Fire raged atop the mountain ahead, clawing at the dark sky with scythes of burnt orange flame. The spiky feeling of magickal Foreboding filled Enchan’s chest further and further with each step she took. She silently asked Kenii to reflect the sense to the other three members of their party, and saw a quick green flash in his glassy chest as he complied. Though they glanced about nervously, they’d realized where the foreboding came from. It always made them uneasy to know Enchan’s magick sensed something awry.

The earth crumbled and crunched under their feet, glowing a malevolent red-brown to match the sky above. Genaea’s soul was grumbling about the blackened vegetation from higher up in Enchan’s mind, where she’d locked it away. As the inky rune scribed on her pale chest, poking tentative fingers up over the neckline of her robes, escalated her sense of Foreboding to one of Fear, she motioned back to Genaea. The spirit came forward in a wave of dark formlessness, and floated past her to scout around the bend in the track they followed on its sloping way around the mountain. The remaining four of them continued striding along at a fair pace, nearing the bend with every step.

Enchan…Kenii’s mind-voice was startling, but she controlled her own fear, careful not to let it ignite the magickal Fear the rune on her chest held at the ready for her.

Yes? She replied, carefully.

Should we not be slowing up, at least delaying until the spirit returns?

Enchan considered his words for a moment, continuing to cast rapid glances in every direction, to watch all angles. You’re right, Kenii. She held up a slim fingered hand, the small rubies on her rings glinting with reflected fire. Behind her, the three silently stopped. Akyr craned his thick neck as well as he could, attempting to see beyond the ridge creating the bend in the path. He was nearly tall enough, but shook his head when Enchan’s gaze asked what he could see. She turned her eyes back to the bend ahead, and her mind to Genaea’s soul in her mind.

Fiiinally. Iii’ve been awaiting your orders.

Become as insubstantial as you are able, and go around the bend until the path straightens. Warn me of any coming threat. Once you have walked it, float above this ridge, and look down from there for any additional threats.

The former would be much easier could Iii walk.

Genaea, you know what I meant. Go.

The grumbling began again in her higher consciousness, but the spirit was loyal to her orders. Moments after their conversation ended, his mumbling trickled off, to be replaced with the soul’s idea of watchful sound effects. Ooooo, ahhrreeee, ahna nana nana…ooooooo, ahreee…

Escaping the incessant train of odd, drawn out sounds, as well as avoiding the derailing of her focus through laughter, Enchan sank in her mind to her lower consciousness, and to the outer world. Kenii’s translucent hand rested on her shoulder, sparkling an iridescent green against the deep crimson of her robes. What did the spirit say?

Nothing yet. It is as ornery as my father suggested. Her mind flinched at how eager she'd been to take the soul into her mind then. Separate consciousnesses had taken a while to build, but they were infinitely useful in performing difficult magicks. She could still sense faint murmurs of the soul’s speech drifting down into this consciousness, like mutterings echoing down from the loftiest level of a stairwell.

“Enchan? Is the petrifying fear coming from you??” Gerron’s hoarse whisper was the first audible communication amongst the group since they’d seen the fire. She drilled an intimidating glare back at the stocky hunter, until she saw the look on his face. Kenii, is this your doing?

No, he replied innocently, but I feel it too. There was wonder in his childlike mind-voice, an identical echo of his actual voice. I have removed all of my influence from their emotions. I cause nothing of what they now feel. He began to look about suspiciously, reaching behind him to the hilt of his greatsword, his neon green glow dimming as he pulled his influence on them back into himself.

Gerron and Akyr’s eyes widened further after Kenii’s retraction, if such was possible. They moved nervously, glancing about at the height of paranoia, like spooked horses. Perhaps the thief? Kenii asked, brimming with naïve innocence.

Enchan rose into her higher consciousness, probing for Genaea’s quieted soul.

Yes?

What is going on up there??

Nothing at all, which must be frustrating news for you.

Akyr and Gerron are being affected by some magick inspiring fear. Before you ask—Kenii would not do that.

Why must you emphasiiize how loyal everyone else is to your cause? Myyy spirit is bound to your will—that isn’t loyalty enough??

Enchan froze at the resentment in Genaea’s outburst, conveyed by the imprisoned soul. Before she mentally formed a reply, he spoke again. The Permeating Fear is myyy enchantment. Iii meant to cause any enemies ahead to become nervous and show themselves. Eiiither they are more resistant than your companions, or the path is clear.

Th...thank you, Genaea. Your service is appreciated. We will join you in a moment. Cease the enchantment.

You would really do well to learn how to sense others’ magick, you know. The soul went on mumbling about the “useful” magicks she’d taught herself, concurring with it’s corporeal counterpart. Enchan sank again through the layers of her mind to the lower, physical consciousness, to rejoin her body in the ever-darkening landscape. Akyr and Gerron calmed down, a visible sign Genaea’s enchantment had gone, and even she felt fear she’d been ignoring slip away, leaving only the magickal Foreboding in her chest. Shaking herself off, she raised a pale hand subtly glittering with metal and rubies from the five thin rings on her fingers. Her three free-willed companions followed as she moved forward in a swirl of crimson robes.

