61 Zi’da 721
Oram had always known that Idalos teemed with spirits, whether ghosts from the beneath, or diri tied to some concept or place, or any number of other things. It was only in the last couple arcs, however, that he could interact with such things meaningfully. A diri connected with Faldrass, taking the form of an animate cooking tripod, had been the hunter’s first acquaintance with spirits. Then had come a wolf, complements of Karem and tied to the Element of Song. A bear spirit from Relaith, as yet only able to manifest vaguely and tenuously had come later still.
Some would likely revel in having such a convoy of spirits in tow; Oram could not deny that they had so far proved useful and, as far as he could tell, faithful allies. In spite of that, he could not help but feel uneasy about his associations with such strange beings. He was a creature of Idalos, born here and made of the stuff of this realm. Mortal and bound to return to said stuff before a hundred arcs were out. They -Amoach, Choir, the spirit bear Oram had not yet given a name- were not.
Rocky, too, was a spirit, albeit one bound to a concrete object: a statue of a horse that currently sat in Oram’s room. Perhaps that was all Oram was? A spirit currently bound to a particular body? That was what the priests taught, certainly. When the body died, Famula came to take your soul, which endured, somewhere else. And Oram had plenty of evidence to suggest that was true. People he knew had supposedly died had come back. One such had given him his current job.
The hunter did not care to dwell on such fussy, troubling, philosophical things. And yet now, as he contemplated bringing yet another spirit into his trial-to-trial life, he had little choice but to confront them, at least somewhat. The cold weather had settled in to stay. It would endure for the rest of this cycle and into the next. Being Adored of Ezere, Oram was safe from the winter’s predations, but his animals were not. Mule had suffered during his last outing, and Oram did not wish to endanger the loyal animal’s health needlessly.
He could simply use Rocky, of course, although that came with certain limitations. He realized, however, that he had an even better option, one that, for the duration of the cold weather, came with significantly fewer such limitations: he could call upon his connection with Ziell’s domain of winter to summon and bind a snow steed. That required bringing yet another spirit into his life, something he did not really wish to do. And yet, poor Mule’s very ties to the prosaic physical world, the things that made him familiar and comforting to the hunter, also made it unconscionable for Oram to expose him needlessly to the pitiless cold of Zi’da and Cylus.
With a reluctant sigh, Oram walked out into the woods that surrounded his house to get some privacy for what he was about to do next. It would require concentration, and besides, it just seemed appropriate to summon the snow steed with as much peace and solitude as possible…
