by Jeff Inlo
"I could sense that as well," Holli nodded, becoming more confident that she was learning the truth. "What else?"
"Lief made something... something horrible. It's killing dark creatures and storing magic like Ingar's sphere."
At this, Holli's expression drew cold.
"What you are saying is very serious. I need you to be sure. I know you're immune to the magic, but your eyes can still be deceived. Illusion can work against you. You learned that when battling Baannat. Do you remember?"
Linda did not wish to remember, but she knew she would never forget.
"Yes," she whispered.
"I want you to search deep within you," the elf insisted. "Do you think you are being influenced by an illusion? Do you think your husband is acting in any way that you would consider unnatural?"
"No," Linda responded quickly, "to both questions. We have to talk to Enin about this."
"Very well," Holli nodded. "You will see him immediately."
Chapter 6
"What did you intend to happen?" Enin asked. His tone was not harsh, but he clearly appeared agitated by the news that was brought to him by his friends and the sorceress he questioned.
Heteera did not feel threatened by the wizard, or by the dogs that stood obediently at his side. She didn't feel awestruck by his presence, but she could not deny an overwhelming sense of insecurity. The magical energies ran strong within her—far stronger than any ordinary spell caster—but compared to Enin, the range of her ability was significantly inferior. Standing in front of him, she understood why even novice magic casters could sense his presence from almost anywhere in the land. The energy that coursed through the wizard—that he could control with great skill—roared like an ocean, and despite her own considerable connection to the magic, she was but a meager stream.
She collected herself quickly. Despite her previous failings, she had managed a small victory. She finally had the attention of the wizard, an opportunity she could not waste. It was not her goal to try and impress this man, but she hoped to make her desires clear, make it so that he would believe she meant no harm to anyone. He was the key to her redemption.
"The magic is such a gift," she explained, "but most people don't see it. I don't blame them. Look at what's happened—here and across the land. People fear the magic, but that's because all they see are monsters and beasts roaming the land. They don't look at what the magic can do."
"I understand, but that doesn't come to the point."
Ryson almost laughed. He stood beside his wife, as Sy and Holli looked on. Enin was infamous for drifting from the point of any conversation, but the delver stifled a chuckle and allowed the discussion to continue without interruption.
Heteera did not find anything amusing. She knew with certainty that she would be unable to live with the thought of her mistake spiraling out of control. She did not wish to be known as the inept sorceress with great power and no ability. She cringed at being considered a fluke of nature, or worse, a dangerous fool with her finger on the land's destruction. To be labeled as such would crush her spirit, but it would have been much worse if those who might suffer from her actions chose to question her purpose. Despite her failings, she wanted her intentions to remain above reproach.
"If we could remove the creatures that crossover, then people would see the true benefits."
"So you hoped to remove the magic that they use to exist in this realm? Commendable but foolish. Magic in itself is pure in form. Only when it is altered to the whim of those that seek to utilize it does it take on a particular intention or quality."
"Actually, no, that's not what I hoped to do. I just wanted to close the rifts. If the dimensional portals could not exist, then nothing could cross."
Enin shook his head. He understood the desire, but he could not comprehend the action.
"So in hopes of closing doorways to the dark realm, you opened another?"
"I did that just for temporary access to the dimension. If successful, that one would have closed with all the others and no new ones could have been opened."
"So you took this monumental action upon yourself? Alone?" Enin could not disguise his surprise. "You have great power, and potential, but you're not alone. And you clearly lack the necessary control. Even you would have to admit to this. Why didn't you try to talk to other magic casters before you tried this."
"Who could I have talked to? Other humans? The most capable spell casters go out into the desert to experiment. They couldn't care less what others think. Why would they help me? They wouldn't want to be bothered. Could I speak to the elves? They have a unique understanding of the magic. They would not see it from a human point of view."
"You could have come to me," Enin offered.
"I didn't think you would see me."
"You could have at least tried."
The sorceress hung her head in her next admission.
"I was impatient."
"Not only impatient, but imprudent as well." Enin said as he reflexively dropped a hand down to pat one of the dogs on the head. "You can't save the world on your own. That is a task left for a power far greater than magic. This hope of yours is beyond any of us and you proposed to do it alone. I do not understand."
Exactly the words Heteera did not want to hear. She did not want her motives placed under question, even indirectly.
"I didn't think it would hurt to try."
"So you would try this, but you would not attempt to meet with me first?"
Heteera trembled slightly in despondency. She could not reply. The very thing she feared the most was now being tossed over her shoulders, a weight of responsibility pulling at her soul.
Enin sighed as he lowered his other hand to find the head of another happy canine appreciative of his attention.
"Don't you think I would have already sealed off the dark realm if such a thing were possible?" Enin pressed. "Do you really think I would have let creatures like river rogues and goblins enter our world freely if their world could be sealed off completely? I'm amazed you would think so little of me."
As if this consideration struck her for further fault, Heteera's eyes went wide and her small trembles turned to shudders of dismay. She felt the steep guilt of her mistakes stabbing at her. She did not wish to add to it, and though it meant casting some of it back at Enin, she tried to defend her actions.
