The Aperture

Chapter 18

Into the Outer Realms

The party set themselves up for the night in an abandoned farm in the midst of a freshly harvested field. The bodies of the farmer, his two sons, a wife, and an elderly woman, probably a grandmother, lay massacred inside the cottage. The windows and doors of the cottage were boarded up from the inside in a desperate attempt to keep some evil outside the cottage away from the family within. A large hole ripped in the roof told the story of their demise. The party decided to set up camp in the large barn that stood a short distance from the cottage. Exploration of the barn revealed it strangely devoid of any livestock, dead or alive.

That evening, just after dark, Rahl, Theo, and Yalden set fire to the cottage to cremate the bodies within. Now with the doors to the barn firmly bolted from the inside, the party made camp in the barn, each member procuring for himself or herself a niche of privacy in either the loft, the stacks of straw, or stalls that had been unused and were clean for the most part. Connie casually noticed that Snow set up her place next to Rahl’s. After dinner, everyone settled into their personal spaces. Once again, Theo volunteered to pull the first watch. Connie decided to do the same. Yalden and Maltokken would take the second watch, and the third watch, which ended at sunset, would be done by Rahl and Jalban.

During the first watch, Connie and Theo sat on opposite sides of the barn at openings in the loft. On Connie’s side, the cottage smoldered long into the evening in a subdued orange glow. The night itself was exceptionally dark, with patchy clouds covering the moons most of the time. Occasionally, a breeze would kick up, and the air would fill with that fishy scent she smelled at the river earlier in the day. Connie spent the majority of her watch in silent repose, pondering the nature of her world and where in the universe Earth might be in relation to where she now resided. She also wondered how much time had gone by in her world since she’d left.

After a few hours, she became sleepy, so she went over to Theo’s side of the barn. Theo sat at the window with his legs hanging from the opening. Connie was surprised to see Tristana sleeping soundly on a heap of straw next to Theo. Her enchanted axe sat within arm’s reach next to her. A blue-flamed lamp burned very low next to Theo while he read from the tome Calicus gave him. Occasionally he glanced up to view the outdoors. When Theo saw Connie coming, he moved aside to give her a place to sit. She sat down next to him, being careful not to fall from the opening.

“She’s sleeping,” Connie whispered to Theo about Tristana.

“Indeed. She is made of flesh as we are, and the flesh must rest. This is the first time she has slept since she joined us, and now she sleeps deeply.”

“Have you learned anything about her from that instruction manual?”

“The more I learn about her, the more she is a mystery to me,” he said, closing the tome.

Connie noticed a few of Theo’s spell books sitting nearby. “I have to learn how to cast elemental spells, Theo,” she said. “Can you help me?”

“I cannot. I know little about elemental magic. I know only spirit magic.”

“Then what can I do?”

“Perhaps you can ask Snow to help you. She may know something about it.”

Connie scoffed at the idea of asking Snow. “She never talks to me unless she wants to express some sort of displeasure. For that, I would never ask anything of her. Besides, I don’t even like her.”

“How about Fandia? She told me she used to work with elemental magic before she switched over to celestial.”

“Fandia is now Snow’s apprentice, so again I would have to ask Snow.”

“What happened between you and Snow?”

“We had a spat.”

“Is that all?”

“Well, no. I threw a cup at her too. But she was asking for it.”

“You threw a cup at Snow?” Theo chuckled. “I admire your temerity, but it’s not wise to do such a thing to an arch-sorceress of celestial magic. I’m certain she had several spells in her head to harm you after you did that. And knowing her reputation, I was surprised she did not cast one on you. You should consider yourself lucky.”

“She’s still a snob in my book. arch sorceress or not, I’m not going to let her push me around. Not her nor anyone.”

“Hush!” Theo said, looking toward the entrance of the barn. “She may hear you.”

“I don’t care if she does,” Connie said, not lowering her voice. “In fact, I hope she does.”

Theo shook his head and looked away to the darkness outside the barn, “I don’t know what world from whence your spirit came, but you have much to learn of ours.”

“That’s what everyone tells me,” Connie responded. “But I play by my rules. And if someone slights me, I slight them back.”

Theo stared at Connie thoughtfully. She returned his stare, taking in his features. His face looked gaunt and even skull-like in the feeble blue lamp light.

He sighed, “I suppose I cannot blame you for the way you feel about Snow. She can be difficult, I agree. But you must learn to live as one of us. That includes respecting those who have power. Your survival may depend upon it.”

Connie rose and went back to her side of the barn. Some of the clouds had cleared, revealing the light of the larger of the two moons overhead. Feeling bored, she reached into her pack and pulled out the enchanted romance novel that she’d brought from Alyndia’s apartment. Looking around to make sure she wasn’t being watched, she discretely opened the book to the bookmarked page. As she did so, a small, folded sheet of parchment fell out of the back of the book onto her lap. To her surprise, it had what looked like a small amount of old, dried blood on it. She opened the parchment and read. It appeared to be both a poem and a letter, and yet neither. It was not written in her own hand. She read it:

Do you remember, Alyndia

How many green-colored skies

Remained on the periphery

Of consciousness

In the spring that told us

Our love will never die

You remember, I know

But how life flies.

We loved so much

To meet the dawn, to watch

How the sun smiled tenderly

At the half-open window

It would be like this forever

It seemed to us.

I see all your features

In the gentle spring light

Lying in the afterglow

Who taught you to love?

You know.

And do you remember

I dreamed of the summer

We were together—you and me

Two sides of the same coin.

Yet I never believed in the dream

I thought all would be different.

But time cannot be stopped

Neither can the heart be forced

Where have the dreams gone?

I’m leaving—you’re quietly crying.

Why try again and again

Starting over for an hour

Our tormented, lazy love

You remember, you know.

That spring told us

Our love will never die

Of that spring something is left

In my heart from you forever

That spring is all that remains.

For reasons she could not fathom, Connie had tears in her eyes by the time she finished this poem. The words, perhaps resonating with a forgotten memory, conjured up in her emptiness and blackness of spirit. The whole experience haunted her. It took all her willpower not to tear up the poem and put it back into the novel.

“Snap out of it, Connie,” she said, wiping her eyes, deeply hating this growing tendency in herself to be weepy and overly sensitive.

At that moment, she felt a gentle tapping at her shoulder. It was Yalden.

“It’s my turn for the watch. You can get some sleep now.”

Connie nodded and sat up, wiping her eyes as she went over to where her blankets awaited her.

