Arram looked at Ozorne, who was grinning. Surely Ozorne knew that the sort of magic taught by Cosmas would stop the kinds of fires that plagued cities and farms. Cosmas even had hopes that Arram might one day guide the lava that spilled out of Southern volcanoes, though Arram thought the master was overreaching.
“So much for staying indoors, at least for now. Come along, you two—let’s see what our young friend can do when he’s let off his leash. Step lively. The foretellers call for rain later.” Chioké led the way outside again.
They crossed the Tradesmen’s Road to a large grassless space in a field. Arram had been here often with friends to watch older fire magic students create displays for holidays. Large parties and games between the university’s schools were held here, with stone risers on either side of the field to accommodate viewers.
Chioké pointed to a tall stack of wood placed to one side of the area. “Draper, get one of those. Bring it over to where I’ll be standing.”
Arram hesitated. Would it do any good to protest? He didn’t think so. Instead he put his book bag on the riser Ozorne had chosen and handed Preet to his friend. She cheerfully ran up his arm and began to pick through the strings of beads in his hair.
“Should I give her one?” he called after Arram.
“Don’t. She’ll eat them,” Arram called back as he trotted to the stacks.
“Is he joking?” he heard Chioké ask Ozorne.
He chose a three-foot-high round chunk of wood—he identified it as cork oak—evened off on the bottom. Chioké walked five hundred feet into the center of the bare ground, where he scratched an X into the dirt before he returned to Ozorne. Arram got the message: he was to place the piece of wood there. Ozorne’s master was starting to remind him of some of the older students who still plagued him.
“Do you know the spell to project fire, as you would throw a spear?” Chioké asked when Arram returned to the other two.
“I’ve done it at targets,” Arram replied quietly. He felt his fingers tingle. His Gift knew he was about to handle fire. He was never sure whether he liked the feeling. At least he’s not asking me to light candles, he thought.
The mage pinched his nose. “As a war mage you must force it, of course. Concentrate your will, call the flame from your Gift, work the spell without faltering. Demand that it appear within that wood!”
Arram thought he should mention the risks. “Sir, it isn’t that I can’t do the spell—”
“No debate,” Chioké said, his heavy brows snapping together. “Do it!”
Taking a breath, Arram closed his eyes and prayed, Mithros, please shine on me.
The sky was covered with thick clouds; in the distance he felt thunder roll. The older he was, whether he was indoors or out, he had begun to feel any thunder around him, not only overhead. He’d told no one, not even Ozorne and Varice. He feared they might think he was putting on airs, or running mad.
Do it and get it over with, he ordered himself. Before the lightning comes.
He drew the spell-parts together in his mind—for simpler spells, it was considered more mage-like not to say them aloud—and bound them with his Gift. There was a roaring in his ears. Power shot through his veins. It was gone.
So was the wood, burned to ashes instantly. Arram couldn’t see his spell, but he felt it still rushing on. If he hadn’t yanked his hands down, driving its power into the earth—where it burned a track in the dirt almost to the edge of the clearing—it would have shot into the brush on the far side.
For a moment there was silence. Then Chioké yelled, “You call that control?”
“Master, look at his target,” Ozorne said. “Or what’s left of it.”
Chioké walked over to the ash mark where the chunk of wood had been, and kicked at it. Then he went to the woodpile, working a spell that lifted another piece of wood, a thicker and longer piece, into the air. He sent it to a point six hundred feet from where the two youths stood, and with a flick of the fingers, he drove it into the ground.
“Hold your position there!” he shouted. He walked quickly to the stone seats and climbed up three rows, then crossed his arms over his chest.
“Does he want me to do it again?” Arram asked Ozorne.
“I think he does,” his friend murmured. “He loves to look…mage-like.”
“What do you wait for, the immortals’ return?” Chioké bellowed. “Once more.”
The third time he demanded that Arram speak the spell aloud so he could ensure he was adding nothing to it. Ozorne had to stuff Preet into Arram’s book bag because she screeched in outrage at Chioké’s tone toward Arram.
The fourth time Chioké held Arram’s hands, earning himself a burn when they grew too hot. If he had not been a fire mage, it would have been much worse. As it was, he had to suffer the indignity of using Ozorne’s burn salve.
The fifth time he raised a barrier of his own power in front of Arram to slow the spell down. It incinerated his barrier and finally scorched only the chunk of wood.
“Is that the desired outcome?” Ozorne queried. Chioké whirled as if to shout at him, but Ozorne gazed calmly at the mage.
Finally Chioké managed a hint of a smile. “Your Highness is always ready with a joke.”
Arram looked at the sky. “That’s lightning,” he said nervously. “We should go in.”
He could more than see it. The hairs on his arms stood. The storm was moving fast. The lightning did not disappear instantly. Some of the bolts lingered and moved, like…“I really think we should go inside,” he repeated desperately. The wind rose; drops of water struck the ground hard enough to raise dust.
Ozorne and Chioké were talking quietly and very earnestly. “—see what I mean,” Ozorne was telling the man. “How wonderful it would be to have him in battle—”
“Without control he’s—” Chioké interrupted.
A triple arm of lightning reached out from the tower over the Mithran Library and brushed three fingers over Arram’s face. He closed his eyes, trembling, hearing Ozorne shout, “Arram!”
“Don’t worry,” he called weakly. “It’s only lightning snakes.”
More of them came to hold his hands and explore his shoulders, chest, and legs. He was jittering now, their energy flooding his veins. He would have given anything to see this from the outside. Then the rain came pouring down with a vengeance. Laughing softly in voices that crackled, the snakes moved on with the leading edge of their storm. After a moment hands seized his arms and towed him along. He looked up and saw only black. The rain stopped.
“Your hair’s in your face.” Ozorne swiped it away with one hand so Arram could see the shield of protection Chioké had placed over them. Ozorne, book bag over his shoulder, gripped Arram’s arm. Chioké clutched Arram’s other arm; he had Arram’s book bag. Preet thrust her head out of its opening and chattered at him.
“I didn’t do it on purpose,” he tried to say, but his tongue felt swollen and clumsy.
To his dazed shock, Ozorne’s surprise, and Chioké’s considerable irritation, Faziy came running up to them through the rain, her face alive with excitement. “Which of you did it?” she cried. When she reached them, she grinned. “Arram, you did it! They found you!”