by W. C. Conner
Alexander slept in a cradle beside the bed, unconcerned for the future. His needs for food, occasional cleaning and constant love were his only concerns at this point in his young life.
Caron felt fatigued but could not find sleep within her and looked to Roland whose own eyes appeared focused somewhere on the wall past her head. She brought her two hands up to his face and took it between them, then turned it to place a kiss lightly on his lips.
“Should something happen to me,” she whispered to her husband to avoid waking Alexander, “know that I have always loved you most dearly.”
Roland swallowed hard and his voice trembled slightly as he answered. “I was about to say the same thing, Caron.”
“Why are we saying these morbid things?” Caron wondered aloud. “We will succeed. After all, I am the beautiful princess and you are the handsome and noble Duke of Confirth. Life requires that we live happily ever after.” The baby stirred but made no sound.
Roland smiled grimly and clasped her tightly to him. “I am so afraid for you, Caron,” he said softly. “It feels as if I could lose you this time. I don’t know how I could go on without you.”
“You would have to go on for Alexander’s sake if no other. But we have Wil on our side and he has become more powerful than we can comprehend. Surely he has planned a way to defeat this demoness.”
He smiled at her faith in Wil. And why not? he wondered to himself. He has never let us down before.
As she snuggled even closer to him she felt his love arise between them and she opened herself to take him gently into her. They lay thus for most of the night, comforted by the prolonged intimacy and moving little until finally falling asleep still entwined in each other’s arms as the sun pushed at the boundaries of the horizon.
Roland awoke to find it was already mid-morning, and Caron and Alexander were both gone. After dressing and splashing his face with cold water from the bowl on the small table, he walked downstairs to find the common room deserted. The front door was slightly ajar and he followed the sound of voices talking excitedly on the far side of it.
He pulled the door open to find everyone standing and staring into the sky.
“The sparkling started this morning,” Scrubby said. “I saw it when I went to the privy just at daybreak.”
“Oh, Scrubby,” said Mattie, embarrassed by his earthy admission, “what will people think?”
“They’ll think I’m just like them, Mattie,” he answered honestly, seemingly puzzled why she was on him about something as straightforward as this. “I don’t know anybody who doesn’t have to go when they first wake up.” Mattie just shook her head as Angela giggled.
By that time, Roland had looked up also to find the sparkling about which they had been talking. There, at some indefinable distance to the west but clearly near the Old Forest, a slightly undulating column of purest white with rainbow colored motes sparkling throughout it rose straight up until it disappeared into the morning sky.
He looked around for Caron but she was nowhere to be seen. Near the kitchen door, Thisbe stood with a bottle of milk in her hand, and Alexander against her shoulder as she burped him.
His anxiety rose as he scanned the little group once again. After satisfying himself that Allen was also not there, he walked purposefully past the onlookers and into the stable where he found both Caron’s horse and Allen’s pony missing. Saddling his own horse, he led him out the back door of the stable, then mounted and walked him down the alley onto the main road where he spurred him to a light canter. He had ridden as far as Scrubby’s place before he realized he had forgotten his weapons. He slowed the horse while he considered whether or not to return and fetch them but finally elected to continue, for it had come to him as he debated that this was not going to be his battle; it was to be Caron’s and the young wizard’s and Wil’s. If indeed, that was what was about to occur, he could do no more than watch and, by the same token, he could do no less than watch. His wife, his son, his world lay in the balance. With dread in his heart, he rode toward the shaft of light sparkling in the sky before him.
Allen led Caron in silence, his pony walking quickly on its shorter legs to keep up with her horse. The donkey Wil had instructed Caron to bring trailed behind her on its lead rope, its head down as it labored gamely along under the weight of the tents, food and cooking pots she had stacked upon it.
Both she and Allen knew that a great test lay ahead of them, though she had no idea exactly what that test would be. Caron’s misgivings about bringing the youth along had been overruled by Wil’s instruction that she was to keep him near. She looked down at his face which reflected both the determination and fear that she instinctively knew was written largely upon her own. Riding once again inside her tunic, the talisman’s warmth against her skin reassured her, but this time there was positively no feeling of playfulness as there had been the last time it had rested there.
As their mounts walked slowly along the road she became aware of the sound of a horse cantering up behind them. Without looking, she knew that Roland had come to join her. She knew, as well, that he was weaponless and she smiled.
You bring the same weapon with you that Scrubby took with him when he went after Wil, she thought, and look what was wrought by that foolish move. By the powers, I love you, Roland.
She looked up at him as he slowed his taller warhorse next to hers. “Should the worst happen,” she said, smiling wanly, “Thisbe will have to battle Mertine for the privilege of raising our son.”
He smiled in return. “Why would you even think that, my love? You are the beautiful princess, after all. Even Little Wil knows it, and beautiful princesses always live happily ever after. You said so yourself last night.”
From Allen, there was only silence, the extreme anxiety he felt making him numb to all around him except the presence of the darkness where it had begun to rapidly puddle in a single location.
