by W. C. Conner
Are you here? she thought, reaching out with her mind for any sign of his presence. The merest zephyr of a breeze caressed her face as she waited, hoping for an answer.
The gemstone is his reply, she realized, then turned to find Scrubby regarding her curiously.
“How did you get that back, Caron?” he asked. “Wil was wearing it when he left here.”
“Yes, he was,” she replied, a secret smile on her face. “He returned it to me just now.”
Morgan’s body lay on a plank table, his face cleaned of most of the evidences of war by the time Kemp’s measured tread brought him to the command tent, his bundle held closely to him, his face a mask of grief. When Scrubby realized who it was that Kemp bore in his arms, he turned away from Caron to follow the distraught blacksmith into the tent. Kemp placed Peg gently on the boards beside Morgan and leaned over her, listening to the rattling of her shallow breathing.
Tears sprang to Scrubby’s eyes as he beheld the grief on Kemp’s face. Wil, he thought, drowning in the reflected grief before him, we have already lost so many today. We need you here to help us. I cannot bear to see Kemp lose his Peg. And he bowed his head, unable to watch any longer, so overwrought was he by all that had happened.
“Fare you well, my love,” Kemp whispered, barely able to get even those words out past the tears that choked him. “Wait for me upon the other side.” And with those words, he placed his lips to Peg’s for what seemed to be the only possible kiss they would ever share upon this side.
Unnoticed by anyone in the tent, the briefest pinpoint of intense pure white light appeared between their lips where they touched.
As Kemp sank to his knees and bowed his head beside Peg’s broken body, her breathing eased and her eyes fluttered open. Her hand reached out and very gently touched the straw colored hair of the head bowed before her.
“Kemp,” she whispered, “I am here.”
Scrubby’s head rose at the sound of the whispered words and his breath caught in his throat as Peg’s hand caressed Kemp’s hair. You heard me, he thought, awestruck at the revelation. Caron’s elfstone and now Peg. You truly are here.
As the stars arose that night, the companions stood together before the bier of firewood upon which Morgan lay. Thisbe and Peg were arm in arm at his head. Tingle stood close at Thisbe’s right with Kemp at Peg’s left.
“I heard the rumor when we were still in Wisdom,” Thisbe began, “that Peg and I must not have shared the same mother, so different is our appearance. For once, those who repeated a rumor were correct.” She smiled fondly toward Peg. “In truth,” she continued, “neither do we share the same father.” Tingle smiled as he resurrected the subtle reaction by Peg that he had observed the night they all met at the crossroads what now seemed years before. Scrubby’s face showed the surprise felt by the others, save only Kemp standing close beside Peg, and Roland who smiled knowingly as he stood listening to all that was being said. But though Roland heard all that was said, yet were his eyes ever on Caron across the circle from where he stood.
“Morgan first named her his daughter to shield her from any taint of shame that might be attached to a young woman traveling in company with an older man. Yet even in that,” Thisbe continued, looking into Peg’s eyes, “I believe he was but reacting to what he felt in his heart, for he truly loved you as a daughter.” Her head lifted proudly as she looked around at those assembled. “And now, as did my father, I also name you his daughter for he surely loved you as well as ever he did me, and there is no resentment or jealousy in that for me. And for my part, I name you my sister for the love you bore our father and for the pure and steadfast love you bear Kemp.” Kemp’s large hand took Peg’s in his own as Thisbe spoke, and Peg’s face colored brightly.
Caron stepped forward and embraced them each in turn. When she embraced Kemp, Peg looked on calmly, no hint of jealousy in her eyes, secure now in her place at his side. As Caron finished, she turned and spoke. “I can think of no one of the companions who does not owe their life to Morgan in one wise or another,” she said, speaking loudly enough to be heard by those not standing within the circle, yet not so loudly that her voice would disturb the hush of the lowering darkness.
