Delver Magic: Book 05 - Chain of Bargains (22 page)

Unfortunately, his twists and
turns made reaching him even more difficult than she expected. She would never
be able to catch him if she attempted to close in from behind. In order to
contact him, she would have to anticipate his forward path and try to cut him
off.

While Holli followed the chaotic
path of the delver, she knew it was not totally random. His route had not been
direct, but it had not been circular, either. He was trying to escape a certain
point, probably the place of some initial encounter. Examining his direction,
she believed she understood what area he was trying to leave, and to her
fortune, he was moving toward her as opposed to away from her. If not, she
doubted she could have caught him.

Racing across the rooftops, Holli
saw several more bursts of fire. She also continued to sense the movement of
the delver's stone. In that, she found hope, for as long as the stone moved,
she knew Ryson was alive.

Tracking his path, the elf noted
another distinct pattern. The delver was holding to alleys and side streets. He
fought hard to remain within tight corridors. She knew it was a false hope to
escape detection, but she also knew the delver well enough to understand his
tactics. There was, however, one main avenue that Ryson would not be able to
avoid if he maintained his direction. From up high, she could review his most
likely path. Once he stumbled into the wider well-lit street, she believed he
would quickly exit to a lesser traveled path.

Making her best guess, she
positioned herself upon a tall building that overlooked two narrow alleys on
both of its sides. If the delver stayed on his current course, he would break
into the main avenue several blocks ahead of her. It was enough of a buffer for
her to intercept him. Unfortunately, she had to anticipate his movements. If he
turned left, she would have to chase him. That would be disastrous, but if he
moved to his right or advanced directly across the avenue, she could cut him
off.

As the delver dashed onto the main
street and made an immediate left turn, Holli cursed, but she did not hesitate.
She leapt from the building to a neighboring rooftop, then down to the ground.
Once on the streets, she made her own dash. In the back of her mind, she had
already formed a contingency plan and she carried it out as her last hope.

In a second instant, she was
immediately torn between hope and horror. She could sense the delver slowing on
the wide street ahead of her. She believed he worried over the humans nearby.
The pause would allow her additional time to reposition herself, but it would
also place Ryson in grave danger.

As expected, she felt the demon
fire rage through her magical connection to the beacon stone. The night lit up
with another flash of white light, but still the beacon stone moved. Ryson had
escaped the assault, but it had been very close.

She felt yet another blast of
demon fire, but the delver had again dodged the strike. He was moving again,
making a mad dash to save his life.

In analyzing Ryson's movements,
Holli believed she sensed a sudden change in the delver's strategy, and she saw
his ultimate objective. The delver was heading out of Ashlan. She knew it
wouldn't save him, but Ryson couldn't understand that. He was grasping at
hope—a hope that was in itself false—but the path he chose might actually lead
to salvation, if Holli was quick enough.

She could reach him. She knew it.
She could almost map out his exact path. The waves she gained from the beacon
stone confirmed it. She would have to run through busier streets and risk
revealing herself to any patrols, but if she angled her path toward the delver,
she would have her opportunity.

Fortunately, not a single infern,
or even a human guard, blocked her way. Holli made it to the all important
crossroads with only a few moments to spare. Pulling the bow from her shoulder,
she stopped at the center of a side street with three adjoining alleys in front
of her. Ryson would escape through one of them, but she could not be certain
which he would choose. If she yelled, he'd probably hear him, but she had to be
sure.

She took three arrows from her
quiver and fired them in quick succession. They cut through the air in separate
paths, and each plunged into the ground at the center of an alley. Her timing
was early, but that was far safer than too late.

Ryson increased his speed after
the last burst of demon fire. He continued to utilize back alleys, but his path
turned more direct. He didn't have to worry about escaping a trailing infern.
He had to outrun demon fire, and for that, speed was more critical than a twisting
course.

