Mortalis dw-4

by Robert Salvatore

  She found that Andacanavar had set a log at one end, for her to sit on, and had propped a mirror against the opposite wall, facing it. He barely let her orient herself to the surroundings before he dropped the blanket over the opening, darkening the cave so that Pony could hardly make out the shapes.

  But that was the way of Oracle. As Andacanavar had instructed, she took her seat upon the log and stared hard into the mirror, thinking of Elbryan, remembering their times together, and then her thoughts drifted deeper, deeper, until she was far into meditation, not unlike that which she used to enter the sword dance, not unlike that which she used to fall within the magic of a gemstone.

  And then she saw him, her love, a shadow moving about the mirror.

  "Elbryan," she whispered, and the tears came freely. "Can you hear me?"

  She didn't get any audible response, nor did the dark shadow move, but Pony sensed a warmth suddenly and knew that her lover was with her.

  But not close enough for her liking, and she shifted forward, even coming off the log seat, but her movement broke her level of concentration and the image faded-or maybe it had never really been there. Maybe it was a trick her heart had played upon her imagination.

  No, that wasn't it, Pony realized. He had been there, in spirit. Truly.

  She settled back on the log, thinking to fall again into the trance, but only then did she realize how much time had passed. And she had to be out of the grove long before dark.

  She went to the cave opening and pushed aside the blanket, blinking repeatedly at the relatively bright afternoon light.

  "Did you find him, then?" asked the ranger, seated comfortably nearby, his black-haired companion beside him.

  Pony nodded. "I think…"

  "Do not think too much, lass," said Andacanavar. "Feel."

  He came over then and pulled her out of the hole.

  "Your road is back to Dundalis," the ranger remarked, "and fast, for a storm will come up tonight, I am sure."

  "And your own road? "

  "Back to the east," the ranger replied. "And the storm?"

  "Not much of one for one from Alpinador," the ranger replied with a laugh. "We'll find a difficult road, no doubt, but one that we can manage."

  Pony stood and stared at the huge man for a long time, realizing then that, though they had known each other for only a few days, she was going to miss him very much. "You said that you would teach me," she argued.

  "And so I have," the ranger replied. "You said that you think you saw your lost lover, and that is better success than one can ever expect for their first tries at Oracle. You'll get more tries, for I'll leave the mirror in place. It will become easier-you will begin to teach yourself-and then you will know, my friend. You will know that you are not alone, and that there is a place of peace awaiting us after this life. And when you know that, truly, and not just hope it, then you will be free."

  Pony stared at him curiously, not really knowing what to make of him and his promise.

  The cynical part of her remained doubtful that even Oracle could take her to such enlightenment, but another part of her, a very private and very big part, prayed that he was right.

  "The covering should be over that window, brother," Master Fio Bouraiy said when he came upon Francis in his room, staring out the window at the western fields.

  Francis turned about to face the master, his face a mask of pain. "To keep out the cold? " he asked. "Or the sounds of the misery? "

  "Both," Bou-raiy answered, his expression grim. He softened it, though, and gave a sigh. "Will you not join us in the mass of celebration for the new year? " he asked.

  "For what will we pray?" Francis asked sincerely. "That the plague stays outside our walls? "

  "I've not the heart nor the time for your unending sarcasm, brother," Bou-raiy replied. "Father Abbot Agronguerre asked me to come and tell you that we are soon to begin. Will you join us? "

  Francis turned and looked back out the window. In the field beyond, he saw the fires-meager fires, for they had little to burn. He saw the dark, huddled silhouettes of the miserable victims moving about the encampment, the many makeshift tents set up in the mud and snow.

  "No," he answered.

  "This is a required mass," Master Bou-raiy reminded him. "I ask once more, will you not join us? "

  "No," Francis answered without hesitation, not bothering to turn to face the man.

  "Then you will answer to Father Abbot Agronguerre in the morning," Bou-raiy said, and he left the room.

