Bastion of Darkness

by R. A. Salvatore

  If that was the case, Thalasi wondered if he could hold out against the wraith. He looked to the Staff of Death again, his most powerful of creations, and hoped that its powers had not too greatly diminished, as had the Black Warlock’s own.

  Truly she was exhausted after the tremendous expenditure of magical energy, but Brielle would not slow her efforts to breathe warmth back into the cold body of Bryan of Corning. She spent days with him in the heart of Avalon, tending him, warming him, coaxing him back to life, and finally, after nearly a week, the young half-elf opened his weary eyes.

  “Rhiannon,” he said at once, a clear note of alarm in his voice.

  Brielle, despite her fears for her daughter, quieted him, knowing that he was not yet ready. Patience, she told herself. That would be the only way to get the whole story, and get it correctly.

  By that night, Bryan was much stronger, and awake again. And when he told her, her worst nightmares came true. Bryan feared that Mitchell had caught Rhiannon, and had either killed her or taken her captive, and when Brielle considered the sensations that had come to her that night nearly two weeks before, she knew that the young half-elf was correct. Mitchell had not killed Rhiannon, of that the Emerald Witch was certain. If Rhiannon died, Brielle’s heart would feel it, no matter how many miles separated them. But he had taken her, or was herding her, chasing her, else she would have surely returned to Avalon.

  The Emerald Witch stood silent in a field later on that clear evening, looking up at the starry canopy of Ynis Aielle. She had to regain her strength, after the flight to Bryan and the many hours of magical tending, and then she had to look far and wide, had to call to her animal friends to act as spies, had to search to the ends of the world until her dearest Rhiannon was found.

  But in her heart, she already knew.

  Brielle understood where the horrid wraith, Thalasi’s pawn, would take so valuable a prisoner, and she knew, too, that that place, the black fortress, was beyond her powers.

  So she stood quiet under the stars, her heart breaking, her imagination running wild with her fears for her dear daughter, for innocent Rhiannon who did not deserve any of this.

  His approach was without fanfare, without announcement. The wraith stalked the last quarter mile to Talas-dun in the same manner that it had traveled the hundreds of miles before that. In Mitchell’s wake came a thousand talon soldiers, a nervous group indeed, all bloodshot eyes darting to and fro, looking for some signal from the bastion that all was well.

  Thalasi watched it all from a tall tower. He first noted the talons’ movements, trying to discern if they had come for war or parlay. Then he focused on the wraith, and then, more particularly, on the body the wraith carried.

  It was not Brielle, Thalasi knew, for the Emerald Witch had hair the color of gold, not raven black. But what other woman would Mitchell bother to cart across the miles? Certainly the wraith had no lustful intentions, and certainly Mitchell knew Thalasi well enough to understand that such a gift, if it was a gift, would mean little to the Black Warlock. Curious, but ever cautious, the Black Warlock held his ground, high up.

  The wraith stalked up to the great iron front gate. “Throw it wide!” he commanded, and when no reaction seemed forthcoming, Mitchell struck the great doors with his mighty mace. The blow echoed about the courtyard, up in the towers, walls and floors shivering. “Throw it wide!” the wraith bellowed again, and this time, to the Black Warlock’s horror, some of the zombies moved toward the huge locking bar.

  Thalasi reached out to them telepathically, sent his will upon them to stop them. He found that Mitchell’s thoughts were already there, and in the struggle that ensued, several of the zombies literally split apart, their rotted forms torn asunder by the war of wills.

  At last the wraith backed off, relinquishing control of the zombies, and Thalasi wasn’t sure if he had won the battle or if Mitchell was just conserving strength.

  “Am I to be shut out, then?” the wraith called.

  “Do you enter as friend or foe?” Thalasi retorted, moving into Mitchell’s view at one of the tower’s narrow and tall windows.

  The wraith issued its hideous laugh. “I am a pawn of the Black Warlock,” Mitchell replied unconvincingly. “An unthinking tool.”

  “Never that!” the Black Warlock retorted sharply. He thrust forth the Staff of Death, and took some comfort in the fact that Mitchell recoiled before it. Yes, its power was strong, Thalasi decided, and so he sent his will down to the zombies again, and this time allowed them to open the great door.

