Author's note: sorry for the extremely long delay between chapters! I'm
losing steam….and happy to take ANYbody's suggestions if they have an idea
for how this thing should end! You will definitely get credit as well.
Anyway, welcome back to Lodoss. As usual, I don't own 'em (except for Veris and assorted others), I just am renting with the option to buy.
***New character alert!***
Chapter Twenty: Progression
She stood poised in a shaft of sunlight, eyes closed, caught in a rare, effortless stillness between thought and action. She had inhaled deeply the lush green smell of the wood and held the breath within her as though it were precious. The stink of the city was finally out of her nose and she could feel the steady hum of the living energy all around her, just below her range of hearing, tingling across her skin and reverberating through her bones.
By Sylph, it was good to be back, she thought fiercely, unwilling to relinquish the sweet breath she had taken.
"Deedolito." The Elder's voice. Unwillingly, she let go of the breath in a long, silent sigh and opened her eyes slowly.
"Arlac." She bowed deeply and formally, because this was one of the First, and he had lived a long, long time.
Elves did not change much because time did not erode their youth as it did with the quickblooded races, Men and the lesser races of Orcs and monsters. Arlac was the same now as he was when Deedo was still new. The pale, delicate skin of his face, stretched thin across his jaw, throat and cheekbones, held no wrinkles nor even the finest of lines. He wore his dark hair close cropped save for the two long elflocks braided at his ears, the ends of which curled gently past his shoulders, and there was no hint of grey there. There was nothing to mark the passage of time across his visage, although the very stillness of his eyebrows, the steadiness of his eyes and thin mouth, gave the gravity of age to the otherwise youthful face. The eyes, Deedo thought to herself, revealed it the most. His eyes were a startling deep blue-indigo, and held facets of the ages in their depths. However, they were opaque and shuttered; he could see out, but none could see in. There was a great tranquility in those eyes, an icy calm that seemed to find nothing under the sun surprising or disturbing, as if such emotions no longer moved him.
There were not many of First left. Deedo knew only of a handful, and many of them had nothing to do with the world outside the wood. Yet Arlac had not joined his kindred by retiring but remained Elder to the Sylvan Elves and mage without comparison.
"Welcome home, Deedo," he said. His voice was deep and measured, resonant.
"Thank you, my lord," she replied. "It is good to be back." Her relief to be out of Alania and back in the wood again must have colored her words, for Arlac's lips curled into an indulgent half-smile.
"Human cities are works of quickblooded genius, but they do have a certain…odor," he said with some sympathy, and Deedo could not help but smile. She did not add that Alania stunk, although she wanted to.
"Yes," she said merely.
"Walk with me," Arlac invited, and she moved to pace beside him slowly under the cool shade of the old trees.
"So tell me what goes on in the wider world?" he asked her. Deedo smiled. She knew he had many sources to keep him informed as to what happened beyond the wood, and she was one of them. Unlike most Elves who seemed to shun humans unless there was profit in the contact, Arlac was genuinely interested in them. She knew that he, like herself, realized that there was much to be gained in friendship, and much to be lost in enmity.
Yet she quickly became serious again, for there was serious news to impart.
"My lord," she said, "the demon sword has awoken again. The conqueror sword hums with energy, and the demon sword thirsts for battle. When I left, I could hear it even through the walls."
Arlac nodded slowly.
"Yes," he said. "The Grey Witch is on the move again, I fear." Deedo felt an old thrill of anxiety go through her at the mention of the name. The Grey Witch… She was perhaps one of the most dangerous forces to contend with in all of Lodoss, simply because she was so unpredictable.
"The Grey Witch…" Deedo murmured, frowning.
"Yes. And with her rides the Black Knight, Ashuram." Deedo blinked at Arlac, caught by complete surprise, to find him gazing back at her calmly. She bit off her first impulse to tell the Elder that there was no possible way Ashuram could still live, and said instead,
"Elder, I saw him die. Under the cursed island." Arlac smiled thinly, but not with humor.
