Delver Magic: Book 06 - Pure Choice (44 page)

"Are you certain?"

"I am."

Ryson would not apologize to the
elf captain. Instead, he simply disregarded him as if the elf no longer
mattered. He turned instead to Enin.

"If that's the case, then I
want you to remove the spell surrounding Linda," the delver demanded.
"If Shantree can see and hear what's going to happen, then so can
she."

Enin agreed and quickly removed
the spell. Linda, however, showed no indication of recognizing any changes
around her.

"Linda?" Ryson asked.
"Can you see me?"

His wife looked directly at him
but in a fashion that appeared as if she was looking through him.

"I see you," she
admitted.

Her total indifference nearly
shattered Ryson's heart. He was ready to kill for her, and she regarded him
with no more attention than she would give a gnat buzzing around her face.
Attributing everything to Ansas and the arasaps inside of his wife, Ryson
twirled about to face Jure.

"Do whatever you have to do.
Find him!"

"We need to speak to
Shantree," Jure revealed and then looked to the elf captain for
assistance.

"And so you shall," Birk
Grund acknowledged, more than willing to escort the group to the camp elder.

Shantree Wispon listened intently
to Jure's explanation and was eager to assist the human wizard. She hoped they
would not only force the sorcerer to remove the arasaps from the delver's wife,
but also make him take back the unwanted piece of ebony magic from her core as
well.

She could not touch the foreign
energy in any fashion or utilize it to cast spells, but its existence within
her haunted her every waking moment and caused nightmares she had not
experienced in years. She almost wished Jure had never told her of the dark
magic within her, but somehow she believed she would have eventually discovered
the truth on her own.

She had remained separated from
the elf camp. She also realized that if some solution was not found, she would
be forced to relinquish her role as elder. She could not continue to lead if
she could not trust her own decisions. Being marked by the sorcerer was leading
her to oblivion, but perhaps the combined strength of Enin and Jure would be
sufficient in freeing both herself and Linda Acumen.

With Shantree's approval and with
Birk monitoring the procedure, Jure began the task of finding the connection
between the dark energy in two different sources. He could not grab hold of the
energy, as it continued to defy him, but he could feel it... analyze it with
regard to its magical characteristics. He probed both Shantree and Linda at the
same time, disregarding the echoes that wavered back to any past spell.
Instead, he latched on to the similarities he could detect.

Within moments, he perceived a
vibration from both portions of energy that matched each other exactly, but
they didn't form any link between each other. The waves traveled outward across
dimensional space. He had found the trail he was looking for.

To his amazement and dismay, the
connection reacted to his probing. The moment he seized upon it, he felt it
move. It jumped like a taught string that had been plucked by an opposing
finger. The end of the path had changed. While he was initially able to follow
it to an exact location in the dark realm, the new path's final destination
eluded him. It remained fixed, but it rested within a thick haze he could not
penetrate.

"I had him," Jure
disclosed. "He was in the dark realm..."

"Take us there!" Ryson
ordered.

The delver's demand was for
immediate action, but the elder wizard hesitated. With all his might, Jure
attempted to see through the dark mist, but he could not make a clear
distinction of Ansas' position.

"He moved. I've lost
him," the elder wizard confessed with a great tinge of guilt.

The delver reacted almost
violently. Rage was apparent throughout his stiffened body.

"What?! Find him again!"

"I have found him," Jure
revealed, "but I don't know where he is."

"You're not making
sense!"

"You don't understand. He's
in the dark realm. I'm sure of it, but he's... he's in some kind of haze."

Before Ryson could react, Enin
intervened.

"Jure, if you can follow a
trail back to him from two different points, you should be able to locate
him."

"I have located him, but I
don't understand where he is. It's like he's in some kind of cloud. If I can't
determine the exact location, how can I send us there? It seems he figured out
a way to hide himself after all."

With that admission, Ryson did
react, and he poured his fury toward the elf captain.

