They glanced at each other and said the name at the same time: “Rylith.”
“The last time I saw her was several days ago, at the Standing Stone,” Larajin said. “The gods only know where she is now.”
“The gods aren’t the only ones who will know where she is,” Leifander said. “The other members of the sacred circle will know where she is-or, at least, should be able to get a message to her.”
“Where can we find them?” Larajin asked. “Are they far from here?”
Leifander pointed to the northeast. “The druids-at least one of them, at all times-maintain a constant vigil at Moontouch Oak. It lies in that direction.” Then he added with a chuckle, as if at a private joke, “It’s not far, as the crow flies.”
“How many days on foot?”
His mirth vanished. “At least eight … possibly ten or twelve. The forest is quite thick, and there’s the River Ashaba to ford.”
Larajin winced. “That’s too long,” she said grimly. “By then Tal might be-”
She caught sight of a familiar figure winging its way toward them across the lake. She waved to attract Goldheart’s attention, and the tressym did a graceful loop. Larajin was relieved by the creature’s playful antics. Whatever Gold-heart had been up to, she at least hadn’t gotten feathered by elven arrows.
Goldheart landed on the ridge beside them and rubbed against Larajin’s leg. She filled the air with a loud purring, as if relieved to see that Larajin had survived her brush with the elf archer.
“Easy for you to say, Goldheart,” Larajin chided. “You flew away when things got dangerous. By the time the elf shot that first arrow, I’ll bet you were already halfway to …”
All at once, a thought occurred to her. Maybe it wouldn’t take a tenday, after all, for them to reach Moontouch Oak. Maybe there was a quicker way.
“Leifander,” she asked slowly. “Could you teach me how to skinwalk?”
“Impossible,” he snorted. “It takes months of study and prayer. I fasted and prayed in the treetops for many days before I was able to call the Crow to me. You’d need to do the same to seek out your totem animal. Without it-”
Larajin glanced pointedly at Goldheart. “What if my ‘totem animal’ was already here?”
Slowly, Leifander’s eyebrows raised. He glanced down at the tressym, which looked up at him with luminous yellow eyes.
“She is sacred to my goddess,” Larajin reminded him, kneeling down to stroke Goldheart’s silky fur. She peered up at Leifander. “Will you teach me what to do?”
“I can try,” Leifander conceded at last. He glanced at the first of the crystalline towers, which already was visibly lower in the water. “Your lesson will have to be a quick one.”
“Let’s begin then.”
Leifander gave a resigned sigh. “Start by assuming the same posture as the tress-as your totem. You see? Just as I assume the posture of the crow.” He squatted, holding his arms to the side.
Larajin studied Goldheart, who was sitting with catlike grace on the slippery ledge, her wings neatly folded. Larajin kneeled beside her-aware that her legs were articulated in the wrong direction but trying for the same pose as best she could-and straightened her arms, placing her palms flat on the ice. She hunched her shoulders, imagining wings.
“Close your eyes.”
She did. A moment later, she felt a tickle of fur. Goldheart was twining herself between Larajin’s arms. Larajin allowed herself a smile-whether aware of it or not, Goldheart was helping. A floral scent rose to Larajin’s nostrils, and she felt a warmth at her wrist.
“As you pray, imagine your body shifting,” Leifander continued. “The feathers come, and your body twists, and you feel your bones shift…”
He continued, describing the sensations that preceded skin-walking. Larajin listened avidly, imagining herself becoming a tressym. All the while, the manifestations of the goddesses’ presence grew stronger. Larajin could see the amber glow of her locket, even with her eyes closed.
Leifander switched the course of his instruction. “At the same time that you are imagining your body shifting, you pray. The words of the prayer are … They begin with …”
He paused, and Larajin opened her eyes a crack, to see him shaking his head in frustration.
“It won’t work,” he said. “I can’t put the prayer into words. The common tongue is too coarse.”
“Then speak it in Elvish,” Larajin said, switching to that language as the power of the goddesses swept through her, filling the air with a floral scent as thick as perfume. “Say the words of the spell, and I’ll repeat them.”
Leifander sniffed, and nodded at the bright red glow that enveloped them both. He began his prayer. Larajin echoed him, substituting the salutations and names of the goddesses she worshiped.
As she did, she imagined herself inhabiting the body of a tressym, with whiskers and wings and fur. Something tickled like a shiver down her spine, running swift as water from the nape of her neck to the tip of her … tail? Surprised, she sank-claws? — into the ice. Suddenly dizzy as she shrank to a fraction of her former size, she spread her-wings? — flapping them for balance.
She rose into the air.
As her eyes sprang open, she saw Leifander, still squatting on the ledge, but in crow form. He stared up at her for a moment with glossy black eyes, then let out a hoarse croak of amazement. Startled, Larajin began to think about the wonder of her transformation, instead of just feeling it, and for a moment she forgot how to fly. She tumbled through the air, gasping, but then instinct took over and her wings beat strong and sure.
As she rose to the level of the ledge once more, Goldheart launched herself into the air. The tressym shot past Larajin like an arrow, as if goading her into a chase. Laughing, Larajin obliged. Flying was wonderful, exhilarating-even more amazing than breathing water had been. She chased Gold-heart through the sky, and they tumbled like two kittens, high above the moonlight-dappled surface of the lake. They flew, hard and fast, in a laughing race to the lightning-struck tree at the lake’s edge.
A dark shape shot past them, cawing furiously, then made a sharp turn to the side. Only then did Larajin remember the danger. The elf who had tried to kill her earlier was down there still, somewhere on the shore, and there would probably be others scouring the edges of the lake, looking for her. She doubted they’d recognize her in tressym form, but it was best not to take any chances.
Nodding to show that she understood, she turned in a graceful arc and allowed Leifander to set their course.
CHAPTER 12
Had Leifander been in elf form, he would have wept at what he saw below. The forest looked as if giant slugs had crisscrossed it, leaving meandering trails of slimy destruction in their wake. Wide swaths of the woods lay in blighted ruin, streaked with mud brown and ash gray that stood out clearly against the surrounding green. Inside the blighted areas, sticklike trees leaned at angles or lay broken upon the ground, and what few leaves remained on them were a lifeless, mottled yellow-gray.
Patches of mist drifted here and there, spreading the blight in new directions with each shift of the breeze. It seemed never to dissipate but instead maintained its deadly potency long after the wands had created it.
To the south, thick plumes of smoke rose from the edges of the great forest: the handiwork of Sembia’s soldiers, whose encampments Leifander could see in the distance on the rolling hills of Battledale. They were burning the edges of the wood, trying to either flush the elves out or draw them into battle.
Glancing up at the flat blue sky, he offered a silent prayer to the Leaflord to send rain. The summer sun was hot, the woods below tinder-dry. If the fires spread….
Leifander flew grimly on, every now and then glancing behind him to see how Larajin was faring. To his great surprise she’d mastered skinwalking in a fraction of the time it should have taken-moments, instead of days-and now was indistinguishable from the tressym that seemed to accompany her everywhere.