Delver Magic: Book 06 - Pure Choice (31 page)

"You think we were never
supposed to be together in the first place," Ryson whispered, not wanting
to speak what he understood from Linda's words, but not being able to ignore
it, either.

"It makes you wonder."

But Ryson would not wonder. He
would not let the smallest doubt enter his soul. He knew where he was supposed
to be.

"You're wrong," he said
sternly, not wanting to be harsh to his wife, but not wavering from his
conviction. "You're forgetting everything that's happened to us. We've
dealt with destiny. We've seen it play out. We've even dealt with the power of
my sword, a power that reveals clear direction. If we weren't supposed to be
together, we would know by now. The sword would have made it clear. It never
has. We've survived worse than this. We've gone through things that would have
crushed other people. We can make it through this."

Linda looked at it from an
opposing viewpoint, though with restrained emotions.

"You want to talk about all
the things we've been through? Fine. Maybe they were all one big sign. Somebody
was trying to tell us something, but we didn't want to listen. Now I see it,
and it's hard not to listen. Maybe the sword didn't try to give you some clear
understanding because you already knew the truth, but refused to accept it.
That's happened with the sword before. It can't make us believe the truth if we
don't want to."

"No! Now you're trying to
twist things to make me believe something that's not true. We can get help for
this. We're going to talk to someone that knows. Enin used to be able to see
destinies. He knows the truth. He can help us."

"Enin's not here anymore. He
lives in Connel."

"I know. We're going to talk
to him."

"I'm not going anywhere. I
don't have to talk to some wizard about something I already know."

"Then I'll go alone!"

"So you're leaving again...
already."

Not willing to be deterred, Ryson
admitted his intentions.

"That's right. I am. But I'm
not going out on some scout. I'm going to Connel and I'm going to find out
about all of this. I don't want to leave you like this, but I'm not going to
ignore it, either. This is too important. It's about us. If I stay, I'll just
be sitting here watching it all die. I'm not going to do that."

"You do whatever you think
you have to," Linda allowed as she stared back up into the blank ceiling.

Another arasap waited outside the
back of Ryson and Linda's home. It could distinguish the discussion inside by perceiving
the vibration of their voices. It knew Ryson was leaving for Connel. It simply
had to be patient.

It could not be detected by sight
as it flattened itself onto the ground and appeared as nothing more than a wide
puddle not yet drained into the very soaked ground. It was slightly concerned
about Ryson noticing its scent as it understood the potent senses of delvers,
but it believed he was much too distracted to perceive such a minor
irregularity in the air.

Within but a few moments, the
small hair-like protrusions on the exterior of the creature picked up the
departure of the delver. It felt the force of the front door opening and
closing, and then the breeze of Ryson racing up the street on his way to
Connel.

The arasap knew that the delver
would be gone for quite some time, much longer than necessary for it to
complete its task. It knew the condition of its objective. It had been afforded
that information from other arasaps. Their form of telepathy allowed them to
communicate with each other over fairly long distances. It knew the woman would
not struggle, and so, it did not even have to waste magic to disguise its
appearance.

The greasy substance of the arasap
slipped easily beneath the back door. Once inside the home, it rose up from its
flattened state but took no distinguishable shape beyond a distorted, oblong
mass. It slid through the house until it found its objective laying down in a
back bedroom.

Linda heard the sick gurgling
noise of the creature pushing its own amorphous substance across the floor.
When it entered the room where she lay, she regarded the ghastly blob with only
mild interest. To her, it looked like nothing more than an oversized bubble
that might arise from a slimy bar of soap.

Despite its repugnant presence,
she actually showed more curiosity to the floor where the arasap moved. She
wondered if it left a thick ooze. Based on the disgusting noise it made while
slogging across the floor, she imagined there would be an obvious trail of
sludge. She was neither surprised nor grateful to see that the monster left no
evidence of its path upon the surface it traveled.

The creature's grease-like body
remained completely intact and it left none of its substance behind. There were
no tracks at all, not a trace of its passage left upon the floor. Even when the
delver returned to his home, he would have to concentrate fully to detect the
slightest hint of the arasap's trail.

The creature no longer concerned
itself with the delver. Its mission was directed toward Linda Acumen and it
leaned over her bed with malicious intent.

Linda continued to display little
concern over the invasion. She regarded the monster as a minor curiosity, but
nothing more. As she looked up into the center of the thick, towering mass, she
believed she heard it speak, and in a way, she did. Its voice, however, reached
her through her mind, not her ears.

"I was informed you would be
obedient," the arasap indicated with satisfaction.

Linda didn't believe she was being
submissive in any way. She simply didn't care about the creature or its plans.
Her emotions had been temporarily deadened, isolated and blocked off from her
consciousness. For the most part, her mind was clear—she could think without
any fog of confusion—but her thoughts lacked any passion whatsoever.

"You remind me of
someone," Linda replied with barely any interest in the monster's words or
its intentions.

"I am not surprised. Others
have come before me. Now, turn your head."

Out of complete indifference to
her well-being, Linda did comply. She turned her head away from the arasap and
looked at a corner of the ceiling. She kept staring at that blank corner even
as she felt a thick fluid slide up her arm toward the base of her neck. She
never flinched even as the sludgy substance pressed against her skin, passed
through it, and slunk deep down her spine.

Eventually, she took her gaze away
from the corner and looked to where the creature had been hovering over her. It
was no surprise to her that it was gone. She couldn't feel it inside of her,
wasn't sure it was there, but she could not deny the thought of being infected
by a foreign substance. After only a few moments, she didn't even care.

