“Would’ve had it if you hadn’t shot me,” Ardaz remarked quietly.
“Would’no’ve shot ye if ye came in announced, or asked for,” Belexus replied in the same dry manner.
Ardaz shrugged and began looking once more.
“Come,” Belexus bade him, motioning for the wizard to follow him to Calamus. “I need go to the valleys below in any case. Might be that we’ll find it along the way.”
Down the pair went on the back of the magnificent steed, Calamus seeming to hardly notice the added burden of skinny Ardaz. The wizard complained continually about the wind whistling through the holes against his backside, but his grumbling fell away soon enough, when they spotted a patch of blue on a ledge halfway down the sheer cliff. It proved a tricky maneuver, but one worth making-or, Belexus realized, he’d have to listen to Ardaz complaining forevermore. The ranger brought the pegasus in as close as possible to the ledge and Ardaz, holding Belexus’ bow, leaned out to the side, hooked the brim of the hat, and slipped it free of its perch.
The ensuing shriek startled both wizard and ranger as a curled black cat fell out of the hat, plummeting down the cliff. Desdemona was a quick one, though, fast sprouting wings, fur going to feather, and then drifting down lazily, cawing in protest.
“Oh, silly puss,” the wizard muttered, and he said it again when they found Desdemona on the valley floor, comfortably curled yet again in the nook of a pine tree root.
The cat didn’t even bother to open an eye.
Their hunting took the better part of the day, but Belexus finally brought down a white-tailed deer, and he and Ardaz had a fine meal as they sat around a blazing fire that evening, Calamus standing stoically nearby, Desdemona curled comfortably on the wizard’s warm lap.
“I canno’ ask ye to come along,” the ranger remarked unexpectedly, in all seriousness. “’Tis me own fight, I say, one I’ll be making for me friend.”
“Didn’t we already have this argument?” Ardaz asked, seeming somewhat confused. He began reciting the words of their previous debate, but got hung up on “canno’” again, and shifted his line of muttering to the recitation of many other funny-sounding ranger speech patterns.
“We had the fight,” Belexus finally interrupted after about fifteen minutes of the rambling. “But by me own thinking, we did’no’ finish it.”
Ardaz sobered and stared him right in the eye. “That the son of Bellerian could be such a fool,” the wizard answered with a derisive snort. “And Andovar was Belexus’ friend alone, then?”
“I’m not for saying-”
“But you are!” Ardaz retorted, waggling a long and pointy finger the ranger’s way. “You are saying that very thing, I do daresay! And putting the wraith out as your enemy alone, though in truth, all the living world should hate the thing. And you’ll not find a dragon-a true dragon and not one of those silly whipping things of the swamp-so easy a foe! But easier the dragon will be, I say, if stubborn Belexus has a friend beside him. And a friend with a trick or two, ha, ha! And one who’s good at dodging arrows, to boot!
“Or to butt, I suppose,” the wizard ended dryly.
“How can I be asking?”
“Who said you should?” Ardaz replied with a derisive snort. “Oh, I’m going, and don’t you think you can stop me.” He stared at the fire for a moment, then looked up at the crisp night sky. “A dragon,” he muttered, suddenly talking more to himself than to Belexus. “Fancy that! Oh, but I’d dearly love to meet one! Wouldn’t we, Des?”
Desdemona yawned and stretched, and then, as if the wizard’s words had only then registered, opened wide her mouth in a vicious hiss and smacked the wizard across the face, only his thick beard preventing him from showing three bloody lines from fully extended claws.
“Beastly loyal,” Ardaz mumbled.
“I’d not be so loyal, meself, if me friend was leading me to the likes of a dragon’s lair,” Belexus put in.
“Oh, but you would!” Ardaz countered with hardly a thought. “And you shall, and if you live, you shall thank me for the company, ha, ha!”
The ranger started to reply, but found that he had no sincere argument. Of course, if the situation had been reversed, he would go along with the wizard, and, thus, he had to allow Ardaz a similar show of loyalty. That, above anything else, settled the argument in the ranger’s mind, and in his heart. He could not deny Ardaz the opportunity to join him in this quest, whose ultimate implications for the good of all Ynis Aielle went far beyond avenging the death of Andovar. “Yer friendship is truly a blessing of the Colonnae,” he said in all seriousness.
