Chapter 2

"Jup, stop that!" I yelled. The damned mule just couldn't seem to leave the cornflowers growing wild along the trail alone. Ilesa's mule didn't seem to have the same taste for them, and was ignoring them for the most part. Jup though, was another story.

"Let's stop here for lunch," Ilesa called out, laughing. "You can let the beast eat its fill of the damned things. Maybe she'll get it out of her system."

"All right, I could stand a break anyway. Its getting hot!"

It was hot, no doubt about it. Since leaving Cairncross, the weather had been clear and perfect. A gentle, steady breeze from the south, clear and warm skies, and the trail back up the Cairnheart offering plenty of sunlight during the middle of the day.

We found a spot by the river where we could sit in the shade of a tree while the mules ate their fill and we snacked on the remains of the roast turkey we'd been dining on since we'd left the Three Seasons.

"I think Jee prefers the Johnny Jump-Ups," Ilesa said, watching her mule move towards a smattering of the flowers. Jup was contentedly grazing on the cornflowers by the trail. Neither of the beasts were mules, or at least not the kind most folks would expect. Purebred mules are much larger than Jee and Jup were. They are closer in size to their donkey parents than the horse sides of their family.

"I don't know why I let you talk me into buying them in the first place," I snorted.

"You bought them because we needed something to haul all the supplies you bought, and because Master Regnol suggested them as being more suited to the forest than anything else he had in stock."

"Then why do I have this impression that you made this decision?" I teased.

"Because I let you sleep naked beside me every night, I think." Ilesa teased back. "You seem to cede quite a bit to my point of view since that first night in the Three Seasons."

"I still cannot believe I agreed to this," I protested. "My master..."

"Your master must be happy, since you still refuse to break your oath!" Ilesa teased again, but with some pouting petulance that I knew wasn't feigned.

"I will not break it," I answered glumly. "Until my master gives me leave to.

"Even though..."

"Even though you are more than willing, and I ... I'm..."

"Eager?" Ilesa breathed into my ear. I shuddered and the heat of the day trebled around me.

"Even though I am dying with eagerness." I agreed. "But my master must give me leave, and he has not. Wasn't it enough to discover that the single room we had at the Three Seasons was Artuma's idea and not my master's?"

"Yes! What is it about that innkeeper? You seem mystified by him somehow."

"I don't know," I shook my head in frustration. "There's something about him that echoes of ancient times and ancient ways. I always find myself thinking of old magic and old methods after seeing him."

"Is that why you spent so much time in the apothecary shop while we were there? Because he spurred your thinking about old magic?"

"No, and apothecaries have no more connection to old magic than anyone else, but they do carry a few things relevant to the arts, and I was after some, but it was for something I'd thought of before we'd gotten to Cairncross."

"I can understand your interest in an old herbalist's wares, but what about the bakery? Do wizards and bakers share a fascination with old magic then?."

"They don't much, but you never know where you'll find the supplies you need for this or that, especially in the making up of salves and potions."

"Are you thinking of becoming a purveyor of soothing salves then, or perhaps you've thought of a way to corner the market on love potions?"

"Love potions don't work and they're more dangerous than a Hadof fire spell." I answered sternly. "One thing wizards and their apprentices do; one thing that defines them, is they constantly poke and prod at the edges of their knowledge. This is what I am doing."

"I know," Ilesa said more softly. "I'm just teasing."

"I know," I smiled and gave her a hug. "I'm just a little on edge with what my master has set us on now."

"I know you weren't expecting to be sent to Hoartongue Keep, but will restoring the wardstone there be so much different than the one at Starhill?"

"Yes and no, The two wards are very different, but the differences mean less to me than you do. I didn't have you to worry about when I restored the ward at Starhill. I don't understand why my master wants us both to go."

"I assumed it was because he doesn't want you to leave me anywhere on my own."

"That would make sense on the surface, but it doesn't make sense really, to anyone who's even slightly familiar with Wood Witches. You should be in little danger from anything within your wood, and especially if I'm not there to influence things. I think this is another one of those times where we're not being told everything."

