by W. C. Conner
With that, he turned and left the building as Thomas summoned several of the brothers to help him take Gregory to his cabin which had been kept just as he had left it.
In its cave, sealed and fused by wizards’ fire, the mass of darkness pulsed softly as it felt the familiar touch of a kindred evil. It tried reaching out, but Gregory’s binding spell held it yet in thrall. Somewhere, a presence it had known before reached toward it as if in greeting.
As it pushed against the binding, straining to connect with the faint presence, it felt a tightening, a squeezing as if the spell of binding was responding to its challenge. A hollow echo of mad laughter joined with the binding to taunt and torment the blackness as it struggled to free itself.
She tortured me because of you, came a thought with a hint of madness in it. You did this to me. I worshipped her but she tortured me because of you. The binding tightened even more causing the darkness to warm from the compression. You will suffer as I suffered. The temperature in the cave went up as the hollow echo of madness-driven laughter increased the pressure on the darkness yet more.
Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the pressure relaxed as the laughter ceased. The clot of pulsating darkness was left raging in frustration with nowhere to vent its hate.
In his cabin directly above the cave, Gregory had fallen asleep at last. Deep within himself he settled into what he regularly practiced but no longer recognized as the wizard’s sleep that would renew his strength in preparation for tomorrow’s single minded assault on the blackness that he blamed for ruining his life.
Gregory’s eyes moved rapidly behind his eyelids, following his fantasy of Styxis as she teased and tormented him, laughing cruelly at the look of worship in his eyes and the rising lust that would never be quenched. He whimpered with longing, then laughed aloud in his sleep.
If I can keep laughing, I won’t go mad.
33
A light snow was falling outside the little cabin at the edge of the Wisdom wizards’ compound as Brother Bartholomew checked in on Gregory to satisfy himself that the broken wizard’s health still held. The light from the lanterns shone weakly upon the snow outside as he stepped through the door.
Gregory looked up as he entered and smiled broadly at him. “It holds,” he said.
Bartholomew nodded. “It holds,” he repeated. “It holds, indeed.” After adding several logs to the fire which had died down since his last visit, he patted Gregory’s shoulder, then let himself out the door and walked through the winter’s eve darkness toward the meeting hall.
There was no guard posted at Gregory’s unlocked door for it had been quickly determined that he had no interest in leaving his cabin. When he was awake, he would acknowledge the presence of whoever came in with food or wood or simply to visit, but he would shortly turn back to mumbling to himself and making the strange faces that had begun shortly after he had been returned to the compound.
“His physical health is excellent, Eldred,” Bartholomew reported, “but it sometimes seems his mind has wandered even farther afield since he returned to us last summer. He has increasingly been making those strange faces as if he was striving against something, but what that might be, none of us has been able to determine.”
“Perhaps he strives with himself,” Eldred suggested. “His mind is, after all, broken. We have tried to detect any new magical auras surrounding him, but there is still only the spell of binding.”
Bartholomew considered Eldred’s words. “I have no better explanation.” He shrugged. “Nobody has a better explanation.”
In his cabin, Gregory had taken himself to his bed. The amount of energy he had spent torturing his captive mass of darkness this day had brought him to the point of exhaustion. Crossing his arms across his chest out of habit, he dropped off to sleep, but before he could lapse into the comatose state of wizard’s regeneration, a thought stopped him.
You are no longer needed, wizard.
His eyes popped open in terror.
I must have the darkness you hold in thrall.
Gregory’s heart beat more and more rapidly as the level of his terror increased. He struggled to raise himself to his feet, but found himself held firmly to his bed. His scream of terror was cut off before it could escape his throat.
The flames in the fireplace crackled cheerily as a gasp of departure escaped Gregory’s throat.
“It appears his heart simply stopped beating, Eldred,” Allen reported, his voice breaking slightly with the beginnings of adolescent awkwardness.
The leader of the Wisdom wizards sat with his head bowed.
“We must hope that our wizards’ fire sealed the cave against the escape of Gregory’s collected evil,” he said.
In the cave directly below Gregory’s now cooling body, the mass of hate-filled darkness expanded with the sudden release of the spell of binding. There was a moment of quiet during which a kindred thought reached out to it.
You are free.
The darkness probed its surroundings before flowing toward a large fracture in the wall of the cave in which it had been imprisoned; a fracture that had resulted from Gregory’s constant torturing of his hated collection of darkness.
In the end, Gregory had defeated both himself and the Wisdom wizards in his madness and his ignorance. For in the constrictions of the darkness during his single-minded assaults on it, he had caused it to turn white-hot, followed at regular intervals by respites during which he slept and recovered his strength. In this cycle, the walls that had been sealed by wizards’ fire had been alternately super-heated, then cooled again and again and again until finally they had simply fractured.
34
“You’re not really dead, are you?” Wil asked of the shade of Gleneagle who sat opposite him at the table in the kitchen of the stone cottage.
“What makes you say that?” Gleneagle asked.
