I told you that Kevin was working on?” Chris asked. When Joan nodded, he continued, “And one of them was to move a pebble across a table?” Again, Joan nodded. “Well, let’s just say he did it.”

  “Are you saying that Kevin hit you in the head with the pebble?” Joan asked, laughing. When Chris nodded, Joan said, a little more sympathetically, “Do you want Theresa to look at it? Maybe she has something that would take the swelling out.”

  “No, it’ll be okay. It doesn’t hurt unless I touch it.”

  “Maybe it would be a good idea to stand behind Kevin while he’s working on his magic.”

  “Actually, I do try to stay out of the way while he’s working, but this happened while we were sitting at the table in our room over at Glendymere’s, just talking.”

  “Talking? And the pebble just jumped up and hit you in the head?”

  “Not exactly. He was frustrated about not being able to move the pebble and I told him to stop concentrating so hard, to relax about the whole thing. He sort of blew up. He asked if I thought the stone would move by itself, and he flicked his hand as he said it. The next thing we knew – Whap! The pebble flew through the air and nailed me between the eyes!” Chris poured a mug of coffee for himself and one for Joan. “Actually, I think it surprised him more than it did me. Then, a couple of minutes later, he moved it again, slowly, gently, and only a few inches, but he moved it. And yesterday morning, he and Glendymere went off to find a storm, and Kevin managed to join with it. He said it was the most exhilarating experience of his life.”

  “Why didn’t the two of you tell us ab
out this last night?”

  “He asked me not to say anything yet. I think he’s a bit self-conscious about the whole thing.” Chris drank a few sips of coffee.

  “Chris, try to get him to talk to us about what he’s doing and to demonstrate it for us.” Joan took a long swallow of her coffee. “None of us have any experience with this kind of stuff. It’s totally new to us.”

  “I know, but there really hasn’t been anything to tell until yesterday.” Chris poured a mug of coffee to take to Kevin. “Give him a little time. He’s not exactly comfortable with any of this yet. I’m sure he’ll loosen up once he masters the basics.”

  ~ ~ ~ ~

  Over the next couple of weeks, things settled down into daily routines for the Tellurians. Karl, Steve, and Darrell spent their early mornings on horseback, riding over the valley, mountainsides, and crests, searching for any signs that they had been discovered. Joan usually joined them for about an hour before lunch to work out and spar.

  Karl spent his afternoons with Blalick, working on various building projects, tending the animals, or gathering fruits and vegetables from Blalick’s orchard and garden. Joan spent her afternoons with Ashni, spinning fleece into thread and yarn, weaving cloth, canning, preserving, and baking. Darrell and Steve spent their afternoons constructing a target range, an exercise field, and an obstacle course.

  Theresa and Sari spent most of the day combing the woods for herbs, transplanting some and gathering others. In the late afternoon, they worked in Theresa’s workroom, processing the herbs they had gathered while Theresa taught Sari how to prepare and use them.

  Kevin and Chris were completely occupied with magic. Kevin began to make slow and steady progress, but each small success brought new and more difficult challenges.

  The only one of the four original tasks that was still giving Kevin problems was lighting the candle, and he was almost becoming obsessed with it, working on it for hours everyday while they were at Willow Canyon and then every night in his room.

  “Do you realize that it was exactly two weeks ago today that I first moved the pebble?” Kevin asked while he and Chris were eating lunch in their room in Willow Canyon.

  “Yeah,” Chris said as he gently touched his forehead. “You’ve come a long way in two weeks.” Chris reached for his mug, just as it started moving slowly across the table towards his hand. As the mug reached his fingertips, it gently stopped, this time without splashing any hot coffee on Chris’s hand. “You’re definitely getting better with that. The first time you moved a mug of water across the table, you sloshed most of it out. I’m waiting for you to get good enough to carry the mug to the pot, pick up the pot, pour the coffee, and then put it in my hand.”

  “Why don’t we give it a try?” Kevin asked as he mentally picked up his own mug, carried it over to the coffee pot and held it in the air a few inches away from the pot. “I’ve never tried to control two objects at one time before. Maybe I should start with something else first. I’d hate to loose all the coffee. Let’s try a pitcher of water.” Kevin set the mug down on the small table that they had set up beside the wood stove.

  Chris got up, picked up a pitcher, and took it out to the spout above the water basin. When he brought it back in, he set it down on the floor. “I know that’s not what you were thinking, but if it falls, the water won’t splash quite as far.” Chris walked back over to the table and sat back down. “I didn’t fill it up. There’s just enough for you to be able to pour some. Go ahead. Give it a try.”

  Kevin mentally moved his mug down to the floor beside the pitcher, but he didn’t set it on the floor. “The main idea here is to control two objects at one time. Let’s see. Maybe I should think in terms of having two hands,” Kevin mumbled to himself as he began to concentrate on the pitcher. After a couple of minutes, the pitcher moved, but instead of tipping over to gently pour the water, it flipped over and dumped the water on the floor. “All right. Let’s try that one again.”

  “Do you want some more water? Or do you want to try a dry run?” Chris asked with a laugh.