"Hmmm," Ilesa replied. Hmmm indeed. There was little more we could add to that.

With out lunches eaten and this food for thought as well, it was time to get back on the trail. We had a lot of distance to cover to be at Hoartongue Keep before midsummer's eve.

That the stone at Starhill had been restored by an apprentice was odd enough. Now I was being asked to restore the second stone, and it was the summer stone — there were many ancient entanglements to that stone. It was centered less on the influence of humans and more on the influence of those who preceded humans on Gaen. Ancient magic indeed, and magic all caught up in the influence of summer.

Sun and ease and days of grace
Make the eye see all with peace
Make the heart see all that's good
Bring us blessings, as Summer should.

So went the old Song of the Plains, a chant the sun worshipers of the Horse Kingdoms used when they celebrated the solstice. Of course they usually followed their chanting with human sacrifices. I figured I should skip that part. In some parts of the Horse Kingdoms, the last line of that particular verse was

Bring blessings sweet as Summer's blood.

Great chanters, those folks, and unmatched horsemen, but there was little else to admire about them, as far as I was concerned.

The Cairnheart angled east to west as it flowed south out of the mountains, but it was not a meandering river. Hoartongue Keep, our new destination, rested within the arms of the mighty Hoartongue itself, and that massive glacier was said to be as old as the world itself and fed by half the snows of the frozen north. There was no need to pick a straighter path. The river would lead us where we needed to go.

As we rode, I continued to work on my ideas for a healing draught or balm. The road that magic takes is the road it chooses, and seldom the road we would choose for it. So my master says, and so too do I find myself coming to believe. A draught or tonic would be difficult to administer to someone not awake or aware enough to swallow. A balm or potion might not deliver its benefits to internal injuries with the same speed and efficacy as it would to external ones.

Since I was looking for a substitute for my post-battle healer's trance, a draught was probably what I wanted. Anything meant for drinking needed a container though, and the container needed to both shield the magic it contained and be resistant to it, lest the magic slowly dissipate into or through it.

Whether I settled on a liquid, paste or solid medium, I would need to figure out how to ... translate or shift the magic, adapting the known components of it into something that could be captured in the medium I'd chosen. That process might need its own accommodating to account for the use of more than one spell or rune. This was not a simple task! It was no wonder that wizard's didn't get rich selling the potions they crafted. It was no small task to make one, let alone to devise one in the first place!

I had acquired some crystallized honey, and even some gold foil, though not much. There had been no rock jelly in Cairncross, so I wouldn't be able to try that. I had found a small square of silk, but not silkspun, the natural, unprocessed fibers straight from the silkworm. Processed silk lost a lot of its magical potency, unfortunately. Still, it might be good enough to use for testing.

My studies of the wardstone at Hoartongue Keep was not the sort of thing you should do while on horseback, so while I rode, I worried the healing draught idea like a bone. Once we made camp for the night, I would tackle the Wardstone, almost to the exclusion of everything else. Conveniently, this kept me from dwelling on the new sleeping arrangements.

Whatever other free moments I had were spent carving words into the pieces of crystallized honey that I had been shaping. I wrote in runescir, a language borne from the same underpinnings that most wizardly runecraft came from. It was a difficult language to write in, requiring considerable thought to shape them into clear meaning, but it was the preferred language for wizard's journals, and had the benefit of being composed of all sharp angles and straight lines, which made it suitable for the soft and somewhat fragile medium I'd chosen.

The three parts of my working, as I saw it, would each have different parts to play. The first part would be the liquid or jelly at the center. The raw magical power would be stored there. The gold foil or silk, or whatever other substance I wound up using would store the actual magic spell or spells needed. The crystallized honey would insulate the magics from each other, while the inscribed instructions upon it would direct and control the effects produced, replacing the more interactive process of the healer's trance. Because the instructions could not be guided by intelligent consideration, they had to be somewhat complex and all-encompassing, which in turn dictated that the instructions followed some sort of logical process. My teachings spoke of these sort of things, and I had studied examples of such. The most famous of those I'd studied was called 'The Sieve of Senera'. The main structure of this ancient spellwork was something called a 'posit cascade'; a series of instance-outcome points that dictated the spell's final form based on the results of each posited condition.

