Her mind wandered to her family’s discussion the night before and she mildly speculated as to when things had started responding to Mage Master Olwë. If the tale really had been true, did things heed his calls for aid because they sensed his greatness? Or did they respond because he was great?
Analindë had no skills of note in any of the areas of mage studies, and she doubted that she had greatness in her future, but if anyone ever had need of aid it was her. She thought of the Mage Master and wondered how he’d done it. Could it have been as easy as calling out with a request? Or did it take more focus than that? Figuring that she might as well give it a try, she formed intent in her mind, just as she used when saying her father’s growing spell, then launched power out from herself while whispering sharply. “Help. I need a safe place to rest.”
Analindë stopped, listening intently to the quiet blanketing the forest, would there be a response? She felt nothing, nothing but emptiness around her, but she waited a few moments longer anyway. How had the old Mage Master called for aid? She briefly wondered if she should try again but decided against it. She shouldn’t linger, must keep moving. The hope that had stupidly risen inside her fluttered back down as she turned her thoughts back to her escape.
She sighed, readjusted her scout pack, and prepared to leap over a creek. Unease rose within her as she realized that an eerie silence had filled the aged forest, animals hid, birds did not roost, the pervasive stillness made even the babble of water seem quiet.
The Humans were near.
She’d lingered too long.
Analindë jumped over the creek, straightened, then quietly sprinted up the deer track before her. She ran lightly on the balls of her feet, keeping the strike of her foot against the loamy earth as soft as possible. Had someone been listening, her passage would most likely have gone unnoticed; the tracks she left behind were slight.
She berated herself for letting her attention slip. Not only did the back of her neck prickle ever so slightly—as it did each time the Humans were close—but she felt the Humans following her as a malevolent pinprick in the back of her mind. It was difficult to put the sensation into thought so she focused on the trail in front of her instead.
Every now and then she felt the wizard send out a swath of seeking power. She’d sensed an insidiousness to those probing searches that hinted all would not be well when they finally caught her. She thought of the compass the wizard had boasted about and deduced that he’d finally figured out how to use it. How else would they have been able to find her let alone keep up with her?
Full darkness had long since fallen; her legs ached from the constant climb. She could barely make out the path in front of her. The sound of the wind whistling through the pines failed to give her peace. She should have been able to easily outdistance the Humans, but they doggedly kept up with her instead. The trail was steeper and rockier now so she slowly picked her way up, careful not to let even the slightest gasp of breath or shuffle of loose stone betray her.
The nagging pinprick of unease in the back of her mind had morphed into a small flash of light in the darkness. She peered over her shoulder. Very little starlight filtered down to the ground in this section of the forest, and she saw nothing but charcoal outlines of trees against velvety, starry blackness. The sparking light was only in her mind.
She shook her head in confusion. The rocks she clambered over caught a little bit of starlight, showing the path she followed, but not much else. The moon would be out soon, it would help her move more quickly. She turned forward again and the flash of light, illuminating the blackness in the back of her mind, grew brighter. She didn’t understand how it worked, but the light always grew brighter when the Humans were closing in on her.
Like they were doing now.
She needed a place to hide, without delay. If she could make it, there was a good hiding spot ahead where she and Riian had played hide and seek when they were younger.
She tried not to think about Riian as she crossed over a small stream and paused briefly to wash blood off of her arms and face. Some of it was Glendariel’s. Scratches marred her pale skin—in all stages of bleeding and scabbing—she couldn’t see them but felt their sting as she washed. She ignored the sensation, focusing instead on the soft earth pressing against the soles of her shoes; the icy cold water against her skin, its fresh, energizing taste as she swallowed; and the black void in the back of her mind.
She thought of the Humans as she resumed her hike. They were much stronger than the elves had thought. How much else had the elves been wrong about? And why after centuries of peace had the warring Humans turned their attentions upon the elves?
Gildhorn. There could be no other explanation.
Why had he involved the Humans? What were the Mageborn Books? And how had the Humans gained so much power? Analindë mulled the questions over again and again as she surged up the well worn trail. When she reached Mirëdell she’d ask Master Therin. He’d know.
For decades now it had been arranged for Analindë to be apprenticed to Master Therin if she did well enough in her studies. Perhaps he’d take her under his wing early. She hoped so. Two years ago, having finally reached the age of one hundred and fifteen years, she’d finished studying with the tutor her parents had hired for her and joined the other students at Mirëdell to specialize in magecraft. She’d inherited the potential to become a master mage and perform, to some level of ability, all of the various specialties in the land. She’d already learned some small spells, but not nearly enough, and very little that would help her on this journey.
A branch snapped in the distance. They were getting careless. Must go faster. Analindë veered away from the stream she’d been following, scampered up another short steep length of rocks, then turned onto a flatter section of forest. Keeping to a deer track she swung her gaze back and forth scanning her surroundings for a good place to hide in case she couldn’t make it to her spot in time. Her muscles ached and fatigue made her clumsy. Every tree root seemed to jump up out of the ground to trip her. She jerked to a stop. Did they have control over the trees? Panicked, she briefly reached out toward the trees with her senses. No, they felt normal. She was simply becoming clumsy.
