Celia was physically and emotionally exhausted, her mind and body craving sleep, so she put the stone away in her pocket, filing the unanswered questions away for another time. She wrapped her cloak around herself and settled in against the cave wall, her head on Salrissa's shoulder.
---o---
The early morning sun fell fully on the little ledge, waking Celia from a particularly confusing dream. She had been flying high above the land, birds scattering from her. Swooping low, she could see wild horses and cattle all flee her shadow. But no matter what, she could not see the shape of the shadow or the form she had taken in the dream.
She noted that she was the last to awaken, and stretched as she sat up from the awkward position she had ended up in. Her shoulders ached, and when she tried to sit up, she found her legs stiff and sore from the previous day's travels. The fire still burned contentedly in the stone circle as she moved closer to warm her hands.
"Neat trick that." Robart commented from the rock Hoyle had been watching from last night, as he gestured to the fire.
"Thanks," she replied, dispelling the magic keeping the fire burning. It immediately turned from the burning logs to white embers, falling into itself, the flames gone, but the heat still radiating from it.
She noticed Salrissa on the gravel bank below doing some stretching, while Valena sat beside her chewing her rations. Celia pulled out her own bread and took a mouthful. Robart hopped down from the rock, walked past the two women and slid more than walked down the steep incline to the riverbank below. He also did some light stretching, standing a ways behind Salrissa. Celia was pretty sure he was watching her every move in her tight leather armor that emphasized more than it hid.
"Where is Hoyle?" she asked Valena quietly, as she looked around, noticing his absence.
"I believe that he is scouting the area. For what, I'm not sure," Valena responded absently as she packed away the remains of her trail rations.
Celia looked up from her rations as she took a bite from her meat, its juices running down her chin, and saw Hoyle's silhouette appear from the forest at the side of the ravine. He moved towards them at a walk and stopped near Salrissa.
"I found a game trail that seems to lead up the ravine wall. Hopefully that will get us to the ridge we saw yesterday," Hoyle declared hopefully. He turned and had a quiet conversation with Salrissa and then moved to stand below the ledge and look up at her and Valena. "Are you ladies coming?" he asked with one eyebrow raised and a smirk on his face. "I for one do not want to spend any more time in this wilderness than I have to."
She and Valena gathered up their things and made their way carefully down the incline to the gravel bank, and followed the others as Hoyle led the way towards the game trail he had apparently found. After several dozen paces he vanished under an overhanging tree, with Salrissa following, and Robart waiting for Celia and Valena. Celia noted the break in the underbrush as she crouched under the tree, and started up the moderate incline through the forest.
---o---
They followed what Celia assumed was a game trail for the better part of the morning, climbing steadily up the ridge. More accurately, it was running more-or-less level, while the river and the ravine dropped below them in a series of waterfalls and steep rapids. Every so often, they found gaps in the trees where they could see quite a distance; at times they thought they could see the Trellin Hills far to the northeast, the northern limits of the Kingdom of Goralon.
Birds sounded in the trees and squirrels chittered away angrily at the five of them as they passed, interlopers into their territory. The calls of the odd animal, and the rustling of the underbrush along the narrow trail all registered in Celia's subconscious, but her mind had turned back to the exchange she had experienced last night with the quafa'shilaar. She did not understand what was happening. Why did it feel like the stone was intelligent, possibly even sentient? Was it why they were magical, or were they intelligent because they were magical? Or was this the only one that was like this, was it unique? The questions were boundless and all running through Celia's head like bugs scattering when the lights came on. Which is exactly what the answer felt like - a bug. When she trained her thoughts towards one question and worked through the logic, she felt the answer was there, but hidden just out of reach. She needed to do more research.
As the chilly spring morning went on, the sun climbed higher, warming the air. Eventually Celia had to remove her cloak, as the hiking was causing her to sweat. After several hours, they stopped for lunch. Celia took the time to eat a few bites of her refreshed trail rations and pulled out her tome titled Treatises on Modern Magic and flipped to the essay by Vicalas Ardasha which she had not yet had time to read, titled Quafa'shilaar and the Elements. She began to read the tome as the others took time to rest or to scout the trail ahead.
A particular passage caught her eye early in the essay, and she had to go back and read the whole paragraph again.
There is speculation by some that the quafa'shilaar are but a conduit of power from another realm or reality, possibly from the home of the base elements themselves; Earth, Air, Fire & Water. Others argue that the stones themselves are the source of power, some element within them allowing the crafters of spells to channel that energy. Finally, others argue that the stones are only a reagent, allowing spell crafters to channel the energy of nature itself, depleting the world of its essence. I believe that the truth lies somewhere in between these three views.
Upon examination of quafa'shilaar, I have experienced the rare occasion when the stone itself seemed to be aware and able to communicate in rudimentary fashion. It is unfortunate that I was unable to retain that stone for any length of time. Further experimentation with a large sample group of quafa'shilaar could not reproduce the effect in any but a few, and usually only with a single person, never myself, other than the once. With the results inconclusive, further investigation is required.
