Chapter 29: Beans on High

Wil loved flying, and hated having to be careful. Wearing the ley-lens forced the wizard to slow down and take his time. Getting an accurate map of Harper Valley had proved impossible, but they had a pretty good approximation of the entire Le Guin Basin tucked away in a special compartment of the Thunderhawk, along with Wil’s staff.

The nature of his job meant flying a few hundred feet and stopping to get a feel for the leylines in the area and mark them down. There was a lot of ground to cover, and the project ended up taking several days. Bram joined Thomas and Darlene in working on the faricite batteries, matching them up with the prototypes they’d been working on.

Marking the map wasn’t unpleasant work by any means. It meant a lot of stopping to chit-chat with people along the way, showing that he wasn’t always sequestered in his tower or on Bram’s farm. He took it as an opportunity to eat out for every meal as he flew around Harper Valley, looping around the borders of the town before sweeping west and east, going from north to south.

He discovered two things. The first was that Harper Valley had way more leylines than he’d ever realized. There weren’t enough for everyone to have one of their own, but every major location Wil actively sought out had one nearby, which led him to the second thing he discovered.

Wil didn’t just mark down where they were, he marked how powerful or big each one was, and the condition of the land around it. Universally, the strongest leylines were in the healthiest stretches of land, or places with a unique geographical feature, like an odd copse of trees, certain rock formations, or uniquely shaped ponds or rivers splitting properties up. The leylines were undeniably tied to the land.

That much had seemed obvious, and with their experiments on the Stevenson farm, had all but proven it. Now it gave him another thing to ponder. Did leylines gather around the land, or did the land form around the leylines and then shape them afterwards?

If there were answers, Wil was sure they’d come to him eventually. Until then, they haunted him as he filled out the map and came to a conclusion. He found eighty-four leylines in Harper Valley and the mountains to the north and west. It didn’t account for all of them in the basin, but Gallard Springs would come later.

“Afternoon Mr. Wizard!” Old Gilbert Sully said as Wil filled out one of the last marks on the map. “What’re you up to?”

Wil looked up from his map, wiping a line of sweat from his brow. Spring was well on its way to summer, and staying still meant heating up. “Just riding around, getting a feel for the land for my experiments. How are you doing, Mr. Sully? You adjust well after getting back from Faerie?”

The old man laughed. “Wish I was back there, but they ain’t taking any immigrants just now. That big tree is something else, and their wine is sweeter. Makes me feel almost young again.”

“I can always talk to them,” said Wil with a growing smile. “I know they’d listen, if you really want back so badly. Hey, I have a question. How’s Mr. Carrey been since I’ve gone away? Is he still mad about the beanstalks?”

Gilbert barked out harsh laughter. “Not at all. He brags about the beanstalks to anyone who will listen. How he’s got the best, most healthy farm in the entire basin. Why?”

Wil moved beside Gilbert and held out the map. He tapped a blank spot in the southwest part of town. “He’s my next stop, and he and I have had a contentious relationship in the past. I want to know what to expect when I get there.”

“As far as I know,” said Gilbert with a sigh, “he’s got plenty of reasons to be happy with you. He’s richer than ever and getting insufferable. Think you can do something about that?”

“Not legally.”

“Damn. Well, I’ll let you get to it. I’m meeting up with Jimbo Jones for lunch.” Gilbert patted his shoulder fondly and turned to leave.

“Wait,” said Wil. “How would you like a ride there?”

Gilbert paused. “What? On that flying deathtrap of yours?”

“Yes, my Thunderhawk.”

The old man grinned. “You’re damned right I would!”

It was only a short ride, but Gilbert’s screams of glee as they tore through the air twenty feet above the ground made him sound like an excited kid. Wil was more than happy for an excuse to ride around for fun before he faced up the basin’s wealthiest farmer. When he dropped a shaky, unsteady Gilbert off, he had to steel himself before continuing.

The Carrey Farm had once carried all of Harper Valley’s staple crops in higher volumes than everyone else. Now, it had only one crop. The beanstalks were tall enough to be seen from any part of Harper Valley, some of them brushing up against the lowest clouds as they wandered across the sky. As Wil got closer, he saw most beanstalks had scaffolding to help workers get up and harvest beans the size of people.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Wil flew over one fallen beanstalk and parked in front of Mr. Carrey’s house. It was more formality than anything, but he slipped into his wizardsense and felt the leyline. It had always been one of the biggest and healthiest of all Harper Valley, but four months later it had grown. Now the magical energy surged through the land like raging rapids.

Fierce and fast, it flowed from one end of the farm to the next, strengthening as it passed through the beanstalks that had consumed several fields. Wizardsense always skewed Wil’s perceptions, and feeling the leyline was like staring into the sun. He didn’t have to suffer long. After a few moments, the pointed clearing of a coarse throat shook him out of it.

“Wizard,” Mr. Carrey said, limping his way to him. Despite it being a warm spring day, Mr. Carrey looked like he belonged in winter. Already old, stooped, and leather from decades in the sun, he now needed a cane to get around. “Is there something I can do for you?” He always sounded suspicious, but now more than ever.

