Chapter 46: Adrift

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As Askauri stepped into the astral plane, intending to move over into the Incata and back to where he'd sensed Monique, he was spun off course. A once familiar pathway had suddenly become an incomprehensible maze.

There was a time dilation that normally occurred between crossings. It took focus and effort to overcome it, to keep from wandering off course, drifting off through the time stream. There were plenty of tales of untrained adepts blundering into the plane states and losing themselves to some far distant past or an unknown future.

Askauri was well aware of these tales and struggled hard to keep himself anchored. He held Bealz tightly, afraid he'd be pulled from his arms and spun out through time.

Askauri knew what was happening. He recognized his mistake immediately. The eruption of energy that centered around Monique had sent brutal, shock waves throughout several layers of space/time that resonated for hundreds of miles around its epicenter. This left Askauri afraid for the implications of an eruption so powerful that it had likely been felt even over in the Incata.

Adept or not, he knew that both world's were witnessing with the same degree of shock and a dawning horror, the unprecedented equivalent of an unchecked nuclear reaction.

Trying to re-orient himself, Askauri tried to center on the Incata but felt it slipping further away. So, risking the effects of the time dilation, he searches for Monique, tries to use her as an anchor to pull him and Bealz back through to Earth.

When he turns towards her, though, his mind is numbed by the intensity of the fires, the purity and resplendence of the light.

It was too much. To look upon her, to cast his eyes upon her glory, was too great a thing, even for one such as Askauri.

He reaches into his son's mind in desperation. Bealz struggles against the intrusion with a surprising strength, but Askauri manages to soothe him and turns him towards his mother.

Bealz's yearning does the rest, he locks on to heart of the fiery storm and pulls them both, like a shot, towards Monique's side.

Now, it is Askauri desperately holding on for his own sake. Bealz's momentum was so great that he threatened to break free from his grasp. If he ripped away from him, Askauri would be left spinning off into the swirling eddies left behind in their passing wake in the time stream.

Askauri was astounded by his son's tremendous power and potential, proudly amazed and terribly afraid of what each portended.