Delver Magic III: Balance of Fate - Jeff Inlo (ready player one ebook .TXT) 📗

stop this!” Ryson demanded. “If you know where he is, you can tell him to send Linda out of there!”

“I don’t believe I could get that message to him,” Holli revealed.

“Try!”

Holli nodded as she closed her eyes. She focused on her link with Enin and made every possible effort to create a line of communication. With every ounce of her consciousness, she tried to force her thoughts through space and time to reach the wizard. Nothing.

“I can not reach him.”

“This is insane! Linda can’t survive this. We have to do something.”

“What can we do? It is not like they are just outside this inn. They are beyond us.”

This one comment leapt out at Ryson and gave him hope. “Are they? Are they beyond us, Holli?”

“What do you mean?”

“You can reach them, can’t you? You can cast a spell that would bring us to Baannat’s realm. You know how to get there.”

“I would be putting you in great danger. This is not like fighting a shag or an army of goblins. This creature is immensely powerful.”

“I can’t just let Linda be in there alone.”

“She is immune to the magic, you are not.”

“I don’t care. I have to be there.”

Holli hesitated for only a moment and then through the line of communication she had tried to forge only moments ago, she got her response from Enin.

Send him! Alone!

#

Keeping his own magical shield intact to fend off Enin’s attack, Baannat garnered the remainder of his energy to focus on Linda. The white circles of power rotated over his head as he whispered words of ancient evil. The white magic turned gray and though it could not touch Linda it began to swirl around her.

Shadows grew in the pale misty fog. They spun in all directions and the twisting spin of gray made Linda even more unsteady in her surroundings. Slowly, the gloomy chaos around her began to take actual shape and form. More color became prevalent as Linda witnessed the insipid haze dissipate into clear horizons. Three very different environments came into focus—one of a barren desert, one of a mountain top, and one of a lush forest. The three scenes continued to sway around her, shifting and changing their location relative to her own position. With each moment that past, the detail of each place grew more vibrant and very soon each came alive with moving nightmares of terror.

In the desert scene that flashed before her, she saw an army of mutated insects swarming toward her. The bright sun highlighted their sickening features as they skittered over gritty, dry rock. The swarm included insects she thought she knew and horrid creatures she could not describe. They flew, they crawled, they leapt, and they slithered forward in a sickening motion of unorganized chaos. Almost immediately, they were upon her, and just as she could actually feel the hot sun baking her skin, she experienced the painful bite of misshapen ants and piercing sting of scorpions. Her flesh felt as if it was going to disintegrate away in this agonizing attack.

Just at nearly every insect had reached her body, the desert scene washed away into the background and she found herself upon the side of the mountain with its peak at the forefront of her vision. The ground was steep and rugged. There were no trees, only rocks of varying size. At the start, all was peaceful and she felt a wave relief from the removal of the insects. Her relief would not last as the peace and tranquility were immediately shattered by a thunderous explosion. The ground beneath her split and it seemed as if her body fell into a wide fissure.

She did not sink below the surface. Linda’s arms, chest and head remained above the ground, but her legs and hips were below the surface and she could not pull herself free. The echo of the blast faded in her ears, but the thunder returned in a rolling, swelling tide that grew louder with each passing moment. She looked up to the peak of the mountain and saw a swirling cloud of brown dust coming right for her.

At first her cheeks were stung by the impact of small pointy rocks and pebbles. The dust seemed to swallow her entire body and she coughed at the taste of dirt and debris in her mouth. Soon the sting on her face turned to much harder collisions of hand-sized stones that bounced down from the mountain and struck her arms and chest. She felt as if she was being beaten to death by a thousand angry fists that struck all about her upper body.

Soon after, she felt pressure increase on her legs and waist. She looked down into the fissure and realized it was filling quickly with dust and dirt. Now, she felt the bottom half of her body being crushed but she could not pull herself free. The rocks and dirt began to accumulate around her middle. The pile of debris continued to rise up her chest. Soon her arms were completely buried just as the top of the mound reached her chin. She tried to scream but could only cough out a cry. The dust began to fill her mouth as she was drowning in dirt.

Once more, the scenes shifted. The mountain faded away into a forest of lush green. Linda’s body fell limp as she felt the pressure of the dirt freed from her body. The overwhelming swing of sensations, however, left her grasping for breath. Terror gripped her mind as she peered into the trees around her and wondered what waited for her here. She would not have to wait long for an answer.