"Tick!" Ilesa's call interrupted my reverie. "We've got company coming."

"Where?" I asked, carefully folding my work up into its doeskin wrapper and putting it back in my bag. I had everything safely where it needed to go before I turned and let my senses reel out a bit, my hands finding sword and dagger. I didn't draw them, only let my hands find them.

"Upriver a half mile," she told me, "and about a hundred yards off the river." I let my senses move in that direction, and I felt it too. I let my senses swirl around it for a moment.

"Old magic there."

"I know, and somehow familiar to me," she said with some concern. "Move the animals down to the river."

I did as she directed, aware that she was acting on knowledge she probably didn't know she had. When I returned, I saw that she had damped the fire down to coals, shoveling some dirt on the wood she'd pulled off the fire. I came to stand beside her, my hands back again on my sword and dagger. She held out her hand and looked at me. I raised an eyebrow, but took my hand off my sword and reached out for hers. She took mine and gave it a comforting squeeze. I let my other hand move away from the dagger.

"We won't need weapons," she said with a reassuring chuckle.

"Indeed you won't, daughter." came a creaky, low voice from the edge of the wood. "It's just me, Old Loam."

"Welcome, grandfather," Ilesa spoke the greeting. "Won't you join us here by our fire?"

"I will, since I see you have taken care with it," the voice came again, followed by a man stepping from the darkness. Well, mostly a man it seemed. He was perhaps four feet tall, and he had a face like a badger's and feet like a goat's. Even in the dim evening's light I could see that he had light brown hair and matching eyes. His clothing matched his coloring and he wore no shoes over his cloven-hoofed feet. He had a long, but thin and scraggly beard and mustache that matched the rest of him. He had a tall staff in his right hand and in his left a rope, by which he appeared to be leading a pack mule or other beast of burden. When he came further out into the light I saw that the other end of the rope was tied to a spider as large as a mule, and similarly burdened with bags and bundles. My hand went to my sword again, and I had it halfway drawn before I caught myself. Ilesa had shown no similar concern at the creature's appearance.

"Don't let poor Heda here scare you wizard," he tut-tutted, "She's just an old being's companion, and carries the odd bits of this and that he collects. She's never harmed anyone who wasn't out to harm me first."

"I'm not a wizard," I answered automatically. "Only an apprentice, and I'm sorry for the reaction."

"Nothing to be sorry for. Old Loam is used to men reacting to his friends so. You did better than most. Is there tea? A bit of tea would do me wonders right about now."

"Oh, come sit by the fire!" Ilesa said, rushing to the fire and quickly finding a cup and the tea makings, which had already been put away for the night.

"I have some mead, if you'd prefer?" I called out as I headed towards the river where my mead hung cooling in the river.

"Tea is fine," he called back. "The brewer's arts are lost on me, I'm afraid."

I filled my cup, but left the mead in the river, returning to find a place at Ilesa's side.

"Grandfather, welcome again. What brings you here tonight?" Ilesa asked, once the tea was poured.

"A good question, daughter. A good question indeed. This is no chance meeting by the river, as it might be between normal folk. Those of us who live in the north wood have sensed your rising up, you see, but we had little hope that you would come to the wild side of the wood so soon. For you to do so, and in the company of a wizard makes it even more incredible!"

"I'm not a..." I began again, but the odd fellow interrupted me before I could continue.

"I know - only an apprentice, as you say." he laughed. "Since your master is not here, and you are about his business, the distinction is irrelevant, I'd say. You are indeed one of the Might-born. To those like me, that makes you a wizard, whether you feel you are or not. That which makes you what you are, you were born with. The part you think of; the part you see as making you a wizard? That is the lesser part in our eyes. It is the layers of artifice you put between yourselves and the natural world. It raises you up, but it distances you from the rest of Gaen at the same time, does it not?"

