Once A Hero

by Michael A. Stackpole

  Berengar looked up while his hands continued their massage of the sylvanesti's wrist. "They are the same, Neal. What you knew as Aurium is now known as Aurdon. It has grown and changed since you last saw it."

  Five centuries! I stared down at the ground and picked at the grass growing there. It felt the same to me as it had when last I touched it. I plucked a piece and put it in my mouth. It tasted and smelled the same. That was something, something normal, and I clung to it. If this was all a dream, I would laugh in the morning and if not, I now knew a new definition for nightmare.

  Aarundel's arm bones felt as light and frail as a bird's wing in my grasp. "Larissa?"

  My friend shook his head. "She has gone beyond, Neal. With Lomthelgar and my parents."

  "Marta?"

  "She waits here, with me."

  The sylvanesti responded to Berengar's efforts to revive her with a groan. She tried to sit up but would have failed had Berengar not shifted around and placed his hands beneath her shoulders. As her head came up, and I saw her face for the first time, I felt a fist crush my heart. It was not what I had experienced when I first saw Larissa, but an imperfect echo of it. She looked enough like her grandaunt that I was reminded of the person I had now lost.

  The smile on Aarundel's face was all that kept my spirit from dying right then and there. "This, Neal Elfward, is my granddaughter, Genevera. Gena, this is Neal Roclawzi."

  She bowed her head toward me, letting her thick braid slither over Berengar's hand and her shoulder. "This is a dream come true for me, meeting you."

  I nodded, unable to think of anything to say. My mind yet reeled at my existence. My hands came up and touched my chest. I saw no bruise, no indication that my battle with Takrakor had ever taken place, yet the absence of Aarundel's eye told me it had. "My wounds." I grabbed Aarundel's shoulder. "I was dying. What happened?"

  Aarundel glanced down. "You died."

  Genevera smiled at me. "I saved you. I repaired you and brought you back to life."

  My jaw dropped. "I was dead?"

  "Yes, but I fixed you." She frowned at the disbelief in my voice. "The magick, the spells woven into the tomb . . ."

  "Tomb?"

  She looked back toward the stone structure, but my attention was drawn more to the fact that she moved so like Larissa, than to the building. "That was your tomb. I triggered the spells in there and brought you back. I healed you."

  "You brought me back to a world I do not know. You have healed me."

  Gena nodded emphatically. "Yes, that is what I did."

  I stared at her wide-eyed. "But I never wanted to be healed."

  "What?"

  "I never wanted to come back. And you bring me back after Larissa has gone beyond?" I turned to Aarundel. "How did this happen? How did you let it happen?"

  Aarundel steeled himself to reply. "There are many things that I must explain to you. . . ."

  I wanted none of it and let my confusion slip over into irrational anger. "Why couldn't you just let me stay dead? I may not have been of an Elder race, but that should not make me your plaything. How could you think so little of me?"

  Aarundel stood abruptly and, grabbing my arm, brought me up with him. He shoved me against the Consilliarii tree, and I saw the old fire smoldering in his eye. "Damn you, Neal, you know it was not that! You and I, we were brothers. You said so yourself."

  "I would have let you die, brother."

  "And I watched you die, brother, inch by inch as Takrakor's magick gnawed its way through you." He jerked his thumb back into his chest. "I was with you when you took Cleaveheart from Jammaq, and I have rejoiced every day that you were brave enough to come to Jammaq to steal Marta and me away from the Reithrese. Can you deny me wanting to rescue you from the last of their perfidy? Can you fault me for wanting to let you see my sister one more time? Can you fault me for hoping, one day, that you and I might walk again together through the vales of Cygestolia?"

  He straightened up and watched me closely. "If you can, then know, brother, that the same fault is harbored in your breast, for I have done nothing here for you that you would not have done for me. Go ahead, tell me I am wrong. Do so and I will apologize, but I will not regret what I have done."

