by W. C. Conner
“We only banished her, Caron,” he answered. “None of the demons have been destroyed by my powers. Remember that Gleneagle told me I must never use my powers to destroy or I would be lost to myself. Besides, evil of that sort cannot be destroyed; it can only be repressed or banished. It is ever around in one guise or another, looking for its opportunity as it did with Greyleige.”
“But you killed him,” she said.
“He is truly dead, but it was the blowback of his own spell that killed him, not mine. I have learned that the spell I summoned was intended to banish the evil he had collected. It was intended to send it back to the place from which it originated. He would have become just another man had it happened the way it was intended by the elves.
“Unfortunately, because he had already created a spell to destroy me, the spell I summoned simply built a wall into which his crashed.”
Caron thought for a moment. “You say we banished Styxis. Does all this mean she’s back?”
“No. She will never be back. Between us, we accomplished that much at the least, but that doesn’t stop her from trying to influence things from afar. Once Gregory passed on, her malignant will directed the otherwise directionless darkness to attack the margins of the Old Forest. She is attempting to blunt my power so that I cannot protect our daughter’s spirit from her.”
“Why would she want to hurt that innocent spirit?” Caron wondered.
“She is one of two things that represent her failure. You are the other. Our daughter is ultimately what thwarted Styxis’s ambitions and the total fulfillment of the prophecy that a female descendant of Gleneagle would be sacrificed in the confrontation. It was hinted at in the scrolls, Caron, and Gleneagle told me it would happen, but I refused to lose you that way. I refused even to completely lose our daughter that way.”
Wil looked full into Caron’s unnaturally dark eyes as he talked, and was suddenly returned to the rise on the battlefield before Blackstone as he had fallen helplessly into those eyes at the moment of their goodbye. The eyes that had mesmerized him from the moment of their first meeting filled suddenly with tears and her breath caught in her throat as she began to sob.
He crossed quickly to where she stood and swept her unresisting into his arms. Seating himself in her chair, he sat her down on his lap as one might an unhappy child, holding and rocking her as she sobbed uncontrollably against his neck. Even after her tears had ended they sat thus, neither of them saying a word as night darkened the sky.
At length, he picked her up in his arms and carried her into the bedroom where he gently laid her on the bed and covered her with blankets before walking quietly to the door.
“Thank you, Wil,” she said softly, stopping him briefly on his way through the door.
“I love you, Caron,” he replied.
The next morning, Caron opened the door leading from the bedroom to find Wil cooking, much as he had that first morning they had been reunited more than a year before. Again, the smell of bacon filled the air.
“I’d forgotten about that silly root you use for bacon,” she said as she crossed to sit at her accustomed place next to the little window.
Wil smiled as he broke several eggs into the pan. “Some things never change,” he replied.
Conversation dropped off after that, each of them silently recalling the events of that first breakfast together. They ate quietly, smiling at one another from time to time, both of them feeling the awkwardness of this reunion.
“Tell me about our daughter,” Caron finally said as she finished the last of her eggs and pushed the plate to the side.
“Well, to begin with, she favors you heavily, except she ended up with my gray eyes,” Wil said, “or, she will, anyway.”
“The poor child,” Caron said with a hint of sarcasm. “Nobody should have to endure eyes like yours.” At the hurt look on his face, she added, “Your eyes are beautiful, Wil. They are arresting… commanding… lovely.”
“Lovely?” he protested. “Lovely? Most men don’t want ‘lovely’ eyes.”
“No, but their women want them to,” she replied, then caught her lip when she realized what it was she had implied. There was another moment of awkward silence which Caron again broke.
“Why are we doing this?” she said. “We’re talking about a spirit.”
“Do you not remember what I told you about myself?” Wil asked. “It was only my essence that survived the collision of magics at Blackstone. Aimee will be like me, a spirit around which I will recreate her physical shell, only I will be able to do it in a fraction of the time it took me to reconstruct myself. She will look exactly as she would have had she lived.”
“She has a name?” Caron asked quietly.
“The name means ‘loved’,” Wil responded. “I named her when I conceived my desperate scheme to save your life more than a year ago. I named her for what you are.”
Caron looked down at her hands in her lap. “You really haven’t changed, have you?” she said. “I have hated the very thought of you all of this last year, and you have never stopped loving me.”
Wil sat across from her, his good arm folded over his chest. He said nothing in response.
“I have wronged you badly, Wil,” Caron said at last. “Very, very badly. You deserved praise and thanks, and I gave you hate and scorn.” She looked up, capturing his eyes in her own. “Can you ever forgive me?”
“Could I ever not?” he answered. “I knew that what I was doing would devastate you. I knew it and was quite prepared to live the rest of my long life with no further contact with you. Your life was more important to me than that. Roland’s love for you was more important to me than that. The life of your unborn son was more important.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “I love you too much, Caron. Too much.” He reached up and wiped at his eyes as he finished, then cleared his throat.
“Would you like to meet our daughter?” he said, his smile belying the trace of tears still on his face.
“Now?” Caron said, doubt in her voice.
