The voice rang like a clarion to the lost witch. She rushed toward it, focused all of her thoughts on it. And when she opened her blue eyes once more, the first sight that greeted her was the shining sun; the second was the smile of Bryan of Corning, brighter still.
Bryan knew at once that she would recover. She had no wounds, at least none that he could see, and the deathly pall that had fallen over her fair skin had already dissipated, gone away like the gloomy overcast of Morgan Thalasi.
“You could not die,” he said to her. “Not now, not after what you did.”
But the answering smile on Rhiannon’s face was shortlived. “Yer friends,” she said, and her grim tone sobered the half-elf’s mirth. “Siana, Lennard, and Jolsen.”
“Dead?” Bryan asked, not even questioning Rhiannon’s source of information.
Rhiannon nodded. “I seen them meself, walking to the dark realm.” Bryan looked away, and now it was Rhiannon’s turn to provide comfort. She reached around his slender neck and pulled him close to her.
“Ye know they died bravely,” she consoled him. She remembered the grim sight of the line of dead. “As have so many others. Ye know their death had meanin’, for all the world is saved now.”
“Then I must hope that my own death will be as valiant,” Bryan replied softly, but the words, like those of the archer to Arien Silverleaf, rang hollow in his own ears; simple proclamations had no strength against the awful reality.
Together they looked back toward the northern fields, to the mass of corpses and the destruction wreaked by the flood, the magics, and the trampling charges of thousands of soldiers.
Rhiannon considered Bryan’s last words in the light of the scene before her. “Me hope’s that ye’ll not find the need,” she said.
“A victory hard won,” Benador remarked to Ardaz when they were alone later that day. The King had asked the wizard for some information regarding the fate of Istaahl, since the White Mage had made no effort to contact him in many hours.
“Harder won than you might imagine,” the Silver Mage replied, his voice somber and controlled. “Indeed.”
“Have you learned the fate of Istaahl?”
Arien Silverleaf entered the tent, saw the King in audience, and bowed and turned to leave.
“Pray remain, Eldar of Illuma,” Benador bade him. “The wizard’s news affects us all, unless I miss my guess.”
“It does, oh it most certainly does,” Ardaz agreed. “Arien’s people more than your own, in the end.”
“Illuma Vale, Lochsilinilume, remains as it was,” Ardaz went on, seeing that he had their fullest attention. “But the age of wizards nears its end—might just be that it has ended already.” He looked Benador straight in the eye.
“The White Tower is no more,” he said, “though Istaahl has survived.” Benador’s sigh of relief was audible, and Ardaz offered him a hopeful wink. “We wizards are a tough lot, you know.”
“We shall rebuild the tower as soon as I return to Pallendara,” Benador decreed. “Sooner! I’ll set men on the task at once. More glorious—”
“No,” Ardaz interrupted, stopping him with the simple word. “You might rebuild a tower, but not the White Tower,” the wizard explained. “It was created centuries ago by the magic of Istaahl. Masons, however skilled, will not replace what has been lost.”
“Then Istaahl—” Benador started to reason.
Ardaz cut him short again. “No,” the wizard repeated. “Istaahl will not find the strength for such a task. Nor can I or Brielle lend him the strength,” he added quickly, guessing Benador’s next inquiry before the King could voice it.
“But how do you know this?” Arien asked, concerned not only for the White Tower but for his own homeland, which was entirely the creation of magic.
“We draw upon the same sources of power,” Ardaz tried to explain. “Our magics come not from within, but from a place removed, a store of energy that we can tap into and channel to our own needs and ways.” The wizard’s head drooped visibly as he muttered the possibilities aloud, lending even more despair to the two onlookers.
“But that place has also been a casualty, I do dare—”
His voice broke, and it took him a long moment to compose himself enough to continue. “We will find the resources for minor magics, and still we’ll make our mark in the world. But the White Tower is gone, and Avalon has burned, though a part of it may remain.”
“And Lochsilinilume?” Arien dared to ask.
“It has fared the best,” Ardaz replied hopefully.
“But it, too, is on the wane,” Arien reasoned. “For without the power of Ardaz, the enchantment will surely begin to falter.”
“But faded, too, is the strength of the Black Warlock,” Benador insisted, trying to inject some light into the darkness. “Even if the Black Warlock survived the attack on the field, never again will he pose so great a threat to Calva, and to all the world.”
Ardaz nodded and looked away. “Witness the dawning of the age of mortals,” he said. “The time of the wizards has slipped away.”
Arien and Benador looked at each other both hopefully and a bit afraid. They could complete the rout of the talons and eventually win back the western fields. And without the Black Warlock to regroup the talons and hold them in line, it seemed doubtful that the chaotic creatures would ever come back to war in such numbers. Certainly all the goodly peoples of the world would be more secure without the specter of Morgan Thalasi hanging over them.
