In the morning, once the tide of Aethyr ran strong out on the etheric, Valandario stuffed the black crystal down the front of her tunic. She took her sword in her left hand and the staff in her right and walked back to the tower door. After a brief invocation to the powers of Aethyr, she stepped over the threshold and felt the etheric forces gathering around her. By tapping with the staff, she determined that she could safely walk some three feet in.

She laid the staff down and with the sword slashed a circle out of the tall grass, just a small one, perhaps two feet across. She took the black crystal and placed it in the center, then picked up her staff again. She’d barely begun the ritual invocations when she saw a glimmering point of turquoise light appear above it.

“Be welcome in the name of the Light!”

The point expanded to a circle and changed to a pale lavender. The circle extended itself into a shimmering silver cylinder, some ten feet tall. Within the smokelike interior another turquoise point appeared and gleamed, then swelled itself into a vaguely manlike shape, glowing with white light. The King of Aethyr himself had deigned to appear.

With a swing of her arm, Valandario used the staff to sketch out the sigils of Aethyr. The sword she laid crosswise at her feet. The King acknowledged her with a nod.

“Have you brought this crystal back to us?” The thought came to her mind as a chorus of voices, not a single voice, even though a single figure floated inside the pillar.

“I have,” Val said. “I believe it has been consecrated in your name.”

“You are correct in that. We shall retrieve the shadow, for that is what this black stone is, and reunite it with its true self. Child of Air, break the circle!”

Val laid the staff down across the edge of the circle in the grass. The spirit stone began to glow, first with its usual dark fire, then with a brighter, cleaner light. It shone gray, turned silver, and with a sound like a pair of hands slapping a drum, it rose from the earth. It hovered some three feet above the grass for a few heartbeats, then began to spin, slowly at first, then faster, ever faster until with a burst of light as blinding as a lightning flash, it disappeared. From the sky above came three booming knocks of no natural thunder.

“The crystal has gone to its true home!” the King’s voice echoed the thunder. “The Great Ones approve.”

“The working is done,” Val called out. She knocked the butt of her staff three times on the ground. “May any spirits bound by this ceremony go free.”