Ley Lines E-Book

Lisa Lowell

• Herausgeber: Next Chapter
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

A gifted healer accused of a crime she isn't guilty of; a talented magician hunted by dark forces - in the second book in the Wise Ones series, unknowing players are entangled in a deceptive game.

When an attempt to heal a villager's broken leg goes awry, Gailin is accused of witchcraft and sentenced to hang. Driven by mystic instinct, skillful magician Vamilion walks 300 miles in a week to save her - and set in motion a series of events that will change their fates forever.

In Ley Lines, two new pawns are woven into a game of magic and manipulation they don't even know they're playing. As new trials are suffered, thirsts for magic develop and unintended consequences emerge. Will the Wise Ones find a way to save themselves - and defeat the forces determined to tear them apart?

Leseprobe

Ley Lines

The Wise Ones Book 2

Lisa Lowell

Copyright (C) 2017 Lisa Lowell

Layout Copyright (C) 2020 by Next Chapter

Published 2020 by Next Chapter

Cover art by Paula Litchifield (paulalitchfieldfineart.com)

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author's permission.

Chapter 1 – The Hanging

Gailin's knees knocked together in fear as she stepped shakily up onto the gallows. You will not be frightened, she ordered herself silently. The gathered crowd of gawking villagers swam before her eyes, making her dizzy. She tried not to look at the two other men who already swung from the cross beam. One still kicked and jerked obscenely, but the clinical part of Gailin's brain knew that was because the hangman had moved the knot to the back of his neck instead of off to the side where the abrupt fall would instantly snap his neck. Instead the pathetic man must strangle to death in slow agony. Which would it be for her? Snapped neck or slow, torturous strangling?

Of course, she had not murdered anyone, nor raped the hangman's daughter like the strangling criminal. No, her crime was different. She had tried – and failed – to help a broken leg. A village draftsman had been pinned by the falling of his collapsing cart and after the rest of his team had extricated him, the men had brought him to her cabin on a stretcher with a nasty compound fracture of his upper leg. Given Gailin's reputation for having a healing touch, the townsfolk often brought her the sick to tend, but this was her first case of dealing with an otherwise healthy man. She had treated breaks before but not when the bone was completely out of position. This did not bode well for her. She probably didn't have the physical strength to even muscle the bone into place and had warned the victim's distraught wife of this possibility.

Then foolishly, she had tried to set the bone. The positioning of the break went as well as could be expected, but marrow from the bone must have gotten into his bloodstream, poisoning him. He had died in a terrible fever in Gailin's cabin two days later and when the men of the village came to collect the draftman's body, they also came to arrest her for witchcraft.

No trial for a witch, for she would put a spell on you. How else would her aging grandmother have survived so long? How else would she and those close to her have survived, without a mark, the pox that had dealt a blow to the town that winter? Gailin must be a witch and had deliberately poisoned the draftsman.

And so the next day she was to swing from the gallows like the two other criminals.

* * *

Drake could not resist a hanging, and this one boasted three ropes already set on the gallows. That his prey had come to this town and blended into the crowd was convenient, for now Drake got to enjoy the spectacle and follow his enemy into town. Perhaps the local villagers would let him dispose of the bodies…no, best not get involved. He needed to follow the Mountain Man and nothing must distract him from that pursuit. If Drake got to watch the execution so much the better. He could observe the Mountain Man easily enough from the audience and not miss a bit of the event.

The entire village must have come out for this execution. Drake watched with interest as the first criminal, hands bound behind him, was ushered up onto a stool and then had the noose placed around his neck. His crimes were read dutifully to the assembly while the criminal looked down in agony. He had been found guilty of murder, for he had beaten his wife in a drunken fit and killed her. Then, without more ceremony, the masked hangman kicked the stool out from underneath the criminal and the snap of his neck came echoing to Drake's magical ears. The sorcerer drank in the familiar wash of emotion sinking through his guts warming him through and through.