“I was remembering something Greyleige said to me,” Wil replied. “When he was tempting me in the tower, he made a disparaging comment asking whether I had done any magic other than the spell given to me by the dead elf. I didn’t think about it consciously at the time, but something deep inside me disagreed with the idea that you were dead.”
“Your sense of it is correct,” the shade replied.
“You are not a ghost, then,” Wil concluded. “You are a projection.”
“I am. And like you, my projection is bound to the Old Forest by the power of this place and my elfstone. It is true that I can travel to its margins easily, but I may not pass the Forest’s border. My immortal true self exists with my people.”
“What is it like there?” Wil asked.
Gleneagle smiled. “The Old Forest is but a pale copy of our world, Wilton. Were it in my power, I would show it to you. Then again, were it in my power, the human that I loved would have been here with me.”
“Perhaps there is a way I could see it someday,” Wil mused.
Gleneagle frowned. “Don’t even think it, Wilton,” he said sternly. “In such dreams lie the makings of another Greyleige.” As he spoke the name his face brightened. “What do you know? I said his name aloud but it caused me no pain.” He looked very pleased at this bit of trivia.
Wil did not notice, though, for a faint tremor of distress in the earth snapped his attention back to reality. “There was a cry of hurt from the Forest just now,” he said.
It appeared to Wil that, at the tremor of distress, the shade’s face had paled even more than normal, if such a thing was possible. He rapidly faded from sight and reappeared within just a few moments. “Something kills the magic at the margins of the Forest,” he said.
“I can sense that something evil is at the edge of the Forest,” Wil said, a look of concern on his face. “When I cast my senses in that direction, it feels as if there is emptiness where there should be fertile earth and life.”
Wil continued his probing and realized the emptiness was moving. The feeling suggested a void was forming, but that seemed unlikely. As Wil cast
his senses farther into the earth around him, they came to a point where they touched something altogether unwholesome and his senses shrank away from it in alarm.
A darkness. A very large darkness, Wil thought. He looked up at the shade. “Gregory is dead, then,” he said aloud. “His legacy is no longer spell bound nor is it contained, for it moves.”
“Watch over my shell, Gleneagle,” Wil said. “I cannot let this evil move unchallenged.”
He stood and opened the door, then walked to the center of the clearing in which he had received the scrolls just over five years before. Lying down on the ground and placing his visible arm across his chest, he closed his mind to all but the powers of the earth upon which he lay and willed himself into a trance of oneness with the Old Forest.
His breathing slowed until there was no discernible movement and his heart rate dropped to no more than one or two beats per minute. In this trance, although his body hovered perilously close to death, his spirit became a part of the sentience of the Forest which knew all things. In this state, there were no thoughts, no questions, no answers. There was only an awareness which could touch any awareness that might exist within the darkness.
The darkness flowed slowly with no true consciousness to know that its progress was impeded by the earth’s aversion to its touch.
Wil’s awareness flowed above the ground toward a spot below which it could feel the presence of the darkness. Sinking into the earth like rain upon water-parched sand, his awareness whispered to the darkness below it and listened to the echo.
Gleneagle watched with concern as Wil’s body lay in its state of near death for more than two hours before he saw the chest expand with a normal breath as the eyes fluttered, then opened to fix themselves upon the shade. “It is being driven by a power from outside of our world,” he said, “and it threatens Caron’s child.”
Gleneagle looked deeply into Wil’s eyes. “You continue to grow, Wilton. Your powers are beyond any I have known or heard of to be able to challenge the strictures of the Forest in this way. You do, indeed, have the potential within you to be a much greater danger to life than Greyleige could have ever dreamed of being. If you truly love mankind as I believe you do, you must determine within yourself that the Forest must be your home forever.”
Wil seemed to not hear Gleneagle’s concern. “I need the ability to project my power once again,” he said. A look of determination and anxiety crossed his face. “I must contact Caron.”
35
The new young heir to both the Duchy of Confirth and the Principality of Gleneagle lay quietly in the cradle which Mertine rocked with her foot. Her hands were busy mending Caron’s riding breeches which the princess intended to use as soon as the weather cleared.
Across from her, Caron paced back and forth in front of the enormous fireplace in which several large logs blazed cheerfully, warming the entire room against the cold of the snow storm that blew around Castle Confirth.
“He’s been gone an awfully long time, don’t you think, Mertine?” Caron said as she walked.
“He has indeed, Highness,” Mertine answered absently as she sucked at the finger she had just pricked with the needle.
Caron stopped and glared at her maid. “When are you going to stop calling me ‘Highness’, Mertine?” she said, her frustration at the absence of her husband clearly showing. “I understood you to agree to call me by my name when we were away from the others.”
Mertine stopped her stitching but continued rocking the cradle as she glared back at the princess. “I’m sorry, Caron,” she said, with an emphasis on the name. “Long-standing habits die hard and I’m constantly in fear that I’ll slip and call you Caron at the wrong time and place. However, I’ll do my best to do as you wish.”
Caron resumed her pacing but she shot a guilty glance toward her lifetime maid. “Forgive me, Mertine,” she said. “That was not fair of me. You are right, of course. It is wrong of me to demand it of you.”
