8

"Miasma," Balock rolled the word off his tongue, "It is an interesting word, and it does seem fitting."

We walked side by side silently for hours before Sekka decided to stop for lunch. My plan was to send Balock to Ethan tonight. I reached out, and gripped Balocks neck. The slight scratch on his neck allowed a sleep toxin to get into his blood. Balock rubbed the back of his neck.

He looked at me with some concern when he saw blood on his fingertip. He was probably a little insulted that I'd cut him. Giving something the size, and appearance of Balock's body was going to be difficult for me. Luckily I'd had time to practice in my inner world while I was sleeping. My muscles were starting to twitch from constantly being drawn tight.

I found it annoying, but there was little I could do about it. Balock slowly started to fall behind as the toxin took effect. I picked him up with ease, and secured him to the back of our second bird. This time I was careful to secure him in a more comfortable position so he wouldn't feel like puking. It was a small, but necessary kindness.

I sped up a little so that we could pick up the pace. It would take us two weeks to get to the next town on this road. The other route was safer, and well traveled, but it also took a full month to get to the next city. Sure I could cross that in a day if I was willing to fly, but I wasn't. Sekka glanced down at me with some concern.

We were starting to wear thin. Sekka seemed to take comfort in the fact that I was also struggling. Although I didn't show it much. I kept on walking at a fast rate. I could handle this pace easily. Something told me that I'd sleep like a baby once I cleared out an area that wasn't well travelled.

I lowered my gaze, and focused my attention on the road in front of me.

"How long has it been since the Wyverns took over the valley in the mountains?" I glanced over to Sekka.

"A few thousand years," Sekka glanced down at me curiously, "If you believe the stories then they took over not long after their creation."

"So they've established a solid foot hold there?" I rubbed the back of my neck, "One that powerful elves couldn't even dislodge. How many are in the flight?"

"The numbers vary," Sekka shrugged, "Two thousand, five thousand. Maybe even more. No one has gotten close enough to their nest to find out since they largely move as a pack. That valley is massive, and they migrate around it following the food. There are even some rumors that they take livestock from outside the valley to add to their food supply. Some of the darker rumors suggest that they even kill, and eat each other to avoid wiping out their food supply."

"So they do possess some rudimentary intelligence," I smirked, "They have a lifespan of about two hundred years, and they are loyal to those that can beat them. It seems that they took after dragons more then the elves intended."

Realizing I said more then I intended I turned to Balock to make sure he was out. He might not connect this form to dragons, but I didn't want to plant the possibility in his mind either. The road was well maintained, but completely empty. That eerie emptiness made Sekka tense. It had the opposite effect on me.

The swamplands were in constant flux, but none of that was from elves or any other intelligent races for that matter. There was the constant bickering of the birds, and the sound of bugs. Neither seemed too much louder then the other so the sounds seemed to mix. My spatial senses were ready to perk up at the slightest disturbance. I frowned to myself as I walked.

I hadn't met anyone who could escape my spatial senses so far. I imagined that there was a way to get past someone's spatial senses. Just like there was a way to block the elements there had to be a way to sneak past them undetected. Space was one of the rarer elements, but it wasn't unheard of on this elven world. There was one elemental affinity that was valued more then all others.

Time. It's potential was largely untouched because no one had managed to fuse with time itself. Being able to predict the future was considered a huge advantage. I didn't like using it that way. The further you looked into the future the more possible paths there was for the future to take.

The harder it became to interpret. I focused on erasing my presence from time. I didn't want to be tracked if there was someone else that could manipulate time on this planet. Looking back through time turned out to be even easier then looking forward. I could easily follow someone's string of fate back to the moment they were born if I wanted to.

Fate was more fluid then people gave it credit for. Your every decision could change your fate. It was almost as if only possibilities of the future existed ahead of us. The past was just an imprint of what had already happened. Now was the only time that truthfully existed.

Maybe I was the only one that could see time that way. I was one of the few that had the time element. I was probably the only one that had managed to max out the affinity. There was very little holding me back from fusing with the element. There was definitely something holding me back from fusing.

What that was would take time for me to figure out. Once I did I would be the first to fuse with the time element. That would put me ahead of all those who had had the element before me. I would be the first to fuse with time, and that meant I would be the first to find out what fusing with time did to a person. I wanted to know what would happen.