The night was dark, but the sphere
reflected enough starlight to glow. Flindra
felt the familiar pull of the orb and found herself looking into its
depths. The vortex of colors radiated
through her mind until it was nearly painful.
The face of Kewero appeared after a flash of blinding white light.
"Make haste and leave your
camp. There is great danger! Use the crystal to guide your way through the
darkness." A sense of urgency
accompanied the words into her mind.
Within the span of a few moments,
Flindra had saddled Deru, tied her belongings behind the cantle and was on her
way. She moved the crystal from side to
side and noticed that it glowed faintly when pointed due north. The orb was glowing with an internal light
and not, as before, with reflected starlight.
Despite the darkness, Flindra galloped Deru in the direction indicated
by the orb.
She had traveled for about a league
when the entire ground trembled and groaned.
Flindra was nearly unseated as Deru stumbled. The horse regained his footing and continued
on at a dead run. He was just as
frightened as his rider was.
Turning in her saddle, she looked back
and saw that the entire area surrounding her camp was ablaze. The fire reflected in the sky creating the
illusion of a second sunset. She muffled
a scream in the back of her throat for an overwhelming horror overtook her as
she fled. She wondered what power
existed that could turn night into day.
Flindra now looked at the crystal in her hand. It had turned blood red - she could sense
feelings of outrage and anger emanating from the sphere.
The smoke from the fire finally
overtook her and she gagged in its choking coils of dense vapors. The fumes possessed an odor that she couldn't
immediately recognize. It almost smelled
like scorched dirt but it was far more intense.
Then she figured it out. The
smoke carried the scent of life burning.
It was a smell of burning hair and flesh and green things and damp
soil. The body of the world had been
assaulted.
A league farther on, the smoke finally
dissipated and Flindra felt it was safe to pause and get her bearings. She slowed Deru to a trot and then to a
stop. He strained at the bit and was
eager to get away.
"Easy old friend," she
cautioned in a soothing tone. "We
need to find out where we are supposed to go.
It won't do us much good if we run right into another trap."
First, she closed her eyes and bowed
her head in reverence. "Thank You,
Spirit, for keeping me safe. Somehow, I
sense Kewero is Your agent tonight and You warned me through her. Thank You."
She opened her eyes and noticed the orb
no longer glowed when directed north.
Flindra guessed it would shine when pointed to the east since that was
the direction to the pass over the Greyfell Mountains. Instead, it glowed when she rotated it to the
west. She reined Deru in a westerly
direction and urged him into a trot for he could keep up this gait for
hours. She wanted to go faster but she
couldn't run him into exhaustion. As
frightened as she was she couldn't abandon good judgment in her hurry to
escape.
As the night progressed, Flindra
continued to follow the directions of the crystal sphere. It guided her west and then north so by dawn
she was at the northwestern perimeter of the great boulder field. Ahead of her was the place where the Greyfell
Mountains met and were absorbed by the larger range named the Great Barrier
Mountains.
The Great Barrier Mountains ran roughly
north south for the length of the continent and provided a geographic barrier
between Ostar and Wesperos. Flindra had
never heard of a pass through the mountains here and wondered how she would
complete her quest to find her way to the Northern Reaches. The crystal indicated that she should
continue due north so she accepted the crystal's advice on faith. The orb seemed to be a tool of the Spirit so
she trusted its directions.
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