The Book of Terrus: The Wise and Powerful

Chapter 21 - Gathering

Still wondering at the strange and somehow sacred nature of the forest, Lhara lingered. The long grass was soaking her clothes below the waist and chilling her, even on a late summer day, but she waded closer to the trees anyway. There was something about the Forest of Latharan that spoke to the fledgling Wise Woman within her, not unlike the crypts of Trosk. Beneath the low creaking of the tree trunks and the rich scent of damp moss there was something else; a sense of timelessness that beckoned Lhara in to explore that shaded, earthy womb.

Then a bird, a red-winged blackbird sang out, trilling from the branch of a sapling in the open, and the spell of the forest was broken. Lhara realized that Jath had stopped and turned back to wait for her. A tiny bit of late afternoon sun had managed to filter through the mist around them.

"Lhara?"

"Just...looking," said Lhara, drawing the front of her cloak closer around her and moving to catch up. "It's strange, but there's something...special about that forest."

"In Falerik, they say that the Forest of Latharan is haunted, and they're right; it is a place where ghosts walk. We should move on. If we aren't delayed, I think we might be able to make Falerik before sundown."

"Where ghosts walk..."

Lhara paused to turn back once again. Thoughts of Marden and Yelaina immediately flooded her mind. Their spirits ought to be among the stars now...shouldn't they? But what if there was a chance, a chance that she might somehow be able to find them in the forest? She couldn't imagine why or how that might be so, but there had to have been a reason why the Forest of Latharan drew her in.

"Perhaps I might have to come by this way again on my journey to Geristan," said Lhara thoughtfully.

"Why?" asked Jath. Then he seemed to realize the path Lhara's thoughts had taken. A troubled look tightened his face even as the blackbirds took up their sweet, echoing chorus once again. "If it is ghosts that you wish to see, I don't know as I would chase such a thing if I were you, leastwise not in there."

"You're not me." Lhara rebutted Jath rather more sternly than she had perhaps intended. The bitterness she had felt in Trosk's immediate wake threatened to seep back around the edges of her heart.

Jath sighed. "True, but still, to see ghosts may not be a gift so much as a curse. Vinie, the Factionist leader, can tell you as much."

"This Vinie has seen spirits?" Lhara's interest was piqued.

"Not so much seen as heard, from what little I've been privy to." Something seemed eager for Jath to say it, and after a moment's hesitation he relented. "I joined the Factionists after Vinie found me half alive in the Forest of Latharan. The voices of the dead led her to me." Then Jath smiled in a halfhearted way that Lhara had come to nickname his 'upside-down frown'. "So I suppose you could say that Vinie does actually see ghosts, since she found me."

Lhara frowned, not getting whatever self-depreciating point it was that Jath was making. "Don't be droll Jath, you're not a ghost. You're a bit on the strange side, but strange is good to me. That's why I was trying to become a Wise Woman before you and the rest of Goran decided to come to Trosk."

Oddly enough, this seemed to both confound and touch Jath. He said no more as they wound their way around the southern edge of the forest, but Lhara could see how much less dispirited the pale Factionist was compared to earlier. He even stopped to offer Lhara a dry pair of socks once they were out of the soaking long grass. Lhara however pointed out that she too had a spare pair which was far more likely to fit her, and Jath chuckled at himself as they emptied out their swampy boots.