Void corruption skewed many things. It didn’t touch everyone equally, or the same. Sometimes it merely hastened an illness, or turned friends on each other. People who once were kind grew old and bitter. Grievances new and old took on new meaning. Sometimes even the Light wasn’t enough.

Chapter 9

Pain tore through Trynneia’s torso and legs with each excruciating step. She couldn’t think, definitely couldn’t speak, and there was a desperation within her that struggled against screaming. Whatever was on the other side, she didn’t want to alert it, but she also didn’t want to alarm Ditan either. Even those thoughts blanked as she ducked her head to push through.

Abruptly the resistance vanished. She stumbled forward, falling to her hands and knees. The shack remained at the top of the hill, and Ditan remained helpless on the ground behind her. Trynneia’s body felt awash with energy, and the runes that touched her arms, face and torso itched. Once fully through, the runes on her legs felt the same.

“Light, I’m gonna have to go back through that, too,” she exclaimed, winded. “I made it through!” she yelled to Ditan, forgetting her desire to be quiet. “Well, whoever or whatever is up there surely knows I’m here. Not like that barrier wasn’t here for a reason,” she said under her breath.

Ditan made no indication that he’d heard her, and in fact didn’t seem to be moving at all. Just as well, I suppose, she thought. For now I'm on my own. She walked up the path, a little dirt trail worn through the grass. It ran mostly straight up the mild hill, with the center of it cut by the runoff of past rainwater.

No other strangeness occurred as she admired the view. The elevation had changed enough throughout their journey that she could see several farms from this vantage, and to the west their village. She wondered if she’d ever go back, remembering…

The door clattered shut behind her and she looked back to the shack. Driver squatted on the lone step, grasping his stick with one hand. It shook unsteadily. He had his other hand on the ground, where it trembled also. She could see only the whites of his eyes, and his mouth moved. Driver’s head twitched to face a new direction every couple of seconds. Now that she was closer, or at least on the other side of the barrier, Trynneia could smell him.

“There’s blood on your hands,” he said to the sky. “Look at them. Look at them!” he urged. “How can you live with yourself?”

Trynneia, taken aback by the accusation placed before her, looked with morose sadness at those hands, willing herself to forget the deaths of her mother’s assassins.

“NO!” He shouted at her. “Do not forget them. They are your fuel now. Why do you regret your actions?”

She looked up at him, but he saw her not, for his face searched the heavens.

“All I feel right now is regret. And sadness,” she added.

“You were aggrieved. You collected a payment. The transaction was fulfilled.”

“What are you talking about? What transaction?”

He turned his face to her, his blank gaze shifting as he rolled his eyes back to normal, fixing on her. “Never drink the tea again,” he said as he pushed himself up with his stick and walked back inside the shack.

Trynneia stared at the door dumbfounded. He’d left it open, the implication that he was inviting her in obvious. Yet still she felt rattled. What is all this tea nonsense? She stood up and went inside but no one was there. The shack had only one room with some filthy rags on the floor and a shabby wooden chair. Driver was nowhere to be seen.

She is not the one. Darkness comes! Ill will behind grand deed. Death and destruction! Purity prevails. Death comes after life, but life comes after death. Kill him now! Her fate is her choice. Ever the child, never mild! Abomination.

Each word and phrase assaulted her, different voices from as many directions. Some were loud, some were mere whispers, others struck her nerves. Mixed with the words came a miasma of feelings and emotions tearing at her. Sadness pulled ferociously, while kindness and hatred struggled to snare her in their grip. Outside the door, darkness fell, though it seemed like she’d only been inside the shack for a moment. The whole while, her runes blazed, and her skin itched.

“Do you seek absolution?” came her mother’s voice. Tears seeped down Trynneia’s face. She had no idea how to answer that, or why she heard Rendrys’ voice. “Do you seek absolution?” the voice repeated.

“I just want you back, momma,” she replied, feeling like a child now more than a young woman, devastated by her loss and almost alone in the world. “Why did they kill you?” She whispered, sobbing.

“Why didn’t they kill you, as they killed her? That’s more to the point.” Driver asked, standing in a corner behind her, watching her response.

“I don’t know,” she whispered. “They tried.”

“What makes you so special, Trynneia? How could they succeed in murdering a Priestess of Light, yet fail against you?”

She had no answers that made sense. There seemed to be no logical reason why they killed her mother. Or the man before her. It all seemed disconnected, but her intuition told her there was something more behind it. Ditan had said that half the village had been slaughtered; had that occurred before they had tracked her down, or during? Were there more than the two murderers?

“What did they want?” she pondered aloud to herself.

“They got what they wanted,” Driver responded.

“Their heads? Was the man your brother? What’s his connection to the Lightblessed? Why would they kill half a village?” Trynneia felt angry. “Why are we involved, shaman?”

“Ah,” he said. “Why are we involved? You know enough, I think, to puzzle it out.”

“I don’t know anything! That’s why we came here, we needed your help.”

“We needed? Or you needed?” Driver chuckled, looking closely at her. “You fear me. Why?”

