Belexus surrendered to a chuckle, then turned and led the way down to the one stream crossing this valley. He looked to Ardaz, who pointed north again, and so north they went, picking their careful way, with even the wizard managing to keep his mouth shut after only a few sharp reminders.
The going was easy, and quiet enough with the footfalls hidden beneath the song of the stream, and soon they came in sight of the man, and it was indeed a man, sitting passively on a large stone, wearing only a slight white shift, though the weather was brutally cold. At first, both of them thought that Istaahl must have come, for who but a wizard could have survived in this land in winter in so flimsy a gown, but then the man turned to face them, and recognition only added to the confusion.
Ardaz, mistrusting his eyes, tried to hold the ranger back, but so elated was Belexus that he burst away from the wizard, scrambling over the slippery stones to get near to his long-lost friend. “Jeffrey DelGiudice!” he cried.
“Jeffrey DelGiudice,” the spirit echoed, the strange words sounding familiar. “Jeffrey DelGiudice.”
“Can it really be?” the ranger asked, skidding to a halt barely five feet from the spirit. “I’d thought ye lost to me and to all the world; the elves been saying that ye jumped from the ledge at Shaithdun O’Illume.”
“Stepped, not jumped,” the spirit replied before it understood what it was saying, before it could even consider the words. As those words registered, a perplexed look crossed the spirit’s features, and indeed, it did remember that moment, long ago-or was it just an instant past?-when it had gone to the call of Calae of the Colonnae.
“Twenty years, it’s been,” Belexus went on.
That settled the time question, though the spirit wasn’t quite sure of how long a year might be. “Thirty-one million, five hundred thirty-six thousand seconds,” it replied immediately, and then all it had to do was figure out what a second might be. And of course, it remembered, there was the matter of “leap year”…
Now it was Belexus’ turn to wear the perplexed expression, but it couldn’t hold against his sincere delight. “Twenty years,” he said, “and suren ye don’t look a day older.”
Ardaz skidded to a stop right behind the ranger, seeing the vision, hearing the words, but unlike with Belexus, they brought little immediate delight to the wizard. His first thought was that this was some trap by Thalasi, and not a very good one, for if the Black Warlock truly wanted Ardaz and Belexus to think this was DelGiudice standing before them, then he should have aged the man, at least.
“What is a day?” the spirit asked. “Truly this concept of time is confusing!”
The exasperation seemed real enough, and Ardaz, himself taken by the Colonnae to be trained among the stars, understood that feeling, understood it all too well. “By the Colonnae,” he whispered.
“Indeed,” DelGiudice replied.
“They took you in, my boy!” Ardaz reasoned. “The Colonnae took you from that ledge that starry night. Took you and trained you, as they trained myself, and Brielle, and Istaahl, and Thalasi, curse his name!”
“Trained?” the spirit echoed skeptically, and then shrugged its shoulders. “Perhaps. They showed me, is what they did.”
“All of it,” Ardaz reasoned.
“Not all, but much,” DelGiudice replied. “So very much!” He looked to Belexus, and felt a smile-and what a strange and wonderful feeling it was!-cross his face. “Jeffrey DelGiudice?” he asked. “Is that what I am called?”
“That is who you are,” Ardaz answered, “and you’ll remember it soon enough.”
“Me friend,” Belexus said, “suren ye’ve come back to us at a dark time, but one in which ye’re needed!” With that, the ranger reached out to clasp hands with Del-Giudice, and the spirit returned the motion, but as with the deer, DelGiudice’s hand passed right through that of the ranger, a most uncomfortable sight and feeling for poor Belexus, and one that sent Ardaz’ bushy eyebrows arching heavenward.
“Oh, there is that,” DelGiudice said, and he felt as if he should shrug, though he did not.
Chapter 11
The Warmth of Home
AT FIRST HE ran, tears in his eyes, anger and anguish ripping at his heart, and the awful coldness from the strike of the wraith’s bone mace sending dull aches through every muscle in his body, seeming to freeze the very blood within him. But he ran, for Rhiannon he ran, and when he was too tired to run, he walked, and when he was too tired to walk, he crawled. On and on he went, to the river first, and then north along its western bank. He vaguely considered that he was heading for Avalon, but in truth, he wasn’t even certain of where the enchanted wood lay, for he had only heard of it in the tales of his father and of Rhiannon, and he had never truly ventured far north of Corning.
