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s the only way to determine which one is right.”
“Unless all of them are wrong, of course.”
Rhyzkahl’s gaze followed us as we stepped onto the nexus. I gave him a bland look then swept my arm in a broad arc to raise a shimmering privacy veil around the slab. The last thing I needed right now was a nosy neighbor.
Pellini moved beyond the super-shikvihr to his usual position. “Need me to do anything special?”
“Stay close and keep your eyes peeled for weird stuff.” I stepped through the ring of undulating colors to the center of the nexus.
He let out a bark of laughter. “In other words, you’re making it up as you go.”
“I’m deeply offended at the insinuation that I don’t always know precisely what I’m doing.” I grinned as he rolled his eyes. “For your information, I have an actual plan. Now that I know Szerain and company are in the dimensional vicinity of the outreach center, I can use the nexus to do a more meticulous search.”
“Gotcha. Like how, once you know your evidence is in a specific room, it’s feasible to get down on the floor with a magnifying glass.”
“You nailed it.” Time to make the magnifying glass—or rather, a Szerain-finding Dimensional Pocket Detector.
After a brief moment to acclimate to the upward swirling power vortex, I dropped to one knee and pressed my palms against the familiar stone. Beneath them, the silvery inlay of my personal sigils brightened as if welcoming me, and an instant later, raw power engulfed my hands like hot wax.
I commanded more to me, drawing it from the combined reservoir of the nexus, super-shikvihr, and Rhyzkahl. It answered in an electric blue surge of heat and pressure that shoved my hands upward. Tense and focused, I shaped the potency, tamed it until I held a scintillating globe the size of a basketball between my hands. So far, so good. I stood and transferred it fully to my left hand. Now to—
Crimson flashed beyond the edge of the nexus as a whip-thin tentacle of rakkuhr snapped toward the globe. I threw up my free hand to ward it off, but the vile strand wrapped my wrist like a tether ball around a pole. A racking shudder raced up to my shoulder, and I yelped, flapping my hand in the universal gesture of get it off me get it off me get it off me! To my surprise and relief, it uncoiled and withdrew, leaving me gasping in reaction.
“You okay?” Pellini said.
“Yeah.” I gulped. “Got a little distracted, but I’m good.” The potency globe began to hiss and shudder, and I hurried to cradle it between both hands and stabilize it. But my gut clenched as I saw strands of rakkuhr merging and snaking on the grass beyond Rhyzkahl’s orbit. The globe. The rakkuhr was attracted to it. Cold sweat broke out beneath my arms as old terror whispered of hideous pain.
No! I pushed down the irrational fear. There was no sentience or malevolent purpose at work here. The rakkuhr moved mindlessly—one form of energy attracted to another. It was Rhyzkahl’s will and purpose that had delivered agony to me through his rakkuhr-enhanced essence blade. Screw him. I wasn’t going to let the Ghost of Torture Past ruin my work.
“Pellini, can you put a simple shielding veil around the nexus?”
“Sure thing,” he said and did so. “It won’t last long against the rakkuhr, though. It’ll weaken every time the stuff brushes it.”
“It’ll last long enough.” The potency tingled against my palms. I recalled the feel of Szerain and the dimensional pocket, amplified and focused it into the globe. My nexus-boosted senses kicked in to give me a lord’s eye view of the potency flows in the vicinity of the outreach center, and with the resonance of the globe acting as magnifying glass and Szerain-detector, I began a meticulous search of the arcane landscape.
After a few minutes, the globe began to vibrate and buzz like a balloon full of angry wasps. Where the common room would be, potency bubbled up like dry ice in water, creating clouds of luminous fog that hugged the ground and coalesced to feed surrounding flows.
I stared, dumbfounded. Why in blazes hadn’t Pellini or I seen or sensed that when we were there? A second later I gave myself a mental forehead smack. Duh. Same reason I couldn’t see ultraviolet or radiation or x-rays. That potency fountain was in a different “spectrum,” one that my lordy supertastic nexus vision allowed me to see.
Around the potency fountain, rakkuhr oozed and pooled like coruscating ruby syrup. Beautiful in its own way, I thought then gave a mental shudder. Lava could be beautiful, but that didn’t mean I should go swimming in it.
But no resonance match to Szerain or his dimensional pocket. I scrutinized the area to no avail. Three times I conducted a painstaking scan. Nothing. Frustrated, I centered the globe on the focal point of the bubbling potency and stared at the mesmerizing fluctuations. I’d been so sure I could locate him, that this would be the plan that worked. I was getting sick and tired of starting over at square one.
As I stewed in my annoyance, a pattern emerged. Each bubble carried a spark of resonance like a red-ringed speck of crystalline glitter on the surface of distortion.
“I found them!” I shouted in elation. “They’re using the turbulence of a potency spring along with a touch of rakkuhr to mask their location.”
“Great!” Pellini said. “Now what?”
I thought quickly. “I’m betting Szerain and Zack shift things up regularly, like changing the combination on a lock. That’s what I’d do in their place. But it means the feeling I picked up earlier will likely be obsolete soon.” A decision solidified. “I’m going to try to reach them. Maybe even bring them home.”
“Excellent,” he said. “Tell me what to do.”
As if I was unwinding a ball of yarn, I extruded a strand of potency from the globe and passed the end to him. “Hang on tight to this. It may take both of us to pull them through.” I continued to unwind the potency until the globe was no larger than an orange. “Oh, and save my ass if I get in trouble.”
He snorted. “That’s item one in my job description.”
“Har har.” I reassessed the bubbling potency spring then hurled the ball and its trailing potency strand toward it, as if casting a fishing line into the perfect spot beneath an overhang. Once it settled, I’d send a signal down the line.