I never noticed how young he truly is, Roland thought as he looked toward Allen. For the first time he took the opportunity to study this very young prodigy who had saved Caron’s life at Blackstone and who had found and tracked the darkness and who had intercepted the corrupted wizard’s message to Styxis. He shook his head in admiration of the courage in one so very young.
When I was his age, he thought, I considered myself brave when I snuck out at night with Berlayne and Morgan to go on some madcap adventure. The worst I ever faced was an angry badger of a father when we returned and found him waiting for us. As he looked more closely at Allen’s face which stared straight ahead, the thought struck him that the lad moved as if in a trance. He moved his horse toward Caron’s to ask her if she thought his observation was correct, when the young man spoke.
“The darkness is no longer spread out as it was before,” Allen said, his voice flat as if disembodied. “It is flowing now toward a single point. Something attracts it.” He looked up briefly and squinted toward the sparkling column which appeared to grow as they rode closer. “They are converging,” he said, then fell silent once again.
Caron looked to Roland as Allen stopped speaking. The only sounds to be heard were the creak of the saddle leather, the clop and crunch of their mounts’ hooves striking the frozen ground and the occasional huff from the horses themselves as they cleared their noses. In that silence it seemed as if the thundering of her heart could be heard by any creature within ten yards of where they rode.
Is it Wil toward which it moves? she wondered, then realized she could ask him herself. Does the darkness flow toward you? she asked.
It seeks my essence, came his reply.
What of this sparkling shaft? Allen said it is converging with the darkness.
She seeks my essence. The two will meet. Allen is guiding you true. For, in reality, the light is neither where nor what it appears to be.
A feeling of dread is on me, Wil, she sent. It is different than what I felt before at Blackstone. As I walked to confront her that day, I was terrified, but this time
there is a heaviness of my spirit. It feels as if I am facing my death.
Death is a relative thing, Caron. Whatever you may experience, be assured there is no death for you in the place we must go.
Wil sensed her alarm at his statement.
Where is it we are to go? she asked.
We must go to Styxis. It is the only way we will be able to close our world to her meddling. It’s true she is unable to enter our world ever again, but she is still able to project her power into it as you have seen.
We? she sent. You will accompany me?
You and my arm.
Is there no other way? she asked. Wil could tell from the feeling that accompanied the thought that she was terrified by the idea of having to face Styxis on her own turf.
We will be rid of her forever, Caron.
She removed herself from his consciousness for a prolonged period as she considered what it was he was asking of her. No, what it was he was expecting of her. We truly are one, she realized. We have been since that first night we met in Scrubby’s little mud house. She shook her head as if to shoo away an annoying insect and looked briefly at Roland who rode beside her, lost in his own thoughts.
Her wry thought came at last to Wil. When I told you I would walk through all of the hells of the otherside for you, I had no idea you would take me up on it.
The mid-winter sun was already disappearing behind the trees of the Old Forest by the time they stopped near the sparkling column. Roland put up the two tents in a clearing on the opposite side of the road from the Forest with Allen’s assistance while Caron gathered firewood against the growing cold as the sky lost its light. There was soon a roaring fire going between the two tents which partially faced one another in the clearing Roland had selected. The three of them stood with their backs to the fire, their hands held behind them to chase away the chill, and looked toward the column from which small rainbow colored winks of light sparkled as it undulated slowly as if with a changing tide.
“What do you suppose it is?” Caron asked aloud.
It is the boundary between our world and hers, Wil’s thought responded, causing her to jump slightly.
How can that be? she asked. It is narrower than a water well.
Relatively speaking, it is enormous right now, Wil replied. It’s normally so ‘narrow’, as you put it, that it is invisible, yet an entire world exists on the other side of it. Were it not for the large puddle of darkness through which it passes, it would not be visible now. It has the same radius as the puddle of darkness poisoning the edge of the Forest.
But, it is only a thin column, she protested.
It appears to be a column to those on the inside as well, he said, except that its walls appear shiny black like obsidian with sparkles of darkest blues and purples, and where we see colors and light around us, to them there is almost no color, only grayness and darkness. The column extends completely through our world and out beyond the other side. It is the dark reflection of our own world.
And we are really to go in there?
If we wish to save our world and our loved ones, then yes, was Wil’s reply.
Caron bit her lip as she wondered whether or not she would be able to do this. I don’t know, Wil, she sent, the last time we faced her, I was at least in my own world. Now we will be in hers.
She had the courage to face us in our world, Caron, Wil responded. Can we do any less to save our world from her evil?
As Caron considered his words, there was a rippling movement near the base of the glowing column and the wizard Patrick emerged. Looking quickly to left and right to reassure himself no one waited in the shadows, he walked across the road and stopped in front of the three who still stood warming themselves before the fire. He inclined his head slightly toward Caron, ignoring Roland and Allen completely.