"So what do you benefit from
this?" Scheff asked as he walked behind the sorcerer through the dark
realm.

"Still concerned with some
kind of hidden price? Do you think I'm some demon? You sound like the girl that
chose to leave with her camp." Ansas stopped as he considered the elf,
Haven Wellseed. He looked back over his shoulder at where the elves had
departed. He hoped she might be running after them, but there was nothing
behind them but barren rock. "Shame. She had potential. More than
you."

"She could not cast in a
circle. I can."

"It's not what she is,"
the sorcerer noted forcefully as he turned completely about to face the elf,
"but what she
could
be."

"That may be," Scheff
replied defensively, "but she is gone and I am here."

"True, she held to her
simplistic beliefs, yet you are still asking me inane questions," Ansas
noted.

"I do not think so,"
Scheff argued. "My beliefs are based on reality. You are offering to
assist me. You said you would show me how to purge myself of my impurities. You
also said you would instill part of your black energy within me. I do not
believe someone like you gives away power so willingly, without anything to
gain in return."

"I suppose your concern is
somewhat reasonable," Ansas conceded. The sorcerer then stared directly
into the face of the elf with an expression almost as dark as the magic he
cast. "I do this because I want to prove a point... and I hope to gain an
ally. The point is that purity remains paramount. You can never be as dominant
as I am, but you can become something of legendary ability. As for being my
ally, I do expect some gratitude once you realize what I've done for you. You
will be far more powerful than you are now, and I may want that power at my
disposal."

"So you wish to make me a
slave?"

Ansas could not contain his
disgust, though he spoke in a very controlled manner.

"You are an idiot. If I
wanted to make you a slave, I could do so with a wave of my hand. Do you think
I couldn't?"

"Then why don't you?"

"Because you would only be a
shell of what you could be. I can't make you grow stronger if you are under my
influence. You are no value to me under those circumstances."

"But why do you think I would
serve you as an ally?"

"Because once you see how
much more you can be, you will understand what I offer. I can give or take away
the ebony energy at my discretion. If you turn against me, you will give up
everything. If you take advantage of the opportunities I offer, you will grow
more powerful by the day."

And so it was laid bare before
Scheff. He did have a choice to make. If he agreed, he would link himself to
Ansas in more ways than one. He might not be a slave, or even a servant, but he
would be at the sorcerer's call. Further, the power of Scheff's magic would not
be completely his own. That did not sit well with the elf. It was not simply a
matter of associating with the brusque sorcerer, it meant accepting a different
kind of subordination. Even as he was gaining a level of independence by
releasing the shackles of camp elders and traditional elf beliefs, he was tying
himself to the whims of the sorcerer. He did not wish to trade one suffocating
constraint for another.

He almost refused, almost created
his own portal back to Uton, but in the end, he decided everything had a cost.
A deeper desire grew stronger than his concerns. He voiced that craving to
Ansas to ensure he would receive the proper compensation for his collaboration.

"It is not just powerful
magic I am after," Scheff admitted. "When you talk of what I could
become, I believe I understand what you mean. There is something within me,
something of great significance. I know I can be more than I am. You said
'legendary,' but I believe I can be something even more. I do not wish to be
one more elf in the legends of elflore. What is elflore but a collection of
myths?"

"I don't bother with such
trivialities," Ansas responded with disregard to the myths of Scheff's
race.

"That is exactly my point. I
will not be trivial. I can surpass the legends."

"An interesting ambition, but
surpassing the legends is nothing more than comparing yourself to long dead
elves."

"That may be true,"
Scheff acknowledged, "but I must accept my current station. I am nothing
but an ordinary elf with a special ability to control violet magic."

"And that's not enough for
you," Ansas noted while comprehending the craving in the elf's voice.

"No, it is not. My
aspirations go beyond simply casting spells with efficiency and skill. I do not
wish to look to external sources. You, your ebony magic, even the violet magic
that I can control now; all of that is inconsequential. It is all outside of
what I am. I want to advance, to evolve. I do not wish to simply cast spells of
power based on the energy I can wield. I want the full power of the storm to
bend at my whim. I want to become the storm."

Ansas tilted his head at the elf,
at first in curiosity and then in appreciation.

"It seems you do have some
idea of what I'm talking about, because that's exactly what I'm offering. You
have an inner talent, a skill that you can either waste or expand. If you wish
to step beyond being a skilled spell caster and toward becoming an elemental
force, you have to devote yourself to that inner ability. You must become the
lord and master of your ambition, the director of your path. For you, there is
nothing but your grasp over the violet hue. As I said to the other elf, the
magic must serve you. You do not serve the magic. Unless you can accept this
one principle, you will never reach your intended goals."

"I understand."

"Good, then follow me."

Ansas led Scheff back to the small
wooden house that served as the sorcerer's home in the otherwise bleak realm of
monsters and chaos. As they walked, not one creature dared molest them in any
way. The dark creatures that lay in wait for prey could sense the power in the
sorcerer and they wanted nothing to do with him.

Upon entering the house, they
moved through the corridor and back to the sorcerer's study. Three other
individuals waited inside, but Ansas did not bother to acknowledge their
presence as he moved to his desk. He had called to them as he walked with
Scheff and their attendance was expected.

Before sitting in his chair, Ansas
pointed to a spot on the floor.

"Stand there and don't
move."

Scheff obliged but felt
uncomfortable as all eyes were upon him. He looked upon the three strangers
that regarded him with both interest and suspicion. Two were human, a man and a
woman. The third was an infern, a half-demon dressed in black armor with a
white hot face.

"His hue is violet but there
are many impurities within him," Ansas announced to the others. "I
will need you all to help purify him."