Resurgence of Ancient Darkness (36 page)

Today was different. She was wearing a tightly-fitting dress that swayed and moved, accenting her motions as she came up the aisle. Her black fur was neatly combed and glistened like polished obsidian. Her green eyes danced in a sea of gentle tears.

Phoenix, who was decked out in the formal dress armor of the Dragon Guard, escorted her down the aisle. At first he had refused the honor, but she said, “If my baby brother Phoenix won’t give me away, I can’t get married!” Phoenix, for all his clownish ways, was a big softie, and that won him over.

Spectra and Phoenix stood beside me, and we turned to face Shea. Phoenix stood between us as Shea began to speak. She spoke of the creation of the multiverse, and the Light’s plan that men and women would find soulmates with whom they would bond for life. She then said, “Phoenix, please present the candles.”

Phoenix solemnly took two candles from the altar and lit each of them with a flame from his finger. He handed one to each of us and stepped out of the way as Shea said, “These candles represent your individual lives.”

As we took them, the candles changed, and I could see images of my life playing out in mine. Spectra’s changed in the same way, and I could see images from her harsh childhood. The candles seemed to play many scenes at once, at many levels. The things I most wanted to hide seemed to be the ones that were most prominent.

“Each of you brings your entire self into this union; you cannot leave anything out. If you can do that, bring your candles together, and thus also your lives, and join them for all eternity,” said Shea.

I turned and started walking towards Spectra, and she towards me. At that moment I could see the hurt and pain in my candle, and I wanted to keep it from her. I hesitated there, unsure what it would really mean to join the candles. Spectra seemed to have the same concern, but there was something else on her face. Somehow I knew that she desperately wanted me to accept her as she was so that she would not have to hide anymore.

I drank confidence from her deep green eyes and knew that I had to overcome all my doubts, right then and there, or lose her for good. I took one large step towards her, and she tentatively held up her candle to mine. As they touched a brilliant light flashed that should have been blinding, but instead was comforting and warm. When the light faded, the two candles were gone and we were both holding the same single candle which was playing out scenes from both our lives. Shea told me later that only we could see the images on the candles. Everyone else only saw that they appeared to resemble each of us.

I am not sure what the rest of the service was like, as I spent the entire time staring into the eyes of my wife. It was the most glorious feeling I had ever had, and I held that moment for as long as I could. Eventually the service end
ed, and there was a large party afterwards.

Ever since facing the green-hooded sorcerer in the Spirit Realm, Spectra had been teaching me how to use my new powers to travel to and from that realm. She was worried that next time she would not have the strength left to gate us home safely, and I would be stranded there forever.

“Dusty, the most important thing is the binding so that you can return. Any time you travel to a new place, cast the binding. That way you have many options for reentering the physical realm,” she had said repeatedly throughout my training.

Of course the problem was: I had only been on the Shadow Fox and the Nevermore since that time, so I didn’
t have a large number of binding points to work from. This seemed to worry Spectra as we walked down to our final meeting with Shadow before departing to the Spirit Realm.

“If the Nevermore is destroyed with the Shadow Fox docked, you won’t have a binding point
,” she sent.

“
So, assuming that happens, how do I get back
?” I asked.

“
You don’t! You would be trapped there
,” she replied.

“
That can’t be. How did the first magi that made the trip get back? They couldn’t have known about the binding yet
,” I sent.

“
Based on the stories in the books from Korshalemia, they were never seen again!”
she sent.

We were not able to continue the conversation, as we had reached Shadow’s office. “Hello, Master Shadow,” I said as we entered.

“Dusty, Spectra, come in and have a seat,” he said. “Now, are you both sure you are ready?”

“Yes, Master,” said Spectra.

“Once you are over there, we will not be able to keep in touch with you. You will be on your own,” he said.

“Yes, Master, but we will report back in one month. If we have no leads by then, then we should probably investigate some other way to get this information,” said Spectra.

“Can you carry enough supplies for a month?” he asked.

“We do not need to. We can live on things we can find there,” she said.

“Still, it would be prudent to take some supplies, in case a situation arises to prevent you from getting them there,” he said.

“Master, with all due respect, I lived there for several years. We will be fine,” she said with a smile.

“Indeed? You never told me. After all this is over, I would love to hear that story,” he said.

“
Maybe you can tell me while we are wandering around lost among the dead?”
I sent.

“Oh, Master, it is not really worth telling,” she said.

“Regardless, I am very interested. Is there anything I can do for you before you go?” he asked.

“Yes, Master. If we do not make it back for some reason, give everything we own to Shea, please. She will know what to do with it,” I said.

“I will note your request, but you are under strict orders to return alive and well,” he said.

“Master, we plan to do what we can to comply,” I said.

He stood up and said, “I am proud of both of you; you have come so far in such a short period of time. Understand that, while this information is important, it is not as important as you both. If something goes wrong, abort the mission and come back here. Understood?” he said.

“Yes, Master,” we both said.

After some parting words, Spectra and I traveled to our binding point in the Spirit Realm. Once there she sent, “
Follow me,”
and she opened a gate. We came out on the other side of the gate in the trade hub that served Alpha Academy. “
Okay, bind here.
”

“
Sure,”
I sent.

Once that was done we returned to the Spirit Realm, and she opened another gate, this time to Alyeeron Prime. We repeated this half-a-dozen more times and then returned to the Spirit Realm.

“
There, that’s better. You have many ways home now, but I must rest. Gates still take a lot out of me,”
she sent.

“
Where’s a safe place?
” I asked.

“
This way,”
she sent.