Ardaz beamed. “Together then!” he said happily. “A party of two.”
Desdemona opened a sleepy eye and looked up at him, as if to ask if she had to hiss and swipe again.
“Er, three,” the wizard promptly corrected.
Across the way, Calamus snorted and stamped a hoof.
“Four,” both ranger and wizard said together, sharing a laugh.
Belexus slept better that night than on any of the previous since he had left Avalon. Ardaz, though, lay awake a long, long while. There weren’t many dragons in Ynis Aielle-fortunately! The few about had been created by evil Morgan Thalasi centuries before, but fortunately, they were not an overly fruitful lot, more concerned with making a meal of each other and stealing treasure than propagating the line. On those rare occasions that a meeting of dragons did produce an offspring-when the female won the inevitable fight after mating-that young dragon would quickly go out into the world in search of its own treasure hoard, and either meet its end at the claws of another dragon, at the end of a wizard’s lightning bolt-Brielle was particularly adept at putting an end to the unnatural things-or, in one notable case, at the end of a warrior’s sword. Belexus was perhaps the only mortal man alive who had ever seen a dragon and survived; certainly he was the only one who had ever killed a dragon.
But that had been a young one, barely larger than the pegasus the ranger now rode. If Brielle’s magic had located the sword in the lair of a dragon deep in the great Crystals, then likely it was an ancient wyrm, one of the originals Thalasi had created as a scourge to the world. And given the weakening of magic, a full-grown dragon might well prove to be the most powerful creature in all of Ynis Aielle.
Ardaz did not sleep so well.
Chapter 9
What Thief, This?
SHE FINALLY AWOKE, rising up from the depths of a complete, dreamless darkness, an emptiness of thought, an emptiness of hope. The young witch blinked open her eyes and tried to sit up, but found to her horror that her hands were tightly tied behind her, that her whole body was bound, but not by any material strands. Black filaments of swirling vapor wrapped about her, holding her physical form tightly, but even worse for Rhiannon, binding her magic, as well. She tried to reach into that well of power, to bring forth a brilliant light that would burn away these gripping filaments.
But she found no channel, no access at all.
“A small trick I learned,” the deep voice of the wretched wraith came. With great difficulty, Rhiannon managed to turn her head enough to regard the ugly creature.
“I find many valuable assets with this form that my old friend gave to me,” Mitchell said, and it seemed to the witch as if he was trying to smile, and that only made him seem all the more grotesque.
“No friend’d ever…” Rhiannon began, but her words were lost before they ever gained momentum, as the wraith walked, glided, over to stand beside her, his smirk more unnerving than any howl of anger, than any growled threat. For in that misshapen smirk, Rhiannon recognized true confidence. The wraith had taken a full measure of her in their battle, and he knew now, beyond any doubt, that he was the stronger.
He continued to look down upon her, to smirk at her, to belittle her. “Who are you?” he demanded at last.
The young witch mustered up all the defiance she could find, wrenched against the sticky black filaments, and looked away.
Almost immedi
ately those black filaments tightened about her, choking her, crushing her, squeezing every part of her body so tightly that she was sure they were halting the blood flow! Rhiannon looked back at the wraith and saw the monster standing there, eyes closed, fist clenching-and that fist, Rhiannon knew, was clenching the bonds, as if they were some half-substantial extension of the wraith’s fury.
No, the witch realized, not half-substantial, for surely they were squeezing the very life out of her.
“Rhiannon,” she gasped, and the wraith’s hand relaxed, and so did the bonds.
“I have little patience, young fool,” Mitchell said in that awful resonant voice. “There are greater foes than you yet to be murdered.”
Rhiannon set her jaw firmly and determined to die bravely-she held little doubt that the wraith would kill her, but this evil thing would get no important information from her. She told herself resolutely that it would kill her whatever she did, whatever she said, and so the less she said, the better for those friends she left behind.