Then the hooded hangman marshaled another criminal onto the gallows. This villain showed the fear of a guilty man, Drake noted. This criminal's eyes bugged and he frantically looked over the crowd in abject hope that someone would come to his rescue. His broken nose and swollen eyes spoke volumes, for he had been beaten quite handily by someone while in custody and Drake felt each bruise as a warm spot on his own face, and licked his lips in anticipation. He watched carefully as the hangman deliberately moved the knot to the back of the criminal's neck and Drake had to stifle a chuckle. This one he could not wait to see. The crime; rape, caught in the act. Of that, Drake could care less. He wanted the stool to go skittering across the gallows. And when it did, the pleasure Drake felt almost made him melt. Each struggling gasp and kick of leg, desperate for some purchase, made the hunter feel that welcome sensation of ecstasy.

Without waiting for the rapist to actually die, the hangman went off the platform for his final victim. This one surprised even Drake, forcing him to look away from the struggling rapist. A woman? She was a delicate thing with honey gold hair and a young, innocent face, but she looked out over the crowd with steely green eyes. She was not repentant, nor afraid, but instead, resigned. Her body did not tremble, but she looked at the other two criminals, her companions in fate, with a strange fascination. Did she have the same attraction to death that Drake did? What crime could this small woman have committed to warrant such an end? Hanging a woman was so rare that Drake could not recall ever seeing it in his very long and varied experience.

The hangman retrieved his stool, had the girl step up and realized that she was simply too short even then for the noose and he had to go leave briefly to find something more to raise her up so the rope would reach. When he returned with a thick book to stand on, the girl obediently stepped up higher. The hangman pulled aside her braid so the noose would fit snuggly around her slender neck and then whispered something to her, probably apologies.

Would the height of the noose be enough to snap her neck, Drake wondered in fascination? He hoped not. He had never performed an autopsy of a woman and wanted her lovely neck to remain unbroken. Let her suffer and strangle so that he could later caress her cold neck intact and smooth as silk. Without meaning to, Drake magically shifted the knot ever so slightly to the back of her neck so no one would notice. A little sorcery went a long way to quench his pleasure and need.

The young woman's crime was read: witchcraft and Drake almost cringed. If witchcraft for failing to help an injured man was worthy of hanging, what would a full-fledged sorcerer like himself warrant? For him, they would break out a bonfire. Why hadn't they burned this girl? Not that Drake was ungrateful. A burned body of such a lovely woman would not be nearly as pleasurable to work on and he wanted to take his time with her corpse, not having to hold his breath because of the stench of burned flesh. In his native country they would have drowned her, and that would be nice if he got to her body soon enough. Now, how was he going to get the bodies, Drake wondered greedily.

* * *

Vamilion came into the town with trepidation. Being followed by a dark sorcerer meant nothing at this point; he had been hunted for years and always found a way to escape. This, however was different. He simply had to find out what was going on here, or the niggling magical instincts that forced him from his home would drive him insane. Crossing the open land, far from the safe mountains made him restless too and while he could have traveled magically, right now he needed to be in contact with people to find the source of his instinctive itch and that meant walking instead of magically leaping. Oh, the logical part of Vamilion's brain told him he needed to keep moving to avoid a confrontation with the hunter sorcerer. He also needed to wear himself out so the magical itch would not keep him awake. So he walked three hundred miles in a week across the plain to this village on the Don River.

Walking this river for days Vamilion had passed through four towns and now found this one with every citizen out on the village green for an execution. The itch he felt only grew stronger. Restlessly he blended in with the gawkers, feeling a little sick at the spectacle they had all come to see: a hanging. However, Vamilion knew he had come to the right place. The magical itch shifted in his head, becoming almost incessant; obviously this gruesome event was what he had come to address.

Without considering it Vamilion went to the base of the gallows and ducked underneath, out of sight before reaching out with his magical instincts to find the source of this insistent pinging. He acutely felt drawn to the three criminals chained together at the steps behind where the people had gathered. The three would remain out of sight while the magistrate checked papers, advised the hangman and saw all was in order. Meanwhile Vamilion reached out to tap into the minds of each of the criminals. One, a drunk, one a rapist that almost made him want to vomit and finally, and to his surprise, Vamilion brushed his mind against that of the woman.