“Well, before you leave, anyway, but I’ll have to – um – extract her from you, so to speak.” She cocked her eyebrow at him and he hastened to explain.
“No, no. There are no bedrooms involved, although you’d probably be more comfortable there than on a table or the floor as I withdraw her spirit from inside you.”
“Beds are much more comfortable,” she replied. “What do I have to do?”
“You just have to lie still.”
Caron giggled. “I’ve never been able to do that. You ought to know that.”
“Oh, for the sake of the powers, Caron. You won’t feel much of anything. A little quick wizard’s magic and – poof – you’ve got a child.”
“It certainly wasn’t that easy with Alexander,” Caron said, warming to the spirit of the moment, “but they always say the second one is easier than the first.”
At that, Wil laughed aloud. Taking her hand, he urged her from the chair and led her into the bedroom where he had her lie on the bed.
“Just lie still,” he said. “Relax and clear your mind.”
“Don’t you want me to take my clothes off?” she said, smirking up at him as he stood beside the bed.
“Yes, but that has nothing to do with what I’m about to do, so it would probably be best if you left them on... at least for now,” he added after a moment.
She arched an eyebrow at him and settled herself on the bed. Her eyes closed and she took a couple of deep breaths. “I’m ready,” she said softly.
Wil kneeled down beside the bed. Placing his hand just above her stomach, he closed his eyes. “Come out and meet your mother, Aimee,” he whispered. Caron felt nothing at first, but soon a warmth flooded her womb and her breath caught with the sensation. She moaned softly as she felt a swelling that quickly subsided along with the intense warmth. At last the tension left her and she opened her eyes to find Wil standing, looking at his hand.
“Here is your daughter. Here is what you
have protected within you all this time,” Wil said.
As he opened his hand, Caron saw lying on it a perfectly round pearl, its pure white sheen glistening in the warm morning light that filtered through the window beside the bed. She looked at it in stunned amazement.
“How was it done, Wil?” she asked. “How did you make this wonder?”
“I didn’t,” he replied. “You did. Your body built this protective shell within the flash of magic that destroyed the tissue that was our daughter at the time. This is your wonder.”
Caron reached up and grabbed Wil’s arm, pulling him down to her on the bed. “By the powers,” she said as she cuddled into him, “you are an amazing wizard.”
The next morning when Caron awoke, she was again alone in the bed with the sounds of activity in the other room. Taking the green elfstone in her hand, she rubbed it idly with her thumb as she remembered the tenderness she and Wil had shared the previous night.
It had been slow, filled with love and caring. It had been wonderful. After it was done, Wil had lain next to her, his head propped upon his pillow as he stared into the eyes that had captured his soul at their first meeting in Scrubby’s hovel those many years before; the eyes that he seemed never able to stare into enough. He had reached over and lifted the elfstone from where it lay on the pillow beside her head.
“After last night, you won’t need this to gain entrance to the Forest, Caron,” he said.
“What have you done now?” she asked, her tone severe though her smile told him she was not concerned.
“I am a part of you now,” he said. “You carry a part of me within you, much as you have carried a part of me in your hands in the past.”
“I can’t...” she began.
“No. There will not be another child,” he said, cutting off her words. “There is only a part of my essence within you that will remain with you forever. As with the talisman, you will be able to summon me with a thought.”
Caron stared at the ceiling, both sad and relieved that there would not be another baby from him.
At length, she stirred and looked over to where her clothes had fallen on the floor. She smiled, remembering the tenderness with which they had been removed. After dressing herself slowly, she combed her hair with her fingers as she looked at her reflection in the window. Frowning at what she saw, she ran her hand down her skirt in an attempt to make herself presentable. Finally shrugging at what was obviously a lost cause, she opened the door to the kitchen and stopped short at what she saw.
There, at the table, sat the child Wil had described to her the day before. From Caron’s pale skin and dark hair to the steel gray eyes of her father, the little girl was exactly what he had said she would be.
Wil looked up, quite pleased with her reaction.
“By all the powers, Wil. She’s perfect!” Caron said. Then, realizing this child was considerably older in appearance than her half-brother, Alexander, Caron’s mouth opened, then shut without saying anything more.
“I know, I know,” he said. “She’s supposed to be the same age as Alexander, but I don’t want to have to deal with a baby. I’m just a helpless old bachelor, after all.”
Feeling suddenly uncomfortable at the look in Caron’s eyes, he turned to their daughter. “Aimee, give your mother a hug.” The girl walked over to Caron and held her little arms up to her.
“How... How old is she?” Caron managed at last.
“She’s three,” he replied. “Much younger than that and I wouldn’t know how to handle her. Much older than that and I’d miss too much of her childhood.”
“You keep talking about you. What about me?” Caron asked quietly.
Wil’s face reddened and he looked at the floor. “She won’t be able to leave the Forest for a while, Caron. Maybe never.”
A prolonged silence ensued which was broken by Aimee’s little voice. “Hug, Mommy. Hug.”
Caron got down onto her knees and gathered the little girl into her arms, then rocked her back and forth as she looked up into Wil’s eyes.