The next morning, before breakfast, Connie spent the morning doing exercises. She did sit-ups, push-ups, and pull-ups on one of the rafters in the barn. The soldiers watched her with amusement. They cracked jokes at her among themselves within her earshot. She paid them no attention while working herself into a sweat. After a mere fifteen-minute workout, she was already too exhausted to continue. She spent another fifteen minutes or so doing stretching exercises, which were painful. Nonetheless, she stuck with it as long as she could, determined to put Alyndia’s former body into shape, even if it killed her.

The sun never seemed to rise that morning, despite the day growing gradually brighter. The sky remained a haze of dull green clouds. After breakfast, they ventured out of the barn and toward the Calphous Wall. Connie walked along side her hanyak to get in shape. After a short while, she was already out of breath, and she had a difficult time keeping up with the stride of the hanyaks, which was just a bit faster than the normal stride of a human, but she pooled her discipline and persisted anyway. The road wound through the farmlands of freshly harvested fields and silent cottages. After three leagues, the road straightened out to the east toward the Castle Maray and the ill-fated village. At this point, they left the road and headed straight north. After a while, Connie noticed occasional black patches of soil on which nothing grew. It looked as if tiny fires had scorched that part of the earth. Like a spreading cancer, the dead patches became more numerous the closer they traveled toward their source. Soon, they were within viewing distance of the wall stretching across the horizon. By this time, the dead patches covered the ground the way spots cover a leopard’s back.

Connie had envisioned the Calphous Wall appearing as the Great Wall of China, built of gray, round stones with a buttress every two hundred paces, or so. This structure was entirely different. This was about five stories high and made of strikingly white stone without any visible feature outside the sheen of the stone. As they approached the immense structure, Connie realized the wall was thicker at its base than at the top. It almost appeared as would a great dam.

Finally, they reached the base of the wall. Though it’s surface appeared monolithic from a distance, it was far from that. That wall was actually constructed of huge, smoothly hewn, S-shaped, interlocking blocks of stone, each the aggregate size of a small car, and laid with meticulous precision. Despite this impressive construction, the wall was in desperate need of maintenance. Large cracks ran up and down the sides, some wide and deep, as though some great pressure were being applied to the structure on the other side. There were gray areas in the white stone where patches had been done to the wall over the years. Even some of these patches, patches that varied in age and quality, were in a state of disrepair. Chunks of white and gray stone lay scattered upon the mostly black soil at the base of the wall. But despite its dilapidation, the effect was still magnificent.

“Incredible,” Connie said.

“You are impressed?” Maltokken asked.

Connie turned to him, startled at his voice. She did not realize he was sitting on his hanyak so closely behind her. “How long is this wall?” she asked him.

“8583 leagues,” he replied. “Everyone knows that.”

“Well, I’m not everyone.”

Connie did a mental calculation. She estimated that since there were about two and a half leagues to her estimation of a mile. That meant the wall had a length of—3433 miles! This was far longer than the wall of China at 660 miles. The idea of a structure of this length boggled her mind. She wondered instantly if the wall bisected the continent as it snaked across the land or if it spanned islands and bodies of water in its total length. She thought that maintaining the wall was a Herculean task. She wished she had a map of the continent.

Connie did not see any gates or other entrances in the wall. Just as Connie wondered if they were going to scale it, Rahl drew his sword and walked up to the section of wall next to her. He put his free hand on the wall and closed his eyes. He stood there for a while without moving, his head bowed, as if he were in prayer. Then abruptly he opened his eyes and addressed the party.

“Chaos is strong on the other side of this section. We will cross at another place.”

Rahl began walking east along the wall, running his fingers along the smooth stones, his armor clanking with each step. Every so often he’d step over a chunk fallen from the wall or clump of dead vegetation, but he never released his fingers from the white stone of the wall for any more than a second. The party unquestioningly followed Rahl on their hanyaks.

After they had traveled four hundred paces or so, Rahl paused. After a few moments, he patted the wall a few times with the palm of his hand.

“This is the place,” Rahl announced to the group. “We will cross here.”

As if on cue, Snow got off her white hanyak and, with a gold-tipped wand in hand, walked over to where Rahl stood. He said something to her out of Connie’s earshot, and she nodded. Rahl turned to the party.

“Prepare to enter the Outer Realms.”

At those words, the members of the party looked to each other with uncertainty. Connie sensed a great deal of unease in the air after what they had witnessed the day before at the bridge. A few members drew their weapons.

“Can’t we rest a bit?” Jalban asked.

“We must go now,” Rahl responded.

“But we need to rest.”

Rahl smiled at Jalban, but he spoke to the rest of the party. “You deceive yourselves into believing the soil you stand upon is safe. I say to you in truth, the scourge upon this side of the wall is nearly the same as on the other side. There is no safety here—not for anyone.”

Rahl nodded to Snow. She planted her feet fully on the ground and positioned herself carefully, her right foot forward. She began smoothly, silently waving the wand repeatedly at the base of the wall in what looked like a horizontal, figure-eight pattern—the sign of Infinity—all the while muttering something incomprehensible under her breath. To Connie, it looked as if the wand were a baton, and she was conducting some invisible band. The hanyaks became restless. Then, a section of the wall the size of a passageway began to shimmer with gold sparkling light. Snow abruptly stopped waving the wand. Instantly, soundlessly, an arched tunnel appeared through the base of the wall.

“It is done,” the sorceress said.

Snow walked slowly back to her hanyak, her shoulders now slumped slightly. Casting the spell had seemingly physically weakened her. Connie looked into the tunnel and was surprised that she could not see light on the other side.

Rahl rode into the tunnel first. Yalden and Maltokken quickly followed. The rest of the party waited uneasily while they were gone. They returned after a minute and then stood in front of the entrance to the tunnel. Maltokken looked pale from whatever he saw on the other side and moved away from the passage.

“If any of you want to turn back, now is the time,” Rahl said, addressing the party. “Once you pass through, you will not be able to return to this land.”

The party members looked to each other, but no one said a word until Snow spoke up.

“I am behind you, Rahl. Let us go now. The spell doesn’t last indefinitely.” With those words, she led her white hanyak, pack barak in tow, into the pitch-black tunnel.

After Snow, Theo entered next, followed by Tristana. Then, one by one, the other party members entered the tunnel until only Rahl, Connie, and Maltokken remained.

“Aren’t you going?” Rahl asked the soldier.

“I have a wife and child in Roggentine,” he said, his voice trembling. “What will become of them once I leave this land? What if we fail?”