“The death of this honorable man upon this battlefield leaves all of us the poorer for his loss, yet so much the richer for the friendship and love and loyalty with which he gifted us in life. May his spirit speed unhindered to the other side to join those already there and to await us until we join him in our own times.”
With that, Morgan’s two daughters, their hands clasped in one another’s, took up lighted torches and threw them upon the pyre, then stepped backwards away from the oil soaked wood as the fire took hold.
The flames burned late into the night, releasing clouds of sparks that chased one another into the clear moonless sky, adding swirling stars to the constellations turning silently overhead. And somewhere beyond time, Morgan was greeted by a smiling Berlayne and by Thisbe’s mother, once again the beautiful maiden to whom Morgan had given his heart so many years before, no longer wretched nor smelling of the alcohol that had consumed her in life.
The following morning, Caron stood beside her father looking down the slope toward the silent battlefield before the transformed white walls of Blackstone. The soldiers of the allied armies moved through the carnage, burying most of the dead where they had fallen and placing the injured on wains to be taken to the surgeon’s tent. A pleasant breeze caused her unbound hair to blow about her face as she watched.
Around them stood Roland with his staff, the Dukes of Beramor and Altamont and their officers, General Galwan of Gleneagle and, of course, all of the companions from Wisdom. The carnage before them bespoke the senseless ferocity of the enemy in the battle which had occurred in the space of little more than one hour, and tears stood in Caron’s eyes as she regarded the seemingly countless dead and wounded. “Those who fell on this field were as precious to someone as Morgan was to us, father,” she observed, “and there are so many of them.”
“Far too many,” Gleneagle answered dolefully, “and each of them as valuable to us in their own way as Morgan, for they have each given the uttermost that any man can give for the love of his freedom and his land. We will have many families to console upon our return to Gleneagle.”
“There was one fallen who we will be unable to bury or send to the other side on flames and smoke as was Morgan,” Caron said softly, almost as if to herself.
Gleneagle placed a comforting arm across her shoulders. “You are right, daughter, for all now alive and countless unborn to come owe him a debt which we can never hope to repay.” He turned his head at that point in the direction of the companions who stood close together as if for support. “But that does remind me of one other responsible for our survival and to whom all honor is due.
“Master Scrublein,” he said, beckoning toward the swineherd whose coloring became mottled behind the pockmarks on his face.
Scrubby stepped forward and bowed his exaggerated bow, then straightened with a concerned expression on his face as he looked up at the prince. “Did I do something wrong?” he asked, looking to Caron for support.
“Far, far from it,” Gleneagle replied gently. He then looked about him to the others assembled there and, raising his voice slightly that all might hear him clearly, he continued, “I have called you forth, Master Scrublein, to thank you for all that you did. Caron has recounted to me your part in this tale, and though it may seem to you that you failed or that you, perhaps, did almost nothing at all, in truth, you did more by your reckless act of friendship than all the rest of this company together.” Scrubby’s expression had gone from concerned to perplexed.
“We were but a diversion, you see, out there where those brave men fell who will never again return to their homes and families. They could not have known, of course, that the real battle was taking place in the tower room where Wil faced Greyleige alone as he had been told he must, fighting a battle against a weapon h
e had not expected. The shade of my elven ancestor warned Wil that he would be facing a contest of magics, but I would imagine that even he anticipated Greyleige would employ the blunt force of battle magic as Wil summoned the powers of the talisman. They had no way to know the magic used would be the subtle magic of the spoken word. Your description of what you saw when you were in the tower suggests that Greyleige’s words had heavily ensorcelled Wil by the time you arrived. I’m certain that he had expertly plucked at the strings of arrogance and the hunger for power that are innate in the Great Wizards, and it appears that Wil responded strongly to the seductive song.
“It is true that Wil’s innate powers were far greater than Greyleige’s, but they were almost untested. It comforts me to think that perhaps the green elfstone gifted upon him by Caron helped him somewhat. But at the last there was only one magic strong enough to reach to Wil through the spell woven around him, and that was love, Scrublein. Your presence in that room broke through Greyleige’s lies and deceit. Had you not kept your promise to Caron and to Wil and to yourself, we would all be with Morgan on the other side.”
