Belexus stepped out first, squinting and glancing about, looking for familiar landmarks. He did indeed spot one, a peak he knew well, and he realized then that the shortcut through the tunnels had taken them far under the mountains, back to an area that would have taken the pegasus three days of flying, and that in good and warm weather, weaving about the tall peaks and landing often, that Belexus and Ardaz might take a break from the too-cold air.
“Dere you go, boss,” Okin remarked. “You should be staying in dem tunnels dis cold night, and be out early in the morning.”
It was an invitation that Belexus, to Ardaz’ obvious relief, could not refuse, and so the three, and the pegasus and cat, followed Okin back into the complex, to a nearby room that had already been prepared for them.
“We’re owing ye much,” the ranger remarked to the brown-skinned man before he departed.
“Dat you are,” Okin Balokey replied with a chuckle. “So you be using well dat sword!” he insisted. “You make Pouilla Camby sing. Dat be de way you pay back the Architect Tribe.”
They shook hands then, and it seemed to DelGiudice that the often-aloof ranger was full of gratitude and warmth toward these mountain folk.
The next morning, after many good-byes to Okin and several others who had come back with him, the friends were off, Calamus flying hard to the south and west. The day was not especially cold, and the pegasus stayed aloft for many minutes at a time, and that evening, the friends camped in a sheltered lea only three short hours’ travel from Lochsilinilume. The ranger was even more eager now, pacing and mumbling, handling often the magnificent sword, the promise of vengeance upon the wraith of Hollis Mitchell.
Del, too, was anxious that night, as memories of the Silver City of the elves flooded back to him, filled him with joy. In his previous existence, the ghost had found his finest moments in Lochsilinilume, except perhaps for those in Avalon, and the prospect of seeing both places again thrilled him—to the bone, he supposed, if he’d had any bones. Ardaz didn’t help things much that night, reminding Del of all the joys: the elven dance, the wine, the free-spirited people at play in the snow, and, reminding him, mostly, of the witch of the wood.
Thus, they were out before the dawn, flying though the sun-sparkles that only touched the very tallest peaks of the easternmost mountains. They saw the candles burning as they came over the valley of the elves, and saw, too, many more fires, campfires, down the mountainside from that valley, spread wide on the field of Mountaingate, awaiting the break of day.
“We must investigate,” Ardaz reasoned, prodding Belexus to keep the pegasus flying on, right over the Silver City. The wizard looked to DelGiudice then, and bade the spirit to go on ahead, to determine whether those campfires belonged to friend or foe. When Del returned to the other two a few minutes later, he brought curious news.
“Not talons, nor even humans,” he explained. “But elves. All of them, unless their numbers have increased greatly in the years of my absence.”
“Ye’re sure?”
“Arien Silverleaf is among them,” the ghost reported.
“Curiouser and curiouser,” Ardaz mumbled. “Now why would Arien and his kin come out of the valley? Trouble afoot, I fear.” The three went off together then, speeding down the mountainside, and they came upon Arien just as the elves were breaking camp. A series of cries and shouts went up from the low field, and bows did, too, until the approaching flying creature was recognized as Calamus, long a friend to the elves of Illuma.
And then came the cheers, as the elves recognized the riders upon the pegasus: the wizard who had served them for so long and the ranger who had rescued them on the field of Mountaingate in that terrible battle a score of years before.
Down went Ardaz and Belexus, and it wasn’t until they landed on the field beside the noble elf lord that they realized that DelGiudice hadn’t accompanied them down. At first, the pair exchanged worried looks, but Ardaz broke into a chuckle and nodded knowingly toward nearby Avalon. “Someone else he meant to see first,” the wizard remarked.
Somehow that didn’t calm the ranger’s nerves.
“My greetings, dear friends,” Arien said as soon as he determined that he would not be interrupting the private conversation. “You have come at a time when you are most needed, I fear.”
“Always seems to be my way, now doesn’t it?” the wizard remarked dryly.
