Jeff Inlo - Nightmare's Shad

The guard acknowledged as much.

"Yeah, believe it or not, I do."

"So do I," Sy admitted. It was a staggering thought. Enin controlled power that both soldiers acknowledged could clear the sky of a threat that was about to destroy their entire town with ease.

"Who knows," Sy continued, offering some hope to a hopeless situation. "Maybe Enin will realize we're in trouble and show up at the last second."

"Would be nice," the solider agreed.

Sy agreed. "Yup, it would."

He then turned back to the town. He looked over the emptying streets and believed this would be the last time he saw it whole. Even if he survived the attack, there would be nothing left.

He watched the last few soldiers reluctantly entering their shelters. He knew what they were thinking. They wanted to fight. He did, too, but you don't always get what you want. Some days you fight, other days you retreat. It was part of being a soldier.

Believing it was time to retreat, he called back to the tower guard.

"Well, we can't wait for Enin. No sense staying up here and letting them eat us. Let's…"

"Sir, they turned."

Sy instantly twirled about and refocused his attention on the closest caelifera. He stepped up to the tower rail and watched the shifting movement with great interest. There was no doubt about it. The swarm made a definite turn. They were no longer headed east. They were flying north and with apparently greater speed. It was as if Burbon was no longer important to them, but something else mattered quite a deal more.

A reprieve?

It seemed so, but Sy wasn't about to relax.

"Don't signal all clear to the public yet," Sy instructed, "but recall all the guard topside and have them take stations at the gates."

The guard made the appropriate signal and the streets became active with soldiers headed toward the wall. With his signal complete, the tower guard watched with relief as the swarm continued to fly to the north. The distance between the town and the caelifera grew.

"You think we got lucky?" the guard asked.

Sy thought of what might have captured the caelifera's attention, encouraged them to change directions. He considered what he knew was due north of their position. The ColadMountains came immediately to mind.

He then thought of Linda, one of Baannat's target. She was hiding in the mountains to the north. Was it truly their luck or just her misfortune?

"I probed the magic," Holli admitted to Jure. She had called him to the abandoned home at the center of Pinesway, and they spoke in private. "I meant no intrusion. At first, I thought Enin was dead. I wanted to know who else might have sensed the loss. That is how I knew you were also aware."

"I understand, but I never believed he was dead," Jure admitted.

"Never?"

Jure shook his head. "Ever since I talked to Enin about Baannat's possible whereabouts, I've been contemplating the situation. I've been trying to focus on the ghoul's location, I can't pinpoint it exactly, but that's understandable because it doesn't really exist."

"Does not exist?"

"I know. Doesn't make much sense, but there's really no way else I can put it."

"How is it you know this when Enin himself had so much difficulty locating the ghoul?"

"I really can't answer that. I'm not the wizard Enin is, but I still sensed the breaks in the magic. He didn't. After Enin left, I stopped looking at the magic that was coming out of the portal and started focusing on those breaks. It's a strange puzzle. The answer isn't in the broken magic. It's in the space between the breaks."

Holli looked beyond the words of the magic caster and used her elf guard training to judge his expression and his tone. Jure's insight exceeded the elf's expectations.

"You know more of what's going on than I do, correct?" she noted, giving Jure credit for his perception.

"I'm not sure what you know, so I don't know how to answer that."

Holli didn't wish to waste time dancing around the issue, and thus, she asked a blunt question.

"Do you know where Enin is?"

Jure frowned. He knew the answer, but explaining it was not a simple task. As he tried to find the words, he looked at a bare wall before him. He noticed a small crack that seized his attention. It wasn't a great break by any stretch of the imagination, but it looked out of place. It probably would have been quickly patched or covered up by a painting, but there was no longer anyone that lived in the home, no one that cared about it. For some strange reason, it made him lonely, made him think of the home he abandoned before heading off into the desert.

Disregarding the wall, he tried to explain what he understood of Enin's true location.

"It kind of depends on your point of view. His body is in the dark realm, but that's not where he really is. The essence of his spirit is trapped in an area that defies existence. That's the only way I can describe it. He's not traveling through dimensions, or even in the spirit world, or even in the veil between life and death. He… well, he's not dead, but he's not really part of the living, either. It's a form of existence that defies explanation."

"There is more to it than that, isn't there?" Holli pressed, recognizing the first sign of hesitancy in the magic caster.

Jure came out with the full truth as he understood it.

"As you can probably guess, he's not alone. Baannat is in there with him, but it's worse than that. Baannat maintains a certain control over magical energy. Enin has no such control. His link with the energy was severed when his soul left his body."

Jure's statements confirmed some of Holli's assumptions… and many of her fears.

"So he is a prisoner?" Holli asked.

"That would be my guess. Actually, it's more than a guess. I don't think Enin can get out. I think he's stuck in a struggle with the slink ghoul and he's about as helpless as he can be."

Holli could not imagine Enin being helpless, but she had to admit to certain facts. She knew what she felt when she utilized Heteera's energy to perceive the dark lands. Enin was alive, but then again, he wasn't. Everything Jure said corresponded with what she already knew. Rather than doubt the magic caster, she searched for alternatives.

"Is there a way to assist him, help him in his fight with Baannat?"

Jure's frown sank into a grimace, and then he revealed his understanding with brutal honesty.

"I don't think so. I mean what could we do? Enin is the most powerful wizard in the land. No one else is even close. But… he made a very bad mistake. He cut himself off from his own magical energy. There's a clear divide between his essence and his power. Any one that joins him in an effort to save him will only make the same mistake."

"But Baannat seems to have power," Holli offered.

"Because Baannat isn't the same as he was, not quite whole," Jure explained. "The ghoul isn't trapped away from his body. Instead, both his body and spirit have somehow come together in a way that defies both life and death. In that state, he has a very loose connection to the magical energies, but a loose connection is better than none."

"You are certain Enin and Baannat remain together even as we speak?"

"Absolutely."

Holli turned over a quick consideration in her mind and spoke of it aloud.

"You said Enin's body is trapped in the dark realm. I have seen it there as well. I believe I know where it is. Do you think we should strive to retrieve it?"

"I wouldn't risk it," Jure admitted. "Fighting through armies of dark creatures would be enough of a problem, but more worrisome would be the effect on Enin. We don't know if taking Enin's body from the dark realm might irreparably harm the chances of restoring his consciousness to his body."