Delver Magic I: Sanctum's Breach by Jeff Inlo (read novels website .TXT) 📕

In that, he found another mystery yet to ponder. His sight ended at the tenth step of the fourth section. It was not the diminishing limit of his vision, but a distinct border between what he could see and what he could not. The last step was not a fading image. He saw it clearly, but whatever waited beyond it might have as well been covered in black ink. He could perceive nothing but a void, a void which remained even as they descended deeper, even as the last visible step finally came into the light of his sword.

The delver’s eyes narrowed. The void defied the light. It remained as dark as when they began. It defied his night vision. There was not a single object which he could focus upon, simply nothing; not another step, not a granite platform, not even a loose stone. To his eyes, there was nothing there, nothing but empty space, nothing for the light to reflect upon and nothing for his keen eyes to grasp.

He took his eyes from the emptiness to refocus them, to bring them back to a sense of spatial reality. In his bewilderment, he noted another oddity. While the stone stair case was as visible to him as the cliff behemoth, the space beyond echoed the void. To his left and right, far ahead and far behind, the light of the sword drifted into blackness.

Such should not be. Sanctum, an extinct volcano, took the shape of an inverted cone. Ryson could see its external shape in his mind. The hollowness of Sanctum’s core could not extend beyond the limits of its external crust, yet that is what he saw. Where he calculated the sides to be, there existed only the void. Where he should have seen the sloping edges of Sanctum’s inner walls, he saw emptiness. Only the stairs and the rock surrounding the opening above remained visible. Every other part of Sanctum’s existence was bathed in darkness.

The emptiness dizzied him, left him reaching for rail holds which did not exist. His knees nearly buckled as his keen senses could not break the grip of the void. He was a delver in a vacuum -a man of uncanny senses, but in a place where those senses were now blocked.

He needed something to focus on, something to anchor his senses and avoid sudden panic. He threw his sights to his feet. He stared at each step before him as if their existence meant his life. His nostrils flared. He breathed deeply, inhaling the scent of every one next to him. He smelled the dampness of their clothes and the mud upon their feet. He caught the faint traces of the horses they rode upon still lingering with each rider. He swallowed the air, tasted the bitter bile of his own spit. He listened to those around him, heard at least one shiver; heard them all breathing ever so lightly, as if taking in too much air would bring poison to their lungs. He turned an ear upward. He could hear the rain drops growing louder. Water that dripped through the opening onto the stone steps echoed throughout the cavern.

He took hold of the echo, and with it, he found comprehension. It was as a song to his ears. It rang in his soul like a triumphant symphony. The echo! It provided the answer. The void was immune to light, but not to sound. The simple notes of the rain pierced the void, bounced about to return to his ears, a phenomenon which could not occur without the walls of Sanctum. It proved the existence of the surrounding rock as truly as if he could reach out and touch it.

Again, he sniffed the air with near savagery. He picked up the scent beyond the party. He inhaled the stale air, and long captured dust. He could smell beyond the void, smell the age of captured air.

The answer was clear. The emptiness, the void, it was an illusion. He laughed as he exclaimed as much.

“It’s a trick!” he said with glee.

Tun was in front, near the last visible step when he stopped. He twirled about abruptly as if he realized the delver had just stolen something from him.

“What did you say?!” His tone was as accusing as it was astonished.

Ryson still rejoiced in his revelation and ignored the angry tone of the dwarf. “I said it’s a trick.”

“What are you talking about?” Lief called from the rear.

“I’m talking about the darkness,” the delver called out joyously. “Look at how the step where Tun stands is visible, but the next is not. Look around you, look for the walls of this mountain. You can’t see them.”

All those but Jon and Tun turned about to witness what had previously gone unnoticed. They murmured with curiosity. They looked in awe at the space beyond the very edges of each step. Everything beyond them was consumed in darkness. They could not deny the void any more than they could deny the very stone steps they stood upon.

“There’s something that swallows the light,” Ryson called out to them. “The walls are there, but we can’t see them. That’s the trick I’m talking about. It’s an illusion.”

Tun called out sternly. “Delver! How is it you speak of such things? What is it you know of Sanctum that you have not revealed?” His tone continued to carry more than just a hint of accusation. His hard dwarf eyes bore down upon the delver with demanding expectation.

The question surprised Ryson, ripped him from the joy of his discovery. He answered near defensively. “I’m not hiding anything. You know more than I do about what’s in here.”

