Novels2Search
Furnace
23 - Making Sand

23 - Making Sand

The man made a phone call and people turned up not ten minutes later. They set up construction barriers and signs and then began cleaning up. Danny watched it happen with dull eyes.

The man walked up to Danny again, Danny spoke first. “Do you have a name?”

“Smith. I’m hearing that these guys are triad, they’ll probably come after you again.” The man said it so nonchalantly that it took Danny off guard.

“What can I do?”

Smith shrugged. “They’re like rats, unless you deal with the nest they’ll just keep coming. Be ready I guess. It’s your business, not mine.”

Smith called someone over and they drove Danny home. He found himself in his living room, surrounded by young guys high out of their minds, watching youtube videos on the TV. He had a shower and sat down with them. His head was empty. He felt cold, incredibly cold. At some point his phone rang, he picked it up without thinking.

“Danny.” A familiar voice spoke. “I’m out the front.”

Like a robot, he stood, walked over to the front door, and left his house again. He was half expecting to find another group of thugs waiting for him, but he found Anton dressed in a expensive suit, as he always was. One of his aides was standing by the gate, watching the street.

Danny said nothing and just looked at the man. The man assessed him cooly before locking eyes with him. “Tough night?”

20 minutes later Danny was in a bar he had spent many nights working in. The area was private, with only Danny and Anton sitting there. Danny nursed a heavy drink and Anton sat next to him. The man hadn’t said anything yet and Danny didn’t want to say anything, so they stayed in silence for a while.

“You know, I still remember the first time I did it, I doubt I’ll ever forget.” Anton lit up a cigarette and took a deep drag. “My old man had decided that 16 was the right time for me to start taking on the duties of an Agostino. I was down at the docks. Someone had been caught smuggling and not paying their dues. He had been warned before, this was the final straw. My old man wanted me to do it. He handed me the gun and I put it to the man’s head. He begged and he cried, but I pulled the trigger.”

He took another deep drag. “I still see his eyes some nights.”

Silence hung in the air for a short while. “I’m sorry about what happened Danny, you’re a good kid. I know you never wanted to be involved with this life.”

“Yet here I am. With HB guys turning up at my home,” Danny finally spoke.

“What happened Danny?”

“They turned up, pulled a gun on me. Took me to a warehouse. I freaked out, they’re dead.”

“We got two of the guys who were in the room. We had someone watching that warehouse, we got a tip they were planning something. The place blew up and half a dozen guys ran. We had no clue what happened until we got one of them to talk.”

“Yeah,” Danny replied mutely. He wasn’t surprised, Anton always seemed to know what was going on in the city.

“I’ll keep a few guys around you, this won’t happen again.”

“I don’t want to be part of this Anton,” Danny looked the man in the eye, finding the same hardness that was ever-present.

“You’re involved now, Danny.”

This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

Anton dropped him home and Danny barricaded himself in his room. He lay on the floor and stared at the ceiling. Danny began to whisper.

“Oh mighty element of Earth, heed my call.

Oh mighty element of Earth, take my mana.

Oh mighty element of Earth, bring forth your might.

Arise.”

Danny felt the spell draw mana from him, he felt like he had no control over how much mana he gave the spell, it seemed to be taking a pre-calculated amount from him. He felt that the spell was supposed to stop after drawing a certain amount of mana, but his mana flowed out of him too fast for the spell to shut itself off.

Sand began to pile up on his chest, cascading off him and onto the floor around him. He watched as more and more sand piled up around him. He shifted himself, slowly moving himself on top of the sand. It was warm and comfortable beneath him. He watched as more and more sand came into creation, slowly covering the floor of his room.

Danny focused again on the spell. It felt like a real structure floating above him, taking his mana and creating sand with it. He couldn’t see anything with his eyes other than sand appearing from nothing, but he could feel the structure. It felt like a faint part of him, like a limb that he could barely feel. He felt mana moving from him to this limb, then disperse into the sand around him.

As he continued to focus on the sensations outside of him he noticed that he could faintly feel the sand. It was also part of him, even more faintly than the structure of the spell. He couldn't notice it if he didn’t concentrate intently, but when he did focus, it was distinctly there. Curious, Danny tried to manipulate this faint part of him. To his surprise, he saw the sand next to him ripple slightly. For the first time, he felt a slight emptiness in his body. He had just lost some mana, a noticeable amount.

It was minuscule, but he could sense that he was finally missing some mana. The emptiness in him was quickly filled, but Danny took notice. Well, at least I know it’s not limitless now. It made him wonder how much mana what he had just done had taken, he hadn’t felt anything after spending 150 SMUs on the measurement device. Wait, that means I just used more mana than any other wizard has just to make a ripple in the sand.

Intrigued, Danny continued to try and mess with the sand. He could make small ripples in the sand, but the mana cost was astronomical. He couldn’t work out why though. Small parts of the sand would shift, like they had been blown by the wind. He didn’t feel like he had any control over the movement, but he could make the movement happen. After causing many ripples, Danny felt drained and slightly hollow.

He was quickly gaining mana back, but sleepiness overcame him. The sand continued to pour into his room from its invisible fountain and Danny watched it. The sound of sand hitting sand was soothing to him. He slowly drifted off and felt something different enter his senses. He felt several presences, distinct from him. They were all close by, at least within the city. He couldn’t work out what they were, but he could feel them and knew they could feel him too. It was curious, but his tiredness was more pressing. He fell asleep.

Danny dreamed of the man with a long scar across his face. The man sat on a chair opposite him, aiming a gun at his head. His eyes pierced into Danny, causing him to shrink until the man was a giant. Danny began to weep, his tears were normal-sized and soon he was drowning, struggling to try and stay afloat. Danny was suddenly woken up by a loud banging on his door.

Danny sprang up, dragging himself out of a sandy pit, he found himself in an alien place. There was sand everywhere, filling the small room. It took him a second to recognise it as his bedroom. The spell was still churning away, turning mana into sand. He felt completely full. My natural regeneration outpaces the amount the spell uses.

He stopped the spell and sat on top of his creation, unsure of what to do. Over half of the room’s height had been filled with sand at this point, the door wasn’t going to budge. “Danny, why is there sand coming out from under your door?” His roommate asked through the door.

Danny eventually climbed out of his window and came into the house through the front door. He brushed off his roommates’ questions with “Magic” and checked the time. It was past 10. Danny wasn’t particularly stressed. He brushed the sand off his clothes as best he could and made his way to the academy.

He strolled into the usual hall and found it unsurprisingly empty, he walked through it and found everyone sitting in the smaller room. Henrietta’s eyes locked onto him as soon as he appeared in the doorway. “Sorry I’m late.”

Danny tried to sit down but Henrietta stopped him. She told the rest of the class that she needed to speak to Danny and summoned someone else to continue the lesson. He got weird looks from most of the room, except Jack and Linh, who looked concerned. Henrietta then led him up to her office.

She asked him to sit and went to get him a cup of coffee. Soon the two of them were sitting across from each other, drinking their respective beverages.