Analindë (The Chronicles of Lóresse) (5 page)

Branches snapped not too far away, signaling that the Humans were pushing through the undergrowth; she reacted immediately in fright. She wasn’t sure what did it, but the panicky feelings embedded within her desperate search somehow triggered an electric surge which blinded her. Pulsing through every little bit of her body, power coalesced and then ricocheted within her which in turn launched itself out toward her hands. She almost cried out when the surge shifted to tingling and her hands began to glow a pale yellow. She’d done it!

In awe, she simply stared at her hands as the tingling faded to nothing; a constant pale yellow glow emanated from her hands.

After only a moment’s hesitation she focused her thoughts and transmuted her power by imagining herself inside a protective sphere. She gently pushed Energy out of her hands—just as she did when sending growing power to the trees—and moved her arms out and around herself. She imagined a thin protective shell.
I am invisible, I am not here, I cannot be found, you cannot see me,
she projected the thoughts toward the shield. She watched in awe as pale yellow streamed and sparked off her hands into thin filaments which wove themselves together to form the barest of gossamer shields.
Would it be enough?
she worried.

When the Human’s searches pointed once more in her direction, instead of finding her she felt the seeking sensation of the search slide around her. Elated, she strengthened the sphere imagining it as an impenetrable shield, a glassy surface so slick that nothing could stick to it.

Their searches continued to slide around and past her.

The Humans were close enough to hear now, which was too close for her comfort.

“I don’t know where she went. She was just ahead of us, I could feel her, then nothing.” The arrogant voice was not ten paces from where she hid. She shivered violently but maintained her focus on the shield.

“Since we know she’s around here somewhere, just cast the spell again and let’s be done with it,” Henry impatiently said.

“It doesn’t work that way.” The Human wizard said snidely. “What?” he squealed quickly. “There are rules involved, I have to have direct line of sight with her, otherwise it doesn’t work.”

“Gildhorn will be irate if she gets away,” the woman’s voice gloated.

“Then we had better make sure she doesn’t,” replied a gruff voiced Henry. “You might have been able to feel her up until now, but I tracked her steps. I’ll find her.”

“Yes, you showed us where she stopped by the stream.” The arrogant voice became defensive.

Analindë jerked back. They’d found where she’d stopped? Her mind reeled, doubt caused her shield to slip.

“She’s here, I feel her! Over there, I think. Quickly, Henry, do you see any sign of her?” Defensive no longer, the Human wizard fizzed with excitement so strongly she felt it from where she cowered. “Over there. I think she’s over there.” The hesitant voice came closer.

Analindë grasped at the fraying edges of her shield and the tendrils of Energy that were quickly unraveling and yanked them back into place.
Stay
. She commanded with an iron will born of desperation. Shocked that she’d been able to hold and re-weave all those strands back together, she sat in awe for a moment before slowly and carefully releasing her grip. The shield stayed in place.

She leaned over against the inside of the tree and panted. She felt hot and sweaty so she fanned her shirt out briefly trying to cool herself down, then wiped the sweat off her forehead with her arm. She was under no illusion that the shield was anything special, just something she’d cobbled together by mistake. She felt fortunate that she’d been able to make any shield at all, let alone have it successfully hide her from the Humans. But it was probably the weakest of the weakest elven shields possible. Which meant she had work to do.

With grim determination she sat forward again and searched for flaws, ignoring the sounds of the Humans which had moved steadily away from her. Fearing that the soft golden sphere would blow away at the slightest breeze or rip apart at the most gentle of touches, she studied how to make it better.

She began by reinforcing her current shield, building on the foundation she’d just discovered and attempting to reason out how the sphere worked. She drew Energy from within herself like she did when strengthening the trees. Only this time she spun it out from herself to make new layers to the shield.

Analindë wove the layers together giving each a purpose, commanding them to stay until she willed them to drop. She didn’t want the shield to accidentally slip again and she hoped the command would keep each layer in place.

She felt clumsy. Her Energy came in strong, irregular spurts and she didn’t quite have enough control to direct it properly. It hadn’t taken her long to realize that the most efficient transfer of power came from the smooth flowing streams she directed from her hands. The sparks were simply strong bits of power, which because of the low transfer rate were basically useless, becoming lost in the ether. She worked hard to eliminate the sparks and was now left with unpredictable pressure surges. She cried out—and turned rigidly still, listening for the Humans—when a particularly large bit of Energy slipped from her fingers and splattered onto the tree beneath her. It soaked into the shield before she could grab it back and give it purpose. Wasted.

In one short half-hour, Analindë had used more Energy than she had in her entire life. She’d been surprised when she’d stumbled upon the source of her power shortly after her shield had slipped. Despite her mother’s patient and repetitive explanations, she’d never been able to find it. She explored the newly found pooling Energy inside her to see how much was remaining as her mother’s words ran through her head.

