Angel of Storms (Millennium's Rule, #2)(117)

Rielle winced. “Remembering how wasn’t the problem, as I recall.”

He chuckled. “Practice and concentration, Rielle. That’s all you need.”

“It’s a very long way up.”

“It is. Come over here.”

She followed him to as near the centre of the room as they could get between the mounds. Turning to face her, he looked down at the ground between their feet.

“Still the air between us,” he instructed.

She drew in magic slowly, taking it in from many points at once as he’d taught her, slowly creating the radiating Stain lines that all other sorcerers managed with ease. Concentrating on the air just above the floor, she willed a circle of it to still.

A chill touched her ankles, confirming that she’d succeeded. Taking a step forward, she was relieved when her foot didn’t sink through it to the floor, as it had so many other times she had attempted this. Dahli moved onto the invisible disc and took hold of her shoulders in anticipation of a bumpy ride. She grasped his arms. Pausing to breathe once, then again, she gathered her courage and will and made the disc rise.

It did so smoothly, but she did not loosen her grip on Dahli’s arms. It was easy to hold the disc above the floor when her mind had a good sense of where the floor was, but the further they rose the harder it was to keep an accurate awareness of it. She stared beyond their feet, knowing that at any moment Dahli would tell her to look away, or close her eyes, and rely entirely on her mind’s awareness of the ground below.

But he didn’t, perhaps because she was eventually forced to stop judging the distance with her eyes because the floor was too far away to focus on accurately. Even so, she didn’t look up, not wanting to distract herself from the task.

“Stop, Rielle,” Dahli said.

She did, and held them still. Now that they were motionless, she looked straight ahead, beyond Dahli, to the nearby wall, and managed to avoid making the mistake of shifting her awareness of the ground to the wall.

“Look up.”

Taking a deep breath, she held it, let it out slowly, then raised her chin and let her gaze travel higher. Don’t get distracted, she told herself, don’t lose focus. She looked up at the ceiling.

Which was no ceiling, her eyes told her, but countless imperfect glassy cones crowded together and pointing towards the floor. Stalactites! Of ice!

The firmness beneath her feet turned mushy, she slid through and fell.

Immediately the air thickened around her, slowing her descent. She knew how Dahli had done it, since he’d taught her the same trick, but it was not something she could do quickly enough yet. A new solidity formed beneath her feet, slowing her descent, but her knees weren’t expecting it so she sank into a crouch, lost her balance and toppled backwards. She caught a glimpse of Dahli throwing his arms out and tipping sideways before billowing clouds of darkness rose up to obliterate all.

Grit filled her eyes. Her lungs protested against an invasion of particles. Coughing savagely, she struggled to her feet and heard Dahli hacking and spluttering nearby. The ground was no longer flat and firm, but uneven and crumbly, and she stumbled to her knees.

The air abruptly cleared as the particles were thrust to the floor by magic.

“Are you… hurt?” Dahli managed to get out between coughs. She shook her head. He nodded. “Follow… me.”

She got up and stumbled towards him. Dahli stepped off the garden bed they’d landed on, turned and held out his hand. She took it and they descended to solid stone.

As Dahli turned to face her she put a hand to her mouth to hide a smile. His face was smeared in black dust, eyes comically bright and red-rimmed. As he examined her his eyebrows rose and his mouth quirked into a smile.

They both burst out laughing, the sound filling the room with echoes.

“Sorry about that,” she said, when they had finally calmed enough to talk again. She pulled her scarf from her head and shook the dust out, then began to wipe her face. Something about the result of that brought a fresh gust of laughter from Dahli. She pretended to be offended, but only wound up giggling helplessly.

He sobered first, sighed and crossed his arms. “Ah, Rielle. I don’t have to tell you what you did wrong, do I?”

She shook her head and handed him the scarf. “Practice and concentration.”

“You are getting better,” he assured her as he wiped his face. “That is the highest you’ve taken us.”

Looking up, she frowned. Her light had flickered out, her connection to it lost in the panic of the fall. Dahli had created a new one, but it hovered nearby and did not penetrate the darkness. Creating a new light, she sent it up to the ceiling. It was easier to see the pattern was formed by icicles, now. “There’s no ice down here.”

“No. Though it may seem cold to us, the air in here is dry enough that most of the drips that come off the ceiling evaporate before they hit the floor.”

She looked at the pockmarks all over the undisturbed crop beds. A few must survive long enough.

“Did they rain down more in the past, watering the crops? And did sorcerers provide light–or did they grow plants that thrive in darkness?”

“No, no and no.” Dahli looked up again. “The ice ceiling was once thin enough to allow in light. Water was brought in through pipes.”

“Were you here when the garden was being used?”