From The Ashes

Chapter Four - Dawning At The Riverside

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The woman stood alone on the banks of Slough Garmen, the tips of her toes dipping into the stagnant stream, her heels digging into the sludgy mire behind her. Her long, ragged robes flapped over her ankles as she took another slow, cautionary step deeper into the chilling water. She shuddered slightly as yet another wave of gooseflesh prickled its way up her arms and legs. Beneath the folds of her tattered black hood she wrinkled her nose. She turned her head to glance behind her, where she could see her discarded boots, lying limp against one another further up on the banks.

She sighed in exasperation, her shoulders rising and falling with the force of the breath. It was truly an unpleasant task he had given her. She'd almost laughed when, last they'd been together and he'd given her the job, he'd called it 'an honour'.

"Honestly," She hissed to herself from between gritted teeth, "...if I wanted to get my feet wet and filthy, I could trudge through this bloody marsh any day."

She sighed again, hauling the large book she was gripping against her chest higher and into a firmer position. She stopped her sloshing through the slough and peered down at the book she was clasping, her grip was white knuckled against it. Realising this, she took a deep breath, loosening her grip slowly as she exhaled . She needn't treat such a relic with such defensiveness. Indeed, there was no reason to hug it to herself like it was her first born child, like it was a helpless entity incapable of causing harm.

The complete antithesis of what it was.

Relic may be the wrong word to describe the book, for it wasn't just your average spellbook, that for the most part was an inanimate object. Unlike other books, it had sapience, a mind and to a degree, even feelings. As she held it close, she could almost feel the force of the Effervescence pulsing behind its cover, through its pages, like a heartbeat without breath. It was something as simple as that sensation that informed her that this book was more than a relic, that it held powers that so many would never know how to use or even understand. That the event that it fell into the hands of someone who was soft minded with a weak will, who couldn't fight against its lures, whispers and manipulations, would lead to calamitous consequences.

It was a dangerous thing, a powerful thing, but like almost all great powers in this world, she knew it had its limitations, and how to exploit them. Despite not being a Deitas-Sanguinis, she had proven several times her worth and her ability to control and curb its influence.

It was a spellbook, regardless of how much magic it contained, it was a book that needed to be read in order to release its powers on the world. It was a book that needed a voice, and someone to channel its power through themselves in order for it to progress beyond the spectral weave and into a physical force that can affect the physical environment around it. It needed a conduit, a spellcaster, a witch.

She smirked, oh how many times she had heard that word. How many times she had been called that, and then driven out of countless towns at the ends of blades and torches. How many times she had been clasped in chains, brought before courts that under the guise of interrogation cowered before her. Concealing unspoken, shameful fear beneath a mask of superiority as they sneered down at her from high perches of flimsy wood, oblivious to how ridiculous they looked to her, how easily she could topple them. Some more difficult magistrates had found that out the forceful, unpleasant way, for them at least.

She'd always managed to escape these situations without a scratch, though not through denial and very rarely even magical means. No, she'd never denied who and what she was. She was a witch, and told them when they'd asked. It caught them off guard every time, how willing she was to "confess" as they liked to call it. Like it was a crime to want what she wanted; more in life, power and greatness she could never amount to through mundane means.