Delver Magic I: Sanctum's Breach, Jeff Inlo [buy e reader .txt] 📗

matter. Ryson’s hand remained too quick, matching Ingar move for move. The sword stalemated the beam, and it fed Ingar’s frustration.

The wizard’s own grip on his distorted plans began to unravel. The desire to kill the delver seized his every thought. The pulsating hunger to watch his ray of power burn Ryson’s heart became an obsession. Such was the intensity of his wish, he would have ignored almost anything at that moment, but even this burning craving could not blind him to the awe-inspiring sight to come.

They came without sound. Only the blazing glow of their very existence announced their presence. Dzeb saw them first, then Stephen, and Matthew soon after. High overhead, lights sailed flawlessly through the remnants of the night. Like stars dropping from the sky, they plunged downward to Sanctum’s peak. Ten in number, matching the number that entered the citadel to retrieve the sphere, they set upon the level platform of the summit. They spread themselves in a large circle with Ingar at the center. They lacked any true definition, any true form or characteristic. Unlike Shayed, and even Ingar, whose spirit forms simulated their previous mortal appearance, these apparitions remained anonymous. They appeared only as glowing oblong shapes, but to Dzeb their identity was no mystery, and their appearance gave him the strength to bite through the mystic chain which held his mouth closed.

“Angels!” he murmured with emotion cracking his soft voice.

“Angels of Godson!” Stephen and Matthew repeated.

The spirits made no move, but their appearance broke Ingar’s single-minded attack upon Ryson. The wizard removed his hand from the sphere, and the beam ceased.

Only at that moment did Ryson allow himself the opportunity to gaze at the surrounding spirits. He kept his sword at the ready, in case Ingar renewed his attack, but Ingar now became preoccupied with what he viewed as an invading force.

The wizard turned his seething frustration upon the spirits. “What are you doing here? You have no business here!”

As Ingar raved and threatened, Stephen quietly moved to Ryson’s side. He moved with calm steps as if guided by the will of some great power. His eyes glistened with joyful tears. He could not hold back a wide smile. An expression of pure enlightenment filled not only his face, but his entire being. His words were strong and true, but they held the captivation of an emotional plea.

“This was never beyond Godson’s will,” he said to Ryson with such conviction the delver nearly dropped his guard. “What was to happen here was never meant to be prophesied, was never meant to be understood by elf or human, or anyone else. That is why it was not in the Book of Godson, why it was not a part of elflore. And that is why I saw two visions. This moment was for you and you alone.”

“What are you trying to tell me?” Ryson questioned trying to look beyond Stephen’s enlightened expression and attempting to understand his words.

Stephen spoke quicker as if time had become a crucial factor. “The will of Godson is paved first by the actions of great individuals. That is what waits for you now. The choice is yours to make. The power rests within you to stop Ingar, but the responsibility does not rest solely upon your shoulders. The angels are here to save the land regardless of your decision. You have been the centerpiece through this all, the channel through which Godson has painted his will, but what you do now is within your own hands.”

Suddenly, violently, Ingar turned back upon Ryson as if he had heard the words of the interpreter. He disregarded the shapeless spirits and turned his anger into a crimson ball of fire. He hurled it, not at Ryson, but at Stephen Clarin.

The delver leapt forward, his sword ready to absorb the screaming attack. It cleaved the clump of power in half, but did not stop it. The two halves of red flame sailed harmlessly past Ryson. It reformed to single ball and found its mark at Stephen’s chest.

The interpreter collapsed to the ground upon impact. He neither screamed nor cried. His shirt seared away, his chest boiled with severe burns as scarlet smoke drifted up from the smoldering wound.

Ryson twisted as he regrouped. He had seen the impact, and now smelled the nauseating scent of burning flesh. He did not know how much life could remain within the interpreter, if any. He could only guess as to the staggering pain if Stephen remained at all conscious. He dove to his side only to find him still smiling.

Stephen’s eyes reflected an absence of pain. His entire face retained the bliss of the moment before the attack.

“Do not blame yourself,” Stephen coughed a reply, his face still strangely glowing with peace and fulfillment. “This was meant to be. My responsibilities here, in every way, are finished. I shall leave with them.” He gave a fading glance toward the closest angel before he died.

Ryson grimaced with sorrow. First Mappel, and now Stephen, both gone. The pain tore at him, pulled from him the awareness of where he was, what he was doing. He ground his teeth together. He could not scream, though he wanted to.

“Remember his words. Honor your memory of him and remember his words.” Though Dzeb remained chained and the sphere still within Ingar’s possession, he spoke as if the land had already been saved, the threat removed. His soft, serene voice cut through Ryson’s pain, brought him back to the here and now.