“It is obvious that you are of Avalon,” Mitchell reasoned. “Your magic, at least, holds the same flavor as that of another I know, though yours is not nearly as powerful.” His cackling laughter belittled her even more, though Rhiannon wasn’t certain of the truth of that last statement. She could only suppose that this monster had previously battled with her mother, before her duel with Thalasi, before Thalasi had reached too far and weakened the very realm of magic.
“I had thought you Brielle’s sister, perhaps,” the wraith went on. “A cousin, at the least, for there is indeed a resemblance.” He snorted derisively, his black breath seeming a tangible cloud before his ugly, pallid face. “In foul temperament as well as in appearance!
“But you did call out to Brielle, you see,” the wraith teased. “In the last moments before I caught you, when you were but a feeble bird. You called out for your mother, and so you are the witch’s daughter, Avalon’s daughter! Of that I have little doubt, and that, my dear Rhiannon, makes the kill all the sweeter! Wretched offspring of wretched witch.”
“And if I be that?” Rhiannon said defiantly, not disagreeing, for she understood that the wraith was not probing for confirmation to its suspicions, but was telling her what it knew to be the truth. The not-stupid creature had figured out her lineage, and she would never find the heart, or the wherewithal, to change its thoughts.
“Brielle’s child,” the wraith answered, “and in killing you, I am destroying Brielle’s heart.”
“Might that I am, and might that I’m not,” she said coolly, though inside, the young witch was surely terrified.
“Might?” the wraith echoed skeptically, and again came that demeaning chortle. “You are, Rhiannon…” Mitchell paused as he uttered that name, for he knew that name, from somewhere.
“Rhiannon,” the wraith said again, rolling out the syllables. Yes, Mitchell knew that name, from another time, another place, another world.
Rhiannon… an old song about a witch.
“Rhiannon,” the wraith said again, eying the bound woman directly. “And do you ring like a bell through the night?”
The young witch returned a perplexed look, and the wraith bellowed hysterically.
“Daughter of Brielle and of what sire?” the cunning wraith asked. “Or do you even know, so likely it is that your mother has bedded half the northern folk.”
The insult would have been lost on the innocent young woman had it not been for Mitchell’s biting tone. Rhiannon narrowed her eyes and tried again to reach into the realm of magic, but that only caused the smoky bonds to tighten further, squeezing the thoughts from her mind.
“I had a companion when I first came to Ynis Aielle,” the wraith went on, clarifying his own reasoning as he spoke. “Another of the ancient ones, for yes,” he added quickly, seeing the spark of recognition in Rhiannon’s blue eyes, “I was of that select group. My old friend, this companion, Jeffrey DelGiudice by name, was quite fond of your mother, and she of him, I believe.”
“No friend o’ yers!” Rhiannon blurted, and surely she tried to take back the words as soon as she spat them.
There it was. Mitchell knew without any doubt, from the vehemence of her protest, if nothing else. She appeared to be the right age, since the Battle of Mountaingate had occurred about a score of years before. And she bore a name that came straight out of that other world, that world before Ynis Aielle, the world that Jeffrey DelGiudice knew. Rhiannon was Brielle’s daughter, as she was the daughter of Jeffrey DelGiudice! Until that moment, the wraith had thought that its worst enemy in all the world was the ranger Belexus; until that very moment, Hollis Mitchell had almost forgotten about his former companion, the man who had throttled his plans for glory on the field of Mountaingate, the man whom the wraith hated above all others, whom he had hated in life, and so, too, now in death. He almost lashed out then, with his undead touch, with his deadly mace, to utterly destroy this offspring of that man.
But Mitchell calmed, and quickly. There was too much yet to be done, too many enemies yet to face. DelGiudice had not shown himself in the last war; the Black Warlock, as much Martin Reinheiser as Morgan Thalasi, had not mentioned the man at all, yet surely, if DelGiudice were still alive, the Black Warlock would have seen him as a prime threat. Too many questions flitted about the wraith’s thoughts, and Mitchell was cunning enough to find a bit of patience. He scooped Rhiannon up under one arm, and how she thrashed! And Mitchell allowed her that, even more, by loosening up the filaments, so that he could enjoy the tangible proof of her complete terror. Of course, her writhing did nothing to weaken the powerful wraith’s grip, and baggage in tow, Mitchell started away, thoughts swirling, trying to formulate some plan of action.
