Sodden grass lay bent and broken across the western edge of the Reach in the wake of the heavy rain still moving southward along the Qurth's border. In the midst of the swamped plain, a solitary figure paused in her travels and gathered the ingredients of traditional magic. The ancient language of the Ghedia, the grass witches of the Shaar, sang in the air. Mud sucked at the Ghedia's bare feet as she circled a pot of boiling water. Floating reeds churned and tumbled on its surface. Her loose clothing rippled in the wind and beaded bracelets dangled from her wrists, clicking like tiny wind chimes as she waved her arms and hummed, working the old magic of the Shaar. As she hummed, she traced a stick through the mud every so often, writing down what she saw in the boiling pot. Her deep voice continued the casting song of her ancestors, but her mood grew grim as understanding dawned on her. Her Ghedia sisters had already moved on, wandering the troubled grasslands of the Reach seeking answers and signs, protecting anything sacred as well as the ancestral ground of the Shaaryans.
Their auguries had become erratic of late, showing danger and threat from every direction but not revealing the source. Lesani slowed her dance and stopped, her long brown hair falling from beneath her hooded cloak, framing the worried expression on her exotic and mature Shaaryan features. The flames of the fire danced in her deep brown eyes as she gazed upon the muddy runes. For years, she and her fellow shamans had ignored the aura of darkness around the Qurth Forest, accustomed to its presence in the background of their seeing spells.
Recently, it had begun to radiate with a strange magic-magic that grew stronger by the moment and moved sluggishly, as if just awakened. Yet all the signs pointed south, to Brookhollow. She narrowed her eyes, pursed her lips, and exhaled a long breath. Scanning the darkness and roiling mist on her left, she deliberated silently. She knew her duty, as all of the Ghedia did, but this would not be an easy decision. The Savrathans had long ago broken ties with the old magic of the Shaar and would not readily accept the assistance of those labeled heretics by the Hidden Circle. If they still lived and had not succumbed to plague or secret foes by now, she thought. Finding a cure for the blush had been a concentrated effort for the Ghedia lately. The runes Lesani had drawn, though, were clear: Plague, War, Twilight, Blood, and the eye-shaped symbol for Prophecy, the closest rune in the Dethek alphabet for Savras, not yet a god when the language was young. Lesani thought of Elisandrya, one of the few hunters still friendly to the shaman sisters and acquainted with their ways. She knelt and grabbed a fistful of grass, twisting the blades together, breaking them in half and rubbing them between her palms, staining her hands green as she squeezed them. The spell of the green-fire sprang to her mind. "If for no one else, then for young Elisandrya." She stamped her foot in the mud, chanting the ancient call of the grass witches. The words of the magic were older than remembered time, lost in the history of the Shaar, older than the Shoon Dynasties, and older than the Calim Desert. Her voice was an echo from an age forgotten, passed down from shaman to shaman in the great oral history of the Shaaryan tribes.
Raising her folded hands to her lips, she blew upon them, igniting them with a flickering green light. She cast the crushed grass into the boiling pot, setting the water aflame. Using a stout stick, she upturned the pot's contents, pouring them onto the fire beneath. The flame sprang to life, whooshing upward in a blazing emerald bonfire.
Lesani stepped back from the heatless flame and began to gather her belongings, the sparse possessions of a nomadic life. The flame would reach beyond darkness and fog, beyond ruins and all obstacles, visible only to her sisters. They would return and they would follow, of this Lesani was sure. Whether they journeyed to war or a funeral, though, she could not say. The green-fire was a symbol of both.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
A world of black mist and undulating fog surrounded Elisandrya, carrying winds that froze her flesh almost to the point of burning.
The realm they traveled not only bore the shadows of the present-Eli glimpsed apparitions of the past, as if lurking in unknown corners.
Her grasp on Quinsareth's hand had quickly evolved into a tight hug around his waist. She could not help feeling that if she lost contact with him she might tumble away forever into the company of half-seen ghosts. She did not look down-it was enough that she felt her feet walking upon a spongy, half-real surface that flew by at ungodly speed. Through squinting eyes, she could make out a tiny patch of darkness that came nearer as they journeyed through the hidden world.
Their eyes had met once during the swift journey, each sensing the inexplicable connection they'd made, perhaps enhanced by the shadowalk. Her quiet prayer to Savras, finished in this shadowy realm, had given them both an insight they could neither control nor deny.
She recognized the connection of consciousness and dream that accompanied her god's brief and sometimes confusing visions. The shadowalk had somehow awakened that spark of faith within her that called for Savras's wisdom and vision. Eli had turned quickly away, feeling exposed and vulnerable, but she connected again as Quin's thoughts and feelings washed over her, a warm wind in the otherwise harsh environment. She could see both halves of him at once in her mind. The celestial light of his heritage was overlaid by the shadow of who he was in the world, the muted gray hues of the ghostwalker.
She could feel ghostly tendrils passing through them both, like connections from one spirit to another. Lost in these thoughts and emotions, she closed her eyes and pressed her face closer to Quinsareth's chest, feeling the warmth on her cheek that hid behind his shadow and old armor.