Free Storms of Destiny by A. C. Crispin

bustle
Sense the Forest and its mind
Sense its bone and vein and muscle.”
    This time the Hthras was seeing the hunting party through the eyes of some small animal crouched frozen only a few feet from the trail, its every instinct insisting that safety lay in non-movement. Khith watched the Elders with the Peacekeepers walk by, following the faint trail it had forged all those months ago. The Trackers snarled and lunged on their leashes. Thinking about what jagowa teeth could do to its softly furred hide brought Khith up out of the trance, panting with fear.
    Calm, stay calm. You’ll only escape them if you can out-think them.
    Food and a flask of water went into the now bulging pack.
    Khith stood looking down at the stacks of scrolls it could not carry. Best hide them. If they find them, they’d likely destroy them.
    The unsteadiness caused by the potion was waning now.
    Khith stacked the scrolls, balancing them in a high, tottery stack across its long, furred arms, then the scholar headed out of the room, moving quickly. The alchemy laboratory— that would be the safest place. I’ll bar the door, then get out through the back.
    Minutes later the scrolls were concealed as much as possible, and the main door off the corridor was barred from the inside.
    Khith hurried back toward its quarters and the waiting pack. As the Hthras trotted along, it chanted another verse of the farseeing song.
    “See with eyes of hunting birds
See the world with eyes of raptors
See that they may not see me
See so they won’t become my captors.”
    The scholar stumbled as another vision unfolded. Again it was seeing through the eyes of another. It was a strange overlay. “Behind” the vision, Khith could still make out the Ancients’ corridor, the diffuse lighting following it along as it moved.
    But the vision was as close and immediate as if the scholar were standing beside its would-be captors. The hunters were having problems fording a sluggish stream.
    Tiny, savage swimmers waited there, ready to attack any warm flesh unwary enough to be placed close to their fanged jaws. The hunters tested the water, then wandered off downstream to look for a better, safer place to ford.
    I’ve gained a few more moments … must hurry!
    When the Hthras reached its quarters, it quickly assembled the makings for yet another spell—this one for confus-ing Trackers. This spell was an old one it had learned from one of its own kind, not from the Ancients. But the Hthras who had taught this rede to the youngster had died long ago, leaving behind no apprentice. The old magics were being lost. The Hthras Wise Ones these days practiced only healing spells, and few of them.
    Khith glanced over the ingredients, mentally checking them off.
    Thread, spun from a corpse’s hair. Beetle carcasses, and a large, wax-dipped fringe-leaf. And a special distillation of a powerful herb that was as subtle as it was intoxicating.
    Quickly, Khith stuffed the ingredients into the belt it wore around its slender waist. Then it grabbed the overloaded pack, swung it up into place, and fastened the harness across its narrow, soft-furred torso.
    Out, into the hallway, turn right, two lefts, up a stairway, then left again. Another stairway, and another. Khith raced up the Ancients’ wide-flagged stairs, up and up, until it reached ground level. The Hthras paused once again to farsee. This time it was difficult to gain any images. The spell was waning quickly.
    Another insect was the best “view” the scholar could find.
    They had crossed the stream and were making good time, moving nearly as fast as the lunging jagowas that led the procession. Khith’s heart pounded. Now they were only minutes from the Ancients’ city.
    Khith’s hastily formed plan called for it to travel west, then north, crossing the Sarsithe, then heading up out of the rainforest into the Steppes that lay southwest of Severez.
    There were settlements aplenty on both the mainland colony of Kata or on