It responded immediately. New color brightened central fronds and then spread outward and down. Rotted stringers reformed, growing thicker with new life until the entire cascade of vegetation was once more vibrant with Gaea's energy. Against that backdrop of nature, within the twisting strings of moss, Temken looked for Gaea to tell him the name of his adversary. The first stage to understanding a battle, was to name your opponent.
Shadow. Simply shadow.
Temken frowned, having expected more. Nothing could pass through the world without Gaea's knowledge, without leaving behind some kind of imprint-even a noncorporeal force. Unless Gaea, too, suffered a blinding to things not of nature. The thought unsettled Temken who believed Gaea's power absolute. Magic was derived from the living lands of the world. What was Gaea if not the essence of all things living? Bleak despair swam in his thoughts, and Gwenna's words whispered up from the depths of his mind. False promises. Lies.
But not Gaea's lies, the shadow's!
Its intrusive presence could be felt, almost measured in the amount of misery welling within him. Shifting his focus, Temken drew upon the mana already at his disposal to enshroud and protect him. A sublime warmth flooded his veins, giving strength and clarity of thought, driving out the despair and sorrow that for a moment had intruded. Temken cast nature's energy outward, scattering it over the landscape. In his preternatural vision, he saw pieces of the magic attach themselves to that which was living-nurturing and strengthening. The magic also attacked that which opposed it: the disease and decay inherent in the dark side of the bayou, in the plague-ridden insects and swamp rats, and in the life-draining miasma. The shadow.
It hovered there, not ten arms' lengths off his left shoulder. The frosty mist curled up to cloak what would have been the feet and legs on a normal creature. Upward from there ran the blackness. It was not a true shadow, not the absence of direct light. Instead it was evil-foulness and corruption somehow made incarnate here in the bayou. It turned and twisted, as if swatting out the magic attacking it like an insect. It folded in upon itself, at times almost corporeal, at other moments merely an indiscernible piece of night broken off from the rest.
Then it was gone.
His senses charged, Temken caught the wave of surprise and loathing that rolled off the shadow before it flitted away faster than his mortal eyes-elven or not- could follow. But there was more: alarm, the hint of fear at being discovered. How many years had it been since anyone had looked upon it? How many lives had been consumed by this thing of evil? Now it stood exposed, and if it was afraid, then it could be defeated. Temken took heart from its panicked flight.
His courage was ripped from him by the soul-rending scream that shook the bayou.
This time it did not take the shadow's influence to cast a pallor over the elven mage. He had acted too soon, he realized. Weak from the last attack, his defenses only half-ready, he had challenged the shadow and set it loose upon the village of Survivors. It hated, and it was afraid. In nature, no beast was so terrible as when it was cornered.
Another scream came, a solitary call of pain and anguish. Temken heard no answering challenge from the elves, no wails of sorrow or anger. There was merely a despondent silence, interrupted only by the cries of the victims. The elf rose, his jaw clenched and muscles tight. He spat against the foulness of the bayou's corruption.
This was no way to live, domesticated prey to some unnatural force. One way or another, he would find a way to set these Survivors free to rejoin the cycle of life.
Gwenna stood between huts in the open space that fronted the bayou's heart, rooted to the spot in a mixture of fear and black desolation. Sweat beaded on her forehead, and a caustic taste of bile burned at the back of her throat. The muted gray light filtering down through breaks in the overhead canopy dimmed as if from an early sunset. Cook fires burned low and went out, as if doused, when the shadow swept nearer. People, her people, lay in the muck or sprawled, their breath shallow and eyes vacant, as if staring into a void. They screamed only as the chill finally took them. Otherwise they bore their suffering in silence, trying not to draw attention to themselves. The elves retreated deeper within themselves in an effort to escape.
Except for Gwenna. Untouched, she tried to make sense of the situation, but the confusion within her mind argued against any fair effort to understand.
The sickness, the madness, the chill, the shadow; how many times had it swept their small, dying community? It came whenever someone brought forth the idea of moving on, of leaving. It brought madness among them, infecting others, until the bayou claimed its terrible price in a night of terror. Her stomach churned. So many lives, so many of Gaea's children, wasted away to nothing over the decades. How many times? Dozens, certainly, but Gwenna could only remember the first night when she had decided that the bayou's embrace must be endured. Hadn't they learned already? The law was set, and to challenge it brought only misfortune. One did not question the law or take action against it. What was the point? Better to succumb, better that you lived in ignorance. So she had led her enclave.
Another scream tore through her mind, the shriek tapering off to a whimper. No, there was no magic. No song or savior. There was only a hand on her arm.
Temken.
"Where is it?" he asked, voice frantic and insistent.
The shadow's shroud blanketed her mind, distorting the words to barely recognizable sounds. Gwenna felt silent tears slide down her cheeks. "Gone," she answered. "All gone. Destroyed."
His bright, hazel eyes searched the gloom. "I know it's here." His grip on her arm grew tighter and more painful. "I can't hold it in place, can't beat it, without you. Gwenna, where's the Shadow?"
It was there at the edge of her vision, teasing her with a shape she could never quite define. It reeked of the bayou, its stagnant waters and diseased animals, and decay. She shook her head and swallowed. Her throat was raw and tasted of blood. To name it invited punishment. Better to stay quiet and hope the chill would pass her by.
"Well, I know one way of getting its attention." Temken bent forward, splaying his hands out and driving fingers down into the moist earth. Immediately an aura of deep green wrapped itself about his body.
Gwenna remembered he had done this before, when he raised the orchid of jade and lavender from the cursed land. Now he seemed stronger, steeped in the power. This time the aura flared at once and dove down into the earth to raise the orchid instantly. In a blink it grew and flowered. Its petals swayed softly in tune to Gaea's song.
Savior, song… and magic.
Gwenna felt the hold over her slip a fraction as the darkness drew back to build strength and rally. The sweet perfume of the orchid drowned out the bayou's corrupt stench. Its color tinted the land around her-the wonderful green of a bright sun diffused by heavy forest leaves. She tried to flinch away. Better to live in ignorance…
No, the song whispered; better to live.
She turned, reaching out to Temken in support. She froze as the shadow once again revealed to her the darkest of her memories: the loss of Argoth-trees burned, the land razed, her people dying. But she did not see it with the detachment that time offers against all wounds. She remembered it as if it were happening now. She saw it, feeling the guilt of her decisions, her actions, which had cost the Argothians everything they held dear. The guilt locked up every joint in her body. Anguish froze her muscles, and despair blanketed her thoughts. The orchid began to wilt, its beauty fading once again. She didn't want this. She would do anything to be rid of it.