Chapter 13: Brain Power
“Okay, Maggs. Time to learn this. Again.”
She eyed Karl warily. “Is it hard?”
He shrugged. “It took you a while to pick it up before, but you got it eventually.” Karl pulled up a crate and sat on it, motioning with his hands as he spoke. “There are two kinds of energy in the universe: potential and kinetic. Potential energy is stored energy, while kinetic is energy that is actively being used for something. Everything in the universe has potential energy stored in it that we can make use of. The instant you draw it out and direct it, it becomes kinetic.” He paused to raise an eyebrow. “Understand?”
She nodded, remembering the same terminology from her high school science class.
“Good. In terms of kinetic energy, there are two types. One is constructive, the other destructive. These terms have less to do with the nature of the energy and more to do with what you’ll be using it for. Constructive energy you pull to yourself and use to build something up. Destructive energy you send away from yourself and often use to tear something down.”
Maggie was already feeling overwhelmed. “For example?”
Karl nodded. “For example, if you pull energy to you to use as a shield—what we call Defensive energy—that’s an example of constructive: you build up a shield of protection around yourself. To use it as a weapon, you pull it to you but then lash out at others—strike at them with the intent of incapacitating them. That’s destructive energy. Understand?”
Maggie nodded.
“There are dozens of sub-categories, which you’ll pick up as you learn. Offensive and Defensive energy are only two. Then there’s the energy needed for Healing, Seeking, and other abilities—you get the idea.”
“So what will I be doing?”
“Destructive energy is easier to control, which is why we’re starting with constructive. I want you to build a force you can push the crates with. Use the stone I gave you to help you.”
Maggie looked forebodingly at the wall of crates in front of her. She was in a large cavern in the upper part of the mountain. An array of boxes and crates were stacked against the far wall. Maggie would be using them for target practice with only a conduit stone for help. Conduit stones were used by everyone in the compound, but there were different sizes, densities, and types of stones.
“Depending on your abilities and the type of stone being used, different amounts of energy can be controlled and concentrated,” Karl was saying. “Stones with fewer impurities are easier to use. Any crude rock can be used as a conduit, but it will be more difficult to use than unadulterated minerals. The characteristics of the stone will affect how much energy you can pull through it. Because granite is much denser than, say, sandstone, it is much harder to pull energy through. It takes a lot more effort. However, sandstone is soft and more likely to crumble if you put too much strain on it. So you have to be careful how much energy you’re using. If you’re defending yourself and your conduit stone crumbles, you’re toast.”
“Thank you for that…astute explanation, Karl.”
It was Joan’s dry voice. She came up behind Maggie. Trailing behind her was Clay.
“We’re here to help.”
“How?” Karl looked skeptical.
Joan glared at him.
“What she means,” Clay chimed in, “is that we’re here to observe.”
Maggie sighed. Great. An audience.
“Here, Maggs.”
Karl pressed a flat rock, the circumference of a quarter but half an inch thick, into her palm. It was connected to two leather cords that could wrap around the user’s hand so that even if they weren’t curling their fingers around the stone, they wouldn’t drop it.
“This is an average gravel rock. You won’t be able to pull much energy through it, but it’s a good practice tool.”
“I have to be holding it then?”
“Actually, no. Once you get the hang of this, you can use any source as a magnifier, but since you’re still learning, it’s better if the stone is in contact with your skin. We often make these conduit stones from pure, powerful materials. They come in handy if you’re somewhere where the natural materials at your disposal are limited.”
“What kinds of materials make powerful conduit stones?”
“As I said before, hard stone like granite can handle a lot of energy. Obsidian would be phenomenal, if we had any. We even have a few that are made of pure elements, like gold and silver.”
“How do they compare to rock?”
“We only let seasoned experts use those. Pure elements are just that—pure. They can handle obscene amounts of energy. Something like gold is malleable, right?”
Maggie shrugged.
“In the same way, gold and such elements can be…unpredictable. The user can not only focus tons of energy through it, but can use the gold itself to direct the flow of energy. That kind of power is difficult to handle. There aren’t many people who can do it safely.
“Now.” Karl positioned himself behind Maggie, placing hands on her shoulders, and turned her toward the wall of crates. “Close your eyes. Think about all the energy in the universe. There are vast quantities of it lying dormant—simply there for you to use. I want you to imagine pulling energy from somewhere. It doesn’t matter where you imagine it comes from—the earth, outer space, the very air around you, it’s all the same. Just visualize it.”
Maggie obeyed; she didn’t feel any different. Karl’s hand left her shoulder and took her right hand, pressing the stone firmly into her palm.
“Imagine bringing that energy to you. See it coming into a focal point inside your conduit stone.”
Maggie nodded as Karl guided her hand out from her body, stopping at neck height with her palm facing outward.
“Once you have a focal point in mind, I want you to think of that energy exploding outward from the stone. Think of it as a forward-sweeping force, one that will knock over anything in its path.”
“You want me to explode something?”
“No. But at first you’ll only be able to summon a trickle of energy, even imagining a massive force. It takes practice. If you imagine a trickle, nothing at all will happen. You ready?”
She nodded.
