Witchlanders

by Lena Coakley

  Ignoring Ryder’s hesitation, Falpian took off his pack and dropped it in the snow. “Stand over here,” he said. “Where it’s flat. We’ll start with something we know.” He clapped his gloved hands together briskly. “Come, come! I’m the singing master, remember?” He grinned wickedly. “And you’re my loyal attendant.” Ryder rolled his eyes.

  The key of rocking waves. The song of the sea. This is where we met, Ryder thought as he began to sing. Not at Stonehouse, but here. Before the chilling day, they had both, for different reasons, been dreaming of the sea. Was that how their minds had found each other?

  Pay attention, came Falpian’s voice in his mind. Watch your tones, servant. Ryder was going to regret giving him this role.

  Around him, the world came into focus. Ice crystals glittered in the fog, each one suspended in the air like a tiny universe. Ryder was dazzled, as he always was when he sang. It seemed to him that there was a pattern there, if he could only see it. It seemed to him that some great mind might calculate the distances between each crystal, drawing invisible lines between them, and from them extrapolate the past, present, and future of all things under the eyes of the Goddess, and of Kar.

  Then Ryder let his mind see beyond the fog, let it rise into the air like the smoke of his breath. He could see down to the shoulder of the mountain where their two little bodies stood. He could see the snow-covered trees. He could see Bo making wide circles around them, keeping them safe. He could see the way in front of him and the way behind. And everything was clear.