The Heavenly Host

“It felt like I was doing a bank job,” Tom said with a laugh. The others looked at him strangely. “Never mind. What’s inside?”

They all peered into the room. It was, as Tom had seen, a twenty-by-twenty-foot room with nothing in it except at the very center. There were two marble blocks covered in runes about six feet apart, linked by a black metal bar that seemed fatter on one end than the other. It looked as if the blocks had been formed around the two ends. Almost as if the bar had been set in concrete that was allowed to harden. Except that the blocks were marble, not concrete.

“All that, for this?” Boggy asked, clearly disappointed. Tom had to agree. A dull metal bar encased on its ends in rune-covered marble. What could make a metal bar that important? Or was it the blocks? Tom reached out with his mental fingers. No, the blocks were Tiernon magic, like everything else. The bar was something else; something very different. It did not like the Tiernon magic, but whatever it was, it was very weak at this point. It did not actually seem to have much, if any, magic in it. It was more residue at this point, a faint trace of past power.

“I think whatever it was, it’s harmless now,” Tom said. “The runes on the blocks are Etonian, like the locks and all. The bar is different, but there is not much of any magic left in it. I would say a small residue, but no real, active mana in it,” Tom said.

Antefalken was peering at it more closely. “See these two lines that entwine the bar?” He pointed to two parallel lines that striped the bar, sort of like a barber pole if the red line were composed of two different colors. Although at the moment, both were pretty dark. “They are crystalline, and each appears to be an unbroken single piece. That is very unusual. The only place I’ve seen anything like it was in the Crystal Caverns, but those were straight lines. How you would get crystal to grow like this is beyond me.”

Antefalken stood up. “Of course, that might explain the residue of mana you sense,” Antefalken said. Tom looked at him curiously. “Crystals are often used for mana pools.”

“I’ve heard the term, but am not that familiar with them,” Tom said.

“Mana pools are constructs that wizards and others use to store mana in. You can put mana in them and link them to a magical artifact to provide mana, or you can link to one yourself to draw on it for extra capacity in battle or as needed,” Antefalken said.

“So that’s why wizards like gemstone rings!” Tom exclaimed.

“Yes — to a point. You can really only safely attach to one mana pool at a time. Trying to keep two of them in synch with yourself and each other is extremely difficult and can result in feedback loops, which can be unpleasant or even deadly,” Antefalken said.

“Good to keep in mind,” Tom said.

“Which makes this device odd,” Antefalken added.

“Why?” Estrebrius asked, and Tom nodded.

“Because there are two different crystalline strands here: one ruby, the other sapphire, I believe. That would imply two mana pools in the same artifact, which would be highly unstable.”

“Unless one is for the device, and one for the user as a personal pool?” Talarius suggested.

Antefalken’s eyes widened. “Yes, that would make sense. Your knowledge surprises me.”

Talarius shrugged under his armor. “I am a mana wielder myself, and as you may have noticed, I have a couple of arcane objects on me. I’m not a stranger to the mechanics of mana manipulation.”

Antefalken smiled. “I see that.”

There was some noise outside the door, in the distance.

“Did they get through the wall?” Rupert asked.

Estrebrius flew out to the landing and listened. “No, I think the noise is coming from up the stairs!”

“Curse it!” Talarius said angrily.

“We took too much time with this stupid thing,” Antefalken complained.

“Sorry,” Tom said.

“Not your fault; we were all curious,” Boggy said.

“Well if we are going to fight our way out, I want something for it. I’m taking the bar!” Tom proclaimed.

“Seems reasonable. If nothing else, you can use it as a club to pound D’Orcs,” Tizzy said.

Tom grabbed the bar, intending to pick it and the marble blocks both up, but it would not budge. “Shit!” He could hear the noises from outside, still distant but getting closer. He moved to the block at the thinner edge of the bar. He scraped the runes with the arrowhead, forcing himself into the runes. They fought back; he was going too fast. To hell with it.

Tom reached deep inside and gathered up as much pure mana as he could and shoved it hard into the runes. He would overwhelm the damn thing. In he went, racing through the runes, filling them with power. To his surprise, he found himself mentally jumping over the rod to the second block; the two blocks were linked. He filled those runes, flooding them with power, willing them to release, unlock, dissolve.