“Uh, I guess not,” agrees Brother Willim though not quite understanding what James is talking about.
Out within the shimmering gray there are several distinct lumps, though what they once were is no longer discernable. “Must be the people he said the grayness has already claimed,” he guesses.
“Must be,” agrees Brother Willim.
“Nobody do anything until I tell you to,” James tells them. They continue to advance until ten feet from the edge. Coming to a stop, James stares at the edge for a moment and can see it gradually advancing toward them. “It’s still growing,” he says.
Picking up a handful of sand, he throws it onto the shimmering mass. When the sand particles fall and hit the surface, nothing happens other than they gradually turn gray. To Jiron he says, “See if you can find me an insect or something. Make sure it’s alive.”
A minute later Jiron returns with a large beetle. Tossing it into the grayness, he watches as it hits the surface. It jerks twice then becomes still as it gradually turns gray just as the sand had. “Interesting,” he says.
“What are you doing?” asks Brother Willim.
“Just being systematical,” he explains. Next, he closes his eyes and summons the magic to try to get a better look.
Zyrn watches as the three men move toward the edge of the grayness. Held by two of them, he watches helplessly as the three men move closer. First the sand, then the beetle, the one man tests it to see what it will do. Then, he sees the ripple form across its surface, the same as had appeared when the priest summoned his magic.
“Get them out of there!” he cries out. Pulling against the grip of Scar and Potbelly, he yells, “It’s going to kill them!”
“Settle down!” Scar tells him.
Pointing to the ripples coursing toward the edge where James and the others stand, he yells “Look!”
That’s when Miko finally takes note of what it is he’s talking about. “James!” he cries out as he rushes forward.
As his senses move outward, he can feel…something. It’s nothing like he’s ever encountered before. Then, he hears a commotion from where the others are waiting. Keeping the power going, he glances back over to them. He sees a struggling Zyrn held between Scar and Potbelly. “Wonder what that’s about?” he asks, turning his attention to Jiron.
Shrugging, Jiron says, “Who knows?”
Then, he hears Miko yell, “James!” Glancing once again back to them, he sees Miko racing toward him and pointing wildly to the grayness. Looking back just as the grayness surges toward him, he reacts with reflexes honed over a year of magical fighting. Without thought, a barrier springs into being surrounding him, Jiron and Brother Willim.
“Asran’s Branch!” cries out Brother Willim as the grayness washes over the barrier and covers it completely.
“It’s coming in underneath!” exclaims Jiron.
Looking to the bottom edge of the barrier, James sees the ground beginning to turn gray. Adding a bottom section to the barrier, he soon has them completely encased within it.
“What’s going on?” asks Jiron. Gazing in apprehension at the gray, shimmering mass covering the barrier he stands there as a shiver runs through him.
“It’s trying to get in,” replies James.
“Can you hold it?” Jiron asks.
“Oh yes,” he replies. “As odd as it may sound, it’s hardly causing me any problems. It’s almost as if it isn’t even there.”
“How are we to get out of this?” Brother Willim asks. A green glow has sprung up around him after the onslaught of the grayness.
“Not sure to tell you the truth,” admits James. Staring at the solid mass of gray coating the barrier, he wonders just how they will get out of this.
When the gray mass surged over James, Jiron and Brother Willim, Miko came to a screeching halt and abruptly turned around and raced back to the others. The ‘tide’ of gray enveloped the barrier and continued on for another twenty feet before coming to a stop. Then, it began moving backward to the barrier. Ripples continue to form as more of the grayness seems to move toward where James and the others are trapped.
Aleya shoots an arrow at it but it simply embeds itself in the ground and has no effect on the grayness.
“Is one of them a mage of some sort?” asks Zyrn.
After Reilin translates Stig says, “Yes.”
“Thought so,” nods Zyrn. “It reacted the same way when a priest came to try to deal with it.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Shorty yells.
“How was I to know one of you was a mage?” Zyrn replies defensively.
“So how do we get them out?” asks Aleya, fear for Jiron in her eyes.
“I have no idea my dear,” replies Zyrn. “I would have thought they’d be dead by now.” Indeed, the gray covered barrier surprises him. Whoever is within there must be a mage of some power.
“Do you feel that?” asks Brother Willim.
“What?” questions James.
“It feels like sap running through a tree,” he replies.
James sends his senses out again and after several minutes begins to understand what the brother is talking about. Small traces of energy are surging through the grayness covering the barrier.
“What do you make of it?” Brother Willim asks him.
He concentrates on the surges for another minute before turning to Brother Willim and Jiron. “It isn’t magic,” he says. “If it were, I would feel it.” When he first saw the shimmering grayness, he thought that at first it might be a magical construct of some kind. But the familiar tingling that always comes with the workings of magic had been absent. “I think what you are feeling are electrical pulses,” he explains. “Not entirely sure about that but that’s what comes to mind.”
“Electrical?” asks Jiron.
“Yeah,” nods James. “Like lightning but on a much smaller scale.”
Jiron glances to Brother Willim for confirmation but he just shrugs.
