Princess of Wisdom: An Epic Fantasy Series (Wisdom Saga Book 2)

by W. C. Conner

  “Take me back to the inn, Roland. I am weary beyond anything I can remember and I need sleep.” There was no promise of more than the closeness she needed at the moment and Roland knew there would be no more than that tonight. It was what he wanted as well.

  Leaving the soldiers to break camp and follow along behind, Roland set Caron onto his saddle and swung himself up behind her. As they rode slowly back to Wisdom, he put his arm around her to make certain that she would not drop Alexander should she doze off during the relatively short trip.

  “I have to go see Wil before we go home,” she said, stifling a yawn. “There are things I must tell him that only he could make sense of.” Her eyes closed, then opened briefly.

  “How is Mitchal?” she asked. “Is he coping with his loss?”

  “He’s fine,” Roland answered. “He and Philip have fashioned him a wooden leg of sorts and he has learned to get around on it quite well. He even rode out to the camp one time.”

  Roland stopped talking when he realized that her head had drooped forward in sleep. He drew her back against him, kissing her neck as he did and securing the blanket in which their son was wrapped with his hand. Despite the awkward position, he smiled contentedly the rest of the way back to the inn.

  51

  Two weeks had passed since Caron returned alone from Styxis’s world. The first week had been spent sleeping and being alone with Roland and Alexander.

  Wil is a big part of my life, she had thought as she watched Roland playing with his son, but these two are the center of my world now.

  By the end of the second week, she had raised the courage and the energy needed to enter the Old Forest yet again. Where once she could not wait to be allowed entrance, she now found herself almost reluctant to go, for every time she had entered in the past her emotions had become tangled and she had found her life being torn and tossed like a ship in a storm. But she had much to discuss with Wil, and she longed to see her daughter one more time, for she knew she would not have many opportunities to see her from this point forward.

  She stood before the spot where she had previously gained entry and handed the sleeping Alexander to Angela after giving him a kiss on the forehead. Turning to Roland she put her arms around him and held him tightly, then kissed him gently. “Roland, you never...” she started to say, but he stopped her with his finger on her lips.

  “You never have to explain anything to me, Caron,” he said. “I know exactly how much you love me, and no man could ask for more than I have. Now, get on your way so you can get back to us the sooner.” He nodded his head in the direction of the Forest. “He’s in there waiting for all the details of your time with the demoness, and you owe him that. We all owe him that at the very least.”

  With a whispered, “Thank you,” she turned and walked toward the Forest which opened the passageway for her as she approached. No one else could see it, just as before, and they watched as she disappeared as if stepping through a beaded curtain of painted trees.

  Roland found his hands clenched in anxious fists as she disappeared, then he turned away from the Forest and walked back in the direction of Wisdom, leaving his groom to walk the horse along behind him. Angela fell in beside the groom, holding the baby who slept soundly through the entire trip out and back.

  Inside the Forest once again, Caron was awed as always by what she saw and felt, and her apprehension began to melt away as it always had before. Her trip to the center of the Forest was uneventful, and after five days she found herself at the edge of the clearing which held so many memories for her.

  As the stone cottage came into view, she could see Aimee sitting on the front step with a fawn lying beside her which she was gently petting.

  Hi, Mommy, she sent, I have a fawn for a friend. He’s not as soft as he looks outside, but he’s very soft inside.

  “He’s beautiful,” Caron said as she came nearer. “Is Daddy home?”

  Yes. She turned and looked toward the door. Daddy, Mommy’s home.

  It seemed so strange to hear Aimee call Wil “daddy” in her mind, and it felt stranger still to hear her say, “mommy’s home.”

  Home. She looked around the little clearing in which the cottage stood. Yes, this was Aimee’s home and it was Wil’s home, but it was not her home. Confirth was her home, and home was where her husband and son would be with her. This could be her home. It felt like a home, but it was not hers – not yet.

  “Hello, Caron,” Wil said as he stepped through the front door of the cottage. She looked up from where their daughter sat quietly with the fawn and was drawn as always to his intense, steel gray eyes while he, for his part, was disappearing into the depths of her very dark eyes. There was no denying it, the magic was still there between them, but it was a magic that could not happen now.

  “I had to see you and Aimee before we return,” Caron said, feeling suddenly awkward with the man with whom she had previously felt so totally free and uninhibited.

  “We had to see each other,” he returned. “Come in and have some tea and a little supper. Aimee will come in when she’s ready. You needn’t worry about her. There’s nothing in this Forest that will hurt her.”

  He led the way through the door and into the kitchen. Caron looked at the little table where she had sat with him what seemed now like eons before, yet at the same time it seemed as if it might have happened no more than yesterday. She remained standing as Wil took a steaming teapot from the small stove and got out two cups.

  “Mitchal’s got a peg leg now,” she said, suddenly anxious at the void in their conversation. “He’s even gone riding with it, though he still can’t sit a horse as he used to.” Wil nodded his encouragement, so she continued.

  “Thisbe is pregnant and Angela has begged to be released from my service so that she can help her with the baby when it comes,” she said. “Was that us? I mean Thisbe’s baby. Did we make that happen?”

