Bastion of Darkness tcoya-3

by R. A. Salvatore

  “And well ye did,” Brielle replied. “Yer wounds should’ve killed ye long before ye got near to me home.”

  “But that was so many days ago,” Bryan said, his expression puzzled.

  “Nine days,” Brielle clarified.

  “We must out for Rhiannon at once,” the half-elf reasoned, looking all about like an animal put in too small a cage.

  Brielle’s upraised hand calmed him.

  “You know of her?” Bryan asked hopefully.

  “With what ye telled me, I can find out more,” the witch explained. “Take yer breakfast alone.” She pointed to the evergreen. “I’ll be back to ye afore the sun crests.” With that, Brielle was gone, disappearing into the brush so quickly that Bryan blinked many times.

  He did as she asked, moving to the spruce tree and finding a most delicious meal set out for him, and though he was too worried for Rhiannon to feel hunger, he ate well, realizing that he would soon need all of his strength. And how he marveled at how much of that strength had already returned! As the morning passed, the half-elf began to feel much more himself. His legs soon steadied, his head cleared, and he felt as if he had spent a year at rest, eating well and training easily.

  The only things that tempered the near euphoria were thoughts of and fears for Rhiannon, and Bryan knew that if she did not return to him, his health would fly away.

  Brielle came back to him late that morning, her face grim, her gait slow and even awkward. Bryan ran up to meet her, took her by the shoulders, then lifted her chin so that she looked him in the eye.

  “No,” he breathed.

  “She’s not dead,” the witch whispered, seeming so very old suddenly, the twinkle in her green eyes flown away. “But she’s been taken.”

  “The wraith?”

  Brielle nodded. “And Thalasi, I’m fearing, for me divining telled me that Mitchell put out for Talas-dun, and likely he’s there already.”

  Talas-dun. Morgan Thalasi’s black fortress. The name hit Bryan like a heavy stone, a name known by every person in all Aielle, a name synonymous with the deepest terrors and the greatest evil.

  Brielle straightened and pulled from Bryan’s supportive grasp. “I canno’ go after her,” the witch said bitterly. “Me magic forbids me leaving Avalon at this dark time, yet how am I to abandon me daughter to the clutches of Morgan Thalasi?”

  “I can go out,” Bryan said with a determined growl.

  Brielle nodded, for Bryan’s sake not daring to disagree openly, but she understood the futility of it all. The brave young man was no match for Mitchell, let alone Thalasi, and certainly no match for either of them in that dark place, in Talas-dun.

  “By all the precepts of me very existence, I canno’ go out from me wood,” the witch said. “For if I did, then suren Thalasi’d come a’calling, and Avalon’d be taken down, and all the world’d know a deeper pain.”

  “Deeper than the pain Brielle now feels?”

  Her green eyes narrowed as she looked at him, and he understood that, in the witch’s estimation, no pain could be deeper than the one that now tore at her heart.

  “You said that I am not in your debt, and though I offer you my sincerest gratitude, I accept that premise,” Bryan said suddenly, taking on haughty tones that surprised the witch, a demeanor she would have expected from one of King Benador’s knightly warders, perhaps, but not from the half-elf.

  “And as such, I am not bound here,” Bryan went on. “And so I choose to go, at once.”

  “And yer destination?”

  “Is my own to pick,” the determined half-elf replied.

  “Not so hard to guess,” Brielle said.

  “Then if you know me so well, dear Brielle, you know, too, that I must go to the west, to Talas-dun, to the court of Thalasi, to hell itself if need be, in pursuit of Rhiannon.”

  “Ye love her,” Brielle stated.

  “More than I love my own life,” Bryan replied without hesitation, and the words felt so good as he said them, a confirmation of truth, an admission that he knew he’d have to make again, to Rhiannon.

  Brielle spent a long while studying the young half-elf, her perceptive gaze reading his body language, reading his heart. After a few moments, she began to nod slowly. “Ye’re going after her, though I fear ye’ll find the road too dark. I’ll not try to slow ye, though I’m thinking that one who might help might be returning to me soon. And I’ll not try to stop ye, for I know that I could not, not if I showed to ye the truth o’ Talas-dun in all its splendid wickedness.”

