"There is little we can do at the moment," Holli advised. "He left of his own accord, but I do not think he holds animosity toward any of us."
"Hopefully, he will come to his senses," Shantree offered.
"He was very skilled in magic, wasn't he?" Jure asked.
"Yes," Birk confirmed with a grim expression. "You could tell?"
Jure nodded.
"He was very focused on the magic," the wizard offered. "I don't think it was interfering with his decision, I think it was the other way around. I think he intended on following the magic."
"Maybe that is why he chose to join with Ansas," Holli acknowledged. "The thought of such power can be intoxicating."
"It's also foolish," Jure noted. He shook his head in disgust.
He believed that it wasn't always possible to save people from their own mistakes, but he didn't like the thought of innocents paying for the errors in judgment of others. What he liked, however, never seemed relevant. There always seemed to be innocents caught in the middle of someone else's schemes or grab for power and glory.
He would talk to Shantree about Scheff during their time together and she would offer him insight into why the elf would make such a choice. They would discuss many of the things relating to the elf camp. It was another opportunity to learn, and Jure didn't waste it.
Chapter 16
After helping to free the elves from the dark realm, Ryson returned immediately to Burbon with the aid of a teleportation spell cast by Jure. Without having to trek through the woods, he found himself just outside the town's borders by the edge of the forest.
Teleportation was a strange sensation for the delver. Ryson normally relied on his instincts and abilities as he traveled, utilizing the thinnest whispers of a trail to overcome the most difficult terrain. Teleportation, however, involved travel based on magical passages, and the experience varied greatly from one spell caster to another.
Enin tried to explain it to the delver on different occasions, told him how the magic could create a dimensional path and how it could condense space between a point of origin and a final destination. The certainty of the path in the spell caster's mind and the strength of his or her magic would affect the sensation of travel.
Enin could cast spells where a single step could take Ryson from one side of Uton to another. Other teleporting experiences felt more like soaring over a compressed landscape, as if he had been shot up into the sky by a catapult only to land softly at some spot far off in the distance.
Jure's magic was very powerful and it seemed as if the delver had been pushed through a blurred tunnel in a single heartbeat. Ryson did not see the treetops of the forest as he traveled, nor did he feel the rush of wind on his face. For but a brief moment, existence swirled around him into curved walls, as if he was in a long tube that connected the elf camp with the boundary of Burbon. Through very little effort of his own, Ryson was out of the woods and crossing the clearing that surrounded his hometown.
Thankful for the immediate return, he rushed through Burbon's southern gate. The sun hung high in the sky but had begun its slow descent into the west. It was early afternoon, and since Linda normally worked evenings at the Borderline Inn, Ryson believed he would find her at their home.
He raced there without delay, without stopping at the guard headquarters. He decided not to seek out Sy and not to offer any information on the elf disappearance or the encounter with Ansas. It wasn't his duty to make such reports. Ryson was no longer authorized to act on behalf of the town. Since Sy had sent out Holli for answers, the guard captain could get the information from her when she and Jure returned to Burbon. Perhaps it was out of spite that Ryson ignored his friend, but it was also out of a desire to see his wife, for he had not left her under the best of circumstances, either.
Usually when Ryson returned from a scout, Linda would greet him with a joyful smile and a welcoming embrace. When he broke through the door, he hoped she would be there and happy to see him, the uneasiness of their previous departing forgotten. He would tell her about his journey and why it was fortunate he had set off to find the elves. She would understand and the distance that had opened between them would be removed.
To his dismay, he was met with only silence. He called to her, but there was no answer. His keen senses revealed the truth, and he knew she was home. He just couldn't understand her uncaring response to his return. He found Linda resting in bed staring at the blank ceiling.
"Are you alright?" Ryson asked, disregarding everything that had happened to him and focusing entirely on his wife.
"So you're back," Linda acknowledged but with no expression of joy at seeing her husband return.
"Yeah, we made out okay, but what about you?"
"What about me?" Linda responded, continuing to avoid Ryson's eyes. She kept her gaze on the ceiling. "I guess I'm just the same as I was when you left. And I'll be this way when you leave again."
The harsh charge stunned the delver. Despite the indifference in both her tone and expression, she made it sound as if Ryson was already planning to abandon her.
"I'm not looking to leave."
"Not this instant, but you will."
"Why are you already worried about that? I just got back."
"Because I can see it," she replied, and her blank expression turned to a slight scowl. She continued to stare at the ceiling, but her eyes narrowed and a small crevice formed between her eyebrows. It certainly wasn't an emotional outburst, but at least the response broke through the previous coldness. "You come back, you leave, you come back, you leave. It's what you do."
Ryson wasn't sure how to respond. In a way, Linda's description was accurate. He did leave her, time and again. He went out on scouts, went out to explore the lands. And he didn't just leave as if going to work for an afternoon. His journeys kept him away from home for many days at a time. He also knew he would leave again, maybe not soon, but eventually, he would. He was a delver. It was what he did, but then again, he always returned home.
"We try not to look at it that way," he finally said. "I don't leave because I'm trying to get away from you. You go off to work at the inn, not just because you have to, but because you like to. It's what you do. Going out to explore is what I do."
"That's true. You go off to find missing elves and I tend bar."
"I don't always find missing elves. Most of the time I don't find anything at all."
"And most of the time I stand behind a bar and pour drinks to strangers."
Ryson wondered if that was a clue to her depressed state, if she had become dissatisfied and saw her life as a monotonous routine. He didn't want that for his wife. He wanted her to enjoy her life, as he enjoyed his. Hoping to share that pleasure, he quickly offered what he saw as a potential solution.
"Do you want to come with me on my scouts? I've offered before."
"I would only slow you down."
"Who cares? We would be together."
"Together doing what you want to do, not what I want to do."
"What is it you want to do?"
"I want to be happy."
To be happy.
It was a revealing statement. To a very real extent, it meant she was unhappy, and that was a revelation that stung the delver. He had believed he belonged with Linda, that in her he found someone willing to accept him as he was, but if she was not happy, that belief quickly became tainted.
Uncertain of what her rather vague response really meant, Ryson proposed the only other solution he could see. He didn't want to give up his life, didn't want to try to be something he wasn't, but he knew Linda was facing something more than just loneliness. He wanted to make her happy. Hoping to demonstrate how far he was willing to go to help her, he offered to fight off every urge he felt as a delver.