She growled. “Can we not have a normal conversation, please?”

“Sure, we can not,” he said. A bolt of lightning struck outdoors, blinding her. When her vision cleared, Driver had vanished once more.

Trynneia struggled to get her anger and frustration under control. She tried to think about how she’d overcome the murderers. Her powers had been slowly manifesting over the past few days, just as all the strangeness began happening. When? When had it started in earnest?

Rendrys had shown concern about how near it was. Had she been referring to the awakening of her powers, or something else? Trynneia remembered feeling her mother’s behavior had been odd of late. When did that…

Driver’s pungent aroma lingered, but that wasn’t what distracted her. A familiar thrumming filled the air. Glancing over at the chair, she saw the very same totem she’d abandoned at her old home, resting in the seat. It can’t be, she thought. Picking it up, she felt the warmth and vibration flow into her again. “What are you?” she asked.

“How odd, at first I thought it was the object of your search. Now it seems the totem seeks you,” said Driver from the doorway. Trynneia dropped it in surprise, and it clattered to the floor.

“For Light’s sake, please stop vanishing and reappearing,” she demanded. This conversation would go nowhere if she couldn’t pin him down and get solid answers from him, and it infuriated her.

Driver walked over to the totem, picked it up, then sat in the chair. He worked it over in his hands, rolling it between his palms, and blowing on it lightly. His eyes fixed on Trynneia, and she found it haunting but calming, as if the gestures touched her own spirit in a way she couldn’t understand. His demeanor became more serious.

“I retrieved this from the grounds near your mother’s home, just a couple of hours ago,” he started. “Yes, I know you travelled all day to get here. This,” he gestured with one hand grasping the totem, “Is for you. I cannot tell you what it is for. It does not speak to me. Your friend out there,” he nodded down the hill through the open door, “Does not have the capability to ever use it either. It serves the Light only.”

“It doesn’t affect you?” Trynneia asked, curious. She remembered how it incapacitated Ditan the time he tried to hold it.

Driver chuckled. “Oh, it affects me more than you could understand. The elements are a few steps removed from the Light. Your friend and I, we play with campfires. Using this is like the twin suns themselves. Magnitudes more potent. In fact, I’d appreciate it if you’d take it from my hand please,” he explained. “This is not pleasant.”

Trynneia took it from his hand, and he gasped, as if great tension had been released. He slumped in the chair. Each of the four twigs warmed her hand, and the low thrum hummed through her flesh.

“I only have a few minutes of clarity left. Let me say what I can. Your mother tried to shield you from the burden of being Lightblessed. I provided her herbs that could dampen Light’s touch. There was mutual exchange. She provided me with succor, and comfort from the mental and emotional strains of being a shaman.” He stared at her, gauging her comprehension.

“I told her she couldn’t protect you forever. She agreed but tried anyway. Rendrys did not act in accordance with the Light she claimed to serve. Her failure to uphold her duty has caused much loss for our community.” Trynneia watched him try to cover his emotions, but the aura she perceived about him revealed conflict within him. She could not interpret what it meant.

“I need to know what this burden was. Please tell me, Driver,” she implored as she watched the tremors returning to his hands. His eyes turned skyward, and his limbs began to jerk once more.

“The Void! The ever growing darkness! Death eternal, all these things are the enemy of the Light! It is the Light’s burden, and the Light’s curse, and now it is yours!” he yelled ominously through the shack. The pile of rags burst into flame, which licked up the wall and engulfed the ceiling. Driver grabbed her arm and flung her through the door and slammed it shut, trapping himself inside.

Trynneia pounded on the door, pleading for him to come out, but soon the flames ruptured the roof and began to consume the wall closest to her. She retreated, watching in despair as an inferno reduced the shack to ashes over several minutes. Ditan ran up and tugged at her waist.

“Hey Tryn, get back! The shielding spell dropped. Let’s get away from that fire.” The two friends traveled down the hill in the dark as her runes faded. “He’s gone, isn’t he? I felt when the barrier faded. You didn’t kill him too, did you?”

“It’s not...No...He only talked for a few moments. Not much made sense still, but more straight than anything else we’ve gotten. I don’t know why he stayed there. It’s like he wanted to die.” She told him Driver’s final words, and they both sat down, looking out over the twilit lowlands.

“Sounds like he had a flair for the dramatic. Still nothing certain though. What under the Light is the Void?” Ditan asked. “I think there was something seriously lacking her doctrine if she left that out.”

“He said she’d tried to shield me from ‘the burden of being Lightblessed.’ She must have done a heck of a job if even Miss Jessmyn didn’t teach anything about it. Just the Light.” Trynneia idly picked up a few pebbles and tossed them down the hill.

“Did he tell you about the totem?” Ditan asked.

“Only that it was an order of power greater than anything you could use, and that it was meant for me. Nothing more,” she sighed, putting it in the top of her boot. “I’ll need to figure out what to do with it at some point.”

“Well Tryn, I guess that makes you our honorary leader. This lead is gone. Where to next?”