Rahl stared at him levelly. “You deceive yourself by thinking the fate of your wife and child is in your hands. Their fate is not. Roggentine will surely be surrounded by Chaos long before we reach the Atranox.

“Then I should return.”

“For what? To battle Chaos from the fields to the walls of the citadels? A single soldier cannot affect the outcome of a war.”

“But maybe I can protect my family,” Maltokken said. “Maybe I can take them to the coast. From there we can take a ship to an island, where we will be safe for a time.”

“A man’s family is closest to his heart. This is the way it ought to be. But perhaps you can also do good for them by serving the greater cause. If we succeed, they will live along with millions of others.”

Connie listened to this exchange between the two men, admiring Rahl for how delicately he addressed Maltokken’s fear without any attempt to belittle or humiliate him. Her heart swelled with respect for him. Now, here is a real man, she thought.

“Rahl!” came Snow’s voice from the passage. “Please hurry!”

“I will not force you to choose either way, Maltokken,” Rahl said, “but you must choose now.”

Maltokken looked toward the south from where they had traveled from. “Perhaps I should go,” he said.

“Don’t be a fool, Maltokken,” Connie broke in. “Roggentine is over a day away. And you’ll be on your own. There are bandits out there, not to mention Chaos.”

Maltokken’s face broke into a sweat on hearing those words. “Yes, but if I hurry—”

“And don’t forget that you have to cross that chaos river again at some point. Remember what happened to those townspeople?”

“What shall I do?” he asked Rahl.

“Come along with us,” he replied. “We will need your fighting strength for this journey.”

“Rahl!” Snow’s voice came again from the other side of the wall.

Maltokken gave Rahl a look of uncertainty and, with a last longing look toward the south, he rode his hanyak into the tunnel to join the rest of the party. Now only Connie and Rahl remained.

“I guess it’s my turn now, Rahl,” she said, guiding her hanyak over toward the tunnel.

“Connie,” he said to her.

She stopped and turned to see him staring at her. She thought she saw admiration for her in his greenish-black eyes, but she wasn’t sure.

“Are you sure you want to do this? Once you pass through the Calphous Wall, you will not be able to return.”

“I realize this, but I have nothing to return to.”

“You may still make it to the coast,” he said. “The path is clear to the south. You can make it in a week if you hurry and do as Maltokken said.”

“No, Rahl. I’m going with you.”

Rahl smiled at her sadly. “I want to thank you for volunteering for this quest.”

“Thank you for your faith in me, Rahl. I won’t let you down.”

“Something tells me you speak the truth.”

Snow voice came again from the tunnel in the wall. “Rahl, what is taking you so long?” Seconds later, she appeared at the entrance. “What is the delay?” she asked the both of them in a severe tone. “I can’t cast this spell again. Come now, or you will remain on this side.”

Connie and Rahl followed Snow through the wall. The passage was pitch black inside with a scarcely visible dull-brown glow on the other side. They walked twenty paces toward the glow until they suddenly passed into daylight again.

The sight on the other side shocked Connie. Whereas they had left green fields of grass and forests, this side was desolate wasteland. The ground was black and stony, and the only foliage was an occasional dead tree jutting from the ground, with leafless branches appearing as crazed spider webs on stalks. To Connie, the land on the north side of the wall looked as though it had sustained a nuclear blast. This desolation stretched onward for as far as the eye could see. The air was bad too; it was heavy with the thick, fishy smell she caught whiff of at the river.

Rahl turned to the party. “I have two simple rules for all of you to follow. The first is to not touch anything without speaking to me first. This is a dangerous land. The most innocent of objects or creatures may be deadly. The second rule is keep together. You must not stray from the party, for there is safety in our number. To be alone in this land is to court death. Do any of you question these rules?”

Rahl met the gaze of each party member. No one responded.

“Very good,” he said finally. “Let us continue.”

Without another word, the party began heading north. After they had traveled a short distance, Connie looked back toward the Calphous Wall. The tunnel they’d traveled through had vanished. The only sign they had passed through were their footprints that led away from the featureless base of the wall.

Connie again wondered about the relationship between Rahl and Snow. Rahl had told her he had a wife and child in his hometown of Xhalathn. And from what she knew of Snow, the self-styled epitome of purity and piousness, the great arch sorceress could never ‘defile’ herself by seeking the affection of a married man, especially when she was beautiful enough with her buxom figure and pouty lips to win the heart and soul of any man she wanted in Roggentine. Still, that didn’t explain the doe-eyed look Snow sometimes gave Rahl when he spoke to her, and the way the mighty sorceress purred at his side like a young kitten while she snapped at everyone else with so much impunity, including her own apprentice.

The two had been friends in years past. That much was understood. Perhaps they were even lovers at one time. But some things about the swordbearer and the sorceress didn’t make sense. Furthermore, Connie could not understand why a spirit of melancholy had descended upon Rahl at the precise moment he'd heard that Zeranon had been overcome by Chaos. He was mourning a town he claimed to have visited only once or twice. What was the connection? Connie wondered.

After a few hours of the same dreary, flat terrain, the area became hilly. They had to slow down their pace. Once they reached the top of one hill, in the depression between them and the next hill, was a wild garden of giant flowers. To Connie, the flowers had the distinct bell shape of morning glories or perhaps devil’s trumpets, both of which resembled the sound horn on an old Victrola. The flowers, in their vibrant reds, blues, violets, and greens, stood out in stark contrast to the otherwise barren landscape, and they grew on vines with giant, fleshy, green leaves. They were altogether beautiful. Scattered on the wet soil around the plant were numerous beige seeds the shape of a semi-flattened peach pit and the length of a man’s hand.

Rahl stopped the party, who had been traveling behind him two abreast. Then the ten of them lined up at the apex of the hill, staring down at the dense garden below.

“Look at the flowers! They’re beautiful!” Fandia said. She took a step toward the unusual foliage.

Before she could take another step, Rahl held out his sword in front of her, holding her back with the flat of the blade.

“Wait. Don’t move.”

Rahl then waved his sword in a broad arc over the garden below while the party watched. Finally, he lowered the weapon.

“Don’t go near them. The garden is tainted,” Rahl said. “We will go around it.” He sheathed his sword and moved to the left along the crest of the hill.

Fandia looked to Snow. “Can you imagine Calicus’ garden with flowers such as those?”

“Yes, they are lovely,” Snow replied.

“I don’t believe delicate flowers such as those could be harmful. What if we were to get some of those seeds? Maybe the seeds would grow into an untainted plant. We could grow them in the garden and find out.”