"Apparently, this human is made of sterner stuff than most. Also, the Grey Witch revived him to suit her own purposes. I have little doubt that she means to try for the sword."
"Parn," Deedo said under her breath before even thinking. She saw Arlac's gaze flicker sideways at her, but he tactfully avoided saying a word.
"With them is some personage I have little knowledge of," Arlac continued, looking into the distance as though he could see them in front of his eyes. "Some half-elven healer. The Witch now wears her body, which is especially dangerous, for a half-elven body will have powers a human one does not."
"Another healer," Deedo said, thinking of Leylia. What was Karla's attraction to Healers?
"However, this may also be an advantage," Arlac mused, as if he were speaking his thoughts aloud. "For elves, by our very natures, can resist the possessive magic the Witch practices, and half-elves have some of the same innate ability. The Witch may soon find herself once more bodiless, despite her great power."
Deedo shuddered involuntarily. The practice of using other bodies as hosts was horrific.
"Why does the Witch want the sword?" she murmured, not expecting an answer.
"To keep the struggle between the swords alive," Arlac replied, pursing his lips. "She is obsessed with the balance between good and evil, and the only way she knows to keep them in balance is to keep them perpetually at conflict. There is no salvation but through war. She believes peace can only mean stagnation and that only war can allow Lodoss to grow." Here he paused and shook his head. "A very limited view of both human and Elven ability. She is too old now to think beyond her own biases."
He paused again, and then said very slowly,
"I am shamed to call her Elven, and more so to name her one of the First. She does our kind no honor." *
Deedo pressed her lips together and nodded grimly. The Witch was no tribute to the Elven race.
"What must I do, Elder?" Deedo asked, suddenly feeling an urgent need to move, to do something against the approach of the menace the Witch brought.
Arlac smiled again, a slight bend of the lips that did not reach his ancient eyes.
"Much," he said. "I'll ask you to go back to Alania again soon. Be my eyes in that city. I will give you a message to give to the human mage Slayn, and it must come to his hands and no other." Deedo nodded, puzzled at what connection Arlac could have with Slayn, but it was none of her business.
"Besides," Arlac said, and this time the amusement in his smile reached his eyes, "I think there is one in Alania who misses you more than he has ever missed anything before, and it will go badly with him if you do not return soon."
Deedo tried hard, with questionable success, to keep from blushing. Yet Arlac offered no comment on her choice of lovers, passed no judgment on her. For that she was grateful. Instead, he said seriously,
"Deedo, look out for the human knight. He is still very young in the world, and there is much he is still so ignorant of. Yet his is the conqueror's sword, and therefore he has a part to play against the Witch and the Black Knight. He will need you when the time comes again to confront Ashuram."
Deedo nodded.
"I understand, my lord." She replied. Parn. She suddenly missed him with a fierce pang that startled her. She doubted if he knew the import of what was happening all around him now, doubted he had understood why the humming of the conqueror's sword had so distracted her of late. She would need to explain.
"The Lady be with you both," Arlac murmured, his eyes dark with knowledge of the future and hints of what was to come.
* * * * *
It was cold.
The air was sharp with chill, and snow floated down in a slow, constant drift. Ashuram walked with the woolen coat he had bought wrapped tight around him, glad of its bulk, wishing fervently for gloves and boots that were made for winter. He had wrapped one of the blankets around him like a scarf beneath the coat, which held at bay the icy, creeping fingers of the wind down the back of his neck, but still he could not remember a winter ever having been as cold as it was there on Rimmer's pass.
He could well believe the Witch now that someone had brought the winter back to slow them, for the cold was unnatural and ineluctable.
The mare walked through the thin carpet of snow with her head down, not sparing any energy in belligerence. Her breaths came in great gusts of steam at either side of her head through nostrils red-rimmed and flared against the cold. Her ears were back stubbornly, and her pace was deliberate. On her back was the Witch, with her head down beneath the hood of her cloak. She had wrapped a blanket around her shoulders and scarcely seemed to move.