“Yet you speak of secrets which you should know nothing about,” Tun pressed.

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about the illusion of the void. How is it you know of the dwarf secret?” The words were louder than the dwarf normally spoke. His anger brought a tone which echoed off the walls.

The reverberation of Tun’s voice was not lost upon Ryson. He used it to explain himself, though he did not understand why such an explanation was necessary. He pointed to the air as he replied. “Do you hear the echo? That’s what gave it away.”

“You speak in riddles,” Tun defied the explanation. “How can sound explain that which is hidden to your eyes?”

“Easy,” Ryson responded confidently, finally shaking off the accusing stare of the dwarf. “I can tell how far the walls are from us by the echo. We should all be able to see them. The echo is the same sound just bouncing back to us. The interior of the mountainside should stand in the light of the sword, but it doesn’t. That means they have to be hidden by an illusion.”

“Is this true?” Stephen Clarin asked of the dwarves. “Is this what the dwarves used to protect the first tier?”

“It is just part of the obstacle,” Tun explained as if insulted. “But I do not like the delver revealing things which he should not know.”

“What would you have him do?” Lief near demanded. He peered downward from his position further up the staircase. He had to arch his neck to get a clear view over Dzeb’s shoulder. He continued with an accusing tone of his own. “Would you have him ignore what he senses? He is a delver. He has explained exactly how he came to his conclusion. Why must you remain as obstinate as the rocks you live under?”

“And why do you think I have to answer to you?” Tun snarled. He glared at the elf as the others stood uneasily between them.

“Hey, now hold on,” Ryson called out to them both. “There’s no need for this. Tun, I’ve told you the truth. I didn’t know anything about what was in here when we entered. All I know is what I see, hear and smell right now. But that was enough to figure out the trick of the darkness. I still don’t know what’s causing it. I just know not to believe it.”

Silence gripped the dwarf. The light of the sword illuminated his doubtful expression. In the quiet, in the hollow of Sanctum, the sound of the rain became more prevalent. Even Tun could hear it now. The faint echoes of dripping water penetrated the musty cavern air. He gritted his teeth as if to brace himself against the abrasive, repetitive sound. He might have stood there for the entire passage of the night had Stephen not spoke up.

“I want you all to listen to me.” His voice was filled with passion as he was careful to cast his plea over all of them and not focus solely upon Tun. He spoke with conviction, with urgency. He spoke with a comprehension of the depth of where they were and what they needed to do. And he spoke with the vibrancy of youth. “Someone should have said this before we entered this place, that someone should have been me. I guess we wanted to get this thing over with as soon as possible. But that’s no excuse. We walked into Sanctum as if we were walking into a market, as if we could put aside the past like it never occurred. But it has occurred and it’s time we deal with it. Before we take another step, we must come to the true understanding of what we must do.”

“We must destroy the sphere,” Dzeb said softly. “It is Godson’s will. We are here to carry out that will.” He spoke as if the answer was so simple, and indeed to him it was. His eyes, however, betrayed the confusion he felt within him when he looked at the others. They did not carry that simple but unyielding understanding. Even Stephen Clarin, a man touched by the very powers of Godson, carried doubts and fears which were plainly evident to the cliff behemoth.

“It is that simple to you my friend.” A small lump in Stephen’s throat forced a pause to swallow. He continued with a glistening tear in his eye. “You possess an understanding that humbles us all. The rest of us, unfortunately, aren’t as strong. We carry with us the scars of the past, the burden of mistrust. We tried to ignore it, hoped we could overlook it, but we really can’t. We have to deal with it here and now.”

The interpreter turned his attention back to every other member of the party. The sternness of his voice matched his expression. “When I was given the human’s portion of the secret, I was told never to reveal it until it became necessary for another to carry. I was told not to trust elf, dwarf, algor, or even delver.” He cast an apologizing glance at Ryson, as if he did not deserve to hear such a thing. “I accept the fact that the rest of you have been told the same, and told never to trust the humans.

“Tun’s reaction is perfectly understandable. His is the first secret to reveal and he feels the most vulnerable. Once we pass this tier, he will be at our mercy, as we our now at his. Is it truly any wonder to any of you that he would become upset at Ryson’s revelation?

“I understand it. I accept it. I do both because I realize we have not joined in a true agreement. Yes, we all agree to destroy the sphere, but we have not agreed to end the mistrust. We have agreed to assault this place as I have