“A spirit hunt?” I echoed in mild confusion.

“Fifa is being somewhat dramatic,” Aeld sighed with a roll of his eyes. “The three of us are going to call a spirit, battle, and claim it—or more specifically, you will, and we’ll observe.”

“As will the elders,” Fifa agreed. “Aeld says that he hasn’t been able to figure out how you do whatever you’re doing, but all of the elders of the valskab together should manage.”

“Hopefully,” Aeld added.

“If they can’t, then the rashi are the only ones who can,” she snorted. “And that’s not very likely.”

“So, what do we do?” I cut in.

“Just what Aeld said, Freyd. What didn’t you understand?” She flashed me a slightly obnoxious grin that I ignored.

“You’re telling me that you want me to call a spirit, right here and right now, and claim it? Really?”

“You could, but you’d fail,” she replied, seemingly unbothered by my sarcasm. “I told you: all the spirits nearby are part of the valskab, so to claim one, you’d have to battle the entire valskab—and you’d lose. We’ll have to go to the edge of the valskab for this.”

She stepped past me and touched the moss curtain behind me, and it parted noiselessly when her fingers brushed it. I followed her through it back outside, then trailed along behind as she started walking past the various crafters and workers. I accelerated a bit to catch up to her and gave her a skeptical look.

“You know, Fifa, if we have to go to the edge of the valskab, it would have been easier for you two to meet me at the training grounds. Why make me run all the way back here just to head back out again?”

“First, I’ve been assured that you need the exercise,” she said a bit loftily. “At least, so Bregg claims when he’s complaining about you to anyone who’ll listen.” She glanced sideways at me, but if she expected me to be shocked or unhappy with the idea that Bregg spoke poorly of me, she was going to be disappointed. She made a little expression of disappointment before looking back ahead.

“Second, the elders have already selected a spot for this, one with a lot of different types of spirits to choose from, and it’s the opposite direction as the training grounds. You’d have had to come here anyway.”

“So, what is this spot?” I asked a little suspiciously. “And why there? Why not just head to the edge of the valskab and call, say, a wind spirit?” My instincts screamed that letting someone else lead me to a place they’d chosen, one where they’d had time to prepare the ground, was the very definition of a bad idea.

“Because you’ll probably have to do it more than once, and maybe with multiple types of spirits to see if it makes a difference. That’s easier if there are a lot of different spirit types nearby.” She looked me up and down critically. “Besides, you’ve already got storm and steam spirits. You need something with stone, and there are plenty of those in Lerlauga.”

“What about a beast spirit?” I pressed. “Something like an ishvarn? Or a close spirit of healing? I could use one of those.”

“You can’t call beast spirits,” she snorted. “If you could, why would we need hunters? We could just call them to us. And while it’s possible to call a close spirit, I’m not going to teach you how. It’s too dangerous.”

I glanced at Aeld, but the shaman made an apologetic face. “She’s right, Freyd. Calling close spirits is tricky and delicate, and if you do it wrong, you could call a swarm of them or draw something like the undvarn. I called my healing spirit while being watched by my elders, and I’m sure Fifa went through the same calling her close spirit.”

“I did, yes.” She looked back at me. “If I were you, I’d stick with stone or something similar, and Lerlauga’s perfect for that.”

“Fire would be a good choice, as well,” Aeld added. “You don’t have to decide immediately, though. Once we arrive, we can see what types of spirits are nearby and choose from among them.”

“Any thoughts, Sara?” I asked silently as I followed the pair of letharvisa out of the stone dome and back into the sunlight.

“Well, John, Kadonsel and Aeld both suggested a fire spirit, and I could see how one would be useful in combat,” she replied thoughtfully. “Of course, an earth spirit might let you fashion a defensive spell or two, but you’ve already got that steam spirit that we can use to create heat-based damaging spells or ice-based defensive ones. Maybe a combination of earth and water? I’m not sure what that might be.”

“Could we call a close spirit without their help?” I asked hopefully.

“Theoretically, yes. I’ve got the pattern for a healing spirit thanks to Aeld’s, so you can definitely call one, but that’s assuming there’s one nearby that isn’t tied to the valskab. However, it might not be the best idea to do it without at least seeing it done first.”