She pulled her thoughts back to the physical world, then yelped when she felt the Human wizard’s focus veer toward her like a needle on a compass finding north, he must have sensed the small Energy she’d used to look at the trees! Adrenaline pumped through her veins and she sprinted up the path. Just around that curve. She could make it.
A moment later she swerved off the path to the right toward a gigantic tree that had fallen on its side. Crushed by her feet, the sharp scent of pine needles filled the air. Taking care to leave no mark of her passage beyond crushed needles, she pushed through the low-lying bushes. Scrambling up into the hidey-hole on the far side of the tree, she crouched, shivering in fear, to wait.
The damp earthy smell of decaying wood brought her a modicum of peace. Pale moonlight filtered into her hiding spot, illuminating the childish carvings of birds soaring in flight. She traced her fingers along the initials her brother had carved so long ago. Tears sprang to her eyes. She blinked rapidly and clenched her fingers into a fist as she attempted to quiet her breathing.
They were coming; she could not block them out. She felt them search for her with a sweeping awareness, looking for where she hid. The type of power the Human wizard used was unmistakable, if felt like the power that had been used to kill her family.
They were close. She could hear their voices now. The bright flicker of light in the back of her mind had grown immense.
Scared, she still didn’t know how they’d kept up with her. Did the wizard sense her? Or had he figured out how to work the amulet he held? Confused at how the Humans had achieved either option she cowered deeper into the hollow in the tree. She fixated on the amulet, remembering the elvish designs molded into the beautifully crafted metal and how the wizard had tapped it with his finger, implying he could
find her anywhere. The log was of no use to her if the wizard had fully linked with the charm. She shivered in fright, how could she even think of hiding from the Human wizard now?
Please no, please no, please no. She willed herself to be quiet, as still as the trees around her.
Fearing that they’d hear or sense the patter of her heart or the anxiousness coursing through her, she tried again to calm her thoughts.
Be. Quiet. She told herself.
It didn’t help. Her heart simply raced faster and her thoughts spun. A lake. Maybe she could be like the water, flat and reflecting back whatever was around her. Become invisible, hide, impossible to be found.
Her mind spun and her heart still raced. She hugged her knees to her chest, rocking back and forth. Using the tiny bit of moonlight that had made it past the clouds in the sky she stared at the majestic bird Riian had carved that hot summer day. Peace, calm, happier times. The edge to her terror softened; breathing in that peace she was able to focus at last.
She closed her eyes and concentrated as she’d never concentrated before, attempting to shift her vision into magesight. The sight where she thought she could see yellow sparks shooting off the ends of her fingers when she tried to weave a spell. She focused harder and then felt something shift inside herself, but everything remained dark and dim. No yellow sparks, no subtle glow of energies, just darkness. She tried not to let her spirits flag and instead concentrated on the next step.
Energy. She needed Energy, and lots of it.
She focused on her hands, willing power to come. Nothing. She shook them, then wiggled around a little bit. Her hands were still dark. She put all her focus behind intent, then commanded herself to connect with her power. Yet again, nothing happened. She focused on her fingers again and then wiggled them. Nothing. She imagined a whoosh of Energy flowing through her body and then out of her hands. That didn’t work either. She pushed from her center again, and not even a spark flicked off the end of one little finger.
Analindë turned her thoughts inward and blindly reached far into the core of herself to search for power. She didn’t really know how to look or where to look. Under the tutelage of her father she’d tried meditating before, but she’d never been able to find her well of power. This time she needed to succeed, desperately so. Yet she sensed nothing, and her mind kept telling her the Humans were getting closer. Fear drove her on until terror began to overwhelm her. She mentally reached, tried to sense, silently screamed out a summon hoping for an answer, made sweeping grabbing gestures with her thoughts hoping that even though she couldn’t see anything perhaps she might be able to feel something.
Branches snapped not too far away, signaling that the Humans were pushing through the undergrowth; she reacted immediately in fright. She wasn’t sure what did it, but the panicky feelings embedded within her desperate search somehow triggered an electric surge which blinded her. Pulsing through every little bit of her body, power coalesced and then ricocheted within her which in turn launched itself out toward her hands. She almost cried out when the surge shifted to tingling and her hands began to glow a pale yellow. She’d done it!
In awe, she simply stared at her hands as the tingling faded to nothing; a constant pale yellow glow emanated from her hands.
After only a moment’s hesitation she focused her thoughts and transmuted her power by imagining herself inside a protective sphere. She gently pushed Energy out of her hands—just as she did when sending growing power to the trees—and moved her arms out and around herself. She imagined a thin protective shell. I am invisible, I am not here, I cannot be found, you cannot see me, she projected the thoughts toward the shield. She watched in awe as pale yellow streamed and sparked off her hands into thin filaments which wove themselves together to form the barest of gossamer shields. Would it be enough? she worried.
