Arc 2: Chapter 23: Debate For a Soul
For a long moment, the Crowfriar and I glared at one another. Emma, having no patience for the dramatics, broke the silence.
“So what now?” She glanced between us, brow furrowed in a mix of concern and frustration.
That was a very good question. I hadn’t ever done anything like this before. I’d made my pronouncement, invoked the rite, and I knew I’d done something. The aura I’d used with the invocation had carried those words far, and I suspected someone, or something, would hear it.
But would anyone answer? And how long would it take?
“Patience,” Vicar murmured. “They will call us to them soon.”
“Who?” Emma frowned, casting her eyes around at the snowy fields, finding only white silence there. “I don’t—”
A wind stirred. It kicked up eddies of snow, which picked up speed, until a whirl of white swirled around the tree. I threw up one hand to shield my eyes as the wind-caught snow buffeted me, sending spikes of bitter cold through my skin. I lost sight of everything — Emma, the Crowfriar, Jon Orley, the fields of Venturmoor, and the village.
It ended soon enough, and we stood… elsewhere. Snow still clung to everything, but it shone brighter, harsher, clinging like gleaming crystal to high juts of ice-encrusted stone. Ten pillars of frozen rock, bent inward like crooked fingers, formed a ring around a wide slab of smooth, moon-tinted marble. I stood at the center of that slab.
On the high pillars stood a collection of ominous figures. Some were gnarled and bent, others tall and fair as lords, some resembling nothing human at all. I knew them for what they were immediately — Onsolain.
Iron Wheels of Hell, there were five of them, filling half the high pillars. A full Hand. Just what had I done?
The constellations looked different, the position of the moons, both greater and lesser, altered. I didn’t know where we were exactly, but the landscape beyond the ring looked desolate, primeval. Somewhere in the deep south, I guessed, in the frozen isles beyond the coasts. The Sea of Ends. I could hear waves lapping against a shore, ice crackling in the tides, supporting my guess. The air had a razor edge to it.