Sworn To Transfer

“Something attacked her and that’s all I know,” replied Helen. When the group tried to question her, the healer further hustled them out with admonishments about the griffin needing rest.

*****

The next morning, Terris awoke alone in her room confused. She spoke to the healers after they came in and asked after her friends. Ciardis rushed in minutes later to see Terris sitting up and looking around. Terris gave her grin.

“How are you feeling?” Ciardis asked.

Terris shrugged. “Whole.” She was hesitant to add that her magic felt weird. She felt like she could hear other minds as well – animals perhaps but she wasn’t sure what they were. And while she’d been asleep, she’d felt awash with flames, as if she’d been burning alive and nothing could quench the white fire in her veins. It was probably the poison from the wendigo, Terris decided. They must have some kind of severe hallucinogenic properties like the giant land lizards on the Western Isles. One bite from the land lizards on her home island would give a person a high fever within hours along with delusions and muscle spasms. The creatures used the forced movement in their victims and the high fever to track them in the dense forest, and then devoured their prey once the poison had done its work to fully immobilize them.

Terris sighed and rubbed the back of her head, looking around the room she was in. It was clean and spacious, with new linens on the bed and what looked like vines woven into the ceiling. Sunshine came through the wood-carved windows and a breeze wafted through. Wistfully, she thought, Reminds me of home.

“Where are we?” asked Terris.

“The city of Ameles,” Ciardis said.

“Feel up for a walk?” said Terris.

“You’re asking me? You’re the one who just nearly died.”

Terris shrugged, “Pretty sure there’s nothing wrong with my legs.” Testing herself she swung her feet over the edge of the bed with Ciardis hovering over her anxiously.

Standing up tentatively she jumped up and down a little, “See? Feels fine!”

Ciardis blinked and said, “Alright. If you insist. But the minute you feel tired we’re coming back here.”

As they walked outside, she looked at Ciardis with raised eyebrows. “City?”

“That’s the literal translation of the Panen word for the place,” Ciardis said as she looked around ruefully. Compared to human cities, it really didn’t look like much of one. While humans carved their territories out of the surrounding nature, it looked as if the inhabitants of the Ameles Forest had done everything in their power to incorporate their ‘city’ into the forest. Huge, spiraling trees with large trunks that testified to centuries of existence served as the platform for an interconnected network of vine-crafted bridges and natural paths high up in the trees. On broad branches the size of normal city streets, the inhabitants had built or carved homes out of the trees upon which they stood. Natural light filtered in and out of the branches, with carefully placed mirrors reflecting light into darker corners of the thoroughfares.

As Ciardis and Terris walked along one of the footpaths, they took the time to look over the edge as they carefully held on to the vine barriers that prevented accidental falls. They were more than twenty feet off the ground, and they were currently on one of the lowest levels. As they wandered Ciardis told Terris of yesterday’s adventures and the victims they’d seen on the forest floor.

As they neared a rounded hut, Terris began to feel unwell. Eventually her head began to hurt so much that she clutched it in pain. “What it is?” asked Ciardis in alarm.

“I don’t know,” Terris said, wincing over the pain.

“Perhaps we should go to the healer,”

“I think perhaps you’re right, but—”

And then the pain intensified. Terris fell to her knees and folded her head down. Nothing was helping. Closing her eyes, she wished fervently for this to end. Deciding that she needed help, she clutched Ciardis’s hand and tried to mind-call for Vana’s aid. But something interfered. As soon as she open her mind to the mental connection, another voice entered.

“Who? Who?” questioned the voice in a weird manner.

“Who are you?” responded Terris.

Ciardis could hear the exchange, as well, as Terris had opened her mind and magic to her friend with her touch.

“I am Flightfeather. Flightfeather needs help. Come, come,” the voice commanded. It pressed an image into their heads. An image of the home in front of them. The voice was urging them to walk inside.

Ciardis looked at Terris, and Terris at Ciardis.

“My headache is gone,” whispered Terris.

Ciardis raised an eyebrow at her. “Then let’s see what it wants.”

“It?”

“Did it sound human to you?”

Terris grimaced and stood. “We’re going in and out quickly. No lingering.”

To the door she called out, “And no funny stuff! We’ve got knives.”

“We do?” whispered Ciardis.

“The healers took mine,” admitted Terris.

When they walked into the home, they saw it was a single large room. Next to the far wall stood a perch with a large gray owl resting on it. Next to its perch was a large bed with thin curtains. The owl flapped its huge wings in warning when they entered and tilted its head.

They heard the same voice in their head when they looked at it. “Who? Who?”

Deciding it couldn’t hurt to humor the thing, Ciardis pointed to herself and said her name, then pointed to Terris and did the same.

And then the light in the room shifted and curtains moved with the wind. There was a young man in the bed. As they moved closer, Ciardis could see slashes on the man’s neck. The same ones seen on the stricken that she spoken to the day before. But this was man was comatose, not dead.

“Help him, help him,” demanded the owl.

“Help him?” queried Terris.

“How?” asked Ciardis.

“Listen for his heart in the shadows, his heart in the shadows, his pulse through their darkness, his pulse through their darkness,” said the owl.

For a long moment Terris stared directly at the owl. Ciardis got the feeling that she was speaking to it on a different level. Then she reached down to grab the young man’s hand.

A loud crash sounded behind them and they turned to see glass shattered on the floor. A woman with a long braid down her back and age lines on her face stood in the open doorway with glass scattered at her feet.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she shrieked.

The owl screamed and flew at the door. Unfortunately Ciardis and Terris were in front of the door, and they rushed out, nearly knocking the woman over as they hurried to get out of the angry owl’s way. Once they were all outside, it circled in the air once and swooped right back into the home.

“I’ll ask you again,” the woman said, her face pale, “What were you doing in that home?”

Ciardis and Terris rushed to explain to her that the owl had invited them in. She listened to their tale and didn’t interrupt.

Finally, she said, “That owl has not let anyone else besides me near my son for the past five months. It hasn’t spoken to anyone, either. And yet you were there.”

Suddenly they heard a commotion from inside. Rushing in, they saw that the boy’s body on the bed had begun to shake. It began with tremors in his hands and spread throughout his body. He curled in upon himself, his head buried in his hands and screams erupting from his mouth. Ciardis and Terris backed up with their hands over their mouths and eyes wide in fear.

The woman didn’t hesitate. She rushed over to the bed and grabbed her son from behind. Soothing him,