"Geoffrey A. Landis - Elemental (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Landis Geoffrey A)

He grabbed it off the wall and tried it. Yes; the right type. He aimed it at
the fountain and blasted. The frigid blast froze the water where it struck,
but the torrent rushed the ice away as fast as it formed. No good.
He walked around the fountain, looking for a weak spot. The water was now
about three centimeters from the candle flames. Susan had paused in her
chanting and was watching him.
From the back, he could see that the water came from a one-centimeter hole
suspended in midair. If he could block it, the flow would stop. He tried the
extinguisher. By directing the cold blast around the edges of the hole, he
found he could create a ring of ice, hanging in the air, through which. the
torrent passed. But the hole wouldn't freeze closed; the Water was moving too
fast.
Holding the extinguisher on the hole with his left hand, he rummaged through
his pockets with his right hand until he found a coin of the right size. He
pulled
it out of his pocket and carefully placed it up against the ring of ice from
the back. The water pressure pushed it up against the ring and held it. He
used a blast from the fire extinguisher to freeze it into place.
The torrent stopped.
"Great!" said Susan. "Hold it there while I reverse the invocation." She
tapped something into the qwerty behind her and then made a gesture. The water
started to drain. "Okay, now extinguish the candles."
When Ramsey blew out the last candle there was a soft pop. The ice-coated coin
fell into the water. He walked over and passed his hand through where it had
been. Nothing there.
Somewhere later they sat in the coffee lounge sipping hot chocolate. "You were
quite the sorcerer's apprentice today," Ramsey commented. "What was going on
back there, anyway?"
"I don't know exactly," replied Su
san, "but I can guess. That lab is also
used for Kirschmeyer's intermediate
thaumaturgy course. I think one of the
students set up to summon the air elemental and screwed up. Instead of calling
air, he somehow got the wate air
elemental. Rather than abort the summons, he panicked and ran. He must
have left a latent connection with the nearest large body of water: Lake
Michigan.
"I should have done a latency check, before I started work. I was in a hurry,
though-not much time left before I leave-and skipped it. So when I invoked the
earth elemental, I inadvertently opened the portal at the same time.
"That's about it. The portal was
within the pentacle I'd made for the earth elemental; so I couldn't dismiss
the earth elemental until it was closed. 1 couldn't close it until there was
nothing flowing through it. And I couldn't leave my own pentacle, or 1'd lose
my control of the earth elemental. So 1 was stuck. "
"What would have happened if 1 hadn't come along? Kept on gushing until it
drained the lake?"
"Oh, no. After an hour or so the portal would have phased out. By that time
the water would have made quite a mess, though."
"Oh," said Ramsey. "So there wasn't ever any real danger?"