by Jeff Inlo
Jure did not wish to leave himself open to the creatures, but he felt it was the only way to extract them. It was a simple matter of poking them enough to get their attention and then giving them clear passage to a meal they could not refuse.
"I believe I'm ready," he announced."
"This won't hurt her, will it?" Ryson questioned almost harshly.
"She is in no danger," Enin assured the delver. "It is Jure that is most at risk. If even one gets inside of him, there's no telling the damage it can cause."
"But you can stop them, right?" Ryson demanded. With all of his heart, he wanted Linda cured, but the thought of someone else suffering caused him to question the plan. "Maybe you can direct the arasaps at me. There's magic inside of me."
"Yes, there is," Enin agreed, "but perhaps not enough spell residue to tempt the creatures to exit their sanctuary. We still aren't sure why they're in there, but we need to make this work on the first try. Jure is too tempting a target for them to ignore and he knows what he's doing. Do not worry, Ryson, the instant they pass beyond Linda's body, they will be vulnerable to my magic."
Enin looked to Jure.
"Whenever you're ready."
Without another word, the elder wizard prepared his spell. He pressed his hands together, and though he focused on the purple energy of the storm, pure white magic appeared in a circle around his fingertips. He lightly twitched his fingers toward Linda as he concentrated on the presence of the arasaps. He felt the magical energy flow from his body, and could even feel the echoing vibration as it bounced off Ryson's wife.
As Jure cast his spell, Enin prepared to act in an instant. He would know the moment any of the arasaps attempted to follow the magical flow back to Jure, and considering the elder wizard's potential, Enin believed the creatures would not hesitate. He was shocked by their reaction.
"They are not taking the bait!" Enin declared.
"Incredible," Jure agreed. "They should have jumped at it. There should be nothing inside of her and they choose to stay. It doesn't make... wait a moment. There is something inside of her. Something familiar. There is something within Linda that is defying me beyond her own immunity... Ansas!"
"Cease your spell!" Enin demanded.
Jure complied without hesitation.
Ryson could not contain himself.
"What's going on?! What happened?"
Enin ignored the delver, but only for a moment. He needed to verify Jure's finding.
"You are certain?" Enin asked of the elder wizard.
"There's no question," Jure confirmed. "It's his unique energy. The same magic that defied me when I found it at the elf camp."
Despite the great number of avenues Enin's mind traveled at that moment, he understood both Ryson's concern and curiosity. Mixed together, the delver would be beyond impatient and the wizard knew enough to address the situation with as much clarity as possible.
"Ryson, part of this is becoming clear to me. I do not believe Linda is in immediate danger, and I think I know why she has been acting the way she has. Still, I need to know everything that happened in the dark realm with the elves."
Ryson found the wait nearly intolerable, but he held to the hope that with enough information, Enin would find the answer to help his wife. He, Jure and Holli reviewed everything they knew about Ansas and what happened in the dark realm, including the incident with the elf, Scheff.
"Yes, yes, yes," Enin responded after listening to the last words. He tapped his forehead with his fingers for a moment and then rubbed the top of his head with the palm of his hand. He looked over to Linda and then tapped his forehead once more.
"Ansas talks about purity," Enin said to himself, "and offers a way for the elf magic caster to purify himself. He can't link to Linda, that wouldn't do any good anyway. He needed the arasaps, but they had to do more than just feed on the residue. He combines the two. Yes. Absolutely. It would work. We don't know if the process has occurred, but we have to believe it has. He probably has others. Sure he does. He has four. That's why there are four inside of her. He'll want to send more."
That was all Ryson needed to hear.
"More of them? She's going to be attacked again?"
Enin looked up with a startled expression.
"Attacked?"
"You just said more were coming!"
Ryson's shocked expression brought Enin's attention back to the immediate concerns of the delver.
"Not attacked, but I see it all now. She is being used as a tool."
"By Ansas?"
"Yes, to purify the spell casters that have decided to accept his offer."
"How is that possible?!" the delver demanded.
"You have to understand how it all works. Every time I cast a spell, I manipulate the magic with my will. I express my intentions and even my emotions at the moment of casting into the energy. Those complex sentiments work their way into the magic both inside and outside the spell caster. It becomes spell residue."
The delver was baffled. He was filled with worry over his wife and the wizard was talking about what amounted to nothing more than leftover spell manipulations.
"What's this have to do with Linda?!"
"Everything. Ansas is using her to eliminate the spell residue from the casters, to eliminate even the faintest trace of their previous castings. They end up with no residuals of previous spells, as if they never cast a spell before. They are, in essence, pure."
"But you said it yourself, Linda is immune to the magic."
"She is, but the arasaps are not. They carry the magic, and they entered Linda physically, not magically. They have embraced a portion of Ansas' ebony energy and then infiltrated Linda. He can not link to her, but he can link to them. If a caster used that link to remove all of his or her magic, the combination of Linda and the arasaps would become a filter. The magic would bounce away from Linda, but the spell residue would be absorbed by the arasaps. That's what they feed upon."
Jure listened intently and immediately understood.