“Why not?”

“Because every close spirit you’ve encountered so far has been in possession of something. If you call one, there’s a good chance you’ll call a possessed creature and have to fight it. I’m guessing that the letharvisa have worked out how to avoid that, so if we can watch one being called, we can work out how they do it.”

“You’re overthinking this.” I paused as Kadonsel spoke up, her voice slightly annoyed.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“You’re behaving like you can only call and claim so many spirits,” she replied. “And for the savages, that might be right since it seems they have to worry about their spirits affecting them. You don’t. You should be able to claim as many spirits as you’d like—or at least, so many that it doesn’t make a difference. Just claim whatever’s available and get it over with.”

“She might be right, John,” Sara agreed slowly. “You can only channel and hold so much power at once, but if you meld each spirit, there’s not enough of them left to affect you or fight you. Really, you should be able to meld as many as you’d like.”

I realized at that point that I was treating the spirits the way I had my pets on Puraschim. There, I could only bond so many creatures, and each one I bonded made controlling the rest more difficult. Plus, if I bonded one that wasn’t a good match for my affinities, I’d struggle with it even more, and once I bonded a pet, it stayed that way until it died. Each choice of pet mattered a lot, and I had to consider them carefully.

Here, I didn’t. I could meld as many spirits as I wanted, or at least enough that it wouldn’t matter. I could have multiple storm spirits so that I could switch which one I drew on if one ran low on power; I could have a spirit of every type; I could have multiple beast or close spirits. Even if I never drew on one, it wouldn’t matter; there wasn’t limited space to waste, here.

I followed the pair through the main valskab, noting how people drew back from us as we walked. At first, I thought it was me, but I quickly realized they were pulling away from Fifa. Men who glanced at her quickly turned away and put some distance between her and them; women who looked her way just watched her silently. It seemed that my guess from earlier was right: people were trying to avoid the woman. That begged the question of why she’d been tasked with training me, but I felt certain I had the answer to that. Her elders probably hoped that I’d be more tractable around the woman, maybe even eager to make her happy. I’d probably have done the same thing in their place, but the fact that they were willing to use her like that told me an awful lot. The Menskies seemed to think of other valskab members as family or perhaps something even closer. I’d judged dads who used their daughters like that pretty harshly in the past—yes, I’d seen it happen a time or three—and it was hard not to feel the same way about the Menskie elders dangling Fifa in front of me like a piece of meat.

The three of us walked through the main valskab until we reached the road just past the stone domes. The woman stopped and turned to look at the two of us.

“Go ahead and sit here,” she instructed. Aeld dropped into a cross-legged position at once, but I looked around in confusion.

“This doesn’t seem like the edge of the valskab,” I noted suspiciously.

“It’s not. Just sit down, Freyd. This will be faster than running there.” Her voice was a little impatient, so I slowly lowered myself into a seated position, ready to jump to my feet if anything seemed to be going wrong. The woman took a seat, as well, then placed both hands palm-down on the road beside her. A moment later, a surge of power rolled out from her and sank into the ground, and the stones beneath me lurched and shifted. I almost sprang to my feet, but Aeld seemed unconcerned by what was happening, so I remained seated—at least, for the moment.

“Watch what she’s doing with your other types of vision, John,” Sara suggested. “It’s a spell, and a fairly powerful one.”

I shifted to See Spirits, and immediately, I noticed a mass of swirling, grayish spirits gathered beneath us, all bound together with webs of that coppery glow I’d seen around the valskab’s spirits. I switched to See Magic, and Fifa lit up with power as energy flowed from the center of her chest and spilled down into the spirits beneath us. The ground shifted again, rippled slightly—and suddenly, I felt myself lifted up into the air, carried on a wave of stone. The wave rolled forward, and I moved with it, gliding south at a speed similar to a slow walk before sinking to the road once more. Somehow, Fifa had the earth spirits beneath us carry us for a bit—but I didn’t think this was going to be all that fast.

