Chapter 7 #3
He grinned back at me as he continued. “You have all seven channels, basically all the way open. And when that happens, you can harness the pure power of the elements, in their true form, as well as the thought-based talents.”
I looked at him quizzically, leaning my arms on the table.
He ran a hand over his smooth chin. “Hmm. Maybe I’m going too fast. I haven’t had to train anyone with zero knowledge in this.”
I made a wry face, and he laughed. “No worries. We’ll figure it out. Let’s try something. I want you to look inside and try to identify the seven different channels.”
I leaned back in the chair as I closed my eyes, tunneling deep inside. I found what I had first seen in the woods. “I think I know what you’re talking about. They’re colored.”
“They are?”
My eyes snapped open at his surprise.
“No, no, that’s good,” he reassured me. “You’ve got a better sense of this than I thought. Okay, let’s try this.” He set his quill on the table. “For starters, let’s just have you levitate the quill.”
I gripped the arms of my chair as I stared at the quill, willing it to move.
Nothing happened.
“Is it supposed to do something?”
“Go inside yourself and see if you can identify the mind channel.”
I closed my eyes and did as he asked. “Purple, right?”
“That’s right.” His voice was encouraging. “From the mind channel, separate off a tiny bit of power. You don’t need a lot for levitation, especially something as light as this. Form that into a shape and then send that shape over to the quill.”
I struggled through understanding what he meant before opening my eyes. “For the wards, you just went into my mind and showed me what to do, didn’t you?”
“I did.” He picked up the quill and began to tap it on the table. “And I could certainly do it again. My mind channel is completely open,” he said, as if that explained it. “And if we have to do it that way, we will, but I’d rather see what you’ve got first.”
“Do you have any others?”
“Just a bit of water. I think my mother would disown me if I didn’t. She comes from water folk.”
Right, that explained everything. Thanks, Finn.
“So Griff also has water?”
“About as much as mine. Which is enough for us to never go thirsty, but that’s about it. He also has the full open body channel, some mind, and a bit of all four elements. That combination is how he’s such a talented teleporter.”
“What do you mean?”
“In his case, body allows him to move his body, mind allows it to go to different places, and earth allows him to find where to land. You may have noticed he never lands on top of someone, or on a roof or something, unless he means to. Earth tells him where it’s safe.”
“You mean he could teleport through a crowd—”
“And not step on anyone’s toes.”
“How did he, or you, or anyone, learn all of this?” I waved a hand around, as if that could encompass all of the complexity involved in using magical powers.
“Well, in Griff’s case—and mine, too, I guess—we just sort of started doing it one day.
I’m sure we terrified our mother with our abilities—never knowing when some object would start dancing away from you or where your twins would just pop up next.
And then when I developed the telepathy, our father had to severely discuss boundaries. ”
“What about soul? You haven’t mentioned that one.”
“Soul is tricky when it comes to the internal channels. Soul doesn’t like to be controlled and it shows up in strange ways.
Rather than mind, which gives you the power to speak in thoughts, or body, which can make you incredibly strong or fast, soul shows up differently for everyone.
It may give foresight, or dream walking, or allow you to heal, or—”
“Wait, wait you’re losing me.”
He laughed, his hazel eyes warm. “I didn’t mean to lecture you, apologies. Let’s get back to you trying to access the mind channel.” He placed the quill on the table again and sat back in his chair.
I sighed and set about trying once more.
Looking deep inside myself, I found those seven channels Finn had described: blue, red, green, gray, gold, burgundy, and purple.
The long, thin channels appeared bottomless, set against a well of golden light.
I took a moment to unweave them, each channel a conduit for the swirling mass of power.
Focusing purely on the purple one, I tamed the churning stream, siphoning off one small thread of power and allowing it to shoot upward into my mental hand.
I urged the thread out toward the quill, pushing it underneath and asking it to rise.
Even with my eyes closed, I knew I had done it. I had used magic.
Elated, I opened my eyes to see Finn wearing a matching grin, the quill floating in midair. As flustered as I was about my new status in life, this felt good. As though I was coming out of hibernation, a part of myself long dormant was now ready to thrive.
By the time we quit, I was exhausted but I had been able to raise several items in increasing weight a few inches off the table. Finn was delighted and told me he’d be ready for me at the same time tomorrow.
I somehow got myself back to my room, only making one or two wrong turns, and fell face-first into bed.