Aahz, staying to the outside, came back around to where we were standing.
“This isn’t possible,” I said, holding up the shovel.
“It fills this room, Aahz,” Tanda said, the awe in her voice clear. “I’ve never seen an energy stream anything like it.”
“We can do it,” Aahz said. Again I looked at my little gold shovel, then at the torrent of blue energy and just shook my head. Sometimes my mentor was smart, sometimes angry, but right now he was just plain crazy.
Chapter Seventeen
“I’ve heard of goldbricking, but this is ridiculous”
MIDAS REX
“Skeeve,” Aahz said, “can you see where the flow for Count Bovine’s spell leaves the main energy?”
We had moved around to the side of the room where Count Bovine’s spell took its energy from the river of flowing energy pouring out of the ground.
“Yes, right in front of us,” I said.
I pointed out where it left and how high it was to Aahz, who nodded.
I was using a part of my mind that allowed me to reach out for energy and do spells myself. That part allowed me to see the energy, where Aahz, who had lost his powers, could not.
Where the energy for Count Bovine’s spell left the main stream was like a branch on a big tree. It sort of cut it off of one side of the main flow, moving up and sideways. The moment the secondary flow was sideways to the main one, it vanished into the spell it was being used for. We had about a body length, right above where I stood, to cut that side-flow off and send it along in the main flow. At least, that was the theory on what we were going to try. Sort of like trying to dam up the side branch of a river in one quick move, without getting wet. But even that side-branch of this energy, where I could see it, had to be ten paces across. Far, far wider than my little gold shovel. Yet from what I understood, Aahz wanted me to try to divert or even stop that energy with my shovel. Not a chance in a Bovine hell.