Chapter 26

Every step along the well maintained, paved road took the small group further from the safety of the Temple. Finn struggled to determine if that was a good or bad thing. Safety would not help Elara. Safety would not teach him what he thought he needed to know. But safety was what he craved in this strange land.

The forest he held in wonder during their first journey from the portal stone to the temple was different now. He saw more. He knew the ripples of magic in the world and spied them swirling around bushes and high in the limbs of trees.

Thorne, once more his guide, spotted his gaze. “You’ve learned more of the forest, Finn. Few can spot the creatures that lend their aura to the name of our land.”

“What do you mean?”

“I see you looking where most would see nothing. Up on that limb,” he glanced upward, pointing with his eyes, “is a dryad. Many inhabit our woods, but few are seen by men.”

Finn looked again. He saw the energy swirling around a patch of bark but saw no being.

“I see something, but can’t tell what it is,” he admitted.

Thorne grunted. “Keep practicing. If you see their glamor, it is only a matter of time and practice before you can pierce it.”

Finn considered his words but focused on the road. They were heading down the valley, closing on the edge of the river with its magical flows. He wanted to get closer and see if the tiny particles he felt were really there. He needed to understand. Finn felt that with that understanding, he would take a step closer to mastering the power of this world.

“What will you do if the flow of power simply sinks into the sea?” Sister Eclipse asked as she picked up her pace to fall in alongside him. “Mother tasked us to guide you within our lands. I won’t set foot on the sea for you,” she added.

Finn had not considered that possibility. “Have men sailed the sea? Where does it lead to?”

“Folk in taverns tell tales,” Thorne offered. “Some say the sea ends at a sharp edge, falling away to infinity. Others speak of arriving at the opposite coasts of our land. Many get turned about by storms and return to the coast they departed. It’s as if the gods have yet to decide where our seas lead.”

“We’ll have to cross that bridge when we get to it,” Finn decided. “How far is it to the sea?”

“In good weather, four days,” Thorne said. “We’ll have to see how fast you go on an extended walk,” he added with a smile. “At this pace, it will be four, maybe five days.”

“Perhaps the flow will lead us away from the river before then,” Finn said.

“If you can see the glamour of a dryad, do you know if they are using the power from the river?” Yara asked.

“That’s a good question. If I spot another, we may need to take a pause in our travels to see if I can tell that. If they are using the power, it may be finite and run out, but my feeling is it will not.” He glanced at the priestess. “Can you tell?”

She shook her head. “No. Power from the goddess is different.”

Finn wondered if that was true. Electricity was cousin to magnetism and had been thought to be separate forces in the past. He knew they were aspects of a single force. He suspected the magic of this world might be similar in nature.

“In my world, we know there are only four fundamental forces and that all powers are but variations on those fundamental forces. If there is a fifth such force here, I think it is possible all magic stems from it. That’s why I seek the endpoint of this magical flow.”

“To what end, Master Finn?” Thorne asked.

“For knowledge and understanding. If all magic has common underpinnings, maybe we could craft portal stones or direct them instead of simply using them. Perhaps we could traverse your ocean to arrive at a desired locale, be it in this world or another. Until we know what it is, we can’t know how to harness and use it.”

“That sounds dangerous to me. I’d rather live in harmony with our world than try to master and change it. Seeking mastery over the natural order smacks of seeking power over others. Rangers watch for such behavior in mages and men.”

“Why is it bad?” Finn asked.

Thorne considered him as they walked. Then he nodded. “Rangers tell a tale of a man who learned to cut the ironwood tree. Until he discovered his method, his power, people could only harvest what fell in the forest. Ironwood was highly valued and sought after since it was nearly impervious to fire and rot. When this man learned to cut the trees, he wanted to organize his village to harvest the forest and sell the wood to others.”

“And that was bad?” Finn asked.

Thorne nodded. “His intentions were honorable, to help his village gain wealth and prestige, but his actions harmed the forest. He did not cull the woods of damaged or over-populated stands, he just cut the closest and most convenient trees which were on the steep slope above the town. When storms came, floods washed out the cut areas and sent tons of mud and debris downward to the village. The prosperity he wanted was destroyed by his actions. Rangers spent decades replanting the forest and tending the damage he did. His uncaring actions might have been well intended but caused lasting harm. I fear your thoughts and actions might be the same, Master Finn.”

Elara hesitated at the edge of the stream where it joined another rivulet, making a broader, deeper brook descending from the mountains. Following it would lead her away from the temple, but toward what, she could not say. The rough map in her head was useless after days in the thick forest chasing the fold that took her to the Celestial Realm.

“Finn talked about flows,” she said while looking up the new stream and the small cascade leading downward. “Doesn’t it make sense that a waterfall near the fold to the Celestial Realm would have a lot of power? He talked about entropy, the flow to lower potential. Isn’t that the definition of the Shadow Realm? It should be the opposite of the Celestial.”