I opened my mouth to point that out when another ripple rose up beneath me, this one moving a bit faster than the last and carrying us a little farther. The next wave surged almost immediately after the first, moving even more swiftly. A fourth struck before the third had died, and by the time the sixth wave caught us, we were moving at the speed of my best run—and we kept accelerating a bit with each wave.

“This is a nice spell, Sara,” I noted admiringly as the ground rushed past us. “Can you copy it?”

“I can, but I don’t think you have the energy to power it,” she said thoughtfully. “At least, not the way she’s doing it. I might be able to figure something out, though—maybe something that only affects you. Let me think about it.”

I tried to relax as we raced southward, moving at what I guessed was probably the speed of a fast horse or slow car, but that wasn’t easy when I knew that my safety was totally dependent on Fifa and her spirits. I didn’t think she was at any risk of losing control of them, but at those kinds of speed, “accidents” were easy to arrange and could be deadly. I really didn’t know her very well, and I’d never even met her elders. If they’d decided that I needed to disappear—and that maybe Aeld did, too—this would be a perfect way to do it. A boulder suddenly jutting out of the ground in front of us would probably be lethal, as would one of the stone waves tossing us into a rough part of the river.

After a few minutes, the road veered off to the left while we continued south. A short while after that, I winced as a breeze swirled a pungent odor into my nose. It reminded me of a mixture of rotten eggs and gasoline that wasn’t particularly pleasant but certainly wasn’t the worst thing I’d ever smelled. The waves beneath me began to slow, carrying us shorter distances even as the nasty smell grew stronger and heavier. The ground to the south looked different somehow, darker and flatter than most of the terrain around us, and as we slowed to a stop, a sudden jet of dark fluid spurted up from the ground a hundred yards or so away.

The last wave of stone rolled past us, and Fifa rose to her feet, moving a little unsteadily. I stood up as well, and the world seemed to sway around me for a moment as my inner ear adjusted to the sudden lack of undulating motion. I simply set my feet and stared at the horizon, and the feeling passed quickly. I glanced at Aeld and saw that he’d recovered, as well, but Fifa needed a few seconds to regain her equilibrium as she swayed in place.

“Lerlauga,” Aeld said softly, staring south at the shimmering ground. He caught my curious gaze and gestured toward the dark landscape. “The mud pools of Valskab Flothmathur. Very few visit them.”

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“I can see why,” I said, wrinkling my nose as another wave of fetid air washed over me.

“The smell is—unpleasant,” Fifa agreed a moment later. “But Lerlauga is an important place, Freyd. The mud here can be used to coat leather to make it waterproof, and if treated correctly, it makes a liquid that feeds fire spirits, making any object soaked in it burn hotter and faster, or a strong fertilizer.”

She seemed to have recovered her balance as she walked forward, beckoning for us to follow. Another geyser spurted from the ground maybe thirty yards in front of us, and as it did, a wave of warmth rolled over us. “This place also has a very high concentration of earth, water, and fire spirits, higher than most places outside Aldhyor itself. Call any of those, and one should respond quickly enough.”

“This—this is a sacred site!” Kadonsel whispered.

“What do you mean?” I asked her.

“There are certain places in the world that draw the ancients. No one knows exactly why, but those spots are sacred and holy—and they come here to harvest it for their own purposes? It’s—it’s heresy!”

“Unless this place isn’t actually sacred, and there’s a perfectly logical explanation for why the spirits gather here,” I pointed out. “And maybe it’s one that the Menskallin know since they can ask the spirits why they’re here. Plus, they can probably check with those same spirits to make sure what they take isn’t hurting anything.”

“I—I hadn’t thought of that,” she admitted, some of the fire leaving her voice. “Still, to take the ancients’ gifts and use them for such mundane purposes…”

“How is that worse than using a spirit’s energy to shoot a dart to kill someone?” I couldn’t help but chuckle at that. “Your entire society is built on using the ancients for your people’s purposes, Kadonsel.”

“That’s different!” she protested. “It’s a fair trade!”

“And you don’t know that this isn’t the same. For all we know, the letharvisa give the spirits something in return for what they take—in fact, it’s likely that they do. They seem to make a big deal about keeping the spirits appeased, after all. Why are you assuming that they’re just taking without asking?”