"But you've resisted to act in the past. You believe in allowing all creatures to find their destinies."
Enin frowned, not upon the sorceress, but at the recollection of his own inaction in the past. In certain circumstances, he removed himself from the conflict, kept his power in check and allowed others to determine many outcomes. That was true. He could not deny it. That, however, occurred before he faced his own fate and the part he could play in helping Uton and its inhabitants. The sorceress was in essence accusing him of something he could no longer accept.
"And everyone still must find their destiny, but do not blame me for inaction now. There was a time that might have been true, but that time is past. I have accepted my role and my responsibilities. Why do you think I'm here? I'm helping to restore this city from the damage caused by goblins, bloat spiders, and shags. I no longer sit idly by. I have worked with both dwarves and humans here. They have set up trade between Dunop and Connel, using the tunnels below this city for access. They trust each other now, more than ever. Both cities are rebuilding, growing, thriving. I believe I have helped that trust prosper. Is that the sign of someone who would refuse to help?"
Again, Heteera could not respond.
"And do you think it's my destiny to simply allow creatures of nightmare to run free in this land if I had the power to stop it?" Enin asked. "The magic returned and made me what I am. It has made you what you are. That does not mean I am still willing to let evil go unchecked."
"You're saying you would have helped me?" Heteera finally replied.
"I'm saying I would have advised you of the truth. You could not have hoped
to succeed. Dark creatures lost the ability to enter this land only when the magic was completely controlled by the Sphere of Ingar. But the sphere is no more. And even if you attempted to replicate the sphere, it would never work again. The magic will now always be free, and with that, portals will open whether we want them to or not. We must accept that."
"Then he was right," Heteera gasped.
"Who?" Enin asked. "Who was right?"
"Lief Woodson."
The wizard could not contain his confusion. His expression clearly revealed his bewilderment.
"Lief?"
"She brought forth the spirit of our comrade, Lief Woodson." Holli explained.
The wizard's confusion rocketed into unadulterated shock. The return of a spirit was no small matter, especially to Enin. He could sense the connections between the planes of existence, understood them beyond what could be contemplated by a mortal who had not yet passed through the veil of death and into a new state of existence.
His shock was clearly evident and this in turn surprised the elf guard.
"Can you not sense it?" the elf guard asked.
"No, there is too much magic within her," Enin offered, and he explored an explanation as if to satisfy his own concerns, "but she has no control. To me, she is like a wildfire burning everywhere at once. If I were to begin probing her for past spells, I wouldn't know where to start. You are able to sense this particular spell?"
"Her intention to summon Lief was as clear to me as your confusion is now."
"That seems odd. I can't imagine why it's so clear to you and not me. Perhaps it is your elf heritage. Perhaps also the bond you shared with Lief in entering Sanctum." He then turned to the sorceress.
"Why did you summon the spirit of Lief Woodson?"
Here, Heteera would not hide from the truth. "Because I believed he would understand. He wanted to stop the dark creatures. More than anyone else I knew. He was also an elf and he now walks the spirit world. I believed he had the greatest potential to assist me, to help me control the magic."
She spoke with such authority, that the underlying meaning almost escaped them all. It was Ryson, however, who finally spoke up as he found inconsistencies in Heteera's story.
"Wait a minute! How would you know that? Did you know Lief? He never spoke of you."
Heteera hesitated. She knew this moment would come. She had hoped to prepare for it, but her admission remained painful.
"I did not know him, but I watched him in his travels. I watched all of you. I needed to see how you handled all those challenges. I saw what happened on Sanctum Mountain... how you defeated Ingar. I didn't stop there. I watched the battle against the dwarves in Burbon, and then the battle here against the goblins. I saw how Lief, and Holli, were expelled from their camp. I saw how she came here to guard Enin and how Lief began to hunt all the evil creatures. That's why I thought he would be the best to help."
And so it was out. Heteera admitted she had spied upon them all. An uneasiness fell upon them. They looked at her with uncertainty, and most were at a loss for words, as if they confronted a close friend who refused to acknowledge an open debt.
Enin shook his head. He moved past the discomfort and upon the credibility, in which he found lacking. "I do not sense deceit in you, but your words don't ring true. If you had actually seen these things for yourself, that would indicate that you had been following us—all of us, including me. That's not possible. I would have sensed you."
"No, I didn't follow you during the actual occurrence. I called on the shadows of what have been, on the whispers of the past. I was able to witness everything that happened by recalling the images and sounds of time gone by but not lost. They still reverberate and can be retrieved. I even saw when you battled Baannat."
At this, the wizard showed dismay and clearly rebuked the sorceress.
"You called on the echoes of time to show you what happened? Someone of your power? Do you know how dangerous that is?"
Heteera clearly didn't.
"But I only called on the memory of the events. I couldn't change them."
"No, you can't alter the past, but your power could have recalled a spell caught between dimensions. Baannat and I cast many spells in that battle—dangerous and powerful spells. What if you released one of those spells here? You could have destroyed an entire city."