Most of all, the wraith understood that he had to move quickly. Rhiannon was Brielle’s daughter, and they were too close to Avalon for comfort. And so, with his most valuable prisoner in tow, the wraith made a straight run to the west, toward the Kored-dul Mountains, toward the bastion of blackness known as Talas-dun.
The sharp edge of a broken stone brought him back to his senses. He tried to move away from the stabbing pain, but found instead a hundred hurts along every part of his body. As far as he remembered, he had been hit only once, and that a glancing blow, but apparently he had landed in a bad way. Worse yet, there loomed a coldness within him, colder than the winter, a creeping chill that he suspected was eating away at his very life force. Wicked indeed was the bone mace of the wraith.
Bryan’s thoughts shifted quickly away from his own troubles to those he feared Rhiannon was now facing. Finding strength in that foul notion, the young half-elf rolled over and forced himself to all fours, then willed himself up to his knees alone, that he might scan the area. All he saw was the carnage that had been Corning, the rubble that had been his home, with no sign at all of the witch, or of the undead monster. Breathing hard from both exertion and pain, Bryan somehow managed to get to his feet. His first attempt at a step ended in an unbalanced stagger to the side, Bryan crashing hard against the remnants of a wall, that stone being the only thing keeping him upright. Again small explosions of pain erupted throughout his body, and again, that creeping, icy coldness reached a bit deeper, a bit closer to his heart.
But he staggered on, from wall to wall, searching every crevice, every nook in the area. So many bones littered the place, but no fresh kills. No Rhiannon.
He believed that if she had escaped, she would have run off to the east, back toward the river and allies, but he went to the west gate first, for that was the direction the wraith would likely have taken her if it had caught her.
The carnage was even worse, the destruction complete, in that area. The great western gate of Corning, so thick and strong, an image of security-false security!-that had emboldened the folk of Corning for so long, had been hit by some unearthly explosion, had been blasted from its massive iron hinges and blasted apart. In staring at the piles and piles of bones, both talon and human, at the rusting weapon
s and armor, young Bryan could well imagine the mighty struggle. This had been the main surge, the focal point of Corning’s fall, and so the half-elf was not surprised when he happened upon a delicate skeleton, lying amidst a pile of many, many talon bones. In trembling hands, he took the skull, gently, lovingly, and lifted it up before his moistening eyes.
He had known, of course, that Meriwindle, his father, had fallen in the defense of Corning. All logic had told him so; there was no way brave Meriwindle would have left the city while any stood to defend it, and given the massive swarm of talons, no way he could have escaped afterward. But still, Bryan had always held out a little corner of his heart for hope. Perhaps his father had been taken prisoner, he had often silently prayed, or perhaps Meriwindle had run off to the west, to work as his son worked, an independent thorn in the side of the talon army. That was the fantasy that young Bryan held most dear: that his father was alive and fighting in the west, that one day he would meet up with gallant Meriwindle and together they would chase talons all the way back to Mysmal Swamp.
This delicate skull, that of neither a human nor a talon, defeated that fantasy, and all the others, and now young Bryan had to admit in his heart what he had been speaking openly for all these months.
“What thief, Father?” he asked quietly, falling to his knees but keeping the delicate skull steady before his eyes. “What thief has stolen your smooth flesh and drank of your blood? What talon sword or what magic? What carrion bird, what worm? I would strike them down, my father, every one! I would avenge your death, but hollow, I fear, are my words and my efforts.”
Bryan paused and rocked back, black despair nearly overwhelming him and allowing that cold chill to sink a bit deeper. Hollow indeed were his efforts, he thought, for no matter how many talons he killed, no matter whether he killed the wraith or the Black Warlock himself, it suddenly seemed to make no difference; the skull was an empty bone, lifeless, fleshless. The brain that had guided Meriwindle had been eaten by the worms. The warmth that had ever come forth from Meriwindle’s heart had been plucked by buzzards.
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