  In came the wraith and the talons, the living creatures stopping fast when they noted that gruesome undead monsters filled the courtyard.

  Thalasi nearly chuckled, despite the tension. A tremendous turnaround might now occur, he realized, with Mitchell taking control of the zombies, and Thalasi similarly stealing away the living talons Mitchell had brought in.

  Nothing of the sort happened. To Thalasi’s relief, the wraith placed its cargo down on the ground and called up to him. “I have brought a gift,” Mitchell explained.

  Thalasi started to reply sharply but thought the better of it, and after a moment’s hesitation, he swept down the tower stairs and out the door, leaving several talons to guard the portal and hold open his escape should battle begin. Even as he approached the wraith and the body, Thalasi felt the unusual sensation. The wizards of Aielle could feel each other, could recognize each other’s aura as a dog could recognize its master’s smell. Thalasi did not know this woman, and yet he did, had felt her presence before, on a field so far away …

  All fear of the wraith flew away, and the intrigued Black Warlock rushed to the woman and turned her over, his hollow eyes going wide indeed to see that she carried a wizard’s mark, a diamond set in the middle of her forehead.

  “The daughter of Brielle,” Mitchell explained.

  Thalasi looked up at him.

  “Rhiannon by name.”

  The Black Warlock hardly remembered to draw breath. This was too beautiful, too unexpected. “Why have you returned to me?” he asked bluntly, for, with his hopes suddenly soaring, he needed to have things properly sorted and clarified.

  “The war is not yet over,” the wraith replied, just the answer Morgan Thalasi had hoped for. “We have been thrown back, but not down; wounded, but not killed.”

  “And wounded, too, were our enemies,” Thalasi was quick to put in. “The wizards will be of little consequence when next the battle ensues.”

  “Perhaps the time of wizards is past,” the wraith dared to say, drawing itself up to its full, imposing height; and there it was, spoken openly and plainly.

  A threat if Morgan Thalasi had ever heard one.

  Chapter 12

  The Benefits of Insubstantiality

  “DELGIUDICE?” THE SPIRIT asked repeatedly, pondering the name, its former name, and all the memories the mere sound of the word inspired. “DelGiudice.” All through the cold night—though the spirit had no sensation of the wintry mountain chill, unless he willfully experienced it—the spirit had sat vigilant guard over his new companions. Belexus sat propped against a tree, but fast asleep, confident in this new manifestation of Jeffrey DelGiudice as a sentry. Ardaz lay wrapped in many blankets, dangerously close to the fire, snoring contentedly. Calamus stood nearby, wings folded, head down, dark eyes closed. Only Desdemona remained awake, watching DelGiudice. The cat, above all the others, had not taken well to the ghost. She remained apprehensive, and every time Del so much as glanced Desdemona’s way, she arched her back and spat at him.

  And though he couldn’t touch living flesh, Del found cat spittle a bit uncomfortable.

  The spirit did not need to sleep, couldn’t even comprehend such a notion, and so he agreed to keep the watch, and while he did, he remembered. He kept repeating key words, particularly names, over and over, changing the inflection until the ring became familiar, thus tapping another memory or name, like a growing chain. By the end of the first night, Del had rebuilt his
memory to include his time aboard the Unicorn, the advanced submarine that had brought Del and some others, including Mitchell and Reinheiser, to this new world. Before the dawn, before the others awoke, he recalled his adventures crossing Ynis Aielle; his first meeting with Calae, prince of the Colonnae; his unexpected rescue by Belexus in Blackemara, the ancient swamp; his meeting with the other rangers, Bellerian and Andovar; and his stay in the most marvelous Emerald Room that served as throne chamber to Bellerian. And of course—and, to his thinking even now, most important of all—Del remembered his first glimpse of, and all his subsequent meetings with, Brielle of Avalon.

  Brielle. That name rang most familiar of all, sent a warmth through the spirit, the fondest of memories. How he had loved her, though their time together had been so painfully short. It was, at the end, Brielle’s rejection of Del that had caused him to wander to Shaithdun O’Illume, the shelf of the moon, that fateful night, when Calae had come to him and bade him to travel the stars. So had ended Del’s life on earth; so had begun his journey with the Colonnae.

