"I don't believe in vanishing villages," Liriel said to her partner Bertrice, mounted on the horse beside her own.
"You and me both," said Bertrice, a slim, blonde woman with hair cropped to just below her ears. Like Liriel, she wore plain leather armor instead of the flowing robes most people expected of mages. That costume might look impressive but wasn't very practical for riding through the countryside. "And I don't like that emanation of vague menace."
The raven perched on Liriel's saddle horn squawked in agreement. "As far as I'm concerned, it's downright offensive," Liriel said. "As if any halfway competent sorcerer couldn't scent the odor of magic in that overblown effect." She ran her fingers through her sweat-dampened shock of short, brown hair. "Notice anything odd about that patch of woods?"
"You mean, besides being older and denser than the rest of the forest we just rode through?" Bertrice waved at the sparsely scattered, second-growth trees on either side of the rutted lane. She shaded her eyes against the noonday glare. "It looks too regular, like the same six trees duplicated over and over."
"Which also screams 'magic' to me. Good observation. You'd make a fine illusionist."
Her friend laughed. "No, I'll leave that devious magic to you. Give me a nice, straightforward fireball or lightning bolt."
"Let's find out what Brom thinks of it." Sorcerous illusions fooled only human sight, not a bird's or animal's. "Fly ahead and tell us what you see," she told her familiar. Closing her eyes, she invoked the link between her mind and the raven's.
With a caw of acknowledgment, Brom launched himself into the air and flew straight ahead into the trees. But, as Liriel saw through his eyes, the dark, glowering trees weren't there. As she'd expected, the road continued unbroken except for the sunlight-dappled woods they'd traveled through all morning. She silently directed the bird to continue following the track. The trees thinned out until the road wound through a stretch of grassy meadow into a cluster of thatch-roofed houses. Brom flapped higher above the village and spotted the stream with the mill that gave the hamlet its name. She mentally called him to return to her.
"Just as we thought," she said after the bird alighted in front of her on the saddle. "The town's still there, behind that stage set of menacing forest."
Bertrice nudged her horse into a trot up to the edge of the supposed forest. "I've never seen an illusion of that size before. No offense meant to your talent, but could you do that?"
"Maybe for a few minutes." Liriel walked her own horse to the verge of the sorcerous mirage. "Whoever made this can maintain it permanently, judging from the disappearing village rumors. Amazing."
"I guess that's where we have to look for Lord Malkus."
Liriel sighed. "He should've listened to the locals and stuck to the main road. What possessed him to try a so-called shortcut, anyway?"
"I'd have expected him to take the long way home, if anything. If I had the Duke for a father, that's what I'd do."
With a rueful laugh, Liriel agreed.
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