“Explain this,” Agny said, her voice betraying her helpless anger. “Explain yourselves!”
Ashok found himself wanting to say the same thing. He had no explanation for any of it.
“Ilvani,” he said. “What-”
“It’s Yaraella,” Ilvani said tersely.
“What?” This from the other masked witch. “What did you say?”
“She smells her mother’s scent on me,” Ilvani said. “Yaraella is in me and on me. The offspring can tell.” She reached out hesitantly and ran two fingers through the child’s hair. To the onlookers it might have seemed like a gesture of affection, but Ashok knew Ilvani better than that.
“The hair is the same,” Ilvani said. “Her eyes-it’s the snow rabbit, only smaller.” She looked up at Agny. “I have to get rid of her.”
“Elina,” Agny said. “Please …”
“Not the offspring,” Ilvani said urgently. “The mother. You have to help me get rid of her.”
Agny and Ilvani stared at each other. Finally, Agny stepped forward. Ashok paced her step for step, making sure she was aware of him watching in the background. Agny nodded to him once and then kneeled beside Ilvani and the child.
“Will you let me look at you?” she asked Ilvani.
It was an odd question, since the two witches hadn’t taken their eyes off each other, but he knew it must be a deeper connection Agny sought, a magical one.
Ilvani glanced up at Ashok. He saw the uncertainty in her eyes.
“It’s up to you,” he said. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”
Ilvani turned back to Agny and nodded. “Do it,” she said.
Agny put her hands against Ilvani’s temples. She closed her eyes and murmured something under her breath. Ashok couldn’t make out most of the words, but he recognized that she uttered the name “Bhalla” several times, the same name Ralemvic had used in his farewell to Tatigan.
When she opened her eyes, Agny was breathing hard. Her hands trembled. She looked from Ilvani to the child and back again.
“We need to speak-alone,” Agny said. She looked up at Ashok and the brothers. “Will you all come with me?”
“Sister, is this wise?” the other masked witch asked.
“Yes, Sree,” Agny said. “If you’d seen what I did just now, you’d agree. We’ll go to Yaraella’s hut. You and Reina and the warriors will stand guard outside.”
“What about the demon?” Reina asked. She held up her hands, prepared to cast a spell on the nightmare.
“He won’t attack unless you provoke him,” Ashok said.
Agny eyed the beast with suspicion. “Put it in a stable. Reina, secure it with a protective circle. It won’t be harmed,” Agny said when Ashok started to protest, “unless it provokes us.” She looked at Ilvani. “Will you come?”
“Will you take Yaraella away?” Ilvani asked.
“I’ll try,” Agny said. “That is all I can promise.”
“Then we’ll come.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Inside the hut, Agny lit a fire. She laid a bundle of twigs and dried leaves on the hearth and whispered a prayer over them.
Ilvani sat in a corner near the flames. The child stayed close to her, holding on to a piece of her dress.
“Please, share the fire,” Agny told Ashok and the brothers. “It will only grow colder outside, but you already know that.”
Skagi lingered near the door, but Cree sat down in front of the fire. Ashok sat next to him.
“Whom do you pray to?” Cree asked. He gestured to the offering.
“Bhalla-the goddess also known as Chauntea,” Agny explained. “But I also beseech the spirits of the trees. Yaraella was especially close to the telthors of the pinewoods. I’m asking them to remember her and think well of those gathered here. We need all the guidance and good thoughts they can offer.”
“Does this mean you no longer consider us a threat?” Ashok asked.
“Then why doesn’t she order her guards to step away?” Skagi muttered. He held the door slightly ajar to keep an eye on the men outside.
“You are all dangerous. If I thought you were a threat to me or to that child”-she looked at the girl, Elina, and her eyes softened with affection-“I would have had you all killed. But I also let my anger rule me for a time. I won’t let that happen again. Why did you come here?”
“You saw the reason,” Ilvani said. “You saw her in my mind.”
“Yes,” Agny said. Her eyes looked haunted. She held her hands clasped tightly in her lap. “But I want to hear the tale from your lips. I want to know how much you understand about what is happening.”
Ashok said, “The woman in Ilvani’s dreams asked for her help. Some force threatens her, hurts her, and in turn hurts Ilvani. She has the scars to prove it. They were what led us to Rashemen.”
“May I see them?” Agny said. “These scars?”
Ilvani shifted closer to the fire. The child followed her. She pulled up her right sleeve to reveal the Rashemi language carved into her flesh. Agny examined the symbols in the flickering light and traced one gently with her fingernail.
“You carved these without knowing our language?” she asked.
“I know your language now,” Ilvani said. “It soaks my tongue.”
Agny looked at the witch sharply. “Prove it.”
Ilvani spoke in a language Ashok didn’t understand. Agny showed no reaction, but Ashok thought she was agitated when she motioned Ilvani to roll down her sleeve.
“It’s a prayer, if you’re curious,” Agny said. “Yaraella’s call to the spirits for blessing and protection.”
“Her call has gone beyond Ilvani,” Ashok said. “Through her, the spirits of the Shadowfell are being driven mad. The same thing is happening here, isn’t it?” he pressed.
“We saw the withered crops,” Cree said, “and the dead horse.”
“Don’t forget that our caravan barely made it through the mountains,” Skagi said from the door. “All the nastiest beasts were following our witch. If one of yours is behind it, I’ll thank you to tell her to stop.”
“You are correct. We have seen the same signs and portents in our lands, but the link that caused the disturbances is not as strong,” Agny said. “It draws no monsters to us. It only maddens our livestock and withers our crops. But that is damage enough.”
“The child,” Ilvani said. “Yaraella’s offspring is the link.”
Agny nodded. “So the spirits are not at rest because some evil force threatens Yaraella’s spirit. She’s reaching out to our world for aid, through her daughter and through you,” she said to Ilvani. “The three of you are connected. Across the length of Faerun, you feel one another’s pain.”
“But why Ilvani?” Ashok said. “Why didn’t Yaraella reach out to one of the wychlaran instead of a stranger, one not even of her own race?”
“I couldn’t say, but in life Yaraella kept herself isolated from her people,” Agny said. “After her husband’s death in battle, we reached out to her, tried to convince her to join the wychlaran. Her connection to the spirit world was deeper and more intense than that of any witch I’d ever seen. She received no training to hone her gifts. Her power came as naturally as breath to her. Sometimes she was able to use it to predict the future.”
Ashok and Cree exchanged a glance, though neither spoke. “What happened to her?” Ashok asked.
“Power such as Yaraella’s had taken its toll on the spirit. Living eyes were not meant to see all the things she had seen. The forces of death, the gods, and other worlds-it’s a heavy burden, especially for one so young and inexperienced. Yaraella chose not to join the wychlaran-she preferred to stay with her daughter here, in the home where she was born-but the hathran Sree was helping her to cope with the visions and the spirits that reached out