“Hello Mr. Carrey,” said Wil. He held up his map. “Just going around and doing a survey of the magical properties of the land here. I’ll be out of your hair before too long. How has business been?”

Mr. Carrey puffed up. “At first I wasn’t too happy about what you did to my farm, but look at it now! Your ma was right and now I’m making money hand over fist. I’m making textiles, and I got a military contract for my endless beans! They’re turning them into rations for the southern front. Everything’s going pretty damned well for me, I tell you!” He gave a creaky laugh.

“That’s fantastic,” said Wil. “I’m happy for you. You’ve gotten quite the blessing here. The beans are really interesting in that they’re in a feedback loop. The healthier they get, the better the leyline gets, which makes the beans healthier. You might have one of the best farms in the country, in fact.”

“Damned skippy!” Mr. Carrey laughed again. It made the lines on his face crinkle and deepen even further, and he looked more like a goblin than ever. “I’m the luckiest man in Calipan.”

Hard not to be, with magical plants from Faerie overproducing tons and tons of food and plant fiber for cloth. The last time Wil had been there, he’d tried to kill the beanstalks or change them, but it had been impossible. An idea hit him.

“Hey, do you mind if I run a little experiment on it?” Wil asked, rolling the map up and tucking it into the Thunderhawk’s inner compartment. “I think I might be able to get you even more beans.”

Mr. Carrey’s eyes lit up so fast Wil almost felt guilty over preying on the old man’s greed. “Absolutely. I’ll admit I may have been a bit cranky the last few times you were here, but you’ve done alright by me. Have at it, Wizard.”

Wil retrieved his staff. With just a second to stretch and roll his head along his shoulders, he limbered up and readied himself to embrace the overstuffed leyline. Once more opening his senses, he touched the leyline.

Even just the barest brush against it was like holding out your hand to catch a train as it passed. Wil gasped and was almost taken under. He steadied himself and pulled, mentally grasping the beanstalks with his power. Wil twisted, and the colossal stalks bent sideways, twirling in around themselves. To the wizard’s surprise, the leyline twisted with it.

He gasped audibly and let go. The leyline was so intertwined with the beans that it took less effort to shift it around.

“What’s wrong?” Mr. Carrey demanded. “Did that help the beans? You gonna make them grow more?”

“Yeah,” said Wil absentmindedly. “Grow more. Just a second.”

This time he knew what to expect. The leyline drew him in, but Wil mentally planted himself in the ground and yanked on the beanstalks. The river of power shifted but didn’t stop. Wil let his instincts guide him as he pushed on one beanstalk and pulled on another, tying them together. It was so much easier to do it here, Wil wanted to laugh.

But it still wasn’t a solution. It didn’t change anything on its own. He could move and change things, but how did he make it work independent of a wizard’s touch? As he mulled it over, the plants corded together and twisted, making tight spirals. They grew, and the occasional fifty pound bean flew off and thudded in the dirt below.

It was so easy Wil found himself making shapes in the leyline, zigzagging over the property like a lightning bolt one moment, then in a circle. It was the circle that gave him the idea. If the leylines could be moved around, and it was all just magical power coursing through its set path…Yes, it could work.

It only took a minute to get a feel for how the changes to the sky scraping beanstalks would affect the leyline. In that time he came up with the right shape in his head, and did his best to guide it. With one last loop of plant matter, the leyline settled into the shape of a rune: Feed.

Wil opened his eyes, breathing heavily. Sweat covered his face and made his clothes cling to him. It was harder than he’d realized, but now that he had completed it…There! The nearest beanstalk shifted, thickening. Beans the side of his fist swelled and grew bigger than Bram before falling off.

“It worked!” Wil cried as more and more beans fell to the ground. “I did it!”

“Hurray!” Mr. Carrey crowed. “More beans!”

More beans indeed. Wil leaned on his staff for support as he looked all around the property. Beans fattened and fell off the stalks, and they didn’t stop. It started slow at first, picking up speed as the leyline poured its power into the land, spelled out by the rune. Feed. It did just that, feeding and growing the plants at an accelerated rate with no end in sight.

Faster and faster, until it rained beans.

“Um,” said Mr. Carrey, as his hired hands ran screaming from the fields. They had to rush to avoid being crushed from falling beans. Then beans fell on the roof of the house, punching holes through it. “Too much. Too much, stop it!”

“Right, right!” Wil blinked and then produced a silvery shield above his head before beans crushed them. He grabbed onto the leyline again and just yanked on the stalks. The rune broke, but power continued to make it rain for another several seconds before it tapered off.

It was early enough that no one had been truly hurt, but not in time to save Mr. Carrey’s house from being pummeled to oblivion. Wil shifted his shield and beans slid off the side, like a miniature avalanche. One came dangerously close to rolling into Mr. Carrey, but the old man didn’t notice.

“My house…” he groaned. “My…my house!”

“Well,” said Wil, wincing. “At least there’s enough beans to pay for the damages, right?”

It wasn’t the first or even second time Wil had to leave the Carrey residence in a hurry, but he didn’t let it get to him. He had what they needed to succeed.