  “Not if you showed me that I would have to wrestle Thalasi and all his minions bare-handed,” Bryan replied.

  “And if ye die?”

  Bryan shrugged, as sincere a reply as Brielle could ever have asked for.

  “Ye get yer rest, Bryan o’ Corning,” Brielle instructed. “I’ll gather yer sword and armor-I been mending both-and bring them to ye afore the morrow’s cold dawn.”

  Bryan’s expression became tentative, and Brielle read it easily. The half-elf feared any more delays, feared leaving Rhiannon in Thalasi’s clutches for a moment longer. “I’m not fighting yer feelings that ye should go off at once,” the witch said. “But know that if ye go unprepared, then ye’ve got no’ a chance o’ e’er seeing the black castle. Ye give me the one night and I’ll help ye, I promise, and I’ll get ye a horse that’ll run swifter than any ye’ve known.”

  That last promise quieted any protests from Bryan. “I fear that I have tarried too long already,” he said. “But I trust in your judgment and in your word.” Indeed Bryan did, for he, like everyone else, understood that Avalon’s horses were the greatest in all the world, both in speed and in heart, and it was common knowledge, too, that none could rope or ride such a beast without the blessings of the forest and the lady who guided and guarded it.

  In the morning, true to her word, Brielle returned to Bryan leading a small, well-muscled chestnut mare. Saddlebags bulged with supplies, and Bryan’s fine sword was set through a loop on the side of the saddle, his elven-crafted armor and shield strapped atop the seat. When he took down that armor, the young half-elf’s eyes widened indeed, for the mail had been interwoven with ribbon, green, laced with gold thread.

  Bryan put a quizzical look over Brielle, who only smiled and nodded, all the assurance the half-elf would ever need.

  “Ye’ve got food enough to take ye across the world and back,” the witch explained after helping Bryan to don his armor. “And take heart that yer metal shirt’ll block most any blow,” she added, “excepting, perhaps, the horse-bone mace of the wraith, and I’m not for knowing what terrible weapons Morgan Thalasi will use against ye.”

  The value of such a gift from the witch of the wood was not lost on Bryan. He started to bow, then changed his mind, stepped forward and kissed Brielle lightly on the cheek. “I will bring her back to you,” he promised.

  Brielle could not speak past the lump in her throat. She reached into her pouch and produced an amulet: an emerald set in silver and hung on a thread of vine. She looped it around the half-elf’s neck, drawing his attention to the green gemstone, turning it up so that it glittered before his eyes.

  “Ye know that I’m with ye,” she said cryptically, and let the amulet hang low once more. “Don’t ye ever be forgetting that.”

  Bryan nodded and kissed her cheek again, then, without hesitation, he swung up onto the saddle and kicked the mare into a quick canter.

  He was out of Avalon soon after, riding hard to the west. That western edge of the forest did not border the rolling green Calvan plains, though, but met with the land of Brogg, the Brown Wastes, the desolation of Thalasi. This was the wildest edge of Avalon’s perimeter, a place untamed, and thus, a place always guarded.

  The ever-vigilant rangers of Avalon, watching the lone rider gallop out of the forest, were more than a little confused and suspicious of his passage. Lord Bellerian, father of Belexus, leader of the proud warriors, was back into the deep forest soon after, calling out at
the top of his lungs for Brielle. He found her after midday, and was surely relieved to see that she was unharmed. He questioned her about the slender rider, garbed in the fine armor of Lochsilinilume.

  “A friend o’ me daughter,” Brielle admitted, taking pains not to lock gazes with the venerable ranger. Bellerian was old and crooked from a long-ago battle wound, but his will remained iron-strong, as great as that of any man alive. “So brave a lad,” the witch went on, and the sadness in her voice could not be denied. “Though I’m fearing his days left are not so long.”

  “He rode an Avalon horse,” Bellerian said, a bit of accusation in his tone.

  Brielle only shrugged.

  “And his armor, too, had been worked by the witch of the wood,” the ranger lord pressed. “We saw the green and gold, such as ye’ve recently put into our own shirts.”

  “Yer eyes might be a bit too fine, me friend,” the witch answered with a dismissive wave.

  “Ye helped him.”

