Delver Magic III: Balance of Fate by Jeff Inlo (best free e reader TXT) 📖

new dimension. It is more of a pocket of space. Baannat carved out this pocket for himself so he could exist between our physical land of Uton and the place where the dark creatures come from. Thus, I am nearly certain he has some kind of connection to the dark creatures. The area seems to be affected by most the physical rules of nature that my egghead scientist friend likes to talk about, but then again, it is not truly a place of physical existence. You will feel as if you are walking on the ground, but you are really standing and walking on magic. The space is something like a magical duplication of an empty room right here, but it is not of the same makeup. That’s the best way I can describe it.”

“This might be difficult for me,” Holli admitted. “While I am trained to adjust to new surroundings, adapting to such an environment will cause me some instinctive problems.”

“Such as?”

“I am trained to search for dangers and threats, places of safety and paths of retreat and exit. I will not be able to find any of these in what you describe.”

“That is true.”

“That is what I will find difficult,” Holli admitted. “I appreciate you being honest with me and preparing me for this before we faced it.”

“I like to help where I can.”

“Thank you. As long as you are willing to be helpful and prepare me for this endeavor, I have a question which I would like to ask.”

“Fire away,” Enin said.

“How did you find this Baannat, and if he created this space, why does he let you enter?”

“That’s two questions, but I’ll be happy to answer them both,” Enin replied almost too lightheartedly for Holli’s liking for a question she felt was extremely significant. “When I began to understand balance, I actually went looking for him. I figured something like him probably existed, and if so, it would be a good idea to find him. Searching for such an entity was actually somewhat easy because of the vast magical energy he possesses. Similar to the ability to see people’s fate, I also have a deep connection to magic. The pocket of space he created was fairly easy to find when I put my mind to looking for it. As to why he lets me come in, I’m really not sure if he could stop me. He never put up a barrier or anything. I just showed up one day and we started talking.”

“So you don’t really know why he lets you in.”

“No, I guess I don’t”

“Well, then that’s not really an answer is it.”

Enin furrowed his brow. “Hmmmmm, I guess it isn’t.”

“Then you really only answered one question after all.”

Enin laughed.

“Yes, you’re right again, but enough of that for now.” Enin said as he turned slightly more serious. “Let’s discuss your spell casting. I want you to actually cast the spell that will bring you to Baannat’s realm. I will go first and you will follow, but you won’t use the wake of my energy to move you this time. Instead, you will focus on my energy to guide you, but you will have to cast the spell to actually take you from this place to Baannat’s. You will be able to use me as a target once I am there. Focus on me and cast a spell that will bring you to my side. The important thing to remember is that this time you’re not really moving through physical space as you know it. Baannat is not living in an area that truly exists in this land. He is somewhat between physical space. You really don’t even have to concentrate on movement through space at all. What you need to do is cast a spell that will transport your presence from here to a spot next to mine.”

Holli stood still and quiet as she tried to get a handle on the aspects of the spell Enin described. After a few moments, she voiced her concerns. “I think I understand what you said, but I’m not sure how I can cast a spell to accomplish the task. In the other transport spell you taught me, the one where I can move myself and others across the land in a very short time, I learned to focus on channeling the magic to a specific area. From there, I would form a straight line in my mind between the two points of where I currently stood and where I wanted to go. When I had the line in my mind, I simply shortened it as much as I could. Basically, in my mind I compacted the space between the two points while still maintaining a concept of travel from one place to another. It worked for me, though it wore me out, took most of my energy.”

“That won’t happen with this spell, at least it shouldn’t take much of your energy at all,” Enin interrupted. “As I said, you’re not going to require the energy to move you across time and space. This is not a spell that will move you as we understand movement. This should be a spell that simply transports you from one spot to another. You are here and then you are there. No movement in between.”

“That’s the problem,” Holli stated firmly. “With this spell you want me to cast, I can see you as the target but I don’t know how to draw the line between where I am and where you will be. I won’t have a true reference point in my mind.”

Enin shook his head and attempted to be clearer in what the elf had to do. “That’s because you’re still trying to force this into a time and space move as opposed to a sheer transportation spell. You do not create a line because there will be no line. You simply go from one point to another disregarding the space between.”