"You mean the spell could have been recast?"
"Not recast, but reenergized. Baannat created a dimension based on pure magical energy. That dimension disintegrated when he was destroyed, but some of the magic was trapped in that space. When you call upon the echoes of time, you do more than look upon the past, you risk spell reflection into this time."
Heteera was not ready to accept even more blame for her deeds.
"But no spell came out of the echoes! I'm sure of that."
"Then you were lucky."
Sy listened intently, but found the conversation had lost its purpose. They were all concerned over the past, while he remained troubled of what was to come.
"Maybe we were all lucky, maybe not," the captain pointed out. "What I'm worried about is what happens now? What kind of trouble are we really in here?"
Enin understood the captain's point. Yes, there were important facets of Heteera's tale, but they all led to the current predicament. The wizard believed that the summoning of Lief Woodson was not the true threat, but rather the talisman that stalked the dark realm. He refocused his attention on that point.
"Heteera, please answer me plainly. I understand why you summoned Lief, but tell me about this creation similar to Ingar's sphere. Why did you create this vessel if it was only your intention to block off the dark realm?"
"It wasn't my idea. It was Lief's. He told me it would be difficult to close off the dimension unless we starved the dark creatures from what they truly needed. We had to pull the magic from the creatures, just as Ingar's sphere had done. I didn't believe that was the answer, but he assured me it would work. He told me we just needed to use skins of the monsters as opposed to the skins of the different races. He found discarded corpses of goblins that had been attacked by a shag and we started there. He told me to cast a spell that would absorb magic and then to focus it on him. I did so, and he pulled the magic from me and redirected it at the goblin corpses. The partial remains of the goblins fused together into a distorted mass and became animated."
"And you're not sure what Lief did to the spell?"
"No, I just know he pulled a great deal more magic from me than I expected, but I thought it was necessary."
"What happened next?"
"He told me that the animated vessel could hunt down goblins, remove their magic, but we needed to do more. We needed access to every dark creature that might crossover. He insisted I open a portal. I did so, but I could not control the spell. The rift fluctuates in and out of existence. Lief didn't care, he said it was enough to allow him to get in and out. He guided the creation through the portal. I have witnessed it hunt creatures on both sides of the rift."
"And the vessel has grown?"
"It's made up of more hides than I can distinguish," Heteera admitted.
Enin turned to the delver.
"Ryson, I need you to tell me everything you heard and saw when you met with Lief."
The delver did so, and with sufficient detail that satisfied the wizard. The situation left the wizard concerned, but not desperate. In short time, he actually made their path clear.
"The vessel must be destroyed."
Most were surprised at Enin's decisiveness. Sy, in fact, even wondered if that was the best alternative. He considered the situation from Burbon's viewpoint, from a town that stood at the border of Dark Spruce Forest—a forest with more monsters than a child's worst nightmare.
"Are you sure about this, Enin? I have to tell you, getting rid of some of these creatures isn't necessarily all that bad. If Lief is going to keep that thing on his side of the fence, so to speak, it's going to limit the number of monsters tha
t come over, right?"
"Yes, it will." Enin admitted.
"And do we really want to stop that?"
Enin held to no doubt. "The vessel will grow in power. It is a mutation of monsters, a twisted creation of dark creatures that is absorbing magic. What happens when it grows to a point that Lief can no longer control it? What happens if it decides to return to Uton and march toward Burbon. Do you want that?"
"Not at all, but what are the chances of that happening?"
Enin paused to consider the question. He furrowed his brow and then waved his hand about in the air as if making an imaginary calculation. When he spoke, he talked toward the sky, as if arguing with a cloud.
"Assuming the dimensional portal will allow constant access to this realm, the vessel will eventually sense the greater level of magic in this land. Hunting grounds, however, will be substantially broader in its current realm. At some point the greater level of magic will exceed the advantage of excess prey. It will definitely happen... in three seasons."
"Can we wait?" Sy asked. "Three seasons of less monsters would be a welcome break."
"The longer you wait, the harder it will be for you to destroy it."
The meaning behind this statement was not lost on the guard captain.
"You mean you're not going to destroy it?"
Enin realized the implication and quickly explained. If the vessel were within his reach, he would have disposed of it in due haste, but such was no longer the case.
"Lief took that option away," Enin stated. "Do you not remember what the spirit warned Ryson? Lief has sought refuge for himself and his creation in the land of nightmare. You do not want me venturing into that dark realm. The moment I entered, thousands of beasts would sense my presence. It is true some would try to attack me—a senseless act that would not succeed—but others would view me as a threat. Without doubt, many would flee into this land. The results would be... catastrophic."
"So who goes?"
"You even have to ask? The delver, of course. It was with his sword and by his hand that the original sphere was destroyed. He is the one who defeated Ingar. It is his sword that can destroy this new incarnation. I have no doubt of that. An arrow might puncture it, a different sword might cut it, but the Sword of Decree will destroy it."