  “Let’s try it without water.” Kevin lifted the pitcher in the air and tried to ease it over on its side. The pitcher moved a little slower, but just as it reached the point where it would begin to pour, it slipped and fell to the floor again.

  “One more try. I’ll get it this time,” Kevin said to himself as he mentally reached out, righted the pitcher, and picked it up again. This time he managed to hold the pitcher and the mug steady, tip the pitcher just a bit as if to pour, then right the pitcher again, but he lost it before he could set it back on the ground.

  “Oh well. That one will take a little practice. Right now, I want another cup of coffee.” Kevin stood up, mentally picked up his mug and floated it to his hand, carried it over to the stove, and poured the coffee. “You know, I could get really lazy with this. It’s as bad as remote controls for television. With enough practice, I could just sit in that chair and get anything I want without ever having to get up.”

  “I don’t think that’s the objective here,” Chris said with a grin. “When we get back tonight, why don’t you try setting the table? They haven’t seen you do any of this stuff yet. I bet Joan would freak out.”

  “I don’t want to break all the dishes.” Then Kevin thought about it for a moment. “But if we set them on the table first, and then I moved them around one at a time … yeah, I think I could do that okay. Might be fun at that.”

  “Well, it’s time to get back to work. What do you want to work on now?” Chris asked.

  “The candle I guess,” Kevin said with a sigh. “I don’t know why I can’t get the hang of this one. Nothing I’ve tried has worked. I think the only way that candle is going to get lit is for me to find some matches, strike one, and light it!” Kevin flicked his hand like he was striking a kitchen match.

  As he flicked his hand, flames flew out from his fingertips in a cone-like pattern. Most of the flames landed on the floor or table and went out almost instantly, but some landed on the blanket and pillow on his bed and ignited the cloth.

  Chris yelped as he grabbed the pitcher and ran out to the water basin.

  Kevin was so surprised that he couldn’t do anything but stand there and gape at the dancing flames for a couple of seconds. Then he darted over to his bed and jerked the blanket and pillow off before the mattress could catch on fire. By the time he had his bedding on the floor, Chris had run back in with a pitcher of water to douse the flames. In a matter of seconds, all of the flames had been snuffed out.

  “Well, I guess you found the secret to that one,” Chris said as he tried to choke back a chuckle.

  The smell of smoke woke Glendymere up from his afternoon nap. “What happened? I thought we had my chambers clear of anything that would burn,” he said as he looked around, trying to figure out what was smoldering.

  “It wasn’t you,” Chris laughed. “Kevin finally made some fire. Unfortunately, his aim was a little off.”

  “Oh, good. Now that you’ve found your internal spark we can start working on other things. We’ll get started first thing in the morning,” Glendymere replied with a yawn.

  “Great, I can hardly wait,” Chris mumbled as he and Kevin cleaned up the remnants of Kevin’s blanket and pillow.

  ~ ~ ~ ~

  They returned to Rainbow Valley a little early that night so that Kevin could offer to set the table. He took the dishes and mugs out of the cabinet and set them down on the table. Then he leaned against the dining room wall and began mentally moving them around to each place. While Kevin was moving the plates and mugs, Chris took the flatware out of the drawer, laid it down on the table, and walked away to watch. Kevin moved the knives, forks, and spoons into their proper positions around the plates.

  Joan didn’t see Kevin move the plates because she had her back to the table, but she turned around in time to see pieces of flatware moving around on the table and sliding to a stop next to the plates. At first she frowned, and then her fa
ce lit up. “Kevin! Are you doing that? You’re going to have to do this again when the others get here. I’m not kidding! Karl will think I’ve lost my mind if I tell him about this. He has to see this for himself! What else can you do?” Joan said without taking her eyes off the table.

  “Oh, there are a few other things. This afternoon I set our room over at Glendymere’s on fire, but so far, this is the most useful thing I’ve been able to accomplish.”

  Joan raised her eyebrows and turned to look at Kevin as she asked, “What do you mean, you set your room on fire?”

  “Well, it wasn’t on purpose. We were talking about the fact that I couldn’t seem to get the hang of lighting the candle, and when I said that I needed a match to light it …”

  Chris grabbed Kevin’s hand just as he started to flick it. “And that’s how he set the room on fire, by flicking his hand like he was striking a match. Man, you have got to learn to talk without moving your hands until you get this magic stuff down.”

  “Sorry,” Kevin grinned sheepishly. “And that’s exactly how it happened.”

  “Well, just don’t try to light candles on my table yet,” Joan replied. She reached out to gently touch her tablecloth, almost protectively. “Now, take the plates and silverware up so that you can set the table again when everyone else gets here.”

  Kevin and Chris stacked the plates back up, set the mugs in a circle around the plates and gathered the flatware into a pile. Then they sat down to wait for the others to come in.

  That evening, after he’d gone back to his room, Kevin smiled as he thought back to the demonstration he’d put on for the rest of the Tellurians before dinner. He had enjoyed showing them what he could do and answering their questions. Maybe he was becoming a bit more comfortable with the idea of Kevin the Sorcerer. When it worked, magic was fun. But even so, he still had some serious problems with the idea of Myron, the Master Sorcerer.