Calling of Light by Lori M. Lee

Author:Lori M. Lee [Lori M., Lee]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Page Street Publishing
Published: 2024-04-03T00:00:00+00:00

We stand within the Dead Wood.

In this dreamscape, the earth is dry and silty, like sand. The trees are bone white, and the branches end in grasping human hands that claw at empty air and one another. Overhead, the sky is a cauldron of angry black clouds.

There is no wind, but a chill breathes down my arms and the back of my neck. I shiver and tug at the sleeves of my tunic.

Some paces away, the Soulless steps over roots that writhe like snakes, his hands clasped at his back, looking perfectly at ease. Sprouting from his shoulders are hundreds of thousands of gossamer spider’s threads, each a link between him and the souls bound to him and the Dead Wood. He’s dressed in dark-gray robes of a much finer cut, with an embroidered sash wrapped tight around his waist.

His hair falls loose around his shoulders, and he pays no mind to the way the trees recoil from him, clearing his path. The branches wrench away, the faces within the bark screaming wordlessly as they strain against their prisons. Still, the Soulless continues, his steps leisurely, as if he’s strolling through a blooming grove rather than a graveyard.

Slowly, I follow him, wary of the branches that tear at one another with grisly broken fingers. As far as my dreams with him go, this is as close a representation of the Dead Wood in the waking world as it has ever been.

“Did you just pull me into a dreamscape against my will?” I ask, uncertain.

My mind races with questions at how he could do such a thing. Was it like forcing unconsciousness on those people in the night market? Some bizarre spiritual asphyxiation?

No, that doesn’t seem right. He’s here as well, accompanying me through this strange dream—this is to do with the sharing of our craft and the way our souls resonate with one another. Disgust roils in my gut.

“You must learn how to hone your craft into a blade rather than swinging it—”

“—like a club,” I say, recalling the insult he’d given me back at Spinner’s End. I realize too late that I probably sound petulant, and I glare at his back.

He doesn’t mock me further, though. He only says, “Once you can do that, you need only point the blade, and your magic will respond.”

Stepping past a network of roots that slither away from the Soulless’s feet, I lift my hands and flex my fingers. Even within a dream, my craft surges at my command and sparks at my fingertips, hungry for attention. The desire to use it wrings through me.

“You’re eager to learn, but you’re afraid of what you can do.” The Soulless pauses between two trees, his mere presence bending the trees outward. If the Dead Wood is the monster that hides in the shadows with ready claws and bloody teeth, then the Soulless is the master it cowers away from.

I drop my hands. “Any decent person would be afraid of what we can do.”

“A decent person uses fear as caution, not cause for hatred.

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