Jeff Inlo - Nightmare's Shad

It went well beyond a clear path. Baannat was challenging him… mocking him. It wreaked of confidence and disdain. The slink ghoul knew the delver was coming and ordered the dark creatures away from the area. It was obvious… and frightening.

Thinking of Linda, Ryson ignored any consideration of turning back. He did not yet know how he was going to deal with Baannat, but he was determined to face him. The delver would not disappoint the ghoul.

Racing forward, Ryson found the ravine on memory. He did not have to rely on any trail. With the cave opening in sight, he saw two bodies on the ground below a round, gray break hovering in midair. He ignored the eerie hole that appeared nothing more than a suspended shadow, and instead, he ran to his wife.

He called to her, but she did not answer. He dropped to his knees by her side and carefully checked her condition. To his great relief, he found her alive.

To his dismay, however, she still would not respond to him. Her heart beat, she breathed, her eyes blinked, but she looked through him as if he was not there. She made no acknowledgement to his touch and no resistance to any force against her. She remained crumpled upon the ground, making no attempt to stand or even sit up.

The truth was plain. Lief warned him of what he would find. Only her body was in the dark realm. Linda's true being existed in some other place, some other dimension. Only the mechanics of her body functioned before him. Beyond that, there was no true consciousness within-no soul.

Ryson gently leaned Linda against the wall of the ravine and then tended to Enin. He checked the wizard's condition which matched Linda's. He was alive, but not aware. His body was empty.

He placed Enin's body next to Linda's and then stepped away from them. He gave them one last look, and finally peered into the shadow portal-the doorway he knew he had to enter.

He saw nothing on the other side. It was not like the rift between the dark realm and Uton. In that gateway, no matter which side he was on, he could see where it led. The strange shadow before him, however, had no clear destination. It was a simple hole in existence.

Ryson knew Linda and Enin waited beyond that rift, were held hostage by Baannat in the emptiness in front of him. He almost charged through, but he made one last consideration of his conversation with Lief.

He had asked the elf apparition if there was a way for him to defeat Baannat and to save his wife. Lief implied that an answer existed, but the elf had no more to offer than vague advice. Ryson had to believe, but believe in what?

The delver stood before the rift restraining the desire to jump in after Linda. Holding firm, he waited for some great awareness to strike him, some sort of inspiration that would guide him. The answer was supposed to come to him when he needed it most. He needed it at that very instant, needed it more than anything. If Lief was right, he would get his answer.

Nothing. His mind was as blank as the gray hole before him.

Ryson started to feel the anger rise up inside once more. He almost cursed at the heavens for leaving him so unprepared for what he faced.

Remembering that Lief warned him about his rage causing him to fail, he did his best to bury such feelings. He could not do it completely, could not stifle the boiling emotions within, but he muted them to the best of his ability. He silently wished for an answer, wished for something to penetrate the gray haze in his mind.

For whatever reason, he thought of what it was like to be a delver. For at that moment, that was the root of his dilemma. He always sought answers. He lived to explore. His explorations would lead him to new mysteries and his instincts and abilities would guide him to answers.

He was facing another such mystery, but he doubted his delver abilities could help him in a dimension that could separate Enin from his magic. That's what he really faced. The portal was a doorway into nonexistence. If a wizard as powerful as Enin could be trapped in there, what hope did he have?

He drove that doubt from his mind. He wouldn't accept it. The answer would come to him. Too much depended on it.

Then he thought of puzzles he could not solve. They would often drive him to distraction, but he learned patience. Not all answers would come easily, and some not at all, but he always looked for them. He was always a delver.

Still, what of those questions without answers or those moments of indecision? He dealt with them in the past. How?

He then thought of the Sword of Decree. It was in the cave next to him. He knew it was still there. He didn't know why, but he could sense it. The sword would tell him what to do. When he truly needed an answer, it always offered one. All he had to do was retrieve the blade and hold it once more in his hand. The weapon would guide him.

Ryson almost turned away from the rift. His mind held to a hope that the sword would present the answer, but as the rift held his gaze, it also revealed a simple truth. He knew he would not be able to take the weapon with him through the portal. The existence on the other side was not one of physical being, not true existence at all. Linda and Enin's bodies were proof of that.

That, however, was not the complete truth. He could still retrieve the Sword of Decree. It might give him the answer before he crossed over. That's all it had to do. Once he knew how to save Linda, the sword would have fulfilled its purpose.

Ryson actually turned from the rift and moved toward the cave entrance. He almost rushed inside to retrieve the blade, but he stopped. The sword was not the answer. He knew it. He didn't know how, but he did. He had relied heavily on the enchanted weapon in the past, and in some cases, relied on it more than he relied on himself. If Lief was right, then Ryson had to believe in something, something more than an enchanted blade.

The delver still didn't know the answer, but he knew the sword held only false hope. He turned back to the shadow rift. He needed to pass through it. He had to get to the other side. It was not just a leap of faith. There was something else, something he was missing.

He had to believe in being a delver, believe in himself. He then thought of something Enin had told him before. With that thought sparking hope, he prepared to step into the portal.

#

"He's at the shadow rift you created. Even at this moment, he looks into the nothingness." Baannat paused, but then revealed the truth as a way to cause even more misery. "He hesitates. He is unsure!"

Baannat raced back to the light of Linda's presence.

"Your delver made it all the way here, but now he's not sure if he wants to join you. Does that make you happy? Maybe he'll stay out. You won't have to watch him suffer. That's good. Right? Or is it? Maybe he's worried more about himself than you. How does that make you feel?"

Linda could not ignore the ghoul. She could not block out his words, but she discarded their meaning. She tried to force her own thoughts out from the emptiness. If Enin could speak, so could she.

She tried to call out to Ryson, to tell him to turn away. As much as she wanted to be with him, she loved him too much to see him tormented. It was more pain then she could handle. It was better for her if he never entered. She believed that with all her being, until Baannat pressed the matter and doubts clouded her thoughts.

"I would have bet he would have jumped right through. There's nothing in his way. You know that's true without even looking. I want him here. I made sure the path was clear. And yet, he doesn't want to take that last step. He's actually considering abandoning you."

Would he abandon her?

"No, he wouldn't!" Linda thought to herself. She couldn't speak the words, had not yet found a voice in the surrounding emptiness, but she understood the truth. The emptiness could not bar that from her. She knew that Ryson had always put others first, including her.