He knew the shortest path to the
outskirts of the city and he raced forward with near abandon. Keeping his
senses alert to everything around him, he saw an arrow's impact into the ground
ahead of him. At first, he wondered if the human guards had entered the chase,
but the path of the arrow defied that reasoning. It had been fired as a marker
to catch his attention.

Holli
.

Placing the trajectory of the
arrow in his mind, he followed it back to its source. Instead of remaining in
the alleys, he bolted to the far end of the narrow path and out into a wider
street. He turned and immediately spied the elf in the center of the road.

Holli wasted no time in issuing
her warning.

"Discard the stone!"

"What?"

"The beacon stone in your
pocket. Get rid of it!"

Ryson didn't have to ask again. He
pulled the rock from his pocket and tossed it aside.

"Get away from it!"
Holli commanded.

Ryson didn't question the second
order. He sped away just as Holli followed him down the street. Before she
reached him, another bright flash scattered the darkness. It burned over the
beacon stone.

Holli guided Ryson toward the
corner of a merchant's shop and directed him to climb to the roof. She followed
quickly as she scanned the surrounding grounds for any signs of guards or
inferns.

Their last known position could
still be traced to the second discarded stone, so Holli pressed Ryson onward
but directed him toward the center of the city. After proceeding several blocks
by leaping across rooftops, she finally asked him to stop. They both took one
quick moment to ensure that no one was in earshot before they spoke.

They stood upon the flat rooftop
of a large storehouse. The surrounding streets remained quiet. They spotted the
familiar glow of a handful of inferns, but the half-demons remained in the
distance and showed no sign of approach.

Ryson quickly caught his breath.
He looked to Holli with appreciation, sensing that she saved his life.

"I was in trouble, wasn't
I?"

Holli nodded.

"What actually happened back
there?" Ryson asked.

"One of the half-demons must
have noticed the beacon stones on you. When you cast away the first stone, it
not only alerted me, it also allowed the inferns to follow you no matter where
you went."

"They were able to sense the
same thing you could?"

"Not exactly the same. It was
my spell and so it called to me differently, but they were able to fix on the
enchantment. They must have seen you discard the first stone and then took hold
of it. When they did, they were able to use it to gain a fix on the stone you
continued to hold."

Ryson shook his head as he
considered everything he knew. Most of Holli's explanation made sense, but he
doubted the following infern saw him discard the first stone. He believed they
found it another way.

"You think otherwise?"
Holli asked.

"Sort of. I believe you that
they found the first stone, but they didn't see me throw it away. One of the
inferns said it searched me. It didn't actually physically touch me, but I
think it was able to probe me. They say they can taste things, but I think it
goes further than that. I think they can sense delvers, the magic that's inside
of us naturally. I have a feeling it matched the magic that's part of me
against the enchanted stones."

"That would make sense,"
Holli agreed. "They might have sensed opposing energies upon you. The
contrast would allow them to define each magical vibration. That would alert
them to the existence of the stones, but they would have still needed one in
hand to send their fire through dimensional space."

"Dimensional space?"

"Yes. They did not need a
direct line of fire. They were linked to the stone and could strike at you from
any where."

The explanation did little to
soothe the delvers concerns. If anything, it raised them. He thought of the
face of the infern that flew after him. The frowning expression turned into
fires of anger and hate, flames the delver could never outrun. He looked about
as he sniffed the air. He wondered if he would smell it again, the unnatural
scent of demon fire. Unconsciously, he began to pace about the roof, not
wanting to remain in one position for too long.

Holli, however, placed her focus
on what to do next and quickly developed a strategy to move forward.

"They will know you were not
burned. They would feel it if they succeeded. Even from great distances, demon
fire would allow them to feed on your flesh. Their hunger will remain
unsatisfied and so they will know you have escaped. They will also determine
that you no longer hold the second stone. Let them think you dropped it by
mistake and that you left town. You will be lost to them unless we are careless
and allow them to get too close."

