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.And she had come because she could not let Lucia make this journey without her.Both she and Lucia, by risking themselves, had dragged others in their wake and put their lives in danger.Selfishness out of selflessness.There was no way to win.She thought she understood a little of Lucia’s sense of being crushed by responsibility now.The change, when it came, was sudden.Phaeca cried out in fear at the sensation.It was like a thick tar that gathered in from all directions to engulf the mind.The Sisters spun defences automatically to preserve themselves; but the other members of the party had no such recourse.They were swamped by a glowering prescience of doom that manifested all around them.The sunlight that leaked through the leaf canopy thinned and died as if a cloud had passed before Nuki’s eye; but then it began to darken beyond even the drabbest day, blackening to deepest night and worse, until all light was excluded and even those with the ability to see in the dark were rendered blind.Panic ensued.The darkness was bad enough, but the terror they felt was out of proportion even to that.Their senses screamed danger at them: there were things nearby, and while their eyes were useless their imaginations took charge.Monstrous, fanged beings, hanging in the air or slinking along the ground, black creatures who could only be envisioned by the gimlet gleam of their claws and teeth.The only sound was the desperate voices of the party, somebody shouting that they must protect Lucia, men who wanted to run but did not dare.It took Kaiku a few paralysed seconds before she had the presence of mind to switch her vision into the Weave.The darkness was merely physical, and had no power there.The world blazed into light again, the stitchwork contours of golden threads outlining the forest and the people within.She could see them stumbling, their arms out, eyes open but unseeing, pupils like saucers.Some had drawn swords, and were standing rigidly, listening for the approach of the enemy.The Tkiurathi had dropped into crouches, making themselves small targets; they appeared calm, though the pounding of their hearts and the rush of blood around their bodies told a different story.The threads of the Weave were churning, confirming Kaiku’s suspicion: this terror was an artificial thing, a projection.But it was not without cause.For the spirits were coming, manifesting in the air all around them, forming into shapes that mimicked the party’s fears.They were vague and indistinct yet, but gaining coherence with every passing moment, their blurred forms separating into limbs, jaws, talons.Dozens of them.She and Phaeca could not hope to fight them all.‘Lucia!’ she cried, but Lucia was not listening.She was kneeling on the ground, her hands buried into the grassy dirt, her head hung.Somebody shrieked, a voice that faded rapidly as if carried away at speed; Kaiku tried to locate them, but it had happened too fast for her.She cast about helplessly, unable to act.Lucia was talking to them.She could only hope that whatever she said was enough.The spirits were bleeding from the air, slinking from the treetops, knotting and sewing into shape with deadly purpose.The blinded humans in their midst flailed, aware that something was coming for them and having no way to prevent it.Kaiku’s kana was raging within her, desperate for release; but the enemy were too many, and there was nowhere to send it that would have any effect.She felt Phaeca across the Weave, felt her struggle to keep control against the choking terror.She could see, as Kaiku could.One of the Libera Dramach narrowly missed impaling a companion on the point of his drawn sword as he staggered about; another almost tripped over Lucia, his hands held out before him, eyes unfocused.‘Stand still, all of you!’ she shouted, putting as much authority as she could muster into her voice.They did so, clinging to her words as a lifeline to control.‘What’s happening?’ someone called to her, fraying with hysteria.‘Lucia will see us through,’ she replied, with more conviction than she felt.‘Wait.’She glanced back at where Lucia knelt [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]