She fell silent, and I let the matter drop. Honestly, I wasn’t sure why I was bothering arguing with her. I doubted I was going to convince her of much, and it didn’t matter if I did. Kadonsel was dead, after all. Even if I got her to realize that the Menskallin weren’t so bad, she couldn’t exactly spread the word among her people. Of course, if I did, I wouldn’t have to listen to her bitching about them all the time, which would be nice.

We kept walking until the ground grew soft and shimmering pools of bubbling, steaming water covered the ground around us. She stopped at that point and gestured to me. “Aeld tells me that you know how to send out a call. This is the place to do it.”

I shrugged and stepped out ahead of them, then closed my eyes and turned my focus inward. “Okay, Sara, Kadonsel, any thoughts on what type of spirit to call?”

“Why not a mud spirit?” the ojain suggested. “You’re surrounded by them, after all.”

“A mud spirit? I didn’t know those existed.”

“They’re plentiful in places like this, where there are boiling mud pools. Northern Sura Jarvi is packed with them; the mud springs there are a hundred times larger than this and hot enough that you need the help of an ice spirit just to approach them. If you call for earth, water, and fire, you have a good chance of getting one.”

“That’s a simple enough pattern, John,” Sara said. “Those three combine easily. Here, try this.”

A pattern appeared in my mind, and I reached down and gathered a tiny strand of power from the steam spirit, which I figured was the closest thing I had to what I wanted. I wove that strand through Sara’s pattern and let it flow out directly in front of me. I very carefully controlled the flow of power, letting the bare minimum pour out of me, and tried to focus the call to directly in front of me. If Kadonsel was right, and mud spirits surrounded us, I didn’t want to draw hundreds of them with a wide or overly powerful call.

The moment the spell rolled out of me, the shimmering pool before me exploded into a geyser of searing hot mud with a loud roar. I swore and danced back as the boiling mud splattered on me, clinging to my fur and blinding me for a moment. My fur kept it from burning me, but It was hot, and I figured that enough of the mud splashing onto me would cook my skin readily. The ground started to shake beneath my feet, and Aeld and Fifa both let out loud sounds of surprise and concern. I quickly wiped the mud from my face, blinking rapidly to clear my eyes, and looked around in shock.

Everywhere I turned, geysers of thick, boiling mud rose into the sky. Clouds of steam that stank like eggs and paint thinner rolled over us as mud erupted from every pool in sight, splattering the ground with ooze.

“What did you do, Haviti?” Fifa half-screamed, looking around at the spouting geysers.

“What did I do, Sara?” I demanded silently.

“I—I don’t know, John,” she said in a confused tone. “The pattern I gave you should be for a mud spirit, and you sent it out in a focused beam! This shouldn’t be happening!”

“What shouldn’t be happening?”

“Here, look!”

My vision shifted to spiritual sight, and I stared in dismay at the pools around me. Dark shapes writhed and twisted in them, each an unpleasant blue-gray mix. They surged within the geysers as if straining to escape the pools and rushed toward the shore in waves. Even as I watched, a blob of mud half the size of me rippled onto the shore, and within seconds, a dozen more joined it, each forming their own pulsing lumps that I assumed were held together by the spirits inside of them. The blobs held still for a few seconds, rippling and bubbling, but a moment later, the closest one streaked toward us, racing forward like a wave on the ocean, leaving a thin trail of ooze behind itself. The rest quickly followed, rolling toward us in an avalanche of searing nastiness.

I reacted before the others, leveling my spear and thrusting as the first blob drew near. The crystalline head slid through the mud like—well, like stabbing a pile of watery muck. If it did any damage, I couldn’t tell as the blob slid past me unfazed and flung itself at Fifa. I slashed with the spear, hoping to slap the muck out of the way, but again, the weapon simply splattered through it harmlessly.

Fortunately, the letharvis wasn’t helpless. She lifted her hand, and a frigid wind shot from her palm and slammed into the blob. The mud hardened instantly, and the thing crashed to the ground and shattered into lumps of gleaming, oily sludge as the spirit slid back toward the nearest pool. Another blob leaped at Aeld, but the shaman lifted his staff and flung a blast of fire at the mud that baked it into black, tarry clay.

