Delver Magic: Book 06 - Pure Choice (42 page)

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."

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."