Jalban said to Fandia, “If Rahl says not to touch them, then it would behoove you to follow his words.”

“I agree with Rahl. He’s the leader. We should follow him.” Connie said.

Fandia shot Connie a hard, incredulous look. “Hold your tongue. You contribute nothing to this quest.”

Connie gave Fandia a hard stare. The apprentice is no better than the master, she thought.

Psi’el rode back to the three stragglers. He spoke after Rahl, Snow, and Theo, and most of the others were out of earshot. “I would not give weight to Rahl’s words,” he said in a hushed tone.

“What do you mean?” Fandia asked.

He glanced at Rahl and then drew close to her when he saw Rahl wasn’t listening. “Rahl thinks he can control us now that we have passed beyond the Calphous Wall.”

“How do you know this?” Jalban asked.

“Trust me. I know his type.”

“Rahl is a swordbearer,” he said. “You would do well to trust his words. He knows and understands Chaos.”

“Nonsense. No man understands Chaos.”

“You’re merely a soldier. What do you know?” he asked. “I don’t see the tattoo of the swordbearer on your arm.”

The fighter chuckled. “I don’t need a tattoo.” He pointed to his temple. “I have a sharp mind. Listen. If you want to survive, just stand by me. That’s right. I’ll make sure you survive this quest.”

“Nonsense,” Jalban said.

“Those are lovely flowers,” Fandia said, looking longingly at the flowers. “I would love to have the seeds for those. Did you know I tend Calicus’ garden?”

“I can get you those seeds with my whip,” Psi’el said, proudly holding up his prized weapon in his hand.

Jalban sighed. “You are a fool with that whip of yours.”

“I also have a flail. Would you like to feel it on your back, healer?”

“Be gone,” Fandia said.

On seeing no one protest her order, Psi’el shook his head. “Curse you both, then.” He turned his hanyak around and galloped up to the rest of the party.

Jalban gazed at Fandia, whose eyes were again enraptured by the flowers as they passed them. “Have no fear, Fandia,” he said. “Before we leave this land, you shall have seeds for your garden.”

Fandia turned to Jalban and smiled. “Are you saying you will get them for me?”

“Perhaps I will,” he said. “Now every plant we see like that must be tainted by Chaos.”

Connie broke in. “Did I hear you correctly that everything in this land is tainted?”

“No, not everything,” Jalban answered. “And there are known to be vast regions here still free of this scourge. We will come to them by and by.”

“Connie, you always ask the most obvious, annoying questions,” Fandia said.

“I’m just trying to learn about this place. What’s wrong with that?”

“I didn’t say it was wrong. I just said it was annoying.”

“I’m sorry to annoy you, Fandia.”

Connie rode up away from the rest of the party, but she didn’t speak to anyone, not even Tristana this time. Evidently, she was the low woman on the totem pole. More than that, she definitely didn’t feel as though she was an integral part of this loosely assembled group. All of them seemed to lack confidence in her. This was a far cry from her work with the CIA, where she felt she had the respect of her colleagues. Now she wondered why Rahl and even Calicus had allowed her to join them. Perhaps it was purely out of pity. Perhaps they wanted her to come to a quick end so that she would not suffer. Connie clenched her teeth at this thought. No matter what their reasons for allowing her to join the quest, she had a mission. And as she told Rahl, she would fulfill it to its most logical conclusion, whether it resulted in victory or death.

As the party traveled further into the hills, the garden they had first seen turned out to be one of hundreds. And within each of the depressions between the gently rolling hills they now traveled was a garden of giant flowers, just as they had seen earlier. Gradually, the fishy, charnel-like air gradually gave way to the sweet smell of nectar as the gardens of flowers became larger and more numerous. Connie noted that in a few of the larger, deeper depressions, a shallow pool of water surrounded the cluster of vines. She also noted that none of the flowers grew on the crests of the hills. From this, she surmised that the flowers survived only on the moist soil between the hills as opposed to the relatively dry soil at the crests.

They traveled without making camp for the next four hours, stopping only at a pool (that Rahl judged as untainted) to water the hanyaks and baraks. After a few leagues, the hills and flowers gave way to a plateau where scruffy weeds grew. This was a change, for in the previous travel of the day, they had not encountered a single living animal or plant save the giant gardens of flowers. It was around this time that Connie heard Fandia bitterly complaining to Jalban that there were no more of the flowers available from which to take seeds.

Sunset followed shortly after they reached the plateau. They stopped at an area Rahl had picked out, cleared away the brush, and set up camp. After dinner, which was a surprisingly tasty stew that Jalban had prepared, the party settled in for the night. Connie sat near the fire. On the opposite side, she saw Fandia thumbing through what looked like a spell book. Connie went to her pack and retrieved a few of her own. When she did so, she discretely looked over Fandia’s shoulder and saw that the apprentice was reading the text of an elemental spell. At that moment, an idea came to Connie.

When it came time to hit the blankets for the night, Rahl ordered that those who held watch the night before were relieved of duty for this night. Rahl elected Fandia and Psi’el for the first watch. Connie insisted to Rahl that she be allowed to take the first watch with Fandia. Psi’el feeling sleepy from an extra helping of dinner, was happy to oblige. Fandia seemed indifferent either way.

The party turned in for the night. This was a clear night, and the twin moons that rose from the eastern horizon now lit the rough landscape with a hard, green glow. Outside the crackle of the fire and the soft breathing of a few party members, the land was as still as a graveyard, and the air devoid of the usual nocturnal sounds of nature. There was not even the hint of a breeze. This grave-like stillness unnerved Connie, and she was actually relieved when a few men in the party started snoring, for the sound very effectively broke the eerie quietude of night by its familiarity.

For the first half-hour or so, the two women said nothing to each other, each staying opposite sides of the fire, neither speaking to the other except to urge the other to add wood to the fire from a nearby pile to keep it burning. Unable to make sense of her own spell books, Connie watched Fandia gazing into hers. The apprentice was completely engrossed in the text, whispering something softly to herself repeatedly as though she were memorizing a poem or the words to a song.

After Connie was sure that everyone in the party was asleep, she ambled over to where Fandia was and sat down next to her. Fandia looked over at Connie when she did so; her expression told Connie that she was not welcome to join her on the side of the fire. Still, she said nothing and then returned her attention to the spell book in her lap.

“I see that you’re reading a book on elemental spells,” Connie said. “Fire, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Why do you care?”

“Alyndia used to practice elemental magic.”

“But you can’t. And because of that, it’s going to be my job to cast elemental spells for the party.” She sighed. “It’s so boring to me. I was in training to cast celestial spells, not these.”

