When the others had retreated back across the oval field, Hyam said, “I want you to do something for me.”
The power still coursed up through her feet, filling her with a sense of sheer potency, such that her voice trembled slightly. “What?”
“Mistress Edlyn has told me a little of your background, and the fear you harbor over your own potential.” Hyam gave that a moment, then finished, “I want you to trust me.”
“I’ll . . . try.”
“Excellent. I’m too weak to accomplish what is required, you see. And it probably requires one who can make the connection.”
“Probably?”
His smile came more easily this time. “What we’re going to try here has not been done in centuries. Longer.”
She licked dry lips. “I don’t understand.”
Hyam eased himself down to sit upon the earth. “This land has been in my family for generations. No one could explain why the forest did not encroach. But every new season, we would arrive to find it as you see. The trees and the animals and even the weeds were kept back. And the land accepted our seeds almost greedily. My uncle taught me never to plant a handful, as is normal, for they would all grow and choke each other.”
Dally dropped down beside him. The growth lay tight to the earth, the furrows still deep enough that she could cross her ankles and sit comfortably. “What caused such conditions?”
“Precisely. That is the question I awoke to. And you are here to supply the answer.”
“How can you be certain?”
“Because,” Hyam said, “I already see it in your hands.”
“I don’t understand. See what?”
“Stand up, Dally. Shut your eyes. Now extend yourself downward. Far as you can. Tell me what you sense.”
She did as he instructed, though it terrified her. But here the fear was different from what she had known before. The potential alarmed her. “I don’t think I can control it.”
“But we’re not after control, and you know it. What do we seek?”
She knew the answer as clearly as if it was scripted upon her closed eyes. “To channel it.”
“Very good. Excellent, in fact. Now tell me what you sense.”
“Rivers of power.”
“And something more, yes?”
She felt his words press at her. Pushing her to reach down into the flowing power itself, seek with a confidence that was not her own, and discover, “There’s something . . .”
“An orb.”
She heard Hyam rise to his feet but felt no desire to open her eyes. She was bonded now, linked to something that seemed to sing in harmony to her heart’s song. “What is . . .”
“You know. Don’t you? It is yours.” Hyam began retreating across the field. She knew because she heard his voice moving away. “It has been waiting thousands and thousands of years for you to come here and stand where you are. And call to it.”
The sensation grew in harmony to Hyam’s words. An accord that reached through the earth and rock below her feet, bonding her to the unseen orb.
“It is time for you to claim the orb, Dally,” Hyam called with a strength that suggested he shared at least a trace of this same force. “Invite it upward. Bring it into . . .”
Hyam stopped speaking because she had already started the process. She did not know what to do, but knowledge was not required here. She asked, and the orb answered.
Dally lifted her hands. The sunlight seemed to coalesce and reach down through her body, deep into the earth, joining with the orb. She could see it now, the globe shining with such intensity she could observe its rise through the impossible depths.
Then the earth cracked and shifted and groaned and opened. Dally did not open her eyes. She was too intently focused upon the potency.
The orb fitted into her hands as though it had been fashioned to be gripped by her. And her fingers formed to hold it.
She lifted the orb over her head. She arched her back with the sheer exultation of feeling the flowing currents rise and course through her body. Fill the orb with the triumph of being brought into the here and now.
Dally opened her eyes.
Hyam stood to her right, laughing softly.
Before her stretched the assembled company of humans and Elves and Ashanta rimming the forest perimeter. Illuminated by a light that changed color as it streamed over them. Blue and gold and lavender and green and purple and orange and blue again.
Dally would have remained there for hours, days even. But Hyam walked back and touched the orb, drawing the power down to where it murmured softly in her mind.
Together they walked back to the company, where Hyam said to the Ashanta leader, “I would ask a boon.”
“Anything, Emissary.” The old man in his white robes gaped at the orb in Dally’s hands. “Anything at all.”
“Build me a cottage upon the point where the orb emerged,” Hyam said. “A haven where I can sit and heal and return to life again.”
The Ashanta bowed low. “It will be done as you have requested.”