  He was deep in thought, deep in memory, both sad and glad, when the sun broke the eastern rim and Belexus stirred, rising and stretching, then coming to the spirit quietly.

  “A fine watch ye keep,” the ranger teased, for Del apparently did not notice his approach. “Or are ye looking out and not in?” he added, nodding to the camp’s perimeter.

  “Looking in,” DelGiudice said, meaning something completely different. “Looking back.”

  Belexus nodded, then motioned to Desdemona, who was all too happy to go over and wake Ardaz.

  “DelGiudice,” the spirit announced, the name at last coming easily to his insubstantial lips. “Jeffrey DelGiudice.”

  The ranger nodded again. “And Del, ye were called by yer friends,” he explained. “Ye’re remembering?”

  “Much of it,” the spirit replied. “The ship that got me here, the journey across Aielle. Our first meeting—you saved me from some altogether nasty creature.”

  “A whip-dragon,” Belexus replied.

  “Yes, a whip-dragon.”

  “And what else might ye be remembering?” the ranger asked. “Arien and the elves?”

  “Of course,” Del replied, and he smiled at the memory of the fair folk of Lochsilinilume. “And Brielle.”

  The spirit did not notice the cloud that passed over the ranger’s face at that moment.

  “Most of all, Brielle,” Del went on, and he looked to the south and west, the brightening peaks and the dark, mysterious shadows below them.

  The cloud darkened for Belexus, but then a chuckle from the spirit broke the tension. Belexus followed Del’s gaze to the sleeping wizard, or more particularly, to the black cat sitting atop the wizard’s chest, every so often batting Ardaz across the nose. With a great sneeze that sent Desdemona scrambling and growling in protest, Ardaz popped open his eyes.

  “What? What?” the wizard sputtered. “Oh, Des, you silly beast!” He looked all around then, focusing at last on Del and Belexus. “Morning already?” he quipped, so suddenly seeming more wide awake than either of them could ever hope to be. “Off we go, then!”

  “Our friend’s begun to remember,” Belexus announced.

  “Splendid!” the wizard roared, coming out of the tangle of blankets, catching his legs in one and falling facedown to the ground but hopping right back up, undaunted, bouncing toward the pair. “All of it?”

  “All since the submar—the ship that brought me here,” Del replied.

  “Submarine,” Ardaz corrected. “Went on one once—or in one, actually. Wouldn’t do to go on one, now would it? I do daresay! Beastly tight and cramped in there. Could hardly spread my wings. Of course, that was before I was a wizard, after all, and so I couldn’t sprout wings in the first place. Ha ha!”

  It took Del a while to sort through that rambling, but as he did, he recalled that Ardaz was from his own world, the world gone twelve centuries, the world before the holocaust, which the elves called e-Belvin Fehte. That realization alone brought Del some recollections of that lost time, but they were distant images, far away and unclear. He tried to clarify them for a long moment but gave up, thinking that he had more important business this day.

  When he focused on his companions once more, he found Belexus looking up forlornly at the nearest peaks. Or at least, where the nearest peaks should have been, for a low cloud cover was closing in on them, stealing their sharp, rocky outlines in a blur of gray.

  “We’ll not be finding much this day,” the ranger reasoned.

  “A bit of, more than a bit of, snow in the air,” Ardaz agreed, shaking his head. “Oh bother.”

  “I thought I’d be finding little trouble in getting to the wyrm’s lair,” the ranger admitted. “High up on Calamus, and with all the view before me.”

  “But?” Del prompted, not seeming to comprehend any of it.

  “But I can’t be keeping up for long in this wind,” the ranger explained. “Too cold for me bones, and for Calamus. And the snow’s been general, and been slowing me, with a bit of it almost every day.”

  “The season will change soon,” the ever-optimistic Ardaz said hopefully.

  “Not soon enough, by me thinking,” the ranger said. “The wraith’s about, and that one’s naught but mischief.” Again he looked forlornly at the sky, and already the clouds were lower, gathering thick about the mountain peaks. “I canno’ go up in that.”