  Chapter 33:

  The Puppet's Strings Justified

  Late Autumn

  A.R. 499

  The Present

  ***

  THE MAN GENA had brought back from the dead covered his face with both hands. Leaning back against the Consilliarii tree, he hung there halfway between upright and prostrate. Part of her expected him to sob, but her mental image of Neal the hero killed that idea instantly. That was the sort of weak emotion of which she did not believe he was capable.

  She shivered because much confused her. She had not considered what his reaction to being resurrected might be. Well, she had, but she had assumed he would respond with gratitude. All Men she had known carried with them a fear of death. In Rik it had been small and in others all but crippling. She had thought that any Man offered a chance to defeat death would readily accept it and be overjoyed at being returned to life.

  Neal seemed to resent what she did for him, and resent it greatly. More surprising than that was her grandfather's apparent anticipation of that resentment. He had known what to expect from Neal, but he had chosen not to warn her. That was a side of her grandfather she had never known before, and it scared her.

  "Grandfather, what is happening here?"

  Neal lowered his hands. "Explain, Aarundel, if you can."

  Aarundel lifted his head and appeared defiant in the face of their questions. "On the road, after you had been given that sleeping draught, it became obvious you would die. You had clearly stated your preferences about magick, and Cletine was unable to reverse the spell that had been cast upon you, so our disagreement on that point was moot. Cletine was able to use a spell to isolate you within time. It managed to slow the damage being done to you by Takrakor's magick. My intention, in having him cast that spell upon you, was to allow you to see Larissa one more time. That was, I felt, the least I could do for you."

  The man nodded briefly. "For that I thank you."

  "That decision led directly to this consequence." Aarundel opened his arms and took in Cygestolia with his hands. "In the wake of the annihilation of the Reithrese there was much mourning and reioicing here among the sylvanii. And much thinking. You lay in state in the Consilliarii chamber for a month, with my sister there always. Your role in the Reithrese extermination and her love for you provoked much thought. And catalyzed much in the way of change."

  He looked over at Gena, and she became fully aware of the pressure of Berengar's hands on her shoulders. "The law that separated you from Larissa was swept away in a vote that was nearly unanimous."

  Neal looked up. "Finndali?"

  "He died at Alatun. Those who voted against you were Vorrin and other reactionaries. The humiliation that came from their votes prompted them to go beyond shortly thereafter." Aarundel's eye focused distantly, and his face slackened slightly into an expression Gena recognized from when he used to tell her stories of the days he traveled with Neal. "There also arose among the mages a contest to counter Takrakor's magick. While your wishes were well-known on the matter, the mages said the spell cast upon you was the last trace of the Reithrese in the world and, therefore, should be expunged. They made it a matter of safety as well as pride."

  Gena frowned. "What do you mean when you talk about Neal's wishes on the matter?"

  Neal wearily raised his left hand and showed her the back of it. "I always refused magickal healing. That is why I am so scarred. Your grandfather asked me to reconsider as I lay dying. I refused."

  Gena felt her guts twist into a knot. "I did not know."

  "It is true, Neal, she did not." Aarundel looked straight at his friend. "We told her everything about you, but we hid your feelings concerning curative magick from her."

  "What?" Gena struggled to her feet. "Why?"
/>
  "Because it was necessary." Aarundel cut her off by slashing his hand through the air. "The mages worked for over two centuries to figure out what they would have to do to counteract Takrakor's magick, and they created a regimen of spells that would successfully do the job. These they made a present to my sister. They—in reality all of the sylvanii—felt it was her decision to make, whether or not to use them. They raised this tomb and placed you inside it, giving her, through the bracelet you made, the only access to it."

  Gena watched muscles bunch at the corners of Neal's Jaw. "So Larissa accepted this gift even though she knew I did not want it? How could she?"

  Fire sparked in Aarundel's eye. "Yow knew what you wanted. I knew what you wanted. She knew what you wanted. You didn't think to ask what she wanted. That is the burden of vitamor, Neal. It is not your wants or her wants, but what you want together that matters!"