"Incredible," the elder wizard exclaimed. "The combination of Linda's immunity and the arasaps' ability to feed on spell remnants would actually cleanse the spell history of any caster."
"Exactly," Enin agreed. "It also explains Linda's behavior. The emotions caught within the residue are pulled into her. She's not immune to them. It affects her behavior. She has outbursts of anger, like she had in the forest. The arasaps feed on the residue and that, in turn, then stifles her own emotion."
Ryson really didn't understand what was going on. He focused on one thing.
"Can you help her?"
"Absolutely," Enin stated earnestly. "The creatures are linked to Ansas. I will make him remove the arasaps from her and refrain from doing such acts in the future."
Chapter 25
Enin brought all those around him directly to the small house the sorcerer used as a refuge in the dark realm. The powerful wizard grasped the trailing strings of the portal connection that Ansas had previously created to purify the elf, Scheff. The dimensional rift's origin had been opened in Ansas' study, but its exit point was ultimately tied to the arasaps within Linda. Though the portal had been closed when Scheff completed his purification process, the echoes of the magical path remained loosely attached to the space around Ryson's wife, and they were strong enough for Enin to follow.
Utilizing both teleportation and a portal in much the same manner Ansas had done with the elves of Dark Spruce, the wizard pulled everyone into a vortex of instantaneous dimensional crossing. In the single blink of an eye, their surroundings changed from the vast open space within the Church of Godson's stone walls to the much more cramped area in a small wooden house.
Dzeb had to crouch down to fit under the ceiling of Ansas' study, but he insisted on remaining by Linda. The giant did not carry Ryson's wife, but stood near her at all times, a silent protector ensuring no further harm would come to her.
Linda, who was brought along in order to remove the arasaps
from within her, showed neither annoyance nor gratitude at having the cliff behemoth constantly at her side. She watched with an ambivalence that seemed remarkable considering they had traveled to the dark realm to free her of creatures that had taken refuge inside of her.
To everyone else's dismay, they found the house unoccupied. It did not appear abandoned, for the notes Ansas created remained piled upon the shelves of his study. All of the rooms, however, were empty, and neither Ryson with his delver senses nor Holli with her ability to sense magical creatures could locate the sorcerer anywhere nearby.
Ryson raced about the house in a fury, trying to seize on any shred of Ansas' whereabouts. He moved on his own without advise or guidance from any of the others. He ran through each room like a swirling wind that would shift directions the moment it hit a solid wall. With each quickened step, his anger at Ansas became more intense, and his desire to find the sorcerer swelled.
All of the pain over the past several days, all of the anguish he and Linda suffered, was not born out of any true conflict between him and his wife. It was forced upon them, thrown into their laps by some self-centered magic caster intent on bettering himself at the cost of others. The twisting anxiety that ate at his insides, the overwhelming worry that ripped at his every thought, the crushing confusion that kept him from sleep, and the sweeping fatigue that sapped his strength could all be traced to one man.
The full force of his delver concentration fell upon that man. Ryson would not allow the sorcerer to escape. On pure determination and without a hint of doubt, he would find Ansas, force him to remove the arasaps from his wife, and then ensure the perpetrator would never dare to come between Ryson and Linda again. How would he do that? He envisioned the most simple of solutions; he would tear Ansas' arrogant head from his muscular body.
The violence of his thoughts might have been out of character, might have even caused Ryson pain and regret if he had considered such aggression at another time, involving another matter. But at that moment, all he could picture were the arasaps invading his wife at the command of the sorcerer. Those were the thoughts that consumed the delver, and any remorse over his brutal intentions could not eclipse the emotional upheaval caused by the sorcerer's own malicious actions.
Realizing the sorcerer was not in his sanctuary, Ryson directed his delver senses upon the myriad of trails within the structure. It was not an easy task. They had been brought to the dark realm, an environment of warped mayhem. The wretchedness of that existence always assaulted the delver whenever he crossed into that plane, but the obstacles went beyond the sickening smells and the soul hardening shrieks in the distance.
He was in a strange home, created out of a mix of ebony magic and bizarre material originating from that twisted realm. Trees did not grow healthy and tall. They were warped and struggled constantly to survive. Any wood used to create the structure intrinsically held to an aggressive desire, and the delver could almost sense the hostility in every splinter.
Beyond the aggressive vibrations, Ryson seized upon every remnant of each visitor. He noted the lingering traces of the elves that had been abducted and brought to the house. There were several scent trails that he identified one by one. They were of varying age, one of which was fairly fresh.
He also realized the diversity of intriguing guests did not end with the seized elves. Others had been in the home quite recently as well, including human magic casters. He even noted the obvious signs of an infern, but he would not allow the thought of a half-demon to deter his search.
In fact, he clamped down with ferocity on his delver curiosity and forced any diversion from his mind. He separated the various trails, branded them in his mind, and removed any possible distractions from his attention. He narrowed his concentration on the various signs of the sorcerer. He followed them all and placed the movements in subsequent order.