He lurched, and sat down with a thump in the dust under the gallows. To balance himself, he placed his hands against the ground, seeking a deep place where stone waited and felt the world settle a bit before he could concentrate again. Gailin. He had found her, despite his concerted efforts not to go Seeking her. He didn't want to find this woman. For twenty-five years he had avoided this moment, hoping it would not happen for ages more. Gailin, the woman to whom he must give the magical gift, a woman who could match his formidable talents, the woman who would be the next Wise One.

The woman who would become his wife.

Vamilion sighed with regret as his ever-present grief loomed like a mountain, crushing him. How would he explain this to Paget? If his wife who had stuck with him throughout his forays into magic could endure being supplanted, she was an angel. Could he keep this a secret from his sweet Paget? Could he keep the compulsion and attraction he would invariably experience being near Gailin from kicking in? So far, all he knew of this new lady were her feet and then that brief brush with her mind. He would not risk going any nearer, but already he felt an unmistakable urge to come investigate and rescue her. It had dragged him from hundreds of miles away, from his safe haven to come find her, with that frantic itch.

Couldn't he just let Gailin hang? Despicable as the thought might be, it would solve his problem. Eventually another Gailin would be born in another age. He would find that other one, surely. But the itch had been demanding. It was unthinkable to let any innocent die, especially since she was facing the gallows because of magic. The ethics imposed on him by his own power, the Wise One magic, would not allow it. Vamilion sighed with regret and began considering a way for him to do what he must, without putting himself in the direct face of discovery or he would find himself swinging from the gallows right beside this girl.

As the murderer was hung, Vamilion planned. The Mountain Man, Drake's prey, conjured his needs and knew exactly what to do by the time the second man had swung. Vamilion stepped out from his hiding place to stand just behind Gailin, near the back steps of the platform. Keeping his eyes closed, fearful of making eye contact with the lady, he hesitated until the hangman came down to retrieve her. Then without letting anyone actually see, he touched the hangman's arm, caught him as he fell under a sleeping spell, changed his own appearance into that of the executioner, hood and all, and shoved the sleeping man under the gallows in one swift move. Gailin did not even notice that. He then took her arm and escorted her up onto the platform.

Vamilion carefully kept his eyes on the crowd, even spying the hunter in the audience, watching for him, but he was reasonably sure his enemy was distracted by the hanging itself, so the mountain man felt he could work undetected. He gently lifted Gailin to the stool and then reached for the noose. Too short, even when she helpfully stood on tiptoe. Disconcerted by this oversight, Vamilion went back down the back of the platform and rifled through the hangman's equipment, finding nothing to help. So he conjured a book as thick as his arm and pretended to locate it in the executioner's things.

“Please step up, miss,” he said solemnly. Gailin did as ordered and with seven inches shoved under her boots, Vamilion could reach up and grasp the rope. He lifted her brilliant hair to the side while trying to actually look or feel it, and placed the noose up under her chin where it almost cut into her pale skin even with the extra height. Then Vamilion secretly placed a glowing ball of Heart Stone in her hands that remained tied behind her back. He felt her turn to look at him in curiosity, but avoided her gaze and instead made sure she grasped the walnut sized orb.

“When you drop, wish for the rope to break, grab the book and then run for your life, Gailin,” he whispered behind her back, as he tried not to breathe in her evocative scent of herbs.

Vamilion didn't think about what he was doing while the magistrate read off the charges of witchcraft against her. What he was about to do might even bring a worse sentence for her, but he could not shy away or the magic would prevent him from kicking the stool out from under her. Instead he faced toward the back of the gallows, looked past her up the river and wished for mountains. Then, the moment the magistrate finished, Vamilion took a deliberate step into the stool and kept walking as she fell. He hopped off the back of the platform and began running. He never heard if her feet landed and if her wishing magic would work, but now it didn't matter. He had turned her into a Wise One and his duty for now was done.

Chapter 2 – Written

Gailin wished with all her might, grasping the mysterious ball the hangman had given her. Then her stomach dropped as the footstool fell away. The rope at her neck snapped above her head. Even the one around her wrists and on the two bodies of the criminals beside her severed. The wish even included the lashing that held the gallows together and it began unraveling. The platform grew unsteady as she landed on her feet, still alive. To the gasps of the crowd she slid on the teetering platform toward her fellow victims and only caught herself from being clubbed in the head by the swinging leg of a dead man by sliding all the way to the ground.

