Jeff Inlo - Nightmare's Shad

Baannat's smile and even his snickers died away as he looked upon the human wizard with contempt and disgust.

"You still don't get it, do you?" the ghoul asked, dropping any taunts. "Where are you?"

Enin considered the question but would not answer aloud, and thus, Baannat answered his own question.

"You think you are in the shroud… between life and death."

"As are you." Enin added.

Baannat would not quite concur. Instead, he continued to define the truth of the situation. "I am not quite dead, and not quite alive. What are you? You remain clearly alive, but your body is trapped on the other side. I have brought part of my body into this veil , as you call it, but I am not whole. I actually have substance in this place, as strange as that might seem. You have no substance, and you have no anchor."

"That should not matter. Even without an anchor, even without substance, my connection to the magical energies should remain. They have before."

The ghoul growled in disgust. There was no more laughter in his stunning explanation.

"You don't even know where you really are? What do you think this is? A transitional plane?A shadow between life and death? You couldn't be any further from the truth. This is a new existence, one created from my rebirth. This is no veil! This is a new realm, one that formed to compensate for my rather unique form. I did not die, and yet I no longer live. I have form, but I am not complete in body. My essence is linked to a form that has no beginning and no end. Don't you understand what that means? It's not immortality because I'm not alive. It's not spiritual existence because my essence remains connected to a body that maintains at least partial substance."

In an instant, Enin understood. He had made a grave miscalculation, one that he could not possibly remedy.

"So you begin to understand," Baannat continued. "Your essence can utilize the energy, but even for you there are certain rules. Where is the vast reservoir of magical energy that you can hold? It normally fills you beyond imagination, but you left it behind with your body when you entered this place. That power-the magic you possess, the energy that you can use to cast spells-is at this moment connected to your body in the physical realm, but now your essence is no longer in contact with your mortal form, not in any way. By stepping into this new shroud, you placed a barrier between your spiritual and physical existences without severing it through death. No, you're not dead, but you split yourself and willingly sent your spirit into nonexistence."

Enin looked for the portal. His only hope was to escape the shadow of existence, to pass back into life. He could not, however, find the gateway.

"You're going to have to search a long time before you find that doorway," the ghoul snickered. "Oh, it's still there, but now it's a shadow within a shadow. Have you ever been able to see one of those. Perhaps you could cast a new spell to uncover it?"

But Enin had no magic to call upon. The almost unending flow of energy that was once his to command was gone, left behind in the physical realm. It probably still coursed through his body back in the dark lands, but as Baannat had stated, a link to that body no longer existed.

"You know what you might try?" Baannat suggested. "You can't go back to the physical plane, but maybe you should move on to the spiritual existence."

Enin actually considered the thought.

Death.

Was that his only option? He then wondered if it was truly an option at all. Could he exit this realm of nonexistence and find the true veil between life and death, pass through it completely? If so, how? What was there for him to kill?

"Is that what you want me to do?" Enin tested the ghoul. "Do you wish me to simply surrender my life?"

"Actually, no. I want you to remain right here. I want you to watch as I take control of your pathetic world. Besides, you couldn't kill yourself even if you tried. Your body is on the other side of the veil. How would you reach it? You can't. And if you can't kill the body, how would enter death? Would you kill the spirit? You know that's not possible."

It was true. Even if he wanted to, Enin could not force his own death under those circumstances. He was trapped, but then, so was Baannat. The ghoul, however, was able to exert some influence on the land beyond the state of nonexistence.

"And how is it you can take control from here? How can you touch the magic that is kept from my hand?"

"Because that's the way I planned it. The vessel captured magic and parts of my mortal body. When the delver broke open the vessel, he returned my body and my magic to me, but he returned it to me in such a way that I remained incomplete. As I said, here I have substance, even minimal as it is, it is enough. Don't you see?"

And Enin did see. It was just as Jure explained. The energy coming from Baannat and coursing into the land of Uton was broken, segmented. Partially existent and partially nonexistent. Baannat had formed a lifeline to the physical world in a manner Enin failed to comprehend until he blundered into the trap.

The slink ghoul chuckled again.

"Hurts, doesn't it? To know that you stepped right into it? It's actually funny. When we first met, we were almost equals. You had a slight advantage, but then I grew more powerful. Still, you, the delver, and the woman immune to magic managed to beat me, reduced me to a wisp of what I was. You became much more powerful than me, but only on the plane of your natural existence. Here, even as I'm just a shell of what I was, I am superior to you and I still have the power to command every creature in the dark realm."

Baannat used his power to look out into the land of darkness and to review the legion of beasts waiting at the portal. The time had come for him take further revenge on those who had beaten him.

"You really thought you could stop me," Baannat growled, "but I give you credit. You planned for contingencies as well. Yes, I'm going to attack the algors in the desert as well as the spell casters in your abandoned town, but the truth is, I don't care who wins. It's all a game, but it's my rules. You see, I want the delver and his wife here along with you. That's what's important to me. I want to bring the three of you together, and then I will torment all of you for an eternity."

Enin could not imagine a worse fate. He might have actually taken his own life at that moment, but he could not escape, even in that way.

Baannat drew closer to the wizard, touched Enin's spiritual form with a claw that flashed in and out of existence. A the sharp nails slowly sliced through Enin's soul, the wizard experienced an entirely new sense of torment.

"The delver is out in the desert," Baannat hissed. "I can sense him. He will fight with the algors. Maybe I can catch him there, maybe I can't. It won't matter if I can catch the woman. She's the one I want to bring here next. Once I control her, I control him. Where is she, brother?"

Enin didn't want to answer, but he was now powerless against the ghoul. It would only be a matter of time before he broke.

Holli felt her connection with Enin break. It didn't shatter like exploding glass, or slowly fade like light after sunset. It just ended, as if it were cut by the fall of an axe blade.

The insight temporarily staggered the elf. Reality shifted and little else mattered. She stared off into space, searching desperately, trying to reestablish the link. Her reach, however, was limited. It was his power that fed the connection, that allowed it to exist beyond dimensions. He had promised to maintain that link, and yet it was most certainly gone.

Possibilities dwindled. Holli faced a certain horror. The break was now crisp in her memory-a moment in time captured with extreme clarity-it was as if it happened over and over again. It went beyond the diminishing end of a spell or the passing of some powerful barrier. There was sheer certainty captured in the severity of the disconnection and very few things in life held to such conviction. Aghast, she found one explanation defying all others. She believed Enin had died with that break, as she could not imagine anything less causing such a definite fracture, and the magic within her seemed to reinforce that conclusion.