“What if I could get you an adequate assistant?” Aradin asked her. “All you’d need is someone who can contain the plants and animals of the Grove until your return, correct?”
“It’s more complex than that,” Saleria dismissed. Rising, she paced a little. “Every hour of every day, great magics flood the Grove. They must be contained, drained away from the plants and animals, given a purpose, and sent out to do good in the world, instead of being allowed to sit here, stagnate, and warp everything within reach. It is a daily task. I can only rest for a few hours here and there in the daylight, but never for a full day, as it takes everything I have to wrestle all those powers into something beneficial.”
She stopped, flushed a little, and glanced back at him, abashed by her own words. “Which means . . . I need an assistant. And I come full circle with my own argument.” Turning to face him fully, Saleria clasped her hands lightly together. “The question is, Witch-priest of Darkhana, can you find me an adequate replacement? Do not think to look within the priesthood here in Groveham,” she added in warning. “Prelate Lanneraun is physically old and frail, and Deacon Shanno is too young, impetuous, and barely powered as a mage. Neither would survive a walk around the wall, let alone the rest of it.”
“I would first offer myself, actually,” Aradin stated. At her frown, he quickly held up a hand. “Yes, I know I come from a different kingdom, and thus a different faith. But what Teral said earlier this morning is true; we Witches believe we are an adjunct to all faiths. We stand ready to assist in the local customs and beliefs wherever we may roam. With the approval of our own God and Goddess, no less, and no record of an objection anywhere in the records of the old Convocations of God and Man.”
“But if you are to provide some sort of Portal-like escort to the new Convocation, how can you remain behind at the same time?” Saleria asked. “Or are you referring to yourself as Portal-like in the sense that you will be unable to move from this location?”
He smiled wryly. “Well, yes, I would have to remain behind. Certainly I would have to remain here in order for you to be returned in the same manner, if you felt you could survive the trip a second time. As for whether or not I am strong enough, I was not a weak mage to begin with, but now I have the added benefit of Teral’s power to back my own.”
“His what?” Daranen asked, lifting his head once more from his correspondence. He blushed at Saleria’s sharp, questioning look, but set down his pen for the moment. “Forgive the interruption, but you yourself said your Guide is dead and has no body of his own. How could his powers as a mage be added to yours?”
Aradin tipped his head. Saleria realized that meant he was handing his body over to his Guide to speak. Though the voice was the younger man’s deep rumble, the inflections turned into those of an older man. “That is what makes our holy Witches so different. Anyone with an understanding of death and how to bind spirits could replicate part of what we can do . . . and such attempts are often twisted perversions wrought by servants of the Netherhells. They can only force open the Doorway in the back of a person’s soul to thrust in another spirit for a form of possession, or even to rip open a Doorway into a recently deceased corpse to reanimate it in a grotesque parody of life. What we do is holy, with the blessings of the God of the Dead Himself.
“Unlike the abominations of those who practice unholy necromancy, our actions are undertaken with free-willed consent from all parties. With the will of the Gods to back our efforts, we are able to restore almost all the benefits of life to our Guides. They—we—can take on our original appearances, at whatever age we still feel ourselves to be. We can remember everything we ever did, said, or observed while we lived. We can access almost all of our original magical strengths, and spells . . . and we can share most of those energies with our Hosts. Not quite all of it, for some of it must remain a part of what binds us to our Hosts, but most of it.
“This is why a Witch must be a mage as well as a priest or priestess,” Teral added, shrugging the younger man’s shoulders. “We have non-mage members of the priesthood back in Darkhana, and we have non-priest mages who attend to various secular spellcrafting needs, the same as in any other kingdom. That is what my Host, Aradin, originally intended himself to be, a simple, if strong, mage. But together, we are more than either of us could have been alone . . . and I assure you, neither of us was weak to begin with.”
Seeing him stand differently, and speak slightly differently, but while wearing the body of Aradin, was a bit confusing. Saleria struggled to accept it, as she strove to accept his explanations. “Well . . . under normal circumstances, there’s nothing wrong with being a weak mage. It’s simply how the Gods have made you, and a weak but well-trained and inventive mage is certainly far more useful than a strong but undisciplined or poorly educated mage,” Saleria stated. She returned to her seat and braced her elbow on the armrest, rubbing at her forehead. “The Grove, however, is not for the weak, body or mind—did you know I’m the twenty-ninth Keeper of the Grove since the Shattering of Aiar?”