  “Let’s just say that we helped give her body a little nudge,” Wil replied. “Your wish for her caused things to arrange themselves to a better advantage inside of her when you gave her that hug right after you returned from the Forest. You needn’t worry about the baby’s parentage, however. The baby is definitely Tingle’s, not ours, and he wasted no time making it happen. When you get back to Wisdom, though, it might be a good idea to let Tingle know that he’ll have to watch his timing from now on if he doesn’t want a family that’s so large they won’t have any rooms left to rent out.”

  Caron laughed at that, and, as always, her tension fled with the laughter. Now that the barrier was down, it was time to confront him on what had happened on the other side of the boundary. As Wil poured out tea for each of them, she spoke. “Wil, about what happened on the other side,” she said, “how much of it were you able to follow?”

  “Quite a lot, although I had to surmise much of it. Parts of it I could see through the avatar’s eyes. I was aware of the changeling from some of your thought’s but whenever the two of you communed with each other it was if your thoughts went dead because I was unable to hear anything. The first time it happened I was in a panic that I had gotten you killed.”

  Caron smiled. “It may be a good thing you couldn’t hear us,” she said. “Its name is Plaisir and that is what it is and what it does. It is a pleasure changeling, created to please. There are four of them. Or, rather, there were, for one of them crossed into our world not too long before I returned.” She watched his expression carefully. “She carried your other daughter with her.”

  The color drained from Wil’s face. As he sat down heavily at the table and put his hands on it as if to steady himself, Caron realized for the first time that he had put both arms on the table. He had both arms once again and they were both useable.

  “Wil,” she exclaimed, “your arm!”

  “My arm? Oh yes,” he said, looking at it as if he was seeing it for the first time himself. “Yes, well, once the darkness was withdrawn from our world and the boundary closed, my es
sence within the avatar collapsed and Styxis found herself holding a screaming Patrick, or so I would suppose. Once that bond was broken, I was free to reconstruct my arm as it had been before.”

  Caron sat down at the place she had always sat before and took the new hand in hers. Pressing it against her lips and then her cheek, she said, “I was devastated when I left your arm behind, but not as devastated as when I thought the avatar was Allen. Now I find everything whole again. You told me to believe in us and I really thought I did, but now I see that I didn’t. I let you down.”

  “Believe me,” Wil said, “nothing is farther from the truth. You had no idea the amount of power Styxis possesses. For all that, though, she was afraid of you for the very reasons you told her she was. If I could have kissed you at that moment, I would have. I was so incredibly proud of your courage and your spirit and your presence. Make no mistake, you challenged her on equal terms. She just never knew it.” He stopped and drew her hands back to his side of the table and started to place a kiss on them, then stopped suddenly.

  “But you said my other daughter was brought to this side of the boundary before it closed?”

  Caron nodded.

  “What does she look like? Was she well? Is she in any danger? Perhaps I should bring her here to live with me.”

  Caron smiled. “Isn’t one child at a time enough, my love?” she said, adding the familiarity out of habit. “As for the rest of it all, the truth is that I know nothing of what she looks like nor where she was taken after they came through, nor whether or not she is healthy. I know only that she is on this side. The changeling disappeared after she came through. She took to the sky after she eluded the demon Roland killed that had chased her through the boundary.”

  Wil’s face darkened. “Was the demon Gulak?” he asked grimly.

  “From Wil’s description...” she began, then realized who she was talking to. “From the avatar’s description,” she tried again, “it probably was Gulak although he certainly wore no nameplate. I did not see him myself for he had been buried by the time I returned.”

  “So he was not returned to his side.”

  “No, I’m afraid not. Why, is there a problem?”

  Wil’s eyebrows drew down in contemplation. “Probably not,” he said distractedly, “but I would feel more comfortable if the demon had been returned to his side.”

  His expression brightened as his thoughts returned to the second daughter who, against all probability, had been brought to their side of the boundary before it had closed. “Perhaps you could find Styxis’s daughter using your seeing abilities,” he suggested.

  Caron closed her eyes and cast her senses outward in the attempt to find the child. “Maybe there’s something wrong with my ability to see her,” she said after several minutes. “I can feel that she’s on this side but I can’t see her beyond that. I know that when I tried to locate her for you in her world, I could sense her but couldn’t see her for some reason.”

  “Most likely the Forest’s barriers are hindering you,” Wil said. “As for what happened on the other side, you were unable to see her because she was not visible. She was being held in a tower which had been ensorcelled so that it and everything in it would be transparent.”

  “Well, I’m relieved to know that,” Caron said, “and I promise I’ll try to find her after I leave the Forest.”

  “I’m curious to know more about the creature that brought her across the boundary,” Wil said. “What else can you tell me of these changelings?”

  Caron told him all that she knew of them, of how they were created for pleasure, and how they appeared to be the ideal of beauty for the beholder no matter what their sex or species. She told of their gender identification and the gentleness they exhibited in a dark and cruel world.

  “Allen told Roland based on the knowledge that came to him from Patrick’s shell which he wore for so many weeks, that they are one of the few gentle creatures in her world. Plaisir told me your daughter represented the first hope ever that there might be some true color in their world.