“I’ve come to pay back the wraith of Hollis Mitchell,” Belexus answered, and he drew out the wondrous sword.
Arien’s eyes shone at the sight; all the nearby elves crowded around, marveling at the sheer beauty of the diamond-edged weapon.
“Use it well, Belexus,” Arien said solemnly, “for know that our enemy has struck a mighty blow against our hearts.”
“Benador?” Ardaz asked breathlessly.
Arien shook his head. “Rhiannon.”
Belexus nearly toppled from Calamus, and did, in fact, slide down from the saddle, barely catching his balance on wobbly knees. Ardaz held his seat, leaning forward when the ranger was out of the way, whimpering softly, and muttering, “Oh, my poor Jenny,” over and over.
“We are marching through the forest this day, out the other side, and into the Brown Wastes,” Arien explained. “Ride with us for a time, that I might tell you all of the grim tale. But take heart, for it is not a tale without hope.”
The elf lord called for another horse then, for Ardaz, that Belexus could ride Calamus alone. The caravan went into the forest as soon as the pair were situated, elvish bells tinkling, and Arien rode beside the ranger and wizard, telling them of the events of the last few weeks.
All the while, Belexus kept his hand tight about the hilt of Pouilla Camby, the wondrous sword he just then decided he would indeed name Cajun, vowing silently that he would get Rhiannon back, and unharmed, or take vengeance upon her enemies.
Brutal vengeance; merciless vengeance.
* * *
The moment he saw her, standing in the middle of a snow-covered field, he knew who she was and recalled vividly all that they had once shared. Brielle, his dear Brielle, whom he had loved more than anything in all the world, and now the mere sight of the Emerald Witch tugged at Del’s emotions more than the sight of the birth of stars, more even than anything Calae had shown to him.
The ghost swooped down to the field behind the witch, staring at her lithe form, loving her all over again. And judging from Brielle’s expression when she turned about, her eyes wide and mouth drooping open, the effect was no less on her. “By the gods,” she mouthed, hardly able to find her breath. “By the gods.” And she ran to Del, arms wide to embrace him.
She went right through him, stumbling past, stifling a cry.
“What trick?” she shrieked, spinning back on the ghost. “What torment? What trick? Oh, Thalasi, this is yer evil doin’!”
“No,” Del interrupted, the calm in his tone steadying Brielle. “No, it is me. DelGiudice. Jeffrey DelGiudice.”
“But it canno’—” Brielle started to reply. “Ye’re but a …” She took another deep breath and began to sort through the riddle. Brielle was a creature of the first school of magic, the school dedicated to the ways of Nature, and she had great understanding of the spirit world and the connection between the realms of life and death. “DelGiudice,” she said more than asked, recognizing now the ghost for what it was.
“My Brielle,” he replied, his tone a lament. She was so close, and so beautiful, and yet he could not touch her, could not hold her. Why had Calae done this to him? he wondered. Why hadn’t the Colonnae sent him back in corporeal form, as they had returned the other four wizards?
“Then ye’re sent to tell me o’ me girl!” the terrified witch cried suddenly. “Ye come from the grave to tell me o’ Rhiannon!”
“I come from Calae,” Del said quickly, not understanding her anxiety, but wanting to dispel it.
“What news, then?” Brielle asked, near hysteria.
The spirit shrugged, obviously no
t understanding.
“Suren ye know o’ me girl,” Brielle reasoned.
Again the shrug, and poor Del was truly at a loss.
“O’ yer girl?” the witch pressed.
“Who?”
“Rhiannon!” an exasperated Brielle declared. “Yer girl. Yer daughter!”
“I have no daugh—” Then it hit Del like a stroke of lightning; then it was his turn to hear his own words jumble indecipherably, to feel his sensibilities scrambling as Brielle’s meaning came clear.
“I have a daughter?”
“Ayuh.”
“And you?” Del asked, pointing.
“She’s me own,” the witch confirmed.
