"What is it?" the cleric asked. "What has happened?" Yulda could hear the anxiety in the half-orc's voice, but she had no time to revel in it, for the voice in her mind rang louder.
"They dare," she said, shrugging off Durakh's support and forcing her will to clamp down on the inner alarm.
When she had first come to the citadel, Yulda spent tendays preparing arcane defenses in case anyone should try and magically breach the boundaries of her demesne. One of them had just activated.
"The wychlaran are trying to teleport something or someone into the citadel," Yulda continued. "No doubt those damn outsiders."
"Can you prevent them?" Durakh asked.
The witch shook her head. "No," she said then began to smile, "but I can do something even better."
With a quick motion to silence any further questions, Yulda closed her eyes and cast her mind into the complex web of spells she had spun over the citadel. In a moment, she located the tendrils of power that would coil and grow to teleport her enemies within the walls of the keep. Quickly she gathered her power and sent a surge of arcane energy through the webwork of her defenses. It flared and expanded once the energy met the incoming teleport spell, and Yulda felt a satisfying vibration as her magic intertwined with that of the wychlarans', shunting the location of the teleport to a place of her choosing.
Her smile broadened as she thought about the incoming invaders. Yulda opened here eyes. Durakh stood quietly to one side, her head cocked as if listening for the sounds of battle from somewhere within the citadel.
"Do not worry, Durakh," the witch said quietly, "our guests are nowhere within our walls. I've arranged a little detour for them. I doubt that they shall trouble us further."
Though she remained smiling, Yulda focused every ounce of will on stilling the trembling in her limbs. It had been several tendays since she last drew energy from her vremyonni captive, and the teleportation spell drained her severely. She had no wish for her lieutenant to see her so utterly weakened. With a single command, the witch summoned Fleshrender to her side. The telthor obeyed immediately, loping past Durakh with easy strides.
"I must return to my sanctum and replenish my power," she said briskly. "I trust you can hold the fortress until my return."
She did not wait for the cleric's response but instead whispered the words to another spell and faded quickly into the shadows.
Chapter 14
The Year of Wild Magic
(1372 DR)
They hovered like ghosts around the well.
Marissa spotted them first as she stumbled into the clearing, half-supporting, half-dragging Taenaran. White robes billowed and shifted in the still night air, catching and reflecting the dim starlight. Sharp eyes, like diamonds, regarded them from behind the cold, impassive mien of stark white masks. There were five of them, living statues, standing still and terrible around the stone lip of the well.
She gazed upon them with a mixture of fear and wonder. In the short time since she had unleashed the power of the staff, her mind expanded-or perhaps it shrank. The strong, implacable voice that had sung the words of power in her head remained-though it softened once again to an ever-present whisper, a sibilance of wisdom that skewed and altered her perception with each utterance. Marissa felt as if she stood with a foot in two worlds, and her spirit was the portal.
Thus, when one of the figures pointed commandingly for them to approach the well, she did so without hesitation. In the half dream where she walked, the witches were creatures of ice and silence, the very judgment of Rashemen incarnated before her. She could not-no, she would not-deny them.
As Marissa approached the assembled witches, she sketched a reverent bow, careful not to let the still-dazed Taenaran drop to the ground. Borovazk bowed deeply as well then moved to help support the wounded half-elf despite his own injuries. She watched as Roberc approached, still mounted on Cavan, his grizzled face staring intensely at the gathered witches from beneath his gold helm. Selov, she noted with little surprise, merely inclined his head to the othlor, a clear gesture of respect from one's peer.
The othlor drew back from the well and formed a circle around Marissa and her companions. From this distance, she could see that the witches' masks were not identical. Though similar in their stark coloring, each mask held a unique expression frozen on its ivory surface. Some were simple and stolid, while the exaggerated features on others crossed the border into the grotesque.
Silence filled the clearing as Marissa and her friends endured the gaze of the assembled othlor. The druid wondered what the protocol was for speaking to the wisest of the wychlaran. Her instincts told her to follow Selov's lead, but concern for Taenaran rode her like a night hag. She cleared her throat in preparation to speak but stopped as one of the witches, bearing a wide-eyed, wide-mouthed mask set in a permanent leer, stepped forward.
"Who dares summon the wisest of the Wise Ones?" the leering witch shouted without preamble. "Who dares call us from the mastery of our lore like a shepherd whistling for his dog? We are the othlor of the wychlaran, guide and guardians of Rashemen, not servile hedge-witches who run at the beck and call of our masters. Tell us who you might be so that we shall know the names of those whose blood we shed!"
The witch's voice cracked like a whip across the silence of the clearing. Marissa flinched beneath its lash and heard Borovazk groan softly under his breath.
"Be at peace, Najra," Selov said, his soft voice a counterpoint to the angry tones of the witch. "They are friends of the land and come bearing a message of warning to the wychlaran."
The witch brought her hand down in a swift, chopping motion, as if cleaving the innkeeper's words from the air.
"Be silent, Selov," Najra spoke again. "Friends of the land would never summon their betters so rudely-nor could they unless they had help." The leering othlor drew closer to Selov. "Have you broken your sacred trust?" The witch's voice purred with surprising softness, but Marissa could hear the threat lurking beneath its silken surface like a fitfully slumbering bullette.
"I have betrayed nothing, Najra," Selov replied evenly. Though tension hung thick in the air, Marissa could feel none of it coming from the former wizard. "My loyalty is, and always has been, to Rashemen," he continued. "These foreigners bring matters urgent to the survival of our land. Will you not listen to them?"
"Bah," Najra spat out. "What silly glamour have these strangers cast over your sightless eyes? I had thought that your foolishness might come to an end once you destroyed your own powers, but 'a fool in summer is a fool in winter,' as they say. You have been a fool in all seasons, it seems. That one"-she pointed a bony finger in Marissa's direction-"profanes one of the most sacred artifacts of the land with her very touch. She is an ignorant child carrying a woman's burden, yet you follow her like a two-legged familiar eager for its reward."
Marissa bit back the retort that burned hotly behind her pressed lips. She was no child, and Selov certainly didn't deserve the tongue-lashing he was receiving. In the short amount of time that she had known him, the druid had grown very fond of the kindly innkeeper. Every natural instinct within her cried out to defend the former wizard, to shout back at the asp-tongued Najra.
She held her tongue and listened with other senses-for it was clear that something beyond a simple accusation was occurring. Holding the rough wood of the Staff of the Red Tree in her hand, Marissa's mystic perceptions deepened. There, behind a carefully built arcane screen, she felt the presence of a wordless, intimate bond that connected each of these women. Though they stood in silence, still they enjoyed a deep communion of spirit-one that hung just at the edge of her senses. Though the druid knew that she could penetrate the witches' mystic screen and eavesdrop using the power of the staff, she refrained. That, she reasoned, would constitute too much of a violation, and if Najra's stinging barbs were any indication, her use of the staff's power had already violated the witches' self-proclaimed sovereignty.