Chapter 17 Sage #2
Of course, that’s not entirely true. In an hour it’ll be darker and colder, and Sage will have to face the possibility that she’s mischarted their course.
But cold like this isn’t bad only for morale, it’s bad for the wits.
And they’ll need to keep sharp around a river that may be deadlier than any beast or bandit.
The party mounts up again and puts one hoof in front of the other, breathing clouds into the night as it darkens around them.
Sage speaks only to ask Araphi for light.
It’s a simple enough spell, worth the risk of being spotted by the few creatures in these woods that won’t run from it.
The bard hums a shaky tune into the collar of her coat, her voice mesmerizing nonetheless.
Glowing particles of magic—like dust motes in sunlight, but each a source all its own—surround Sage.
They swarm ahead to show a way through the trees where starlight doesn’t reach the forest floor, and she keeps them in sight while the party keeps her in sight.
At last, the terrain begins to change. Sage can sense it in the sudden smell of streamside vegetation, out of place when it ought to be buried under snowbeds, and the sound of a quicker current than the Willowthorn’s slow churning.
Then, breaking through the trees and into a broad clearing, she sees it: Where the river narrows, a canal made by moss-covered boulders and a fold in the earth flows due north from the Willowthorn.
There’s a temple just ahead of them, built modestly.
Set back upon the bank the Willowthorn shares with the Swallow, it casts an even darker shadow against the night sky until Araphi’s particles of light flicker between the stone columns and against winter-dead clinging vines.
She hears the party sigh with relief as they catch up to her, but she cautions, “Give me a moment to suss it out. Then we make camp.” The specter of frostbite is no reason to rush headlong into a den of wolves—or worse.
Dismounting, she drops into knee-deep snow and wades through it toward the temple.
Hopefully her spare leg wraps have stayed dry in her pack.
To its credit, the place is less of a ruin than it is simply forgotten.
Sturdily built of rough river stone, the roof remains intact over the vestibule and the corridor.
Only in the main chamber does faint starlight wink through the rafters, where heavy gray stones and chips of black slate have fallen down upon what must have been a wooden altar.
Now, it lies in splinters. The damp and biting wind whistles in, stirring the vines that have grown up to partially cover a mural on the wall behind the smashed altar: a writhing, serpent-like creature, each thumbprint-sized scale among thousands once lovingly painted.
Its coloring has faded and chipped to a faint, algae-like sheen, with sockets of bare stone where the eyes, likely inset gems, have either fallen away or been prized out.
In front of the altar, there are a few rows of pews, unharmed except for a coating of dust and dead, blown-in leaf litter, and Sage peels off her mitten to run her fingertips along the back of the nearest. The wood is unvarnished, and at the back of the chamber, dry.
Hopefully, the spirit of the painted dragon abandoned this place when its worshippers did, and won’t seek vengeance after Sage has Nura chop a pew up for firewood.
Soon enough, a fire crackles in the ash-blackened heart of what might have been a humble living quarters in the back of the temple, built for a keeper and their family.
It’s hard to say for sure; no possessions and few furnishings have been left behind.
According to the sailor’s song, the villagers who once surrounded this place had moved on some years ago, while the temple keepers stayed, unwilling to abandon their post. Sage chooses to believe that the keepers changed their minds, rather than running afoul of some other roving beast of the Northlands, because there are no signs of recent inhabitants.
There’s no stored food to be scavenged, so after they stable the horses in the ruined sanctuary (Bramble protests, but there’s no other room large enough), the healer prepares their own supplies, carried in from Briarwall.
They eat well, if plainly: sharp cheese, pickled vegetables, and dried meat.
It needn’t last them more than a few days.
They’ll soon return to the outpost and have the chance to resupply for the journey back to Kingfisher, where their pay will be waiting for them in an account once their Client has confirmed their success.
And then they’ll all part ways for good.
Sage stews on this while they discuss the details of tomorrow’s mission.
“How long is the Swallow again?” Bramble asks.
“None have calculated that I can tell,” says Sage, “but working backward from the known position of the Halhazy north of here, it can’t be more than five or six miles.”
“And how deep?”
“Nobody knows that either, since none have come out of it alive.”
“Hang on,” Araphi says, lowering her hunk of cheese in her lap.
“I may not be our first-choice spellcaster, or an expert in conjuration magic, but I’ve studied it at Auximia.
At least, rudimentarily. We’re using Tea’s summoning spell, but to do that, we must be within range, and the Swallow could be hundreds of feet deep.
How can we perform such a spell from the shore? ”
“Tea was aiming to calculate for that, and adjust the wording of the spell accordingly. She was a loss to the party to be sure,” Remy admits, and Sage’s stomach twists with guilt.
“Thank goodness we’ve brought our bard along, hmm?
” As though he wasn’t deeply skeptical of inviting Araphi into the party.
“The scroll should be sufficiently powerful to bypass the kind of inherent resistances such magical items possess.”
“So we won’t have to go into the river where nobody’s come out alive?” Nura asks.
Even Bramble looks worried, never a comfort coming from a healer.
“Rest assured, we’ll remain snug and safe on the shore,” Remy promises them all.
Wrapped up in her blanket and limned by firelight, Araphi looks far less confident than Sage would prefer—and far more beautiful.
Perhaps she should rise and go to her, only to reassure the bard that she believes in her.
That she’s seen what Araphi is capable of.
(More than anyone knows, and much more than her future will allow for.) And that she… she…
But Remy was right. Araphi has her path in this world, her purpose, and Sage has her own.
She can’t wander off the path again. Not when she knows from long and hard-won experience that forward is the only way.
And not when, wraithverns or no, her feelings for the bard threaten to unravel her at any moment.
So when Sage lies down on her bedroll to sleep at last, it’s with her back turned to the burning fire—and to the woman who still sits by the hearth, staring into its too-bright heart.