  "No," Francis said again. He considered the night, the last of God's Year 829. He knew that the turn of the year was mostly a symbolic thing, the imposition of a human calendar on God's universal clock. But he understood, too, the need for such symbols, the inspiration that a man might draw from them. The strength and resolve that a man might draw from them.

  Brother Francis Dellacourt, an Abellican master, walked out ofSt.-MereAbelle that night, while the rest of the monastery sang in the mass in celebration of the New Year. He pulled a donkey behind him, the beast laden with mounds of blankets.

  Across the frozen and long-dead tussie-mussie bed he went, into the muddy field, into the cold wind blowing back off All Saints Bay.

  Many curious gazes settled upon him, and then a woman came out of the darkness to stand before him. Her face was half torn away, a mask of scars, and she tilted her head, regarding him with her one remaining eye.

  "Do ye reek o' the plague then? " Merry Cowsenfed asked.

  Brother Francis came forward a step and fell to his knees before the woman, taking her hand in his own and pressing it to his lips.

  He had found his church.

  She talked and chatted with him easily, bouncing her ideas off him, and her fears; and though he never answered, Pony knew beyond doubt that he was truly with her again, that there was a sentient, conscious spirit of Elbryan out there, ready to help her sort out her feelings and her fears.

  This was no trick of magic, she believed, no trick of imagination, and no imparting of false hopes. This was Elbryan, her Elbryan, within the mirror, looking at her, knowing her, and she him.

  She found her strength there, though the world about her continued to darken, because there, in that hollow beneath the elm, in that mirror, Jilseponie Wyndon had found her church. How easy it is for a person to overwhelm herself merely by considering too big a picture. I have spent many, many months despairing over my inability to find a balance between community and self, fearing selfishness while becoming paralyzed by a world I know to be too far beyond my, or anyone's, control.

  What point was fighting the battle if the war could not, could never, be won?

  And in that confusion, compounded by the purest grief, I became lost, a wandering, aimless person, searching for nothing more than peace. That peace I found in Fellowship Way, with Bolster beside me, and with Bradwarden's tunes and the ultimate serenity of the starry sky to calm my nights.

  But those are frozen moments, I have come to know, little pieces of serenity in a storm of chaos. The world does not stop for the stars; the errors of mankind continue, and the dangers of nature are ever present. There is no end of turmoil, but far from a terrible thing, I have come to see that turmoil-change-is what adds meaning.

  My lament was that perfection of society was not attainable, and I still hold by my words: There is no paradise in this existence for creatures as complex as human beings. There is no perfect human world bereft of strife and battle of one sort or another. I have not come to see a different truth than that. I have not found some magical remedy, some honest hope for paradise within the swirl of chaos.

  Or perhaps 1 have.

  In considering only the desired destination, I blinded myself to the road; and there lies the truth, there lies the hope, there lies the meaning. Since the end seemed unattainable, I believed the journey futile, and there was my error-and one I will forgive myself because of my fog of grief.

  No one can make the world perfect. Not Nightbi
rd. Not King Danube. Not Father Abbot Agronguerre, nor father Abbot Markwart-and I do believe that Markwart, in his misguided way, tried to do just that-before him. No one, nor any one group, be it Church or Crown. Perhaps the perfect king could bring about paradise across the land-but for only a few short blinks in the rolling span of time. Even the great heroes, Terranen Dinoniel, Avelyn Desbris, and my own dear Nightbird, will fade in the fog of the ages, or their memories will be perverted and warped to suit the needs of current historians. Their message and their way will shine brightly, but briefly, in the context of history, because we are fallible creatures, doomed to forget and doomed to err.

  Yet there is a point to it all. There is a meaning and a joy and a hope. For while perfection is not attainable, the glory and the satisfaction lie along the road.

  And now I know, and perhaps this is the end of grief, that such a journey is worth taking. If all that I can accomplish is the betterment of a single day in the life of a single individual, then so be it. It is the attempt to do what is right-the attempt to move myself and those around me toward a better place-that is worth the sacrifice, however great that sacrifice must be.

