“Del, me Del, don’t ye be leaving me now!” the witch cried, scrambling to her feet, rushing over to him.
There was nothing to grab onto, and soon, nothing to see.
The wail diminished, spread wide to the winds, and was no more.
* * *
No more was he a separate entity from the giant wave; no more was he Istaahl the mortal man. He sensed the shallows, knew in some primordial way that he was approaching the high cliffs of the shore.
Then he hit, a mountain of water, exploding in ecstasy against the dark stone of Kored-dul, thundering into the stone unabashedly, straight on, throwing all his life into it.
The roar went on and on, reverberating about the stones, and into the stone, the energy of the crashing water reaching every crack like grasping tendrils. And when the water was gone, the wave broken apart and splashed back out toward the sea, the reverberations continued, echoing.
A great slab of the cliff broke apart and slid down, thundering as it bounced off the stone, then hitting the water with a huge splash. The weakened cliff continued to tremble; another piece broke away. And then another; and then another.
And then it fell, all of it, taking the fire-ravaged disaster of Talas-dun with it.
“O Death where is thy sting? O grave where is thy victory?” Del shouted, stealing from an old passage he remembered, from the time before Aielle, from his world and a passage of Corinthians in a book called the Bible. How clear the words of that most ancient tome came to him now. He knew the book so well, though in life he had paid it hardly any heed. It was a book of the angels, the Colonnae, and a work of morality, of life and death, and life after death. He moved along a gray and foggy corridor, a cold place, passing the line of newly disembodied spirits. Their numbers alone told him that the battle was on in full, and also that Thalasi’s hold over the undead spirits was no more.
“O Death where is thy sting? O grave where is thy victory?” he shouted again, running now, passing all of them, descending swiftly to a place darker and colder still. He paused and felt within himself, and there, in a deep place, he sensed the passage of his daughter, and was soon fast on her trail. “And where is thy horror, ugly fiend?” he added, his own thoughts, as he came into the passage and then the chamber, in sight of the cloaked lord of the underworld.
“What terrors have thee left? What pains can thee promise, when thou hast taken all?” Del shouted.
“No promise, ghost of Jeffrey DelGiudice,” the specter replied in its unearthly, rasping voice.
“Is there no sympathy, no passion, no care for all the pain?”
“None,” Charon replied without hesitation. “I take nothing; I give nothing. I am.”
DelGiudice hesitated now, digesting the thoughts, the apparent impassivity. It occurred to him that an apathetic Death was, perhaps, more difficult an opponent than a malignant spirit.
“I will bargain,” he offered.
“I take nothing,” Charon replied. “I give nothing. No barter, no trade.”
“You took her!” Del accused, pointing to the bier where lay his daughter dear, so peaceful.
Too peaceful.
“She came to me by her own actions.”
Del stared at Rhiannon’s spiritual form, mirroring her physical form, lying perfectly still upon the bier, half wrapped by Charon’s eternal shroud.
“Give her back, I beg,” Del said.
“Back to whom?” Charon replied impassively. “To you? Need I remind you that you, too, are dead, Jeffrey DelGiudice? It is not an evil thing.”
“No,” Del agreed. “Not evil. But not for her. Not yet. She was just starting to know life.”
“That temporary aspect of life,” Charon said. “Now she will learn the next.”
Del shook his head. “No, no, no,” he kept saying, for though he knew that death was not a wicked thing, not an emptiness and certainly not painful, he felt, somehow, that this was not Rhiannon’s time, that the manner of her death, the breaking of that perverted staff, did not justify this end to her mortal coil.
But how to tell that to Charon the impassive? How to justify it when so many other young men and women had died, and would continue to die, this very day, long before they had really been given a chance to experience all that the previous life offered?
“I only know,” he said quietly, looking up at the specter, “it is not her time.”
Arien led them into the foothills, the sure-footed Avalon mounts quick-stepping past rocky jags and over the multitude of corpses. Enemies were not readily apparent, for those talons who had remained near the front lines had been brought down by the zombies and skeletons, and those who had been farther back had run away.
