They rode through the remainder of the night, and the early morning sunlight was filtering through the trees as they reached a huge clearing in the forest. "You may dismount," the peri announced.
Frowning, Ravagin reined in just past the last line of trees and looked around. A perfectly empty clearing, from the looks of it, with not even a stream or hillock to break up the flat-grass matting.
"This is it?" he asked. "Coven? Where is it, underground?"
The peri turned to look at him, and for an instant Ravagin thought he could see surprise in the spirit's eyes. "Only soil and the dead are underground," the peri said. "Coven is here... but not yet for your eyes to perceive."
"Ah," Ravagin nodded. "We have a little blindness spell operating here, do we? Are your masters going to lift it, or do they expect me to find the buildings by walking into them?"
"Why not try lifting it yourself?" a voice came from Ravagin's right.
Ravagin started, spinning to look at the young man gazing up at him from no more than ten meters away. Another spirit, was his immediate guess; but hard on the heels of that thought another possibility hit him: that the man had simply become visible by emerging from an invisible house.
Certainly the figure was no peri—that much was evident from his pockmarked skin and slightly bent nose. "I greet you, sir," Ravagin said, bowing from his seat. "Do you represent the masters of Coven?"
"I am one of many," the other said with a shrug. "And you are...?"
"I'm called Ravagin. Friend and co-worker of a woman named Danae, whom one of your enchanted robes brought here last night."
"Oh?" The man glanced at the silent peri. "I didn't realize we had newcomers. Well. Come with me, then. Your friend will have been taken to the center of Coven; let us go and see just what skills you possess that you have been chosen to join our community."
Ravagin paused halfway through the act of dismounting. "To... join you?"
"Of course. Why else do you think you've been brought here?"
Slowly, Ravagin finished his dismount. It wasn't exactly an unexpected development, but he'd rather hoped the man would at least be a bit more circumspect about it. Such an open and casual admission that he and Danae were prisoners was the sign of a great deal of power. "I don't suppose we get a choice in this?" he asked.
"Not really." The man looked at the peri. "He and the woman were the only ones?"
"I was told another human arrived with this one but left without entering the forest," the spirit replied. "I leave him in your charge, now, and will return." Without waiting for a reply, it turned and glided away, disappearing among the trees.
Ravagin watched him go and then returned his attention to the clearing. "I'm surprised you bother with blindness spells with guards like that peri all around you," he said.
"We like to be careful. Did you want to try lifting the blindness spell yourself?"
For a long moment Ravagin was tempted. He hadn't the faintest idea how to handle a blindness spell, of course... but with the man essentially offering him the chance to get one free spell out without being stopped...
He resisted the temptation. The man couldn't be that naive, and if this was a test of some kind he'd do better in the long run to establish himself as being as harmless as possible. "I don't know much about spells," he said instead. "Just enough to protect us on the road against bandits, really."
"I see. Well, no matter." The man took a deep breath. "Myorlaineoul-meeklorestra!" he shouted.
And with the barest flicker of light the clearing was suddenly no longer empty.
Ravagin clamped down hard on the expletive that tried to come out. Knowing what to expect hadn't entirely prepared him for the gut impact of the blindness spell's removal, but he was damned if he was going to ooh and aah for his captor's amusement. "Impressive," he said instead. "Redundant, as I said, but still impressive."
"We like it," the other shrugged. "This way."
They passed between several rows of buildings—houses, Ravagin decided, for the most part, though there were more than a normal village's share of craft shops intermixed as well. A few people were visible near the center of town, near a larger and more elaborate structure. "Town hall?" he hazarded.
"Or is it a temple?"
"Neither," his guide told him. "Or both, depending on your point of view."
"Ah." Must have learned his conversational technique from peris and demons, Ravagin thought sardonically. None of them can give straight answers, either.
The passersby had all disappeared by the time he and the other man reached the building a few minutes later. Up close, Ravagin decided, the temple part of the design definitely won out. The high and elaborate multi-wood main doors alone put the place beyond the village hall classification, and the matching window frames meant someone had gone to a great deal more effort than was usual in such cases.
Which probably meant that some very high-ranking spirits were routinely being invoked in the place.
Elementals, perhaps? Or even the highest of the spirit hierarchy, a demogorgon? The thought made him shiver.
"Come," the other man said, gesturing toward the doors. "The others will be waiting."
"Right." No one else was in sight near them... but across the way near the far edge of town more of the familiar robes could be seen going about their business. Grimacing, Ravagin squared his shoulders and pulled open the doors.
Chapter 17
It wasn't painful or even particularly uncomfortable, Danae found, to be standing frozen half in and half out of her room. The overwhelming sensation, in fact, during those first few seconds was that of utter humiliation.
Damn it all, she thought viciously, the last remnants of her spirit-induced sleep burning away like fog before hot sunlight. I should have done a protection spell before I opened the door... or had a sprite check things out... or even done a spirit-detection, for God's sake. Damn, but I'm stupid.
Carefully, putting all her strength into it, she managed to turn her head enough to get a clear look at the far end of the hallway. No one was visible; straining her ears, she couldn't hear any sounds of life. Your standard mixed blessing, she thought, anger fading as she realized she might have a second shot at this. If she'd called out a protection spell someone might very well have come running fast enough to intercept her. But now, if she had even a few minutes alone, she might just be able to figure out how to break this spell.
All right, Danae, think. There has to be a way out. What sort of clues have we got as to what this flypaper is?
It wasn't a sleep spell or fractional-possession spell of the type used to bring her here in the first place; of that much she was certain. It didn't seem to involve neural paralysis or synapse interruption, either. She'd had an experience once with an icegun as a little girl, and there was nothing of that sensation in this. On the other hand, there did seem to be a faint haze interfering with her vision. A
haze that reminded her of something...
Aha! She smiled grimly. So that was all it was: a lar, set into a defensive circle barely big enough for her to stand in. Back on her first night on Karyx she'd wondered what would happen if she tried to push her way past a lar; now apparently, she had her answer.
Okay. So now what? She knew the release for a lar, of course, but release spells usually didn't work unless the user had invoked the spirit in the first place.
Or unless whoever had invoked this particular lar had added a manifold-geas to the spell so that others in Coven could also give it orders.
She bit at her lip, running through her mind the three manifold-geas spells she'd been taught.
Unfortunately, only the most general of them gave total strangers like her any control whatsoever, and it was pretty unlikely that Coven would be using anything like that. Still, it couldn't hurt to try the appropriate release. "Harkhonistrasmylikiheen," she muttered. "Carash-melanasta."