by Sean Russell
They sat in a circle around a small fire, watching the eastern sky turn pale, the moon still riding into the west. Dusk had found them, going anxiously from one to the other, as though seeking news of his master.
They all seemed reluctant to leave. Kehler and Hayes sat upon the ground, their backs to a stone. The others perched upon stones or logs that had been set about the fire pit.
All of them seemed lost in their own thoughts, emerging occasionally to make a statement that almost invariably did not lead to conversation.
Erasmus could not describe what he felt—hollow, empty. None of these words did justice to the void he felt inside. He could hear his own thoughts echo.
It was fire, he thought, the unnatural fire. It burned me away inside, and like Percy, there is no sign of it on my skin.
But perhaps it was merely exhaustion and the trauma of what they had been through these last weeks, beginning with their exploration of the cave, and if so, it would pass. Certainly it would.
“I wonder if poor Clarendon will find his lost Lizzy?” Hayes ventured.
“He had no choice but to go,” the countess said softly. “His memories were ravaging him. He could not escape them. Going through the gate was desperation. Perhaps he hoped Eldrich would help him, would take away some of the pain of it. He was a singular little man, bearing a terrible burden of memory, wrongs he could never forget, betrayals, all manner of cruelty because of his difference. And yet he had created a persona for the world that belied the truth. He did not seem haunted when one first met him. Indeed, he seemed to be a man at peace.” She shook her head.
“He was an individual of great complexity, Randall Spencer Emanual Clarendon,” Erasmus said. “We knew him only briefly, and though we saw him under the most revealing circumstances, even so . . . I think it would have taken many a year to know him well. He had been so injured by the world of men that he seldom ventured forth into the light. I felt honored that he trusted us enough to reveal what he did. But the countess is right; he hid his scars well.”
Unlike Percy, Erasmus thought.
Silence settled itself among them again.
Occasionally the countess would raise her eyes from the fire and contemplate Erasmus, but each time he met her gaze, she looked away, a great sadness etched on her beautiful face.
“What will we do now?” Hayes asked.
“You, Mr. Hayes,” the countess said, “we shall certainly find you a position in the foreign office, if that is what you still desire. I think Sir John Dalrymple will be particularly sensitive to your application.”
“And I will go with Brother Norbert to root out all the records of the arts from the archives of the Church of Farrelle,” Kehler said, with some satisfaction. He looked over at Norbert. “I expect it will take some little while.”
“And when that is done,” Brother Norbert said, “I will return to my monastery in the hills. There is a task there I left unfinished. So many spirits that wander still. . . .”
This caused the countess to look up, her gaze thoughtful.
Erasmus felt himself shrug. “Perhaps I will go to Farrow for a while. I don’t know. Where does one go after such an experience? Where does one go that memories cannot follow?”
“Forward,” the countess answered. “Westward, Halden would have said, traveling with the light. That is what you should do, Erasmus. That is what we all should do—if we can.”
* * *
* * *
Walky took up the reins of the team and looked down once more at his former charge and the countess who stood by to send him off.
“Will I see you again, Walky?” Erasmus asked.
“Perhaps, sir. The world is full of surprises. But I have duties yet and must complete them before my time comes.”
Erasmus saw the way the old man glanced at the countess, and with a small bow to his former teacher, he left them alone.
He saw the old man reach down and take her hand. She put a foot on a step and rose up to kiss him tenderly, touching a hand to his cheek. Erasmus was certain there were tears in the old man’s eyes as he shook the reins and rolled the carriage forward.
The countess came and stood by Erasmus, watching the carriage disappear down the hill. Dusk appeared beside them, watching as well. He seemed almost to quiver, as though it were Clarendon who left. Then, suddenly, he raced off after the carriage, having apparently made his decision. Who among all of them was most like Randall, after all?
“What will he do now that he does not have Eldrich to serve?” Erasmus said.
“I don’t know. It was his life, and when the duties he was left are done, I am afraid poor Walky will be done as well. Try to imagine never having a will of one’s own. Having no life that was not in service to some other. It is beyond imagining.”
“Yes,” Erasmus said softly.
The countess turned to look at him, drawing herself up. Even tired and travel-sore as she was, the countess still seemed almost unnaturally beautiful to him.
They regarded each other a moment, Erasmus searching for something to say.
But then she reached out and touched his arm. “I forgive you, Erasmus. Eldrich put a fear into you in childhood that you could never overcome. I . . . I forgive you.”
Erasmus nodded, but before he could speak, she turned and walked away, answering the question he struggled to form.
She went then to Brother Norbert, speaking quietly to him, the hermit nodding solemnly, acquiescing to her request as men invariably did.
