Intermediate chapter. Mostly just Lena exploring her power with the Hand of Phobos, some domestic stuff, you know the drill.
Now, the NEXT chapter, that's when things get interesting…
Freedom from Fear
Chapter 10
Wielding Power
The Hand of Phobos was a potent artifact of magic. Forged by a god, its power was great, and if misused, it could usher incredible destruction on a vast scale. Being its chosen wielder was a great responsibility…but that didn't mean Lena wasn't going to have a little fun with it. She was still a teenager.
Fluttering pixies flew around the room, little feathers in their hands. Mrs. Beakley had a full feather duster, but the pixies easily reached the higher places for dusting, and were generally just more hands for the work.
Four of them lifted an old clock up, allowing her to swipe the table below it.
"And how long can you keep this up?" she asked.
"Summons from the gauntlet aren't a constant drain," Lena said, flexing the arm that bore the Hand of Phobos, "It's not like making a stream of fire or levitating things. There's a set amount of magic that goes into the summoning itself. You ever play those video games where it's a fantasy RPG?"
"Not really, but I know Webby's poured a few hours into one or two, so I'm vaguely familiar with them."
"Summons from the Hand are a lot like summons in those games. A set amount of power goes into the cast, and then the creature sticks around a while. Summoning all these pixies didn't take a whole lot, either."
"Well, they are quite small."
Lena handed a new lightbulb off to two of the pixies, and they flew up to join their brethren in changing one of the bulbs on the ceiling fan.
"The drops of power needed to summon them means I can make a lot at once, that's the idea," Lena said.
"How are you feeling, Lena?"
"I've been using the Hand to practice small acts of magic, get myself used to it. I don't wear it for very long, so the power high doesn't have much chance to creep in. I still get a little loopy, but it's not nearly as bad as the first time."
Mrs. Beakley suddenly stiffened.
"He's coming."
Lena blanched, then had the dusting pixies give their feathers back to Mrs. Beakley, who stuffed them down the end of her feather duster to disguise their presence. Lena then dismissed all the pixies save the two holding the old bulb. Scrooge entered the room, and his eyes zeroed in on the gauntlet.
"Lena…"
"I'm not using it for chores, I'm just getting used to the power."
"So why do you have it on now?" he grumbled, giving her a suspicious eye.
Lena beckoned, and the two pixies came down and deposited the old bulb in her hand.
"Changing a lightbulb. Seemed a small, safe thing to test myself with."
"And that's all you've been doing?"
"The only other big summon I've done this past week was having the minotaur help Launchpad change a tire on the limo. He couldn't find the jack."
Scrooge kept looking at her suspiciously, then grumbled a bit and walked off with a parting shot of "Good, no shortcuts, keep it up."
Once he was out of earshot, Beakley rounded on Lena.
"Only other, huh?" she hissed.
"Pixies used for testing don't count," Lena hissed back, "Big means lots more magic being used than the thimbles of juice the pixies take. It's what makes them good to use for testing."
oOo
Lena slumped heavily in her chair, groaning a bit.
"Not quite awake, Lena?" Webby asked, passing her a Danish.
"Accidently stayed up late practicing transfiguration, lost track of time," Lena replied, yawning, "Brief power rushes didn't help, so I didn't get to sleep until after midnight."
"Been there," Huey said.
"It's why I kept checking for flashlights and little reading lights at bedtime for years," Donald added.
"Anyone spare some coffee?" Lena asked.
"Not at your age," Scrooge said, pouring her some tea, "Here, try this."
The cup was passed down the table until it reached Lena's hands. She sipped it, hummed a bit, then added some milk to it.
"Not bad," she finally said.
"Great, another convert to the Cult of the Hot Leaf Juice," Dewey said with a roll of his eyes.
"I will throw this cup at you, Blue. It is too early for ribbing."
"Who's ribbing, that stuff's gross."
"I think it's an acquired taste," Webby said, trying to be diplomatic and destroying it with her next sentence of "Although I personally can't stand it."
Lena just hummed and sipped her tea, already feeling the effects of the caffeine.
Breakfast discussions continued, and then Lena was asked what her plans for the day were.
"I'd thought it'd sit down and catalogue the various summons the Hand has," Lena said, "All those creatures I've created with it were a product of the gauntlet, not me, so I want to see what's in there."
"Can you do that without the power high?" Webby asked.
"Yeah, I stumbled upon a list function last night, so I want to write it down and sort through them, find the most useful ones. Since it's not too much active magic, what power high I get shouldn't be too bad."
"I'll help you. Dictation, and rein you in if you get too loopy."
"That's fair, thanks."
oOo
After breakfast, Webby reported to Lena's room with a notebook, and Lena took up the Hand of Phobos. She took a deep breath before donning it.