"I suppose it does," I said, after giving his words some consideration. I'd had similar thoughts myself in recent years, though not phrased in such a way. "I have known nothing else since I was three though, so you'll forgive me if I cannot put it aside so easily."

"Nonsense," he laughed. "Old Loam isn't asking you to put anything aside, just asking you to realize that the rest of the world doesn't necessarily live by the definitions you wizards place on yourselves. Certainly I'm not one to say that there aren't differences between you and those others who can touch the magic, like our favorite Wood Witch here, for example."

"You said you knew of my ... rising?" Ilesa said, bringing the conversation back from the place my apprenticeship had sidetracked it.

"Of course my dear. All those of us with ties to the old wood could sense your coming into yourself. It has been a long, long time since there has been a wood witch in the north wood, and an exceedingly long time since there has been one who was tied to the entirety of the old wood. It gives those of us on the wild side some hope that we shall be reunited with our brethren in the east once again."

"Wild side?" I asked.

"Indeed. The Cairnheart ever has split the wood in two, and the western half has always held the wilder, fiercer aspects."

"Why is that?" I asked.

"It is the influence of Starhill, of course," he answered, as if it was too obvious to need explaining.

"The keep at Starhill is what makes the eastern half gentler?" Ilesa asked.

"No, not the keep!" the old being snorted. "Starhill, the place itself. There is a reason your legends tell you it is where men first came to Gaen, but that is only another symptom of its influence. There are places here and there on Gaen, places like Starhill, like the Cairnheart herself, that influence the way things are. Unlike Starhill which casts out its influence into the world around it, the old river keeps its influence close into itself, and acts as a barrier and a damper on most such things. It is inimical, in its way, to most of the old magics and those who have it in their blood, folks such as myself. This is about as close to the river as I would choose to come without preparation, as an example."

"So we have met then, here and now," Ilesa announced after some consideration of his words. "To what purpose? What would you have of me, grandfather?"

"Why to teach you, child! You are young and new to your power and your place. You must learn to be what you were born to."

"Wonderful, I do need your teaching, but I am set to go to Hoartongue Keep!"

"Indeed, and so you are and isn't that a strange sort of something. I've wondered at that bit of news when it first came to me. There is more here than just wizards and wardstones at play. What sends a wood witch and a wizard's apprentice to the wardstone at Hoartongue Keep for the summer solstice?"

"My master tells me that Ilesa must come with me when I go to do the restoring of the wardstone there," I answered. "He hasn't told me why."

"Indeed. A wood witch at the restoring of a wardstone. You might as well send a cowherd to oversee the building of a bridge."

"It made no sense to us either," Ilesa said.

"Agreed, but I trust my master, and more so because it is also the will of King Tynis that we do this."

"And you have both sworn oaths, I know." old Loam muttered. "When Right Blood and Might Blood move in concert, something is up, that much is certain."

"Hah, I felt the same way when I'd heard that the wardstone at Starhill was to be restored by an apprentice instead of by the Wizard of the Vale himself." Ilesa commented.

"To be honest, I was somewhat surprised that it fell to me as well, but I knew my master wouldn't ask it of me if he didn't think I could do the job." I agreed.

"So you restored the stone at Starhill, and the two of you are off to restore the stone at Hoartongue Keep? What of the stone at Silverlake?" he asked.

"I don't know," I answered. "That stone's time is not due until the fall equinox, as I understand it."

"Well, its not my place to wonder at what wizards and kings are about. Restoring the wardstones is good work, and deserves to be well done, but I'm not the one to do it, and I know that the king and your master both appreciate the importance of it being done right and well. Such stuff is not what brings me here."

"You are here to teach me," Ilesa said. "Will there be time?"

"You have to be in Hoartongue keep in what, ten days?" Old Loam asked. Ilesa and I both nodded our agreement.

"Then give me five. I'll make sure you're there in time."

I looked at Ilesa and gave her a small nod when I saw she had no objection. "Agreed," I said once we'd had that exchange. "I'm sure I'll find something to do for those five days."