The trees themselves bent down over her. Thick, wooden branches wrapped around her arms and legs and pulled her high into the air. In the blink of an eye, she went from the forest floor to a point well above the surrounding treetops as several tree limbs stretched high into a deep blue sky. She looked down in sheer terror, realizing a fall from the distance would leave her body crushed and broken.

The tree limbs that held her aloft began to swing and sway in an uneven pitch. As the horizon appeared to roll back and forth all about her, Linda began to feel queasy in her stomach. The fact that she had no control over her own motion and that all of this movement occurred apparently high above everything else did little to calm the sickness growing within her. She tried to shut her eyes to the tumultuous scene, but every time she did, she heard the crackling snap of branches below her. Her growing fear of falling forced her to reopen her eyes to ensure the branches that held her remained intact.

Enin continued to press his spell upon Baannat, but he stole a glance toward Linda and realized her mind was under the assault of an illusion. He could see the torture painted on her face as tears streamed down her cheeks. He watched as she opened her mouth over and over again to scream only to clamp her jaw shut before she could make a sound.

“Linda!” Enin shouted out. “What you see is not real! It is an illusion in the space around you. He can’t hurt you physically, but he can alter the appearance of your surroundings. Whatever you think is happening to you is only in your mind. Magic can not touch you, but that doesn’t mean you can’t see it. But whatever surrounds you is only a shadow of a false image.”

Linda could hear Enin’s words, but only barely. The limbs had dropped her and she was falling through the air at tremendous speed. First, she broke through the top branches of the surrounding trees and the leaves and thin branches split and ripped as her body plummeted past them. She then passed into the thicker limbs and these would not bend or break. Her body bounced off of these with heavy thuds. Back and forth, left and right, she tumbled through the thick branches like a ball being swatted by a thousand paddles. Very quickly, she could no longer focus on which direction was up or down. She believed the ground was close and she wondered how long it would take before she met the bone crushing impact and how it would feel.

With that thought and with Enin’s words ringing in her mind, she grabbed on to a substantial realization. Although she believed she could feel the crack of the limbs against her body just as she felt the sting of the insects that attacked her or the impact of the rocks battering her body, it no longer made sense. Had she truly fallen from that height and struck so many tree limbs, she would have already been torn apart and unconscious. Her arms and legs would be broken and paralyzed and yet she could still wave them within this downward fall.

“I haven’t hit anything!” she screamed. “I’m not even falling.”

She shut her eyes again and this time kept them closed despite what she thought she heard. She focused on a spot of inky blackness and let it expand across her mind. She blocked out all other sensations, she even hummed to herself to help drown out the sounds of the illusion. Slowly, the sensation of falling faded away and she found herself rooted in the same suspended position she was in when she was first brought to this place.

“That’s it!” Enin shouted again. “Take hold of your reality. He can not hurt you! Keep telling yourself that.”

At that very moment, Ryson appeared in the same misty paleness of this place. With his first appearance, he found himself overwhelmed with the environment. He could see, but only three figures. Everything else was nothing more than a misty fog. He could hear, but the sounds he was so used to were absent. There were no voices in the background, no insects buzzing or animal calls off in the distance, no rushing sound of the wind or running water of a far away river or stream. He could smell but again the ever present scents of Uton were gone. They were replaced with the unequivocal smell of the magical energy. He could move, but without anything around him to act as a marker, he could not judge how fast he was moving.

The senses of a delver were all much more receptive than a human or even an elf. In this place, Ryson’s senses were completely awash with the extraordinary. Just as Linda had to block out the illusions that assaulted her to regain her sense of reality, Ryson now had to readjust his own senses so that they might cope with the complete strangeness of these surroundings. As he focused on what he could see, he placed all of his attention on Linda and in her he found an anchor for his own consciousness.

“Linda, are you alright?” the delver called out.

Linda heard his voice and at first wondered if it might be another mind attack by Baannat. Still, she could not resist and opened her eyes. The three scenes of shadowy illusion still swayed all about her. She focused all of her energy on brushing these images aside and peering into what was really there.

“Ryson?” Linda replied. “Where are you?”

“I’m over here.”

She focused on the sound of his voice and slowly his body came into view. She felt at first a wave of relief to see him, but then it turned to a shiver of fear as a new scene appeared around the delver. It included monsters and dark creatures beyond her ability to describe and they stalked her love with hateful intentions.

Enin realized at once that the true moment of fate