With those words, Prince Gleneagle and Princess Caron, followed immediately by the entire assemblage, dropped to both knees and bowed their heads before the simple swineherd from the small village of Wisdom hard against the Old Forest. Even Tingle with his injured leg was down on both knees, though he whimpered slightly with the pain.
“We honor your devotion, your courage, and your love, and we thank you for our lives and our freedom,” Gleneagle said humbly.
Caron looked up and smiled through her own tears. “And we mourn with you, Scrubby,” she added quietly. “We mourn the loss of our Wil,”
“By the powers,” the swineherd mumbled as tears sprang into his eyes, “please don’t do that. It’s just me, old Scrub.”
36
The next morning, Eldred approached the command tent. He was trailed by the eight other wizards, each of them carrying a small pack loaded for traveling. Their haggard faces clearly showed the strain from the collective spells they had maintained only three days before in the defense of the armies allied under Gleneagle. None of these, after all, were counted among the Great Wizards and only two of them were rated as Lesser Wizards. They were, for the most part, Simple Wizards specializing in the nurturing and healing of the land, doing their best to maintain the legacy of the long departed elves. That they had been able to collectively defy the terror of the seekers as they fled toward Wisdom and to blunt the evil on the battlefield flowing from Greyleige was no small tribute to their courage and perseverance.
As Gleneagle looked toward them, Eldred bowed. “Highness,” he said. “We are recovered sufficiently to take our leave. We ask your permission to withdraw and return to our brothers who await us in Wisdom.”
“You have earned the right to come and go as it pleases you,” the prince replied. “And, more, you have earned the respect and thanks of us all, for it was in no small part your collective magics that allowed us to remain on the field during Wil’s confrontation with Greyleige.”
Caron watched as the nine bowed and turned to leave. On an impulse, she fell in beside Eldred as he walked. He looked to her but kept walking.
“I have a question, Eldred,” she said. At the nod of his head she continued, “You are one of the Lesser Wizards, are you not?” Another nod of the head. “Was our presence on the battlefield a help or a hindrance to Wil?”
“There is no way to know for certain, Highness,” Eldred replied after a moment of thought, “but my belief is that it could only have helped him.” As her face brightened, he continued, “Just as the nine of us had to concentrate on maintaining our spells during the battle, so Greyleige had to keep some part of his mind upon the horrible creatures he had created and sent onto the field. Certainly he carried far more power than the nine of us combined, for he was among the most powerful of the Great Wizards in recent memory, yet the distraction of the battle could conceivably have caused a misstep, however slight, that opened a crack through which Wil could wiggle.” He gave Caron a sheepish smile. “At least, I like to believe we caused enough of a distraction to allow such an event.”
Caron returned his smile, then summoned her courage to ask the question to which she feared the answer. “There is one other thing I would ask,” she said. “Because of my elven heritage there are many things I can sense that others may not, but your own powers far exceed mine.” She hesitated a moment before plunging on. “Can you tell me anything of Wil?”
“His power lives on, Highness,” he said, “that much even the least of the Simple Wizards can sense. But I feel you are perhaps looking for more than that?” He looked at her shrewdly. “If you are asking me if the man still lives, my answer is that he does, but whether he does so within a human body, I do not know. I would gladly tell you if I knew more, but I do not.”
“I can ask no more than the truth from you which you have given,” Caron said. “Even the answer you have given, while not what I would wish, leaves me yet with hope, and hope can be a powerful thing.”
She smiled at him as she stepped aside and slowed her pace. “Farewell, Eldred. Take care upon your journey and look for me to visit you in the future.”
“Farewell ... Caron,” he replied, stumbling slightly upon the use of her name rather than her title. “My sense tells me we will, indeed, see one another in Wisdom in the not too distant future.” They each lifted an arm in a salute as the ragged little group of wizards passed her by on their way back to Wisdom.