“Once again, your good sense prevails,” Mertine responded wryly. As she finished speaking, the young prince awoke. “And now your master calls,” she continued in the same tone, an amused grin on her face.
Caron crossed to the cradle and lifted the baby into the crook of her arm. The shape of his face and the slightly olive cast to his skin was suggestive of his father, but in all other things, he was his mother. Already showing a thick shock of black hair, black eyebrows suggesting his elven heritage and dark, nearly black eyes, he was a strikingly beautiful baby by anyone’s measure. He started to complain at the delay in his meal plans as Caron stared down at the new love of her life.
“Come now, Alexander. Don’t be so impatient,” she said as she loosened the front of her gown. “You will be fed in sufficient time to keep you from starvation.” His eager little mouth began its suckling motions as soon as he felt the warmth of her breast and he was soon busily satisfying his hunger. Caron was still amazed that this wondrous creature had actually sprung from her body. Sitting down at the edge of the bed, she rocked gently from side to side and watched contentedly as he nursed.
“You do think Alexander is a good name for him, don’t you Mertine?” she asked her maid once again.
“It is a noble name, Caron,” she answered with a smile. She had lost count of the number of times her mistress had asked the question in the three months since his birth. “He will be a worthy successor as the next Prince Gleneagle.”
“He will not be Prince Gleneagle,” she said softly. “That line was broken with me.” Caron’s voice dropped off as she finished and her eyes lost their focus. Mertine looked over to her as she stopped the rocking motion.
“He will be a king, not a prince. His kingdom will be all encompassing and the dynasty he establishes will stretch for a thousand years and more.”
Mertine had stopped stitching as Caron spoke. Her mouth hung open as Caron’s eyes cleared and looked toward her maid.
“Was that a vision,” Mertine asked, “or were you just dreaming?”
Caron started to reply, but her voice broke and she stopped, then nodded her head before finding herself able to speak once again. “A vision.” She looked down at her son who now dozed with her nipple still in his mouth.
In the trunk at the foot of her bed, the talisman awoke for the first time since it had been brought back with her from Blackstone. As Caron gazed in wonder at Alexander, the key warmed in its wrappings and the thinnest ghost of a thought entered her mind.
Caron, forgive me for intruding where I am not welcome but there is a new danger. Gregory has died. The darkness is released from its spell of binding. You must bring my arm to me. I need its power.
Her stomach clenched at the presence of a voice in her mind which she tried so hard during the past year to erase from her memory, and her mouth grew tight with repressed anger at what he had done to her; to her daughter; to them. She had to smother the impulse to simply scream at him.
I’ve already done enough. You’ll have to do it without me this time, Wil.
There was a moment during which Caron hoped perhaps he would not pursue it, but his thought at last responded to her.
Your child is in grave danger, Caron. The darkness will soon be seeking it.
Her anger was quenched by the fear Wil’s message had raised and she clutched Alexander more closely to her, throwing her robe over him as if that would protect him from the danger he was speaking of. He sensed the defeat in her thought. Is there no one else who can bring this to you?
For your sake alone, I would will it otherwise, but there is no one else the Forest will allow to enter.
Mertine watched her princess’s face as she wrestled with Wil, not knowing what was happening, but sensing that it was something important. There was a tone of defeat in Caron’s voice as she at last responded aloud to Wil.
“We will come.” There was a brief pause before she continued. “Yes, he will come with me.” Another pause, then her voice grew firm. “Find a way, Wil,” she said
. “He is coming with me.”
At the question in Mertine’s eyes when she had finished, Caron said, “Pack my warm clothes, Mertine. I am leaving tomorrow for Wisdom and Alexander will accompany me.”
Roland shook the snow from his heavy cloak and stomped the slush from his boots as he walked through the front door into the great entry. Throwing the cloak to a servant standing near, he looked at the stairs toward which he was headed and asked of no one in particular, “Is the princess in her room?”
He was stopped by Mertine’s voice. “She is not here, my lord. She left two days ago, bound for Wisdom.”
Roland whirled toward Mertine, a look of concern and anger on his face. “My son?” he asked.
“Is with her, my lord.”
“By the powers, Roland exclaimed. “What has possessed her?”
“Gregory has died, my lord,” Mertine replied evenly. “His spell of binding on the darkness is no more. Wil sent for Caron to return the talisman to him.”
“I am surprised she agreed to help him,” Roland said quietly.
Mertine looked grim as she replied. “The darkness seeks Alexander.”
Mitchal rode beside Caron as their horses walked easily through the large snowflakes that drifted silently about them, seeming almost to muffle even the sound of the horses’ hooves as they moved. Alexander lay wrapped and warm inside Caron’s cloak, sleeping soundly with the rocking of her body in time with her horse’s movement.
Behind them, Angela rode in the coach, bundled warmly against the cold and drifting in and out of a pleasant nap. Ten of Roland’s personal guards rode in front of Caron and Mitchal, while twenty more rode behind the coach. Unknown to Caron, Mitchal had two small patrols spread out around their party to scout for any unseen threats to the princess and her baby to fulfill the promise he had made to Mertine before they left.