Focusing ever clearer on everything he could sense, he quickly isolated the freshest trail. He knew Ansas had been in the house very recently, appeared to have left just before Enin transported them all to the dark realm. With that realization came another; Ansas had escaped, but only by the thinnest of margins.
Believing Ansas somehow knew they were coming, Ryson thought of the arasaps. Jure explained that the sorcerer's magic was inside the creatures. If so, it was possible Ansas could have used some magical link to witness the actions of anyone near Linda. That meant that the sorcerer could have been spying on them the entire time. Worse, Ansas was still using Linda, using her for his benefit... and causing Ryson even more pain.
He wouldn't allow it to continue, not for long. He followed the trail right out the door without advising anyone else where he was going.
"He left," Jure noted with a hint of surprise.
"It's okay," Enin reassured the elder wizard. "He's not in any immediate danger. There are no creatures in the vicinity. I checked. I believe they avoid this place out of fear."
"What if he finds Ansas outside? Should we let him face the sorcerer alone?"
"Don't worry. When I cast the teleportation spell, I linked myself to the magic within Ryson. When he comes in contact with Ansas, I'll know. Let him continue his search while we see what we can discover here."
Enin walked over to the shelves containing Ansas' magically written notes. He reviewed several and revealed both astonishment and disappointment.
"Amazing," the wizard acknowledged. "He has so much insight and yet at the same time he is so short sighted. He turns everything back on himself."
Jure took a handful of papers and perused the notes as well.
"What do you mean?" the elder wizard asked of Enin, hoping to gain a greater perspective of the sorcerer.
"Reading these, you would think his interest is entirely on the ebony energy, but there is a deeper revelation. He is consumed by the desire to influence the magic and he ignores how it might influence him. He regards himself as the sole manipulator, believing that the magic is here simply for his utilization. He places himself above everything, and that is both dangerous and foolish."
"Do you think he'll..."
Jure was not able to finish his question as Ryson rushed back through the main entrance.
"I found his trail," Ryson announced. "He was here right before we showed up. It's fresh, but he must have just left."
"Where does the trail lead?" Holli asked, wondering why Ryson would have abandoned the chase.
"That's the problem," Ryson revealed with growing frustration. "It just ends."
"He probably teleported himself or even opened a portal back to Uton," Enin offered. "But don't worry. He won't be able to get away. I will still be able to follow his trail. Show me what you have found."
But when Ryson brought Enin to the spot where the trail ended, the wizard could not find any trace of a magical path, no indication that a teleportation or portal spell had been cast anywhere near the area.
"Are you sure the trail ends here?" Enin asked of the delver.
"Positive. Look, you can see his footprints."
The tracks were visible to all, and they did, in fact, just stop, as if Ansas simply stepped into oblivion.
Holli bent down to examine the markings. She felt the harsh ground with her fingers, checked the depth of the prints. She waved her hand over the last footprint and watched the gray dust scatter slightly in the breeze she made with her palm.
After straightening up, she moved carefully forward, checking the ground at varying lengths away from the last tracks and in all directions. She felt the dirt in several other areas and then scanned the skies. She quickly returned to the delver. Even without finding further traces of the sorcerer, she did not wear an expression of confusion. She appeared to understand some hidden secret, but she needed to confirm her suspicions.
"Do you still have his scent?" the elf asked of Ryson
"Yes."
"Then there must be a scent trail that matches his tracks. Does that end?"
"What do you mean?"
&nb
sp; "Forget about the other signs. Focus only on what you smell. Tell me if the scent trail ends at the same spot his tracks stop."
"Out here? It's difficult," Ryson admitted. "The stench is overpowering."
"Ignore it," Holli commanded. "I believe we can find him."
That was all the delver needed to hear. He crouched low and tried to find the scent of the sorcerer near his last markings in the ground. Ryson inhaled the thick, humid air in light and brief breaths. He narrowed in on Ansas' scent, even moved backward along the trail to confirm he had it.
Once certain, he moved forward again to the last set of tracks. As he did, he instinctively rose his head up from the ground and kept moving forward. He even took several leaps in the air as he continued away from the others. The last leap was a breathtaking jump high above the ground that revealed his stunning delver abilities.
Ryson turned back to his friends.
"His trail doesn't end. It goes up into the air."
"He flew," Holli nodded in agreement.
"You mean he flew like Enin can?" Ryson demanded of Holli.
Looking at the others, he realized that flying was no small accomplishment. Even Enin was apparently surprised by the revelation, but Ryson wasn't ready to give the sorcerer that kind of credit. He turned his attention back to Holli.
"I've seen you float over the ground. Couldn't he have just done that?"
"I am only able to cast momentary spells of levitation. There is a difference between levitation and flight. Trust me, he flew."
"This complicates things," Enin admitted. "He is more talented than I would have guessed."
Ryson didn't care about Ansas' talents. He wanted to find the sorcerer. He wouldn't be stopped no matter what spell the sorcerer cast.
"Can we follow the magical trail?" Ryson asked of the wizard.
"No, he did not use magic to affect space. He didn't compact it for teleportation and he didn't create a magical path for a portal. He just elevated himself and then flew off. It's not the same thing."