Del’s thoughts whirled and whirled, careening back to a night by a small pond, serenaded by the gentle wind and the mournful cry of a single loon, when he and Brielle had made love, had created, so it seemed, a girl child. And such a sensation of warmth, of immortality, of sheer joy overwhelmed the ghost that he nearly floated away on the gentle winds.
“I … we … have a daughter?” he stammered through a tremendous smile.
Brielle smiled, too, but it was short-lived as she considered the reality of Del returned—returned in spirit only. Brielle, above all others in the world, understood the limitations of such an entity, and suspected that Del would be of little help.
“Tell me,” Del implored her, not catching the clue that something was terribly wrong.
Brielle blinked her eyes and snapped out of her terrible worry long enough to register the spirit’s understandable curiosity. Tell him, indeed, she thought, and she wanted to, wanted him to share in the joy of Rhiannon, wanted him to know his legacy: that beautiful spirited young woman. “Hear me,” she whispered, and the breeze carried the words to Del’s ears, sent him deeper within himself, to a place where he and Brielle could communicate on a more profound level.
He heard again the cries of a child, of his child, on that fateful night twenty years before, as he dropped from Shaithdun O’Illume, as he fell into the arms of waiting Calae. He followed those distant cries to Avalon now, and saw Brielle with her newborn child, with beautiful Rhiannon, at her breast. Then he saw Rhiannon through the years, saw the child stand on shaky legs and wobble through her first steps, chasing a bunny. He saw her blow a lock of that shining black hair out of her face, blue eye flashing into view for just a second before the stubborn lock plopped right back down. He saw her feeding squirrels from her fingertips, saw a bird alight on her shoulder, saw a bear—a huge and powerful bear—walk right by the child, even allow her to grab onto its hairy flank and get pulled along for a ride.
He saw her dance and sing, and twirl across an open meadow for no better reason than the joy of being alive. He saw her skipping stones on that same pond beside which he and Brielle had conceived her, and saw her hopping on flat rocks across a wide and shallow river, pausing to chase fish that rested in the calm pools.
He saw it all and knew his Rhiannon, so much the daughter of Brielle. He saw it all, and he understood again the benefits, the highest joys, of the mortal coil that was human life, and for the first time since he had returned to Ynis Aielle, Del was filled with deep regret that he had passed on from this world. For all the glories of the heavens, there were indeed experiences here that could equal the joy.
Brielle, his love, was one of them; Rhiannon, his child, was certainly another.
“Where is she?” the spirit asked, his tone somber, for he suspected now that there was some terrible trouble concerning his daughter.
“The wraith got her, unless I miss me guess,” Brielle replied. “The wraith got her, and thus, Morgan Thalasi’s got her, and all the world’s gone dark.”
Del wanted nothing more than to go to her and put his arms around her and hug her close and tell her that she must hold out for hope. That he could not do, though. And he knew then that if anything terrible happened to Rhiannon—if that beautiful life that Brielle had shown to him was cut short—it would pain him evermore. It was not, could not be, Rhiannon’s time to pass on—not before she had truly experienced love and life.
But Del feared that he could do no more to help Rhiannon than he could to comfort Brielle, and he considered then the fact that if he went over to hug the witch, his arms would pass right through her physical body.
He almost cursed Calae in that moment, almost called out against this cruel, seeming joke.
Chapter 19
Comrades of Convenience
THE LAST SEVERAL blows didn’t even register, as the young witch fell far, far away from the brutal beating Thalasi’s zombies exacted upon her, escaping from the pain to a place deep within herself. She recalled scenes of Avalon in springtime, of feeding birds and squirrels, of swimming naked and free in the dancing waters of the great River Ne’er Ending. And yet, even here, the Black Warlock found a way to reach her, for each of those calming images were invaded, tainted, by the specters of Thalasi and Mitchell, hovering at the edges of the scene, laughing wickedly, promising doom.