In the mayhem that ensued, she turned to see her benefactor's back as he bolted through the streets and out of town, heading north east toward the surrounding forest. She could only see his dark head and remember his words. “Run for your life, Gailin.”

Run? She looked around herself at the horrified crowd and the tumbled timbers. She saw the real hangman rising out of the debris, rubbing his head and wondering what had happened to him. People in the crowd began pointing toward her and the shouts of 'witch' had only begun. If they had a slight reason for calling her a witch before she came to the gallows, then certainly this complete disaster did nothing to dispel the accusation. Her quick hands pocketed the little orb her rescuer had given her and without a second of thought she snatched up the book she had been standing on and bolted east, toward the forest after her mysterious benefactor.

* * *

For his part Drake began swearing under his breath. How had he not sensed this happening? The Mountain Man had performed more magic in the last few minutes than he had demonstrated in all the years Drake had stalked him. Now the dark sorcerer would have to run too if he were to catch his prey and what would happen then? A pitched magical battle? Drake didn't know if he could win such a contest and had survived to his ancient age by avoiding just such a situation. Instead, he used stealth and deception to work his way magically in this Land and if the Wise One was using such blatant power, something tremendous had changed. So what could Drake do instead of chasing across the countryside?

He looked to where the girl had run off and realized there lay his next move. She stood at the center of this mystery and Drake wanted to learn more of her before he did anything. So Drake approached the ruins of the gallows and found someone with whom to speak. “Excuse me, sir. What happened here?” he asked of the magistrate who was trying to examine the ropes that had unraveled. Meanwhile the rest of the men in town were gathering the wood or finding their pikes and swords to go after the girl.

“Magic, of course,” the magistrate grumbled. “She put a spell on all the ropes. We were hanging her for witchcraft and this proves it. Next time we'll burn her at the stake.”

“Is that wise, sir? How will you catch her?” Drake pretended innocently enough.

“She won't go far,” a woman nearby commented as she was wrapping the bodies of the two criminals so the debris of the gallows could be cleared. “Her Grandmother is still alive and Gailin wouldn't leave her.”

Drake stirred. He had the girl's name. If he wanted, he could call her to himself right now and put her under his spell, but that would be too obvious a magical trick and he didn't want to reveal himself quite yet, not if a bonfire were what awaited magic in this backwater village.

“Sir, where is Gailin's grandmother? I'm not from this town and she won't recognize me. If she comes back to her grandmother's home, I can send you word and you can catch her then.”

“Catch her?” the magistrate scoffed. “How? We didn't know she could do this much. Usually she just heals goats and the croup. Gailin's never done something this… this… destructive.”

“Except she let Kail die,” the lady wrapping the bodies commented. “Now we've lost the only healer in the village.”

The magistrate didn't want to hear another obvious flaw in his plan and so he pulled Drake farther away from the gallows and advised him on how to find Gailin's house, where she had been tending her grandmother until a few days before. After promising that he would inform the magistrate if Gailin returned to her home, Drake departed to find the cottage on the edge of the forest where he hoped he could lure the girl, if she did not come voluntarily. At least it had the advantage of being isolated, away from the village proper. From there he could simply call her and she would be his, heart and soul.

* * *

Jonis paced back and forth in front of the small cabin that bordered the forest edge. He couldn't stand being indoors right now, even if the house almost blended into the forest around it. Instead he appeased his guilt by keeping the door open to the late spring wind. He would hear if Gailin's grandmother stirred. It was the least he could do for the young lady he'd fallen in love with.

Grieving silently, Jonis trod back and forth from the kitchen garden on the southern side to the well-worn path weaving into the thinning forest. He had heard about the hanging and knew exactly what Gailin would have asked of him if he had been there when she was arrested: please watch over Grandmother and don't come to see the hanging. He had known Gailin all his life and while he could never actually say the words aloud, he loved her. Now his love was too late.

