Mage Catalyst by Christopher George Read Free Book Online Page A

breath – when I had expelled everything.
It felt as if I’d reached my hand through a wall made of water. It gave way before me with laughable resistance. I watched with glee as the particles trailed out from my fingers a few centimetres, curling in on themselves into a tight spiral.
It snapped back and dissipated almost immediately – but I now knew it could be done and that was enough.
I tried again.
    It was easier this time. The particles crept from each outstretched finger on my hand, slowly forming something akin to a backbone of particles. They were always in motion, swirling in a circular pattern outwards from my palm. It was so slow at the start but then gained more speed. The particle slivers merged into one solid thread – similar to what I’d seen Renee use, although far less impressive and painfully slow. But it was a start.
With a grunt I snapped my arm forward while flicking my good right wrist and saw the particle whip flow from my fingers. The thread almost immediately dissipated and I felt a shock ripple up my arm. The pain wasn’t too bad, certainly nothing compared to the bruises I was currently sporting on my left side. The shock of the sensation running up my arm was more disconcerting, however. It had caused my arm to go rubbery and limp for a few seconds.
I instinctively recoiled, which caused my back to spasm as it was pulled and led to more complaints from my bruised back muscles. This wasn’t going well. Giving myself a few minutes break, I leaned back down on the couch to rest. I watched intently as more particles spread down my arms towards my wrists. They were slowly circling in tight ovals around the joint of my wrist and then around down into the palms of my hands. Taking a deep breath to ready myself I thrust my hand with a quick flicking motion, palm up at the glass.
It worked! The particles immediately formed a thread of light that lashed from my hands and out several metres. I’d done it! Speed appeared to be the critical component here. This was going to make it difficult to control, but it must be possible! After all, Renee had done it. I tried again.
Damn it! I had missed but I had the distance about right. It took me several more tries before I clipped the glass by accident, causing it to wobble and then eventually fall over. The glass rolled over and threatened to fall off the edge of the table. It was at this point I realised that I could potentially cover the floor with shards of broken glass. Cursing myself for my own stupidity, I went and grabbed a plastic mug from the kitchen.
It took me several more minutes to repeat the success of my previous attempt. The particle whip now leapt from my fingers with a reliable ferocity and smacked the cup firmly, causing it to fly from the coffee table and smack with a resounding thunk against the window on the far side of the room.
It took even more time to try to slow the particle whip to a speed that I could control without slapping the mug off the table. It was infuriating – if I made the particle whip move too slowly it would dissipate, too fast and I wouldn’t be able to control it.
I was so frustrated with the mug flying off the table that I ended up fetching several more mugs and placing them in even intervals. This way I wouldn’t need to get up quite so often as I telekinetically scattered mugs about the apartment.
I was up to my fifth and final mug when finally I managed to slow the whip enough to wrap it around the mug. I was promptly greeted with a shrill shriek of complaint as the plastic mug simply collapsed in on itself as the particle whip tightened around it. The shards of the mug scattered out in an explosive pattern across the surface of the table as the mug exploded under the stress.
    Damn, that wasn’t even close to what I was trying to do.
I leaned forward to pick up one of the other mugs and tightly squeezed it with my fingers, trying to get it to crack. It wasn’t even close to snapping in my