“You don’t have to cast elemental spells if you don’t want to.”

“Snow told me I must.”

“Ah! But Calicus said I might have some of Alyndia’s ability to cast spells. Someone just needs to show me how.”

I suppose you want me to do that.”

Connie was impressed with Fandia—she caught on quickly.

“You have your spell books. If Calicus says you have the ability, it should be easy for you.”

“Fandia, I read and read my books, but I seem to be missing some critical step that isn’t mentioned in them. What do you say you just gave me a few pointers? I’d be really grateful.”

“I will do nothing of the sort.”

“Why not?”

“Because I won’t. That is all.”

Connie scowled at Fandia. Although Fandia lacked the mature iciness of Snow, she certainly didn’t lack her contrariness.

“But think of the benefit. Right now I can’t contribute to the party. If I could cast spells, I’d be able to help everyone out if we ran into trouble. I might even be able to save your life if the situation arose.”

Fandia closed her eyes for a moment. “You’re very persuasive, but I don’t have the time to do so. It is all I can do to study these spells every night. Now go away.”

Connie was not going to give up that easily. She remained where she was, watching Fandia. The apprentice tried immersing herself in the book again, but Connie’s proximity seemed to perturb her. After a minute, Fandia looked up at Connie and met her in the eye.

“Are you still here?”

“Is it about Snow? Are you afraid that Snow might be displeased if you teach me?”

Fandia glanced behind Connie to make sure Snow was snoozing in the cocoon of her blanket. “It is my prerogative to teach whom I want,” she said in a hushed tone.

“Perhaps you won’t teach me because you don’t know how to? Maybe you didn’t learn your lessons well.”

A look of indignation crossed her brow. “Surely, you jest. I am a very hard-working apprentice,” she said. “That is why she chose me to come along on this quest.”

“Would you teach me for money? Just ask me what you’d like. I’ll give it to you.”

Fandia laughed loudly. Her laughter pierced the silence of the night. Connie looked around the party. She hoped no one would awaken.

“I don’t want your money, Connie. I have no need for it. Calicus and Snow tend to all my needs.” She turned the page of the book. “Now leave me be. I don’t want to discuss this further.”

Connie drew a long sigh. Snow had trained Fandia well in how to be irritating and impossibly difficult to convince. So now, Connie decided that she would have to play her trump card. This was something she dreaded, but it seemed the only thing that would budge the immovable Fandia.

“If you won’t take my money, I have a proposition for you.”

“I am weary of this conversation, Connie,” Fandia said, her eyes not leaving the spell book. “Why don’t you sleep off the rest of the watch so that you don’t disturb me? I will not tell Rahl if you choose to sleep early.”

Connie ignored Fandia’s request and continued, “Remember those giant flowers you liked? What do you say we make a trade?”

“What sort of trade?”

From the subtle shift in the tone of Fandia’s voice, Connie sensed Fandia’s interest in her words.

“Suppose I got you a few of the seeds from one of those flower vines and brought them back to you. Would you then be willing to teach some elemental magic?”

Fandia looked up from her book and stared at Connie, incredulous, the light from the fire glinting in her green eyes. Her thin lips bent with a pert, cynical grin. “Are you serious?”

“I’m quite serious,” Connie replied.

Seeing that Connie was not bluffing, the grin fell away from Fandia’s face. “How would you get the seeds? We saw the last flowers almost half an hour before we set up camp. And it is dark.”

“There is enough light from the moons and the stars that I could find my way.”

“But what if one of the others should awaken and you were not present? What would I tell them?"

“Tell them anything. Tell them that I’m out relieving myself. Why should they be suspicious?”

Connie saw heavy reluctance in Fandia’s expression. She continued, “I could probably make it there and back in under an hour. That is still within our watch. No one will know that I’m missing.”

Fandia pensively rubbed the bridge of her nose with her index finger. “And what if you get lost?”

Connie smiled. “I can take care of myself. I’m a trained survivalist. I can survive indefinitely in the wilderness with nothing but this dagger I carry.” She patted the hilt of the dagger in her belt for emphasis of her words.

Fandia studied Connie’s face, nearly ready to agree, then she turned away to the darkness opposite Connie. “I appreciate your willingness to do this for the sake of my knowledge, but I have to decline your proposal.”

“Why not?”

“I cannot be responsible.”

“I’m not asking you to be.”

“I’m still worried if someone awakens.”

“They won’t. And if they do, be creative in what you tell them. I’m certain you can think of something.”

Fandia ruminated over this for almost a minute while staring into the fire. Connie watched the firelight reflect off her dark eyes while she did so. Then slowly, the apprentice shook her head. She opened her mouth to speak. Before she could, Connie continued her pitch…

“Think of how beautiful those flowers were, Fandia. No one on the south side of the Calphous Wall has seen anything as lovely as those. Wouldn’t you be proud to have them in your garden? Wouldn’t they be lovely there? I’ll bet you know exactly where you’d put them.” Connie put her arm on Fandia’s shoulder. “What do you think the people of Roggentine would say once word got out about your extraordinary flowers? People would travel hundreds of leagues just to see their beauty. And think about it; you can have all this merely for teaching me a few trivial things about spells.”

Fandia sighed as she deliberated this further. She bit down on her lower lip. “Very well then, Connie,” she said with a sigh, her eyes remaining on the fire. “If you procure for me the seeds for those flower vines, I will teach you how to use elemental magic.”

Connie grinned at Fandia. She rose to her feet, feeling victorious. Fandia quickly grabbed her by a sleeve of her robe and pulled her back down.

“If something bad should happen to you,” she said in a hushed tone, “I want to impress upon you that this was your idea, not mine. I will not have the stain of your blood upon my name.”

“I understand that, Fandia,” Connie said.

“Furthermore, we must conceal the seeds from the party until we return to Roggentine. And not a word to the party on what we have done.”

Connie nodded. This seemed reasonable. “I’m as good as my word, Fandia, just so long as you are as good as yours.”

Connie made haste in building herself a torch from the campfire. Fandia watched her in silence. Then very quickly, Connie stole out of the camp on foot and headed back the way they came through the dreary, moonlit landscape of the land given up to Chaos two thousand years before.