“You can’t hurt the mud, fool!” Kadonsel snapped. “Attack the spirits, instead!”

I activated Spiritual Strike as the next blob raced forward, and my spear blurred slightly as I thrust it into the pile of mud. The weapon slid through without resistance again, but this time, the spirit inside it recoiled away from the weapon. It tore itself free of its muddy container and raced backward, trailing a thin line of spiritual energy from the wound I’d given it. The remaining mud dropped to the ground with a splat even as another muddy blob rushed forward, growing larger as it absorbed the ooze left behind. I stabbed it as well while the Spiritual Strike ability lasted, and it fled just as quickly as the first, running back to the mud pools, presumably to recover.

Fifa lifted both hands, and shards of ice shot from them, darting into half a dozen muddy shapes and freezing them solid. On the other side of me, Aeld waved his staff, and mist rose from the mud balls as the water was sucked from them, drying them out instantly. Each time, though, the spirits themselves simply abandoned their vessels and slipped back into the mud pools, forming new blobs that swirled and surged as they attempted to escape the pool and charge forward once more. They were holding back the creatures, but they weren’t actually coming close to defeating them.

My spear leaped out, stabbing at mud balls with Channeled Strike. Each blow caused the blobs of mud to explode and sent the spirits fleeing, bleeding spiritual power from the wounds I left in them. I was hurting the things, but I couldn’t do it forever. Spiritual Strike had far too long of a cooldown for this sort of battle, and both it and Channeled Strike could only be used so many times in a row. The spirits I wounded plunged into the pools and didn’t return, at least not immediately, but more crawled up from the morass and surged at us in a seemingly endless wave. We wouldn’t be able to hold at this rate. Soon, we’d have to retreat or have the blobs on top of us, and I had no doubt that wouldn’t be particularly healthy for any of us. Apparently, I wasn’t alone.

“We need a circle!” Fifa cried out, her voice high and somewhat panicked. “Aeld, can you make one?”

“Freyd should do it,” the shaman replied in a much calmer voice. “His will be more effective.” I glanced at him and saw that he looked unruffled as he hurled more flames at mud spirits, baking their shells and causing them to flee. He met my gaze steadily. “Just as you did around the ojain, Freyd.”

I took a deep breath and stepped back, letting the two letharvisa handle the onrushing spirits. I jammed my spear into the ground and began to pull, drawing energy into me through the weapon as I slid the spearhead through the ground. The weapon passed easily through the muddy soil, and more energy poured into me than I’d anticipated, slowly filling me as I worked.

“The spirit field is dense here, John,” Sara told me in a subdued voice. “Your Draining Aura will be more effective, too.”

I frowned as something nibbled at the edge of my thoughts. I ignored it as I worked, drawing as smooth a circle as I could manage, one big enough for all three of us. I heard the hiss of ice and the roar of flames as I worked, mixed with the squelching of thick mud, but I refused to look up to see how the others were doing. They’d have to hold their own for a bit, and honestly, that shouldn’t be hard for them. They’d both been driving the spirits off a lot faster than I was.

“Done!” I called out as I connected the circle. I charged up Spiritual Strike and rushed forward again. “I’ll hold them back; you two retreat to the circle!”

Fifa looked like she would protest, but Aeld began to move backward, and she clamped her mouth shut and did the same. The muddy creatures continued to surge forward, but my spear darted out, lashing at any who came near. Thanks to Zone of Control and Serpent Spear, the creatures couldn’t just slip past me easily, and Spiritual and Channeled Strike both let me hurt the spirits themselves, not just their shells. Still, I couldn’t keep it up forever, and after several seconds, I began to fall back myself—until the idea dancing at the tip of my mind suddenly crystallized. I wasn’t sure if it would work, but if it did, it might just keep us from being overrun. Of course, if it didn’t, the next minute or so promised to be moderately painful.

“It might work, John,” Sara said quietly. “I can’t see why it wouldn’t. It’s the same energy, just a different resonance pattern.”

