Thirty-Three

 

Right. This time, he thought he had it.

Amani set the lamp down in the sand, then backed up against the outer wall, as far as he could get away from it while still in his castle compound.

If this worked, he could meet Kun before nightfall, and have Briska in his arms before morning.

If it didn't...

He sighed. If it didn't, then he would have to seek out some even more ancient scrolls in the hope that he'd find the spell he needed, for he'd scoured through every spell he had.

Amani took a deep breath, and bit his lip. A flame-trail flickered across the sand, headed for the lamp. It touched the wick, and the lamp flared to life, flames dancing a little in the breeze. At almost the same moment, the trail extinguished itself, leaving nothing but wispy smoke and a line of scorched sand to mark its passage.

So far, so good.

Amani conjured a ball of light, like the one he'd used to light his way in Tasnim. He lobbed the ball at the lamp.

The ball arced up, reaching the peak of its flight, before it began to fall. Then it winked out. Gone.

Amani measured the distance with his eyes. That had to be...twenty feet, at least. Hard to tell at that height.

He conjured another ball and sent it skimming along the sand. It vanished sooner than he expected. Not twenty feet at all – more like thirty.

So the spell had a radius thirty feet wide...but did it stretch up thirty feet, too? Amani used magic to scoop up some sand, then floated it to a point fifty feet above the lamp. Then, he let it sink, foot by foot, until it was just above thirty feet. So far, so good.

Another foot. Fine. Another. A third...

The sand dropped, and no spell he cast at it could touch it. He was powerless to do anything but watch as the sand buried the lamp, extinguishing it.

He sent a magical breeze toward the lamp to blow the sand away. It took some concentration to ensure he'd scoured away all the sand, leaving the lamp as shiny as it had looked when Maram handed it to him.

It looked nothing like the tarnished piece of trash it had been when he'd been trapped in it. If Amani himself scarcely recognised his prison, Kun would surely not know the difference. As long as it negated all magic within thirty feet of it, she would not care what it was.

He squinted at the sun. It was perhaps not too late to portal to the northern town where Kun had insisted they meet once he'd found what she wanted.

Just the thought of having Briska in his arms again...tonight, even...

Amani opened a portal, pausing only to conjure warm clothes for himself as he stepped from desert sands to deep snow.