The wind was still gentle, but held the threat of becoming icy gusts. Already the scant trees beside the trail shook brittle leaves in the strengthening wind.
It was nearly evening. They had been walking for two days, and the trail had been gradually growing steeper and steeper. Beneath the wind he could hear the distant roar of the Grimmrflod as it growled down the mountain in the sudden unseasonal winter overflow. The trail had begun close to the river, but had curved away to follow the mountain line; now the trail once more was curving back to meet the river. He was curious to see what the unnatural weather had made of the river. The Grimmrflod was always a monstrous stretch of water, but with the snowmelt he had no doubts it was swollen past its normal size. That would make any passage across it more than treacherous, and twice as expensive.
The Witch had made no comments about the weather to explain what was causing it. In fact, she had said nary a word since they had left the small tavern on the other side of the entrance to the pass. She seemed deep in concentration with something far away, which suited him. The more distracted she was, the better his opportunity for revenge.
When it began to grow too dark to see, they stopped for the evening in a little copse of trees close to the trail. They faced a long, cold night without much in the way of shelter, and the thought of sleeping on the cold ground was not appealing in the least. He took the sword the blacksmith had given him so long ago in Vesper, and went to cut firewood.
He found a few fallen pieces of wood sheltered from the snow, but all the rest of it was wet; when he tried to light a fire, it smoked and sputtered and stunk, and would not catch. Determined, he tried again and again, growing frustrated. The kindling caught and flared and burnt out before the wet wood could even steam.
"Igneo," the Witch pronounced a sharp, clear-edged word, and beneath his hands the wood caught fire with a controlled imploding sound, and began to burn warmly. He jumped back to avoid getting singed, darting her a dark and deadly look, but she had withdrawn within the shadows of her cloak and returned to silence.
Sure the fire wasn't going to go out as soon as he turned his back, Ashuram went to take care of the mare. He removed her tack and saddle blankets, and the sweat-damp fur beneath steamed in the cold air. She had already shed her thick winter hair and stood shivering in the icy air. He rubbed the mare dry as best he could with the saddle blanket, taking his time. When he was through, he ran his hands down her legs to make sure she had no sore places, checked the bottoms of her hooves for stone bruises. If the mare went lame, they would be the worse off. Satisfied the horse was all to rights, Ashuram returned to sit by the fire.
At first, he thought he was imagining it when he heard his name spoken over the roaring of the river. He thought it was a trick of sound, or some day dream. But no, as he listened, he heard it again:
"Ashuram."
The Black Knight looked around at the makeshift campsite. He had built a small fire, chopping wood with the sword the Vesper blacksmith had given him, and the smoky light cast dim, flickering shadows on the snow and the side of the mountain they sheltered against.
In the shadows, he could see the pale face of the Healer, her body slumped as if she were asleep. Ashuram frowned. The Healer's eyes were closed, her head drifted to one side, as if the Witch had fallen asleep where she sat there on the saddle she had placed on the ground. Karla, once more asleep? Ashuram shook his head, unsure of what it portended but sure it was abnormal for the Grey Witch to sleep.
As he was watching the Healer's face, he heard his name again.
"Ashuram."
That was Veris' voice, he thought. He had seen the Healer's lips move only slightly.
"Healer?" If this was some strange trick of the Witch's, Ashuram thought, then she was crazier than Wagnard had been. It was too bizarre.
"Yes. Ashuram, where are we?" He could not help the goosebumps that raised up on his arms or that the hair on the nape of his neck stood up. Her voice was coming out of her own body, but the body itself looked dead, completely unanimated as if there were no spirit housed inside. It was a bit like watching a corpse speak, he thought, and it was eerie.
"On the trail through Rimmer's Pass."
"Rimmer's Pass - towards Valis?"
"The same."
"I don't have much time before she wakes up again. The sword. It's the sword, I think. Touch the runes to the Witch and take the circlet."
"What, now?"