Ryson rose slowly. He stood looking down at the interpreter, not caring for whom or what surrounded him. He broke his stare upon Stephen to glance over at the remains of Mappel. He cast sights upon Tun’s corpse and Lief’s fallen form. His eyes then glanced down the still glowing blade of his sword, and finally at Ingar.

The wizard matched his stare with a sneer. Ingar would not completely forget the angels, he stole a glance at them at quick intervals, but Ryson remained the true point of his attention. He did not raise an immediate hand to smite the delver. Instead, he waited, watching Ryson’s every move, and edging ever closer to the sphere as if grasping for the security of its power.

Ryson’s grip on the sword tightened. He opened himself, not to the weapon, but to the power which used it as a conduit for knowledge. He waited silently, patiently, but most of all unwaveringly. He opened himself up to true faith.

The necessary course of action implanted itself in his thoughts with razor sharp clarity. He now had the power, the knowledge and the will to defeat Ingar and his talisman. He stepped toward the glaring wizard as if he represented no more threat than a yearling rabbit.

Insanity gave way to fear in Ingar’s eyes, fear that drove him to strike. Both hands formed tight fists and he struck them together. A burst of red flame speared out toward Ryson. Crimson flames licked the air, so hot they singed patches of sparse wild grass growing within the rock, but they would not so much as warm a single hair on the delver’s head.

Ryson saw the absolute truth of what he faced. He was not fighting magic, he was fighting Ingar. A spirit, yes, but still the culmination of consciousness, experiences, and emotions of a once mortal human wizard. Even as a ghost, Ingar was limited by his own unique character, by his judgments and the encounters which shaped that character. His own insanity born by his thirst for power blinded him as a mortal and it bound him as a spirit. Even with a near limitless source of power at his command, Ingar could not break the bonds which shaped his own sense of reality. That reality dictated he would attack not as a spirit, but as the mortal human wizard he once was, and no match for the speed and agility of a purebred delver.

Ryson had leapt clear of the flames, expending little effort or energy. He jumped forward, closer to Ingar, and he watched the wizard’s fear grow. He planted his feet firmly upon solid ground and bent his knees for balance. He stood prepared for the next attack which came quickly.

Ingar threw his arms apart, fingers extended. A surge of force exploded from his outstretched hands. Unlike his previous assaults which were limited in scope, this burst of power covered a wide breadth of space. The wizard flung it all around him, in every direction, leaving nowhere to run or hide.

The crackling wave of energy formed a ring which stretched outward. It expanded as it rolled away. As Holli, Jon, and the algors were still struggling to their feet from a previous attack, it bowled them over, sent them rolling to the edges of Sanctum’s flat peak.

As the energy wave bore down upon the surrounding angels, they floated motionlessly in their circle about the wizard. Their faceless forms could give no indication of emotion, but their lack of movement served to reveal their disregard for the assault. It passed harmlessly through them, but they were not its target. The main thrust of its force was directed at the delver, but he defied it as well.

He held the flat of his blade before him, held it vertically in front of his chest and face. He stood perfectly balanced upon the balls of his feet, stood with absolute certainty in his actions.

The ripple of energy hit his sword first. The blade sucked power like a hungry calf. The wave weakened dramatically, diminishing instantly to the strength of a strong wind. Ryson leaned into it as it struck his person. The gust threw dust and debris into the air, it held nearly all his weight as he leaned forward. It ruffled his hair and his clothes, but did little else.

Ryson said nothing. He showed little delight or enthusiasm in overcoming Ingar’s assault. He eyed the wizard carefully, attempting to predict the next attack.

Uncertainty fed Ingar’s fears. He brought incorporeal hands to his ghostly forehead as if to massage temples which truly did not exist. In a fit of fear born despair, he thrust both arms about the sphere. While his immaterial hands could have passed through pure granite, they seemed to take hold of the talisman which radiated with energy. His red form pulsated with power, beating fitfully like the heart of a running horse. The red hue of his spirit deepened to a point he appeared almost solid. A cry of rage spurred by the hope of victory erupted from his core.

His arms remained about the sphere as he called his own final order. “Drop your weapon, delver! Drop it or I shall destroy this mountain top. I will send everyone about us tumbling down its broken slopes in an avalanche of rock and dirt. Drop it now!”

The delver released his hold on the sword with a blur of motion. His arm had cocked back and flew forward before Ingar finished his last word. The sword point sliced through the air, the weapon becoming a flying spear. Such was the speed with which Ryson made his throw, the glowing blade formed a streak like lightning from his hand to the center of the sphere. It skewered the talisman, the sharp point slicing through one side and crashing through the other.

The sphere split open like a cracked egg, falling apart in Ingar’s very arms. A surge of power, composed of every color, exploded into the air, an eruption which matched a hundred volcanoes. The once captured magic rose high in the sky, only to spread out, scattered in every direction as if blown by winds from all points of the compass.

If the wizard made one final cry, it was not heard. He was caught