Fire Angels

Chapter 9 Part 2 Destiny

Dion meets the Wanderers and discovers her destiny.  

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Symon was looking at me, with the kind of smile a cat would have had if a cat could indeed smile, a knowing, cynically amused sort of smile.

"Where are we?" asked Shad. He too seemed startled.

"You know well enough," said Symon. "Did you father not tell you of the Circles of Power?"

Shads face was awed. "This is one of those? But the secret was lost with the Istari."

"No longer lost," said Symon. "Well Enna Dion?"

"Will we be safe here? Will the magic not bring the Witch Hunters?"

Symon grinned.

"And what magic is that?"

The tingling sensation had gone. I could not feel magic any longer or if I did it was only a fleeting sense, like a half smelt scent.

"Rest yourselves now," said Symon. "You will be perfectly safe here."

"I want to see Tomas," I cried as Symon swirled away from us.

"He is with the Council," said Symon. "They wish to see you, but we had planned to wait until you had rested."

"I would like to see Tomas first," I said. Symon's threats to Shad had made me nervous and so did this Stone Circle. What reason did I have for trusting these strange people?

"Very well," said Symon. "Come."

I hesitated, reluctant to leave Shad. The Wanderers had collected around him, strange stick like figures, with their ghost pale hair like halos around their face and their dark watchful eyes. He seemed so small among their tall shapes.

"The man will be safe enough," said Symon in my ear. "Leave him for now."

Shad nodded a calm farewell at me and as I watched, he turned to one of the Wanderers and spoke to him, clapping him on the shoulder in a greeting. A smile passed through the group and my anxiety lifted a little.

The stone circle sat lopsidedly on the hill like a hoop carelessly thrown over a church steeple. On one side the top stones were just around of the crown of the hill. On the other side they come down in a wide circle that took up a large part of the hill side. The hill bulged slightly here and set in that bulge was a large stone doorway. The posts and lintels were all carved with Runes, many of which I had never seen before.

Symon stopped and turned to me in this doorway.

"Three members of the council await within, Enna. One of them is our High Dreamer, greatest foreteller of our people. Another is our wisest mage. You are honored in this."

He pulled back the dark cloth that covered the door way and I followed him into the smoky blackness beyond.

Inside I sensed a great space. Symon was suddenly gone, leaving me completely alone, blinded in the sudden blackness. The cloth had fallen back behind us and I was no longer entirely sure where the door was. I seemed to be in some kind of enormous space filled with unspoken whispers. Panic grasped at me.

There were lights however. They seemed to be deep into the space. Candles? I moved carefully forward my eyes adjusting to the darkness.

Yes candles. An enormous circle of them. Within the circle were two shapes. One of them was a man lying on his back in the middle of the circle with his arms spread out and his eyes closed. He was so still I would have thought him dead, had it not been for the deep slow rise and fall of his chest. He wore only a loin cloth and his pale Wanderer skin seemed to take on the glowing of the candles. I sensed that he was the hub of the circle. Runes were scrawled all over the ground beneath and around him, stretching out to the ring of candles. The air around the ring was filled with a strange kind of magic. When I concentrated on it, I lost the sense of it and yet I knew it was all around, a part of the very air of this cavern, the source of the unspoken whispering that seemed to fill the space.