* * *
* * *
The countess took the second carriage and Eldrich’s driver and set off at first light, leaving the rest of them wondering if it had all been a dream.
“At least Eldrich is not here to steal our memories away,” Kehler said. “Or perhaps unfortunately he is not. I do not know which.”
“No,” Erasmus said. “We shall have to learn to accommodate them or make peace with them, whatever it is that one does with memories.” He looked over at Brother Norbert. “What was it the countess asked of you before she left, Brother? Or can you say?”
Brother Norbert nodded. “When I am done with searching the archives of the church there are two ghosts—the spirits of small children—to whom I might bring peace. We shall see.”
“Yes,” Erasmus whispered so that none might hear, “but who will bring peace to the living?”
I do not know why Eldrich chose me to tell his story, or why he chose anyone at all. It was, after all, the practice of the mages to maintain a wall of secrecy around all that they did. But then, Eldrich was the last, and in the end I think he succumbed to the very human desire to be understood, to forge a place in human memory. The common anonymity of death frightened even him.
Marianne Edden:
The Last Mage.
Epilogue
On midsummer’s eve the carriage came to Hyloft manor, making barely a sound as it rolled up the uneven lane. In the circle before the old house it rocked to a stop, and there disembarked a man so small that his weight did not even jiggle the carriage. He straightened his breeches and frock coat carefully and then, from the carriage, retrieved a flat package wrapped in plain paper.
For a moment he stood in the starlight, as though unsure of his intent, but went forward, pausing with a hand raised to knock on the door. He remained thus for some time, then slowly let his hand fall to the package, caressing it.
Bending with the slow motion of an old man, he leaned the package gently beside the door. Again he hesitated, staring down at the package in the faint light, his face in shadow, then made a quick bow, pausing at the bottom of the motion, and rising slowly. Looking back only once he turned and retreated to his carriage, reaching up to grasp the high handle.
“Would you not rather keep it yourself, Walky?” Erasmus said.
Walky turned to find his former charge eme
rging from the shadow of a hedge.
“Does it not mean more to you? Did she not?”
Walky stared at the silhouette, the emotions on his face hidden, but his posture a riddle of contradictions. “I shall not have the pleasure of it long, Mr. Flattery. Best the portrait go to you, who will treasure it as I have.”
Erasmus nodded. “Are you unwell, Walky?”
“Not as any could tell, Mr. Flattery, but I lived to serve the mage. . . . He is gone and so shall I be soon. No, do not express regrets, it was the life I chose. A life few others have lived, I dare say. Do not pity Walky, for it would be wasted sentiment.”
Neither man said anything for some moments.
“You are the last magical thing in this world, Mr. Walky,” Erasmus said, surprised at the emotion in his voice. “What kind of world will it be without you?”
“The mage was the last magical thing, Mr. Flattery. Not me.”
“That is where you are wrong. The mage was hollow in his center. A creature of certain appetites and desires, perhaps of duty. But you—You are good and kind and compassionate. Better you had been the mage, Mr. Walky, then magic would have been of a different character. You would have cast your enchantments on the fields of peasants, and eased the aching of the old, even their aching hearts. No, Walky, you are the last magical thing. I am sure of that.”
“Well, sir, I think you’re talking a lot of nonsense to please an old man, but I bless you for it all the same.” He opened the door, a little embarrassed, Erasmus thought. Placing a foot upon the step, Walky looked back at Erasmus.
“Good-bye to you, sir,” he said, his voice coming out as a whisper. “Be at peace, Mr. Flattery. Do you hear? Be at peace.”
“And you, Walky.”
The old man nodded and climbed up into the high carriage, pulling the door to behind him. His face appeared at the open window, and Erasmus crossed to stand below him.
“Call me your young lion,” Erasmus said quickly.
“Sir?”
“Call me your young lion. I want to hear you say it once.”
Walky stared down at his former student, his mouth working silently, and then in a whisper. “Fare thee well, my young lion. Fare thee well. . . .” This last word swallowed whole.
He reached out the window. Erasmus took the small, tough hand in his own for a moment and then the carriage rolled forward. For a few steps Erasmus clasped the hand, and then he let it go, like a bird into the air.
Walky looked back at him, raising his hand once in the starlight, and then the lightless carriage made its silent way down the lane. A shadow among the shadows. A dream of magic. Gone.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sean Russell published his first fantasy novel, The Initiate Brother, in 1991. He has since published six novels with DAW Books. His influence in the fantasy world comes from J. R. R. Tolkien, and he knew he wanted to be a writer since the age of ten.
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