Chapter 1

Avmoore walked down the road. It was a damp morning, and it still smelled fresh from the rain last night. While he walked, he was content to simply push his cart and watch the birds fly and the trees sway in the wind.

Even when he looked at his cart and remembered what he was doing, his spirits remained high. He wasn’t about to let Saul ruin his mood. He loved going on these trips. He loved to just get away from everything and go into the wilderness. He felt at home out here away from Saul with the birds and the bushes. This was the only part of his apprenticeship that he actually enjoyed anymore.

It was easier to survive alone in the wilderness than it was to talk for even the shortest amounts of time to most people.

Avmoore looked back to the road and saw a small speck he knew to be the town. His jovial mood and wide, animate grin disappeared in the blink of an eye. He was probably ten miles away still, but he could already hear the drunken raving, the sound of breaking glass, and the sound of Saul’s children whimpering in the other room.

Avmoore’s gaze wandered down to his arms, and he realized why everyone had been staring at him in the town. He had bruises all the way up his arms. Some had the sickly yellow hue of a bruise that had been there for a few days, while others were the dark blue of a freshly created one. The small areas of skin that were not full of bruises were pale, and only served to contrast the disgusting ailments.

Avmoore pushed Saul from his mind, and attempted to put his mind back to nature, but in the end, his attempt ended futilely. He looked down at the iron bricks he was pushing, and caught sight of his face.

His left eye was grotesquely swollen and black, and his lip was swollen and red.

Avmoore abruptly stopped his cart. He listened to his heart pounding in his ears, and his breathing escalating. The very thought of returning to the shop made him sick to his stomach. He pushed his cart over to the side of the road and flopped down onto the grass.

His mind raced in every direction at once, and he had no power to slow it down. He began to imagine what Saul would do to him this time. Would he beat him with his fists or just kick him while Avmoore desperately tried to get away. Or would he simply throw him against the wall again and again.

As he listened his breathing became faster and faster. Suddenly an acute fear of not being able to get air gripped him. His lungs tried to move faster but his throat closed up and he couldn’t get any air.

Avmoore’s entire body began to shake and convulse as he desperately pulled for air. He fell over backwards and rolled to the side. He abruptly vomited and passed out.

Sarynx decided to move faster. Her legs already hurt from walking all night. She knew that sooner or later she would have to stop or else her body would stop on its own. “But not yet,” she told herself, “I have to keep going.”

She had been moving without rest for four days now. She didn’t dare slow lest the threat, that even now she could almost feel bearing down on her, catch her. She could not afford the price of capture. The price was death. Not only her death, either, for the secret she carried could be the key to the gods only knew how many lives.

Her horse had died of exhaustion on the third night. She had wasted no time in taking her needed possessions, then burning the sweaty, fly covered corpse.

She tugged her thoughts back out of her memories and into the future. She was on the right road. That much she knew.

But how long would it take? She didn’t have much time left. Her pursuers couldn’t be far behind, now that she was on foot. She had to move quickly, but her body would not allow any further beckons from her mind to move faster.

Looking toward the road in front of her, she saw a small blot on the horizon. It was too far off into the distance to tell what shape or size it was. She told herself it was probably just another windmill or farmhouse.

She felt helpless. Pathetically helpless as a rabbit must feel when pursued by predators. She couldn’t think what would happen if she was caught before she could fulfill her mission. She knew she would die at the hands of her enemy, but she at least needed to stall that eventuality until the time she could do her part in vanquishing the plague of evil poised on the brink of unleashing its full power on the defenseless world.

She looked back at the form in the distance. Her trepidation increased as she realized that it was a cart without a driver. This could mean nothing but trouble.

She did not feel fear for her life. Nor fear of not completing her mission. She felt only calm. A deathly still in place of thought.

And then the impression of death overwhelmed all her senses as it threatened to buckle her knees with its sheer bulk and force. She knew with crushing finality that her powers were insufficient to allow her to live through the coming trial and complete her task.

One crystalline tear dropped gently to her cheekbone as she was swallowed by shadow.