was a cave.
She moved inside. Feeling a mild curiosity, he followed. The cave dripped with moisture. It was larger than he expected, the back hidden in darkness.
He turned to look out at the wall of water. The constant, unvarying movement was hypnotic.
“Mirar.”
Dragging his eyes away, he turned to find Emerahl looking over her shoulder at him. She had created a light and he could see his first impression had been wrong. There was no back to the cave. It was the beginning of a tunnel.
Curiosity grew and deepened. He moved to her side.
“You know this place?” he said.
“I’ve been here before.”
“Is this our destination?”
“It might be. Or it might be a good place to stay for the night. Now, no more questions.”
Her last words were firm. He smiled at her tone, then walked beside her as she moved down the tunnel.
Out of habit, he counted his steps. He had passed three hundred when they reached a large cavern. Emerahl’s shoulders were tense as she started toward the center. Her steps slowed and she appeared to be listening to something.
After a moment she smiled. Her pace did not quicken, however. She moved steadily forward. Reaching the center of the cavern, she turned to face him.
“Did you sense it?”
He frowned. “Sense what?”
She took his arm, drew him back the way they had come for about ten steps, then stopped.
“Try to use one of your Gifts. Make a light like mine.”
He reached for magic. Nothing came. He tried again with no success. Alarmed, he stared at her.
“What...?”
“It is a void. A place in the world where there is no magic.”
“But how is that possible?”
“I don’t know.” She put a hand on his shoulder and gently pushed him back toward the center of the room. He yielded reluctantly. Looking up, he noticed that her spark of light still floated above them.
“How are you doing that then?”
“I drew the magic for it before we stepped into the void,” she told him. “Now try again.”
He reached for magic and felt it flow into him. He channelled it out to form his own light.
“Good,” she said, nodding. “It is still the same. There is magic in the center of the room. It is ringed by a void. The gods, who are beings of magic, can’t cross the void, so they can’t see you here. Not unless they look through the eyes of someone standing outside the void.”
He moved around slowly. Now that she had drawn his attention to the void he could sense it easily. He started moving across to the other side.
“Don’t leave!” Emerahl warned. “Come back. Now that you know what this place is, you can’t leave it. If the gods are watching they might read your mind and... and...”
Her brow was creased with worry. He walked back to her side. “If they were watching me arrive, they’d know where I was anyway.”
Her gaze was intense. “Do you think it’s likely they were watching you?”
He grimaced and turned away. “It’s possible. I don’t know...”
“You still can’t leave. If they don’t know what this place is, I’d rather they didn’t find out.”
“You mean to keep me in here forever?”
She shook her head. “Only as long as it takes for me to teach you to hide your thoughts from them.”
He considered her thoughtfully. He had learned that skill long ago, but had forgotten it when he lost his memory. It was difficult to relearn without the help of someone who could detect thoughts or emotions. Now
“And then?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. You asked me to take you away. You didn’t say why or where. I guessed you wanted to go somewhere safe. I’ve taken you to the safest place I know.” She smiled crookedly. “I’m also guessing that you need to sort out a few things in your mind. If you want help with that, I’ll do what I can.”
He looked around the cavern. It was not the cozy hut in the middle of the forest that he had been hoping for, but the void made up for that. It would have to do. Slipping the straps of his pack off his shoulders, he set it down on the hard stone floor.
“Then I guess we had better start decorating.”
It was night. It was always night.
An eerie light hung about the ground. She could not see its source. It made the faces around her appear even more ghoulish.
Her path was blocked by a corpse. She stepped over it and moved on.
She thought hard.
Movement in the corner of her eye set her heart racing with dread. She did not want to look, but did. All was still.
Another body blocked her path: a priest, his upper torso and head blackened and scorched. She stepped over him reluctantly.
Something below her moved. Her eyes were lured downward. The priest stared up at her and she froze in horror. He grinned at her, then before she could step away, his scorched hand grabbed her ankle.
She jumped at the urgent, unexpected shout in her mind. Suddenly she was staring at the ceiling of her bedroom. Her heart was pounding. Her skin felt hot and sweaty. Her stomach was clenched.
“Scare Owaya?”
A small form leapt onto the bed. With the moonlight behind him, she could see the distinctive fluffy tail and small ears of her veez twitching with concern.
“Mischief,” she breathed.
“Owaya ‘fraid?”
She drew herself up onto her elbows. “Just a dream. Gone now.”
Whether he understood or not, she couldn’t guess. Did veez grasp the concept of dreams? She had seen him twitch and mutter in his sleep, so she knew he had them. Whether he remembered them, or understood that they weren’t reality, she couldn’t guess.
He moved across the bed and curled up beside her legs. The pressure of his small body against hers was comforting. Lying back down, she stared up at the ceiling and sighed.
She felt vaguely disappointed at herself, and at the gods. Surely being a White meant she didn’t have to endure bad dreams as a consequence of a war in defense of Northern Ithania and all Circlians? Though the Gifts that they had given her protected her from age and injury, they did not appear to include protection against nightmares. Surely the gods didn’t mean for her to suffer like this?
She sighed again. Dreamweavers. Now there was a matter to prick her conscience. She knew removing the Dreamweavers’ influence over people by encouraging priests and priestesses to absorb their healing knowledge was