  The white-haired Elf stared up at the sky as the anger drained from his voice. "You will never know how much your death hurt Larissa, Neal. She always held herself in control, but there were times when I could see it. A tear. The way her voice would crack. The fact that her laugh was never unrestrained after your death. She loved you so fiercely that she would have done anything to bring you back—anything but violate your wishes."

  Neal wrapped his right arm across his chest and covered his face with his left hand. "What I did to you, my love . . ." Gena could see his jaw moving, but no more words escaped his mouth. Suddenly he hammered his right fist against the bark of the Consilliarii tree. "How could I have been so cruel?"

  His question hung in the air, leaving him open for recrimination, but Aarundel answered him gently. "We both wanted you back with us, but we respected your wishes. No matter how much it hurt, she would not violate them. Her love for you prevented action for the first century or so, then fear took over."

  "Fear? Of me?" Neal's hand came away from his face. "I never would have knowingly hurt her."

  "She knew that, my friend." Aarundel stepped forward and laid his hands on Neal's shoulders. "She was afraid of your reaction if she brought you back. You would have been three centuries out of your time. She was afraid you would hate her for being so selfish as to bring you back when the world you had known had vanished. I tried to tell her she was wrong, but she would not listen."

  "And here I react as she predicted I would, justifying her fears."

  "Your anger is understandable."

  Neal shook his head. "That's not entirely true, but she should not have thought any anger would turn into hatred. We would have been together. A thousand years could have passed, and I would have been very happy to return to her."

  Aarundel folded his arms. "I think she knew that, but it led into her other, far greater fear. What she dreaded—the thing that truly stopped her from using the magicks herself—was that she would not survive losing you again. That pain . . ." Aarundel raised his hands and let them fall again as he shrugged wordlessly.

  Neal balled his fists in frustration. "I know her pain. I am here and she is forever beyond my reach."

  "Remember she loved you very well and truly, for she did things in your name neither of us ever would have contemplated otherwise." Aarundel looked over at Gena and then away again. "We hatched a plot, my sister and I. My son, Niall, showed no aptitude for magick, so we had to wait. His daughter, Genevera, did have a talent for magick. Larissa taught her a great deal about magick and about you. I taught her mostly about Men and you. We created for her a very strong portrait of you, yet one that was incomplete. We wanted, we expected, that some day she would want to complete it. She would use the spells that Larissa would not to bring you back, and when my sister deemed her sufficiently powerful, she went beyond, hoping you would understand."

  Gena's jaw dropped. "You used me to bring him back against his wishes?"

  Aarundel faced her squarely. "You were not overly concerned about his wishes when you chose to act."

  "I acted because doing that seemed a viable solution to the current problem! Had I known he never used magick to heal himself, I never would have done this."

  Neal stared up at his friend. "I'm thinking, Aarundel, I cannot believe you would have done this. You warped your own granddaughter into bringing me back?"

  "What is so hard to believe, Neal? Have you forgotten how the Consilliarii offered you my sister to prevent the war with the Reithrese? Am I not of the same blood and the same culture that offered you that devil's choice?"

  "I thought you were different."

  "I am different!" Aarundel's anger flooded through his voice. "Larissa would not bring you back. I could not bring you back, yet I knew that your death was the fault of me and my people. We knew and had known for ages that one day we would be forced to go to war with the Reithrese, yet we were willing to do anything we could to forestall that eventuality. We were willing to let them slaughter Men to build their empire because we thought it would deflect them away from us. You forced us to remember they had aligned themselves with Death, and because they had done so, there was no way to avoid a conflict.

  "You also put a face on Humanity for us. You showed us that all the noble and virtuous thoughts and traditions we ascribed to ourselves also applied to Men. When you refused my sister to save me and my wife, you shamed a nation. You made us realize that for us to sacrifice Humanity to preserve ourselves was incredibly arrogant and the height of hubris. You died in a war we should have waged centuries ago, you died wrongfully, and I chose to do whatever I had to do to redress that wrong."