Closing his eyes again, James once more sends forth his senses to try to figure this thing out.
The grayness outside the barrier is constant and unchanging. Like a carpet of somewhat transparent gray, it diffuses the light coming through. Jiron gazes at it and a shiver runs through him again.
“The pulses of electricity seem to be originating from one place,” James suddenly says, breaking the silence.
“So?” asks Jiron.
“So…” begins James, “that might be where the source of this is coming from.”
“How far away is it?” Brother Willim asks.
“It’s not close,” he replies. Opening his eyes, he turns to them and says, “Can’t be sure how far it is. Maybe a mile.” He stands there and thinks for a moment, gazing at the bubble surrounding them and the grayness covering it. “Somehow we are going to have to reach the source of the electrical pulses.”
“How are we to do that?” Jiron asks. “Shouldn’t we first worry about how we are going to get out of here?”
Gesturing to the barrier Brother Willim asks, “Can you move this while we walk?”
“You mean push it under the grayness?” he asks. When Brother Willim nods yes, he thinks but a moment before he says, “Yes, I think I can.”
“They’ve been in there a while now,” says Scar.
They have done nothing but stare at the dome in the grayness where James, Jiron and Brother Willim are trapped since it first covered them. Miko had begun to try to use the Star in some way to rescue them, but Zyrn cautioned against it. He said that it was magic that it reacts to.
Frustrated, all they can do is watch. “If anyone can get out of this it’s James,” says Stig.
“You got that right,” replies Potbelly. “In fact, I remember Jiron telling us about the time they were in this swamp…” He then goes into the story about the complex in the swamp with the skull pyramids and the headless torsos.
“Look!” exclaims Shorty.
Cutting off his story at the point James
had found the hidden entrance to the complex, he again turns his gaze to the shimmering field of gray.
“What does he think he’s doing?” Stig asks.
The dome in which their trapped comrades lie begins to move. Not toward them and safety, but deeper into the grayness. “Do you think he knows which way to go?” asks Scar.
“Could be moving blindly in order to find the way out,” suggests Potbelly.
Shaking his head, Miko says, “I don’t think so.” He’s been through too many things with James to believe he would engage in a course of action blindly. “He knows what he’s doing,” he states with conviction. I hope you know what you’re doing!
Moving the barrier while still maintaining an air tight seal to prevent the grayness from coming in, at first was pretty hard. He had to keep the barrier beneath where they are walking stable so as not to trip them. At the same time, he needed to extend the forward area while retracting the rear.
Originally he thought to treat it like a hamster ball, and just have it roll along. But he soon realized that was not going to be feasible, not with the three of them in here. Going slowly at first, he moves the barrier along the ground at a crawl. Though as he continually does it, he finds that it’s growing easier to do and soon doesn’t have to work as hard to keep it going.
Another thing that’s been bothering him that he has yet to mention to the others is their air supply. There’s no way for the air within the barrier to be refreshed. The barrier itself is sizable so if this doesn’t take too long, they may be alright.
As they move through the grayness, he had thought there would be more of a resistance. The rate of the electrical pulses had increased as soon as they got underway which is why he thought something was about to happen. But nothing manifested. The way it reacted to magic, how it moves, he can’t help but think that it is somehow alive. Maybe not intelligent, but definitely alive. It almost feels like an episode of Star Trek where they meet an unknown life form. He wonders what Captain Kirk would do in this situation.
Thinking about Star Trek makes him melancholy. He misses home and the things that he can no longer have or do. What he would give for a pack of M&M’s right now! Always a chocolate junky, he can almost taste the chocolate melting in his mouth.
“James!” cries out Jiron.
Snapping out of his reverie, he discovers the grayness has once again begun to seep through the edge where the barrier over their heads meets the barrier beneath them. With a thought he reconstructs the barrier sealing off the grayness that had seeped in, then pushes it out and away from the barrier.
“Sorry,” he says slightly embarrassed.
One last errant thought crosses his mind as he wonders if there is anything similar to the cocoa bean here on this world. Getting back to the task at hand, he puts his idle curiosity to the back of his mind as he concentrates on more immediate concerns.
There’s no way to tell how far they’ve progressed within the gray coated bubble. As near as he can tell they’ve crossed at least half a mile. At one point they passed one of the swords with which Zyrn had marked the edge of the gray area, but that was some time ago.
Grayness above them, grayness below them, it almost feels as if they are afloat on a sea of gray. If it wasn’t for the firmness of the ground beneath them, he could almost imagine being in a gray storm cloud.
“Do you sense anything?” he finally asks Brother Willim.
Shaking his head, he replies, “Only what I originally felt.” Nodding, James returns to the task at hand and they continue on.
The continuous concentration on the grayness has built sort of a picture in his mind of the paths the electrical bursts take as they course through the creature. Creature? he asks himself. Actually he has begun to think of it as something alive. The pulses always follow the same paths, almost like blood being pumped through arteries. There is a definite rhythm to it and maybe it’s just his imagination, but he can almost feel a heartbeat.
“This thing’s alive,” he says.