Clutching the dagger one with hand, holding the torch in the other, and with an empty leather bag slung over her shoulder and hung at her hip, she made her way back to the area of the hills. As went, she made haste along the tracks the hanyaks made in the soil along the occasional manure droppings. At one point, she thought she saw shadows moving silently around her within the brush. She stopped to listen. Then all at once, she caught a slight whiff of the fishy smell like that they smelled at the river. She stopped to try to detect the origin of the smell. All at once, she had the uncanny feeling she was being watched. The smell intensified. When she looked to the ground near her feet, she thought she saw a shadow creeping low and silent toward her along the ground, moving like someone was spilling a barrel of thick crude oil at her feet. A chill ran up her spine on seeing this. She wasn’t sure if what she was seeing was real or if the darkness and crazy shadows of the bushes from combined light from the double moons and the torch were playing tricks on her eyes. She moved away from the moving shadow and picked up her pace down the path. The smell and the shadow faded with distance.

After some time had passed, she descended into the hilly terrain where the flowers lay in the broad depressions between the hills. She walked along the top of the hills looking for one of the gardens. Finally, in one depression, she spotted a small clump of vines surrounded by the beige seeds. To her surprise, the huge morning glories had closed for the night into conical twists. The moonlight blanched their vibrant colors to a cold, blue hue.

She realized she would have to descend into the depression. She took a step down and nearly slipped on the soft soil. To free the use of her hand in case she fell, she stuck the torch into the rocks. She began again to step down the embankment. Once on the floor of the depression, she began walking toward the plant. The moss-covered ground felt soft and yielding beneath her feet. As she walked closer to the plant, her feet sank and began sinking deeper into the soil until she sank up to her ankles. Now a dank, putrid smell breached her nose. It seemed to be emanating from the soil. The smell made her feel nauseous, and she cursed the soil at the smell of it. She continued moving toward the plant located at the center-most area of the kidney-shaped valley between the hills. She was almost at the plant now, and almost within reach of what looked like oversized white pumpkin seeds scattered on the soft soil. Up close, the plants seemed much larger than they did from the hilltops. The vines of the plant were about the thickness of her thumb. With no solid surface to climb upon, the vines grew into a ball until they amounted to the clump she now saw.

She was now close enough that she was surrounded by the seeds. She opened the pouch and began stuffing some into it. By this time, her feet had sunken into the muck around the bush up to her shins.

“You’d better appreciate this, Fandia,” she muttered to herself. After she had collected some seeds, she began smelling the sweet nectar scent they smelled earlier in the day. When she looked up at the plant, to her utter shock, the formerly closed flowers had opened up. Now the flowers appeared in all their loveliness, with their reds, greens, and blues vibrant fluorescent in the cold, lunar light.

Connie took a moment to stare at the flowers, fascinated by their incredible beauty. Up close, they were huge, at nearly three feet across. After a moment, a chill ran down her spine when she realized that all the flowers of the bush were facing her. And now they looked like so many eyes, or perhaps—gaping maws. Now a clear, viscous liquid, like saliva, began dripping from a few of the flowers closest to her.

Then she heard a quickening rustle from somewhere within the vine. Sensing danger, she began backing away from the plant. Her movement was hampered by the thick muck at her feet. The bush suddenly sprang to life. She felt something rough wrap around her legs. She looked down. A vine the thickness of her finger from the plant had wrapped itself around her left ankle and was not coiling itself up to her knee. She let out a scream. She tried to move back away from the vine, to yank herself from its grasp. Quickly, another vine flew out of the main bush and wrapped around her other leg. She tried to pull away and fell flat on the muck instead. Now the vines pulled her prostrate figure toward the plant. She clawed at the ground. Her grasping hands met only handfuls of a material with the texture of rotten wood. There was nothing firm to hold onto.

She was nearly frozen with terror. This can’t be happening to me, her mind cried out in disbelief. How could I have allowed this to happen? The sweet smell of nectar vanished, and now the rotten-fish stench of Chaos burned in her nostrils. She wanted to vomit from its intensity. Her mind was filled with the horrifying scene she had witnessed at the bridge the day before. She wondered what the party would do when they realized she was gone. They would ask Fandia. “Where is that fool?” Fandia would shake her head and shrug. “She went out to relieve herself, and she never came back,” she’d say. Then the party might search the immediate area for her. Of course, they would never find her. After a while, they would move on, and Snow would tell Rahl, “Didn’t I tell you it was a bad idea to bring her along? I told you, but you didn’t listen to me.”

Then, without warning, amid the clutching vines, Connie out of her body. The urgency of the moment subsided along with the physical pain. By the eerie green moonlight and the flickering light of the torch nearby, she watched a helpless woman drawn into the tentacle-trap of a carnivorous plant. The coolness of purely rational thought rose up in Connie as she viewed the scene with a strange kind of detachment, as though she were merely a disinterested spectator. She thought that probably, at one time, the plant was a harmless species that grew native to the area. But when Chaos took over, while the other plant species of the area died, this one, perhaps by chance, survived by mutating into the monstrosity that now sought to devour her. The watched as the vines pulled her limp body, which appeared to her as a lifeless doll, toward the awaiting flowers. At once, a wave of horror washed over her, and she shook off the cool feeling of the detached observer. I cannot die like that! her mind cried out.

Instantly, Connie was back in her body. The sudden shock of the pain nearly overwhelmed her. She shook off the fear and took hold of her senses. She reached to her belt, withdrew her dagger from the scabbard, and slashed at the vines that were wrapped around her ankles. The vines were tough, but the dagger cut through them quickly. She vaguely noticed, as she cut the vine, a putrid-smelling black liquid the consistency of honey or molasses oozing from the cut end of the vine.

She had nearly cut the second vine from her leg when another vine whipped out and wrapped around the arm that held the dagger. Quickly, she transferred the dagger to her free arm. She began cutting at this vine. While she did so, two more vines wrapped around her legs and resumed pulling her toward the plant. Now her legs breached the area of the main bush. The giant fleshy leaves of the plant began folding around her like flexible clamshells.

Finally, she had cut through the vine that had twisted so tightly around her arm. The vine went limp. She quickly sat up and, frantically, slashed at the vines on her legs. While she did this, several more vines ran wrapped around her legs and torso. Now she was being quickly dragged, almost lifted toward the body of the plant and whatever waited for her inside of it.

Frantically now, she cut through the vines, one after the other, alternating the dagger from one hand to the other, but the plant seemed to have an endless supply of vines. Now the topside of one of the fleshy leaves touched her bare arm. At once, she felt as though a thousand bees had thrust their stingers into her arm. She screamed in pain.

“Bastard!” she cursed at the plant.

Now she was angry. She cut the vines even faster than before, swiping through some of them with a single slash. Now another fleshy leaf was moving toward her face. With a single swipe at the stalk of the leaf, it felt to the ground with a heavy thump.