  Again, the shrug. “A fine lad, his blood running near to elvish,” she explained. “His heart’s against Thalasi, and so his heart’s with me own.”

  That last line, coupled with the pervasive sadness, hinted at something much deeper to Bellerian. Indeed, he wondered, might the half-elf’s heart be akin to Brielle’s on the matter of her missing daughter? “I did not know that gifts o’ the lady came so easily,” he remarked.

  “Ye’re too old for jealousy,” the witch said dryly.

  Bellerian caught her by the shoulder and forced her to match his stare. “Ye’ve never lied to me, Brielle,” he said quietly, forcefully.

  “And I never telled ye that which I wasn’t planning to tell ye,” the witch replied calmly, and it was true enough. No man, no elf, no one in all the world held any bond over the witch of Avalon.

  “Ye sent him after Rhiannon,” Bellerian said.

  “Go back to yer kinfolk,” she replied, somewhat sternly, and she turned and walked away.

  “How dare ye?” Bellerian yelled at her, just as she was about to make one of her trademark disappearances into the brush. Those words stopped the witch short and brought her back to the ranger lord, her eyes narrow. Green flames, they seemed.

  “How dare ye?” Bellerian said again, not backing down, though a lesser man would have fallen to the ground and whimpered for mercy in the face of Brielle’s terrible wrath. “For two score and more of years, me and me kin’ve been standing beside ye, helping protect yer forest.”

  “Me own gifts to yerself and yers have been no less,” Brielle answered.

  “And all of them to hell, I say, if ye canno’ trust me and me kin on this most important ride!” Bellerian yelled right back at her. “If yer girl’s in trouble, then know without doubt that ’tis our bound duty, and our heart-bound pleasure, to go and find her. Our duty, I say, and our love, and not the work for a young warrior o’ mixed blood!”

  “He loves Rhiannon, of that I do not doubt,” the witch said quietly, all of the fight suddenly flowing out of her.

  Bellerian, too, calmed, recognizing her deep pain. He put his arm about Brielle’s shoulders. “He loves her no more than do the rangers,” he promised. “For Andovar and for Brielle, and for the beautiful young creature that Rhiannon has become, so much her mother, and yet so different.”

  Brielle looked up at him, her eyes wet with tears, the hint of bobbing sobs just beginning about her delicate shoulders. “Thalasi’s got her.”

  Bellerian blanched.

  “And I’m thinking that Bryan o’ Corning might get through where an army could not,” she explained.

  “But he has to first get near to Talas-dun,” Bellerian pointed out. “And the Brown Wastes run thick with talon scum.”

  “Don’t ye be underestimating that one,” the witch replied. “Spent all the time since the first battles west o’ the river, killing talons.”

  Bellerian did not disagree, for he, too, had heard the tales of Bryan of Corning, and had been truly impressed. “But ’tis me duty, and the duty o’ me kin to go with him,” he said firmly. “Out to the west we ride, for Rhiannon, for Avalon.”

  “I canno’-”

  “Stop us,” Bellerian interrupted. “Ye canno’ stop us,” he finished, “for if ye do, then know that ye’ve ended our covenant. And know that ye’ve broken our very hearts.”

  Brielle could not hold her stare against the proud ranger. Truly Bellerian meant his grave threat, and truly, Brielle came to know that she and her daughter were blessed with some of the finest friends anyone could ever hope for.

  “Bring her back to me,” she whispered, and then she broke, falling into Bellerian’s strong embrace, burying her face in his shoulder, sobbing.

  The ranger held her for many minutes, until she found the strength to stand alone once more. And then he looked at her, full of respect and full of love, bowed once, and was gone.

  Twenty-two rangers pounded out of Avalon late that afternoon, riding hard to the west on Avalon steeds, in pursuit of Bryan of Corning, in the hunt against Thalasi.

  In the quest to find Rhiannon.

  Chapter 16

  The Architect Tribe

  “YOU WAKED DE beast, you stupid bean growers!” the first of the dark-skinned tribesmen protested, and again, his kin poked Belexus hard.

  In the blink of an eye, the ranger had the short man by the front of his dusty tunic, lifting him high off the ground.

