Anders was still up working on his notes when a paper slid under his doorway. He glanced at it, stretching his arms over is head, yawning. He stiffly got up from his chair and opened the door. What he expected was Jak. What he saw was no one.

"What in Shadow's realm..?" Anders looked down the hall each way. It was empty. He shut his door and picked up the parchment.

Meet me on the Roof

~Harlow

Anders blew out the candle on his desk and left his room. The hallway was short, and being on the top floor he quickly reached the hatch in the stairway that pulled down a ladder to the roof. Anders looked around. There wasn't a soul in sight, he was free to try the roof. From past experience he knew it should by all rights be locked, but he reached up and pulled the chain that dropped down the ladder with ease. There were no guards, nothing stopped him from going up and breathing in the night air.

Anders peered over the stone frame of the roof access. Standing a few yards away was a little form watching the stars. He continued through the hatch and drew it closed with the rope pulley.

"Ah, you were awake. I wasn't sure so I left a note as quietly as I could." Harlow waved Anders over to his spot, which was a thick blanket on the flat stone roof of the keep. There were meat pies laid out and two wineskins. A tapered brass tube on a stand was set up facing the moon.

"Harlow?" Anders approached and took a seat. "What's going on?" The view of the night landscape around Whitethorn was eerie. Being outside at all unsettled him, it felt as if he could float right off the roof.

"I was studying the stars in this part of the world. I loose myself in thought when I do this sometimes, and tonight my thoughts wandered to you." He had a black cloak pulled around his shoulders, but underneath still wore his gold and white coat. His small frame swam in the excess fabric.

Anders stared at Harlow who was making notes in a small book. Harlow kept on for a moment, before looking back at the boy mage.

"Oh! I suppose you want to know why I called you here." He put down his charcoal and notebook. "Just company I suppose. I work with a number of mages and I can't say I've met a lightning mage like you before. Can I ask you a few questions?"

"I suppose that couldn't hurt, if I could ask a few questions back?" Anders felt uneasy being asked on a secluded roof in the middle of the night by a strange, STRANGE man he had met only once. Maybe a few questions of his own would ease his mind.

"As is only fair, of course my boy." Harlow took a drink from a wineskin and offered the other to Anders. "Its cider, if you like. Now, what is the longest you can remember using your power continuously? Let me phrase it another way too, have you ever cast forth a bolt of power and held it for a period of time?"

"Well, a minute or so I suppose. With lightning you don't really need it longer than that." Anders answered.

"I see, and would you be willing to try an experiment of sorts?" Harlow was digging in his coat for something.

"I guess I could depending on what it is." Anders watched Harlow continue to dig around for something. "Where do you come from? I mean, you don't seem to be from Selstad."

"I lived in Shahasir most of my life, a city in Nummelin. I now travel however, studying the world around us and visiting like-minded scholars." Harlow drew his framed lenses from his coat and perched them on his nose. "Ah, here we are. What I propose is to see how long you can hold a stream of power directed at this iron ball. Of course you can do a small amount of power, it is not potency of your power I would like to measure but continuance of your hold on it."

"I think I know what you're asking. The nature of lightning, it comes and goes quickly, it doesn't stay in place. Is that it?" Anders watched as he set a heavy black ball on the stone a few feet away.

"Precisely! I've known a few lightning mages, you lot seem to be as different as can be from each other. It's fascinating really." Harlow said.

He took off his brown robes leaving him with his boots and leather breaches. Anders let a tendril of power connect from his hand to the iron. A steady stream of lightning illuminating the rooftop and flowing into the metal. Harlow pulled out a copper ball from his coat.

"If I add this copper ball nearby, can you keep your power from jumping to it?" Harlow asked.

Anders nodded and Harlow rolled the copper near the iron, almost touching. This was a different kind of exercise in his power entirely. He struggled a bit to contain the lightning's excitement. It tried to jump, it WANTED to jump into the new metal, but Anders held it in place. Pricks of electricity tickled up his spine. His power was desperately trying to jump all over the place and he couldn't contain it and perform Harlow's experiment at the same time for much longer. He let go of his hold on the iron ball and settled the sparks dancing around his body.

"Well now! What a splendid display." Harlow adjusted the lenses on his nose and investigated the iron ball. "You do have some control. So let me ask this then, what made you stop in the end?"

"Concentration maybe, I could still go on longer I think, but I had to choose. Controlling my power that was trying to escape, or focusing on keeping the line of lightning to the iron." Anders put his robes back on. "And I chose keeping control of my body."

"Well, I am thankful for that. Could one assume you removed your robes for the purpose of keeping them whole?" Harlow asked.

"Yeah, it's something the blacksmiths from town do, they wear leather aprons or no shirts at all. That's where I got the idea for leather breaches too. Harder to singe than fabric." Anders finished getting his robes in order and sat back down.

"That would be a concern." Harlow murmured. "I'll have to tell a friend back home about that."

"My turn for another question then. Are you a mage?" Anders was very serious in asking since it had been bothering him for days, but Harlow laughed when he said it out loud.

"No my boy, I'm nothing but a man of learning. My focus of study however is on mages, precisely a correlation between the nature of one's magic and how an element varies from person to person."

"Oh." Anders wasn't sure what he expected, but that wasn't it.

"Believe it or not but the subject fascinates me." Harlow took another drink from his wineskin. "So it is my tern once more. Do you sense when a storm aproaches?"

"Yes. About a day or two ahead of time. In fact, we will probably see a small one soon."

"That seems to hold true for all lightning mages." Harlow said. "The time varies, but they all sense it coming. Have you ever been allowed outside in a storm?"

"I have. The lightning is drawn to me whether I like it or not. If I'm inside it strikes the roof over my room, so the guards take me out to the courtyard so it can't hurt the keep."

"Fascinating." Harlow scribbled in his notebook for a while. The silence made Anders feel a bit awkward, like a specimen.

"I believe that is all I could think to ask right now. I thank you deeply for your cooperation, and your fascinating demonstration." Harlow said finally.

"Do you do this to many other mages?" Anders asked.

"When they will allow me to, yes I do." Harlow replied. "I have already spoken to a few mages since my arrival last week, but none on the roof."

"I think I would like to read your work Harlow, if you publish it." Anders said earnestly.

"Actually, I have already published some theories of mine, but of course I do not yet have the means to test them. I will have to send you a copy." Harlow smiled.

"Oh no I didn't mean, I don't have the coin to spare for a book!" Anders was thankful for the cover of nightfall, he was certain his face must be red.

"Dear boy, you have been a most gracious mage in furthering my studies, of course I mean it as a gift." Harlow began packing his supplies up. "And speaking of my studies, I fear I will fall asleep long before I could write one more note. I think it might be time to find our beds."

Anders agreed, and helped Harlow carry everything down the ladder. He said goodnight and gratefully crawled under his blanket. As odd a fellow as he was, Harlow was probably the most interesting person he had the patience to talk to.