The essay went on to describe other experiments attempting to deduce the source of the power, more futile attempts at deeper communication, and more complicated procedures Celia did not quite understand. The final line in the essay jumped out at her as important.
Only the leader of The Seven, knows the process of creating quafa'shilaar, the knowledge imparted by the revered Staff of Everilon as it is passed from one leader to the next.
Celia looked up as she finished the essay. The others were getting ready to continue their climb to the top of the ridge. She looked up at the slight incline, the terrain getting slightly steeper, but it appeared that they were out of the forest proper, as the trees were more coniferous and spaced farther apart with newly sprouting alpine grasses between. She stood and gathered her things, moving to join the others as they continued the hike. If she did not think about the sky skiff and the ensuing battle and crash that brought them to this point, she could almost believe they were on a simple hike through the foothills.
As they ascended the slope, and the climbing required less of her concentration and hands, she slipped her left hand into her pocket and caressed the violet quafa'shilaar. At first she could feel no discernible difference from the magestone on her amulet, the awareness that had overwhelmed her last night not apparent. She could still feel the connection in her mind, being present whether she was touching the stone or not. It actually unnerved her, being subject to this force that she did not understand, and could not control.
Paying little attention to the path, she willed the stone to communicate as it had the night before. Nothing happened. She demanded it, begged it, and requested it to communicate with her, but nothing happened. Suddenly, she bumped into Valena, who had stopped short in front of her.
Celia looked around to see all of them stopped, looking forward from their vantage high atop the ridge into the valley below. In the fading light of early dusk brought by the shadow of the mountain to the west, Celia could not see what they were looking at, so stepped up beside Hoyle. She gasped as she spied countless small campfires sp
read about the valley below, shadows milling around them like ants. Looking south and west, she could see the silhouette that was the sky citadel hovering protectively over the pass two valleys over. Due to the higher ridge to their south, a sister to the one they spent the past two days reaching, ascending, and were now standing upon, these fires would be out of view from the sky citadel.
"Is that what I think it is?" Celia asked, uncertain if she could possibly be correct.
Silence hung in the air for a moment before Hoyle responded. "That is the Goralonian Army."
"But what's it doing here?" Celia asked dumbfounded.
"Preparing to invade." Robart supplied.
"That's crazy! The sky citadel will crush them. Won't it?" she asked nervously. She was not fond of the Empire or the Emperor since he had sent them out here to die, but it had provided a safe place for Mahad'avor for the last eight decades. She had only lived in the Empire for the last five years, and mainly sheltered within the floating walls of the sky citadel, but it had become her only home.
"It should, but they know that," Hoyle responded, pondering. "There is something more going on here. They must have a way past it somehow..." He trailed off as the sky grew slowly darker, and stars began to appear in the sky, mirroring the campfires below.
"We should make camp," Salrissa offered. "I saw a cleft in the rock off the path a few hundred paces back. It will shelter our fire, and protect us from the wind."
Celia realized that Salrissa was right and that the wind was beginning to get gusty. And where they were standing was too exposed to those down below, even if they were almost a league away, or more. She followed as their group backtracked to the slightly hidden depression in the rock, surrounded by pine and fir trees. They gathered a handful of dead branches, started a small fire, and settled in for the night. Celia excused herself to visit the bushes to make water, and on her way back she cast some warning spells up and down the trail. Once back at the campground, she cast her Lingering spell on the fire and curled up in her cloak and tried to go to sleep.
---o---
Celia had both dreamed of this day and dreaded it at the same time. It was her sixteenth birthing day, a day she legally became a woman, a day when she can choose her path in life if she so desires.
Most think that she will choose to marry Branton, her long time sweetheart, and heir to the Saterleen fortune. This would make her the second wealthiest woman in the Republic of Cartondan, envied by all, equalled by only a few. It is tempting, to accept that possibility, to live the life of privilege, her every want taken care of by a bevy of servants, to spend her life by the side of a good friend. Her parents, Horst and Lileean Wurthaven, would be proud to be connected to the Saterleens, and in fact, her father encouraged the match. Even though her family was wealthy in its own right, with the marble quarry located on its hillside estate, they were not Saterleen wealthy. The only problem was, while her and Branton were close friends, she did not love him, nor he her. Branton was in love with another girl from a neighboring town, and wanted to spend his days painting, not running the family business. They had spent many evenings talking quietly about these things as only close friends can, with no judgement, only acceptance.
She felt that it was fun to let the possibilities linger in her mind as they occurred; she could join the Daughters of Saveesha as a priestess and gain high honor by serving the Church; or she could become a Sister of Jenavin, and as a priestess of knowledge help guide the Senate, gaining honor through service to the government. Her father would also accept it if she chose not to marry Branton, but instead chose to join her father in running the family business. He wouldn't be extremely happy, but he would accept it.
Both of her brothers had died young; her older brother Brucen from the coughing sickness when he was but three years old, and her younger brother Waynten when he tried jumping into the old quarry pond from a high ledge and hit his head, causing him to black out and drown when he was eight. She was too young to have known Brucen, just to hear the stories over the years, but she was as devastated as her parents when Waynten was killed. Therefore, she was the only Wurthaven left to be able to inherit the marble quarry and the distribution business, other than her uncle Yohan. And her father and uncle Yohan had had a falling out, and had not spoken in years.
