Sylara Helion's Arc

Chapter 2 of 10

Two days before the festival, Sylara knelt over her ritual stores and knew they would fail her. She spread the dried shrooms on a cloth. The caps were pale blue, the spore sacs shrunken. Festival-grade. Enough to give the people their yearly glimpse of the Helium Mother. Not enough to force a true answer from her. The question she carried was too deep for a soft dose. To crack it, she needed shrooms grown thick and potent, harvested at the peak of the frost. She had none. She knew who did. Sylara wrapped her cloak tight and crossed the grove to the far dwelling, where the walls glowed cold blue and no children played near the door. Silvaeth Dreamcaller kept the deepest stores of any Helivox. She also kept a distance from Sylara, and Sylara from her. Both of them had once measured a dose wrong. Both of them had watched someone come back changed. Silvaeth was grinding toxin at a stone bowl when Sylara entered. She did not look up. "The patient lived," Silvaeth said. "That is how I begin, before you ask. Three days, and the patient lived." She set down the pestle. "You want potent shrooms. I can smell your festival stores from here. They are weak." "The network is dying," Sylara said. "I need to ask the Helium Mother why. A weak dose gives a weak answer. I will drown in fog." Silvaeth studied her a long moment. Her scalp filaments stirred in the cold air. "I have shrooms grown at deep frost. Strong enough to open the door you want." She reached for a frost-fungus container on her belt, then stopped. "Strong enough to not let you back out. You know this dose. You gave it once. A young seer. Seven cycles." Sylara's skin flickered pale. "I know exactly what I gave her." "Then you know what you are asking me to hand you." Silvaeth opened the container. Inside, three caps sat dark blue and heavy, spore sacs swollen with purple light. She held them out. "I will not measure this for you. My hands did enough measuring. You carry your own risk." Sylara took the shrooms. They were cold and dense, twice the weight of her festival stores. Real weight. Enough to reach communion, or to not return. "Thank you," Sylara said. "Do not thank me yet." Silvaeth picked up her pestle again. "You wanted a dose that cannot fail. Now you hold one that cannot forgive." Sylara walked back through the grove with the caps sealed against her chest. She had her question. Now she had the potency to force an answer. But the potent dose was the same kind that had broken the young seer seven cycles ago. And tonight, before the festival, that seer would come and sit outside her door, and wait to be acknowledged, the way she always did.