As per usual, she felt the rush of power shooting through her body. She felt her mind open up, started seeing the world in new ways. This was the gift and curse of the Hand of Phobos. She could see the life energies of everything around her, the weft of the magical field of the planet. For brief moments, she could see the world as a god sees it.
It really was quite beautiful.
A pillar of pink light floated in front of her, bright and warm and so, so good. It took Lena a second or two, but she reined the power in. The brightness of the world around her faded as her vision slipped back down to mortal levels, and Webby came into focus.
"Lena, you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine," Lena said, blinking, "Just growing pains. Still not fully used to the power this thing gives me."
She didn't talk about what she saw. She never did and likely never would. No one would understand. Not even Webby, as smart and pure and good as she was, would be able to fully process what was said, and Lena wasn't sure she even could accurately describe it. Even her own thoughts on it seemed to fall far short of what she was trying to describe.
Lena shook her head, banishing the train of thought, and clapped her hands.
"Right, so summons."
"Yeah, how is this going to work again? Are you just going to bring them out one at a time, or—"
"That would take forever, and some of them are very large. You remember the hydra, right?"
"Are you saying there are things in there bigger than the hydra?" Webby gasped.
"Might be."
Lena traced a finger down the gauntlet, coming to a stop upon the gem. She pressed down, muttering.
"Show me the faces of fear. Show me the monsters."
She lifted her finger, and light began to spill from the glowing gem. The light arced up and split, threads falling all over the room. Little bubbles of light grew upon the threads like fruit on a tree. Some of the beads of light were alone, some were clustered together. The light stopped spilling from the gauntlet, and the two ducks were left under a web of light.
Webby gawked at the sight, her jaw dropped.
"Wow…it's so pretty," she whispered.
This was a part of magic that Lena liked. The wonder, the beauty of it. She often looked at the world with jaded eyes, but Webby had fresh eyes. Showing magic to her surrogate sister gave Lena hope for the future, hope that she could be a mage on the side of light.
"Right, so let's get started," Lena said, taking hold of one of the bubbles.
The bubble grew from the size of a marble to the side of an apple, and showed the image of a minotaur. Lena laughed a bit at the sight.
"Of course he's first."
"You know, maybe we should give names to the ones you think you'll use the most," Webby said, "Parse them out from the others."
"Not bad, and since I'll definitely be using the minotaur for muscle…Buford."
"Buford: minotaur, major muscle," Webby said as she wrote, "Okay, let's keep going."
They spent the morning like that, occasionally summoning the smaller ones for closer inspection. Some names went well…
"It's a raven."
"Didn't that chief god in Viking myth have ravens? I think I heard that somewhere."
"Odin had two ravens that served as his spies," Webby recited, "Huginn and Muninn, Thought and Memory."
"I like Huginn better. Think he'll be a good spy?"
The raven, which had been summoned for a better inspection, cawed, as if insulted by the doubt.
Some didn't go so well…
"Lena, it's an Erymanthian Boar, the same kind of thing that Storkules fought for one of his legendary labors! There has to be a better name than PIG!"
"I really can't think of anything else!"
Some were obvious…
"Like I'm going to name a three-headed dog anything else but Cerberus!"
Some were more clever…
"A Stymphalian Bird has razor feathers, right? Sharp."
And so the list went on…
"That's the third bird," Webby said, "We've already got one for spying and one for slashing—"
"And this one will be for burning," Lena said, rolling the orb showing a phoenix around in her hand, "Firebird."
"Little on the nose, but okay. I heard that phoenixes had healing tears…"
Lena concentrated on the orb, as if reading it, then shook her head.
"Nada. Probably because it's a summon of the gauntlet and not an actual phoenix."
"Okay then," Webby said, making a note, "Any other birds I can group up?"
"I think this one's a harpy," Lena said, picking a new bubble, "Looks like it's big and strong enough to carry two people. Nice."
"Red feathers, that's interesting," Webby said, looking at the image, "I think I read a book once that had a red-feathered harpy."
"It have a name?"
"She called herself Ella."
"That'll do, then."
"What's this cluster over here?"
"I think it's the several zombies."
"Oh yeah, I remember them," Webby said, poking at the tiny balls clustered like a bunch of grapes, "Maybe we should record them collectively, since they probably work best in a horde."
"The Dirty Dozen it is!"
Webby snickered a bit, but wrote the name down.
Lena looked through the beads of light for a new one, and chose at random.
"Oh, cute! A little fox."
"Can you summon him like the raven?"
Lena did so, and a fox with pure white fur appeared.
"Hello, beautiful," Webby cooed.
The fox inspected her with icy-blue eyes, then padded over and rubbed up against her.