"Whenever you can-" her voice ended as if it had been cut, and he saw the Healer's body heave a sigh, and the Witch opened heavy-lidded purple eyes a bit groggily, blinked slowly and looked around.
Ashuram waited for Karla to say something, to make a sign that it was all a trick or that she knew what was going on, but she said nothing. In fact, she hardly looked as though she even knew she had been asleep. Ashuram hid a thoughtful frown.
"Do you know how much further it is to Valis?" He inquired.
"Far enough." The Witch was not in the mood, it seemed, for talking. He pressed, trying to see some way into what was going on.
"Do you suppose whoever has stopped the Spring will also be waiting for you in Valis?" The Witch did not even look at him. He felt the spell before she spoke, his mouth clamping together so fast he nearly bit his tongue. As it was his teeth clacked together hard enough that it was audible.
"I like you better when you are silent."
Ah ha. Ashuram nearly smiled. So there was a touchy subject. If he didn't know better, he would say that things were falling out from under the Witch. He wasn't sure how he knew, but some obstacle had gotten in her way and she was having trouble getting around it.
He wondered who or what it was that was maneuvering to catch out the Grey Witch. So far it seemed to be working, yet he would not put his faith in someone else's machinations. When he saw his own chance, he would take it. Perhaps between his own scheming and the Witch's distraction, he would find a way to break free of her.
* * * * * * *
* - Author's note: I don't know if I'm breaking Canon or not here, but I'm just playing around with some ideas I've been having in regards to this story. If you have criticism, I'll accept it.
I would like to point out, though, in regards to some recent comments, that I have made it VERY clear from the beginning that I'm dealing with ROLW the first series, NOT LoC or any of the other offshoots. This deals with the ROLW orginial series, NOTHING ELSE. And I know I may have some things a bit mixed up; it's been awhile since I've worked on this. I do appreciate criticism as well as praise, and if your criticism is legit, I'll try to fix the problems. In fact, I want to know where the problems are, so I CAN fix them.
Otherwise, I just want to have fun writing and I want you to have fun reading!
End of speech.
Anyway, welcome back to Lodoss. As usual, I don't own 'em (except for Veris and assorted others), I just am renting with the option to buy.
***New character alert!***
Chapter Twenty: Progression
She stood poised in a shaft of sunlight, eyes closed, caught in a rare, effortless stillness between thought and action. She had inhaled deeply the lush green smell of the wood and held the breath within her as though it were precious. The stink of the city was finally out of her nose and she could feel the steady hum of the living energy all around her, just below her range of hearing, tingling across her skin and reverberating through her bones.
By Sylph, it was good to be back, she thought fiercely, unwilling to relinquish the sweet breath she had taken.
"Deedolito." The Elder's voice. Unwillingly, she let go of the breath in a long, silent sigh and opened her eyes slowly.
"Arlac." She bowed deeply and formally, because this was one of the First, and he had lived a long, long time.
Elves did not change much because time did not erode their youth as it did with the quickblooded races, Men and the lesser races of Orcs and monsters. Arlac was the same now as he was when Deedo was still new. The pale, delicate skin of his face, stretched thin across his jaw, throat and cheekbones, held no wrinkles nor even the finest of lines. He wore his dark hair close cropped save for the two long elflocks braided at his ears, the ends of which curled gently past his shoulders, and there was no hint of grey there. There was nothing to mark the passage of time across his visage, although the very stillness of his eyebrows, the steadiness of his eyes and thin mouth, gave the gravity of age to the otherwise youthful face. The eyes, Deedo thought to herself, revealed it the most. His eyes were a startling deep blue-indigo, and held facets of the ages in their depths. However, they were opaque and shuttered; he could see out, but none could see in. There was a great tranquility in those eyes, an icy calm that seemed to find nothing under the sun surprising or disturbing, as if such emotions no longer moved him.