She kept slashing at the plant wildly with the dagger while extracting herself from its tendrils. Eventually, she had cleared most of the vines. Seeing her exit, she rolled away from the plant, safely out of reach of the flailing vines. Now she backed away from the plant, the stumps of severed vines oozing an evil-smelling black liquid, stretching, reaching for her. The flowers remained pointed at her, dripping with a saliva-like substance.

She was now at the base of the incline. She turned and ran to the top of the hill, where the torch still burned. She picked up her torch. Bruised, slashed, and bleeding, she stared down at the plant with contempt for what it had tried to do to her, the pouch of seeds lying at its base where she’d dropped it.

She thrust her torch at the plant. To her surprise, she found the moss and vines dripping the black liquid were flammable. They burned with a black, smoky flame that smelled almost worse than the pungent fishy smell. She whipped the torch around the vines, thrusting it at the plant. Then she held it to the moss around the plant. Soon, the plant was engulfed in flames, its vines flailing wildly in the air. Connie snatched up the pouch of seeds and climbed out of the depression. Once she reached the top, she turned around to view the plant one last time. It was no longer moving. It lay there burning, an innocuous lump of burning vegetation, while the flames crawled along the moss at the filled base of the depression.

Satisfied that the plant had been killed, she began the arduous trip back to where the party made camp. Now her skin stung with the cuts from the vines, and her clothes stank with putrid-smelling mud that surrounded the plant. This trip back to the campsite was slower going as she was exhausted from her battle with the plant. She staggered most of the way and even tripped and fell a few times, adding a few cuts to her skin covered in welts from the plant. Once again, she got the impression from time to time she felt she was being watched and even followed on a few occasions. When this feeling came, she picked up the pace until it subsided.

When she arrived back at the campsite, she was startled to find the entire party awake and fully armored. It looked like they were about to embark on a search for her. This is not going to be good, Connie thought on seeing them.

“There she is!” someone said when she came into view.

At that moment, several of the party members rushed up to her. A few stopped short when they saw her bedraggled appearance.

Rahl stood before her now with his sword drawn. His expression was one of disbelief. “Connie, what happened to you?”

Before she answered, she looked for Fandia. Fandia was not among her greeting party; instead, she sat by herself next to the fire, looking sullen. From this, Connie assumed Fandia had told them why Connie had ventured alone into the night and it had not gone over well.

“The plant. It attacked me.”

Rahl waved his sword at her. As he waved it toward her, the weapon glinted in the blue-green light of the moons. “Chaos,” he said. “She reeks of Chaos.”

“She stinks too,” someone added. It sounded like Psi’el or Maltokken.

“I did get the seeds,” Connie said, despite realizing that nobody cared about that.

“Strip her,” Rahl said to the party. “Remove her clothes, and throw everything into the fire, including those seeds. Then I want someone to scrub her down with clean rags, and then I want the rags burned too. And someone cast a Protection Against Chaos spell on her.”

“I’ve already done it,” Theo said.

Connie took a step back. “Hey, you’re not removing my clothes.”

“You have no choice, Connie,” Jalban said. “You’re covered in Chaos. It may infect you if it remains on you.”

“I think we ought to make her wear the clothes for her stupidity,” Psi’el said.

“Shut your mouth, fool,” Snow said. “If she wears her clothes, she might give it to us.”

“This is not a time for modesty,” Rahl said to Connie. He turned to Snow. “Can you help me?”

“Certainly, Rahl,” the sorceress said sweetly. She glanced back to the fire where Fandia sat. “Fandia will have the honor of removing Connie’s clothes and washing her down since she is partially responsible for this.”

“Whatever you say,” Rahl said, not wanting to be bothered with details. “Just see to it that she is cleansed right away.”

Maltokken and Psi’el quickly erected a small, military-style tent for the sake of Connie’s modesty. Connie’s clothes were promptly removed and burned. Jalban gave Connie some salve for her wounds after she was cleansed, and he made her take three swallows of a potion that tasted like salty black licorice, a flavor she hated.

Now Connie and Fandia were alone in the tent while the party, now wide awake, chatted in low tones around the fire. Connie sensed they were talking about her. Their silhouettes projected vague, shadowy images on the canted roof of the tent as viewed from the inside. Connie lay on a blanket while Fandia sponged her down with rags dipped in a metal bowl of warm water produced from a water node coupled with a fire spell. The two women said nothing to each other for a long while Fandia washed the ill-scented putrescence from her body.

As Fandia washed down her back, Connie ventured to ask her how the party knew what had happened to her. “Did you tell them, or did they force it out of you?” she asked the apprentice.

“Rahl awoke. He asked me where you were. I told him our story, but he became suspicious when you didn’t return. When he woke up Snow, I had to tell him the truth. They were going to search for you.”

“I see. Well, now that I brought back the seeds, I hope you will keep your end of the bargain.”

“I will not,” she said, dipping the rag into the bowl.

“Why not? I did as I said I would—I got the seeds for you.”

“This is true. But the seeds were tainted, and then they threw them into the fire.”

Connie turned to Fandia. “I nearly got killed getting them for you. The fact they were tainted is irrelevant. Besides, you already knew they might be. Fandia, I fulfilled my end of the bargain by getting the seeds. Now you must fulfill your end of the bargain.”

“I will do nothing of the sort,” she retorted without hesitation.

Connie turned away from the apprentice, feeling betrayed and hurt. She felt she was going to cry—the new unwelcome habit of hers. “I can’t believe this. How could you do this to me?”

“Hold your tongue,” Fandia said. “Because of you, Snow is angry at me.”

“What? I almost died out there, and you’re upset only because Snow is angry with you. That is the most ludicrous thing I have ever heard. You and her are alike, Fandia. How I despise the both of you!”

Fandia gasped loudly at the words. Connie knew instantly she had blown Fandia’s fuses. The apprentice stopped wiping down Connie’s back. She threw the rag into the bowl with a loud splash.

“That is all. You are done.” She crawled over to the exit of the tent in a huff, turning to Connie just before she exited. “And don’t ask me for any more favors.”

“Favors? What favors? Get out of here!”

Alone now, Connie wept softly to herself. She remembered the stares of the party members when she appeared out of the darkness. What modicum of respect she had won from the party was now gone. For this foolish act of hers, she had dropped herself from the low member on the totem pole to the unseen part of it that was buried in the ground. Everything was now such a mess. She thought, for a moment, that things would have been easier for her if she had let herself be overcome by the plant. As she wept, she ached so badly to be back in her world. But did anyone even miss her there? Then she heard Jalban’s voice from outside the tent.