"Let's hope so," Ryson
blurted out, not wishing to get near another infern again.

"How did they recognize
you?"

"I don't think they did. In fact,
one was pretty insistent on asking for my name, so it didn't know who I
was."

"Why were they after
you?"

"They didn't like me asking
questions. They're also registering delvers. I don't know why. I think they've
been doing it for a while. They knew I wasn't registered."

"What else did you
learn?"

Holli and Ryson shared the
information they had gathered over the past three days. Certain facts proved
consistent. The goblins plagued most of the city. The inferns maintained
control. Some people decided to abandon Ashlan, while many others chose to
stay. Those that remained accepted the circumstances, though most did not look
upon them with high regard. The leaders of the city endorsed the situation,
even strove to stamp out any resistance. Order prevailed throughout Ashlan, but
so too did a tense unease.

Other than the enforcement of
order by the inferns, there was no major conflict within the city borders. In
that regard, Ashlan mimicked the rest of the towns and outlying areas of the Great
Valleys. Peace prevailed. It might
have been a tense peace, but hostilities were muted nonetheless.

Holli reviewed all of the
information, but found few answers. The mystery remained. She could not fathom
why goblins were allowed to enter the city or why control was essentially
handed over to the inferns. The city was not prospering, neither were the
surrounding farmlands. If it had been some grand experiment, it had failed
miserably. What she couldn't understand was why the leaders of the city refused
to come to the same conclusion.

She also wondered what the goblins
hoped to obtain. They were devious creatures and they did not aspire to become
farmers in the fields or merchants in some town. They wished only to create
chaos, to steal what they wanted, and to cause pain and suffering to weaker
creatures. Their muted aggression was as perplexing as the human's withdrawn
consent.

"It is time we start
obtaining answers," Holli announced.

By her definitive tone, Ryson
understood her intentions.

"Prilgrat?"

"Yes. It is late and we shall
seek him at his home." Holli then reached to remove the sheath of the
Sword of Decree from her shoulder. "Here, you should have this back. I am
not looking to cause a conflict with this regional steward, but I am at the end
of my patience. I plan to demand certain explanations and this might not be
pleasant."

Ryson hesitated, and his eyes
revealed something beyond uncertainty. A delver can be led to confusion if
enough opposing enticements attract his curious nature, but hesitancy born from
dread is not a common trait. A delver's natural ability and bounding
inquisitiveness often lead him to taking risks that even a stubborn dwarf would
avoid, yet Ryson looked to Holli with clear reluctance.

"I... uh, could you just keep
it for now?"

"It would be of better use in
your hands, not mine."

"I can appreciate that, but I
want you to hold on to it for a bit longer."

Holli eyed the delver
suspiciously. She attributed Ryson's concern to his passive nature. She was
aware of the delver's reluctance to enter conflict, but their investigation had
reached a tipping point. She was determined to get answers and Ryson's
reservations against hostility would only serve to deter them from their
objective. She could not allow that, and if he planned to remain passive, she
would go alone.

"You won't take your
sword?"

"Not just yet."

"Why?"

Ryson grimaced at the question. He
took a moment as he dug for a reasonable answer. Eventually, he spoke as if
trying to rationalize the decision as a point of minor consequence.

"Like I said before, the
inferns didn't
 
know who I was. That
means I didn't match their description. No sense making it easy for them to
figure out who we are. I think you should continue holding on to it for a
while."

"That will be irrelevant when
we meet with Prilgrat. I intend to reveal our identity to him as I want to know
why he put out the order to have us held."

"I guess that's true, but
there's something else." Ryson remained hesitant to speak, even reluctant
to face the facts himself, but after seeing Holli's expression, he offered a
glimpse of the truth. "It's the inferns. I'm a bit worried about how they
were able to latch onto the beacon stones when one was in my pocket. If they
have some kind of demonic link to me personally, they may know when I come in
contact with an enchanted item."