Grandmother, the only family Gailin ever had, rarely woke and Jonis had avoided answering the old woman's quavering questions whenever she did wake by feeding her the broth that the girl had left in the pot, but he could not bear speaking the words of truth to the grandmother. Gailin's hanging would kill Grandmother and Jonis couldn't face more death at this point. Nothing was going to be the same with Gailin gone.

Jonis looked up into the sky, glaring at the high noon sun. It would be done by now. Hung for helping. He could not believe the village would do such a thing. Primitive as they were how could anyone say an evil bone existed in Gailin's makeup? Miserably Jonis finally got together the nerve to go back into the hut, out from under the betraying noon sun to wait for Grandmother to waken and to share with her finally, the fate of her granddaughter.

* * *

Drake approached the rustic cabin cautiously. He didn't want to frighten the girl if she had already come back home. He pushed his magical awareness ahead of him and sensed two people in the cabin, one in bed, one upright but he could not guess at more. Therefore he would come as an expected visitor and walked up to the door to knock. People in this land were suspicious of many things but manners went a long way to reassuring them.

“Hello? Is anyone home?” he called and then stuck his head inside.

Only a small fire on the hearth lit the low, single room cottage and beyond the table Drake saw a young man who paced back and forth. From his distracted look he probably was a farmer in the local area, neglecting his fields at planting season out of devotion to his sweetheart by watching over her grandmother. The dirt and sweat on his clothes made it seem like he had come directly from the fields and his distress etched itself on his face. But as Drake walked in, it seemed the young man might crumble.

“Did they… did they…?” the young man began, his voice cracking.

Drake came into the hut and held out a hand. “Relax, young man. Gailin escaped. She sent me here to tell you, for she will not be able to come back. She wanted me to check on her grandmother. Now, what's your name, boy?”

“J…Jonis.”

“Well Jonis, I'm here to help. Has Gailin returned yet?”

Jonis gave him one confused look and Drake easily read in his simple mind; Gailin didn't even know how her beau had gallantly come to defend her home, anything to soften the blow for her.

And Gailin would never know, even now. Drake would not leave Jonis to interfere with what he now planned. The magician's green, careful eyes flicked a look at the old woman asleep in the bed beyond and then took a step toward the young farmer.

“Well, if she hasn't returned, then it's not too late.” Drake felt his mouth move into a false smile. His clever eyes caught the simple dirt brown stare of the confused peasant and reached out his hand toward him to say, without a bit of inflection, “Jonis, die.”

The farmer's head rolled back faster than his eyes, his knees buckling and he went down, obedient to the sorcerer's order. A sack of his own grain held more life than the bag of burly bones the young man represented while Drake soaked in yet another life force, strong and vibrant. The sorcerer trembled with pleasure and luxuriated in the warmth it brought to his gut. Then, without any ceremony, he made the earthen floor of the cabin swallow the farmer whole. Let him fertilize here rather than out in his fields somewhere.

Drake then turned to the old woman who slept on in oblivion. Taking her life, flickering and fading, would benefit nothing and might make Gailin suspicious. While he had every intention of using the girl, he wanted her willingly, not frightened or coerced magically. Wouldn't that be a feat: to command a magician without force?

So Drake would wait just as Jonis had, for Gailin to come home. The wizard might even walk the same path back and forth, pressing the disturbed earthen floor, just in case it appeared like someone was buried there. Drake could wait patiently.

* * *

At dusk Vamilion stopped his stealthy path through the forest, pausing at a creek that ran through the trees to rest and take his bearings. He needed to listen to the magic that moved around him. He could sense the dark sorcerer had given up the search for him, having remained behind in the village. The girl, the new Wise One, she had survived her hanging and Vamilion's awkward attempt to rescue her. Vamilion magically sensed how she had followed him into the forest, though she had fallen several miles behind, and had also stopped for the evening. He could practically taste her fear and confusion. Well, that meant he could continue to help her after a fashion. He only hoped this worked.

Vamilion drew on the magic he possessed to conjure a fire, a bucket in which to put water and a quick meal all while he found a mossy stone under the trees to serve as a seat. Then with a bit more concentration he conjured a tablet with a blackwood stylus to match it. He had never actually done this, but until he trained Gailin, hopefully from a distance, he had a responsibility to help her. He would not leave her in this new magical world to stumble into her powers as his mentor had done to him.

