The room was thick with incense as she had been smudging since morning. The haze hanging in the air caught the lamp light more than the faint glow of a setting sun unseen through the tangled wood and heavy sky outside the cottage window. Her eyes were as dark and shiny as obsidian from beneath the hood of her cloak. The black linen wrapped about her body, naked and pale, the sash cinched by her fine-fingered rune-inked hands about her slender waist.
She sat at the small wooden table, posture erect, and lit the candles tall and white, four of them about the configuration. She the fifth point was herself. Then without making contact, she extended her arms to the crystal orb which sat in a footed ring of copper, an altar risen in the center of the shrine, equidistant to each candle and her body. Her eyes shut as her hands begun to wring about it, never touching, slowly in a delicate pattern, urging forth the energy. Outside, the boughs of the trees shook tentatively.
He was given a start when the birds flung upwards from their perches in the trees above him, spooked by the elements or his footfall, of which he was unsure. The branches, black in what was left of the daylight against the burdened grey sky, were largely empty as the autumn had taken full hold and the winter's grip threatened. The path was twisted and uneven and not always clear. He paused for a bearing, wiping his blonde brow upon his leather gauntlet. His waterskin was empty and he was not sure how much farther he had to go, but he was young and determined and his earnest diligence would not be denied.
Trudging on, he reached what appeared to be a fork. To the left the way was straighter but darker and more narrow. The right seemed more trodden yet quickly bent askew. Perhaps it was yet another of those diversions that simply came back together a few yards on. His indecision left him idle.
Spreading her fingers to rest her palms upon the table, she opened her eyes to the image forming in the orb. A silhouette sharpened into focus, a young man. His youthful shape and blonde colors faded into clarity, the righteous face of a novice. His cloak hung about his sturdy shoulders, his blade at his belt. His chest heaved in the toil of traversing the wood, his elbow upon his knee propped on an uneven root, as his unsure eyes surveyed the dark bush of his surroundings. Tentatively he stepped forward.
Reaching for the first candle upon her left, she lifted it from it's mount next to the symbol of earth in one hand while her thumb and finger of her other lifted up the strands of an old cobweb from the copper plate before her. The strands hung down like ratty grey thread as she dangled it into the candle's flame. The ends puffed away into nothingness. She smiled in satisfaction, then coiled the remaining length onto a small wire mesh. With the candle flame she lit a votive which she topped with the cobweb on the mesh and quickly placed beneath the orb in it's altar stand. The smoke of the web wisped and lapped up and around the crystal orb, enveloping the young blonde figure in the wood.
With a wince, he swatted the bramble from his face. When he stepped forth again, there was another bent across his chest, thorns sticking into his cloak. They were black in the shadows but as he stopped to focus, he saw the thicket encroaching all before him. The right had not been a good choice. With a curse of disdain, he retraced his last few steps and opted for the left hand path.
Hurrying along, he was chilled by the call at his back. He paused as the wolf's distant howl haunted him. The earth's predator lurked. Then the hoot of another, much closer, acknowledged the first. The thick grey sky billowed above, darkening, showing no sun, no moon, no stars, no bearing whatsoever. A third wolf from over his other shoulder joined to conspire, urging him to continue on with a quickened gait.
Carefully and thoughtfully she whet the small knife to the stone. In between strokes she eyed the man in the crystal as he clambered along the trail, ducking branches and hopping roots. Putting down the stone, she inspected the blade's egde. The young man stopped for another survey, panting as he looked about.
She leaned back and parted the bottom of her robe. Then she pinched a tuft of her thick dark bush between the base of her thumb and forefinger and tugged it out straight. With the knife, she sliced it off. Then she withdrew the wire mesh from beneath the crystal orb and placed the tuft there before closing her legs and fixing her robe. The second candle on the far point to the left stood propped in its holder marked with the element fire. She took it and lit the next votive. Resuming her posture, she slid the original from beneath the orb and replaced it with the new. Then she slid the mesh back under the orb and over the flame. The votive soon began to burn her genital hair and the black sooty smoke curled up around the crystal with a spicy pungence, obscuring the young man's image. Her expression was pleased.
He smelled smoke. Checking to his left, he could see the black haze approaching. There was fire from that flank. It would keep the wolves away at least. Ahead, the path wound into darkness.
With thirst and nightfall descending upon him, he could assess no longer. Desperation crept into his nerve. He needed a sign, any kind of augury or portent to show the way. The smoke dried his eyes and filled his nostrils. It urged him. It hastened his blood. Checking to the left again, he could see the faint orange glow amidst the black. There was a fire. It was coming. He spurred his feet onward and followed the winding path through and between the shadows.