"Well, we will travel some of that time, but I know there's magic being worked here, so you must be about something beside studying the wardstone?"

"I am..." I was reluctant to elaborate on my workings, but it did not surprise me that this old being somehow could sense my workings with the crystallized honey.

"You can show me, perhaps? I am no wizard, but I am appreciative of their craftings. Is this something you do to prove yourself to your master?"

"No," Ilesa answered before I could. "It's something he does at my behest. Show him Tick."

"Tick?" the old man snorted. "You wizards and your worries about your names. I dug my work back out of the bag I'd put it in and held it up. The old fellow leaned forward to get a better look in the dim light. "Interesting. I've not seen anything inscribed in this way in some time. Not that I've trafficked with wizards in many, many years. The unhumans would laugh at you, if they didn't try to spit on you for such work. They do love to wallow in their ignorance and call it honoring the ancient ways. Can you make a light, so I can see it better?"

"Oh, of course," I said, surprised. "It will not bother you?"

"I am not one of those evil beasts who fear magic light, boy. Do not get your bestiaries mixed up!"

He shouted it, but laughed a cackling, wheezing laugh afterwards that told me he considered his words to be high humor. I drew a little of my magic out and made a light above us. I held the piece I'd pulled out up to it and he leaned in again, signaling me to turn it around after a moment. "Interesting indeed. You don't intend to leave the inscriptions bare I assume?"

"No, I've been planning to rub gold leaf into them once the writing is done."

"Ah, I see how that could be effective," he nodded, stroking his beard. It seems something is missing to me though. You've hollowed out the center, but left it empty."

"Something is," I agreed. "I need something for that. I would have preferred rock jelly if I could find some, but barring that, I've been considering blood."

"Blood you say! Hers?"

"Or mine," I answered, knowing what he was really asking.

"Both of you?" He snickered. "That must've been keeping you tossing at nights, eh?"

"What?" Ilesa asked. I blushed instead of answering. "What?" She asked again, poking my arm.

"He was thinking he might have to use your blood or his if he couldn't find anything else," the old man repeated through his laughter. "One problem with that though ... the blood has to be of a specific kind."

"What, either of our blood would work though?" Ilesa still hadn't seen it, so I decided to get it over with.

"Virgin blood," I said more forcefully than I'd wanted. "The only kind of blood that would work as a substitute is the blood of a virgin."

"The hour grows late, children," Old Loam said from beside Heda. "I must retire further into the forest to spend my night. I shall return in the morning after you've had your breakfast. Save some tea for me, would you?"

"Of course Grandfather," Ilesa said, running over to give the old being a hug. "See you in the morning."

"Here, wizard." he called to me, reaching into one of Heda's bags and tossing me a package before he began to disappear into the dark woods.

"What is it?" I called out, but he was gone already.

"What is it?" Ilesa echoed my question.

"I don't know," I said, holding the package up to the light.

"Rock Jelly," Came Old Loam's voice out of the darkness, followed by his now familiar cackle.

"Oh," Ilesa said softly.

Indeed.

"Is that why?" her words came later, in the dark softness of our furs.

"Why what?" I pretended ignorance.

"The blood. Is that why you haven't responded?"

"I made an oath," I suggested. I felt her hands moving across me as I said it and my voice cracked. She giggled, but her hands didn't stop moving.

"You took an oath and I didn't. Even your master was aware of that. He knew you had an out, if I was willing."

"I know."

"Then has it been the blood that is holding you back? The thought that you might need it in the end?"

"Yeah, and..."

"what?"

"Well, I'm a virgin too, obviously. I'm afraid I'll disappoint you."

"Oh Tick," Ilesa breathed, her hands reaching across me as she pulled her upper body up onto mine. The feel of her breasts against my chest sent a thrill up my entire body. I somehow grew even harder than I already had been. "This is already excruciating torture. How could it be worse?"

I struggled for something to say, but from the darkness above me and a few inches from my left ear I heard her giggle.

"What?" I asked.