Saying it out loud made her decisions more concrete. She turned to follow the bubbling brook as it caromed down the narrow valley. Her stomach rumbled as she made her way through the brush lining the stream.

The forest and her goddess would provide, she hoped. It was late in the season for foraging, but she hoped to find some wild onions and nuts when she reached a lower elevation. If her hunger became too troubling, she would spend a day hunting. Forest life was abundant. Hare and squirrel would provide protein, even if it would be bland with no seasoning. Some wild onions would help a lot. She had seen deer, but did not want to waste so much meat if she hunted one of them. Killing to survive was one thing, killing more than she needed was a different kettle of fish.

Thinking of the need to hunt, Elara began practicing the few offensive magic techniques she knew. She would need them to face Malachi as well. A variation of weaving moonbeams would daze simple creatures, but she doubted it would affect the mage. Her talents did not lend themselves to many attacks. She knew the rudiments of phase shielding, but did not see how a shield from attack could be used to hunt or fight.

Finn had mentioned atoms in one of his discussions. They were among the smallest fragments of matter. Weaving Moonbeams manipulated matter and made it manifest as the caster desired, with the goddesses blessing. Could she manifest some small particles to use in a hunt? Slingshots used small round stones, and she knew some hunters were successful with those. Rather than daze with a flash of light, what if she dazzled him with an actual atomic pebble?

As she navigated lower, she concentrated on imagining such a tiny pebble. First, she created a normal spherical of rock. Atoms, if she understood Finn correctly, were too small to see.

“If it’s too small to see, what good will it be to take down an animal or a man?” She muttered to herself. “Maybe pebbles are good for now.”

She manifested another and then tried to create one flying away from her.

“Crack!”

The sound silenced the normal animal sounds nearby. Elara stopped as well, stunned that the pebble had moved so quickly. She went closer to the large ash tree she had been aiming at. A small, neat hole was present at eye-level.

“That would take a hare or a squirrel,” she said, happy with her efforts. “Now I just need better aim.” She practiced as she traveled, noticing larger pebbles did not seem to pick up as much speed as the smaller ones.

The afternoon sped by, and she soon found herself much lower in the mountains. The brook had been joined by other streams, widened, and slowed. She spotted clusters of cattails growing along the bank and decided to stop, practice her hunting skills, and prepare for night. A drooping pine looked like an inviting site to camp. She set her pack there, then moved slowly into the forest looking for game.

An hour later, she had a small fire going with a single large mountain hare roasting along with several clumps of cattail roots. It was enough to sustain her on her journey.

Danger comes.

She sat back from her fire, looking into the growing shadows of the evening. Her goddess given lunar intuition made her look down stream. She reached out with all her senses.

A lone man was making his way slowly up the valley, following the far side of the stream. He was not in sight yet, but Elara knew he could smell her food cooking. She moved closer to the stand of cattails she had harvested from and changed her clothes to blend into her surroundings.

Her power let her feel the man. He was hungry, of that she was certain. But he was also hungry for more than food. She did not know the particulars but sensed that he had been cast out from his village. Only criminals of the worst sort were banished from home.

Elara sensed his hunger again. He hunted. He wanted something from the forest, something that would gush hot blood. He hoped the person being careless with a fire would provide for his needs.

The man drew closer, focused on the fire near her tree. He would have to cross the brook soon to get closer. If he wanted to announce himself, he would splash across before reaching her hiding spot. If he wanted to approach unheard, he would need to continue higher up the valley, assuming he knew this area.

He moved slowly through the brush on the far bank. Elara sensed that he did know his way along this stream. His focus was on his hunt, anticipating feeding his passion and craving. She knew he was evil.

She wanted to stop him but not kill him. A larger pebble would travel too slowly and might not knock him out. A smaller one, like she had used on the rabbit, might risk his life. She thought about it as she watched him.

Finally, she decided. An atom may suffice. It would be small enough to not kill him outright, she thought. She tried to imagine such a tiny bit of matter, something she could not see or feel by itself.

She concentrated, thinking of a fraction of a grain of sand flying away from her faster than thought, aiming at his barely exposed forehead. Goddess, hear my prayer, she said in her mind and released the spell.

Finn studied his laptop screen, grateful for his limitless power supply and quantum connection to his world. Although the bandwidth was low, it was sufficient for text-based traffic, which was precisely what his code and search queries were. Outside the traveler’s inn, the staccato beat of rain, punctuated by claps of thunder and flashes of lightning, created enough noise to help him concentrate despite the raucous sounds filtering up from the common room a floor below.

After skimming the search-bot’s haul for the past day in this world, spanning over three days on Earth, he crafted a small script to send links of conversations to the online storage site he had created. Additionally, he set up another alert on that anonymous server to notify Amy about new uploads. Although he knew she had accessed the folders, he had to hope she could connect the dots and utilize the information he had gathered. He resisted the temptation to waste his time searching for news about his targets. Doing so would consume too much bandwidth and likely trigger their watchdog programs. He was determined to avoid alerting them.