“But if there are two points, then there should be space between them,” Holli argued holding to her own concepts.

“Not when one point is not in the same frame of existence as the other. Think of it this way, pretend you can only draw your line with ink on a piece of paper. That works fine when you want to travel from one spot on the paper to another. You can draw the line with ease. In this case, however, one point is on one piece of paper, but the other point is on an entirely different piece of paper. You can’t draw your line under these circumstances, but the two points still exist. You just have to transport yourself from one piece of paper to the other. Does that help?”

“Slightly,” Holli allowed, but continued to voice her difficulties with the spell. “My problem is that if I don’t draw the line in my head, I honestly don’t know how I get from one point to the other. That’s my sticking point.”

“I see,” Enin allowed as he rubbed his chin. “Well, the truth is this is a difficult spell for you to cast. It is a combination of different magical aspects, and they have little to do with your primary powers. Shadow is prevalent in the spell because you are in essence transporting yourself to a place that is a whisper reflection of this land. Light is involved slightly as an offset to its natural opposite shadow but more importantly in how the yellow aspect is included in the orange aura of energy and movement. The orange power of energy will guide and bring you to me while the gray essence of shadow will let you pass into this other plane of existence. I know that doesn’t sound very clear but that is the essence of the spell. Because you cast with a green aura, it is difficult for you to see the underlying aspects of the gray and orange energy types that are involved in the basics of the spell. Let me see if I can help you with that.”

Enin took a candle off the desk in front of him and lit it. He held up the flame for Holli to see. “We know the flame exists because we can see it and feel the heat from it. Still, I can pass my finger through it as if it were not there. If I take another candle and hold the wick to this one, another flame is born. If I then hold the two candles apart, there are two separate flames. When I bring the candles back together and hold the wicks next to each other, the flames merge into one again.”

Enin walked around the desk toward Holli. “Now, look at your shadow on the ground. It has no substance, no depth whatsoever, but you can see it is there. When I stand here, my shadow is separate from yours. If I walk toward you, my shadow combines with yours and neither of our shadows is the same as it was. When I step away, our shadows return to the outline of our individual shapes.”

Enin stepped back and let Holli examine the change in their shadows on the floor. He then pointed to her shadow. “The source of light that creates your shadow is in front of you, so where is the shadow?”

“Behind me,” Holli answered.

“That is correct, and if I circle you with a candle, the shadow rotates around you. It moves on the floor. Now let us change the conditions of the light. If a candle that was in front of you is immediately extinguished and another light is instantly lit behind you, where would the shadow be?”

“In front of me.”

“Think very clearly on that,” Enin pressed. “The shadow was in front of you and then behind you. It did not move in a path around you to get from one place to the other. Your shadow shifted from one place to another without actually moving through space. Though it did not actually follow a path, or a line, it did change positions. It was here, and then it was there. Do you understand?”

Holli nodded and her expression appeared as if a cloud was slowly lifting from her mind.

Enin continued. “The concepts I tell you should let your mind gain a spark of understanding of energy and shadow. They are certainly complex topics when it comes to magic. What should help you in casting this spell is understanding that just because something has no substance doesn’t mean it can’t exist. Also, the lack of substance allows for shifting motion that is not bound by the same restrictions that objects of solid material face in this existence. So, when I ask you to consider the spell of transporting to my side, you have to think in terms beyond the movement spell you have already learned. You must focus on allowing the magic to do what it is capable of doing and that’s bringing you to me without actually traveling though space and time. Just like a shadow can jump from place to place, you can jump. In this case, the magic will be like the light source. Let the magic worry about the details of how it happens.”

“Are you saying to simply focus on the desired results and not the method?” Holli asked with a new glint in her eyes.

Enin’s eyebrows shot up. “Yes, that’s an excellent way to put it as long as you understand that you have to shape the magic in your mind to do what you want. You can’t simply say ‘Take me to Enin’ and poof you will be by my side. Anyone can do that. The question is can you grasp the concepts of energy and shadow magic in such a way that you can cast