Arien meant to find them, though, every one, and end the scourge of the children of Thalasi once and for all. First, though, he turned his elves to the south, linking them up with Benador’s thousands, and he and Ardaz joined with the king.
“The world could not have hoped for a greater rout,” the king of Calva stated, his elation apparent. “The evil talons will be many generations recovering, if ever they do.”
“Never,” a dour Ardaz said, “for Thalasi is defeated, dead and gone forever.”
“Your news is wondrous, yet you speak it with heavy heart,” Benador noted.
“For my niece, Rhiannon, too, is gone,” Ardaz replied. “And so, too, is Istaahl, who has been my friend for centuries!”
The news hit King Benador hard, and he purposefully had to steady himself, else he would have fallen from his mount. “Istaahl gone?” he asked breathlessly, and he seemed a lost child at that moment.
“And Rhiannon,” Arien added grimly.
“Istaahl the White,” Charon stated. “Would you ask for him, as well?”
The ghost paused, digesting the sad news that the White Wizard of Pallendara was gone. Somehow, though, that seemed all right to him, as if it was meant to be, as if it was Istaahl’s time.
“And what of Jayenson Belltower?” Charon went on. “She was killed this hour, taken by a talon spear. Should I release her as well? I can name hundreds more, and thousands of talons, if they, too, are deserving of your misplaced mercy.”
“Not her,” Del said immediately. “Not any of them. Just Rhiannon. I know this. It was not her time; not like that. Calae put me back here, in this world, to deliver this one message.”
Charon did not respond.
“She gave Thalasi to you,” Del reasoned. “She broke his staff, that awful staff, that instrument which the Black Warlock crafted and used to steal from you. She gave it all back to you. You owe her this.”
“I do not bargain, nor do I ask for anything,” Charon said with some determination. “And I cannot be robbed, since nothing here is my possession. I simply am.”
“No!” Del cried, thinking he had found his logical opening. “No, Charon, your actions reveal the truth. How you hungered for Thalasi in that tower room, when the staff was first cracked. How your shadowy minions went after him, pulling him to you!”
The specter of Death did not reply, only, for the first time in all the eons, listened.
Belexus and Bellerian, atop Calamus, moved above the rocky foothills, searching for remnants of the talon army so that they could direct the continuing attacks of their kinsmen and the elves. At Belexus’ insistence, the older ranger turned the pegasus inevitably east, toward Talas-dun.
They came in sight of the broken cliff, all trace of the black fortress gone, and any trepidation they held at the sight of disaster disappeared when they spotted, far below, Bryan of Corning, moving along a narrow trail, bearing Rhiannon gently in his arms.
They were with him in a moment, and their fears returned tenfold, for they knew, without doubt, from his tear-streaked face and from the very still manner in which the beautiful witch lay in his arms, that Talas-dun had not been destroyed without a heavy cost.
Bryan lay Rhiannon down on the stone; Belexus moved very close and stroked the young witch’s face, beautiful in
death as it had been in life.
“She did it,” the half-elf said. “She beat Thalasi, and destroyed his staff.”
“And all his undead monsters went back to their rest,” Bellerian added. “Suren Rhiannon won the day.”
Bryan fell to his knees beside her, his emotions pouring out of him.
“We canno’ be stayin’,” the ranger lord remarked. “The stones are thick with talons.”
“Ye take Rhiannon on the pegasus,” Belexus said to his father. “Me and Bryan’ll fight our way through, don’t ye doubt.” He put his hand on the half-elf’s shoulder as he spoke, lending some strength, and lending hope in the promise that he would help Bryan find his vengeance upon many talon heads. The half-elf looked the strong ranger in the eye, and Belexus nodded grimly.
“We’re all to go,” an unexpected reply came, and how the eyes of the three widened! They looked down in unison to see Rhiannon opening her blue eyes, a grin growing on her face. “We’re all to go together,” she said in a labored voice.