I took a deep breath and deactivated my abilities. A blob of mud flung itself toward me, and as it did, I stabbed with my spear. This time, though, as the weapon plunged into the creature, I pulled, just as I did when I was making my circle, drawing energy from the spirit toward me. Nothing happened for a second, and my heart pounded in my chest—if it didn’t work, I was about to get slimed—but I pulled harder, and suddenly, power poured down the spear shaft and rushed into me, flooding my body. The blob froze at the end of my spear, then shivered and collapsed into a splatter of mud bereft of control. A much smaller blue-gray spirit flowed away from the mud, slipping into the pool and vanishing, and I couldn’t help but grin.

Maybe we wouldn’t need to retreat after all.

Another mud creature flung itself at me, and my spear lashed out to intercept it. I pulled as the point touched the blob, and it froze as I sucked power out of it into myself. The blob collapsed, and another took its place. That one fell just as quickly, but more pressed forward, and as I sucked energy from each of them, an odd pressure began to build up inside of me.

“You’re drawing too much power, John,” Sara said, her voice nervous. “You can only hold so much inside you, remember? You need to get rid of it!”

“Any suggestions as to how?” I asked desperately as I stabbed another mud creature. “These things won’t stop coming!”

“A spell would work. Swift and Steady, maybe, to help you move. Roaring Flame or Spirit Geyser to help drive them back.”

“Either of those would show Aeld and Fifa that I know more spells than I should, though. Can you come up with something that uses a decent amount of energy but isn’t so flashy?”

She paused. “Maybe. If I use Channeled Strike as a template…” She fell silent for a moment. “Here, try this.” A new pattern appeared in my mind, one that included an image of lightning crackling around my spear as I stabbed with it.

“A lightning strike spell?” I asked. “That’s—pretty cool.”

“Ice would be better for this,” Kadonsel suggested. “At least, against mud spirits.”

“She’s right, John. Here, this will work better.”

I took the image she’d given me and focused on it, concentrating on what I wanted to happen. I channeled some of the power flowing through me into that image, focusing it on my spear, and thrust at a muddy creature. The spear slid into the blob with a loud crackling sound, and the mud nearest it froze so swiftly that it cracked, shattering the blob. I pulled back through the spear, and the spirit impaled on the crystal head dwindled as I sucked power from it, replacing what I’d just used.

My grin returned as I cast Swift and Steady, sending energy into the ground beneath my feet and feeling earth spirits rise up in response. The soft soil quickly firmed beneath me, and I found it much easier to dart forward and back to impale the incoming mud creatures. I poured power into the new spell Sara had created, and every thrust froze the muddy blobs, while the spear stabbed into the spirits inhabiting them and drained their power to feed my active spells.

More mud creatures swarmed forth, and my spear leaped and darted, stabbing into each, freezing them and drawing away their power. I couldn’t take much from each, as quickly as they rushed me, but I didn’t really have to. Even at full power, the spirits seemed to struggle to free themselves of the pools and rush me; weakened, they seemed effectively trapped in the pools. The pool of energy within me began to slowly bleed away as fewer spirits surged forward, and I pulled harder on each, drawing more power to keep my stockpile high. The battle looked to be pretty much decided.

A roar jerked my attention to the pool I’d first stood in front of when I called, and I watched as a huge wave of mud surged from it, exploding outward and crashing onto the shore. The blob rose into a pillar at least fifteen feet high and three across, a pillar that raced swiftly toward me. As it passed lesser clumps of mud, it sucked them into itself, growing slightly larger and thicker each time it did.

I braced myself and thrust with my spear, jamming the frigid point into the creature. Ice crackled around the spearpoint, freezing the mud there, and I slid backward as the thing’s momentum shoved me away from it. I began to pull, trying to draw its energy into me, but it felt like I was sucking on a straw full of cement. Nothing happened, and I felt a twinge of unease as I realized that this spirit wouldn’t fall so easily. That swelled to actual fear as a tendril of mud shot from the creature and slammed into my chest with a loud hiss, knocking me back and tearing my spear from the beast. The frozen wound quickly liquefied and sealed shut. It was like I hadn’t hurt the thing at all.

The fight had gone to hell in a fucking hurry, and the problem was, I had a feeling it might just take us all there with it.