  Yes, I have lost my innocence. I have lost so many dear to me. Every day, I see the cairn ofElbryan. He was a ranger. He walked the road toward paradise with his eyes wide open and his heart full of hope and joy. He gave everything, his very life, trying to make the world a better place. futile?

  Not to the people he saved. Not to the mothers and fathers who still have their children because of him. Not to the people ofCaer Tinella, who would have died in the forest at the hands of the goblins and powries had it not been for Nightbird. And hadAvelyn not given his life in destroying the physical manifestation of Bestesbulybar, then all the world would be a darker place by far.

  Perhaps this is the end of my grief, for now when I look upon the grave ofElbryan, I know only calm. He is with me, every step of my own road.

  That road is out ofDundalis, I know, out of the hiding place called Fellowship Way, to those places where I am needed most, whatever the personal price.

  Yes, I see the world clearly, with all its soiled corners, with all of its cairns for buried heroes.

  There is work yet to be done.

  — Jilseponie Wyndon

  Chapter 30

  Fight On

  Nothing but sickness and death," Belster O'Comely said with disgust, waving his hands and his bar rag about dramatically. He wasn't playing to any grand audience, though, for he and Pony were the only two in Fellowship Way at this early hour. "What's in yer head, then?" Pony looked at him, her face masked in the perfect expression of calm. "It is my place now," she replied.

  "Yer place?" Belster echoed. "Didn't ye spend all yer breath in pullin' me up here? "

  "And I did need to come up here," Pony tried to explain, though she knew that the journey she had walked to get to this point was something quite beyond her pragmatic friend. "And we have carved a good life out of Dundalis."

  "Then why leave?" Belster asked simply.

  "I am needed in the south," Pony said, for about the tenth time that morning.

  Belster put on a contemplative expression and pose. "So-just so I'm sortin' it out right-ye're wanting to come north when all the world's bright in the south, and now ye're wantin' to go south, when the darkness of the plague has swallowed the whole of it? " The portly man shook his head and snorted. "Chasin' darkness, are ye, girl?"

  Pony started to reply, but stopped, realizing that she had little to say against that interpretation other actions. From Bolster's point of view, from the point of view of anyone who had not walked her recent spiritual path, it seemed that she was doing exactly that-chasing misery and darkness.

  "Ye're goin' to get yerself sick and dead, is all," Belster finished, and he wiped the rag hard across the bar.

  Pony grabbed his arm and stared up at him, forcing him to look her directly in the eye. "I might do just that," she said in all seriousness. "And I might go down there and do no good at all for anybody. But-can you not understand? — I have to try. I have been given this gift with the gemstones, a gift that the Abellican brothers claim is a direct calling from God. Am I to deny that? Am I to huddle with the hoarded gemstones while people around me suffer and die? "

  "That's what them monks do," Belster reminded.

  "And they are wrong," Pony insisted.

  "The gemstones won't fix the rosy plague," Bolster said. "Ye did try, with Colleen and with others when ye were in Palmaris. Have ye forgotten that already? "

  "I will never forget," Pony grimly replied.

  "Then why're ye pretendin' that ye don't know better?" Belster demanded. "Ye fought the plague and it beat ye. Ye fought it again and it beat ye again-and ye're not the first to wage this battle. Them monks, they know the truth of it, and they admit the truth of it, and that's why they stay behind their walls."

  "No!" Pony interrupted. "They hide because they are afraid."

  "Because they're smart."

  "Afraid," Pony said again, firmly. "They hide because they have found no answer and fear the consequences of trying. If Avelyn thought along those same lines, would he have ever gone to Mount Aida after the demon dactyl? If Nightbird thought along those same lines, would he have joined me in my fight against Markwart? "

  Belster started to respond, but Pony knew what was coming and cut him short. "Yes, they are both dead," she said before he could. "But think of what might have happened if they had not tried, if they had not gone against their fears and won a battle that none believed they possibly could."

