Liamath — much to his chagrin — had lost the path, and it galled him to admit it. Of course, he meant ‘lost the path’ quite literally; what was missing was the literal path. Or, rather, the road he’d been riding along, thin overgrown cart-track that it was.
I suppose this is what happens when you haven’t been on an actual road in a good span of days, but I don’t have to enjoy it. There should still be a track.
— But track there was not, and as Swift picked cautiously along the growing strange pale twistings of the trees — the metallic call of creatures hidden in undergrowth now beginning to shimmer darkly — too many strangenesses told Liamath just what he and his steed were faced with:
There was a primordial cyst. And it was rupturing. This stretch of land was not safe.
Sensing his rider’s growing unease, Swift tossed his head and bared his fangs, pawing the mossy, clinging ground with a forehoof until Liamath leaned, maille chiming, to pat the gelding’s smoky neck.
“Shh. Shh, now, we’ll make our way out. Shh.”
Swift snorted, pawed once more, and stilled; Liamath took the opportunity to pull a long necklace of stoutly twined leather cord from under mantle, maille and tunic, rubbing the twisted hide between his fingers in a nervous fidget that belied his soothing words before lifting its pendant up to the wavering light of chaos-touched day.
Tiny stars drifted in the cerulean depths. Good.
Liamath clasped the rough prism in one hand, nicking flesh on its sharp edges. Watching the stars whirl with sudden purpose, he nudged Swift to turn sharply about and forge a new trail.
He’d lead them towards home.
-*-
Wayfinder: A rough, ragged oblong or prism of specially-selected crystal, which must be touched to a prominent local marker and anointed in one’s own blood under a starry sky in order to awaken its power. At any time afterwards, another touch of blood will call the lights inside the crystal to a flurry of activity as the crystal guides its owner back to that one chosen location. Some wayfinders may be attuned to a specific individual instead, or to call a specific individual to the crystal’s owner.
Another Hamsterish Hoard 