  Her grandfather faced her and Gena saw pain in his single eye. "Had I a choice, Genevera, I would have done what you did and have earned the ire for it that you have earned. You were a tool in my hands, so all blame should fall to me. I do not expect you to forgive me, but I hope you will understand me."

  Gena wanted to scream at him and almost did, but a voice inside her stopped her. Yes, she had been used. Her grandfather and grandaunt had deceived her. They had tricked her into doing something they could not bring themselves to do. For that they deserved all of her anger.

  However, they had not forced her to raise Neal from the dead. She had jumped at the chance, for reasons she could only barely begin to fathom. She knew, in part, that her willingness to participate came from the fact that if she were successful, she would have done something her grandaunt, her mentor, had been unwilling and unable to attempt. Bringing Neal back had been her opportunity to prove how much she had learned and how skilled she had become. Her discovery of the deception turned that pride into a knife that sliced through her ego and stabbed deep into her self-esteem, but as an Elf she knew herself heir to a big piece of the hubris her grandfather had just described.

  "I understand you, grandfather." Rik's image flashed through her mind. "I understand your wanting your friend back, and even your desire to see the wrongs committed against him redressed. And I can forgive you because my part in this was prompted by similar motivations."

  She slipped the bracelet from her wrist and walked over to Neal "You made this for my grandaunt, and she treasured it for the five centuries she agonized over you and your fate. She loved you more than you will ever know, and it was her love reflected through me that finished the process that brought you back to life. If not for her love, you would not live now."

  The corners of Neal's mouth tucked back in a quick smile. "I lived for her love, fitting now that I live because of it."

  Gena held the bracelet out toward him and saw him draw back from her. "I am not worthy to wear this. Take it, wear it in her memory. You made it so she could remember you; now it is your turn to remember her through it."

  Neal took it from her and slipped it tight around his own right wrist. He smiled up at her, then looked back down at the silver bracelet. "Thank you." He frowned, then shook his head. "Forgive me for my reaction. I'm thinking that being dead does not do much for one's manners."

  Gena smiled back at him. "No offense taken. This has to be a shock."
>
  "That it is. So much has changed."

  "Not as much as you might think, Neal."

  Neal looked over at Berengar. "How is that . . . Berengar, was it?"

  "Berengar Fisher. Five centuries ago you were chasing Haladin raiders through Centisia. Like locusts they are back."

  Neal straightened up and stood free of the tree. "If you're half the warrior as was the man whose form you wear, those raiders would not be much of a threat."

  Berengar nodded at Gena. "As Lady Genevera can attest, we give better than we get, but we cannot root them out of Centisia fully because some are there under the protection of the Riveren, er, Riveraven family. Because of this alliance, the Riverens threaten to overwhelm my family. The prohibition on violence between our families that you laid down prevents us from being able to fight back."

  Gena nodded. "We have been searching for Cleaveheart and Wasp so we can undo what you did in Aurdon. We believe we have found Cleaveheart's resting place, in Jarudin, but the obvious way to recover the sword is keyed to the dagger Wasp. Wasp was lost in Jammaq and never recovered. We need to know if there is another way to get the sword, and to answer that question, we had to bring you back to life."

  "A fair question that is, and I'm thinking you expect me to answer in the affirmative, else you'd not have gone to all this trouble." Neal's green eyes narrowed in a frown. "I'm afraid, though, that I was not smart enough to think of a second way to open the vault. I had sort of intended to have Cleaveheart locked away forever, which, I'm thinking, I would likely have pegged as five centuries or so, given how I was thinking at the time."

  "Damn and damn." Berengar's hands bunched into fists. "Without that blade, my family is lost."

  Neal cocked an eyebrow at him. "Well, we can't have that."

  "But we can't fix it either, because only Wasp can open the vault, and Wasp is gone."

  "Not at all." Neal pointed off to the northeast. "It's off that way."

  Aarundel looked shocked. "What? How do you know that?"

  Neal looked at his pointing finger as if it were an alien part of himself. "I don't know how I know, my friend, but it's out there. I know it the same way I knew where Takrakor was when we waited outside Atatun."