Page 58 of Killian
“Uh…” Cynog looked at the explosives. “Uh… We could… We could insert a shield spell between the explosives and the tree, which would channel the explosives away from the tree.”
It took Moira’s brain a moment to decipher that. Away from the tree also meant the explosives would be thrown back at them. Moira hesitated a moment. Them or all eight levels? There wasn’t any choice.
“OK, let’s do that,” said Moira.
“Um,” said one of the elves. “Wouldn’t that channel all of the explosive force back at us?”
“Yes,” said Cynog. He and the elf stared at each other.
“For the tree,” said the elf.
“For the tree,” agreed Cynog.
“All right everyone,” said the elf whirling around and facing the company. “We haven’t got a lot of room to work. We’re going to have to link our spells and stretch them. We can’t disturb Sorcha and it had better be thin enough to pass through the eye of a needle. Cynog, how big does it need to be?”
“Floor to ceiling, I think,” said Cynog.
“Right,” said the elf nodding.
The elves formed into a knot and there was a lot of muttering. Moira ran to the railing and looked out into the valley.
Some two hundred elves had encircled the humans, pushing them toward the far bridge where a golden door had appeared. The humans all had guns pointed out and were backing slowly toward the door. Moira could see Lonnie in front, facing Killian, the golden copy of theBook of the Deadin one hand. She could also see the sparkling light that was Tilva circling Killian’s head.
“It’s Shifter magic,” yelled Sorcha.
Moira ran back to the wall of explosives.
“What does that mean?” demanded Moira. “I don’t know anymagic.”
“You change shape,” said Sorcha.
“That’s not magic. That’s just changing shape!” Sorcha stared at her. “Yes!” barked Moira. “I realize that sounds dumb when I say it out loud. But help me out here. Your magic seems like it has words and things. I don’t have that. I just want to be my other self and then I am. What does that mean for this spell? How does the thing work?”
“Um.” Sorcha scrubbed a hand through her pale blonde hair. Her ears were pointed, but she reminded Moira of someone, not that she could remember who just now. “Shifters are transitional. It’s like you’re two different things at once.”
“No, I’m two different things, but only one at a time,” said Moira.
Sorcha glanced down at Moira’s hands which were clawed and lightly furred.
“Point taken,” said Moira. “Go on.”
“This artifact has some sort of shifter residue on it and I think it’s speaking to the other artifact. They probably belonged to the same Shifter. The spell is amplifying the connection. It’s not a complicated spell, but if the signal is lost then it kicks off this other spell.” Sorcha pointed to the circle of metal around the necklace. “And that will start a fire, or, not a fire… Uh… I don’t know—it feels like tiny lightning.”
“It can’t be a lot of DNA,” said Moira. “That’s a necklace, and even if he wore it every day, it’s been thousands of years.”
“I don’t know DNA,” said Sorcha. “But if the artifacts are that old, they would probably have belonged to one of the first shifters and the records say that they were even more variable than you. So whatever is on the artifacts could still be there. I mean it is faint, but it’s distinctly Shifter-ish.”
“Faint,” said Moira, nodding. “OK, that’s how it works. Now how do we stop it?”
“Uh… I don’t know. Yet,” said Sorcha.
“Tell me the options. Ignore how we do it. What are the paths to stopping a spell?”
“You destroy it, redirect it, remove the power source, substitute the power source, or stop the effects,” said Sorcha as if that had been a question on a test. For all Moira knew it might have been.
“Can we destroy it?” asked Moira. “Do we have the resources for that?”
“I don’t think so,” replied Sorcha. “We would need to know the exact words for the original spell or we would need to consume the spell’s energy with another one and I don’t think we can do that without setting off the lightning spell. We could redirect it… Maybe.”