  “In their world they are immortal, yet she brought your daughter into our world so all of them could see color and know love, even though it meant she would eventually die.”

  “Who have you told of this?” he asked.

  “I have told no one,” she replied. “Allen may have guessed, but my sense is that he would not tell.”

  “Allen is a man and a wizard far beyond his years,” Wil said. “He was able to send to me through the barriers of the Forest, volunteering to help me after Patrick’s treachery caused the death of his father and Bartholomew. He took on the deception willingly, even knowing there existed the very real possibility he could die himself if the deception failed.”

  “Was Patrick really so evil?” Caron asked.

  “I fear that, yes, he was,” Wil said. “It’s not as if he was turned by Styxis after she took control of Blackstone. He had already begun collecting dark magics at the time Styxis was brought through the rift created by Greyleige and he was captured by her then. While I can feel sorry for him at the agony he undoubtedly suffered once my arm lost its powers and he was revealed to Styxis, he did he get what he wholeheartedly declared he wanted before you and the demoness.”

  “So it was him that declared his loyalty to Styxis, not you?”

  “I told you that everything you would hear would be the truth, Caron. I just could not tell you why or what. I could only trust you to continue to hope, if not truly believe.”

  Caron stared at him for several moments and finally shook her head almost imperceptibly. “Sometimes you scare me, Wil,” she said quietly. “And sometimes I scare myself because I love you so very much.”

  They both looked down at that moment to discover that they had each taken hold of the other’s hands as they spoke without being conscious of having done so. Caron smiled and looked up to find Wil’s gaze plunging once again into her own dark eyes.

  “It felt that I should have been holding your hands for my entire life the first night that I met you in Scrubby’s hut and you took my hand to pull me to my feet,” she said.

  “And I was lost from the first moment I looked into your eyes,” he said. “Had it not been for you, I should never have admitted that I am a wizard.” He paused, then laughed. “I can’t believe I yanked you to your feet when you honored me. What a boor I was. What a fool I was.” He sobered as he looked at her. “What a fool I still am.”

  They sat holding hands without talking for several minutes, simply enjoying the nearness of one another before a small voice interrupted their reverie. “Daddy? See my friend?”

  They looked toward the door and found Aimee framed there with an enormous black bear standing at her shoulder. Caron dropped Wil’s hands and shrank back in her chair.

  “He’s beautiful, sweetie,” Wil said encouragingly. “He’s a little too big to play with in the house, though. Best to keep him outside.”

  “Yes, Daddy,” she said before turning and going back through the door, drawing the bear with her.

  “Did I...” Caron started, then faltered and stopped.

  “I told you that you’d be impressed with the little witch we’ve made,” Wil said with a sparkle in his eye. “Aimee has an empathy for animals that draws them to her. They are her friends. She says that they talk to each other with their thoughts and I believe her. After all, I’m hardly one to question unusual capabilities.”

  Caron stared out the door at Aimee who stood next to the huge bear, making a ring of wildflowers by pushing them into the thick fur of the bear’s neck.

  “I can only stay tonight, Wil,” she said at last. “I must start back tomorrow. I’m anxious to get back to Confirth. Once we’re settled, I wish to visit my father again. It’s been a while, and I’ll have to go collect Mertine who went to Castle Gleneagle to visit her family when we left to come here. I’ll definitely need her with Angela staying behind to attend Thisbe.”

  “So, you’ll let h
er stay then?” Wil said.

  “She’s in love with Allen,” Caron said. “I’m not sure she truly realizes it yet, but Allen is certainly in love with her. Given a few years, the difference in their ages won’t mean much, and there is a bond there that can be seen with one’s eyes closed.”

  Aimee walked through the door once more, only this time she was alone. She closed the door behind her. “Cold outside, Mommy,” she said as she climbed into Caron’s lap.

  “That means it’s supper time,” Wil announced as he got up. “You two will have to share the chair, but I suspect you’ll make do.”

  With that, he added fuel to the fire in the little cook stove and busied himself preparing a meal as Aimee and Caron watched and talked. The sun was fairly down by the time they had finished and the three of them sat and talked until Aimee finally nodded off in Caron’s lap. Wil reached out to take her into the bedroom, but Caron shook her head.

  “It’s going to be a long time before I get to hold our daughter again,” she said softly.

  She guessed at the cause of the shadow that crossed his eyes as she spoke of Aimee. “I will look for her, Wil,” Caron said. “If it is within my powers, I will help you find your other daughter. She is innocent of the evil done by her mother.”

  Wil nodded his appreciation of her offer to help find Styxis’s daughter; a daughter that could represent a rival to Aimee, but he knew Caron did not think as Styxis did. She would love the child should she be able to find her. They talked quietly as Wil cleared the table and washed and dried the few eating utensils. Seating himself once again, they talked late into the night.

  As conversation at last tapered off, Wil arose and took Aimee from Caron’s lap, carrying her in his arms as the three of them went into the bedroom together. Placing their daughter between them, they lay on their sides facing each other and reached out to hold hands over the sleeping child.