The Mists of Sorrow_ Book Seven of the Morcyth Saga - Brian S. Pratt [48]
“What’s going on?” asks Jiron. Gazing in apprehension at the gray, shimmering mass covering the barrier he stands there as a shiver runs through him.
“It’s trying to get in,” replies James.
“Can you hold it?” Jiron asks.
“Oh yes,” he replies. “As odd as it may sound, it’s hardly causing me any problems. It’s almost as if it isn’t even there.”
“How are we to get out of this?” Brother Willim asks. A green glow has sprung up around him after the onslaught of the grayness.
“Not sure to tell you the truth,” admits James. Staring at the solid mass of gray coating the barrier, he wonders just how they will get out of this.
When the gray mass surged over James, Jiron and Brother Willim, Miko came to a screeching halt and abruptly turned around and raced back to the others. The ‘tide’ of gray enveloped the barrier and continued on for another twenty feet before coming to a stop. Then, it began moving backward to the barrier. Ripples continue to form as more of the grayness seems to move toward where James and the others are trapped.
Aleya shoots an arrow at it but it simply embeds itself in the ground and has no effect on the grayness.
“Is one of them a mage of some sort?” asks Zyrn.
After Reilin translates Stig says, “Yes.”
“Thought so,” nods Zyrn. “It reacted the same way when a priest came to try to deal with it.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Shorty yells.
“How was I to know one of you was a mage?” Zyrn replies defensively.
“So how do we get them out?” asks Aleya, fear for Jiron in her eyes.
“I have no idea my dear,” replies Zyrn. “I would have thought they’d be dead by now.” Indeed, the gray covered barrier surprises him. Whoever is within there must be a mage of some power.
“Do you feel that?” asks Brother Willim.
“What?” questions James.
“It feels like sap running through a tree,” he replies.
James sends his senses out again and after several minutes begins to understand what the brother is talking about. Small traces of energy are surging through the grayness covering the barrier.
“What do you make of it?” Brother Willim asks him.
He concentrates on the surges for another minute before turning to Brother Willim and Jiron. “It isn’t magic,” he says. “If it were, I would feel it.” When he first saw the shimmering grayness, he thought that at first it might be a magical construct of some kind. But the familiar tingling that always comes with the workings of magic had been absent. “I think what you are feeling are electrical pulses,” he explains. “Not entirely sure about that but that’s what comes to mind.”
“Electrical?” asks Jiron.
“Yeah,” nods James. “Like lightning but on a much smaller scale.”
Jiron glances to Brother Willim for confirmation but he just shrugs.
Closing his eyes again, James once more sends forth his senses to try to figure this thing out.
The grayness outside the barrier is constant and unchanging. Like a carpet of somewhat transparent gray, it diffuses the light coming through. Jiron gazes at it and a shiver runs through him again.
“The pulses of electricity seem to be originating from one place,” James suddenly says, breaking the silence.
“So?” asks Jiron.
“So…” begins James, “that might be where the source of this is coming from.”
“How far away is it?” Brother Willim asks.
“It’s not close,” he replies. Opening his eyes, he turns to them and says, “Can’t be sure how far it is. Maybe a mile.” He stands there and thinks for a moment, gazing at the bubble surrounding them and the grayness covering it. “Somehow we are going to have to reach the source of the electrical pulses.”
“How are we to do that?” Jiron asks. “Shouldn’t we first worry about how we are going to get out of here?”
Gesturing to the barrier Brother Willim asks, “Can you move this while we walk?”
“You mean push it under the grayness?” he asks. When Brother Willim nods yes, he thinks but a moment before he says, “Yes, I think I can.”
“They’ve been in there a while now,” says Scar.
They have done nothing but