Echo
She wasn't there, but could I could feel her presence in the canyon, like a distanct echo.
"She was here," I told Atizh.
"How do you know?" Of course, he couldn't see it. And how was I to explain. Laura and I were not twins, but we might as well have been thus were we connected. But I was no wizard. I couldn't tell my guide that I had followed an invisible thread here, that there was a distant echo of her that lingered in the air.
Instead, I dismounted and searched for some remnant of her--something to prove what I already knew, in every fiber of my being, to be true. My sister had been in this canyon. How long, I couln'dt say, and where she had ventured to past that, I didn't know. But I knew she had come here. Even the wind, whisting through the strange formations seemed to call her name.
"The locals believe this place belongs to the goddess of death. They say that if you hear the canyon call your name, you will die." Atizh said this matter-of-factly, as he might state the age of the formations or the kind of stone they were.
"She's not dead," I told him.
"I didn't say she was. But is unlikely we will find evidence of her here, even if she came this way." He looked at the sky, "And whatever the superstition may be, I would rather find myself in a city when night falls.
He was, though I did not want to admit it, correct on both counts. It was almost as if :aura's voice were telling me to be sensible. That a local guide would better find whatever marks she left behind anyway. And Atizh, being Thisaashou had relations with the Atlinthaian people and could probably hire someone easily.
I hung my head and remounted my horse, allowing him to lead me from the canyon and the strongest trace of mys sister I has sensed in days.
