Jeff Inlo - Pure Choice

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.