The third tall taper to the distant right was marked with air. With it she lit a third votive and replaced it to its stand. This third flame she set to the right of the crystal and aligned a copper bracket with precision. Into the bracket she fixed a thin copper pipe, the wide end bent into a hook and finished with a snufter bell. She adjusted the little apparatus with the bell over the flame while the straight narrow end she pointed at the orb in the center of the table. With the end of her pinky she felt for the warm vent of warm air from the tip and nodded her silent approval.
The young man in the orb trudged along the path as the black smoke encroached. Between the thumb and forefinger of her outstretched hand she held small downy black feathers from the breast of a crow. She dropped them one and two at a time with a careful rubbing of her fingertips and as they passed the vent they blew at the orb. Most flicked against it and fell, some went around and fewer still flitted over the top.
In the distance he could hear the pop and splinter of the burning timbers. All around was hazy. He paused to take a look and, when turning to his left, the breeze whipped at his hair, flicking it frustratingly around into his eye. His first thought was that at least the wind would be blowing the fire away from him, but then he realised that the blaze could be so large as to be drawing the draft. The gnarled trunks and branches of the trees silhouetted against the dull orange of the flames in the distance.
Turning from the fire and into the wind, he pressed on, cutting a new course off the path and between the trees until he found a slight clearing and better footing. There seemed to be a way. The wind caused him to wince as it waved low branches to and fro and he brought up his hand to protect his face.
In the orb, she watched his image fight the wind. It flapped at his cloak as he picked his way through the trees. From a tiny flask, she poured pure water into the copper plate. It too had a small foot stand for it to rest upon. The fourth and final candle on the right edge of the table thus was signed as water. With it she lit a fourth and final votive, which she slid under the orb and moved the plate in its stand in place above the flame.
Soon the small puddle bubbled up and tiny wisps of vapor licked at the orb. When it had all sizzled away, a dew had formed on the underside of the crystal.
He could hear water. It rushed ahead in the distance and reminded him of his thirst. Hope was nigh, and with renewed optimism, he quickened his pace. Ducking under a branch he came upon dry shrub. Unsheathing his sword, he hacked at it and stepped through. Within a few yards his boots found beaten path once more. The water was louder. It was not far.
At a jogging pace, he huffed and spat as the smoke closed in thicker and the wind cut at his ear. It puzzled him how such a gale would not clear the smoke away. The light was dim now, the last minutes of daylight being swallowed by the dark haze. There was an opening ahead and the water blustered in distinct detail. He ran to the edge of the clearing and scurried to an abrupt halt lest he tumble down. It was a ravine. The brook rushed by below. The shadowy sides were steep and treacherous, and there was no discernible bank. Two posts were staked at his right. It was a rope bridge. He shuffled quickly to the gate but couldn't see the span. There wasn't one. The rope rails hung straight down and limp. The bridge was out. There was no crossing and no descent to the water to fill his flask or quench his thirst. He spat in vain and then looked about for options. To the left was smoke and the deadly red glow of the blaze at its closest range yet. To his right there was a slender path along the edge of the cut. He would follow it until he found a descent to the banks of the brook, and so started off.
She scried his every skip and stumble along the ravine's edge. He would not be long. Pushing her chair back from the table, she stood and made her way to the stove where she filled the kettle and put it on to boil. Then she took down her rack of herbs and dropped one pinch each of hibiscus, cinnamon and of oats into her teapot.
Further and further along the narrow trail between the forest and the ravine, he scrambled. Still, he could find no safe way down to the rushing water that taunted his thirst. Night had fallen and all was pitch save for a faint phosphorescence of the frothy brook below, the charcoal batten of the churning clouds above and the bloody orange inferno that threatened at his back. Cursing the elements that conspired against him, his hope was waning and his fear rising, until he spied a warm yellow rectangle aglow between the black tree trunks. A cottage was there in the wood, and someone was home. Drawing his sword to hack the dry shrub, he set for it through the dark bush.
The water boiled and jumped in the kettle as she heard his urgent knock. She opened the door to see him in the flesh, face sooted and chest heaving but broad shouldered with blue eyes set with determination. She drew back her hood with casual ease and stepped back to invite him in with a smile.
"There's a fire. We must go," he insisted.
"You have travelled," she noted, her voice dusky. "Come. Refreshen." He stepped in and she closed the door.
