“There’s my home, right through those trees,” Karleah said proudly as they approached. “I built it myself.” Her crooked white teeth gleamed in the dusk. “Follow me.” Without further word, Karleah stepped into the trees, Dayin immediately behind her.
Flinn hesitated, harboring deep misgivings about the wards Karleah must have set around her home. “I can’t leave Dayin in there all alone.” Taking a deep breath, he stepped into the copse. Silence. He could still see the spruces and smell the pines, but all sound ceased. Nothing moved inside the still woods, and the magical blanket of snow had already erased the tracks of the wizardess and the boy.
Flinn continued forward, expecting to see Karleah’s house. Abruptly, darkness fell, black and unnatural. “Now I am deaf and blind,” he whispered, though he couldn’t even hear his own words. “Still smells like a forest, though.” Stretching out his hands, he stumbled through the trees. The branches bit at him with their brittle winter boughs. A twig jabbed his forehead and he cried out in annoyance, but the woods consumed the sound immediately. Panic threatened to rise in him, but he fought the feeling down.
“Karleah? Dayin?” he said, tentatively. This time, the names sounded muffled in the unnatural stillness. He tried calling as loudly as he could, “Karleah? Where are you?”
He thought he heard the old woman’s cackling response, “You are almost there. You’re almost through the wards,” but the words may have come from his own mind. Running his hand through his hair, Flinn pressed forward. How long he walked in that sightless, soundless void, he didn’t know. Only the scent of pine seemed real, tangible, solid. His relief at the sight of light coming from two windows ahead was almost overwhelming.
In a clearing ahead stood a hut, roughly the size of his cabin. A little light still remained in the sky above. The dark spruces that ringed the cabin seemed familiar once again and not darkly magical. The cottage’s walls of rough-hewn rock were topped with a pine-bough-thatched roof. The two windows were covered with thin animal hides that had been oiled and waxed so often they were semi-translucent. The light that emanated from behind the skins was golden. Flinn opened the door, which was made of planks bound together by vines, and stepped inside.
Warmth and light and an indefinable, almost palpable, peace engulfed him. Karleah and Dayin were nowhere to be seen in the opulent room he entered. Tapestries covered the walls, ornate furniture beckoned him to sit, and hundreds of candles cast their glow about the room—all only serving to highlight the loveliest woman Flinn had ever seen. In front of the fireplace sat a maiden, her skin pale and clear, her hair the color of sable fur, her eyes green as spring grass. She was framed by the light of the welcoming fire. At her feet lay a sleeping cat.
The woman stood and smiled, holding out her hands. The gesture was so beguiling in its innocence that Flinn stepped forward and grasped those hands without question. As he gazed into the woman’s eyes of green, he found himself struggling to remember why he was here and whom he was looking for.
The maiden smiled up at him, her gentle beauty shining in the light. “Kiss me,” she said simply.
Flinn almost complied. He leaned toward her, his eyes intent upon her perfect lips. But he stopped; the image of Johauna Menhir rose unbidden in his mind, and with it came the knowledge of what he was seeking.
“I—I cannot, lady,” he said as graciously as he could, releasing her hands. “I lost my way in the woods, and I am looking for an old woman and a young boy. Have you seen them?” Flinn cocked his head suddenly and looked sharply at the maiden before him. “Or are you…?”
Flinn felt, rather than saw, the radiant image before him shimmer. The dazzling candles disappeared one by one until only two remained, one on a suddenly plain wooden table and the other on the equally rough mantle. Gone, too, were the tapestries and furniture, replaced by homely counterparts. The cat became Dayin, who blinked rapidly and said not a word. Last to shimmer away was the beautiful maiden, and in her place stood Karleah Kunzay, in all her wizened glory. The magnificent room became simply a stone hut, cluttered with bottles and cups and canisters. Herbs hung from the rafters, lending an unpleasant smell to the stifling room. A brisk fire burned in the hearth, adding its pungent odor of smoke.
“Karleah Kunzay. As I thought,” Flinn said slowly.
“Yes, it is me,” Karleah said. She gestured toward a bench while she slowly sat in a rocker opposite it. Flinn lowered himself to the seat and drew Dayin to his side. “I sometimes test those I allow to enter my valley,” she explained. “Amusement, you know. It makes the days pass. I keep a tally, too; you’re only the second person to resist that particular illusion. I must be losing my touch.” The old woman winked and tapped Flinn’s knee. “’Course, I might have preferred it if you had failed.” The old wizardess stared at Flinn with avidity. Her eyes, sunk into her flesh, glistened with greed. “Why have you come, Fain Flinn? Are you here to discover the true foretelling?”
Flinn put his hand on Dayin’s shoulder. “The boy here is Dayin Kine. He says he knows you,” Flinn began, ignoring Karleah’s question.
“That is so,” Karleah nodded serenely. “I knew his father, too. What has Dayin’s fate to do with yours?”
Flinn shook his head and said, “Dayin asked to come here—”
“I told Flinn and Jo that you’d take me in,” Dayin said in a breathless rush. “I said you’d want me to come to you instead of anyone else, mostly because there isn’t anyone else. You meant what you said, didn’t you?” The boy’s sky-blue eyes grew wide with fear, and Flinn suddenly remembered how young the child was.
Karleah Kunzay cracked a smile and said, “Yes, Dayin, I meant it when I said you’d make a fine apprentice. I also meant it when I said I’d take you on someday. Since it looks like the day is here, here is where you’ll stay.”
Dayin impulsively hugged the old crone, who looked surprised at the display of affection. “Well,” she said, smiling and pushing the boy away, “that’s enough of that.” One of Karleah’s bent and bony hands patted the boy, and then the wizardess pushed him toward the door. “Go back to your friends for tonight, Dayin. Flinn and I have things to discuss.”
“Will he be ah right?” Flinn asked with concern. “Pshaw!” cackled Karleah. “The boy is safer in my valley than he was in his mother’s womb!” Dayin called good night and left the cabin. Karleah watched him go, then busied herself by putting a log on the fire. In silence she sat back in her rocker and eyed Flinn.
Flinn gazed back at her and said, “It’s good to see you again, Karleah. I wondered how you were faring.”
“Hah!” Karleah chortled. “Had you really been concerned about me, you would have come to see me.” She tapped his knee again, suddenly serious. “Why are you here, Flinn?” She gestured toward the door with her staff. “I appreciate your bringing the boy to me, for I am fond of him. But you could have let him make his way here on his own. He would have found me. You came for another reason.”
Flinn nodded. “Yes. I… need answers.”
“To…?” Karleah queried.
Flinn pulled out his pouch of abelaat stones and spilled the crystals into his hand. “To these—and more.” He looked at the wizardess and then asked calmly, “What do you take in payment?”
The old woman’s eyes were lost in the wrinkles of her face. Flinn grew increasingly uncomfortable in the silence. “The payment is usually in blood, Fain Flinn, for answers like those you seek,” she said slowly. “But from you I want something else. Give me four of the crystals made with Johauna Menhir’s blood.”
Flinn looked at her curiously. “Granted, provided you tell me why you want those stones in particular. And further, how did you know that some of these stones were made with Jo’s blood?” he asked.