There were not many of First left. Deedo knew only of a handful, and many of them had nothing to do with the world outside the wood. Yet Arlac had not joined his kindred by retiring but remained Elder to the Sylvan Elves and mage without comparison.
"Welcome home, Deedo," he said. His voice was deep and measured, resonant.
"Thank you, my lord," she replied. "It is good to be back." Her relief to be out of Alania and back in the wood again must have colored her words, for Arlac's lips curled into an indulgent half-smile.
"Human cities are works of quickblooded genius, but they do have a certain…odor," he said with some sympathy, and Deedo could not help but smile. She did not add that Alania stunk, although she wanted to.
"Yes," she said merely.
"Walk with me," Arlac invited, and she moved to pace beside him slowly under the cool shade of the old trees.
"So tell me what goes on in the wider world?" he asked her. Deedo smiled. She knew he had many sources to keep him informed as to what happened beyond the wood, and she was one of them. Unlike most Elves who seemed to shun humans unless there was profit in the contact, Arlac was genuinely interested in them. She knew that he, like herself, realized that there was much to be gained in friendship, and much to be lost in enmity.
Yet she quickly became serious again, for there was serious news to impart.
"My lord," she said, "the demon sword has awoken again. The conqueror sword hums with energy, and the demon sword thirsts for battle. When I left, I could hear it even through the walls."
Arlac nodded slowly.
"Yes," he said. "The Grey Witch is on the move again, I fear." Deedo felt an old thrill of anxiety go through her at the mention of the name. The Grey Witch… She was perhaps one of the most dangerous forces to contend with in all of Lodoss, simply because she was so unpredictable.
"The Grey Witch…" Deedo murmured, frowning.
"Yes. And with her rides the Black Knight, Ashuram." Deedo blinked at Arlac, caught by complete surprise, to find him gazing back at her calmly. She bit off her first impulse to tell the Elder that there was no possible way Ashuram could still live, and said instead,
"Elder, I saw him die. Under the cursed island." Arlac smiled thinly, but not with humor.
"Apparently, this human is made of sterner stuff than most. Also, the Grey Witch revived him to suit her own purposes. I have little doubt that she means to try for the sword."
"Parn," Deedo said under her breath before even thinking. She saw Arlac's gaze flicker sideways at her, but he tactfully avoided saying a word.
"With them is some personage I have little knowledge of," Arlac continued, looking into the distance as though he could see them in front of his eyes. "Some half-elven healer. The Witch now wears her body, which is especially dangerous, for a half-elven body will have powers a human one does not."
"Another healer," Deedo said, thinking of Leylia. What was Karla's attraction to Healers?
"However, this may also be an advantage," Arlac mused, as if he were speaking his thoughts aloud. "For elves, by our very natures, can resist the possessive magic the Witch practices, and half-elves have some of the same innate ability. The Witch may soon find herself once more bodiless, despite her great power."
Deedo shuddered involuntarily. The practice of using other bodies as hosts was horrific.
"Why does the Witch want the sword?" she murmured, not expecting an answer.
"To keep the struggle between the swords alive," Arlac replied, pursing his lips. "She is obsessed with the balance between good and evil, and the only way she knows to keep them in balance is to keep them perpetually at conflict. There is no salvation but through war. She believes peace can only mean stagnation and that only war can allow Lodoss to grow." Here he paused and shook his head. "A very limited view of both human and Elven ability. She is too old now to think beyond her own biases."
He paused again, and then said very slowly,
"I am shamed to call her Elven, and more so to name her one of the First. She does our kind no honor." *
Deedo pressed her lips together and nodded grimly. The Witch was no tribute to the Elven race.
"What must I do, Elder?" Deedo asked, suddenly feeling an urgent need to move, to do something against the approach of the menace the Witch brought.
Arlac smiled again, a slight bend of the lips that did not reach his ancient eyes.
"Much," he said. "I'll ask you to go back to Alania again soon. Be my eyes in that city. I will give you a message to give to the human mage Slayn, and it must come to his hands and no other." Deedo nodded, puzzled at what connection Arlac could have with Slayn, but it was none of her business.