“Take a deep breath, open your eyes, and aim for the cra—”
Before Maggie could do more than open her eyes, a shockwave of some kind hit her. The force of it threw her backward into Karl and crushed the air from her lungs. At the same time, a skull-splitting crack came from the far wall, and Maggie was sure the mountain would come down around them.
More crashing noises were coming from all around her. These were smaller than the first but still loud, and they kept happening for several minutes.
Karl pulled Maggie back toward where Joan and Clay had been standing. The smaller crashes became fewer and farther between then stopped all together. Maggie looked up.
The air was caked with dust that was just beginning to settle. Maggie was crouched against the wall with Karl hunching over her. Joan and Clay were in much the same position a few feet away—crouching low against the wall, arms covering their heads.
“You all right?” Karl asked.
She nodded shakily.
“Clay? Joan? You two okay?”
Clay’s answer seemed muffled for only being a few feet away. “Yeah. We’re both fine.”
Maggie heard Joan’s muffled voice but couldn’t make out what she said.
Karl helped Maggie to her feet as the dust cleared, then went over to help Clay and Joan.
Maggie opened and closed her jaw at staggered intervals, trying to get her ears to pop. When she succeeded, her hearing came back full force. Only then did she look up to find the other three staring at her in astonishment.
“What?”
Karl leaned in close to Joan, but Maggie heard what he said. “I’m not crazy, right? She couldn’t do that before?”
Joan shook her head emphatically. “You’re not crazy.”
“Who couldn’t do what before?” Maggie asked. “What was that?”
Maggie wouldn’t have thought Karl’s eyes could get any bigger, but they did. Clay and Joan also stared at her in shock, but then Joan broke into laughter.
“She feels different,” Clay said. I didn’t notice it until now, but when I focus on her, I can tell a big difference.”
“I noticed it before,” Joan said when her chuckling subsided, “but I didn’t think much of it. I thought it was a result of her memory loss.”
“Could this be a result of her memory loss?” Karl wasn’t recovering from his shock.
“I don’t see how,” Joan said.
Maggie sighed, confused and bored. She was learning that these people explained things in their own time. She turned, looking around the cavern. A huge, jagged crack ran along the far wall from the top right corner to the bottom left. The fissure it left was several inches thick.
The smaller crashes she’d heard were crates falling. Only the outer ones had fallen. The ones near the center of the stack had been blown to bits. Pieces of them littered the cavern amidst a fine, powdery dust, which she suspected had also been part of the crates; some of them had been pulverized.
“Maggie, do you still have the conduit stone?”
Maggie held her hand up to show Karl. The cords were still draped over her hand, but the stone was gone, and the ends it had been connected to were charred.
Karl sighed. “I suppose we couldn’t expect such a small stone to survive a blast like that.”
“You gonna explain what happened?”
Karl cocked his head to the side, looking like a dark, shell-shocked pigeon. “It was you, Maggie. You made that blast.”
Maggie stared at him, blinked, and stared some more. “What?”
Karl looked at her steadily, but Joan was still chuckling behind him.
“But…I didn’t feel anything. The shockwave must have come from somewhere else.”
“What do you mean you didn’t feel anything?”
“If I had harnessed that kind of power, shouldn’t I have felt it? Shouldn’t it have tingled through my body or something?”
Karl looked confused, but Clay was shaking his head. “No, Maggie. You are calling the energy, directing it. If you felt it in the way you are thinking of, you would be the conduit stone. This energy is obeying you, not being focused through you. You call it, direct it, and see its results. You don’t feel the energy itself.”
“But how can you know what you’re doing if you can’t feel the energy?”
It was Joan that answered this time. “You’re thinking too tangibly, Maggie. Conduit stones allow a person to call up any amount of energy they need for a specific purpose. You don’t see the energy. You see the need. Then you call the amount of energy needed for your specific situation.”
Maggie frowned. “But how did I…” She motioned to the catastrophe behind her.
Karl stepped forward. “I’m not sure. We use conduit stones because most of us aren’t capable of pulling more than a small amount of energy to our fingertips at any given time. The energy we gather is used in our specific talents. If Marcus is going to Heal a room full of people, he’d need a conduit stone. On his own he can only call a small trickle of energy to him, and that won’t be enough for what he needs.
“The first time people use conduit stones, they can usually only do small things. I expected you to barely brush the crates at first, then nudge them, then hit them, and then gradually work up to knocking them over.”
“But I did more than that?”
“Obviously. But Maggie, you didn’t pull all this energy through that little stone.”
“I didn’t?”
“No way that small a stone with so many imperfections could have focused this much energy. This is energy you called to you without aid. And we’re pretty sure you couldn’t do that the last time we saw you.”
“What the…”
The three of them turned to find Marcus and Doc standing in the doorway. They were canvassing the mess.
“We heard a crash,” Doc said. “People down below thought the mountain was being bombed. What on earth happened?”
Karl’s expression turned smug, and he gave an exaggerated shrug. “Clay pissed Maggie off.”
Clay looked up in surprise, giving Doc and Marcus a deer-in-the-headlights look. Then a smile slowly crept across his face. He turned his palms to the roof and shrugged.