  Belster gave a great sigh of surrender.

  The door to Fellowship Way banged open then, for the first time that morning, and a young man, Harley Oleman, crashed in, obviously agitated.

  "It's here! It's here!" he cried. "The rosy plague's found us!"

  Pony looked at Belster.

  "Jonno Drinks," Harley Oleman explained. "Jonno Drinks' got the rings!"

  "Ye wanted yer fight," Belster said quietly to Pony. "Seems like it found ye here."

  Pony dropped her hand into her gem pouch and produced the deep gray hematite, the soul stone, holding it up before Belster. "A fight that I am more than ready to wage," she said determinedly. She headed for the door, motioning for Harley Oleman to follow her.

  "He should be put right out," Harley started to say, turning to plead with Belster as he did, for it was perfectly obvious that Pony wouldn't be seeing things quite that way.

  Pony knew Jonno Drinks, though not well, but even if she didn't know him at all, it wouldn't have been hard for her to figure out which cottage belonged to him. A crowd had gathered outside the small shack, many cursing and demanding that the man walk out of the house and out of their town.

  They quieted considerably when Pony came through their ranks, casting stern glances at each and every one. "Compassion is salvation," she reminded them. "Woe to you if you get the plague and die, but all the more woe to you if that happens after you have shown such cruelty to your fellows."

  And after the woman they held up as a great hero put them in their place, Pony stunned them even more by striding right up to Jonno Drinks' door, and after a sharp rap to let the sick man know she was coming, right into the house.

  She heard them before she closed the door behind her, some whispering that she, too, would have to be forced out of town.

  She ignored them. Her fight lay before her, not behind-with the rosy plague and not with her fellow townsfolk.

  She found Jonno Drinks in bed, feverish and with those same hollow, pleading eyes that had faced her in Palmaris. She was surprised at how advanced the plague already seemed in the man, and wondered if he had been hiding it for a while-and feared the consequences to the rest of Dundalis if that was the case.

  "One battle at a time," she reminded herself, and she clutched the soul stone tightly, bringing forth its magic to free her from her corporeal form, and then spiritually diving right at the man.

  An h
our later, Pony sat on the floor beside Jonno Drinks' bed, thoroughly exhausted and sometimes slapping at her arms as if the little plague creatures were all about her. For all of her determination and all of her strength, she had done little to push back the plague in the man, she knew, and had once again nearly been overwhelmed.

  The worst part was that she had believed she was making some progress at first, pushing through the green soup that was the plague, but then it had come at her, and viciously, and only her great power with the soul stone had kept the tiny demons at bay. A lesser gem user would have likely been overwhelmed byJonno's disease.

  And so she believed that she had survived another encounter, but for Pony, that was hardly a victory.

  She fell asleep right there, beside Jonno Drinks' bed.

  She awoke many hours later, when the sun was low in the west. She felt somewhat refreshed and turned back to Jonno, soul stone in hand, thinking to do battle one more time.

  She found the man resting comfortably, though, and decided against the course. Let him sleep and let her gather even more strength before the next fight. She must be better prepared for that fight, she realized; should find some answers between now and then. Pony pulled open the gemstone pouch and considered the myriad stones in there, searching for a combination, searching for some answer that would not come.

  But then she thought of Elbryan and of Avelyn, of those heroes who had gone before, and she thought she knew where she might get some answers.

  She came out of the house swiftly, wanting to get to Oracle before nightfall. The crowd was still there-nearly all the town now-waiting, waiting, like the specter of death itself.

  "He dead?" one man asked.

  Pony shook her head. "We are fighting," she replied, and she noted that every one of them fell back at her approach.

  "He should be put out of town," another man, farther in back, remarked.

  Pony stopped and glared in his direction. "Hear me well," she said, her tone deathly cold. "If you, if any of you, think to harm Jonno Drinks, or think to put him out of town, then I will hunt you down."