Tapping into his imagination, Vamilion crafted a link between the tablet he held and the book that Gailin hopefully still carried with her. Creating that link after the fact was difficult magic. Could the girl even read? That wasn't a guarantee in this newly colonized land, full of pioneers and little opportunity to study a more civilized art like reading. If she couldn't read or write, this effort to teach from a distance just got more difficult. Slowly, with the flickering firelight as his guide, Vamilion began writing on his tablet with the stylus and imagined the book in the girl's possession reflected his message. He then sculpted a yearning for her to look into the book and discover its secrets.

Hopefully her curiosity would guide her. Gailin had stopped in the forest and found a place to rest, curling up around her pit of fear, though she would never be able to sleep after the scare she had experienced. Vamilion imagined her staring wide-eyed up through the branches of the forest at the full moon overhead and would feel the tickling desire to explore the prize she had taken with her. She would sit up in the twilight and open the book, brushing her hands across the blank pages and then see how his words seeped onto the first page, line by careful line. She would want to know about the magic that had rescued, and then abruptly abandoned her. It would be in her nature as a Wise One to want to know more.

That same curiosity ran through his own veins and had driven Vamilion to come to this newly opened land twenty-five years before. And that curiosity had brought Owailion to him and made him a magician before he even knew what that meant. The first Wise One, Owailion, had given him no choice but to touch the Heart Stone, no more than Vamilion had just given to Gailin in her turn. It was cruel to have no choice, but this new nation, the Land and its unbridled magic demanded it. Where there flowed power, there must be some way to harness it or the wild magic would escape and forever scar the Land.

Vamilion wrote carefully, “If you can read this, please write back to me.”

Then he waited, not daring to tap into Gailin's thoughts, to see if she had given in to the prompting and opened the book or even noticed his message. She had camped only a few miles away, well within his ability to hear her mind, but that did not tempt him. He would not do that if he could help it. Listening to her thoughts would only bring the compulsion to love her all the stronger. He must avoid that urge with all his might. He wanted to be faithful to Paget, no matter what magic might demand of him. Vamilion would fight to remain Paget's husband.

He waited, imagining the girl finding a burnt stick or a rock in the ground that she could gouge out a corresponding message back to him. It might take half the evening, but he could be patient. But what if she couldn't read? Could he teach her from afar? Probably not, but he could hope before he considered what he would do if she lacked that skill. Patience was another talent a Wise One must command and Vamilion possessed more than even he knew. He could wait for the foundations of stone to erode away if need be and not stir if magic demanded the patience of a mountain.

* * *

Gailin couldn't run anymore and her fear and confusion only added to the exhaustion. The dark of the forest, even though the sun had not yet set, contributed as well. Hunger and chill also made their demands known and she had to sit. Without meaning to, she slumped down against a tree trunk and finally stopped her escape. Had she been obedient enough to the order to run for her life? She would lose her life if she continued much farther.

Without the frantic roar of her heart and her own breathing in her ears, she could hear water nearby and turned an ear toward the sound. She crawled the few feet to the brook and drank her fill, heedless of the impurities she knew lurked there. When she finally had the energy to move again, though her arms trembled at the effort to leverage herself away from the water, she looked around and began to assess her situation.

Frankly, her world was gone. She dare not return to her home; the villagers would stake that out immediately, knowing she would worry about her grandmother. Would Jonis come watch over her grandmother? He would have done that last service for her, even if she had spurned his advances. She couldn't remember seeing his kind face in the crowd at the hanging and she doubted he would have the stomach for such a horrible spectacle. Now, looking back with regret, she knew it had been wise to cut his love out of her life. Being a farmer's wife had never figured into her future and she had known it even before the boy had come to her cabin with a bouquet of wildflowers and all the sweet words he could mumble.

But Gailin would not survive long in the woods alone and without a single tool to her name. She looked around herself and noticed the frayed end of the noose still around her neck. Almost frantically she clawed off the obscene necklace and then examined the break in the rope with a clinical eye. Every strand had burst on its own, not in a clean cut but in a tremendous, raggedy rip. What force had done this? Well, she couldn't answer that so she began dismantling the rope, strand for strand as she considered possibilities.