When the Human’s searches pointed once more in her direction, instead of finding her she felt the seeking sensation of the search slide around her. Elated, she strengthened the sphere imagining it as an impenetrable shield, a glassy surface so slick that nothing could stick to it.
Their searches continued to slide around and past her.
The Humans were close enough to hear now, which was too close for her comfort.
“I don’t know where she went. She was just ahead of us, I could feel her, then nothing.” The arrogant voice was not ten paces from where she hid. She shivered violently but maintained her focus on the shield.
“Since we know she’s around here somewhere, just cast the spell again and let’s be done with it,” Henry impatiently said.
“It doesn’t work that way.” The Human wizard said snidely. “What?” he squealed quickly. “There are rules involved, I have to have direct line of sight with her, otherwise it doesn’t work.”
“Gildhorn will be irate if she gets away,” the woman’s voice gloated.
“Then we had better make sure she doesn’t,” replied a gruff voiced Henry. “You might have been able to feel her up until now, but I tracked her steps. I’ll find her.”
“Yes, you showed us where she stopped by the stream.” The arrogant voice became defensive.
Analindë jerked back. They’d found where she’d stopped? Her mind reeled, doubt caused her shield to slip.
“She’s here, I feel her! Over there, I think. Quickly, Henry, do you see any sign of her?” Defensive no longer, the Human wizard fizzed with excitement so strongly she felt it from where she cowered. “Over there. I think she’s over there.” The hesitant voice came closer.
Analindë grasped at the fraying edges of her shield and the tendrils of Energy that were quickly unraveling and yanked them back into place. Stay. She commanded with an iron will born of desperation. Shocked that she’d been able to hold and re-weave all those strands back together, she sat in awe for a moment before slowly and carefully releasing her grip. The shield stayed in place.
She leaned over against the inside of the tree and panted. She felt hot and sweaty so she fanned her shirt out briefly trying to cool herself down, then wiped the sweat off her forehead with her arm. She was under no illusion that the shield was anything special, just something she’d cobbled together by mistake. She felt fortunate that she’d been able to make any shield at all, let alone have it successfully hide her from the Humans. But it was probably the weakest of the weakest elven shields possible. Which meant she had work to do.
With grim determination she sat forward again and searched for flaws, ignoring the sounds of the Humans which had moved steadily away from her. Fearing that the soft golden sphere would blow away at the slightest breeze or rip apart at the most gentle of touches, she studied how to make it better.
She began by reinforcing her current shield, building on the foundation she’d just discovered and attempting to reason out how the sphere worked. She drew Energy from within herself like she did when strengthening the trees. Only this time she spun it out from herself to make new layers to the shield.
Analindë wove the layers together giving each a purpose, commanding them to stay until she willed them to drop. She didn’t want the shield to accidentally slip again and she hoped the command would keep each layer in place.
She felt clumsy. Her Energy came in strong, irregular spurts and she didn’t quite have enough control to direct it properly. It hadn’t taken her long to realize that the most efficient transfer of power came from the smooth flowing streams she directed from her hands. The sparks were simply strong bits of power, which because of the low transfer rate were basically useless, becoming lost in the ether. She worked hard to eliminate the sparks and was now left with unpredictable pressure surges. She cried out—and turned rigidly still, listening for the Humans—when a particularly large bit of Energy slipped from her fingers and splattered onto the tree beneath her. It soaked into the shield before she could grab it back and give it purpose. Wasted.
In one short half-hour, Analindë had used more Energy than she had in her entire life. She’d been
surprised when she’d stumbled upon the source of her power shortly after her shield had slipped. Despite her mother’s patient and repetitive explanations, she’d never been able to find it. She explored the newly found pooling Energy inside her to see how much was remaining as her mother’s words ran through her head.
“Reach down, deep into your core. If you but look carefully enough you’ll find a coiled bit of Energy that is more powerful than the rest. Once you find it, explore it. Map it out. Anchor it to a spot so you’ll never have to search for it again and it will easily be found thereafter.”
Well, she’d found it. As Analindë had repeatedly pulled Energy from herself, she’d noticed that it kept coming from the same general area in her chest. No, that explanation was too simple. Whenever she’d looked inside herself with magesight before now she’d been met with an infinite amount of space and darkness. Now, when she looked inside she still saw that vast spaciousness, but within it, a pool of power was beginning to take shape. On the outside, the pool would measure about the size of a grain of rice. On the inside with magesight, it seemed large, like a pond. Either way, it hadn’t taken long to realize that she’d found the source of her power. Every time she reached for Energy, it kept coming from that same spot. And after a while she’d noticed that an empty spot had begun to form.
She wondered how long it would take for the empty space to refill. Unfortunately, her mother had never mentioned anything about refilling.
She studied the powerful puddle of Energy with her magesight, which had long since allowed her to see more than just her hands. Relieved to find she still had power left, she settled back to study her shield while she listened to the Humans continue their search nearby.
Analindë (The Chronicles of Lóresse) Page 4