Another face loomed in her mind – a handsome young man with golden hair and curious eyes, one gold, one green. The Moidart’s son, Gaise Macon. The Stormrider. So much depended on him and his survival. She wished with all her heart that she could know just how much. It seemed sometimes that the Power had a mind of its own. On occasions – as with Jaim Grymauch – she had seen the future clear and bright. She had known what to do. The coming days of dread were like an awesome tapestry, ten thousand threads weaving in and out. Some she could see, some lines she could follow. But the whole was a mystery. In her spirit dreams she could see fragments. A hawk-faced Varlish lord – similar to the Moidart – and a skull within an ancient case, that burned with unholy light. Battles and deaths, some past and some still to come, raged in her visions.
All she knew, with grim certainty, was that the Stormrider was central to the survival of the Rigante, and that the Rigante were vital not only to the survival of the world she knew, but to the well-being of the world to come. Her eyes felt heavy with weariness and she pushed herself to her feet and once more ventured out into the night.
The Wyrd walked back through the trees to the remains of the old stone circle at the centre of the island. Only one golden column stood upright now, and this was cracked, the ancient runes worn away by wind and rain. The Wyrd shivered, and drew her shawl more tightly around her shoulders. The night wind whispered across the icy lake.
”Soon, witch,’ came a voice in her mind. ”Soon your evil will be forever destroyed.’
The Wyrd took a deep, calming breath and whispered the Words of Power. A bright light blazed and the world shifted beneath her feet. She stumbled – and fell to the earth of the Wishing Tree woods, hundreds of miles south of Sorrow Bird Lake. The Redeemers would find her soon. They knew almost all her tricks now.
Rising, she looked around her at the ancient trees. ‘I need you, Riamfada,’ she said aloud, her voice breaking. ‘Help me!’
A glowing light formed, like a tiny candle flame flickering a few feet above the snow-covered earth. Slowly it swelled into a shimmering globe, like moonlit mist trapped in glass.
‘What is troubling you, child?’ asked the voice from the light.
‘It is long since I was a child, Riamfada. Look at me. I am an old woman. My bones hurt and I can no longer – without a little magic – thread a needle.’ The Wyrd sighed. ‘It is forty years since first you took me into the Wishing Tree woods. Long years.’
‘And that is what is troubling you?’
‘No.’ The Wyrd gazed at the globe of light floating some three feet away from her. For a moment her mind drifted away from her problems. ‘Why do you not take human form these days?’
‘This is what I am, child. I only take human form when I need to speak to humans who cannot understand my nature. It is tiring to do so, drawing particles from the air and shaping them like a sculptor. This is more comfortable for me. This is how I am when I am with friends. What is it that you fear to say to me?’
‘I am frightened, Riamfada.’
‘Of the demons hunting you?’
‘They are not demons – nor spirits like you,’ she said. ‘They are living men who have found a way to soar free from the flesh. They whisper to me of their hatred, and they seek to kill me when I am in spirit form. Thus far I have escaped them, but they are growing in strength . . .’ Her words tailed away.
‘You wish to fight them, Caretha? To kill them?’
‘Would it be so wrong?’
‘A simple question, but one of rare complexity. Your gift is to heal, Caretha, to enhance the fading magic of the world. When healers yearn to kill then hope begins to die.’
‘Then I must let them kill me?’