[quote]"You all must be very weary of this death," She stated warmly. "Come with me, and I will free you of this prison as soon as I am capable." She then pulled in the wave of willpower in a focused attempt to create a vacuum effect and possibly absorb them. "Join with me. Help me free the Light." Her voice was a soft whisper, but it carried an incredible amount of weight.[/quote] The gray forms flashed and flickered, faceless, watching her, but they did not move. The light of the candles passed through them, indecisive. A dark, undulating mass of shadow pulsed where their hearts should have been, squeezing and expanding as if it breathed. Just as the spirits weakened, their bodies staticked and translucent, their black hearts surged with renewed power. The Lord of Shadow held tighter to them, fed them with more power, intent on victory no matter the cost. The darkness became blacker, beat harder, furious and defiant. The spirits' blank faces split slowly, to reveal black mouths and white sharp rows of teeth. They continued to fizzle and flicker, but as their mouths widened their strength grew. Anise, now, was fading. She would find her own limbs flashing in and out of existence, a lightheadedness overcoming her head, a taut discomfort in her chest. In reality, her skin became paler, her lips blue, and she barely breathed. Peck had noticed, and he crawled forward to place his hands on her shoulders. "Lady!" he called uncertainly. "Anise! You okay? Hey I think this is bad. C'mon." He shook her gently; her head hung limp, her eyes slightly open and still. "Anise, c'mon! Stop! What's happening?" Alarm swelled in his voice. The spirits he couldn't see gnashed their frightful mouths. Anise could feel their pain. Their desire for freedom, for light. While she faded and weakened -- without the Lantern to fill her thoughts -- she was stripped vulnerable to the emotion of the dead that walked in the dark. [indent][i]I'm scared. This is eternity. We are only objects. We were never alive. Nothing has meaning. Fighting is useless. There is no point. There is no good. I'm scared. I'm scared. Come with me.[/i][/indent] Buried among the thoughts was an echo of Anise's own voice -- weak and hidden, but present, like a tiny spark in a sea of darkness. A spark is all it takes to start a fire. Anise's memory of the sun swelled in her heart, displacing the cold and the dark. The scar on her hand began to glow, and the sunlight swept through her astral body -- the same light that glowed out of the bottom of the Lake. The Lady of Light had found her, had touched the rune of Anise's own making. Should Anise open herself to it, she would find a new and deep reservoir of bright power, buried among the weeds under the water. Her other hand, too, began to glow. The rune of the Lady of the Pond added a blue light to that of the sun, surged through her like ocean waves. The spirits' mouths closed slowly, and their eyes opened. The black in their hearts gradually faded, while their shapes took human forms. Anise's grip on them strengthened, while the Lord of Shadow lost his hold. The despaired whisperings ceased, replaced with a quiet light of hope. The gray spirits were no longer gray, but stood human and emitting their own gentle light. Anise would feel their renewed hearts link with hers. Their renewed eyes took on a gleam of determination and fury; with the support of Anise's power, each of them clenched their fists and [i]fought[/i] against the last threads of darkness. The moment the last dark chain snapped, Anise was thrust back into her own body, where she could no longer see the spirits -- but she certainly could still feel them surrounding her. "Anise!" Peck searched for her eyes, then jumped back a little to see that her hands were radiating light -- one yellow, one blue. [hr][quote]Artemis opened her mouth. Nothing came out. She closed it again. Her grip tightened around the staff. She looked to the Lantern. Finally, she spoke. "I'm sorry I ran." She was sorry for so many things. Her voice was still raw. She looked again to the Witch. "I can help. But I need the Lantern."[/quote] The Witch was not surprised to see Artemis drop out of the sky, and she raised the Lantern and raised her eyes to peer up at the thief that had refused her help. The old woman had new scars on her face and hands; her balance was unsteady and defiant; her eyes were a little grayer than they had been before, drained of the power that had brimmed within her not so long ago. Behind those eyes rested a dim doubt, the seed of hopelessness that she'd spent a lifetime battling. These eyes studied Artemis, the tear-tracks through the ash, the changed eyes, the marks of Oseely and The Unnamed One upon her hands, the sigils and strange clothes. The very grass raised up to soften the ground beneath Artemis' feet, and fire roiled raw in the girl's heart. The Lantern cast its red glow between them, the staff brimmed with electric anticipation; their silhouettes darkened the trees. It was clear to the Witch that Artemis was not here to talk. There was something strained about the girl, something unwilling to listen to reason, to answer questions, to delay the mission she'd set for herself and risk everything. The Witch's bony grip tightened on the stick that held the Lantern, which swung and shifted the light around them. "I suppose I've been expecting you." Artemis was standing in the path between the Witch and her home; she did not move any closer. "I can see you're not lying to me now, Artemis. Have you stopped lying to yourself, then?" For a long moment the old woman's glinting eyes studied the sooty girl before her. She huffed and waved her walking stick for Artemis to step aside, let her pass. "You're the reason my magic's fading." She poked her stick at Artemis' hand. "Old Oseely picked you, that bald-headed rascal. Used to be me." She pressed the walking stick under her arm and held up a lined hand to show the fading, faint image of Oseely's mark. "Guess he's lost faith in this old woman -- but I don't blame him." She hobbled past, shoving her way down the path, back toward her ruined cabin. "Come on, then. I've got something for you." Still she hadn't relinquished the Lantern, but used it to light the way through the teeming forest and into the clearing, where the stars cast a blue glow on the high grasses. The twisted tree and broken wreckage of the cabin was a dark jagged shape ahead. The Witch went inside for a moment, and returned again with the Lantern in one hand and a short sharp instrument in the other. She shuffled forward, set the Lantern down in the tall grass, and with a determined and defiant glance at Artemis' face, grasped the iron pendant of the rosary that Artemis kept in her possession, that had been found on the wooded path. The iron rose was heavy in her gnarled hand. It held the latent power of years of prayer and hope, of the dreams and fears of a young girl trapped in a dark and unfamiliar world, who had been lost to those same shadows -- but there was something else, something far more important. There was within this rosary a resonance so similar to that of the self-proclaimed Lady of Light, whose actions had directly led to the Dragon's resurrection. [i]Hania.[/i] The Witch hesitated, but turned over the iron rose and scratched a sigil into it. Her expression was grim, uncertain, necessary. She returned the rosary to Artemis, and she took a step away from the Lantern in the grass. It was not hers to give. Oseely's mark on the old woman's hand was still fading, as was the light in her eyes. On her other hand was a different mark, still strong, shimmering faintly white. "You have what you need, when you need it," the Witch explained with halfhearted irritability. "No more lies out of you."