Windwalker - Elaine Cunningham [117]
"Dangerous?"
"Only if you fall asleep in the field or follow it into the grain. What troubles me is the hour. Usually the Polevik only wander about at highsun."
"Maybe it had a cup of Zofia's tea and can't sleep."
He chuckled briefly. The troubled look returned to his face. "You know I have a bit of Sight. Before I left Rashemen, I started to see things that should not be there. Ghosts, spirits, even heroes from tales my father's father heard from his grandsire. They wander about like drunken men locked out of their huts by angry wives, uncertain of where they are or where they should go. It has been so since the Time of Troubles. The magic of Rashemen lies in the land itself and in the spirits of the land. It is not like wizards' spells, which once cast and forgotten can be learned again. No witch will say so, but I suspect that this magic did not heal as it should have."
She considered his words, wondering if this was part of the confusing destiny Zofia foresaw.
Before she could give voice to this thought, a bitter wind ripped through the trees with a shrill, almost metallic shriek. Branches rustled sharply. The singing insects went silent, and a small bird fell from its perch. Liriel stooped and picked it up, marveling at how light the little thing was. How cold.
Fyodor seized her arm and pulled her to her feet. "Hurry," he urged. "We need to be within walls before the bheur song strikes again."
The urgency in this voice convinced Liriel to run now and ask questions later.
They raced through the forest, retracing their steps. They were almost free of the forest when they saw the old woman. She stood on the path ahead, leaning on a tall wooden staff. Her long, wild hair was as white as a drow's and her wrinkled skin nearly blue from cold. Barefoot and clad only in rags, she looked as if she would fall if not for the staff in her gnarled hands.
The Rashemi skidded to a stop and put Liriel behind him. "Lightning magic," he said tersely. "The most powerful you know, and quickly!"
She dug into her coin bag and took out an emerald-the last gem from her share of the deepdragon's hoard. With one hand she tossed this toward the hag, with the other, she gripped the Wind-walker and called forth the spell she had stored within.
The gem disappeared. In its place stood a half-elf female, taller by half than the wizard who had summoned it. Her sharply sculptured body was translucent as glass and green as fine emeralds, and in her hands was a jagged bolt of white fire. The golem drew back her arm and threw the lightning as a warrior might hurl a spear.
A shriek like the clash of elven swords tore from the hag. She lifted her staff and sent a spray of icy crystals flying to meet the oncoming lightning. The bheur's blast spread as it went into a lethal cone. The frost blast flared into brilliant life as the bolt passed through. It hit the hag and sent her hurtling backward. She hit the base of a pine, hard, and sank to the forest floor.
With astonishing agility the hag was up and running, fleeing back toward the mountains.
Liriel started toward the staff.
"Don't bother," her friend told her. "It only is magical in a bheur's hands. Even if you could use it, some magic is best left alone."
She caught the grim note in his tone. "I did something wrong?"
"The spell was wisely chosen," he said carefully, "but you must not summon a golem in Rashemen. Many such creatures were brought against us by Thay's Red Wizards. Any who see you cast such a spell will wonder where you learned it."
She shrugged. "There was a book of Mulhorandi magic in the Green Room. I had a lot of gems left over from the deepdragon's hoard, and this seemed a good use to make of them."
"Even so, such magic can be deadly in Rashemen. No outlander wizards of any kind are permitted here. Because Sylune was a friend to Rashemen and trained in some of the witches' minor arts, and because Zofia has taken you under her wing, my people accept you. If they saw you cast such a spell, neither of us would live to see the next dawn."
Liriel received