inspection of the void. Maybe void isn’t the most apt term to use but it’s the best he can come up with. In his mind’s eye it appears to be an opening, a rip if you will. The electrical pulses are originating from the other side.
“I think we found where this is coming from,” he tells them. “It looks like a hole, not a hole as you would understand the term. More like a way that is open between this plane and another. It’s through this hole in our plane that the creature has entered.”
“Can we close it somehow?” asks Brother Willim.
“Maybe,” he says, “though it might take some time for me to figure it out.”
Jiron waits there with Brother Willim while James works on the problem. Then a thought comes to him. “Could this be the spot where that explosion happened?” he asks.
“Maybe,” replies James. Could it be? Could I have ripped a hole in this plane of existence? He seriously doubts that. Back home on Earth they have had larger explosions than the one that the others said happened here and no such thing happened. Yet, magic doesn’t work there, nor do gods meddle in the affairs of men.
Brother Willim clears his throat and then says, “There is something one of my brothers told me that may have some bearing on this.”
Turning toward him, James asks, “What?”
“Well, the night before we left to take your friends back to Cardri,” he explains, “a green star fell from the sky. He didn’t think anything of it, stars do fall from the sky at times. But it was the color of it that intrigued him, he had never seen one quite that green.”
“That’s saying something, coming from a priest of Asran as it does,” remarks Jiron.
“Indeed,” agrees Brother Willim. “He told me of it just before we left, said it fell somewhere to the south of the keep.”
“Which is where we are,” concludes James. “There’s more to this than we know.” A star falls from the sky, one that is a color that even a priest of Asran thinks is odd. And it just happens to fall in the vicinity where the magic bubble detonated with dramatic effect? Hardly a coincidence, but what can it mean?
“Think it has anything to do with what’s going on here?” Jiron asks.
“Hard to tell,” replies James. “It does seem just a bit too coincidental to me though.” Closing his eyes again, he once more sends his senses to the void. It could have been possible that he weakened the boundary and the meteorite punched its way through. Realizing he doesn’t know enough about how it came to be, he puts that train of thought aside for now and tries to come up with a way to close or mend the void.
After studying the void for several minutes, he comes to realize that there are a multitude of micro bursts of power directed at the edge of the void. Excited by the discovery, he narrows the scope of his examination to one small section of the void’s edge. Then understanding dawns on him.
Coming out of it, he glances to Jiron and Brother Willim. “The void is working to close itself but the creature is somehow preventing it,” he explains. “I can feel pulses of electricity that it is sending toward the edges of the void which I believe is preventing it from opening.”
“Then if we can somehow interrupt the pulses,” concludes Jiron, “the void will close?”
Nodding, James says, “I think so.”
“How do you plan to bring this about?” asks Brother Willim.
“I’m going to short circuit it!” he exclaims.
“Do you think they’re still alive?” asks Stig.
“Of course they are!” asserts Aleya.
Stig has the good grace to look embarrassed. He had forgotten her feelings for Jiron before he spoke.
After the dome in the grayness had begun to move, it continued along at a steady pace away from them. Gradually it grew smaller in the distance until they could no longer see it. Now, almost an hour later their worry for their comrades is steadily increasing. Surely something should have happened by now!
A rumble in the distance brings them to their feet. From every direction clouds begin moving across the sky toward the area where the dome disappeared. The rumble they heard was that of lightning moving between the converging storms.
“James!” Miko cries out jubilantly.
“Are you sure?” asks Aleya hopefully.
“Absolutely,” he says. “He did the same thing after we fled Cardri.”
As the sun is blotted from the sky by the thickening cloud layer, the wind that had been but a faint breeze all morning long now steadily grows stronger.
Then from their right they see a dozen people walking toward them. “They’re from a nearby village,” Zyrn tells them as the people come closer. Running across the sand, he quickly reaches their side.
“Zyrn?” asks Bokka, a man he’s had dealings with before and a village elder too.
“Bokka!” exclaims Zyrn as he greets him.
Returning the greeting, Bokka looks up at the converging clouds with apprehension. “Something strange is afoot,” he says.
“A mage is here,” Zyrn tells him. Indicating where Miko and the others are waiting, he adds, “Those are his comrades.”
“Is this mage causing the clouds to move across the sky?” another asks.
Nodding, Zyrn says, “Yes. He’s working to destroy the grayness.”
“How?” Bokka asks.
“That I do not know,” replies Zyrn. Pointing off toward the center of the gray area he says, “The mage is out there right now.”
Above the area where he’s pointing is where the clouds are converging. Dark and black, the clouds are now darker than any this area has ever seen.
It’s been a struggle to draw enough moisture to this dry area to form the storm clouds he’s going to require. Beginning to feel the strain of holding the barrier for so long, and now having pulled clouds from miles away, he holds the clouds steady as he removes the water flask from his belt and drains it.
Brother Willim removes his and offers it to him. “I still have plenty if you need more,” he says.
Shaking his head, James says, “Not right now, thanks.” Replacing his now empty water flask back onto his belt, he returns to the matter at hand. He can feel the charged air in the sky above him. When the moment is right, he increases the polarity in an area away from the void to see what effect a lightning strike will have on the grayness before attempting it on the void itself.
He continues to increase the polarity to the opposite of that which is in the clouds. Then all of a sudden…
Flash! Boom!
…lightning strikes the grayness in the exact spot where he had increased the polarity.
James sends his senses out to pay close attention to that area. During the next couple pulses that come through the void, the ones that would ordinarily have passed in close proximity to the impact point of the bolt of lightning, fail to do so.
“Yes!” he exclaims.
“You killed it?” asks Jiron hopefully.
Bringing his senses back, he glances to Jiron and says, “No. But I think I will be able to close the void.”
“Good,” he says as James closes his eyes yet again.
Sending his senses back to the point of impact, he sees that the pulses are once again passing through the area. So it’s only ‘paralyzed’ for a few moments. But a few moments may be all that will be required.
Now, he sends his senses to where the void lies. Picking a spot as dead center to it as possible, he begins increasing the polarity to attract a bolt of lightning.
Flash! Boom!
Lightning strikes the void dead center. However, unlike the earlier strike, this one has less of an effect. It did ‘stun’ the creature for a very brief moment and the void began to close. But then it recovered and pushed the void back to its original size. If he’s going to do this it’s going to take a lot more power.
Coming back to himself, he sits down on the bottom of the barrier and takes several deep breaths to settle himself. The air is beginning to grow stale, but not lethally so as yet. He sees Jiron gazing at him with concern. “I need a breather for a second,” he says. “This is going to take more than I anticipated.”