So Rhiannon stopped dreaming altogether, stopped thinking, as she had stopped feeling. She fell so far into herself that she came, at last, to a place beyond Thalasi’s reach, and no longer did she hear the taunts or the slaps, and no longer did she feel even the shackles that had her hanging from the wall by her torn wrists.
“I will wake the witch,” Mitchell promised, and started for her.
Thalasi held the Staff of Death out in the wraith’s path, stopping him short. “You will not reach her,” the Black Warlock explained. “She is far from us now, and is strong, so very strong.”
“And so very stubborn,” the wraith added, drawing a chuckle from Thalasi.
“Like her mother,” the Black Warlock remarked.
“Like her father,” Mitchell growled, and Thalasi laughed again.
“She cannot hide forever,” the Black Warlock calmly explained. “Rhiannon has achieved a state of high meditation, and any tortures we might now exact upon her physical body would be wasted effort.”
“How long?” the impatient wraith wanted to know.
Thalasi, who seemed to be enjoying Mitchell’s ignorance as much as the discomfort given to the daughter of Brielle, laughed yet again. “Be calm, my dead friend,” he said. “Rhiannon will return to consciousness soon enough, and we will be waiting.”
His prediction proved accurate, for the next morning, the battered young witch opened her crystal blue eyes to see Thalasi and Mitchell standing right before her, their zombie guards standing behind them, as unmoving and impassive as stone columns.
The wraith growled low and advanced, ready to punish some more, and Rhiannon closed her eyes at once. Again Thalasi stopped Mitchell by presenting the Staff of Death before him. “She will be gone from us in a matter of moments,” he explained, and he moved right up to Rhiannon, put his face right before hers.
“They are coming for you,” he whispered.
Rhiannon was already moving away from him, slipping fast to that secret inner place. The words caught her, though, and stopped her. She blinked open her eyes.
“They are coming for you,” Thalasi said again. He looked back to Mitchell and winked.
“All of them,” the Black Warlock said suddenly, sharply. “Coming in a rush to Talas-dun because they know you are mine. Do you understand all the trouble you have caused?”
A slight whimper escaped Rhiannon’s lips. She could take any punishment Thalasi and Mitchell could hand out; she did not fear the pain nor death itself. But the thought that many others—people that she loved and who loved her—were on their way to Talas-dun for her sake assaulted Rhiannon’s gentle sensibilities profoundly.
Which was, of course, exactly the effect that the Black Warlock had sought, for adding that anxiety to Rhiannon’s fears would confuse her, would jumble her concentration to the point where she might not be able mentally to slip away from him any longer.
Stubbornly, Rhiannon closed her eyes again and began to sing softly, a merr
y tune that she had often shared with the birds of Avalon.
Thalasi’s cackling laughter got through those notes, and so did many of his words as he conversed with Mitchell, as he and the wraith spoke of battle plans to defend against the coming forces. He mentioned Arien Silverleaf and Belexus, and Brielle often. “Out of Avalon, the cursed witch is no match for us,” the Black Warlock said pointedly, and before he was finished with that statement, Rhiannon’s song was no more. “Brielle knows it, too,” he added. “She knows that she cannot stand against me anywhere in all the world save her precious Avalon.”
“Then why would she come out?” the wraith asked, cuing on the devious prompt and looking knowingly at Rhiannon all the while.
“Because of her!” the Black Warlock snapped, rushing over so that his skeletal face was right before Rhiannon’s eyes, so that she could see his supreme confidence and joy. “At long last, I have lured her from her forest. Brielle comes out because of her poor daughter.”
The Black Warlock stood close, examining Rhiannon for a short while. Then, convinced that despair would prevent her mental escape, he motioned for Mitchell to move back in and resume the beating.
Some time later, Rhiannon hanging unconscious in the dungeon, Mitchell and Thalasi walked the parapets of their fortress, surveying their army.
“We must not underestimate our enemy,” the Black Warlock cautioned. “Many heroes will come out against us, unless I miss my guess. The rangers of Avalon, surely, and likely Arien Silverleaf and his elven kin.”
“And the witch,” Mitchell added.
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