The first night proved terrible for poor Bryan, wretched beyond anything the young half-elf, who had seen so much tragedy, could ever have imagined. The wind whipping across the frozen field gnawed at him, all the more for that inner chill that permeated his entire being. When he awoke, shivering, he knew that he was with fever, and when he tried to stand, he found that he could hardly feel his feet at all. Many times he fell hard to the ground, shivering and vomiting. Still, he went on with all the haste he could muster, stumbling often, half blind, half delirious. He would have stopped, would have just dropped down in the snow and let the cold take him, welcoming death, but he could not, he determined, he told himself without argument, for the young witch, the woman he had come to love, would not survive his failure. Bryan had to get to her mother, to someone, before he died.
Later that morning, Bryan spied a black dot, a wagon, creeping slowly through the foot-deep snow, and he staggered toward it, praying that his ordeal was at its end, that he could pass along news of Rhiannon and then die. He fell flat to the ground, though, and huddled in fear, for the creatures mercilessly driving the poor, battered horse team were not humans or elves but talons, ugly croaking brutes, cursing and snarling and beating the animals.
Outrage welled in Bryan and for a moment took away the delirium and the weakness and the cold. He wanted to charge that wagon and destroy the talons, wanted to transmute all of his frustrations and pains into sheer rage, to place all the blame upon those certainly deserving creatures and hack them down, and hack them again and again until their pieces were scattered about in the snow.
Again Bryan thought of Rhiannon and of his responsibility to her. If, as he suspected, the wraith had captured her, then he was her only hope. If he died, then so would she, without hope, and so the half-elf ducked lower behind a snow berm, even covered much of his body with the white powder, and let the wagon pass. Then he was moving again, and soon the pain and the weakness came back to him tenfold, buckling his knees. He had no idea of how far he had to go, hours or days or weeks, and so he denied it all, just kept his mind filled with images of Rhiannon and forced his body to move on, one foot ahead of the other, one knee ahead of the other.
Days blended together, time became irrelevant except that he felt colder in the darkness of night. Bryan went beyond hunger, beyond any sensation in his hands and feet, and still he scratched along, eating snow, surely no colder than the great dark iciness that filled every corner of his battered body. He saw other talon bands and avoided them, for even if he could have found some way to temporarily dismiss his responsibility to Rhiannon, he was no longer in any condition at all to fight. He would have discarded his sword, his father’s sword, his most precious possession, simply to lessen the weight he carried, except that he felt he could not even find the strength to draw it from its scabbard.
Then he was beyond thought, beyond even the images that had for so long sustained him. He crumpled in the snow one night, beyond pain, beyond hope, beyond direction, and then, it was simply over. Bryan could go no farther, not even another inch, even if that inch would have taken him right to Rhiannon, even if that inch would have somehow freed his love from some horrid fate. There was no more strength, nothing, just the cold an
d the black.
He curled up to die, almost called out for the spirit of Death to come to him and whisk him from the agony.
But it was Brielle who came upon him. She had been restless since Belexus had left, had been looking throughout her forest and then beyond her borders, seeking her daughter, praying for Rhiannon’s return. One night she had sensed a presence and had thought it Rhiannon, but it soon blackened, became complete darkness, and she knew it to be the wraith, for she had battled Mitchell before. And she was very afraid then, thinking that her daughter might have encountered the undead fiend. But Brielle could not get out of Avalon that night in time, for she was in the north of the forest, and the sensations proved but fleeting feelings and were gone before she could truly find their focus. Since that night, though, the Emerald Witch had stayed closer to the southwestern edge of the forest, looking mostly south, along the river.
It was more than luck, then, it was the bond of love, that the last word Bryan uttered before he slumped for that final time in the snow was “Rhiannon.”