However, none of those choices were true to her heart; to what she felt was her life's calling. It was a secret she told no other, not even Branton on those quiet evenings of whispered words. She told no one, because if it ever slipped out, her father would find a way to destroy that option and force her into one of the "acceptable" choices for the rest of her life, and that she could not live with. And now was the hour of her choice, the hour that her life changed, for good or ill, forever.
She stood with many other sixteen year-olds in the back of the choosing hall behind a heavy curtain, all nervous but full of energy. Branton was standing near her, but far enough apart to give her space. He did not know what her choice would be, other than he knew it would not be him, since they had discussed his choice in some length. Every time he brought the conversation around to her choice, she would change the subject or distract him with some question about the girl in the neighboring town that he loved.
Soon it was time for them all to be presented to the Hall. There were not a lot of people in the amphitheatre, mainly the families of all the sixteen year-olds seated in the second row and further back. The first row was reserved for the members of all the Guilds; the Registrars of Marriage; the Heads of all five religions were represented; the Sons of Voral the Father, the Daughters of Saveesha the Mother, the Sisters of Jenavin, and Brothers of both Benraw and Kristor; and finally, a representative of the Dar'Shilaar from Mahad'avor.
As they stepped forward as a group to be called in order of last name, she snuck a peek at the latter. The man looked quite elderly, with a long white beard, disheveled purple robes, and matching pointed hat, slightly askew. A staff leaned against the wall near him, a green stone glowing lightly at the top. He appeared to be looking about in bewilderment, smiling wildly to everyone, seemingly unaware of what was happening or why he was here on this particular day. As Celia watched him surreptitiously, he locked his gaze with hers for a brief moment and winked before returning to his befuddled amusement.
She watched as one teen after another stepped forward as called and indicated their choice. She watched as her friend Selenity stepped forward with Rollard, her long time crush, and announced that they were seeking the Rite of Marriage. Celia looked into the stands to see both sets of parents and siblings, already sitting with each other smile proudly and clasp hands all around. Others were called forward, most following the logical choice, or the wish or their parents, but not all.
A boy she didn't know well, but knew to be a bully, chose to join the Brothers of Benraw, to the weeping of his mother and shocked look of his father. It was unusual, and almost unheard of for the God of Chaos, War, and Destruction to have anyone join from the Republic of Cartondan. In fact, Celia couldn't remember a year when that choice was made. She was sure it would be the talk of town for the next decade, so knew she would have heard about it if it had happened before this.
Next up was Branton, who paused after being called. He looked up at his parents, and Celia could tell he was nervous, but knew his decision to join the Painter's Guild was what his heart wanted. So when he called out his decision to join the Merchant's Guild and help with the family business, she was dumbfounded. He left the stage with his head down, his shoulders slumped. Celia looked up at her parents to find a frown on her father's face, but understanding on her mother's. A mother always knew.
A few more teens went up to declare their Choice, but Celia took in none of it, focusing on her decision, worrying about whether she could go through with it or not. Could she disappoint her parents? But could she live with a decision that was not her own?
And finally it was her turn. She stepped forward to the front of the stage and looked at all the
various groups represented at the front of the room, looking each one in the eye before moving on to the next. Finally her gaze landed on the Dar'Shilaar, his gaze intense, looking through her to her very soul. She paused, and watched as he nodded slightly at her, amused expression gone.
Immediately after the words were out of her mouth, she heard her father shout, and her mother gasp as the rest of the hall went silent as a tomb. Celia could not hear the exact words that her father was shouting at her over the blood pounding in her ears. She had done it! She had made the choice that she wanted, chosen the life solely for her. She was going to become a Dar'Shilaar, a wielder of magic!
She stepped off the stage and was met by the Dar'Shilaar as he stood to greet her. He took her hand and kissed it gently. "Welcome to the ranks of the Dar'Shilaar Celia. You have the rest of the afternoon and this evening to say goodbye to your family and friends and pack your things. We leave in the morning."
By this point the two remaining teens had made their choice and the ceremony was starting to break up, families hugging and shaking hands, some of the teens, including Branton, sitting with the Guild members at the tables provided at the side of the room, reading through the guild charters and contracts. Celia watched as her father stormed down the stepped side aisle, and brushed past the elderly Dar'Shilaar to grab her arm roughly. Her mother trailed a few feet behind, with an apologetic half smile on her face.
"What are you thinking young lady?!" he nearly shouted, drawing stares from some of the others in the hall. "You knew my wishes, and yet you still defy me!"
"But what of my wishes father?" Celia responded quietly, almost meekly.
"Your wishes are none of my concern!" he stated angrily, trembling in rage. "You must change your decision, and do it now. If you do not, I will disown you, and you will never be able to use the Wurthaven name again!"
Stones Unbound (The Magestone Chronicles Book 1) Page 23