something amiss, drew their own blades or strung their bows.
“Sorcery,” said Caina and Kylon in unison.
They looked at each other, and then Caina turned towards the front of the column. “We had better warn Nasser and the captains…”
“No need,” said Morgant, urging his horse forward. “There’s no cause for alarm, beyond the overall insanity of our enterprise, but you’re about to see why this wasteland is called the Desert of Candles.”
Caina frowned. She already knew why the desert had gotten its name. The candles were the jagged crystalline pillars she saw in her dreams. Was she about to see one of them with her waking eyes?
Curiosity overcame her alarm, and she rode forward, Kylon and Morgant following. Nasser and the captains rode at the head of the column, speaking in low voices. In the distance, as the sun sank to the west, Caina glimpsed a pale blue glow.
“What the devil is that light?” said Dio.
“Do not worry, captain,” said Nasser with glacial calm. “The light is neither a curse, nor a spirit, nor a sorcerous spell.”
“What is it, then?” said Shopur.
“A candle,” said Nasser, glancing back. “Ah. Ciaran, Exile. I thought you might be the first to notice. Come with me, if you please. I think you shall find this interesting.”
He spurred his horse forward, and Caina and Kylon followed. No one had invited Morgant to follow, but he came anyway. He had been there, Caina remembered, on the day Callatas had burned Iramis and created the Desert of Candles. She looked at Nasser and wondered if he had been there, too.
An idea started to scratch at the back of her mind.
“What is…that?” said Kylon a moment later. Caina tried to halt her horse, and managed to stop the beast on the third try.
A pillar of rough, jagged crystal about nine feet tall rose from the earth a dozen paces away. It shone with a pale, eerie blue glow, a ghostly and unsettling light. Behind the crystalline pillar Caina spotted three more, and then dozens of others scattered across the plain…and still more in the distance.
There were thousands scattered across the desert, she knew, maybe tens of thousands.
Tremendous arcane force radiated from the crystalline pillar, sorcery of a type she had never sensed before. Yet even as the thought crossed her mind, she realized that she had sensed it once, nearly two years ago, on the night she had disguised herself as Natalia of the Nine Knives and infiltrated Ulvan’s palace. The Star of Iramis around Callatas’s neck had given off a similar aura, though it had been quieter, more subdued.
“No one knows,” said Caina at last, since neither Morgant nor Nasser seemed inclined to answer Kylon’s question. “They appeared when Callatas used the Star of Iramis to destroy Istarinmul a century and a half ago.” The pillars were also the same color as the Star, Caina realized, the same pale azure. She felt a…connection between the pillars, a ribbon of sorcerous force that joined the pillars together in a single massive web. “I don’t know what they are, or what they do. Only that they appeared when Callatas called his fire and burned Iramis and its farmlands to ash.”
She dropped from the saddle, feeling the crystalline pillar’s aura wash over her like a wind of needles. Its presence hurt, but she was used to that kind of pain. The peculiar light within the crystal pillar seemed…compelling, almost.
“I’ve never sensed anything like this before,” said Kylon, frowning. “It reminds me a little of a summoning spell.”
“Can you sense any spirits within it?” said Caina, her voice faint. The blue light was fascinating.
“No. I…” Kylon shook her head. “Wait.” He closed his eyes, the veins pulsing in his temples as he concentrated. “I would say that I do feel something like a spirit within the crystal, yes…but…”
“But what?” said Caina.
“It’s…frozen,” said Kylon, opening his eyes and meeting her gaze. His eyes were brown, but this close to him she saw amber flecks scattered throughout the irises. It made for a compelling color, yet the strange light in the crystal column continued to draw her attention.
“Frozen?” said Caina. “What do you mean?”
“The spirits I have sensed earlier have been in…in flux,” said Kylon. “I’m not sure why.”
“From what I understand, it is their nature,” said Nasser, who had been watching them intently. “Spirits are timeless, as is the netherworld. When spirits enter our world, the material world, they enter time and therefore can touch it to some extent. It is against their