  “But I can,” Del said suddenly, a smile brightening on his ghost face. To prove his point, he lifted off the ground, floating gently, untouched by the wind.

  Belexus and Ardaz exchanged incredulous, and then hopeful, looks.

  “What exactly am I looking for?” the spirit asked.

  “A mountain peak looking like an old man’s profile,” the ranger explained, and he illustrated the image by bending low and cutting a likeness of it into the snow. “That’s the wyrm’s peak, so says Brielle.”

  “And the dragon is somewhere inside?”

  “Ayuh.”

  DelGiudice stood quiet for a moment, studying the drawing, not so certain that he actually wanted to find this particular mountain. He didn’t know much about dragons, for there were no dragons in the world before e-Belvin Fehte, none that weren’t man-made at least. He vaguely remembered some of the legends—Saint George and Bilbo and Smaug and the like—and in his world there were some generally accepted guidelines of what dragons were like. He didn’t remember much of that, but he did understand that dragons were supposedly very, very bad, and not likely to be welcoming his two companions as houseguests.

  Whatever business Belexus had with this particular dragon seemed important, though, else why would the ranger have come out into the Crystals in winter? So with an instinctive shrug, which he found most curious, the spirit lifted away from the ground.

  “We’ll await here for your return,” Ardaz called.

  Del immediately descended.

  “What?” the wizard asked.

  “Well, I did not want to keep you waiting,” Del explained. “I remember that as being quite rude.”

  “We’ll be looking for yer return after ye’ve found the mountain,” Belexus explained.

  “Oh,” Del said, and with another shrug, he started into the air once more.

  It was quiet up in the clouds, comfortably so, and the floating spirit lost his focus many times, lapsing into thoughts of his previous life, both in Aielle and before Aielle. He thought of Brielle often, of their love, and of his family, the one before the holocaust, of his mother and father and their small house in New England. In his heightened state of being, it was actually more than merely thinking of those times. Through sheer concentration and an understanding of time itself—or rather, an understanding of the lack of time—Del put his consciousness back to those moments, relived them as easily as if they were strung out before him, little bubbles that he could enter at will. And each seemed to lead to a dozen more, and so he did very little searching whi
le he floated up above the sheltered vale, but much remembering.

  He did not return to his companions all that day, nor that night, nor the next day, which was even more snowy, nor the next night. On the third morning, the weather breaking somewhat, Belexus announced that he would wait no longer, and he began to saddle up Calamus.

  “But what of DelGiudice?” Ardaz wanted to know. “Can’t be running about separately in the mountains, after all. Too many walls, too many clouds. We’ll never find each other again.”

  Belexus shared his friend’s concern, but that did not overrule the urgency of his own quest. “Might that he’s gone back to the Colonnae,” the ranger said somberly. “We’re not for knowing why he was here, or if he really was.”

  “What could you mean?” Ardaz asked, and then, pop!, he figured it out. “Oh, no,” he said, wagging his hands in the air before him. “No, no, I do daresay. Couldn’t be, no no. No trick of Thalasi, that one.”

  “Can ye say that ye’re sure?”

  Ardaz nodded so violently that his great hat fell down over his eyes.

  “Well, we’re still not knowing what bringed him to us, or for how long,” Belexus reasoned. “And every day we’re waiting, the wraith’s likely bringing pain.”

  In the face of such simple and indisputable logic, the wizard ran out of arguments, so he went to the campsite, muttering every step of the way, and began packing their provisions. “Cold up there,” he mumbled repeatedly, and unhappily, though he didn’t disagree with the ranger’s decision that they set out again on their way.

  Before they ever got the pegasus readied, though, Desdemona gave a long mew, announcing the return of the missing ghost.

  “Good that ye’ve returned!” Belexus beamed, trotting to the spot before the descending spirit. “We were just about to leave.”

  “Why?”

  “Ye been gone a long while, me friend.”

  Del regarded the ranger curiously, not quite understanding. “I said I would go to find the peak,” he replied at length, as if that should explain everything.