“Connie?”

“Yes, Jalban,” she said.

“May I come in?”

“Just a moment.” Connie quickly wiped her face and wrapped her naked body in the blanket that had fallen to the ground when Fandia left the tent. “Come in.”

Jalban entered the tent. “I saw Fandia leaving the tent. I figured she was done. I made some hot aceralla root. Would you like some?”

Connie just shook her head at his simple kindness in thinking of her. She felt like crying again. She did not want Jalban to see her this way.

Perhaps sensing her despondence, he backed his portly figure toward the exit. “Perhaps I should come back later.”

“No, Jalban. Don’t go. I want you to stay. Just stay for a minute. Can you?”

Jalban looked at her with uncertainty. He crawled further into the tent and sat next to her. He waited for her to speak.

“I suppose I really made a fool of myself this evening, venturing out into the dark by myself.”

“Well, let us say that it was not wise and leave it at that. Your reason for doing so, however, deserves some praise. In other words, your heart was in the right place.”

“I’m glad at least one of you feel that way,” Connie said, wiping her eyes.

“A few of the others share my sentiments. Rahl in particular…” His voice trailed off.

“What about Rahl? He probably thinks I’m a fool.”

“I am not certain of that, but I do know he was most concerned for you. Once we heard the story from Fandia, Rahl ordered the party to suit up to search for you, declaring that we would not sleep anymore that night until you were found. Just about everyone protested this. Most of all, Snow. Those two argued mightily about you. I think everyone is at least relieved that you returned for Rahl.

“What am I going to do, Jalban? How can I ever win their respect?”

“You may start by not doing what you did tonight.”

“But I cannot cast spells—I mean, I cannot now, but Alyndia was able to. Don’t ask me how I know, but I feel certain I could do it if only someone would show me how.”

Jalban sighed. “I think you may rule out the possibility you will receive help from either Snow or Fandia. Only the gods will be able to help you with them. Perhaps you can ask Theo if you want to learn magic. He may help you.”

Connie shook her head. “His kind of magic is creepy. I cannot stomach cutting organs out of living things. Besides, Alyndia had no skill in spirit magic. She knew elemental magic. She has the books for it.”

Jalban nodded slowly. “Alyndia used to say the same thing about spirit magic,” he said, stroking his chin. She was too much of a sensitive soul to harm living things.

“What was Alyndia like, Jalban?”

Jalban drew a long sigh while he stared at the silhouettes on the tent canvas. “When she was a child, she was very happy, loving young thing, always laughing, winsome in her ways. But she changed after her mother unexpectedly passed away. She withdrew from everyone after that, and melancholy dominated her for many years. Then she began to paint. She painted pictures of the city and the countryside, even the view from her windows. They were lovely.”

“Didn’t she ever have a love?”

“Ah, yes, she did. As the seasons came and went and she blossomed into an attractive young woman. She had a lover once. A boy from Thissane Springs. Very handsome, I recall. A soldier, I think he was, the captain of the Roggentine calvary unit. They were in love. When he took leave, he would come to visit her.”

“Did he visit her in the spring?” she asked, recalling the poem-letter she’d found.

“That was many years ago. I don’t rightly remember—but now that you mention it, I believe it was. Do you have a memory of him?”

“No, it was just a guess. What ever happened to him? Did they marry?”

Jalban shook his head. “No, it was not to be. As I understand it, they had some falling out. I’m not sure what it was about, but they ended the relationship over it. Then, on the afternoon of her 22th birthday, the last day of spring a few years later, he unexpectedly showed up in Roggentine. I don’t know why he was there. Maybe he came to make amends with her. From what I heard, he purchased some flowers for her at one of the stands in the merchant square. Then on the street just outside her home, he was run over by a runaway hanyak-drawn cart. Broke his neck. He died instantly.”

Connie nodded slowly.

“Alyndia was devastated when she learned about the circumstances of his death. She felt responsible for what had happened to him. After that, she never went out anymore and began denying herself the simple pleasures in her life. Most tragically, she burned all her exquisite paintings. From that time forward, she almost never left her apartment, only to procure food and to buy nodes and books. I alone remained close to her.” Jalban looked to Connie. His eyes were misty. “I was not surprised by the letter Alyndia left me, the one you gave to me. I knew something like that might happen sooner or later. I am sorry that you had become involved.”

“So am I,” Connie said.

“I will admit something to you,” Jalban said. “From what I know of my niece, she would not have volunteered for this quest as you have.”

“You give me more credit than what is due, Jalban. I didn’t feel I had a choice after what happened to Sind’s brother.”

“You are so brave.”

“I am not.”

“Ah, but Alyndia’s wounded spirit would not have called her to do such, even if she had been in your predicament. Perhaps it may turn out to be a blessing that you have taken her place.”

Connie could not believe he’d said this. She looked into his face to search for any trace of insincerity. She found none. “A blessing, you say? For whom?”

“Perhaps for both of you and for the party,” he replied. “The gods work in mysterious ways. I’ve always believed certain events occur for a reason. Perhaps you are here for one of these reasons, and she is where she is for other reasons.”

“Well, I hope she’s finally found contentment in my body, if that’s where she went.” Connie wrapped the blanket more tightly around her back. “You have no idea how angry I am, Jalban. Look at me. While I’m sitting here cold, humiliated, beat to hell, and down to my last pair of underwear, Alyndia’s probably living it up with that goon, Professor Layton, at this moment at my expense. I can picture it now. They’re drinking wine in some fancy restaurant and laughing and planning the wonderful life they’re going to have together. Tell me: Where the justice in that?” she asked hotly. “Or are you telling me I deserve this punishment?”

“You misunderstand me,” he said. “I said nothing of justice, punishments, or rewards. I speak only of fate.”

“I don’t believe in fate.”

“You didn’t believe in magic, either, before you came to our world.”

She sighed.

“Connie, all I’m saying is that everyone is responsible for their path in life. We choose our fate; our fate does not choose for us.”

“Choose my fate? That’s a joke. I’m a leaf in the wind.”

He smiled. “Even a leaf in the wind blows in one direction. Your strong spirit will compel you forward until you arrive at the destination that you yourself have chosen.”

“Thank you for the words of encouragement, Jalban, but I think you make it sound a lot simpler than it is.”

He shrugged. “Perhaps so. I am only an herbalist. What do I know?” He moved toward the exit of the tent. “I’ll get you some hot aceralla root. Maybe you will feel better.”