Once Lenore was safely concealed within the canopy of a large tree, just on the edge of the forest, I pushed myself out of my Hallow, taking up a perch next to her. Somehow, despite my precarious position, squatting on a narrow branch, it felt good to me, balanced.

“Let’s see how well this works.” Lenore suggested, before explaining her plan. “Can you create the shell, as if I was going to use it to scry? No need to make it avian, if you prefer a humanoid form, that shouldn’t matter.”

Nodding, I focused on my magic, drawing upon the shadows caused by the leaves all around us, pulling them in and weaving them together. There was little runic magic involved, merely a rune of twilight as a base-line within my mind, the rest was purely artistic casting, making it both easier and a lot harder than working with runes. Runes were nicely predictable, providing a stable base for my casting and allowing me to replicate previously used spells with good fidelity. If I used a runic formation, the result wouldn’t vary too much, as long as I didn’t forcibly change things. Artistic casting was lacking that stable base, allowing for impressive feats of magic that I later was neither able to explain nor replicate.

Once the shell was completed, a simple, vaguely humanoid, cloud of dense shadow, I felt Lenore’s mind rub against mine, joining me in the casting of the next spell. This spell was one I had used before, the base-version was from the Grandmother’s grimoire, allowing me to shift my awareness into a shadow, so I could look out from it. It was modified runic-magic, something I normally had no problem with, but in this case, it was harder. Lenore, who was normally unable to use runic magic, was the one casting the spell, so she would be able to use her innate ability to speak using magic through the shape I had created. For that, I had to hold the runes, while Lenore filled it with power, partially filtered through my affinity.

The sensation was incredibly weird and intimate, our minds working closely together, to the point that the distinction blurred and some information were shared, without any intent behind it. Some of the flashes of memory I experienced were things I very well could have done without, like the taste of carrion, others I welcomed with open arms, like the experience of flying within a storm. The brief feeling of exhilaration, mixed with awe and adrenaline was a thrill, even if it lasted for mere seconds.

“I wouldn’t allow anyone else to do that.” I wasn’t sure who had thought that, it could have originated from either me or Lenore, but the idea was accompanied by a feeling of companionship and friendship, the knowledge that there was someone I could, quite literally, bare the deepest parts of my mind to, without fear of rejection or ridicule. The feeling was almost as comforting as the feelings I had for Sigmir, only flavoured in a different way. Family. Even if my sister lacked feathers and preferred to burn the meat before eating, she was my sister and together we would soar through the heavens.

Suddenly, my balance was disrupted, when suddenly one of the two view-points providing information to our combined minds shifted, not enough to cause me to fall but enough to make my heart start to race. It was disorienting, getting information from two positions that essentially mirrored each other, only without the mirror involved. While the Avatar Morgana was looking at the shadow-form I had created, Lenore was supplying sensory input from the shadow-form, gathered by the magic of our scrying-spell, while looking at our perching bodies.

“This seems to work.” Lenore said, her voice coming from the cloud of shadows hovering in the dim light in front of me.

“It does. Once we are done here and have some free-time, we’ll improve upon this spell.” I replied, keeping my mouth shut and using our mental connection instead. In addition, I closed my eyes, trying to tune my own senses down as much as possible, even as I realised that perching in a tree had been an idiotic idea for this. For a moment, a memory flashed in my mind, of me telling Lenore that working magic perching in trees was a bad idea. If there hadn’t been a realistic chance that I’d have knocked myself out of the tree by facepalming, I would have done so, likely to Lenore’s amusement.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

“Now, can you move this to their camp?” Lenore asked, using our mental connection as well.

“Mhm, I think so.” I replied, before considering the idea for a moment. If I wanted to simply shift the cloud of shadows over, it would be easily visible, especially on a rather sunny day like the one we were having. A black, vaguely humanoid, blob of shadows, moving across a field of green? Tracing such a form back to the source would be a piece of cake, unless I moved along the edge of the forest first. But even then, I had no illusions about my ability to make the movement look smooth, not without quite a bit of testing first. It would likely look like a puppet on a single string, getting dragged along by magic. Not a terribly intimidating or awe-inspiring sight, thus something I wanted to avoid, especially when dealing with a Traveller.

Feeling around a little, and exchanging ideas with Lenore, I decided on a different approach. There were a few clouds in the sky, so when one of those was slowly casting its shadow across the forest and the fields of green on its edge, I shifted the blob of shadow into the twilight cast by the cloud, turning it into a two-dimensional object that moved along the ground. No need to simulate walking, no need to bother with anything, only to keep low and near the ground. Just a harmless shadow.

The cloud wasn’t moving terribly fast but within a minute or two, it’s position had moved far enough to cover the small camp. Once that happened, I changed the orientation, turning the flat image into a three-dimensional body, or something looking very much like that.

“Greetings.” Lenore, using my voice, spoke, surprising the orcs. They leapt to their feet, one of them managing to tangle his legs and land flat on his face.

“Morgana?!” Harms asked, looking at the shadow we were using. I could understand the confusion in his voice, he was looking at a form that was little more than a stick-figure, only that the form had spoken to him.

“Indeed.” Lenore lied, before she continued. “I was asked to warn you. While there was a disagreement during our last meeting, I don’t wish you ill.” she explained, causing me to snort on my perch. I really didn’t care about Harms or his orcish friends but apparently, Lenore had a plan.

“What? Asked?” one of the other orcs asked, looking between the shadow-form and Harms.

“If you take the north-western path, you will almost certainly perish. I would even go so far to say that you will perish, but nothing is ever certain:” Lenore told them, in this case even speaking the truth. If they tried to follow us, they would die. Because we would kill them.

“Why would you help us?” Harms asked, sounding both confused and angry. “You are the reason I had to leave the Bright Hollow!” he added, the anger getting stronger.

“Is that so? I am the reason? Or do you project the responsibility for your actions onto me, so that you don’t have to bear it?” Lenore asked in response, a hint of mockery in her voice.

“Harms, stop it.” another of the Orcs said, this one female. “Even if the other Traveller hadn’t caused a scene on the market-square, do you really think Threlnar would have hesitated to throw you to the wolves?” she asked, giving Harms a stern look.

“No, dammit.” Harms snarled, before deflating, like a leaky balloon. ”I only told the two of you about what I’d seen and the next day, everyone talks about the battle, as if they’d been there.” he grumbled, causing me to frown. What was he talking about?

“Threlnar?” Lenore asked, picking up my confusion.

“He’s another orc and I thought he was a good friend.” Harms replied, causing a sigh to come from the female who had spoken before.

“He is a good friend, most of the time.” she explained and I realised that I had seen her before, on the square when I had taken Harms to task. She had been talking to him at the time. “But ever since his brother went out with Dura Firebringer and didn’t return, he has a certain dislike for the Shaman.” she explained and now it was my turn to sigh. It looked like Orcs were just as complicated as humans.

“Be that as it may.” Lenore spoke up, giving me a mental signal to let the spell slowly fade, allowing the cloud to dissipate. “The warning was delivered, the task is done.” she spoke, just as the spell unravelled.

I felt a moment of disorientation when her senses snapped back to her body, but only second-hand. Somehow, I managed to reach out, keeping Lenore from falling off our lofty perch.

“Remind me to never cast spells like that while sitting in a tree.” she told me, almost managing to knock me off the branch by making me laugh too hard. Almost.