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Tish rubbed its face and pondered, like it took a vast amount of effort to consider the proposition.
“I brought you a great sack of ghost-berries,” offered Harlin.
“Even though I haven’t said yes, yet?”
“I had to be prepared.” He held the sack out to the ogre.
“Let me think and ask the ancestors in my tent,” Tish said before disappearing into the tent.
“What are you negotiating here?” asked Ghul Lykos urgently. “We can’t trust a ogre to lead us through the Fae Wood. I know the way better than anyone.”
Harlin stopped him. “I’m not taking us through the Fae Wood. It would take too long. Tish is a Spirit Walker Ogre.”
“What’s that?” asked Daemona.
“A shaman, a priest of sorts, that can commune with the spirits of their departed ancestors. They can also travel through portals. That’s why some ogre raiding parties can be so tricky and deadly.”
Ghul Lykos took Harlin by the shoulder and whispered, “And you’re suggesting we trust one and enter their dream realm?”
Harlin nodded. “Yes, I am. Besides she could be big help in the Acheronian Swamp too. Muscle and primitive brain that knows almost as much about the Swamp as you do.”
“I still don’t think it’s a good idea. Seems dangerous. Like we’re asking for trouble,” Ghul Lykos said.
“Trust me, Tish will change her mind and take us through.”
“Her? That’s a her?” asked Daemona in shock.
Harlin grinned and nodded. “Yeah, I saved her from a pack of basilisks when she was sorely wounded. She owes me her life.”
Ghul Lykos broke in. “Still, I don’t like the idea of traveling through a ogre portal. What if we get trapped there or are ambushed by another pack of ogres coming the other way?”
“I don’t think it works like that.”
“Well, how does it work?”
Harlin looked to Daemona. “I think Daemona has the most experience with portals.”
Daemona looked at each of them. “I can move.” She demonstrated for them, vanishing in one spot and reappearing ten feet away. “But that’s as far as I’ve gotten so far.”
“What does it look like when you do?” asked Ghul Lykos.
Daemona puzzled at that. She had never thought about it. “It always happens so fast. It’s so dark I don’t see anything really.”
“Try again.”
She concentrated and ported several times around the clearing. Then she was in front of them again. “It’s like a world of shadows and I see everything, but through a smoky mirror.”
“Any ogres?” teased Harlin.
“No. Just reflections of what we see here right now.”
“Is it safe?” asked Ghul Lykos.
“I think so.”
Harlin interrupted. “So, then do you agree with me that we should take the shortcut through the Spirit Walker Ogre’s realm and save ourselves days, perhaps weeks of travel? And that is just to begin our journey through the Swamp.”
Daemona looked at the two men. Ghul Lykos shook his head, but Harlin was hopeful. “I don’t wish to go that way,” she said.
