Magic has waned in the world. In the past, magic was a prevalent and powerful force, wielded by individuals and groups who held significant influence and power. However, as time has passed, the use and practice of magic has diminished greatly. The number of individuals who possess magical abilities has greatly decreased. The remaining practitioners of magic are mainly limited to a small group of women, known as witches.
One such witch was called Meridin. Another was Lenore.
***
It was late in the morning when Meridin called for the horses to stop. Colm blinked and looked around him, taking notice of his surroundings for the first time after hours of mindless riding. The sun was just cresting the tall pines that surrounded the road. Although the roadside was strewn with slightly more granite rocks, this bend of the road appeared no different from any of the others they had passed earlier. Curiosity piqued, Colm wondered why Meridin had called for a stop now, especially since she was determined to make up the distance she was behind the rest of her travelling party and they usually rode through until at least midday.
"This way, I want to show you something." Meridin tied her horse to a tree branch and set off on foot and started off along the granite outcropping. She didn't appear to be following a path but seemed very certain of where she was headed. Meridin climbed down two sets of rocks and stopped to inspect a section of the outcropping. The outcropping was so secluded that even though they were less than a hundred metres from the road, they couldn't see a trace of it.
Colm looked up where Meridin was staring. Carved into the rock was a seated lady. She was painted entirely in whitewash, which made her stand out from the speckled grey of the surrounding granite. The way she was sitting made Colm immediately think of a queen on her throne, although the lady in this carving wore no crown or jewels. She was sitting with her back to the road, facing out over the mountains, or possibly, taking in the view down the mountains to the foothills where Colm and Meridin had met.
"I was probably about your age when I was last here," Meridin said, running her finger across the carving, inspecting the paint. When she was his age? How old could she possibly be, Colm wondered. There wasn't a single mark of age on her, not a grey hair, not a wrinkle.
"Who is she?" Colm asked.
"No one knows. Not who she is, or who carved her, or why. It's a total mystery. But I think you are asking the wrong question."
"It doesn't matter who she was. All that matters is that she's still here. Somebody preserved her. The whitewash from when I was here last would have worn away years ago. Someone must come back and repaint it. But why? It's far enough off the road that no travellers can see it. Only locals would even know it exists. But someone takes the effort, to mix so whitewash, carry it all the way out here and paint her. It's nice to know some people still like to preserve things. So for me, the real question is, who is perserving her?"
"Huh" answered Colm, standing silently in thought for a while. He was still unsure what Meriden saw in him, but maybe this was it? He didn't maintain any roadside artworks, but looking after an inn, with the intention of improving it for the next generation is kind of the same thing, right? He dismissed the though as Meridin ushered them back towards the horses, and took off up the road.
Colm mounted his horse, and set off after her, surprising himself with how quickly he mounted and started riding. A week ago, before he'd left his life in Foothill Rest behind, he'd never ridden a horse before. But thanks to Meridin's patient teaching he was now comfortable in the saddle and he could keep pace with her. Which was just as well, because she set a fast pace. Despite how much he had improved, a nagging corner of Colm's mind still worried he was slowing her down. But if he was she never mentioned it.
Paradoxically, they seemed to travel further in a day as the country got rougher. In their first days riding the road was easy, gently snaking its way up the mountains, curving its way around the occasional hill and the thicker copse of fir trees. They barely made a day's progress over the next two as Meridin taught Colm how to ride.
But the further they rode, the rougher the road and sharper the turns became. Now the terrain was so steep that the road zig-zagged up the steeper slopes as there were no longer ways around them. But they made good time, Meridin estimated they were making 40 kilometres a day, even uphill.
Although she'd been very generous with her coin in buying him a horse and supplies, Meridin was not in such a generous spirit when it came to giving details on where they were going and why. She was never rude or defensive, she just laughed off any attempts Colm made to try to find out more about her. In their first days after setting out from Foothill Rest, she'd deflected any questions about where they were going, by telling him it's more important that they make it, and instructing him to focus more on his riding.
Now that Colm was capable as a rider, he decided to push her slightly harder for information and find out where they were headed at the very least.
"Meridin, how many more days ride is it until we get to our destination?" he asked, careful to keep his questions about her quest to maximise the information he might receive in return.
To his surprise, she answered quickly and thoroughly. "Two more days ride, I'd imagine. Today and tomorrow if we continue this pace." She paused as if it dawned on her just how little time there was until they reached their destination. "It's probably time I fill you in on everything, isn't it? You always think you'll have more time."
"Anyway, you are of course aware that all witches have control over the elemental powers of earth, wind, water and air," Meridin began. "We can control these elements, and we can see the magic in them if someone else is controlling them. A magic fire and a regular fire would look the same to you, but to a witch like me, we can see the magic coursing through it."
"These earthquakes are just like that. There is magic written all over them. And incredibly powerful magic at that. Even if all three witches of my circle all weaved earth elemental magic at the same time, we'd barely have enough power to knock down a house. But this magic, these earthquakes are being felt from coast to coast in these lands. It's a staggering amount of magic power being generated."
Colm had felt the earthquakes of course. Everyone had. But there was nothing he could do about them so he did nothing, apart from securing the breakables in the inn so they wouldn't fall and shatter. Truthfully he'd never put a second thought into what was causing them, or why.
"The first thing we had to do was find where they were coming from," Meridin continued. "So we spread out to all the points of the compass. I started here, to the east. My other thrall, a former guard named Gaven began far to the west, Lenore, a brown witch started to the south, and Romlyn the third witch of our circle to the north. We're getting closer now, today we should catch up with the first of my sister witches."
She continued explaining "Each time there was an earthquake we each moved inwards. Whoever felt the earthquake first moved the least, whoever felt it last moved the furthest. It's like using triangulation on a map. Or quadrangulation in our case. Eventually, we'll converge on the centre."