“My mistress wishes me to bid you join her in her world,” he said. “You are to enter in the morning as the sun breaks the horizon. You are to bring with you the wizard Wilton. I will stay here to insure no one enters but you and the wizard.” With that, Patrick turned and walked back across the road where he sat down cross legged beside the column. Assuming an attitude of nonchalance, he picked at the dead grasses around him as he watched the three standing before the fire while they stared back at him.
Allen was filled with rage as he looked at the wizard who had been responsible for the death of his father. Caron put out her hand to restrain him as he started to move toward Patrick.
“Now is not the time or the place,” she said softly as she looked at the burly wizard on the other side of the road. “We will have a settling of all accounts soon enough. Do not soil your capabilities with anger and violence; to do so would dishonor your accomplishments as a healer, as well as your father’s memory.”
Wil intruded at that moment. Caron, I need you to get the talisman and place it in Allen’s tent. You no longer need it. It will be Allen’s responsibility from this point on.
What are you going to do? she asked.
Using Allen and the talisman, I am going to create an avatar which will confront Styxis. I will visit you later tonight to tell you all that I can. For now, please see to it that the talisman gets to Allen’s tent. He will be awaiting it before you get there. When she looked around, she saw Allen heading toward his tent, his face a mask of anger and determination and she wondered how he appeared to know more than she did about what it was that Wil intended.
Caron had been asleep for almost five hours before the call came to her from Wil. It took her mind several moments to clear itself of the sleep that had come only after several hours of tossing and turning on the pallet. Beside her, Roland snored softly, unaware of the turmoil in his wife’s mind.
Caron, Wil’s voice called softly within her mind as if a normal volume would awaken Roland. It’s time for us to talk.
I’m awake, came her groggy thought.
You must be prepared for a shock in the morning, for when my avatar emerges from Allen’s tent, it will look and sound exactly like me. Since I am unable to leave the Forest, my avatar is going to accompany you to bargain with the demoness. Styxis will not know it is not me, for everything about it will be exactly like me including its essence since it was built using my arm and the young wizard’s empathic abilities.
What do you intend to do? Caron asked.
You and I are going to negotiate her total removal from our world. It is within her power to take Gregory’s legacy with her when the column draws itself closed. The darkness has puddled at the nexus of the column and is the point which made this direct connection between our worlds possible.
Why does she need both of us for this? Caron asked.
There are several reasons, not the least of which is that she is mesmerized by you and your dark eyes. As unpleasant as the thought may be, she desires you.
The flush of desire she had felt in her loins for the demoness at the time she had intruded into her mind on the way to Blackstone flashed into her mind and she shuddered at the memory.
The primary reason, however, is that she knows you are closer to me than anyone and believes that you would react to any lie I would tell, and in that she is correct. She will be closely watching your eyes for clues to any lie.
And if she detects a lie?
There will be no lies told, Caron. The key to our success will be that whatever you hear, whatever she hears, will be the truth. The key for the two of us is that no matter what happens, no matter what you see or hear, you must believe in us.
You have had to make some hard decisions, Wil, and they’ve all turned out for the best in the long run. You know that I trust you, she sent.
Hold tightly to that trust, Caron, and always have faith that I love you and will never knowingly allow anything to hurt you or those for whom you care.
Before she could think to question the statement, he continued. There is one last thing. Because it is made at least partially from my flesh, I believe I may be able to watch you through the avata
r, but I’m quite certain we will be unable to contact one another once you cross into her world. While it will appear that I am with you, it will be the talisman that is directing the avatar. Even so, the talisman will speak as I would speak. No matter what the avatar says, it will be my plans, my urgings you are hearing and they will all echo the truth. Do you understand?
I think I do, she said.
For your part, you will have to rely on your own powers which have grown greatly in the past five years, and you carry that little part of me within you that can never be taken away. No matter what happens, you must trust me. You must believe in us. You must believe!
I do trust you, Wil, and I do believe in us. You know I do.
Remember those words, Caron. Remember them well for it is likely that we will be cruelly tested in her world.
With that, Wil departed her mind, leaving her to fall back into a fitful sleep only to be awakened a couple of hours later by Roland as he stood to pull on his boots and wrap his cloak about himself.
“I had evil dreams last night,” he said. “I dread this day.”
“I, too, dread this day,” Caron replied without making any move to get out from under the blankets, “but Wil has assured me that our quest will succeed. We will be able to persuade Styxis to depart and draw the darkness with her.” She smiled unconvincingly as she saw the worry in his face.
“I know you worry for me, Roland, but it is the only chance we have to avoid having our world become a mirror of Styxis’s own. It is a chance I am bound to take for your sake and Alexander’s.”
Roland held his hand out to her. “Come, then, Caron. Let’s get you up and dressed.”
As they stepped out of the tent into the cold pre-dawn air, they found Patrick standing near the column as he awaited them, a dour look on his face.
“You should eat something, Caron,” Roland said. “I can get you some biscuits and dried meat.”