Tak

Experiments - Part 8

     He was placing it carefully back in the chest when he noticed something that had been tickling the back of his mind for some time without his being consciously aware of it. When he'd first entered the room he'd sensed several magical fields, the sort that might be made by spellbooks or magical artefacts. Now, though, those impressions had gone. There was no magic to be sensed anywhere, not even from the wards and traps that he knew were on the door. Something's stopping my magic sense from working, he realised with a start of excitement.

     He rushed back to the hole he'd made in the wall, and it all came back; the impressions of several sources of magic somewhere within a few feet of him. So there was something hidden in the room after all. He stood still for some minutes, concentrating on his magic sense, trying to get a feel for where the impressions were coming from, and the strongest of them was coming from the chest with the bottles in. False bottom! He rushed back to it, almost tripping over a stuffed mannikin with a fur coat draped over it, and heaved the chest over onto its side, spilling all the bottles out. A piece of wood fell out as well, the false bottom that had almost fooled him, and when he looked back in he saw what he'd been looking for.

     It was a glass spheroid, about ten inches across and eight inches high. It looked like a polished lump of veined marble, but it was glowing with its own internal light in a way that made him feel a little unwell to look at. He couldn't sense the magic that he knew had to fill it, but he somehow knew that this was the most intensely magical thing he'd ever been this close to.

     Now he appreciated how cleverly Gannlow had hidden it, how all the rubbish the rak had piled in here hid it more effectively than the most cunning and clever illusion spell. The whole room screamed decoy, and you had to be really convinced that there was something in here to find before you'd find it. If Tak hadn't come in through the wall, it would have fooled him as well. "Clever," he muttered as he bent down to pick up the globe. "Clever, but not clever enough." The object was surprisingly light for its size, as if it were hollow and contained empty air...

     "Put it down, very, very carefully," said a voice behind him. The voice of Gannlow. The tone of his voice said that he was very angry. Very angry indeed, but also afraid. Terrified in fact, but trying very hard not to betray the fact.

     Tak was too startled to realise any of this at the time, though. It was only later, when he replayed the moment in his mind, that all these nuances became clear to him. At the time, all he felt was a lightning bolt of sheerest terror that he'd been discovered and was about to be punished in the most terrible way. He jerked upright in a reflex of fear, and the globe slipped out of his hands to strike the hard corner of the chest with a loud crack, followed by a thud as it hit the floor.

     "No!" cried Gannlow in horror. He lunged forward, pushing Tak aside and reached for the globe with trembling hands, but the object had been cracked by the fall and was glittering with escaping magic. "No! No!" cried the rak in horrified denial. He turned to face the younger wizard. "Mend it!" he begged. "Use the Mend spell! Quickly! Mend it and all will be forgiven! We'll forget this ever happened!"

     Tak had been drained of heat by the brushing contact with the rak, though, and could only shiver with cold as the globe continued to leak magic, covered now by cold, blue, dancing flames that spread up the rak's arms to envelope his head. Tak knew how dangerous randomly escaping magic was and managed to scramble back towards the hole in the wall, wincing with pain every time he put weight on his frostbitten shoulder. Gannlow was following him, though, still begging and pleading him to mend the globe, which was now almost incandescent with energy.

     A shrill whine set Tak's teeth on edge, and his hair stood up on his head with static electricity. The whole room was alive now. Sheets and blankets fluttering as if in a strong wind and the drawers of the cupboards rattling as if an earthquake was happening. A pile of wooden crates fell over, spilling jars of dried grass heads onto the bare floorboards, and the plaster bust of a young woman exploded in a shower of dust and flying fragments.

     Gannlow loomed over Tak, holding the globe out to him in desperation. "Please! Please mend it! Quick, before it's too late!"

     The escaping magic spilled over Tak's body, making his skin shine transparently, and for a moment all his muscles and tendons were clearly visible. The aura of freezing cold that surrounded the rak washed over him like a blast of arctic wind. Tak kicked out with his feet, knocking Gannlow over and throwing him half across the room, and then he scrambled out through the hole he'd made in the wall.

     Gannlow was already getting back to his feet, and Tak saw with horrified fascination that his mummified skin was splitting and peeling away, revealing dry yellow bones. The rak was literally falling apart. "No!" he moaned, staring in horror at his disintegrating hands. "Nooooo!"

     Tak gabbled the stone shaping spell and closed the hole in the wall, then scrambled to his feet and fled back to the stairs. He was halfway up when the whole building was shaken by a massive explosion. Tak was thrown from his feet and blocks of stone fell from the ceiling. One fell on his ankle and he felt a flare of pain as a bone was broken. He pulled himself back to his feet, afraid of being buried as the whole mansion collapsed, and limped the rest of the way up, wincing with every step. At the top, voices were calling out in fear, demanding to know what was going on, and one of the maids fled past him, her thin nightie barely covering her shapely body.

     "Out of the house!" Tak shouted at her. "Get out of the house, quick!"

     His apprehension was unfounded, though. The house didn't collapse, although it did suffer damage from cracked walls and broken ornaments. Outside, though, a gaping hole appeared in the middle of one of the lawns, a spot which Tak later determined was directly above Gannlow's forbidden room. Foul vapours rose from the hole for some hours afterwards, but other than that the excitement was over.