There and Back Again Ch. 142

Before long, Alim whispered "Stop."

I did. "What?" I asked quietly, turning anxiously.

The mage looked jittery, gripping his staff with shaking hands. "Just...do you know how to cleanse?" he asked us.

Looking confused, my husband nodded. "Something wrong?"

"Just...do it. Do a cleanse."

"Won't that hurt you?" I objected.

Alim shook his head at the same time as Alistair responded, "Not a smite. Cleanse doesn't hurt."

Looking from Alim to me, Alistair shrugged, closed his eyes, held his arms out from his body slightly, and clenched his hands. I flinched in anticipation, expecting to feel a pressure wave or my ears pop or...something, but nothing happened. Well, nothing physical, but it took only a moment to realise that the oppressive aura that had been making my heart pound and my hands sweat was suddenly just...gone.

I turned to Alim, eyes wide, and the elf just nodded smugly. "That's better."

"Explain?" I demanded a little too loudly, and Alistair chuckled, shushing me.

"A simple repellant," the mage informed me. "There's a couple of wards overlapping here that cause nervousness. I'm thinking the whole tunnel is lined with them. It keeps unwanted visitors away - lots of apostates use them to discourage nosy neighbours, or so Anders once told me. I imagine this one was meant to disorient and distract us, rather than keep us away - nervous soldiers soiling their breeches don't fight very effectively."

"Nor do they notice concealed doors," Wulf added with a small laugh.

I rubbed my face irritably. "Wish I'd known that the first time." I sighed. "How far does your cleanse extend?" I asked Alistair.

He hummed. "Maybe forty feet, give or take? I can do it again if needed."

"Alright, well...damn, now I've lost count. Anyhow, we must be close. Follow me."

Now far less jumpy, I led the group confidently around another couple of turns when I felt my fingers tingle, and I stopped. "Here." I ran my gloved fingers over the wall, confirming what I remembered of the strange area. I was somehow surprised to see that it didn't even look different than the dirt of the surrounding tunnel; I'd expected, for some reason, that the illusion would be easy to spot in the light.

Alim stepped forward and touched the wall with a frown. "I don't feel anything." He muttered something under his breath, and I sensed his magic flare, but nothing happened.

Alistair touched the wall as well, and then took off his gauntlets and tried again. "It feels...oily." He nodded at me. "Not enough that I'd have noticed it if I wasn't looking for it."

I touched the wall again, screwing up my face against the tingling sensation. "It's a lot worse than oily for me."

Alim scratched at his chin thoughtfully. "Try the cleanse?" he suggested. "It's not a barrier, so I can't do anything about it, but if it's a glyph like the others..."

Alistair closed his eyes again with a nod, and I jumped slightly as I felt the tingling sensation skitter and change where my fingers rested on the wall. "Oooh."

"What? Oooh what?"

"It's...less strong now. Less annoying." I took off my own gauntlets and pressed both hands against the wall.

"A lot less strong? Or only a little?"

"A little. Can you do it again?"

He sighed. "Maybe once or twice. I'll have to try."

"Why don't you do it?" Alim suggested to me. "You've got the higher resistance, right?"

"I don't know how." I flushed, embarrassed to admit it. "We've never managed enough time to train the basic techniques. I know how to do the things I can do really well, but none of the rest."

"What if we work together?" Alistair asked. "Like you showing me how to make shields or hold mana? Maybe if I do it one more time, and we work together, you can learn. It isn't a technique we ever even tried before. It might work."

I shrugged helplessly. "I'll give it a try, if you think I can. It's not like we have much choice - the other alternative is to get killed one at a time as we push through the tunnel. I'd rather not." No pressure!

"Alim, you'd better head back," Alistair recommended. "If we do something wrong...I wouldn't want a mage nearby."

The elf nodded, then took my arcane lamp and trotted back up the tunnel towards Aedan and the others. We waited a few moments for him to be good and far away, and then I turned back to my husband uncertainly. "What if we can't...?"

"We can." He seemed absolutely certain. I was less secure in my abilities, and he sounded somewhat tired already. "Come here."

He held out his arms, and I stepped into them, ignoring our armour as I tried to get as close as I could. He lifted off both of our helmets and pressed a kiss to my forehead, wrapping his arms around me.

Wulf cleared his throat and walked a few feet up the tunnel until he hit a curve; close enough to hear, but giving us a bit of privacy. I keep forgetting people here aren't so used to PDA. Alistair squeezed me slightly to get my attention, obviously predicting my wandering mind.

"It doesn't matter how you hold your arms, your posture, whether your eyes are open or closed. You know that feeling, when you can sense a mage when they're casting?" I nodded. "I want you to concentrate on that sensation, and then try to push it away. Even in the air around us there's a little bit of that feeling. Focus on it, and let me know when you're ready to try."

I pressed my face to his neck, his comforting smell calming me, and then closed my eyes. I cast my feelings out around me, trying to feel what Alistair was talking about; do all things in Thedas have magic? Or is it like the Force, from Star Wars - little sparks that were in us and all around us? I sighed as I realised I was thinking, not feeling, and tried again. I cleared my mind and felt around me, using the by now rusty skills Alistair had tried to teach me back when he'd been training me to be a templar.

Suddenly I felt...something. Being close to Alistair should have been distracting, but I had achieved my inner calm faster like this, and I could sense something all around us, like a low-pitched noise you could only barely sense at the edge of your hearing. Or maybe I'm imagining it because I want this to work. It didn't matter; we needed to try.

I nodded. Alistair, feeling my movement, whispered softly into my hair, "Okay, now push it all away. On the count of three, just push the magic away.

"One, two, three."

I shoved, or at least I tried to. It felt like trying to scoop water with a sieve. Everything I tried to push slipped through the holes, resisting my effort, even as I felt some of it flowing past me, receding away from Alistair like a concussion wave. After a moment, when I concentrated, the area we stood in had less of the sensation, and I could feel the distant tsunami weakening the further it got from us.

"Oh! Oh." I hugged Alistair tightly. "I felt you do it. I did it wrong, though."

I explained the feeling of it slipping through my fingers, and he nodded. "It's like when you swim," he explained, his voice sounding slightly fuzzy - like when he was half asleep in bed at night. "Keep your fingers tightly together. Except these are figurative fingers, inside your mind. Sort of."

I giggled, and he huffed. "You know what I mean."

"Are you okay?" His huffing might have been a mock complaint, but it hadn't escaped my notice that he was actually slightly out of breath.

"Just tired," he assured me. "It's like going for a run after being laid up in bed for a while. I haven't been practicing this lately, and I'm out of shape."

I reached out to touch the door, confirming that the tingling sensation was weaker again. Not gone, but weaker.

"Think we can try again? It seems to work better for me when I'm close to you like this."

"Right, so that's the excuse you're going with?" he teased. "Cuddle-cleansing wasn't a technique I learned in templar training, I'll have you know."

I pinched his earlobe, and he gasped out a laugh. "Don't make fun of me."

"Perish the thought," he chuckled, as he had every time I'd ever accused him of teasing, and I wrinkled my nose at him in mock irritation. He kissed the end of the scrunched-up button, and then pulled me closer again. "Alright, now, concentrate."

I closed my eyes again, and the sensation came back more quickly this time as I cuddled close. "Okay."

"One, two three," he counted again.

I clenched my jaw and my fists, took a deep breath, and pushed.