“Alive?” questions Brother Willim.
“I think so, yes,” replies James. “Nothing like we understand to be sure, but alive none the less.” Stopping, he turns to Brother Willim and asks, “Wouldn’t that mean this creature falls within Asran’s domain?”
“I…I don’t know,” he stammers. Such a thought had never even occurred to him. Closing his eyes, he prays to his god for guidance and wisdom. After several minutes, his eyes open again. “You are correct in that it is alive. Now that you pointed it out, I can easily see it. But as to it falling within Asran’s domain, it does not.” He glances from one to the other then adds, “There are many living beings that do not fall within Asran’s domain. His charge is that of all things that live in nature. Whatever this is, it doesn’t live in nature or at least nature as I understand it.”
“Well,” says Jiron, all nervousness due to their circumstances vanishing. “If it’s alive, we can kill it.” Now that he understands it’s a living creature, his confidence is returned. James gives him a grin and a nod before continuing on.
Another ten minutes or so of walking brings them to a point where their skin begins to crawl. Not due to the workings of magic, but something else. “What is that?” asks Jiron as he rubs his arm in a fruitless attempt to still the sensation.
“I don’t know,” replies James. Sending his senses out further toward the source of the electrical pulses he encounters what can only be called a void. “Oh man,” he breathes.
“What?” asks Brother Willim.
“I’m not sure if I can explain it,” he replies. “Give me a second.” The others fall quiet as he continues his inspection of the void. Maybe void isn’t the most apt term to use but it’s the best he can come up with. In his mind’s eye it appears to be an opening, a rip if you will. The electrical pulses are originating from the other side.
“I think we found where this is coming from,” he tells them. “It looks like a hole, not a hole as you would understand the term. More like a way that is open between this plane and another. It’s through this hole in our plane that the creature has entered.”
“Can we close it somehow?” asks Brother Willim.
“Maybe,” he says, “though it might take some time for me to figure it out.”
Jiron waits there with Brother Willim while James works on the problem. Then a thought comes to him. “Could this be the spot where that explosion happened?” he asks.
“Maybe,” replies James. Could it be? Could I have ripped a hole in this plane of existence? He seriously doubts that. Back home on Earth they have had larger explosions than the one that the others said happened here and no such thing happened. Yet, magic doesn’t work there, nor do gods meddle in the affairs of men.
Brother Willim clears his throat and then says, “There is something one of my brothers told me that may have some bearing on this.”
Turning toward him, James asks, “What?”
“Well, the night before we left to take your friends back to Cardri,” he explains, “a green star fell from the sky. He didn’t think anything of it, stars do fall from the sky at times. But it was the color of it that intrigued him, he had never seen one quite that green.”
“That’s saying something, coming from a priest of Asran as it does,” remarks Jiron.
“Indeed,” agrees Brother Willim. “He told me of it just before we left, said it fell somewhere to the south of the keep.”
“Which is where we are,” concludes James. “There’s more to this than we know.” A star falls from the sky, one that is a color that even a priest of Asran thinks is odd. And it just happens to fall in the vicinity where the magic bubble detonated with dramatic effect? Hardly a coincidence, but what can it mean?
“Think it has anything to do with what’s going on here?” Jiron asks.
“Hard to tell,” replies James. “It does seem just a bit too coincidental to me though.” Closing his eyes again, he once more sends his senses to the void. It c
ould have been possible that he weakened the boundary and the meteorite punched its way through. Realizing he doesn’t know enough about how it came to be, he puts that train of thought aside for now and tries to come up with a way to close or mend the void.
After studying the void for several minutes, he comes to realize that there are a multitude of micro bursts of power directed at the edge of the void. Excited by the discovery, he narrows the scope of his examination to one small section of the void’s edge. Then understanding dawns on him.
Coming out of it, he glances to Jiron and Brother Willim. “The void is working to close itself but the creature is somehow preventing it,” he explains. “I can feel pulses of electricity that it is sending toward the edges of the void which I believe is preventing it from opening.”
“Then if we can somehow interrupt the pulses,” concludes Jiron, “the void will close?”
Nodding, James says, “I think so.”
“How do you plan to bring this about?” asks Brother Willim.
“I’m going to short circuit it!” he exclaims.
“Do you think they’re still alive?” asks Stig.
“Of course they are!” asserts Aleya.
Stig has the good grace to look embarrassed. He had forgotten her feelings for Jiron before he spoke.
After the dome in the grayness had begun to move, it continued along at a steady pace away from them. Gradually it grew smaller in the distance until they could no longer see it. Now, almost an hour later their worry for their comrades is steadily increasing. Surely something should have happened by now!
A rumble in the distance brings them to their feet. From every direction clouds begin moving across the sky toward the area where the dome disappeared. The rumble they heard was that of lightning moving between the converging storms.
“James!” Miko cries out jubilantly.
“Are you sure?” asks Aleya hopefully.
“Absolutely,” he says. “He did the same thing after we fled Cardri.”
The Mists of Sorrow: The Morcyth Saga Book Seven Page 12