Bryan, after a moment of wavering, nearly fainting, wrapped her in a tight hug, and Belexus was quick to join in, but both backed off reverently when the ghost of DelGiudice appeared suddenly, hovering over them.
The spirit moved close, and Rhiannon reached out to touch him. But of course her hand passed right through the insubstantial body.
“My time here is ended,” Del explained, for he had heard clearly the beckoning call of Calae. He considered the angel and the mysteries that awaited him and remembered again that long-lost tome of wisdom, that most holy book from the world that had been, a book inspired by the heavens indeed. How clearly he recognized the truths that lay within that book, how ingrained those truths had been to the man who had scrambled off the sinking Unicorn those decades ago! He thought of that now, just briefly, and considered it in the context of those he had come to know and love, and hate, in Ynis Aielle. Honor and courage, tolerance and respect. Truths for the ages, tenets that did not shift with the passing of years, but remained constant and important. How seamlessly Brielle would fit into that tome, though in Del’s often-intolerant world, those who followed the Bible unbendingly would have considered the witch an unholy, pagan thing. How grand would be the story of Belexus and Andovar, had it been told in the Bible of his previous existence!
Some things did not change.
“Me father,” Rhiannon said softly, her expression thick with love and gratitude. She knew what had transpired in the realm of Death, knew that Jeffrey DelGiudice, her father, had come after her.
Del moved close to her, looked deep into her eyes, then turned his gaze heavenward. “Grant me this, Calae,” he begged, and suddenly, Rhiannon’s reaching hand brushed against his solid cheek.
Del kissed her forehead and hugged her close, then moved away, to arm’s length, until only their fingers were touching, a touch that lessened by the moment as the spirit dissipated.
“Fare well, my daughter,” Del said. “Fare well, my love. We will meet again.”
And with that promise of hope, Del was gone.
Epilogue
IT WAS SUMMER and it was Avalon, and the threat of the talons, and of Thalasi, was forever ended. But to Belexus and Brielle, Bryan and Rhiannon, Ardaz, Arien, and Bellerian, the edge of joy had been forever dulled, replaced by a distant but undeniable sense of melancholy. An age had ended in Aielle, the Age of Magic, and nowhere was that more evident than in the boughs of Avalon. Still beautiful was the wood, but that preternatural essence of the place had been replaced now. For nearly a millennium Avalon had stood in eternal springtime, but now it was summer in the wood, with autumn fast closing in.
“Suren ’tis time for resting,” Bellerian noted, and Ardaz, feeling his great age, was quick to agree.
Also in agreement was Desdemona, the black cat curled about the wizard’s neck. She yawned and stretched and dug her claws in a bit too hard.
Yelping, Ardaz pulled her away and tossed her into the air. Unlike those many other times, she didn’t transform into a bird, though, for the magic was gone now, simply gone. She landed gracefully on sure cat feet, turned her back to Ardaz, her tail twitching, and moved to Rhiannon, finding a comfortable perch on the young woman’s lap.
Ardaz looked to his sister Brielle, their expressions showing that neither had missed the not-so-subtle reminder that the Age of Magic was lost.
“Thalasi be damned,” Jennifer Glendower, no longer the Emerald Witch, cursed softly.
“Indeed,” Ardaz said. “Indeed.”
From the New York Times
bestselling author
R. A. Salvatore
comes
MORTALIS
The thrilling first volume
in a brilliant new DemonWars saga.
Please turn the page to read
an excerpt from Mortalis.…
Published by Del Rey Books.
Available in bookstores everywhere.
Prologue
JILSEPONIE—PONY—sat on the crenellated roof of the one squat tower of St. Precious Abbey in the great city of Palmaris, looking out over the snow-covered rooftops, her gaze drifting inevitably to the dark flowing waters of the Masur Delaval. A bitterly cold wind nipped at her, but Pony, deep in memories, hardly noticed the sting. All the region, the northwestern expanses of the kingdom of Honce-the-Bear, had experienced an early snow only a week before, winter coming on in full force, though the year had not seen the end of the tenth month.
