The Fire and The Storm - The Nexus of Kellaran #2 novel Chapter 8

Part 2

Then Nemia took control of the spell. She considered nine of the wildflower plant species that grew next to the walls, grew them up the walls in tiny tendrils within the bark of the wood, and had them produce white, blue, and orange flowers in artistic rows and swirls along the building’s window frames, doorframes, and eaves. Inside the walls, wondrous tapestries of beautiful landscapes done in living flowers grew on the walls between the large windows.

The song ended, there was a long silence, and all the doors and windows slowly opened wide. The entire construction had taken less than eleven minutes.

Then Mark’s grandfather called; “Well done!” and began to clap his hands. Those observing the spell joined him in this applause, and Mark saw when he glanced over that his grandmother Sana had tears in her smiling eyes, so moved was she by the beauty and wonder of what she had seen. And she was certainly not the only one so affected. Even many of those who'd helped cast the spell were struck dumb with emotion by the beauty and scale of what they’d done. The hall was almost ninety-two meters wide and forty meters high. It’s main entrance doors were over twelve meters high and just as wide.

Everyone took a few minutes to look the new building over, both inside and out. It was so huge that all could comfortably gather inside at once, including Kragorram and Povon. It had a strange asymmetry, since it was nearly round, but not quite. The fourteen great trees that grew in its walls were not in a perfect circle, nor were they evenly spaced, and to move even one of them a few meters would have been more work than all the rest of the construction.

Yazadril cast Speaking and called them all to order. “All right then everyone, pay attention now. I’ve reconsidered your talents and capabilities, and I think this would go fastest if we formed sixteen teams for construction, rather that the ten we originally planned. Collectively, you’re a bit more capable than we had realized. Complete your own homes first, to hone your competence with the spells, then work on the rest of the buildings. You thirty wizards will be assigned as Illusionists to help finalize the planning of all the buildings, and I’ve divided the rest of the buildings between you. You’ll work with the proprietors of those buildings while the first sixteen are being constructed. When each building is completely planned and ready to build, pass the plan to the nearest unoccupied construction team, and move on to the next.”

“We will begin to have shaped stones available in a quarter-hour.” Kragorram announced, needing no augmentation of his mighty voice to be heard by all. “We will cast a partial Levitate on each one, removing most of the weight, so those of you who are not engaged in constructing wood can easily place them. Once we are done with our dens, we will visit each of your stoneworks and fuse them with spells and fire, so no mortar will be needed. You can simply stack them in place until we get to you.”

“Excellent, that gives us something practical to do.” Markhan the senior said with a grin as he clapped his hands together and rubbed them. “Everyone who’s not casting spells and has tradesman or crafter’s skills gather to me, and we’ll get you sorted out. We’ll follow behind the construction teams, doing stonework, interior finishing, and making any needed furniture that we won’t be bringing from our present homes.

“Mark, can you assign us a Translocator to fetch our tools and materials?”

“I’d be glad to do it myself, Grandfather. Talia and I will get our house done while you get organized, then bring most of what you need. Then we’ll do the next house, and check with you again as soon as we’re finished it, and so on.”

“That’s fine. And one more thing; when all you spell casters are done, we’d appreciate your not offering to help us with what we’re doing. I think it’s better for our community if a fair share of the work gets done by muscles and hands. I want my new grandchildren to appreciate that kind of work as much as they do the magic that gets done here.”

“I agree whole-heartedly, Grandfather.” Mark chuckled.

“All right then, wizards, here are your assignments.” Yazadril called as he psionicly passed out instructions with unthinking ease. “Proprietors, here are the Illusionists assigned to your projects. Let’s get to it, shall we?”

Everyone separated to go to their first projects.

Mark and Talia were the only two on their construction team, and she ran off laughing toward their new homesite while Mark playfully chased after her. Faster and faster they raced through the deep grass and wildflowers that grew between the widely-spaced trees, until Talia let him catch her just as they arrived at their destination.

“Damn you’re quick! But I’ve got you now!” he laughed as he scooped her tiny form up in his huge arms.

“Mmm, you sure do!” she giggled as she hugged him around his neck, then turned in his arms to consider the three great trees they would work with. “This is going to be so fun!” she laughed.

“It is! We don’t really have to sing for this, do we? It’ll go faster if we don’t.”

“It would, but we’ll sing anyway.” she insisted with a smile. “The act of creation seems more… More spiritual, I guess you’d say, when done in the traditional way with the accompanying song. Besides, it’ll still only take us a few minutes, and we can spare the time, and I just love hearing your voice! Especially when you sing.” she giggled.

“All right, you’ve convinced me!” he laughed.

Far to his left, they faintly heard Dalia and Bezedil’s team begin their song as they started on their new home.

“Let’s get started.” she prompted. “I want to see if we can do more constructions today than the other teams!”

“All right, my beautiful little love. I’ll follow your lead on this one.”

They deepened their Link, closed their eyes, reviewed the spell, considered the trees, began their song, and cast.

They went too fast and almost caused a split in one of the trees, but Talia detected the strain building up just in time, and relieved it before the tree could lose it’s structural integrity.

They fell silent and opened their eyes upon their new home.

“Beautiful.” Mark softly remarked. “Bigger than we need, even if we have four kids here, but we’ll have room for a few guests to stay over if they want.”

“Yes, and Dalia’s team is only a quarter finished.” Talia said with a nasty little giggle. “Lets get our next assignment and do another one!”

With that she psionicly checked for the nearest site that was waiting for a construction team, and Translocated them there with hardly a thought.

Her competitive fire was fully ablaze now, and Mark let himself get swept up in it. By the time another three hours had passed, all the construction spells were finished. Talia and Mark had done twenty-three of them, including the second largest construction in the settlement; that being Nek and Reen’s pub. It was large enough to comfortably accommodate most of their neighbors at once, or all of them when the outdoor ‘seating’ was utilized. Its most distinguishing feature was that its entire front wall was hinged at the top so that it could be swung completely up and open in nice weather, making the indoor and outdoor areas into one big party space.

Having completed their work, Mark and Talia strolled around, looking at the new buildings and chatting with others who were also finished. They had indeed done far more than any other construction team, even though they’d had to pause several times to Translocate in tools and materials for the tradesmen. Having ascertained this fact, they kept it and their smug satisfaction to themselves, seeing no need to boast about it.

Everywhere now there were improbably huge stacks of black and dark gray stones being slowly carried from the sites of the dragon’s dens to everywhere else. That was a tricky task for strong men, since the stones retained all of their mass, and thus their inertia or momentum, even though the partial Levitations cast on them reduced their weight to only a few grams each.