"Besides," Arlac said, and this time the amusement in his smile reached his eyes, "I think there is one in Alania who misses you more than he has ever missed anything before, and it will go badly with him if you do not return soon."
Deedo tried hard, with questionable success, to keep from blushing. Yet Arlac offered no comment on her choice of lovers, passed no judgment on her. For that she was grateful. Instead, he said seriously,
"Deedo, look out for the human knight. He is still very young in the world, and there is much he is still so ignorant of. Yet his is the conqueror's sword, and therefore he has a part to play against the Witch and the Black Knight. He will need you when the time comes again to confront Ashuram."
Deedo nodded.
"I understand, my lord." She replied. Parn. She suddenly missed him with a fierce pang that startled her. She doubted if he knew the import of what was happening all around him now, doubted he had understood why the humming of the conqueror's sword had so distracted her of late. She would need to explain.
"The Lady be with you both," Arlac murmured, his eyes dark with knowledge of the future and hints of what was to come.
* * * * *
It was cold.
The air was sharp with chill, and snow floated down in a slow, constant drift. Ashuram walked with the woolen coat he had bought wrapped tight around him, glad of its bulk, wishing fervently for gloves and boots that were made for winter. He had wrapped one of the blankets around him like a scarf beneath the coat, which held at bay the icy, creeping fingers of the wind down the back of his neck, but still he could not remember a winter ever having been as cold as it was there on Rimmer's pass.
He could well believe the Witch now that someone had brought the winter back to slow them, for the cold was unnatural and ineluctable.
The mare walked through the thin carpet of snow with her head down, not sparing any energy in belligerence. Her breaths came in great gusts of steam at either side of her head through nostrils red-rimmed and flared against the cold. Her ears were back stubbornly, and her pace was deliberate. On her back was the Witch, with her head down beneath the hood of her cloak. She had wrapped a blanket around her shoulders and scarcely seemed to move.
The wind was still gentle, but held the threat of becoming icy gusts. Already the scant trees beside the trail shook brittle leaves in the strengthening wind.
It was nearly evening. They had been walking for two days, and the trail had been gradually growing steeper and steeper. Beneath the wind he could hear the distant roar of the Grimmrflod as it growled down the mountain in the sudden unseasonal winter overflow. The trail had begun close to the river, but had curved away to follow the mountain line; now the trail once more was curving back to meet the river. He was curious to see what the unnatural weather had made of the river. The Grimmrflod was always a monstrous stretch of water, but with the snowmelt he had no doubts it was swollen past its normal size. That would make any passage across it more than treacherous, and twice as expensive.
The Witch had made no comments about the weather to explain what was causing it. In fact, she had said nary a word since they had left the small tavern on the other side of the entrance to the pass. She seemed deep in concentration with something far away, which suited him. The more distracted she was, the better his opportunity for revenge.
When it began to grow too dark to see, they stopped for the evening in a little copse of trees close to the trail. They faced a long, cold night without much in the way of shelter, and the thought of sleeping on the cold ground was not appealing in the least. He took the sword the blacksmith had given him so long ago in Vesper, and went to cut firewood.
He found a few fallen pieces of wood sheltered from the snow, but all the rest of it was wet; when he tried to light a fire, it smoked and sputtered and stunk, and would not catch. Determined, he tried again and again, growing frustrated. The kindling caught and flared and burnt out before the wet wood could even steam.
"Igneo," the Witch pronounced a sharp, clear-edged word, and beneath his hands the wood caught fire with a controlled imploding sound, and began to burn warmly. He jumped back to avoid getting singed, darting her a dark and deadly look, but she had withdrawn within the shadows of her cloak and returned to silence.