But both the leaders thought then of wondrous Avalon, the forest of springtime; and of Lochsilinilume, the enchanted valley of the elves; and of the White Tower of Istaahl, the pinnacle of Pallendara’s strength. And neither was sure at that moment that the cost had been worth the victory.
“Be strong,” Ardaz pleaded to them, particularly to the Calvan king. “The world is yours now.”
And so began in Ynis Aielle the Age of Man.
Epilogue
THE REMAINDER OF the scattered talon forces on the eastern side of the great river were found and destroyed within the course of the next two days. And as the planning for the construction of the new bridge began, the Eldar of Illuma and the Ranger Lord decided it was time for them to head home.
“You will be sorely missed,” King Benador said to them one rainy morning. “I had feared this parting, yet I held out hope that you would continue to fight by my side when we crossed into the western fields.”
“Would that we could, good King,” replied Arien, the elf who had forgotten how to smile. “But my people have suffered greatly in this war. It is time, I think, that we go back to our valley and mourn our dead.”
Benador could not disagree with the Eldar’s assessment. With their efforts against the undead brigade and the sheer courage of their stand on the breached bridge, Arien and his people had played as vital a role as any in the victory at the river. But the cost had been staggering. The elves had charged down from the northland to the aid of Calva five hundred strong, yet only a handful more than two hundred had survived to make the trek back to Lochsilinilume.
“And we, too, must be going our way,” Belexus added, standing by his father’s side. “Yer fights in the west’ll be won, I’m knowing, but we’ve another battle to attend.”
“Avalon,” the King reasoned. Ardaz had told Benador of the destruction to the wondrous forest and of Brielle’s continuing efforts to restore some measure of its glory.
“Ayuh,” replied Bellerian. “The witch’s needing our aid. Suren we owe her that much.”
“And more,” agreed Benador. “And no one knows that better than I. Go then, my friends. Go back to your homes and be assured that Calva will prevail in the end, and that you have once more shown all my people the inestimable value of your friendship. My thanks.”
And then Benador, the King of Calva, bowed low to them.
The solemn procession rolled out that same dreary morning, and somehow the jingle of the bells on the elven steeds did not seem so
merry.
“Me head’s hurtin’,” Rhiannon grumbled. Bryan nearly jumped at the words, the first the young witch had spoken in the two days since the battle. She had lain in the soundest of slumbers—too sound, Bryan feared—and the half-elf wondered if she would ever awaken. He rushed to the side of the makeshift cot and kneeled, brushing her thick hair from her fair face.
“Good that you’re back,” he commented with a wide smile.
“Me head—” Rhiannon started to complain again, but Bryan hushed her by putting a finger over her soft lips.
But then the half-elf’s contentment washed away in a flood of horror as he noted the spot Rhiannon was talking about, a pulsating lump in the middle of her forehead.
“What?” he gasped, and his stark terror frightened the young witch. She put a hand up on the lump, her eyes widening as her skin began to tear apart.
But then the pain was gone, and when Rhiannon felt the cut-edged hardness, she understood and was no longer afraid.
“The wizard mark,” Bryan realized with a sigh. He had heard enough of the tales of the four wizards of Ynis Aielle to recognize the significance of the gemstone that now adorned Rhiannon’s forehead.
“The witchin’ mark,” Rhiannon corrected him. “Have ye a pool or a shinin’ silver bowl?” she asked, a bit self-conscious. “Does it—”
“It is beautiful,” Bryan assured her, and none could doubt the sincerity in his voice. For truly the gemstone of Rhiannon, a diamond glittering with the same inner sparkle that lit the young witch’s eyes, outshone the marks of any of the other wizards: the black sapphire of Thalasi, the white pearl of Istaahl, the silvery moonstone of Ardaz, and even the emerald of her mother.
The blush in her cheeks only made Rhiannon seem even more beautiful to Bryan at that moment, and he hugged the witch’s head close to his chest. “Rest now,” he said to her. “You have saved the world, and now I will protect you in your need.”
Rhiannon pushed Bryan out to arm’s length to take a good measure of him, to better understand the implications of his tender tone.
“On my life,” Bryan vowed, “I’ll not let anything hurt you again.”
Rhiannon did not question the jumble of confusing emotions that now churned within her. She just accepted the renewal of Bryan’s comforting hug, closed her eyes and slipped away into the soft fog of a peaceful sleep.
* * *
A fifth wizard mark had found its place in the world, but that fact did nothing to diminish the damage done to that special place wherein the wizards garnered their power. Ynis Aielle’s Age of Magic was quickly on the wane.
He could not know, then, that with the weakening of the wizards he was now the mightiest being in all of Aielle. All he knew was hate and an insatiable hunger for revenge.
The wraith of Hollis Mitchell pulled himself from the river.
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