“No,” Burt said. “That does not make me feel better.”
Flerring continued to scratch her arms, looking more and more perplexed. “It’s going to work,” she repeated, with somewhat less confidence than before. She stared at Prime and Julene while she talked, clearly more uncomfortable with their presence than with even the obelisk she planned on destroying. “We’re going to turn that thing to dust, then we’re going to hightail it out of this city before the Dynize can catch up.”
Vlora put a hand on Flerring’s shoulder. “Just tell us when to watch.”
“Just a few more minutes, it looks like,” Flerring said. “My boys are triple-checking the detonators, and we’ll be ready to go.”
Vlora couldn’t help the thumping of her heart and hoped that her anxiety didn’t show on her face. What if Prime was right? What if it proved impossible to move the stone, and then he fled instead of hiding the stone from the Dynize? If the stone fell into Dynize hands, they would have possession of two of the three. She didn’t know exactly how bad that would be, but there was a dark fear in the pit of her stomach that told her it would be catastrophic.
Her thoughts were interrupted by Flerring suddenly growing very still, staring across the valley, then waving back at someone. “We’re ready,” she announced.
Prime and Julene immediately ceased their bickering, and the group fell out into a line, watching curiously, until Flerring motioned to them. “You, uh, should probably all get behind those rocks,” she told them.
“We’re awfully far away,” Taniel said doubtfully.
Burt was already following Flerring toward some boulders, and Vlora and Olem were right behind her. “Trust me,” Vlora told him. “If Flerring says to duck, then we duck.”
Within a few moments they were all situated under the cover of a pair of boulders, peeking out cautiously toward the godstone. Vlora turned her attention toward two of Flerring’s assistants, who were still within throwing distance of the stone. They were, she realized, following a long cord down to the outlet of the valley before taking refuge clear around the other side of the rock faces that guarded the entrance to the vale. Vlora took a small hit of powder, watching carefully for a few tense moments before a bright flash suddenly flared from the assistants’ hiding spot.
The flash whipped along the ground with astonishing speed, following the cord up toward the godstone. It sped across the valley, then up the path. The explosions were nothing like the eruption of gunpowder. Instead of a boom followed by inky smoke, there was an ear-shattering crack. As Flerring had warned, there were seven distinct explosions. They happened so closely to one another that even Vlora’s sorcery-enhanced senses could barely tell them apart. Dust was sent in every direction, allowing Vlora to follow the force of the explosion across the valley as rocks scattered and leaves were blown off trees. She grabbed Olem and pulled him down with her, hiding behind the boulder while the entire side of the valley was peppered with stones thrown over a half mile away. A rock the size of her head struck just a few yards behind them, smoking from the blast.
“Holy shit,” Burt said.
Vlora lifted her head to peer through the haze, trying to see what had happened to the godstone. As the air began to clear, she felt her heart fall. “Nothing happened,” she said.
Beside her, Taniel was also squinting toward the godstone. He shook his head and suddenly lifted himself up and over the boulder, taking off at a run. Vlora was about to let him go when she saw what he must have seen – something had happened. Without a word to the others, she took off after him.
The whole group was gathered around the stone within ten minutes. Vlora walked around and around it, unable to stop grinning like an idiot.
The obelisk had been shattered into three distinct pieces. The smallest was the cap – a pyramid-shaped stone around four feet in diameter. The rest of the stone had broken in half, lengthwise, and the pieces now rested with about a two-inch gap between them.
Flerring slapped her hand victoriously on the capstone. “Ancient sorcery, meet modern science.”
Prime Lektor stood back about twenty paces, staring at the godstone with a mix of fascination and horror, as if expecting the stone to reassemble itself at any moment. He seemed at a loss for words until Flerring spoke, to which he replied, “It’s not exactly dust.”
“It cracked along the seams,” Flerring said, tracing her fingers along the break between the two halves of the main obelisk. “Just as planned. There were two deep grooves cut along fault lines in the rock, and we focused most of the explosion there.” She tapped a section of the capstone where a large area of writing had been replaced by a spiraling fracture, much like glass in a window that had been shattered without falling from the pane. “It’s true, all that oil should have turned this thing to dust. But considering how you were talking about that sorcery, I think we did pretty good.”
Slowly, Vlora felt her smile fade. She took a step toward the stone and gently laid a hand on the surface. She felt a pulse, like the beating of a heart, touching her from the Else. It was an unpleasant feeling and she immediately wanted to wipe her hand off and leave this place at once. She forced calm. “I can still sense the sorcery of the thing.”
“So can I,” Prime Lektor said.
Taniel and Julene both confirmed it.
“It’s faded,” Taniel said to Flerring’s annoyed expression, “but it’s definitely still there. Do you think whoever built this thing planned for the possibility of it being broken?”
Vlora expected Prime to look smug, but the old sorcerer seemed baffled more than anything else. “It’s possible,” he said, “but they made it so strong that they must have thought it would survive anything. I doubt a god could crack it.”
“Not even Kresimir could have conceived of a man-made force as strong as blasting oil,” Julene said with a hint of wonder in her voice. She tapped her right stub against the capstone, examining it with a clinical approach. “Normally, when an object has been enchanted, substantial damage to it will unravel the enchantment. It may be that …” She trailed off. “Ah, I see.”
“What is it?” Vlora demanded. Her anxiety was back, and she had gone from disappointment to elation and back again so quickly in the last quarter of an hour that she just wanted to know what the pit was going on.
Julene turned and smiled smugly at Prime. “Do you see it?” she asked.
With some reservation, Prime shook his head.
“Those fault lines in the stone are also fault lines in the sorcery. We couldn’t see it, not when it was full strength. They must have bound the sorcery to the very grain of the rock. Helps make it stronger, but it also makes it vulnerable. The sorcery holding the whole thing together is like an outer layer. We broke through that with the blasting oil, leaving three distinct pieces of enchanted rock.”
“So instead of having to deal with one godstone, we’re dealing with three?” Burt asked flatly.
“Not exactly,” Julene continued. She had perked up from her usual disinterest and had even grown excited. “It’s not a godstone now, not nearly. The pieces are nothing compared to the whole. I think that it could be put back together, given time, but –”
“If we can separate the pieces,” Vlora finished for her. Her mind was already working, pushing through a number of different plans. “Which is the most powerful piece?”
“I see it now,” Prime finally announced. “ ‘Power’ is the wrong way of thinking about it. The two halves of the main trunk are where the meat of the sorcery is. But the capstone, though weaker, is used to connect them to make the three of them greater than the sum of their parts.”