Jeff Inlo - Pure Choice

Ryson finally boiled over. He stepped up to the elf captain in a blur of motion and gazed defiantly into Birk's eyes.

"Do you know how many times I've saved this camp? If you think I'm going to let your idiotic rules interfere with what we have to do, you're sadly mistaken."

The elf captain's tone grew cold as he stared back at the delver with equal defiance.

"Have a care delver. You forget where you stand."

Ryson stepped even closer.

"I haven't forgotten anything. I know about the guards in the trees… even the ones you think I can't see. Would you like to see how fast I can drop them to the ground like sacks of dried beans? I can be finished and back here before any of them can string an arrow, let alone get off a shot at me."

"Ryson!" Holli admonished. "That will not help!"

Ryson would not back down.

"Holli, we're going to find Ansas, and this over controlling captain is not going to get in my way!"

It was Jure who offered a solution.

"Ryson, I don't think it's necessary to block out Shantree," the elder wizard stated with all honesty.

The delver would not release his gaze from the elf captain, but he directed a demanding question at Jure.

"What do you mean?"

"What I'm planning on doing does not require stealth. Even if Ansas realizes what I'm going to do, he won't be able to hide. As long as I can sense the magic within Shantree and Linda, I will be able to build a path to Ansas. There's not a barrier he can create that will stop me."

"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."