"The Eternal?"
"It is the spirit of the land, the thing that binds us all together. We are all connected, by a strong force of attraction. When we give someone love, or hate, it affects it physically. This is the work of the Eternal."
"Physically?"
"Name when something good has come of hate in your life."
Ella sat up. "What do you mean?"
"Well, first think of something you have hated."
Ella thought of the broken heatplate, back at home in Mallorin. The times she’d cursed it. "How about the heatplate in my home in Sarostar?"
"That will do, it could be anything. How did your hate affect it? Did it respond well, did it give you what you needed?"
Ella thought about it.
"Well, no. It was always broken. That’s why I hated it."
"Now think of how you could have given it love."
Ella looked in the distance, pensive. She was an enchantress, yet she’d never renewed the heatplate, never even taken it in to be renewed. Why not?
"I could have done a lot of things, I guess. But that’s just a heatplate. It’s not a person."
"Trust me," said Layla. "With a person the effect is much greater. That is the Eternal at work."
Ella remained doubtful. "Is that all?"
"No, there is much more," Layla said. "Think of us, look around at this valley. Look at the animals, the trees. Then look deeper, at the way the trees reach for the light, their roots drink the water and eat from the soil. The land feeds the trees, the sun helps them grow. The trees provide the shelter and food source for the insects, the birds eat the insects. Do you see it?"
Ella nodded.
"Then answer me this. What if water, the water that falls from the sky, was poisonous? What would happen?"
Ella sat for a moment. "There would be no trees."
"No trees, no grass. No insects, no animals. No people."
"But I don’t understand. Water isn’t a poison."
"No, it is not. What I am trying to show you is that the land is in a delicate balance. One step in the wrong direction and we would not be here, in this beautiful valley. Who keeps this balance? What force is it that tells a motherless bird after hatching from its egg, to leap into the air and fly? What force tells a bee to move from flower to flower, sharing the flowers’ seed so they can breed? It is a fragile thing, this balance. It was put here by the Eternal, and it is our duty to maintain it."
Ella recalled the lessons of the priests, the stories of the Evermen Cycles. It was a very different sermon she had grown up with, stories of battles and betrayal, and the origin of lore.
"So will you pray?" Layla said.
"I’m not sure."
"Then I will pray for the both of us."
~
THE next day Ella woke to the calls of the birds, Layla’s words still in her ears. It was so different. It didn’t sound like the worship of a deity — a man or woman being with incredible powers. It was instead a worship of the land, of nature itself. The message was simple, give love and you will receive love, keep the balance of nature that was so perfectly created for people to live in.
Layla was already awake, staring into the river.
"Did you pray?" Ella said. Somehow, the image of one of the Dunfolk on their knees making obeisance didn’t seem right.
"Of course. I closed my eyes and slept. Did you?"
"Well if that’s what it takes, then I suppose I did."
"And what did you decide?"
Ella realised she had made a decision after all. "We need to build a raft."
~
SHE spoke as she worked, pulling one of her favourite dresses into strips. "It will take time to build the raft, most likely the entire day. We have already lost a few days and I’m concerned that Killian… I mean the man will be getting away from us."
Layla nodded. "He knows where he is going. It will be difficult to catch up to him."
"We have one advantage though. The river flows in the direction we need to go in." She gestured to the turbulent water. "And as we already know, it’s fast."
Layla looked at Ella sceptically. "What do you need me to do?"
"I need you to find me young trees. Preferably dead, but alive will do as well. They need to be of wood that is light, but hard; wood that will be resistant to water." She measured a diameter with her hands, about six inches. "I need about twenty of them."
Layla set off. Ella continued tearing strips until she thought she had enough. She carefully enchanted each strip to be strong yet flexible and to resist the water, a simple enough matrix.
Ella then took Layla’s hunting knife and placed it on the tree stump in front of her. She took more care with her enchantment this time — the knife would need to be both sharp, and tough enough to cut through wood. She added some extra runes and then decided she was finished.
Layla returned. "I have found the trees."
"Good," said Ella. "Perfect timing."
She put some things in the pocket of her dress, the rest of her tools away in her satchel, and followed Layla to a sparse forest.