Eye of the Wind – Ch. 7 – 4: By the Pricking of My Thumbs

• Posted by Kyrielle Atrinati October 13, 2012 - 335 views

  A voice drifted down to me from a very far distance.  "Henny..."  I looked through eyes which were no longer under my control, and watched the landscape slowly roll by as the stony hills of the Reach leveled and dwindled as they met the plains.  At present, the sun was setting, lighting the sky with violet fire.  The road followed a shallow, narrow river separating the hills from the wide plains.  

  The strange detachment from everything brought me back to the brief moment when I melded with the dragon's mind.  The sense of disregard for anything that was not immediately familiar was not unlike the dissociation I experienced now.

  "Henny..."  We rode in relative silence, whatever was in control of my body shunned the connection with Derkeethus and anything else in this world.  In the deep darkness where I now dwelled, I floated endlessly, searching for the voice that was echoing faintly in the emptiness.  A flicker of recognition penetrated the shadows and I felt the familiar presence of Derk's mind near mine, though it was akin to viewing the world through a narrow tube.  The connection was stifled to a hairline, gossamer thread of the finest spider silk.

  "We should stop for the night, I think," the Argonian called from somewhere behind, pointing across the river to an empty camp.  My head nodded, and a grim anticipation for night drifted upward from my heart.  I fought the feeling, pushing away the lust for solitude and destruction of these fleshy obstacles.  

  For a while I struggled inside of myself, trying to take control of my body once more.  Inside I screamed at the dark poison that had a will of its own.  At last, my struggles roused my emotions enough that the multitude in my soul awakened and began to stretch and expand.  I seized their fury, turning it and riding atop it like a wave to crash down upon the poisonous will of the briarheart, washing it from my consciousness and into a bottomless sinkhole in my mind.

  Fierce triumph accompanied my victory, and I returned to myself with enough force to cause Derkeethus to echo that power through his voice in a harsh bark of laughter that thundered across the hills.  Turning back to smile at him, feeling more myself, I felt a faint trill of dispassionate anger taint my joy.  With no outlet to attack, the mob of voices died down, disappointed at their lack of sport.

  Smiling back, he nudged Nael ahead, forging a path across the river.  As they passed me, Nael gave me a snort and glanced at me with somewhat saddened eyes, though her muscles quivered when she flicked her gaze to my right side, most of which was now dead to the world.  The water was cold and deep, and I had to fight Burrs every step of the way to keep him from trotting downstream to swim in it. He wasn't the wisest horse, and for a moment, I wondered if he somehow believed he was an Argonian.

  The sun sank below the horizon and gave way to a pale evening.  I sat next to a still-smoldering fire and watched the smoke curl against the darkening sky.  Derk amused himself by looking around the camp for any sign of life.  There wasn't any, and after half an hour and scouring, he turned to me with a frown.

  "There's nothing here.  Nothing of value anyway.  They took all of their supplies, aside from this," he said, holding up a sun-warmed bottle of mead.  He drank it with a scowl.

  I shifted uncomfortably, feeling something poking into my rear.  Under the weathered bedroll was a journal whose pages crackled brittlely as I turned them.  A record of illegibly smeared journeys swam across the frail paper, until, finding the last entry, I read aloud, "Today I discovered a Redguard woman and her husband slaughtered on the side of the road.  The arrows sticking to their corpses weren't any kind I've seen before.  There was a trail of blood leading from the carnage up into the hills.  We'll make camp for tonight, and strike out at dawn."

  "Hmm.  Explains why nothing's here.  They've already left," he said thoughtfully.

  "I wonder if they were referring to the woman back on the road with her horse."  I grimaced at the memory.

  "Probably.  Whatever they were chasing, they might bring it here..."  Derkeethus murmured, eyeing the land distrustfully.

  "I'll take the first watch," I replied without thinking.  I was worried about what would happen when true night began, but I had done enough to my friend today.  He deserved more rest than I did.

  After he'd settled down in the tent facing the hills, I relaxed by the smoking fire, hiding my scent as it flowed across me.  The stars emerged, numerous and glittering and I watched them wheel slowly overhead.  Over the rise to the east, I heard the soft sound of crickets singing in the long grasses.  A rattling chilly breeze blew the smell of dust and stone across the river towards me.  After a while, I lapsed into a meditative, relaxed state, forgetting for a moment the need to stay on guard both inside and out.

  As I drifted in a space without thought, my body rose and stalked over to Derk's tent where he lay snoring with a steady hissing like a boiling pot.  Dark magic crawled and bubbled from my right hand, and in the night, I found my vision clearer, brighter, as it observed my friend's prone form.  Slipping out of my trance, I tried to push into his mind, trying to wake him up, but I was met with a wall of fleeting surreal images, some of which involved me.  

  Unable to make sense of the abstract sensations, the briarheart's will pushed me away, and I crawled in next to him, hovering over his body like a spider.  Slowly, my hands crept over his form until they rested on the satchel about his waist.  Inside, I felt the thrum of the plant, and a desperate desire to touch it seized me, hot and blazing in a slick fever.  My fingers fiddled with the knot, magic flicking in between the laces, but somehow unable to affect them in any way.  Aggravation threaded into my fingers, causing them to shake and fumble.  

  A soft hiss greeted my attempts and a scaled hand gripped my right one firmly.  Our eyes met in the dim light cast by the magic, and I saw his pupils widen fractionally as he realized the position we were in.  There was a flicker of invitation in the connection which rapidly flitted away as the Argonian's face turned stony.  "Let it alone, Gwaihen.  Go to bed.  I'll take the watch now," he growled huskily, guiding my hand away and leaning very close to my face.

  His eyes narrowed and his will broke through the poison's barrier, and I was forcibly guided out of his tent and into another one nearby.  When my eyes flicked to the satchel, he hit the leather pouch with his fist, bruising the heart.  A flash of pain stabbed behind my eyes and my hands clutched my head.  The poison's influence faded.  "Thank you," I whispered, curling up and finally falling asleep.

  A shining dawn greeted us with a cool mist rising from the surface of the river as we crossed it.  No phantoms or strange creatures had visited us in the night, and we left the camp, erasing any trace of our presence.  Nael still would not allow me to ride her, though she was less afraid of me today.  She permitted me to touch her this time, provided I used my left hand and kept the right clearly visible.

  We trotted down the road, Derkeethus humming a nameless tune.  I felt his will creeping into my mind, guarding it against the influence of the briarheart.  For the first time in many hours, my mind was crystal clear and hope blossomed as I watched the golden sun rise.  So, I allowed him to occupy my mind.  It felt like we were mentally holding hands.

  A sign pointing the way to Rorikstead guided us along the road, and we progressed, my right lay quiescent across the saddle, unmoving and unmovable.

  At length we came to a place where the road and river turned through a small gorge.  Scaffolding and wooden structures peered over the rim of rocks.

  "Rorikstead already?" Derk asked, grinning sardonically.  "Quite a dump if it is."

  Squinting into the distance, I saw most of the structures had been hacked into rough palisades.  "I don't think that's Rorikstead or any place we want to go."  I looked about, trying to find a way around, but every path led too close to the proximity of the gorge.

  "We probably won't have any choice.  If they're bandits, they're crafty ones.  They'll have dammed the river and blocked the road," he replied grimly.

  With a sigh I waited for the sun to rise over the rock rim and pondered our crossing.