Magic, of course had been behind her miraculous escape, but what kind of magic? Her grandmother had told her of the magic in Malornia where she had come from originally and how dragons and demons lurked throughout that country, making the wilds dangerous beyond belief. The non-magical humans there needed to congregate in great cities to avoid destruction. The magical people had protected them, but had also ruled with an iron fist, controlling those without the gifts, almost like slaves. No one dared venture far from the walled cities and so starvation and disease often stalked the crowded streets.

That was why Grandma had immigrated to this country. The Land had been sealed for time in memorial and no humans had settled until the time of the Breaking, when suddenly, for no known reason, the Land had opened. People like Gailin's grandparents had come to settle in this newly opened but utterly wild territory. They might not have the protection of walls and magic, but at least they were free to make their own way. Unfortunately, the diseases of the old lands had followed the immigrants, and taken Gailin's parents before she ever knew them. Raised by her grandmother on the tales from the old lands, the golden-headed girl had sworn to learn how to battle disease without magic. That was why they had settled here, near a river, along a forest with the prairie on the edge and the mountains only a few days walk away. She gathered all the herbs and mushrooms needed to cure the worst diseases. She also grew the rich garden that provided all the nutrients to remain healthy that could be found here.

That the villagers distrusted her healthy ways could not be helped. The settlers had brought with them the suspicions from their old lands too. While no one here seemed born with magic, the stories and fears of such power existed and poisoned many who came. If Gailin and her grandmother so much as weathered the yearly flu without misery, the cry of magic went through the village. So now Gailin sat in the dark dismantling the rope that evidenced that distrust. She looked down at the strands of hemp now filling her filthy apron and considered them bitterly. Could she weave this mess into a more serviceable rope? She needed something with which to catch food and it might prove to be a decent snare at least.

She had only begun to weave her snare when the compulsion to look at the book struck like a spear.

She couldn't see the tome clearly in the dark, but her need to open the thick cover drove her to it. Her grandmother had taught her the value of books and had laboriously taught her the letters, but the only book she had ever seen was her grandmother's herb and plant book. She had marveled at the delicately drawn and colored pictures, paying little attention to the words written carefully below each image. Now she eagerly lifted the hefty new book and then looked around the trees for her best light. She ended up sitting under a dead tree that boasted no leaves and so allowed the light of the full moon to filter down. Then she lifted the cover.

The creamy pages glowed brilliantly under the moonlight, without a mark on them. No pictures or words marred their surface. She was about to turn to the next empty page when, much to her surprise, a firmly written word began to appear. One simple sentence emerged across the first page, as if her perusal had instigated the magic to make it appear. It emerged slowly, in strong, simple enough script for her to work out the words in her rudimentary skill.

“If you can read this, write back to me.”

If I can read this? How could she hope to write back? Who was doing this? The hangman who had rescued her, surely? Magic again threw its weight back at her, tossing her into that world and she couldn't find her bearings. This magic, so unlike the tales of blasts and bloodletting, explosions and evil her grandmother had told her, haunted Gailin now. Dare she answer back? She knew deep down that this magic demanded she answer it but she had nothing with which to reply. She looked around at the forest floor and wondered. The dead tree against which she rested might have bark that rotted and would leave a mark on the white page. With her fingers she gouged a longish strip out of the softened bark and experimentally drew it along her palm. The material crumbled into a thick bumbling mark, but if she sharpened it a bit against the ground, working off the weaker bits, it might make a readable letter.

“I can read a little. Who are you?” she wrote carefully, filling the opposite page with her thick, choppy bark scratches.

Her mystery correspondent replied back almost immediately, but elected to move his much thinner, finely written words to the next page so as to not interfere with her childish script. “I'm the one who told you to wish the rope to break. You may call me Vamilion. It's not my real name, but it is not safe to use names. I know yours so do not write it here. In fact, do not use your name again. It will never be safe for you to use your name.”

Gailin scrawled the obvious, “Why?”