Jeff Inlo - Pure Choice

Ryson was astounded. He couldn't even voice his surprise, but his expression revealed it when he looked toward the giant.

"You know that there is magic within you," Dzeb continued, "but there is also something more. It was never your sword or the delver magic that allowed you to persevere. It was the spirit within you, a spirit that is blessed by Godson."

Ryson didn't move, but he faced doubt. He did not live by the same faith as the cliff behemoth. He lived by the grace of being a delver, always depending on his senses and his speed.

Still, he could not discount a simple truth. In all of his trials, he never believed he was alone. Even upon that plateau, he was surrounded by friends, friends he knew would not betray him. Yet all of them stood solemnly by, not unwilling to offer assistance, but apparently deeming it unnecessary; even as a cruel and imminent death hung over him.

Holli did not move to aid him, nor did Enin. He would have trusted both of them with his life. Certainly both had the power to help in some way, and yet they made no attempt. He did not believe they would let him perish so callously. He could not accept that… would not accept it.

His last glance fell upon Linda. He understood her lack of concern. Arasaps had invaded her body and mind, placed themselves in a position to feed off the spell residue forced into her by Ansas' scheming. Their presence deadened her emotions and left her a shell of her previous self.

They had been through so much together. She accepted him as a delver and he allowed her to become the anchor for his heart. They met just when the magic returned to the land, and they had survived its influence over Uton… together.

Right before the shadow of magic encased him, Ryson remembered Enin's words.

Think about saving Linda.

That was what the wizard instructed. It wasn't about defeating the sorcerer. It was about helping his wife, but the direct path was not open to him. Linda's body had been infiltrated by creatures of no real substance, and the delver had no way to reach into Linda and pull them out. The arasaps were beyond his grasp.

Only Ansas had a connection to the creatures, for he had placed his dark energy in them before they entered Linda's magically immune body. If Ryson could just find some way to force the sorcerer to pull upon that magical connection, Linda would be saved. But how could he overcome Ansas' control over the magic? He couldn't.

And yet, Ryson began to realize that there was a reason for him to be on that plateau. He was a delver, and despite the difficulties and strains it caused with his wife, he would always be a delver.

In facing Ansas, he didn't have to discount his senses. He could use them, but he had to use all of them. All around him, there was something beyond what he could see, smell, and hear. There was something he could touch… not with his fingers, but something he could feel with his spirit. Once he acknowledged it, he could sense it in other ways as well. He could hear the comforting words of truth if he listened hard enough. He could see his hope for salvation in the faces of those around him, see it in the eyes of the cliff behemoth and even in the expressionless gaze of his wife.

There was a greater force at work, something trying to guide him… something larger than the magic, and it had always been with him. It was inside him, but it was also an external force that worked its own will to help guide those that would heed the call. Yes, there was strength within him, power in being a delver, but he could never dismiss where that strength came from, for that was Ansas' mistake.

And just as Ansas' dark ring of death fell upon him, enveloped him fully prepared to carry out the sorcerer's will, Ryson finally understood what he had to do. He couldn't explain it; it would be like describing what an apple taste like.

He accepted the cliff behemoth's words. He believed the magical shadow could not harm him. He accepted it on faith… and with the belief that if he could not be hurt, then Linda would be saved, for that was the ultimate truth.

Ryson immediately felt Ansas' conceit spilling across his spirit. It saddened him. Every ounce of the energy was empty, devoid of anything beyond the sorcerer's misguided delusion of his own greatness. There was nothing else-no faith, no belief in anything beyond the sorcerer's own abilities.

Ryson didn't try to redirect the magic and he didn't attempt to forcibly place his own will into the energy. Actually, it was just the opposite. He refused to struggle against the darkness that surrounded him. He just peered into it without fear. He asked for nothing from the shadow, and gave it nothing in return. He simply waited for it to pass, as he knew it would.

Ansas' spell of death brought no such suffering to the delver, an outcome the sorcerer could not comprehend. Floating in the gray sky above the lifeless plateau, he raged against the failure. Ansas' face twisted into a mass of disbelieving resentment as he tried to force his will upon the shadow of power which he himself set upon the land.

As if to revolt against its creator, the dark shroud lifted itself up and off of the delver and drifted to an empty spot near the center of the high plain. It swirled into a larger oval and an even darker shadow. It pulsated with a growing power of its own and soon appeared like a shallow tunnel with no end.

Throwing off waves of dark magic, the mysterious oval linked with every shred of Ansas' energy. Though the magic could not pierce Linda's immune body, it hovered about her like a rotating field of determined force and it pulled at the dark substance trapped within her. It grabbed the remnants placed into the arasaps and removed the energy from their very essence.

Unwilling to let go of the dark power that kept them nourished, the arasaps had no choice but to follow. The creatures oozed out of Linda's skin in a single wave, but quickly broke into four distinct entities that slid across the barren ground. They appeared lost and disoriented.

Linda collapsed the moment the last of the arasaps left her body. She fell into the hands of the cliff behemoth who held her in his massive arms.

With the arasaps out in the open, Enin did not hesitate and cast an immediate spell the monsters could not avoid. The wizard teleported the creatures back to the low lands of the dark realm, far away from them all.

The shadowed oval did not cease its taking with the arasaps. It sent a single spear of magic toward Shantree Wispon.

The elf elder, who was not immune to magic, stepped toward the shadowed flare. She allowed it to enter her body willingly and just as willingly allowed it to remove the mark of dark magic that Ansas had placed within her.

Setting its sights on the final hosts, the shadowy mass removed the share of dark energy from all three spell casters brought to the plateau, disregarding their screams of torment and pain. It left them crumpled and unconscious on the ground, just as Ansas had left Scheff.

With no remaining remnants to claim, it took hold of the power within the sorcerer himself. It ripped it all from him in one massive wave as if to chastise Ansas for his complete failure. In that same instant, the swirling mass pulled back upon the strands of magic it had released. It returned to a simple oval that hovered slightly above the ground, nothing more than a shadowed hole in reality.

Without magic, Ansas dropped from the sky. He remained conscious, but only barely. When his body struck the hard, unforgiving plateau, he groaned in pain.

Ryson never saw the sorcerer fall. When the arasaps left Linda, he ran to her side, ignoring everything else around him. He stepped up directly to Dzeb, who carefully held Linda's unconscious body. The delver stroked her hair and touched her face, pleased to feel the warmth of her skin but still overwhelmed with concern over her condition.