Sure the fire wasn't going to go out as soon as he turned his back, Ashuram went to take care of the mare. He removed her tack and saddle blankets, and the sweat-damp fur beneath steamed in the cold air. She had already shed her thick winter hair and stood shivering in the icy air. He rubbed the mare dry as best he could with the saddle blanket, taking his time. When he was through, he ran his hands down her legs to make sure she had no sore places, checked the bottoms of her hooves for stone bruises. If the mare went lame, they would be the worse off. Satisfied the horse was all to rights, Ashuram returned to sit by the fire.
At first, he thought he was imagining it when he heard his name spoken over the roaring of the river. He thought it was a trick of sound, or some day dream. But no, as he listened, he heard it again:
"Ashuram."
The Black Knight looked around at the makeshift campsite. He had built a small fire, chopping wood with the sword the Vesper blacksmith had given him, and the smoky light cast dim, flickering shadows on the snow and the side of the mountain they sheltered against.
In the shadows, he could see the pale face of the Healer, her body slumped as if she were asleep. Ashuram frowned. The Healer's eyes were closed, her head drifted to one side, as if the Witch had fallen asleep where she sat there on the saddle she had placed on the ground. Karla, once more asleep? Ashuram shook his head, unsure of what it portended but sure it was abnormal for the Grey Witch to sleep.
As he was watching the Healer's face, he heard his name again.
"Ashuram."
That was Veris' voice, he thought. He had seen the Healer's lips move only slightly.
"Healer?" If this was some strange trick of the Witch's, Ashuram thought, then she was crazier than Wagnard had been. It was too bizarre.
"Yes. Ashuram, where are we?" He could not help the goosebumps that raised up on his arms or that the hair on the nape of his neck stood up. Her voice was coming out of her own body, but the body itself looked dead, completely unanimated as if there were no spirit housed inside. It was a bit like watching a corpse speak, he thought, and it was eerie.
"On the trail through Rimmer's Pass."
"Rimmer's Pass - towards Valis?"
"The same."
"I don't have much time before she wakes up again. The sword. It's the sword, I think. Touch the runes to the Witch and take the circlet."
"What, now?"
"Whenever you can-" her voice ended as if it had been cut, and he saw the Healer's body heave a sigh, and the Witch opened heavy-lidded purple eyes a bit groggily, blinked slowly and looked around.
Ashuram waited for Karla to say something, to make a sign that it was all a trick or that she knew what was going on, but she said nothing. In fact, she hardly looked as though she even knew she had been asleep. Ashuram hid a thoughtful frown.
"Do you know how much further it is to Valis?" He inquired.
"Far enough." The Witch was not in the mood, it seemed, for talking. He pressed, trying to see some way into what was going on.
"Do you suppose whoever has stopped the Spring will also be waiting for you in Valis?" The Witch did not even look at him. He felt the spell before she spoke, his mouth clamping together so fast he nearly bit his tongue. As it was his teeth clacked together hard enough that it was audible.
"I like you better when you are silent."
Ah ha. Ashuram nearly smiled. So there was a touchy subject. If he didn't know better, he would say that things were falling out from under the Witch. He wasn't sure how he knew, but some obstacle had gotten in her way and she was having trouble getting around it.
He wondered who or what it was that was maneuvering to catch out the Grey Witch. So far it seemed to be working, yet he would not put his faith in someone else's machinations. When he saw his own chance, he would take it. Perhaps between his own scheming and the Witch's distraction, he would find a way to break free of her.
* * * * * * *
* - Author's note: I don't know if I'm breaking Canon or not here, but I'm just playing around with some ideas I've been having in regards to this story. If you have criticism, I'll accept it.
I would like to point out, though, in regards to some recent comments, that I have made it VERY clear from the beginning that I'm dealing with ROLW the first series, NOT LoC or any of the other offshoots. This deals with the ROLW orginial series, NOTHING ELSE. And I know I may have some things a bit mixed up; it's been awhile since I've worked on this. I do appreciate criticism as well as praise, and if your criticism is legit, I'll try to fix the problems. In fact, I want to know where the problems are, so I CAN fix them.
Otherwise, I just want to have fun writing and I want you to have fun reading!
End of speech.