Golden Souls

Chapter VII

Gwenlana had never felt as cold as this. Not even during the worst
months of Bluemoon Winter. Cold and tired and wet. The wind blew the
rain so hard into her face that Gwenlana couldn't even tell where the
raindrops finished and the tears started. Her legs felt as heavy as her
heart as she forced her way slowly up the treacherous hillside against
the wind that howled around her ears like wolves at a midnight
kill.

Dawn was breaking as darkness gradually released its stranglehold with
a certain degree of reluctance. It had been a long night. Gwenlana had
been trekking for nearly eighteen gruelling hours. Weak daylight
filtered over the Neonaba Hills, turning her world a morbid shade of
grey. Over the deafening roar of the wind, Gwenlana could barely hear
the peppering of thunderclaps, as long forks of purple lightning arced
through the stratosphere, splitting the early morn sky into a hundred
pieces. The Glowstar storm was getting worse. Gwenlana knew that she
had to find shelter. And quickly.

Bowing her head into the gale, Gwenlana brushed the wet hair from her
face and soldiered onwards and upwards. Taking care not to stumble on
the loose rocks or to trip over the pulsating roots of the Jabajava
trees, Gwenlana made her way gingerly towards the summit. Her energy
levels were fast approaching zero, yet the thought of returning home
never once crossed Gwenlana's mind. The prospect of Brantano's fate
provided her with all the resolve she needed. Plus a little bit
more.

Through the gloom, Gwenlana strained her eyes and tried to see past the
teeming rain that fell like a solid sheet in front of her face. She
could just make out the outline of what looked like the edge of a
forest. Hitching her Vitasac a little higher onto her shoulder,
Gwenlana marched onwards with a little more purpose. The wind suddenly
seemed to lose some resistance. Forest meant shelter. Shelter made
starting a fire a possibility. A fire meant warmth. Warmth meant
survival and survival meant that Gwenlana could continue her quest for
justice.

Fifteen long minutes later, Gwenlana reached the edge of the forest.
Dark and foreboding, it hardly greeted Gwenlana with the warmest of
welcomes, but this was no time for doubts or fears; this was an
opportunity to stay alive.

Gwenlana pushed her way through the ferns and the saplings and soon
found herself surrounded by trees. It was very dark, but at least it
was dry. The thousands of leaves above Gwenlana's head provided her
with much needed protection from the rain. Faraway, Gwenlana could hear
the rain hitting the treetops like hail hitting a tin roof. The only
other sound came from some birdcall that Gwenlana couldn't identify. A
musty aroma of old leaves wafted up as Gwenlana kicked up piles of
foliage as she walked. There was no path for her to follow and no sun
to use as a compass, so Gwenlana relied on her own judgement to gauge
which direction was North East.

After just a few minutes of searching, Gwenlana spotted the ideal place
to set up camp. In a slight dip ahead, lay a clearing and in the centre
of the clearing grew a huge Cedoaka tree. Gwenlana considered it as a
good option due to the fact that it gave her a good opportunity to spot
the enemy if they should happen to find her as she rested. On her way
down, Gwenlana gathered as many old and fallen branches as she could
carry so that she may use them for firewood.

After dropping the firewood in a pile next to the Cedoaka tree,
Gwenlana swung the Vitasac from her shoulder and onto the floor,
sending up a small pile of dry leaves into the air as it landed. She
then arranged the firewood into some kind of order before crouching
down and unfastening the sturdy alubrass clasp of her Vitasac. She
reached in and scrambled around blindly until her fingers closed upon
what she were looking for - the vial of Sparklefire.

The vial was clear and contained two coloured powders, separated in the
middle by a thick piece of metal. One half contained a red powder, the
other yellow. The whole vial sparkled and glistened, even though there
was no light reflecting upon it. Gwenlana unscrewed the cap from the
end containing the red substance and quickly shook the vial, dropping
some of the powder over the firewood. Then she replaced the cap, turned
the vial over and undid the cap at the other end. Taking a step back,
Gwenlana carefully and more slowly, sprinkled a quantity of the yellow
powder over the firewood. A few seconds later, the sound of a million
tiny explosions filled the air as the two powders reacted, ignited, and
the pile of old branches burst into flame. Allowing herself just the
smallest of satisfactory smiles, Gwenlana made a mental note to thank
Old Lady Mistrelvan for the Sparklefire gift the next time she saw her.
If she ever saw her again.

The warmth from the fire was beginning to make Gwenlana sleepy. She was
hungry too, but her desire for sleep was stronger. Eating could wait.
Using some twine and a knife from she Vitasac, Gwenlana quickly and
expertly made a line next to the fire between two trees, so that she
could dry her soaking clothes. She removed her sleeping bag from the
Vitasac and placed it on the most comfortable-looking part of the
ground. She had no pillow, but decided that she would sleep upright,
with her back against the broad trunk of the Cedaroak tree.

"Safer that way&;#8230;" she thought. "Better prepared for
any&;#8230; visitors&;#8230;"

Gwenlana removed the belt from around her waist and placed it next to
her sleeping bag. Her eye was caught by something poking out from the
top of the Vitasac. It was a piece of fine mesh, a tarnished silver
colour, folded neatly into a rectangular shape, about six inches by
four. Mistrelvan had given it to her at the same time as the
Sparklefire. The old lady had never explained its purpose; merely that
Gwenlana might need it one day. Gwenlana wished that she had asked the
old lady more about it, but upon reflection, there hadn't been much
time for talk during her fleeting midnight visit to Mistrelvan place.
Gwenlana reached down, picked up the mesh and examined it
inquisitively. It didn't look particularly special. Gwenlana unfolded
it and waved it around, half-expecting some magic force to come flying
out of the thousand tiny holes in the mesh. But nothing even remotely
magical happened. With a small sigh, Gwenlana dropped the unfolded
metal sheet onto the ground and turned her attention back towards the
fire.