  “Easy, my friend,” Ardaz warned, seeing the others bristling, seeing their pickaxes gleaming.

  “This man could break de rock,” the hoisted tribesman remarked, and he reached over and felt the ranger’s bulging biceps. “Could break de rock,” he said again with certainty.

  “Or the dwarf,” Belexus warned.

  “Don’t you be calling me dat, boss,” the tribesman replied.

  “No need of this, oh no, no!” Ardaz put in, moving to the center of the group. “Ow!” the wizard added suddenly, a sharp pain sticking him in the butt. He turned about at once but found that none of the short men were anywhere close to him.

  “Hey boss, you don’t piss her off, eh?” the first man said.

  “Piss her off?” the wizard echoed, scratching his head.

  “Caribbean,” Del said suddenly, his face brightening with recognition. He looked to Ardaz. “Before the holocaust,” he explained. “The dialect, the black skin…”

  “Lookin’ brown to me,” one of the tribesmen said dryly.

  “Friends o’ yer Billy Shank?” Belexus asked, and that gave Del pause, for he had hardly considered Billy Shank since returning to this world, and he remembered now that Billy had once been his dearest friend.

  “Ah, yes!” Ardaz roared suddenly. “Caribbean Sea! I do remember, I do daresay!”

  “We don’t know you, boss,” one of the tribesmen said.

  “And no Beely Shank,” another said.

  “Billy Shank,” DelGiudice corrected. “A friend of mine, with skin the same color as yours-almost the same, but not quite as dark.”

  “Hey, you don’t be talkin’ trash, boss,” yet another said and he moved close and poked at Del, and of course, his finger sank right into, right through, the specter. Trembling suddenly, the man backed away, eyes wide.

  “Voodoo,” Del and his two companions heard someone say, and the respect shown them grew immensely in the next moment.

  “Mamagoo not gonna like dat,” the first tribesman said.

  “Mamagoo?” Ardaz and Del and Belexus asked together.

  “Mamagoo de priestess,” the man said. “She ain’t gonna like that you know the voodoo. It will make it harder for her to kill you, you see. She ain’t gonna like no zombies walkin’ about her mountain.”

  “Kill us?” Ardaz echoed. “Whatever for?”

  “For waking de big worm,” the tribesman said. “You tink we want him out of his hole?”

  “Dey tink we be stupid, then,” another said.

  “Dey be stupid,” a third added. “For dey be dead befo
re we be dead!”

  “I’m already dead,” Del remarked, and that brought a unified “Ooo” from the throng, and indeed it now was a throng, more than sixty strong, all short and woolly haired, with dark skin, dark brown mostly, but some who seemed perfectly black in color.

  “Well, the dragon’s gone back to its hole, if that is of any comfort,” Ardaz said, but again he ended with an “Ow!” as another stabbing pain got him in the rump.

  “Oh, yeah. Mamagoo, she like that one,” one of the tribesmen laughed.

  “She’ll be playing wit dat one before she kills him,” another said.

  “Maybe bring him back in zombie to play some more, eh?” yet another laughed, and all joined in.

  “Who are you?” Ardaz demanded, and he hopped and turned, looking suspiciously for anyone who might be trying to stick him with something small and painfully sharp.

  “We be de Architect Tribe, boss,” the first man said. “Don’t you hear so good?”

  “Your name, good sir,” the wizard insisted.

  “Okin Balokey,” the man said.

  “Unbelievable,” Del whispered, more to himself than to anyone else. “Do you realize what this means?” he asked the wizard. “The ancestors of these people must have come to Ynis Aielle right after the holocaust, and they have evolved a bastardized culture…”

  “Hey, boss!” several yelled at once.

  “Don’t you be calling names,” Okin Balokey said. “And I don’t care that you be dead!”

  “No names,” Del said apologetically. “All I meant is that the culture you have evolved is so intriguing.” He looked to Ardaz, who was growing truly agitated, truly excited. The wizard had spent many years trying to prove that others had come to Ynis Aielle, that there had been-perhaps still were-other cultures and other races in the wide world. And now his proof had walked right up to him-and had apparently stuck him in the butt… repeatedly!

  “They speak with Caribbean dialect,” Del went on, “and have the dark skin, of course…”