It had been a full week since the battle, and the grim task of burying the dead had been completed. The bodies of the noble fallen such as Kolburn, and those injured who were well enough to travel, had already begun the ride back to Castle Gleneagle in the wagons that had carried food stores and weapons on the trip to Blackstone.
Roland rode up beside Gleneagle and Caron as they sat astride their horses waiting for their army to finish its departure preparations. He bowed his head in respect to both Prince and Princess, though his eyes lingered long on Caron before he spoke. “Highness, we depart with your blessing and we pray you will visit us at Castle Confirth as soon as ever you will.” Again, his gaze swept to Caron, no longer trying to hide the longing in his eyes.
“Our gratefulness for your loyalty is matched only by our joy at discovering that the army of Confirth marched in our defense rather than our annihilation,” the prince replied. “And, Roland, we truly mourn the loss of your brother, Berlayne.”
Roland acknowledged the prince’s words with a dip of his head. “He was lost before he died,” Roland said. “I mourn that loss almost more than I do his death.” With those words, he touched spur to flank and his horse moved smartly forward. One last time his eyes turned to Caron as he bowed his head to her, then he raised his arm and signaled the men of his army to move out. The sound of thousands of marching feet filled the air along with the dust they inevitably raised, and Roland began his trip to the castle he would be returning to for the first time as the eighteenth Duke of Confirth.
37
The nine wizards paused and looked across the narrow, shallow valley leading to Wisdom. The last time they had come this way they had not had the luxury of stopping to observe the panorama before them, for they had been under attack by Greyleige’s horrifying winged seekers. The dark crowns of the trees of the Old Forest waved in a breeze, attracting the attention of the group.
“Wisdom is indeed what we found here,” Eldred observed. The others nodded and voiced their agreement as they started the last short leg of their return trip to the little town which felt so very close to the magics of growing and love they had practiced all of their lives.
There seemed an unnatural, disquieting stillness which spread itself to the members of the little group as they entered the town, for nobody appeared on the street and no face showed in any window. The farther they went, the quieter they became. As they turned into the gate at Three Oaks the reason became evident. The
front door of the inn had been blasted from its hinges and there were five scorch marks upon the stones before the opening.
Eldred reached out with his senses to find any life there was to find. Weak life signs came from within and he crossed the shattered stoop and entered the common room where he found the three wizards who had stayed behind. He passed by the first two for they were obviously already upon the other side. The bloating of their remains testified to the fact they had been gone several days at the very least.
He stopped beside the youngest of the three who still breathed, though shallowly. Placing his hand upon the man’s brow, he called softly to him. “Gregory,” he said, “come to me and tell me where you are hurt that I may help you.”
The young wizard was unable to speak, but his mind reached out to Eldred. It is all of me, Eldred, for the use of my powers drained from me the bulk of my life force. We were attacked by black creatures who looked like men but clearly were more of Greyleige’s creations, for we saw such as them before we left Blackstone.
Stay with me, Eldred sent to Gregory when his thoughts abruptly stopped.
I’m here, Gregory replied, apparently coming back from a brief wizard’s sleep. It was clear that the power of the Old Forest blunted the powers of the creatures, for the five of them were barely a match for the three of us, though the hatred they carried was not diminished in the least. There was an extended period during which Gregory appeared to sleep once more before his thoughts returned to Eldred’s mind. Did you see the black scorched spots before the inn door?
We did.
They are all that is left of the creatures. So heavily did the powers of the Old Forest drain them that they spent themselves blasting the door from its hinges. We had held the door against them with our combined powers for a considerable time before they were able to push past our resistance and obliterate the door. It was damage from the blast that eventually took Timothy and Andrew. They turned to the wizard’s sleep as did I, but were so badly injured they were unable to recover. Andrew lost his battle five days ago and Timothy seven days ago.