231 Chapter 231 Tidings of Evil

Spying Jozef talking to a halfling near the elven portal, she teleported behind him. The halfling saw her and bid the demon good day before scuttling away. Jozef turned to see her behind him and smiled in greeting.

"Aella, it's good to see you," he said, turning to face her fully.

"Jozef, tell me about the altars," growled Aella.

"Altars?" he asked, shaking his head in confusion. "What altars?"

"Don't play games with me, demon," she snapped. "I just destroyed the altar in the dwarven mines. It tried to play mind games with me, and I don't like that. You are the only one who knows about the ancient runic language."

"Oh, Aella, you know that Bridgette probably knows it too," laughed Jozef. "She's really smart. Did you read the runes yourself?"

She glared at him, realizing what he was doing. If she admitted to reading them, he would know she knew the shadow hero. There was so much she had admitted to this guy, and now he was turning out to be the enemy!

"I have to speak with Bridgette still," admitted Aella, skipping over the part about whether she could read the runes or not. "She's been really busy."

"Well, there was that stench throughout the full moon that was affecting everyone," agreed Jozef, scratching his chin.

"You are the only one who could know the runes and be able to build that altar," accused Aella, trying to get the topic back on track.

"Plenty of people could have built that altar," said Jozef, shaking his head. "Just because I know the runes, doesn't mean I have to have been the one to make it. Didn't you destroy an altar in the elven kingdom? I certainly didn���t build that one, too."

Aella stepped back, faltering in her certainty that he had to be the one behind the altars. He was right. He couldn't have built that first altar, and just because she killed the elf behind that first altar, didn't mean that there couldn't have been other elves behind it. Which meant with the elves having lived with the dwarves for so long would have given them plenty of opportunity to build the second altar. There had also been another altar in the dwarven mines before this one, that couldn't have been Jozef's fault either.

"I'm sorry I jumped to conclusions," Aella said after a moment. Still trying to think of what to do. If there were dwarves and elves out there capable of building these altars, then how was she going to know about them in order to stop them?

Aella nodded, and watched as he hurried away, wondering what she should do next.

"How did he know about the altar in the elven lands?" asked Precious.

Aella froze. She hadn't told hardly anyone about that, because things had been so crazy right after. She supposed he could have heard of it from Alfred or Bridgette, but had he?

"Aella, did you say Jozef could go through the portal to the elven lands?" asked an assassin, dropping down beside her.

"What?!" she exclaimed, bristling in anger.

"He was spotted only a moment ago, but no one stopped him because it was known you were speaking to him," explained the assassin.

"No!" she growled, teleporting to the elven side of the portal and looking around.

"A demon just came through!" exclaimed one of the elven guards.

"We went to stop him, to find out why, when he took off flying!" said another, pointing towards the mountains.

Aella turned, but didn't see a form disappearing. He had plenty of time to learn the area and would know how to avoid being seen. Gritting her teeth in anger, she took to the sky, scanning the nooks and crannies for a form, but he was gone. How could she have been so stupid!

"He will turn up again," reassured Precious.

"He spent a lot of time exploring," growled Aella. "He probably knows where every secret entrance to the dwarven mines is, to avoid being seen. I bet he's going to build another altar somewhere in the mountains!"

"The orcs and goblins would give him trouble, wouldn't they?" asked Precious as they drew closer to the mountains.

"Not necessarily," grumbled Aella. "A lot of them would have died during the storms. I never tried to protect them, like I did the other races. They probably won't be nice, if they find him, but I doubt there are enough left to really inconvenience him. He knows how to fight."

"He's had free reign to do so much since you freed him," said Precious thoughtfully. "What other things do you think he could have done in that time?"

"I don't know," Aella said, shaking her head. She was scanning the sides of the mountains, looking for signs he had been through here, but she wasn't having any luck.

"You need to use your other abilities to find him," said Precious, stretching and flying towards a nearby cliff.

Aella turned and followed him, landing and kneeling on the rough stone. A brisk breeze was blowing through here, carrying the scent of something sweet. Closing her eyes, she studied the winds, finding that the scent was the smell of something to the north. The winds were carrying pollen or spores of some plant from the areas she had taken her people from. Reaching down and touching the stone, she could feel that these mountains had felt the bite of many different claws and tools, digging into the rock to make homes and dens. The entire mountain system was riddled with caves and caverns. If Jozef had found an entrance to any of them there was little change Aella would find him.

"I can't search the entire cave system," Aella sighed, sitting down and looking around. "I have to go back to the tree and see if it can find him. Maybe it can help me be able to detect the altars, too."

"He's trying to create a portal to let something come through from a different realm, right?" said Precious, sitting beside her patiently. "What if Bridgette had some kind of magic to summon him to you, and maybe trap him, like his brother was?"

"If I take the time to ask Bridgette, he might get away long enough to built the altar. I think the tree can let me detect the evil from the altars themselves."

"I still think you should stop him before trying to find the altars. They need to amass their power in order to function. He can build a lot of them in the time he's running free."

Aella thought about that for a moment and decided the kitten was right. She needed to listen to the voices of advice that were always whispering in her head.

"Then let's go see Bridgette," she said, scooping Precious up and teleporting away.

"What's up, Aella?" asked Bridgette, with a pin in her mouth as she wrestled a diaper onto her squirming baby.

"I have a demon running around that I need found. He's escaped into a rather extensive cave system, and I can't seem to pinpoint him. Do you know a magical way to summon him to me?"

"Are you talking about Jozef?" asked Bridgette, finally getting the diaper in place and grabbing a tiny pair of pants.

"How did you know?" asked Aella.

"He came to visit me a lot during the storm, asking lots of questions about the ancient runes and how magic worked. I really got uncomfortable every time I saw him, because he always called me Sage and referred to prophecies where I would help him get free from his prison in the palace. I suppose I did help free him, by helping you destroy the castle, but he just seemed odd."

"I think he's been working on making evil altars all over the place, but I'm not sure what for," said Aella.

"You killed his brother when you destroyed the palace, so he couldn't be trying to free him," said Bridgette, picking up her son and heading towards a table where a small basket was resting. Setting the baby down, she handed him a small rattle and then grabbed a book off a stack.

"Actually, the last altar I found was whispering about the dead," Aella said with a frown. "You don't think he might be trying to bring his brother back from the dead, do you?"

"Why would he? I thought he hated his brother," said Bridgette. "But if he was trying to do that, then yes, that sounds about right. If he could amass enough dark magic using the altars, he could raise the dead. It gets very complicated though, because of the way the two realms overlap."

"Wait, they overlap? What do you mean?" asked Aella.

"Well, each realm is actually two realms, that are overlapping. All those that die travel to the other realm. It's horribly complicated because some of the death realms are actually lots of smaller realms that have been pushed together, but would allow those with different beliefs to go to different afterlives," explained Bridgette with a wave of her hand. "The hero of shadow should know all about this, but your dad obviously never taught you about it."