CHAPTER SEVEN
"I have an idea!" I exclaimed as I came out of a row of bushes on the hill the Alianor was currently sitting on. I had apparently shocked her, because she lurched forward slightly before she turned to look at me.
"What idea?" Alianor asked me, walking down to the base of the hill, where I was standing. I was actually slightly surprised that she hadn't already heard my idea within my thoughts, but the confusion was quickly whipped away due to my excitement. I took in a slight breath; I was about to start rambling about my amazing idea,
"So we have been trying to figure out a way so that Arthur and his knights can't find the stag, right? And none of our basic concealment spells would work, because of the fact that you have to know what it is you are going to conceal, and where it is, and if you are concealing a creature, you have to have its consent or the spell won't work. And we don't know where the Stag is, we have never had any contact with it except for seeing it once, and it would reject any spell we put on it. But I think I have figured out a way to make it so that they can't find it." I for a moment and paused to take a breath, before I continued, "So I decided that we instead of concealing the Stag, instead we can block Merlin's power to find it." She shook her head slightly, after she had thought about my idea for a moment. She spoke to me, confusion lacing her voice,
"Juliana, isn't concealing the Stag the same as preventing Merlin from finding it? And we can't do a concealment spell, so yet again that's impossible." Alianor spoke. Shaking my head, I quickly replied,
"No, no. See, the spell won't be on the Stag. It will be on Merlin. We are going to block his magic. He won't be able to use his magic at all; it will be completely drained from him. And he is the only one with the abilities to track the Stag so if we remove his power, we prevent the entire group from finding the Stag." Alianor gasped, I guess realizing what my idea truly was, a fact so simple that neither of us had thought of it until now,
"If we take away Merlin's power, we take away the power of the group. Those knights can't tap into the forest, they are only here to restrain the Stag once Merlin tracks it down," but then Alianor said something else, something which I hadn't thought of. "How can we maintain a spell like that, when we are tracking the Stag ourselves and keeping up a glamour?" My face fell, I hadn't thought of the amount of magic it would take, and the amount of magic we had. We couldn't possibly keep both up, even we didn't have enough magic combined to do that, and we had a great deal of magic when combined.
"Oh…. true." Then Alianor spoke with her own excitement,
"If we bind the spell to the crystal, we won't need to maintain it! It's not a spell that needs constant infusions of power so if we put enough original power into the crystal, then the spell will feed on that until it is completed and all of Merlin's power is blocked!" A smile danced across my face, as well as Alianor. We were always ecstatic when we figured out an issue dealing with our magic. We had been friends for five long years, and we had learned how to think and compensate for one another. We had learned how to fill in the gaps in the others thoughts, and figure out a solution to almost any problem.
Alianor and I were quick in moving to the top of the hillside. We both kneeled down, and Alianor released a small globe of fire into the air, lighting the area around us. We then removed the crystal, which we were planning on using, out of our leather bag. The crystal was beautiful. We had produced it from a collision of our magic when we were young and we were still not completely certain of all of its properties. The one thing we did know was that it was an excellent holder and conduit for magic. Placing our hands on the globe I recited the words for transfer of power in Old Celtic and then we focused our magic into the globe, willing it to pass from our hands into the crystal. It was as if a current of light was running through my body, making both Alianor and my own limbs tremble as we directed it through my hands, a soft glow rising from my skin and moving into the globe, the same glow was emitted from Alianor's hands. We stood together, cupping the crystal in our hands, an orange light falling on us from above from my fiery globe, our hands covered in a stream of light. The magic felt like sparks erupting in my body, an overwhelming energy rushing through me. All my mind was focused on the spell, I saw Merlin's power in my mind, saw it bound to the crystal, entrapped and locked. We willed our magic to stop Merlin's, to take his power and draw it into the crystal, blocking his gift and power. I don't know how long Alianor and I stood there, fueling our power into the crystal.
We completed the spell and the glow receded from the crystal, the power contained within its opaque white surface. Crippling exhaustion spread in my body, my limbs suddenly feeling as if they weighed too much to even hold them up, my mind barely capable of registering what was going on. My body felt as if it was floating and then the world became to revolve and a hard surface struck my frame and darkness crowded at the edges of my vision. Alianor…where's Alianor? Is Alianor okay? That was the last thought to flit through my mind and then there was silence and I was aware of nothing.