Jaleigh Johnson - Unbroken Chain - The Darker Road

Bewildered, he hurried to catch up to Ilvani and kept a close watch as they walked through the market. They passed a pair of horses led by a dwarf. Ashok watched for a reaction from the animals, waited for them to buck and rear as the nightmare had done, but they didn’t so much as flinch at the witch’s presence.

Whatever its source, the madness Ilvani inflicted on the shadow beasts didn’t extend to common work animals. Ashok wondered at this distinction, but he didn’t have time to consider the reason for it. They were almost at their destination.

Ilvani slowed as they approached the halfling Darnae’s shop. Her gaze went immediately to the carvings around the arched brick doorway. She traced one with her fingernail and then turned her hand to look at it, as if she expected the symbol to rub off on her.

“This is one of the old houses, built before the shadar-kai came here,” Ashok said when she looked at him questioningly. Darnae had told him so when he’d visited before. “Will you come inside with me?”

She didn’t move. Ashok stepped over the threshold and turned to show her that nothing bad had happened to him. He held out his hand.

In response, she glared at him.

She was back to her old self enough that she didn’t want to be touched. He dropped his hand. He didn’t know whether to be grateful or not.

She came over the threshold. Her eyes took in the room in one swift glance: parchment, quills and ink arranged on cloth-covered tables, the room lit with soft candlelight. The surroundings brought peace to Ashok’s mind.

Why was it that he always felt so comfortable here, in a place as far from the world he knew as the mirror world was from Ikemmu?

Maybe it was simply the presence of the woman who stepped out now from the back room of the shop. Darnae had bright, prominently blue eyes and an angular face that lit with pleasure when she saw Ashok.

“I thought I might see you today, Ashok,” she said. “I opened a bottle of wine that Tatigan brought me. He had you in mind when he got it.…”

Her voice faded as she stepped around the counter and saw Ilvani. The witch crouched at eye level with a rack of quills, so that when she turned to look at the halfling, the two of them were eye to eye.

“The birds lost all their feathers,” Ilvani said. “No more owls.”

To Darnae’s credit, she hesitated only for a breath. Then she nodded thoughtfully, as if Ilvani had pointed out a fact she’d never considered before. She walked over to the rack, picked up a quill, and fitted it to Ilvani’s hand. To Ashok’s surprise, Ilvani didn’t jerk away when the halfling touched her fingers.

“Ashok.” Darnae addressed him, though she never took her eyes off Ilvani. “Could I ask you to go around the counter to the back room and get my bandages and the water basin, please? The ceiling slants downward back there, so watch your head.”

“I don’t think I should leave.”

“Go,” Ilvani said, surprising him again. “I’m fine.”

Ashok went to the back room and found the bandages and the basin. He brought them to the middle of the room where Darnae and Ilvani had arranged themselves on the floor. Ilvani was trying to hand Darnae back the quill, but Darnae wouldn’t take it, so Ilvani slipped it into the green bag she had tied at her waist.

“My thanks, Ashok,” Darnae said. She put the basin on her lap and began unrolling the bandages. “Won’t you sit with us?” she said when Ashok remained standing.

He sat, his hand automatically moving to shift his weapons. He still hadn’t recovered his chain from the forges. He hadn’t checked on Cree, either, or made his report to Uwan about Olra’s death. Everything that had happened in the past few hours was like an indistinct dream. All he had been able to think about was Ilvani’s safety-no, that wasn’t entirely true. He needed answers, a reason why Olra had died. He needed an explanation to give to Cree for why he had lost his eye.

But more than anything, he needed to be doing something. If he stopped for a breath to think, the red rage would consume him again.

He sat in silence while Ilvani let Darnae tend to her wounds. The halfling removed Ashok’s hasty bandage and cleaned the cuts-Ashok saw her pause when she discovered the symbols, but he didn’t say anything, just let her examine the marks-and when she finished bandaging them, she wet a strip of cloth and wiped Ilvani’s face clean. Throughout the ministrations, Ilvani didn’t move or protest. Ashok marveled at the two of them.

He hated to disturb the scene, especially with Ilvani so tranquil, but finally he had to speak. “Darnae, this is Ilvani. I’ve told you about her before.”

“You have, and I’m pleased to know you, Ilvani,” Darnae said. Her smile quickly faded, though, and she sat aside the basin of water, now pink with Ilvani’s blood. “What brings you here now and with such wicked wounds?”

“I made them,” Ilvani said before Ashok could answer.

“I see.” Darnae stood and went to one of the tables. She brought back a sheet of parchment, quill, and ink. Dipping the quill in the black liquid, she drew a quick sketch of one of the symbols Ashok had seen carved on Ilvani’s arm.

“Do you know what it means?” Ashok said.

Darnae sighed and nodded. “The language belongs to the peoples of northeastern Faerun-a high, cold, and mysterious country. Have you ever heard of Rashemen?”

Ashok shook his head, but Ilvani stared at Darnae steadily. “Snow and spirits,” she said.

“Yes,” said Darnae. “I’ve never traveled there myself, but put simply, that’s what Rashemen is, and that’s what this symbol means-’spirit.’ Their people worship the spirits of the land.”

“Telthor,” Ilvani said quietly.

Darnae nodded. “That’s the Rashemi name for them.”

“How do you know about the spirits, Ilvani?” Ashok asked.

“The woman told me,” Ilvani said. “The snow rabbit. The unproven. She tried to tell me more, but the darkness and the storm came between us.”

“The dust storm?” Ashok said. “You mean the same one that caught the caravan?”

Ilvani shook her head. “I see her in my dreams. The storm is in my dreams. It swallows us up.”

“The woman you saw might be one of the witches,” Darnae said. “They rule Rashemen and command the magic of the spirits.”

“But how is she able to contact Ilvani across an entire world, and why?” Ashok said.

Darnae shrugged. “Rashemi magic is said to be powerful. Whatever the witch’s reasons-”

“She’s in danger,” Ilvani said. “She asked me to help her, but I couldn’t.”

“It’s not only her,” Ashok said. He told Darnae what had happened earlier that day. When he’d finished, Darnae looked more concerned than ever.

“I’m so sorry, my friend,” she said, laying a small hand on Ashok’s arm. Ashok looked down at her tiny fingers and remembered how fragile she was-a child but not a child.

“I thought if you could decipher the symbols, we might be able to figure out why this is happening,” Ashok said. “But you can’t fight dreams.” He should know. The nightmare’s haunted visions had tested and beaten him once.

“There is something we haven’t considered,” Darnae said. “The shadow beasts and the shadar-kai are connected to the Shadowfell, which is itself a world of spirits. The witches of Rashemen have a similar connection to their telthors, and if some force is disturbing the natural order on the Shadowfell plane-”

“Then it’s possible something similar is happening to them in Faerun,” Ashok said.

It explained the pattern of the madness. The common animals in the trade district had been unaffected by Ilvani’s presence, and the shadow snake, the one that had tried to escape from Cree and Skagi, was smaller than its two-headed companion, weaker in mind perhaps and less connected to the Shadowfell and its influence.