The Grove(72)
A feminine chuckle distracted him from the arms catching his elbows and tugging him off toward the center of the grass. The voice that accompanied the hands on his right didn’t come from a throat, though. (Come, Aradin, youngling! Show these older ones how well we can still dance!)
He didn’t have to glance at her snub nose and her smiling eyes, nor see her long hair and graceful limbs, to know who had caught him. Josai of Glenna Josai, one of his earliest Witch-teachers. Josai was the Guide of the pair, and had lived to a ripe ninety-eight as Host and teacher, but her self-image was a mental projection of her body when it had been lithe and strong in her mid– to late-twenties; physically mature but still youthful and lithe.
The woman on Aradin’s left, who laughed and pulled him along as well, was Glenna, the current Host. Her body in life was now in her mid-fifties, but like Josai, she thought of herself as younger, early twenties or thereabouts. Shorter, a bit plump but with strength and liveliness to match the bounce in her light brown curls, she tugged him into a line dance with her Guide, celebrating life and Afterlife with equal aplomb. Those Witches who had a talent for song-based magic held back from the gathering dancers, bringing forth instruments of will, of hand and of voice, filling the clearing with the sounds of fellowship and joy.
It felt good to dance, to sway and stomp, to twist and turn. He clapped his hands and sang along as several others joined, while still more lines of hand-clasped Witches emerged from the mists. He crossed places and skipped through the steps, grabbed hands and swung his partners around, not caring whether the arms he grasped belonged to man or woman, living or dead.
How long he danced, he could not have said, but Aradin finally spun free of the whirling masses, of the now hundreds of Witches moving in patterns old and new, continuing the cycle of worship and faith that had turned the tragedy of their God’s unfortunate demise into a celebration of His continuing strength. Unfortunately, life moved on, and with it, all celebrations had to share space and time with tragedies, concerns, and the business of the living.
Saleria had told Aradin and Teral of the forescrying mirror and its future-visions of Netherdemon invasion. Spotting one of his fellow Hortimancers first, Aradin turned around, willing his coin-chest to appear in his arms, then approached the older man. Stefal smiled in greeting and shifted on the bench, giving Aradin room to set down the chest. “Ah, good; you brought payment! I got you the best deal I could, but diagnostic Artifacts don’t come cheap. Four hundred twenty-three silver and seven copper pennies, please.”
While Aradin counted out the funds, rounding it up to four hundred fifty as a courtesy, the other man rose, turned once, twice, then sat back down again with a neatly carved chest in his hands. He opened it, displaying the selection of crystal-tipped wands and the palm-sized sheet of glass with a hole along the top that the wands were meant to slot into. His brows rose at the sight of the fine quality. “Crystal? Not a marble slab?”
“This way does take a little bit of your own magic to power it every day, but you don’t have to keep a sharpened grease-pencil tucked into the base, or go through the tedium of scrubbing it clean,” Stefal told him. “We cribbed the design from the Artifacts used by the Master and staff of a place called the Tower, in Aiar.”
“Guardian Kerric’s Tower?” Aradin asked. At Stefal’s surprised look, he nodded. “I’ve actually been in touch with him . . . and I have some concerns to bring to my fellow Witches tonight.”
“About the Tower’s Master?” Stefal asked.
Aradin shook his head. “About something he has seen in a sort of forescrying mirror he has.”
“What concerns do you have?” The question came from a familiar voice off to his left. Walking with more strength in the Dark than she probably showed out in life, Witch Brenna lifted her chin. “What would you bring before tonight’s synod, once the dancing and singing has ended?”
“Visions of an invasion from the Netherhells, Sister,” Aradin stated, his tone respectful and his words grim. “We may praise Darkhan and Dark Ana that such things are few and far between . . . but the images suggest that somewhere out there, even as we speak, certain humans are making pacts with the demonic realms.”
Her wrinkled face tightened into a stern mask. “Such things ended the life of our God, millennia ago. Are you certain of this Seer’s vision?”
Someone else moved up on Aradin’s other side, drawn by the ways of the Dark to join their conversation. Aradin handed over the coins to Stefal in exchange for his diagnostic wands while Guardian Witch Shon confirmed his words.