"This is your fault!"
Ryson accused as he pointed angrily to Birk. "Ansas figured out what we
were doing because of your idiocy!"

The elf captain glared with equal
anger at the delver, but before he could defend his decision, Jure took full
responsibility.

"No, Ryson, it was my
mistake. I was overconfident. I'm sorry."

"Sorry doesn't help my
wife!"

"But he can still help
Linda," Enin professed. "He just needs some assistance. Calm yourself
for a moment, Ryson. What's done is done. Let us see what we can do to solve
this dilemma."

Enin turned back to the elder
wizard.

"Tell me what you
sense."

"The truth is, I'm not
sure," Jure revealed. "I can't take hold of the energy in either one
of them, but I can follow both strands back to their source. The magic doesn't
want me to, but it can't stop me."

"So you can follow it. Where
does it lead?"

"He's still in the dark realm,
but it's not quite the same. I don't think he's really hiding, but he's
somewhere I can't define."

"Then maybe you just need to
expand your understanding of that realm," Enin advised. "The dark
realm is a lazy term, but there is an absence of celestial light, so it is
somewhat befitting. Some think of it as the spawn of nightmares, the level of
consciousness created by our deepest fears and a repository for our heaviest
burdens. They are partially correct, but they oversimplify. It is not some illusionary
expression of our darker imagination. It is a very real place, and it remains
connected to our land. That's what you must concentrate on."

"I don't have a problem
following the trail to the dark realm. It's this particular area that Ansas
seems to have found that I can't really distinguish."

"That's what I'm trying to
help you with," Enin advised. "Existences are layered upon each
other. Some are obvious and others are very subtle. Even here in this forest,
there are layers of existence. In the ground beneath our feet and in the air,
there are tiny creatures waging their own battles, their own struggles. Layered
all around us, there are presences of another sort. They are no less here than
we are, even though we can't see them. For the most part, they disregard us and
we disregard them."

"You mean like insects?"

"Yes, but other entities as
well—some so small we can't even see them, others totally invisible because
they lack physical properties—but their existence is no less real. The dark
realm is just one more layer, but it is placed out of normal reach, connected
only by magic. It may be a land of monsters, but it is also a realm of
imagination, and there are layers there as well."

Jure began to grasp the concept.

"So you're saying Ansas is
still in the dark realm, but he has separated himself from the rest of the dark
creatures. In essence, he is in his own layer."

"In simplest form, yes, but I
need you to be careful in how you perceive all of this. There is a great deal
of overlap and if you attempt to isolate particular sections, you will lose
him. You have to allow the magical trail to be your guide and open your
consciousness to wider possibilities. I don't believe it's Ansas that's
clouding your mind. I believe you are just having difficulty allowing your
thoughts to take hold of alternate realities."

"I'm not sure that helps me
find him," Jure revealed. "I can't just wipe my mind clean and let
some new reality take shape."

"You don't have to,"
Enin allowed. "You just have to let the magic take you where you need to
go. You know Ansas better than I do. Where would he place himself in the dark
realm?"

That was a question Jure could
answer easily.

"Far above it all. Even the
largest of monstrosities would still be nothing more than a mosquito to
him."

"He is that arrogant?"
Enin questioned.

"Absolutely."

"Then if the dark realm is a
physical reflection of the darkest corners of our imagination, use Ansas
arrogance to help define the space around him. Don't try to create it yourself.
Instead, let the magic and your understanding of Ansas guide you to his exact
location."

With a new direction, the elder
wizard concentrated once more on the magical strands of ebony magic. Though he
could not grasp the dark energy that flowed back into the nightmare dimension,
he could follow it and he knew it led directly to Ansas.

Jure ignored his previous
experiences in the dark realm, forced out the images that his memory recreated
in his mind. He allowed his consciousness to travel across existences without
preconceived notions of what to expect.