We traveled for a long way across the realm. I could not reliably judge time in this strange place so I didn’t know how long it took to reach the safe spot. There was ground of sorts, but I was not sure what it was made of. After a while we came to a place where the ground was a different shade of grey to the surrounding area.

“
Here. This is blessed land. We can rest here so long as we take turns at watch,
” she sent.

“
Okay, you rest. I will watch,
” I sent.

Once she had lain down, I pulled darkness around us. My concealment powers seemed to work just as well here as back home, for which I was very grateful.

As far as I could see in any direction, the bleak landscape just stretched on and on. Spectra told me that once we got out of this region we would find mountains and valleys where there would be ample food and water for us. She figured that the sorcerers would have taken up residence there also, so she did not want to gate right into there. Instead we gated out into this area that she called the plains.

Until then, this would probably be the most boring honeymoon ever.

“
Okay, it’s time to move on,
” sent Spectra as I got up from my turn at rest.

“
How long has it been?”
I asked.

“
Back on the Nevermore? Roughly twelve hours,
” she sent and pointed to the computer that was part of our body armor.

“
How does that relate to here?”
I asked.

“
It doesn’t. Time really has very little meaning for the natives of this realm,”
she sent.

“
It must have some meaning. After all, we rested for some period of time, right?”
I asked.

“
Yeah, but our time measurement is based on the movement of stars, planets, and other objects that do not exist here. So time still flows, but there is nothing to judge it by. Look around. Does it look any different now to any other time we have been here?”
she asked.

“
No, I guess not,
” I sent.

“
Exactly,”
she sent.

I thought about that for a while as we walked. She led us across the featureless plain with her unerring sense of direction. Somehow we both knew what direction we were walking in, although there was nothing to judge it by. She told me it was impossible for Spiritualists like us to get lost here, but I didn’t understand how that could be.

She had to be right, though, since I knew how to find every place we had ever been to in this realm. I knew that many days walking in the opposite direction would take us to the place where we had worked to seal the tear between the physical realm and this one. And far away to my right was the first place I had ever transported myself to here. I could not imagine how it worked; it just did.

“
If we have been here for twelve hours, that means it’s been at least fourteen since we have eaten. So why am I not hungry?
” I asked.

“
Your body needs less food here. We will probably eat our first meal in a few days,”
she sent.

“
But our bodies use food for energy. There’s no way we could have stored that much energy,”
I sent.

“
The only reason to eat here is for the raw materials your body needs, such as vitamins and minerals. Your body gets all the energy it needs directly from the environment,”
she sent.
      

“What if Shea or Master Shadow came with us?
” I asked.

“
Master Shadow, I’m not sure about. Spellweavers are an odd bunch. Shea would need to eat as normal, but she would be under constant attack, so I doubt if she would hang around long enough to get hungry,
” she sent.

“
It still amazes me that they don’t attack us,
” I sent.

“
As Spiritualists, we look like those here. For us it is even a bit deeper than that. We are essentially natives. The only reason I had you cast Night-Wraith form when we first came here was to disguise you. I was never in any danger, at least not until we attacked the tear,
” she sent.

“
Will any of those come looking for vengeance?”
I asked.

“
Maybe, but it’s highly unlikely. The natives here tend to have poor memories for that kind of thing,”
she sent.

According to my armor’s computer we traveled for two more days until the mountain ranges came into sight. It was another day after that before we reached the edge of the forest.

“
Now we eat,”
she sent. She reached up into one of the trees and pulled out some roundish objects that I hadn’t known were there. “
These are some kind of fruit, I think. They could be seeds; all I know is that they taste nice and are very nutritious.
”

“
If you don’t know what they are, how do you know they are nutritious?
” I asked.

“’
Cause they were all I ate for a long time, and I stayed healthy and strong,”
she sent.

I bit into the round thing, and she was right: it tasted pretty good. It was very sweet and had a soft, moist texture like I would expect from a fruit. She showed me how to find them and tell when they were ripe.

“
Why were you here all that time?
” I asked.

“
It was better than suicide,”
she sent.

“
What?
” I exclaimed.

“
Living here, and learning how to survive, took my mind away from the horror that was my life,
” she sent.

As we walked into the forest I remembered her story about how she was abused and homeless for most of her pre-wizard life. I decided that I would not ask about that. “
Why did you decide to return?”
I asked.

“
I don’t know, really. I was happy here, but I felt called to return,
” she sent. “
When I returned I had sufficient magical skill to protect myself, so things were better. Eventually I learned of Alpha Academy, and got married to a goofy fish.”

“
You certainly have mastered the concept of telling the short version,”
I sent with a chuckle.

We walked a bit further and then she sent, “
We’ll have to be more careful here in the woods. I’m not the only one to choose to live here for a while.
”

Somehow I knew that I didn’t want to meet any of her former neighbors. “
How do we search for the sorcerers, then?
” I asked.

“
When someone binds a specific object in the way they did with the tables, it leaves an image of itself here at the binding point. We will have to hunt for its signature. Once we find one, I expect the rest will be nearby,”
she sent.

“
Is that like when I use my magic sense to look for traps and hidden objects?”
I asked
.

“
Yes, exactly like that. In fact, can you look for both? It might shine brighter in one spectrum or the other,”
she replied.

We walked for a while, moving deeper and deeper into the forest; constantly scanning around us not only for a table, but for any residents of the woods who might not take kindly to our presence.

“
In a few days we should reach the foothills, and then a few days more should bring us to a mountain range. It’s the most likely place for them to hide in this area,
” she sent.