By all estimations, the war against the demon Bestesbulzibar and its goblin, giant, and powrie minions had gone unexpectedly well, had been completed with minimal loss of human life and without a single major city burned to the ground. Now with winter, though, the aftereffects of that war were beginning to show, most notably the food shortages in villages whose supplies had been diverted to towns that had harbored the King’s soldiers. Rumors had come to Palmaris of uprisings in some of those villages against King Danube and against the Abellican Church, whose leader had surely acted in the interests of the demon. Other rumors spoke of several mysterious deaths along the coast of the Mantis Arm and of a group of fanatics threatening to break away from the Abellican Church while rejecting outright the notion of any church dedicated to Avelyn Desbris.
So the war had ended here in Palmaris, but it seemed to the grieving Pony as if the turmoil had only begun.
Or was it merely a continuing thing? she wondered. Was such travesty and turmoil, such unrest, merely a reflection of the human condition, an unending procession of one battle after another, of one cause of bitterness replacing another? The notion stung Pony deeply, for if that were the case, then what had they really accomplished? What had been bought by their sacrifice?
Why had Elbryan, her beloved husband, died?
Pony gave a helpless sigh at the futility of it all. She thought back to her early days, up in the wild Timberlands, in Dundalis, when she and Elbryan had grown up together, carefree. She remembered running down the wooded trails beside the boy, running particularly among the white caribou moss in the pine-filled valley north of their village. She remembered climbing the northern slope beside him one chilly night, looking up at the sky to see Corona’s Halo, the beautiful multicolored ring that encircled the world, the source, she had later come to learn, of the blessed magical gemstones that served as the power and focus of faith of the Abellican Church.
The next dawn, Pony and Elbryan had witnessed the return of their fathers and the other hunters. How clearly Pony now remembered that, running, full of excitement, full of anticipation, full of—
Horror. For suspended from a shoulder pole had hung a most curious and ugly little creature: a goblin. Never could Pony or Elbryan have foreseen that slain little brute as a harbinger of such doom. But soon after, the goblins had attacked in force, burning Dundalis to the ground, slaughtering everyone except Pony and Elbryan, the two of them somehow managing separately to elude the monsters, each not knowing that the other had survived.
And afterward Pony had wound up here, in Palmaris, bereft of memory and identity, adopted by Graevis and Pettibwa Chilichunk, patrons of the bustling tavern Fellowship Way.
Pony looked out across the quiet city now, in the direction where that establishment had stood. What wild turns fate had placed in her path: married to the favored nephew of the city’s Baron Bildeborough; the wedding annulled forthwith and Pony indentured in the King’s army; her ascension to the elite Coastpoint Guard and her appointment to Pireth Tulme; the coming of the powries and the fall of that fortress. It had all taken years, but to Pony now it seemed as if it had happened overnight. She could again feel the chill deep in her bones as she had escaped doomed Pireth Tulme, floating in the cold waters of the Gulf of Corona. Perhaps it was fate, perhaps mere chance, that had pulled her from those waters in the vicinity of Avelyn Desbris, the “mad friar” from St.-Mere-Abelle who was being hunted by the Church for the death of a master and the theft of many of the sacred magical gemstones. Avelyn had taken Pony back to Dundalis, and there she had been reunited with Elbryan, who had returned to the region after being trained as a ranger by the mysterious Touel’alfar.
What a dark road the three had walked from there: to Aida and the demon dactyl; back across the kingdom to St.-Mere-Abelle, where Pony’s adoptive parents had been imprisoned and had died; and then back again—a road that should have lightened, despite the grief, but that had only darkened more as the evil that was Bestesbulzibar, the dactyl demon, infected Father Abbot Markwart with a singular desire to do battle with Elbryan and Pony.
And so he had, in that same mansion where Pony had spent her wedding night with Connor Bildeborough, the mansion of horrors where Elbryan and Pony had waged the final fight against Markwart, and had won, though at the price of Elbryan’s life.
Bastion of Darkness Page 29