DREAMWIELDER Book 1 of The Dreamwielder Chronicles

Chapter 18: THE CAVERN OF ICE

Sweat poured from Taera's forehead. She focused on the ball of energy she had envisioned in the core of her chest and tried to move it to her fingertips, but still nothing happened. No flames, no sparks, nothing.

"Stop," Roanna said, irritated. "You're trying too hard."

Taera relaxed her body with a sigh and opened her eyes wearily. She sat cross-legged on a wooden pallet facing Roanna in a small chamber deep inside the mountains. The chamber was small—no more than fifteen feet from one cold stone wall to the other—and dimly lit. Only a lantern in the corner behind Roanna provided any light; there were no windows, of course, only a metal-banded door of rough-hewn softwood planks. On a metal tray between Taera and Roanna was a small pile of pellets: the same peat pellets used to fuel the airship.

"All you need is the tiniest of sparks to start," Roanna explained again. "From there, you project it toward the peat and let that be the fuel for the flames. You are merely providing the trigger. If you keep trying to hurl your entire body energy through your fingertips, you're going to exhaust yourself, or worse, die."

Taera said nothing. She was already beyond exhausted and convinced she could do nothing Roanna asked of her. On the day they arrived at the caverns, Kadar had met with Taera privately—asking her questions, making her perform small tests of mind and body, and physically examining her in a way that made her skin crawl. When it had all been done, Kadar looked disappointed and sent her away without a word. For the three days since that meeting, Taera had been awoken early to work with Roanna on an assortment of exercises: everything from forced trances to trying to start flames at her fingertips, to predicting the future of an assortment of fur clad northmen Roanna paraded before her. Taera had failed at every task. Even her ability as a seer failed her. Still, Taera's biggest worry was keeping everyone's attention on her and away from Makarria. Taera had no idea what Roanna and Kadar were capable of, but she knew if they learned of Makarria's abilities—and what she were truly capable of—they would take her away and subject her to something worse than what Taera was going through.

"Watch me again," Roanna said. "And not just with your eyes. Open up the rest of your senses and feel what I'm doing."

Roanna held her arms out in front of her, palms up. "Sense how I force the heat of my body from my core to my fingers." Slowly, energy accumulated at her fingertips until light crackled from them like tiny sparks of static electricity. "And then the projection, the release." She lowered her hands slightly, and the pellets on the tray took flame. "It is quite simple."

Taera shook her head. "I'm sorry. I see the fire at your fingers and then the pellets burning, but I sense nothing else."

"We're done for the day then," Roanna said, lurching to her feet. "You may go back to your quarters." Roanna went to the door and held it open for Taera to leave.

Taera stood and moved sullenly from the chamber into the main cavern. The main cavern was vast, stretching for unknown miles at the base of the icy crag in the mountain they had seen from outside. Along one wall of the crag, a series of chambers were carved into the rock face, including the one Taera had just exited. Along the opposite wall of the crag was the very glacier which had cleft the mountain and created the crag. It was a curious glacier, a great slab of ice like a blade between the living rock, hanging down into the cavern with a series of dripping stalactites to feed an underground stream that flowed into the lake outside. Its most curious feature, however, was that the glacier stretched unimpeded from the cavern to the very surface of the mountainside, thereby providing a pathway for the daylight to illuminate the cavern. It was by no means bright, and the hue of the light was a dreary blue-gray, but it was still far better than a cavern illuminated only by sputtering torches, and it provided a gauge for the passing of time along with the rise and fall of the sun each day.