Chapter 11: Between Breaths

The next day found Jake and Barrachus reclining in lounge chairs in Jake's back yard. "It's astounding, Lord Jacob," Barrachus commented. "The power is so easy to call, so much more versatile... We're going to have to create whole new methods for dealing with it. It will take centuries to learn how to master, if one even can master it." He took an iced tea from the tray Jake's mother offered him with a smile of thanks. "I would honestly recommend you divide the talent for Elemental Magecraft into separate disciplines; it'd be much easier to gauge one's power and/or rank that way."

Jake considered this advice as he sat almost indolently on his patio. Since his return yesterday evening, he had had to rearrange his priorities a little. His self-imposed mission of vengeance had to take a back burner for a few days while he consolidated his power base. He had made everyone in the household with wills of their own into an Elemental Mage, and they were just learning how to utilize their newfound powers. Barrachus, Tina, and Courtney were given the largest conduits as he expected their loyalty and dedication to him to be the most genuine, and offered for better reasons than ambition.

Barrachus had been, before accepting Jake's offer, an Adept who sat on the High Council. He had since resigned, and now devoted himself to a new and exciting world of strange "magic." (Jake still preferred to think of these abilities in terms of psionics, but he was clearly in the minority on this matter. This was a moot point, however; power by any other name was still power.) The important thing to be considered was that no matter how much more powerful Jake was, Barrachus still knew a great deal more about the nature of magic and of those who used it on a regular basis. Knowing this, Jake had immediately placed Barrachus in the role of advisor on all matters arcane.

So Jake asked the next logical question. "What would you suggest?"

Barrachus leaned back and took a sip of his drink. "There seems to be different ways of accomplishing the same thing now. I would recommend some simple areas of magical action, such as mind reading and manipulation, maybe healing, combative magicks, perhaps something akin to what the Seers do, like precognition, and necromancy, dealing with spirits and demons. You could go pretty far with just those disciplines."

Again Jake considered. What Barrachus said made sense-Jake had just opened up a whole new world of magic, it might be easier to learn if people specialized.

Jake nodded decisively. "Very well, Barrachus. It was your idea, I'll leave you to design it. I grant you the authority to come up with a workable system that I can then implement." Barrachus grimaced in the middle of a swallow, nearly spilling tea all over his shirt. Jake looked at him sternly. "Come on Barrachus, you know you're the only man for the job. If you weren't prepared to undergo what it required, you shouldn't have suggested it."

Barrachus winced. "I know. I guess it has to be done. But, Ye Gods! What a project I've just volunteered myself for!" Jake grinned. He knew Barrachus would come up with a system both elegant and practical-that's what the man was all about. Sighing, Barrachus stood up. "I guess I'd better get started. Is there any particular discipline you'd want me to develop a blueprint for first?"

Jake looked him somberly in the eye for only a moment before Barrachus grimaced again and nodded. Of course the first that needed to be developed was Combative magic. With another sigh he walked into the house. He'd take a Corridor back to his own place of residence.

That was an interesting thing Jake had discovered. Upon learning how those Doors to other places were made, he had found a much more efficient way for himself and his Mages to do it. For some reason, though, a Mage could only open a temporary Corridor, and that only to a place he or she had physically been before. Still that was a far cry better than having eleven Adepts spending nearly two hours just to make one Door.