Mageborn The Line of Illeniel by Michael Manning (top novels of all time TXT) 📗

laid below ground level while a large amount of rough stone was being brought in to supply material for construction. At the rate it was progressing my father estimated we would finish within a year... perhaps two.

The problem wasn’t raw materials. The surrounding mountains and hills meant stone was available in great supply. We needed more timber but even that wasn’t our main issue, it was a lack of sufficient laborers.

I spent several days during the week assisting as much as possible, using magic to do things that were otherwise extremely difficult. Ironically it was the simple tasks that were the hardest for me. I had initially suggested forgoing the use of mortar, thinking I could more easily fuse the stones myself, creating a tighter bond and saving time. How wrong I was!

My idea might have been practical if the stone blocks were much larger, limiting the number of interfaces between separate stones. Unfortunately the blocks were limited to a size of no more than a foot or two on a side; otherwise they took far too much time and effort to move them from where they were cut to the construction site. I could use magic to facilitate cutting and moving much larger blocks, but then I had little time to spend joining them.

As it was there were a vast number of blocks to be joined, and there was only one of me. Whether I spent my time helping to cut, move or join didn’t matter. My father, being the practical man he is, chose to stick to building methods that the workers could manage with or without my assistance. “You won’t be able to spend every day here helping... you’ve got too much else to do,” he had told me. As usual he was right.

Since they were doing things the normal way, they needed mortar, and that meant some of the work force was occupied producing it. I hadn’t realized before then how much work was involved in creating mortar, but I soon learned. Creating mortar first required quicklime; this was made by baking limestone in a kiln. Limestone was in ready abundance, but given the amount of lime needed they were making it by baking the stone in covered pits near where the dam was being built. Apparently plain limestone wasn’t sufficient either. One of the masons explained to me that because of the water involved with a dam, a special lime was required; otherwise the mortar would erode quickly.

The details were more than I wanted to learn about the stone-mason’s art, but the end result was that fully fifty of our workers were tied up producing the mortar. We had slightly less than two hundred men on a good day, so that slowed things down considerably.

I spent the last few hours of each day producing my new iron bombs. I had perfected the amount of energy to put in each one and the glass jewels had proved excellent for setting them off, but I had other troubles. Although I could produce a similar effect instantly with a few words and a moment’s concentration it required a lot of energy. Despite my great potential as a wizard I could only manage it a few times before I was exhausted. Making the bombs was an excellent way to store that energy in advance, meaning when the war started we would be able to produce as many such explosions as we had bombs prepared ahead of time.

The general idea we had worked out was to produce hundreds and have them hidden along the road long before the enemy arrived. On paper it was a great plan, but in practice I couldn’t make more than one or two an hour. My father had set up a temporary foundry to cast the iron in fist size ingots for me to use, but he was able to produce far more than I could possibly charge. In fact he had already made over a thousand, and almost all of them were still waiting for me to fill them with power. My only hope of doing that would be to devote my every waking hour to the task over the entire winter.

Obviously I couldn’t do that, help with the dam, organize the men we had recruited, and prepare the teleportation circles needed for my other plans. You get the point I’m sure. I was working on charging my second iron bomb for the day when my father came over to check on me. He was already done with his shift supervising at the dam.

“You look exhausted son,” he said. “Maybe you should quit for the day.”

“I can’t,” I replied, still focusing on the flow of energy into the iron. “I have to get as many of these finished as possible. We only have a few months left.”

“You spent six hours today helping at the dam, and I’m sure that must have taxed you. Then you come back here and spend four or five more... you’re going to hurt yourself. We can’t afford for you to kill yourself before the enemy even gets here.” Royce rubbed his beard as he spoke, a sure sign he was worried.

I was already tired and irritated, “Do you know any other wizards who might volunteer to come help out?” I’ll admit it. I was grumpy; otherwise I would never have spoken to him like that.

He frowned but didn’t snap back, “There has to be some easier way.” In all his years smithing my father had learned a thousand tricks to make his tasks easier. He just couldn’t accept that there weren’t any shortcuts in magic.

“It isn’t something I can get around. It takes a certain amount of energy to charge each one of these bombs... and I’m the only one who can do it,” I replied sourly.

“Can’t you get the energy from somewhere else?” he suggested.

“Huh?” I responded sagely.

He ran his fingers through his beard carefully, “Well millers don’t grind their flour by hand. They use a waterwheel to