Wit'ch fire by James Clemens

Author:James Clemens [Clemens, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Prohibited books, Epic, Magic, Witches, Imaginary places, Fantasy fiction, General, Romance, Fantasy, Adventure stories, Occult fiction, Fiction, Good and evil
ISBN: 9780345417060
Publisher: Ballantine Pub. Group
Published: 1999-03-01T00:00:00+00:00

Book Four MOONLIGHT AND MAGICK

Tol'chuk lumbered behind the others, his shoulders hunched against the pelting rain. The storm had struck as soon as they had cleared the mountain heights and entered the rimwood forest of the lower highlands. Spears of lightning crashed in jagged bolts across the night sky, illuminating the dark forest ahead in sharp bursts of blinding radiance.

In one of these bursts, he saw Mogweed and his wolf-brother almost a league down the path. Even with the storm's howl, his companions had traveled lightly once they reached the forest's edge. Woods were their home, and even though this was not their own forest, the familiar canopy of woven branches and bushy undergrowth seemed to ignite renewed vigor in their limbs. The injured wolf, even burdened by his splinted leg, raced among the trees, while Tol'chuk, racked by rib-cracking coughs and a nose clogged with dripping slime from the constant dampness of the weeks of travel, found himself slipping farther and farther behind the others.

Tol'chuk dreamed of his own dry caves with a roaring fire in his family hearth. He bowed his head and dragged a forearm across his raw nose. The first winter storm had always marked the Sulachra, the ceremony of the dead, in which cured goat dung was burned in family hearths to honor the spirits of the departed. He pictured the caves billowing with the sweet smoke and the females waving fans of dried toka'toka leaves to cast the mingled odors out into the storm. Lightning was supposed to open cracks in the dome of the sky through which the smoke would seep to the next world, letting the dead know they were still remembered. Tol'chuk coughed, an echo of the thunder above, and wondered who would perform the Su-lachra for his dead father. And if no smoke arose for him, would he think he had been forgotten?

As Tol'chuk plodded down the path, the tapping of his thigh pouch on his leg brought a sudden realization. He stumbled to a stop, his palm cupping the Heart of the Og'res in the pouch, and remembered the Triad's words. The spirits of the og're dead, including his father, had not made the journey to the next world. They were trapped here, in the heartstone!

This realization opened a hole in Tol'chuk's chest into which a profound hollowness swelled. The Sulachra ceremony was a sham! The smoke had never reached the flared nostrils of the spirits. The dead had never reached the next world.

Tol'chuk's hand fell away from the pouch, from the gem. The Sulachra had been a time when all the og're tribes united for a brief few days in a communal act of homage. It was a time of peace and contemplation, a short respite from the tribal wars. It united the og're people with its grace. But now, with the knowledge of the lie behind the act, the beauty of the ritual was forever fouled for Tol'chuk.

In just a heartbeat, he had become less an og're. He glanced ahead at the dark wood spread before him.

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