And that word carried on wintry winds, to the anxious ears of the witch of Avalon, and she followed its trail, backtracked its course to find the half-elf lying cold in the snow, Death hovering about him. Only the greatest warmth in all the world could have denied that looming specter, and indeed, Brielle of Avalon was the greatest warmth in all the world. Death did not tread close to the Emerald Witch, and she would not let go of this young hero, not while he held information about her daughter that she so desperately needed to hear. She gathered Bryan up in her arms, used her magic to make herself and the half-elf something less than substantial, and let the wind carry them back across the miles to Avalon.
“You will take all of your soldiers up high,” the Black Warlock instructed his talon commander, a muscular brute named Kaggoth. “To the battlements, to the parapets, to every ledge and every window of every tower. The zombies will hold the low ground about the courtyard.” Thalasi was agitated, for he knew that Mitchell approached Talas-dun, with more than a few talons scooped up in his black wake, and the Black Warlock knew, too, that the wraith could prove to be his greatest ally, or his deadliest enemy.
Thalasi’s trepidation was not lost on Kaggoth, no stupid creature by talon standards. “You fears it?” Kaggoth dared to ask.
All of the Black Warlock’s worries came out in a sudden, angry rush. “You dare to question me?” he roared, and Kaggoth shrank back, only then realizing the deadly mistake. The other talons in the throne room scrambled for cover. By the precedents set in Talas-dun, Thalasi should have lashed out magically then and reduced the upstart talon to a pile of unrecognizable gore; the Black Warlock knew that he should do so, as he had on those few occasions when talons had shown less than absolute loyalty in the past. A sudden mighty stroke would obliterate the upstart and thus cement the unquestioning loyalty of the others. He should have done that-every creature in the room, Kaggoth included, fully expected him to-but he could not waste even the slightest of his less-than-considerable magical powers on a mere talon. Not with the likes of the wraith approaching.
“Wretched beast,” Thalasi scolded instead, trying to sound ferocious. Out of the corner of his eye, Thalasi noticed that the other talons relaxed just a bit, even dared to come forward, and so, just as a precaution, he willed a handful of zombies, who had been standing impassively behind one of the room’s huge tapestries, to move defensively near to him.
“I am considering whether or not to have my pets here dismember you,” Thalasi said calmly to the talon commander. He brought a finger up to stroke his chin, to appear thoughtful, to make Kaggoth sweat.
Kaggoth instead glanced around at the other talons, noting the tiny nods of support. Perceptive Thalasi saw those movements, too, and he realized that if he set the zombies into motion, the talons would take up Kaggoth’s cause and he would have a major fight right here in the throne room. “Perhaps I will overlook your impudence this one time,” he said. “We are all on edge after what has happened. As to your question, no, I do not fear the wraith. Not while I possess this.” He held up his black-burnished staff, the Staff of Death. “But I do maintain a healthy respect for a creature as powerful as Hollis Mitchell. Take your soldiers up high, and keep them up high. Too many talons have died already. I see no need to risk any more while I have the command of a zombie army.”
Kaggoth eyed him for a long while, confused, suspicious, then nodded and turned to go.
“And,” Thalasi called abruptly, stopping the talon in its tracks and turning it about to face him, “if you entertain thoughts of allowing the wraith to do battle with me, in the hopes that perhaps Mitchell will destroy me, then know that your hopes are foolhardy at best and surely misguided. I am Morgan Thalasi; do not forget that! And even if, by some wild chance, your hopes came to fruition and Mitchell proved the stronger, then consider what life you might know under the rule of the wraith. Or your unlife, I should say, for Mitchell will not suffer you, any of you, to live, and will surely tear your spirits from the realm of Death and hold you undead under his power. I could do the same, do not doubt.” He flashed that awful staff again. “Yet I am a merciful lord. So go, Kaggoth, and remember your allegiance.”
Kaggoth nodded again, slowly, deliberately, then motioned to two nearby talons, his lieutenants, and exited the room.