She slipped quickly out of her wet clothes, pausing only to hang the
brown, woollen top and bottoms on her temporary washing line. Shivering
and naked, Gwenlana jumped quickly into her sleeping bag and propped
herself up against the tree trunk. The firewood was well ablaze by now
and the logs popped and cracked and sent orange sparks jumping in all
directions. Gwenlana watched the smoke rise mesmerisingly to the
heavens and thought about the task that lay before her. It was an
uneasy sleep that she drifted into: one with dragons and screams and
blackness and tears. But the very worst thing was that it was a dream
without hope.

Chapter VIII

Gwenlana woke with a start and looked around in a panic. She had a very
uneasy feeling that someone was with her in the clearing. Her eyes
darted around nervously, trying to seek out foes in the shadows. Her
heart hammered as it pulsed blood through her body, adrenaline coursed
through her veins as fear tightened her chest, making her breathing
shallow. Her natural sense of self-protection had suddenly sprung into
full alert.

It was with great relief that Gwenlana realised that she was panicking
for nothing. There was no one else with her, she was entirely alone.
Her pulse slowly returned to normal as she tried her very best to
control her herself. She gulped in huge breaths of the cold morning air
as the realisation that she was safe slowly ebbed through her. She had
no idea how long she had slept for, but it must have been several hours
as her leafy environment was a lot lighter than it had been when she
fell asleep.

Gwenlana lifted her arms high above her head, arched her back as she
stretched and yawned loudly. Her stomach rumbled and she was thirsty.
She didn't particularly relish the thought of getting up out of her
warm sleeping bag, but she realised that time was of the essence and
she couldn't afford to sit around wasting time when so much was at
stake.

"At least my clothes will be dry," thought Gwenlana, as she turned her
head to the left towards the fire.

Gwenlana couldn't quite believe the sight that met her eyes. Her
clothes were gone. Or, to be more precise, all that was left of her
clothes was a pile of sooty ash. Somehow, the flames must have burned
through the twine, causing the garments to fall into the fire as she
slept. Gwenlana's heart sank. She was trapped in the middle of a
forest, miles from her destination with no clothes during
wintertime.

She felt utterly deflated. Everything was lost.

"This is it, I've failed&;#8230;"

Tears began to well up in her eyes as the enormity of her fate became
clear. Brentano would die and it was all her fault. She had no idea
what to do next and had no one to help her either. Gwenlana sunk her
head into her hands with her back against the Cedaroak tree and wept
uncontrollably.

She didn't know how long she stayed like that; sobbing to herself
amongst the trees, but it felt like an eternity. Eventually, she found
herself lying on her back, still wrapped inside her sleeping bag,
looking up to the sky. She couldn't actually see much of the sky, just
glimpses trough the treetops. It seemed to be getting brighter and she
couldn't hear the rain any more.

After a while, Gwenlana noticed a shaft of sunlight penetrate the leafy
roof as it cut through the air onto the ground. She could see little
specs of dust floating in the air where the sunbeam passed through. She
turned her head to the side to see what the sunlight was eventually
landing upon. Gwenlana briefly wondered how it was possible for only a
single shaft of sunlight to pierce through the trees. But it was true:
a solitary shaft of sunshine broke through the leaves and landed on the
ground next to her.

Actually, it wasn't the ground that the sunbeam was falling upon: it
was the piece of mesh that Gwenlana has discarded earlier that morning.
Something quite remarkable seemed to be happening to the mesh. Where
the sunlight fell upon it, some kind of reaction was occurring. Thin
wisps of smoke rose from the mesh, it seemed to be getting thicker, as
if it were&;#8230;growing. Gwenlana could see the sunbeam moving
slightly from left to right until it reached the end of the mesh and
then back again. She sat up quickly, so that she could get a better
view of what was happening.

Gwenlana didn't understand what was going on, nor did she comprehend
why it was happening. Nevertheless, she watched on in silence as this
mesh transformed in front of her eyes. After several minutes, the
sunbeam suddenly disappeared as quickly as it had arrived. Its work was
done and Gwenlana stepped out of her sleeping back to take a look at
the result.

Lying on the ground before her was what appeared to be some kind of
cloak. Gwenlana could see the fine wire mesh, but it had been covered
by some kind of translucent material. She wasn't sure what this
material was, but even to the most untrained eye, it was obvious that
it didn't belong to this World. There was magic afoot. Gwenlana bent
down and picked up the cloak. It felt light, but looked very strong.
The cloak seemed to vibrate slightly in her fingers, almost like it was
alive. Gwenlana thought it was the most beautiful thing she had ever
seen and swung it around and draped it over her shoulders.

Immediately, a sense of enormous well being flooded through Gwenlana.
She felt warm and somehow, more energised. Positive thoughts instantly
replaced all those doubts and fears that had eaten away at her
confidence for the past few days. The mists had cleared from Gwenlana's
head. Everything had become crystal clear. Gwenlana's quest for justice
was back on course. She was going to win.