"Aw, it likes me!"
"You're easy to like," Lena laughed, "But she does have good taste."
"She?"
"My summon, I can tell.
"So what can she do, then?"
The fox made a growling noise, and then barked. A frigid breeze whipped through the room. Tiny spikes of ice erupted from the feet of the fox, and an icy wind flowed from her breath.
"She makes ice, apparently," Lena said as the cold stopped, the fox looking very pleased with herself.
"Elsa, then?"
"Too on the nose. Hang on."
Lena retrieved her phone and plugged something into the search engine.
"This one looks promising. Skadi, the Nordic goddess of winter."
"That's not bad."
The fox hummed, bouncing a bit.
"I think she likes it," Lena laughed, "Skadi it is!"
Lena dismissed the fox after a brief pet, then summoned Firebird the phoenix to warm the room back up and thaw the ice.
"So who's next?" Webby asked after the fiery summon took its leave.
Lena looked through the bubbles, then stopped at one. Inspecting it, an evil smile spread across her face.
"Oh, Hell yes…"
oOo
Scrooge was drawn by the sound of manic cackling, and followed it to its source. Lena and Webby were racing down the hall, laughing like loons.
"Webbigail, I thought you were supposed to rein Lena in?" Scrooge grunted.
Webby ignored him, and the girls raced past.
"Hey!" he shouted after them, "What is going on?"
Lena doubled back and started to drag Scrooge along with them.
"Hold on to your hat, Uncle Scrooge. The Hand comes with a Godzilla Threshold!"
"A what?"
Scrooge ended up getting dragged outside, where the boys had been lounging by the pool and Donald was sweeping the deck of the boathouse.
"Where's the fire?" Huey asked.
"You're going to want to see this summon yourself!" Webby squealed.
"Clear a space!" Lena shouted, pointing the gauntlet at a large portion of the yard.
Light poured off the Hand, casting a giant shadow that swiftly took shape.
"Webby and Gentlemen, I give you the Hand's biggest and baddest summon…"
Claws bigger than a duck that glinted like sharpened spears. Serrated teeth the size of swords. Golden scales that shone like the sun. A wingspan to rival the Sunchaser. Eyes like searchlights. A basso growl that rattled bones. Smoke leaked from its nostrils like a factory furnace, and its tail twitched along the ground, sending rumbles through the earth from the force.
"AN ENOURMOUS F*CK YOU DRAGON!"
Lena cackled like a madwoman as everyone else stared up at the massive mountain of scaly doom.
Scrooge's jaw was dropped. Donald quacked in fright. The boys went from shock to elation at the sight.
"That…is…AWESOME!" Dewey cried out.
"I KNOW, RIGHT?" Lena shouted back, "I'MMA CALL HIM SMAUG!"
"OF COURSE YOU ARE, HE LOOKS LIKE HE COULD EAT SOMEONE IN ONE BITE!" Huey yelped.
"THIS IS SO AMAZING!" Webby yelled.
"WHY ARE WE ALL STILL SHOUTING?" Louie asked.
The dragon, for his part, simply yawned. The full showcase of teeth was the last straw for Donald, and he made a choking sound before fainting.
Scrooge gave the giggling Lena a side-eye.
"You don't happen to have a sea serpent too, do you?"
"Yes, but he's a lot smaller. He can spit streams of boiling water, though. I think I named that one Tempest."
Scrooge just sighed and walked back inside.
"Kids…"
He was never going to tell them that he thought the idea of a pet dragon sounded amazing.
oOo
The mansion actually had two kitchens. The main one near the dining room that everyone used, and a smaller one in another wing. What it had been used for, even Scrooge had forgotten, meaning it was perfect for Lena's purposes.
Dewey found her in there, standing over a bubbling cauldron. As he watched, she took it off the stove and set it on a stone on the counter. She then picked up a pair of porcupine quills and added them to the mixture, breaking them over the cauldron before dropping them in.
He waited until she had finished before getting her attention.
"What are you doing?"
"Potion-making, what's it look like?" Lena replied, not looking away from her work.
"Potion-making?"
Lena stirred her concoction a few times before speaking.
"You know that wicca shop I go to? The Magic Box?"
"Yeah?"
"It doesn't just serve hippies or tourists. They do a brisk business selling to actual magic users. There's an apothecary of magical ingredients in back. They also sell ready-made potions."
Lena stopped stirring, inspecting the potion. A pinkish smoke rose from the pale blue liquid, and she nodded in affirmation before walking over to a collection of small bottles by the sink.
"I got a job as a supplier. It's freelance stuff, but they're always looking for people to provide ingredients or potions."
"You don't need a license for that sort of thing?" Dewey asked.