"Well ... besides, how would I know what's bad or good? I've never done this either!"

"This?"

"What we're going to do tonight," her hands were busy again, and what little I'd worn to sleep in was being stripped off me and cast aside. Those whispered words were followed by the feel of her lips on my neck, and I moaned and reciprocated, pulling her completely atop me and kissing her like I'd never done before. When my senses came back up out of that maelstrom, I realized I could feel the hard pebbles of her nipples where they pressed into my chest and a hot moistness moved itself in small movements against my hip and then across my belly.

"All right then," I agreed at last, the remaining reluctance I felt blasted away by the heat of the woman I had in my arms. "How should we do this?"

Another giggle out of the darkness, followed by some bodily adjustments.

"I think we've almost got it now, don't you?" she breathed, low and hot. "I mean ... we both know what goes where, don't we?"

"Yeah," I groaned. What went were was almost there now.

"Then lets just..." and she stopped talking then, and we began moving — each of us trying to find the place, the angle, the position. When the mutual movements put things where they needed to be, there was a frozen moment when we both stopped, knowing we were at the point of no return.

"Ilesa," I groaned.

"Huhh!" She answered, but it was the result of her hips pushing herself down the rest of the way, pushing my hardness into her and past the resistence. "Oooh!"

We both froze again. There were some definite differences this time though. Definite differences.

"Are you all right?"

"Ow!, but yeah," she breathed. "Just, don't move. I've got to get used to this."

It seemed like a lifetime later when Ilesa began to move atop me again, but if it had been, it was an enviable lifetime. At least I might have had that thought, if I hadn't become overwhelmed by the sensations exploding in me. Then I wasn't much capable of coherent thought for a while.

When I was able to think again, I realized that my internal discipline had slipped under the bombardment of the new sensations and my magic was spread around me much further than I would normally ever allow it unless I was actively using it. I began to reel it back in only to discover it tangled up in a comparable field of magic coming from Ilesa. Without a second thought, I extended my awareness to the outer edges of my magic, the better to untangle myself from hers.

I'd not forgotten where I was or what I was doing, believe me. It was an automatic act, like scratching an itch, and I did it without thinking. The results however, were not what I was used to. Every facet of the incredible, joyous, amazing act I was in the middle of seemed to magnify a hundredfold. Ilesa too, it seemed was living with her mind at the edge of her senses, and with the both of us so wide open, we mingled and meshed in a way I don't think too many people have had the chance to experience. Well, that's how I thought of it later. Trust me, as it was happening, I was not quite so analytical.

I became a bundle of nerve endings and a cauldron of emotions and sensations. Yes, in the same way that the Lake of Fire could be described as 'a bit warm'. At the same time, I found myself having trouble keeping it clear in my head where I ended and Ilesa began.

Whatever we were feeling, or thinking, our bodies had continued the physical side of our coupling, and while I at least was still awash in the wonder of our mingling, I found my orgasm upon me. Ilesa was there with me, and we completed together in a rush of loud voices and frantic thrusts and shuddering closeness that, left me clinging happily to a sweaty, panting wonderful woman.

"Oh Pac!" she gasped.

"Yeah," I said between labored breaths of my own.

"Please, tell me..." She said, still catching her own breath.

"What?"

"Please, please, please tell me its going to be like that every time!"

"Oh lords!" I moaned. "Please tell me it wont!"

"What!"

"It'll kill us. If its like that every time, it'll kill us."

"We'll have to try it again to see," she purred, pulling herself in close for a kiss."

"Oh yeah," I agreed. "Definitely, but not tonight. I don't think I could handle it."

"Yeah," she giggled.

"Tick, can you make a light so we can clean up a little?" Ilesa asked a few minutes later. "We're going to wake up sticky and cold if we don't."

I made a light, and we threw our furs apart. I got my first look at my lover completely nude. We were both flushed and covered in sweat, but it didn't matter. "My lord, Ilesa! You're so beautiful!"

"Oh Pac, I look like boiled field greens right now. Tomorrow night maybe you'll remember the light before we climb under the furs?"