“Reach down, deep into your core. If you but look carefully enough you’ll find a coiled bit of Energy that is more powerful than the rest. Once you find it, explore it. Map it out. Anchor it to a spot so you’ll never have to search for it again and it will easily be found thereafter.”

Well, she’d found it. As Analindë had repeatedly pulled Energy from herself, she’d noticed that it kept coming from the same general area in her chest. No, that explanation was too simple. Whenever she’d looked inside herself with magesight before now she’d been met with an infinite amount of space and darkness. Now, when she looked inside she still saw that vast spaciousness, but within it, a pool of power was beginning to take shape. On the outside, the pool would measure about the size of a grain of rice. On the inside with magesight, it seemed large, like a pond. Either way, it hadn’t taken long to realize that she’d found the source of her power. Every time she reached for Energy, it kept coming from that same spot. And after a while she’d noticed that an empty spot had begun to form.

She wondered how long it would take for the empty space to refill. Unfortunately, her mother had never mentioned anything about refilling.

She studied the powerful puddle of Energy with her magesight, which had long since allowed her to see more than just her hands. Relieved to find she still had power left, she settled back to study her shield while she listened to the Humans continue their search nearby.

The sounds that the Humans made hadn’t changed, so she relaxed ever so slightly. While she’d worked, the Humans had become more violent and frantic in their search. Which meant that there was absolutely no chance that she was going to step foot outside of the hollowed out log until she was certain that the way was clear. So she did what was left to her, she practiced. She strengthened her resolve and narrowed her focus. Control. She must have control.

She spun a larger bit of shielding out to obscure the opening of her hiding place in the giant tree, then returned to work on her sphere. She wove layer upon layer, each strengthening and building the belief that she could not be found. She was invisible and was not here. She spun extra Energy into each layer so it would live without her constant vigilance. “Stay, do not stop,” she whispered to each as she finished it.

Analindë scrutinized the shimmering curtains of colorful light and sought out their holes, plugging them as she went. She dissolved the weak layers that had been erected first and rebuilt them, developing new layers that combined the features of several layers into one.

She reached out with her thoughts and smoothed out the pale green shield masking the opening of the hollow in the tree. The power didn’t flow evenly, it caught and snagged where she’d woven it too quickly, which in turn pulled Energy from other spots leaving them weakened. It would be easier to rebuild the shield than to fix the broken one, so she did.

Layering pale yellow Energy just below the erratic and unstable shield, she slowly transmuted it into the whitish green that hid her from view. She hadn’t realized that green energies camouflaged, but that was the color her power had taken when she’d focused on covering the opening of the log.

The weave was as fine as a cobweb, but
stronger
. Delicate until she’d firmly fixed it in place, then becoming stiff like steel. It shifted and shimmered while she worked. She latched the Energy onto an edge of the opening and melded the Energy weave to the bark seamlessly. Brushing softly, she spread the web across the entrance and stretched it tight. She tacked the weave to hold it in position while she methodically circled the opening, smoothing and working the new weave into place.

She tweaked a few strands of Energy until the pattern felt right, dissolved the original, weaker shield, then slumped. Her back ached. She brushed wetness from her forehead with the back of her hand.

An uneven fluctuation of light pink drew her eye, the shield she’d made to hide her scent was failing, as was the faded blue shield hiding the heat from her body. She didn’t hesitate, but wove the two shields together, making a pale violet sphere of power that shimmered around her.

Several more shields flickered dimly, waiting to be fixed. She wouldn’t stop until they were strong and felt right, only when she was satisfied that the Humans would never find a way through them to her would she rest.

A long while later, Analindë’s stomach rumbled. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten. She pulled her scout bag from her back and rummaged through it deciding to eat a little of whatever would spoil first, then diligently turned her attention to her shields. She would wait until the Humans had stopped tramping up and down the slope looking for her and had settled down for the night before she left her shelter and made a run for it.

The Humans came close to the hollow in the log many times, but always at the last moment turned away. She heard their voices, often colored with anger and frustration. Motivated by fear of discovery, she turned yet again to study her shields, trying to understand how they worked, and reason them out. Her goal? To be able to make one quickly and proficiently any time one was needed.

When the Humans had ventured far enough away from her that she could not hear them, she’d close her eyes and track them as bright sparks in the dark void in her mind. In the beginning she could only focus on either the void or on her shielding. But after awhile she became adept at keeping an eye on both at the same time. To access the void, she kept her senses shielded, then imagined herself inside a velvety black void completely opposite from magesight. This was the space where those sparks of light lived. Where she could track the Humans’ location in relation to where she hid. She couldn’t see shape or form in the void, but she could sense vague sorts of distances and associated levels of risk. The further away the Humans moved the more they shifted into what she thought of as pinpricks in the dark. She wondered if one day she’d grow powerful enough to see them instead of just track them in the void of darkness.