Thalasi breathed a sigh of relief and leaned forward in his chair, considering the forthcoming scenario. He did well to keep his talons up high on the walls, so he believed. It was possible that Mitchell would be able to exert considerable control over the undead soldiers; perhaps the wraith would even prove strong enough to wrest their blind allegiance away from Thalasi. But Thalasi and his talons would then hold the high defensible positions, and the loyalty of the talons would be unwavering when faced with the choice of Thalasi or horrid Mitchell.
But how confusing it had all become! And how pitiful! Only a few short months ago, the Black Warlock had been on the verge of conquering the world, and now he feared losing even Talas-dun, his last bastion, the heart of his power. Mitchell was coming in with many talons in his wake, so it had been reported, and Thalasi did not know if that was a good thing or a bad. Did the presence of talons, a race aptly nicknamed the children of Thalasi, mean that the wraith was returning as an ally? Or did it portend disaster for Thalasi? For if Mitchell turned against him, not only might he be able to wrest away the zombies, but he would have a considerable talon force of his own.
If that was the case, Thalasi wondered if he could hold out against the wraith. He looked to the Staff of Death again, his most powerful of creations, and hoped that its powers had not too greatly diminished, as had the Black Warlock’s own.
Truly she was exhausted after the tremendous expenditure of magical energy, but Brielle would not slow her efforts to breathe warmth back into the cold body of Bryan of Corning. She spent days with him in the heart of Avalon, tending him, warming him, coaxing him back to life, and finally, after nearly a week, the young half-elf opened his weary eyes.
“Rhiannon,” he said at once, a clear note of alarm in his voice.
Brielle, despite her fears for her daughter, quieted him, knowing that he was not yet ready. Patience, she told herself. That would be the only way to get the whole story, and get it correctly.
By that night, Bryan was much stronger, and awake again. And when he told her, her worst nightmares came true. Bryan feared that Mitchell had caught Rhiannon, and had either killed her or taken her captive, and when Brielle considered the sensations that had come to her that night nearly two weeks before, she knew that the young half-elf was correct. Mitchell had not killed Rhiannon, of that the Emerald Witch was certain. If Rhiannon died, Brielle’s heart would feel it, no matter how many miles separated them. But he had taken her, or was herding her, chasing her, else she would have surely returned to Avalon.
The Emerald Witch stood silent in a field later on that clear evening, looking up at the starry canopy of Ynis Aielle. She had to
regain her strength, after the flight to Bryan and the many hours of magical tending, and then she had to look far and wide, had to call to her animal friends to act as spies, had to search to the ends of the world until her dearest Rhiannon was found.
But in her heart, she already knew.
Brielle understood where the horrid wraith, Thalasi’s pawn, would take so valuable a prisoner, and she knew, too, that that place, the black fortress, was beyond her powers.
So she stood quiet under the stars, her heart breaking, her imagination running wild with her fears for her dear daughter, for innocent Rhiannon who did not deserve any of this.
His approach was without fanfare, without announcement. The wraith stalked the last quarter mile to Talas-dun in the same manner that it had traveled the hundreds of miles before that. In Mitchell’s wake came a thousand talon soldiers, a nervous group indeed, all bloodshot eyes darting to and fro, looking for some signal from the bastion that all was well.
Thalasi watched it all from a tall tower. He first noted the talons’ movements, trying to discern if they had come for war or parlay. Then he focused on the wraith, and then, more particularly, on the body the wraith carried.
It was not Brielle, Thalasi knew, for the Emerald Witch had hair the color of gold, not raven black. But what other woman would Mitchell bother to cart across the miles? Certainly the wraith had no lustful intentions, and certainly Mitchell knew Thalasi well enough to understand that such a gift, if it was a gift, would mean little to the Black Warlock. Curious, but ever cautious, the Black Warlock held his ground, high up.
The wraith stalked up to the great iron front gate. “Throw it wide!” he commanded, and when no reaction seemed forthcoming, Mitchell struck the great doors with his mighty mace. The blow echoed about the courtyard, up in the towers, walls and floors shivering. “Throw it wide!” the wraith bellowed again, and this time, to the Black Warlock’s horror, some of the zombies moved toward the huge locking bar.
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