"Ideally, but mostly, you just have to prove you know what you're doing. So long as the potions meet certain levels of quality, they'll take it."
Lena began to ladle the potion into the small bottles, stoppering them once full.
"What is that, anyway? Specifically?"
"Boil cure. Do me a favor and put the stoppered ones in that box there."
Dewey followed Lena's finger, seeing a box on the far counter. Looking inside, he saw several carboard dividers, no doubt to keep the bottles in place during transit.
Dewey helped Lena package the bottles, then helped clean her instruments for the next potion.
"There's a lot more room in that box," Dewey said as they cleaned.
"That's because I'm also making some Essence of Dittany. Good for cuts."
"Maybe we ought to keep some of that, then, considering what we get up to."
"I'm making a large batch," Lena said wryly.
"Does Uncle Scrooge know about this?"
"I asked for a space to make this stuff, and he showed me this extra kitchen. He's on board with it. Said it was good I was getting into industrious habits at a young age."
Lena gave a smirk.
"The fact that I gave him a potion for easing arthritis pains as proof-of-concept probably helped, too."
Dewey began snickering.
"Yeah, after all his complaints about magic in the past, he's certainly getting used to having a witch in the house," Lena laughed.
oOo
"So what's this project?" Webby asked.
"I've spent the last two weeks testing the Hand of Phobos in various ways," Lena said, "Different branches of magic, recording the summons, little tricks to get used to the power, etcetera. Right now, I want to test it with a magic type I've already more-or-less mastered: Telekinesis."
"So again, what are we doing?"
"Giving me a challenge."
They walked into the mansion's library, and Lena zeroed in on a set of shelves.
"These books aren't old or valuable. So if they get damaged, they can be replaced. We're going to take all the books down, and then I'm going to re-shelve them."
"We have permission to do this, right?"
"I asked your grandma, and she said it was fine so long as we clean up after ourselves…which considering the goal of this exercise…"
Lena began taking books off the shelf. Webby shrugged and joined her.
In no time, all the books on the tall shelf had been taken down. There were almost a hundred books on the floor and tables, all mixed up.
Lena took a deep breath as she put on the gauntlet.
"Okay, hit the music."
Webby hit play on Lena's phone, and the pre-chosen song wafted into the air. The plucking of strings echoed through the library as several books glowed and began to float.
Lena scanned titles as she put the books back, making sure they were sorted correctly. Volumes swirled around her as she worked, the train of literature never slowing.
In fact, it began to speed up in time to the music. The escalating pounding of the beat set off a chain reaction. Lena began bobbing her body along to the beat, and her pace of work grew faster.
More and more books lifted into the air, swirling around the young witch like planets around a sun. Re-shelving continued at a rapid pace, ever increasing.
As the music exploded into a higher tempo, Lena's movements did as well. She began pointing to places on the shelf, and several books hit their designated places at once in time to her gestures. Her eyes rapidly scanned the covers, her mind processing the information and reacting quickly.
Webby watched in awe. Lena's work had reached a fever pitch, the process of grab, scan, place having reached a point where she didn't have to think very hard. It did not escape the younger duck's attention that the music had been helping Lena's tempo, and now that it was getting faster, so was she.
As the song reached its final crescendo, the final books hit the shelf, and Lena's arms thrust down like a conductor ceasing the orchestra's music.
Webby applauded.
She wasn't the only one.
Both girls jumped and whirled around, spotting Scrooge in the doorway with a smile on his face.
"My choice would have been 'Sorcerer's Apprentice' rather than 'Hall of the Mountain King', but it was still an excellent show, lass."
Lena chuckled nervously. Scrooge just kept smiling knowingly.
"So…you pass your self-imposed test?"
"More or less…"
"Good, good. It's important to enjoy your work," he said, "Any problems with power high?"
"Not at the moment. I think I'm getting used to the Hand. Of course, even if it was intense magic, it's only been on for about four minutes."
"Well, I trust you to know your own limits, and I trust Webby to help you keep track of your mental state. Carry on, girls."
He walked off, then suddenly stuck his head back into the room.
"Incidentally, if you're looking to keep exercising, there's a section of paperbacks you can use. Back left corner. You can weed out the more damaged ones as you work, Duckworth and I can look over them later to decide which to try to save. Have fun."
He then vanished. Webby and Lena looked at each other, then burst out laughing.
Of course, they ended up having so much fun doing the re-shelving trick to various music tracks that Lena ended up creeping into a power high. Webby realized what was going on when Lena began muttering about romance novels, and they took a break after that.
"Little at a time, little every day," Lena said after recovering.
If you want a version of Hall of the Mountain King, I recommend Epica. Nice mix of classical orchestra and modern rock. Bonus, it seems exactly the sort of version Lena might listen to.