Genaea’s dark spirit-form floated down to them when they rounded the bend, and the five moved silently along the path on its twisting way up to the mountaintop, where the fire licked at the night sky. The forceful spike the rune of Foreboding twisting inkily over the center of her chest caused within her diminished to a bare watchful presence.

Kenii glowed a brighter green as he again spread inquisitive sparks of emotion into his aura, ready to absorb or reflect any emotion he caught. Enchan could see a flash of hunger in his eyes whenever he glanced at Genaea’s emotionless visage, or whenever her own expression dropped. She’d seen his diminished form once, long ago, when he couldn’t find a populous enough area to absorb emotion from. When she came, he was huddling in the back of a cave, transparent except for tiny sparkles of light twinkling around the little glowing green emotion he had left, which was pulled into a tight ball at his core. The pity that filled her on seeing him was a strong enough emotion to sustain him until she could drag him into a city center, there to absorb the tumultuous emotions of the citizens who flowed past like rushing water. She sat with him until he was properly glowing again. In the childlike way he acquired from experiencing no emotion of his own, he’d repeatedly thanked her, inquiring as to her name and how he might ever repay her. The greatsword hanging across his back, just as green and iridescent as he was, had brought to mind exactly how he could repay her.

As the mismatched five strode up the mountain path through the dark, fiery chaos of the flame-filled sunset, she smiled at the thought of his rejuvenated green body that day, so joyous and youthful. Kenii had that effect on people.

Yes, I figured you could use some uplifting feelings before we come to this conflicted summit.

...I told you not to read my mind anymore, Kenii.

I did not read anything I did not place there myself. He strode up beside her and tried to reflect the self-contentment apparent on his face into her heart. He stepped back, confused, when the attempt failed, the smile gone from his face. I cannot reach your soul.

Enchan restrained herself from responding and turned back to the path. The group had reached a terrace just below the fire, and Genaea was floating overhead at another silent command from her ringed fingers. The thief-spirit’s wavering silhouette moved up through the dark air, blending with the firesmoke to avoid detection. Akyr shuffled toward a pile of boulders in her peripheral vision, his huge rounded limbs sweating at the increased heat from the fire. Dark as his mottled skin was, the rune restraining his scent was visible, inked at the top of one giant shoulder. On meeting Akyr, back in his Northern homelands, Enchan had inscribed the rune-magick purely as a deed of goodwill, but on seeing the blush on his face after several females of his race thanked her loudly for the enchantment, she decided he would be helpful on her quest.

Akyr slowly lifted a boulder off the pile, not for lack of strength, but to preserve the silence that was broken only by the crackling flames. He placed the boulder beneath a dip in the upper terrace, and then returned to the pile to seize another in his giant hands. Enchan realized what he was thinking, and watched as he magickally plied the boulders into a malleable form, and shaped them into a ramp built into the mountain wall. The only magick with which Akyr had any affinity was the ability to transmute stone. Enchan knew from experience that a racial or familial affinity for magick had great influence on how much one could learn to use. Her eyes and thoughts landed on Gerron, who had neither a racial nor a blood affinity to aid him in the use of magick. Out of pure strength of will, he might be able to learn to use some simple tricks. Had he any desire to, of course.

Convey my thanks to Akyr, Kenii. She made the emotion readily accessible to him this time, as he began the task with caution. A moment later, Akyr smiled, a disconcerting shift of the face. Only once one was familiar with Akyr’s smile could they get past the intimidating element ever-present in his appearance.

Even as she began to flow up the ramp in waves of crimson fabric, Genaea drew her into the higher consciousness and reported, A few carrion corpses, and blackened stone, mistress. She nodded acknowledgement, and called him back before sinking back into the physical awareness of her lower consciousness.

The moment her foot touched the uppermost stone of the mountain, the sun sank, directly behind the fire. Her eyes lit on the blaze, and the Foreboding rose intensely within her. She paused, and threw out a flattened hand to halt the ascent of those behind her. Gerron slid an inch down the smooth stone just before bumping into her, nearly losing his balance utterly with how quickly he was forced to be still. Akyr’s gigantic hand on his back steadied him on the ramp, and he nodded thanks.

Enchan’s sharp eyebrows drew down over her eyes as she squinted past the fire. Genaea’s liquid darkness materialized out of the smoke, and rested beside her outstretched palm, awaiting an order. She simply stood frozen, glued to the other side of the mountain’s crest, beyond the roaring fire.

As she tempered the rising Foreboding within her, she noticed that the mountaintop was fairly small, a perfectly flat surface littered with small chips of the same flat stone, tufts of weather beaten grass, and the fire. The wild flames took up the center of the crest, appearing to have no visible source. There was a ring of stone left unblackened wide enough for Enchan to walk by without her cloak catching. Her eyes were drawn back to the fire, and to the darkness beyond it. The Foreboding turned to liquid Fear inside her chest as she stared across the flame-filled gap between herself and the opposite side of the mountain.

A dark shape rose through the smoke, a deeper darkness than the night behind and the smoke around them. The silhouette of a man seemed to stand up behind the flames, made of pure blackness in contrast to the searing brightness of fire. Glittering sapphire eyes met hers, and she felt a call from the higher levels of consciousness.

*