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.Now, as he braced himself carefully against the wooden support-beam and sent his mind ranging along the electrical circuitry, he discovered they hadn't replaced any of the wiring, despite all the damage his tampering had been causing.Evidendy none of these folk associated the cascading equipment failures they'd been cursed with to an overall failure in the wiring.Maybe it wouldn't occur to them.They may be the "plug and play" type, using things without understanding them.Al found that kind of attitude impossible to put up with, but most humans seemed to be like that.He had learned that if you asked the average mortal how something he used every day (a light bulb, for instance) worked, most of the time he would not be able to tell you.Mortals relied on others more than they ever dreamed - even the Chosen Ones, who prided themselves on being self-sufficient.It was a false pride, for without the outside world to support them - in the apocalyptic world they seemed to dream of- their WHEELS OF FIRE 361endre way of life would fall apart within weeks.Never mind that.Just take advantage of it.He located the shielded security circuits and sent surges along all of them, blowing out every security camera he could find.There was more he could do -he hadn't done much in the way of starting electrical fires yet, except by acddent-Not yet.I might need the distractions to cover me.The first thing he needed to do was to locate the bulk of the Chosen Ones, using the wires to carry his probes.He found them, as he had expected, still in the communal dining hall.Good; he wasn't likely to run into any stragglers for a while yet.And now for my enemy.He searched for the Salamander, then, sending his mind cautiously out into the emptier parts of the building complex to look for it.He had a fair idea of where it might be.The room of the Praise Meetings.Hopefully, it would be drowsing.He recoiled swiftly as he touched it, realizing by the difference in the tension of its aura that it was not half aware, as it had been before when there was no meeting.It was awake - but it was preoccupied, as if something else had its attention, and it had little to spare to look about itself.It was in the Praise Meeting room.In fact, as he examined its energies from a cautious distance, it actually seemed to be bound there somehow, as if it had been tied to something that was physically kept within that room.Was that possible? Could a being of spirit and energy be confined like that?It had been possible during his ill-fated excursion into the world of the humans in the time of the First Crusade.The creatures had been imprisoned within the little copper boxes.They would be freed only if Peter the Hermit actually broke the spell binding them- which he had, so that several of them could travel with other armies than his own.That had been a 368 Mercedes Lackey &? Mark Shepherd mistake - as Peter had learned - for once released, there was no controlling them.Even the ones still bound to their containers would seize the opportunity to run amok when released temporarily.That made another thought occur to him; this creature had actually felt familiar when he'd first encountered it.He had dismissed that feeling as nothing more than the reawakening of old memories.Now he wondered if he really had sensed the presence of an old adversary.Was it possible? Could this creature be one of the Salamanders that had not been released, onehe knew? Could it still be tied to something physical? If that were true -That would explain how the damned thing got over here.Most magical creatures cannot just buy a plane ticket, but they can invest themselves in a transportable object, which also gives them the advantage of a physical storage nexus/or they power.That could be it.Hinm.The last time I saw those creatures they were spreading violence through the Middle East.which might partially explain why the Middle East was still, to this very day, a hotbed of violence, if the Salamanders were still there, still spreading their poison.If this creature has a physical tie, then I can do something about it.I can force it back into its prison, or I can dismiss it from this plane altogether!He slid his back down along the wooden support-post until he was sitting on the cold concrete floor of the closet, his knees tucked up against his chest
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