“Take good care of your daddy after I leave, Aimee. He’s a wonderful, wonderful man.”
Clearing her throat as she released Aimee, she stood back up, then looked around the room and spied the talisman, still on the table where it had been the day before.
“What about your arm?” she asked, trying to put a light tone to the question. “Shouldn’t we do something about getting that back in place?”
“She wouldn’t be safe out there right now anyway, Caron,” Wil said. “The darkness is still working to find her and she’s protected here in the Forest for the time being, at least.”
“Actually, I should be getting back. Alexander is probably having a fit by now, and I’m not too comfortable myself.”
“I still need your help, Caron, if you’re willing. I need someone to carry the talisman one more time.”
Caron stopped casting about – stopped looking for ways to avoid the truth of what was happening. She had lost a daughter she never knew she had, then been told that her daughter’s spirit lived, then been introduced to that daughter, only to be told, once again, that she could not be hers. She looked down at the child who looked up at her, a picture of the trust and innocence of childhood; a beautiful reflection of the love that had made her. Turning slowly, she walked the few steps to where Wil stood and put her arms around him, hugging him tightly.
“I would walk through all of the Hells of the otherside for you, my love,” she whispered into his ear. “Of course I’ll carry it.”
The three of them had reached the point at which Wil told Caron the resistance to his presence was becoming painful. As Caron backed away from the two of them standing together, Aimee’s little hand reached up and took hold of Wil’s.
A warmth flooded Caron as she watched and raised her hand in farewell before turning and walking resolutely toward the margin of the Forest, two days’ march away. Memories whirled through her head.
You may visit at any time, Caron. You are a welcome visitor in the Forest now, you know. And Gleneagle will be distraught if you stay away long.
Bye, bye, Mommy. Bye, bye.
She looked back one more time, but there was nothing to be seen except the Forest. Suppressing a twinge of disappointment, Caron placed her hand against the bundle she had tied across her chest, reassuring herself that Wil still rode close to her heart before turning her face once more toward the border of the Forest.
38
Allen sat cross-legged, alone in the lean-to he had made for himself opposite the point that Caron had entered the Forest. With Eldred’s approval, he had volunteered to stand watch for her return. His argument had been that he would be able to monitor the progress of the darkness and warn her of any danger when she reappeared. The toxic clot had not deviated from its original path, however, for it continued its slow movement at the periphery of the Forest. As he tracked its progress, he had reported to Eldred that it seemed to be spreading itself as it moved, leaving a snail trail of blackness behind it.
“It would seem it’s pulling a drawstring of evil around the Old Forest,” Eldred had observed. “Thank the powers it moves so slowly or it might have been able to deny access to Caron.”
Allen stood as Caron emerged from the portal, appearing suddenly as if from thin air. His movement startled her for he looked an animal to her, dressed in furs from head to toe as he was for warmth against the driving snow.
Remembering that it had been cold and snowy before she entered the Forest, as she approached the end of her journey, Caron had removed the talisman from its wrapping and placed it next to her skin beneath her tunic. The heat of it warmed her throughout and she found reassurance and comfort in its constant touch. Even with her cloak and the living warmth of the talisman against her skin, however, the reality of what awaited her on this side of the boundary of the Old Forest struck her forcefully with the wind and cold of the storm that had been completely absent in the Forest. The shock of it drove ho
me the fears and uncertainties she had lost awareness of while she had been with Wil.
Allen arrived at her side before she had gone more than a few yards and threw a heavily lined wolf pelt across her shoulders.
“Welcome back, Highness,” he said. “We have all been anxious for you.”
She acknowledged his welcome with a nod and thanked him for his presence, then turned toward the wizards’ compound several miles away and continued walking at a pace that caused the young prodigy to walk quickly on his shorter legs to keep up. She had nothing really to say to Allen, but there was no need for it because he chattered along as he walked and occasionally scampered to keep up with her.
“The Duke and young Prince are staying at Three Oaks. Angela stays with them to tend the young Prince but seldom needs to since Thisbe has all but adopted him. Mitchal has been back and forth between the inn and the compound and the lean-to. He seems particularly anxious for you even though I told him not to worry because you were with Wilton and he could protect you. Eldred says he thinks the darkness is pulling a drawstring around the Old Forest and it might be so because it’s leaving a thin line of blackness as it goes. He also says it’s a good thing it moves so slowly so it couldn’t catch you before you got back.”
Caron’s attention strayed away from his words as he mentioned the apparent drawstring being pulled around the Forest and Wil and Aimee. Why is she so focused on Aimee? she wondered. Why not try to destroy me as she did before? Why not try to destroy Wil? He is the real threat to her. At that thought she stopped suddenly, leaving Allen trotting along without her for several steps, chattering as he went.
It’s not Aimee, she realized. It’s him. She wants him! He knew I wouldn’t come to him voluntarily at the time so he tricked me. I understand that. But why Aimee? Why bring her back now? Her eyes narrowed with suspicion.
Wil, she sent, if you do anything to harm our daughter… She stopped, unable to finish the thought in her anger.