Near the very end of the magical
line, he reached a murky haze. Initially, it kept him from discovering his
surroundings, but he patiently remained just outside the fog. He didn't attempt
to burst through or shape the mist based on his own expectations. Instead, he
waited for his surroundings to take on characteristics of their own.

He considered everything he knew
of Ansas. The sorcerer was beyond arrogant. He was totally self-indulgent. He
was also brash and self-assured, perhaps a bit too confident in his ability.
Jure decided to use that to his advantage.

The elder wizard remained patient
as well as persistent. He simply allowed his consciousness to take hold just
outside the haze. He would use Ansas' brashness against the sorcerer. In
essence, he offered a challenge, one he believed the sorcerer could not refuse.

The haze began to take a more
detailed form. It first took the shape of a dark cloud, like a large puff of
smoke, but it quickly took solid structure. He could see a wide plateau, a
stretch of ground upheld high in the air by a single column, but one with a
firm foundation. He knew they could walk upon the lonely ground, even the
massive cliff behemoth would be well supported.

As Ansas' location came into
greater focus, Jure realized he was not alone in issuing a challenge. The
sorcerer had issued one of his own, one the elder wizard had met and overcome.

"I have him," Jure
announced.

"I'll give you credit; you
continue to surprise me," Ansas conceded. "I wasn't sure if you could
reach me here on your own, but you did. You may not have Enin's vast energy or
his control, but you are relentless. Is that how you achieved your white circle
of magic?"

"What I achieve and how I do
it is my own business," Jure responded coldly.

"Is that belligerence or
modesty? I hope it isn't the latter. It's a useless characteristic. I have no
use for braggarts, mind you, but humility is a self-imposed impediment. In
order to achieve greatness, you can't deny it. Modesty is just one more
weakness that must be cast aside. You should be more attentive to yourself and
willing to learn what I can teach you."

As if to contradict that very
point, Jure ignored the sorcerer and checked on the others. With one spell, he
brought them all to the dark realm; Holli, Enin, Dzeb, Ryson and Linda, as well
as Birk Grund and Shantree Wispon. He wanted to ensure their safety, for he
knew they were in a perilous situation. To his relief and satisfaction, they
were all on stable ground, well away from any of the dangerous ledges that,
beyond the sorcerer, represented the most immediate threat.

They stood upon a high plateau
elevated well above the lands of the dark realm where horrific creatures
stalked. It was a simple stretch of ground, but it was lifted into the vast
heights by one towering mass of solid gray rock. They ventured into a region of
the dark realm far above the tallest cliff walls where hook hawks and spin
vultures built their nests. There were no other apparent hazards nearby—no lakes
of fire, shifting sand pits, or dark caves with unknown terrors—but a fall from
that height would have been devastating, even to the cliff behemoth that made
his home in the majestic Colad Mountains.

The ground at the top of the
plateau was flat, hard, and devoid of all life. There were no warped, half-dead
trees jutting out of the gray rock or disfigured insects burrowing into the dry
soil. It was empty and dim, shadowed from the flickering lights of the fire
pits below.

The plateau existed in the vast gray
reaches of the dark realm's sky, but the dimension was so very different from
the lands of Jure's home. It was shrouded in the shadows of a gray canopy that
gripped the realm with unforgiving sameness. There were no stars, no sun above.
They stood upon the upper reaches of that dreary existence, a dimension without
beauty or joy. It was not a scenic overlook that allowed for glorious views of
some distant horizon. There was just turmoil and hopelessness below, and the
plateau served as a detached platform to overlook it all. Perhaps Ansas used it
as a testing ground for spells of various nature, or perhaps he just liked to
place himself high above the other dark creatures.

Jure believed the high plain was
created by the sorcerer, another sanctuary like his simple wooden house, but
one that was neither simple nor ordinary. The plateau was not merely some tall
peak of a vast mountain. It was an area totally isolated from the rest of the
dark realm.