But then the young witch started to sing.
Rhiannon’s voice rang out strong and sweet in the night, filling Bryan with courage and draining the blood from the faces of the talons.
Trees along the edges of the trail danced to the witch’s melody, swatting and strangling those talons that tried to move from the stony center of the path. Still the throng rushed on and Bryan cut them down. He fired off four shots that became six score and eight, evenly spaced across the breadth of the trail, and decimated the front ranks with a wall of killing darts.
Still the young witch sang, and now the donkeys heard her call. They bucked and spun, tossing their riders to the ground and trampling them before they understood what had happened. Those donkeys pulling wagons charged about wildly, overturning the carts and scattering lines of talons.
Rhiannon stepped out into the open, glowing with power. She thrust her hands out before her and sheets of flame sprang forth, reaching down the trail to engulf those talons brave enough, or stupid enough, to continue their charge.
“Rhiannon!” Bryan gasped, horrified and elated all at once. But the witch didn’t hear him, too consumed by the power she loosed upon her enemies.
For the talons, the trees had been bad enough. But this open display of witchery was simply too much for them to accept. They scattered and fled, back down the trail and all the way through the pass toward their dark holes in the Ballenduls. This group would find no place of glory beside the Black Warlock.
Bryan meant to follow their retreat with a few showers of arrows, grim reminders of what awaited them should they return. But the half-elf could not. His eyes remained transfixed on Rhiannon, studying her expression as she completed her release of magic.
And while he had been in awe of her during the brief battle, he felt only pity when it ended. Rhiannon looked at him, tears streaking her face. So frail she seemed that Bryan could hardly believe she was the same being who had just wreaked such destruction.
“Help me,” she whispered, and then she collapsed, thoroughly drained, into Bryan’s arms.
* * *
If the Black Warlock had been paying attention, he most certainly would have sensed the display of magic in the Baerendel Mountains that night. But Thalasi was off on his own exercise of magic, creating the finishing touches to his army.
He strolled to a wide pit behind the vast talon encampment, an open grave for the many talons and humans who had fallen on the field in the previous days.
“Beigen kaimen dee,” the Black Warlock chanted, waving his most powerful tool, the Staff of Death, over the pit. For a moment nothing happened.
“Beigen kaimen dee,” Thalasi growled again, sensing the conception of the enchantment. There came a stirring in the pit and then several of the corpses rose up and crawled out to the summons of the Black Warlock. Thalasi chuckled as the wretched things, some missing an arm or a leg, one without a head, scrambled to his bidding, and all the while thinking it grand that he could so easily steal from the realm of death.
The Black Warlock repeated the spell several times until he sensed that the host of his zombie army had reached the limits of his control. These were not like Hollis Mitchell, not wraiths encompassing the spirit and consciousness of the beings they had once been. Rather, these were unthinking zombies, slow-moving and capable of following only rudimentary commands.
But Thalasi understood their value in the coming battle. How the humans would flee from the specter of his undead brigade!
“Rest, my pets,” he bade them, and as one the zombie force dropped to the ground and lay still. Thalasi knew he would have to be very careful with them. Even his talons might flee the camp at the appearance of such horrifying comrades. The Black Warlock would give them over to Mitchell’s command and let the wraith hold them in check until battle was fully joined.
“Then let all of Calva tremble,” Thalasi muttered to the empty night. “Let them know the power of Morgan Thalasi. Let them know their doom.”
Rhiannon shot up from the blankets Bryan had set out for her bed, her face stark with terror.
“What is it?” Bryan asked, rushing to her side.
Rhiannon just shook her head and buried her face in the front of the half-elf’s tunic. Bryan rested a hand on her back to calm her trembling. “Yet another nightmare?” he asked.
Rhiannon looked up at him, unable to find the words to explain. But Bryan was sensitive to the young witch’s dilemma; he had come to understand her quite well in their few days together, and he knew from the expression on her face that her release of power had nearly torn her apart.
“You did as you had to,” he said to her. “You cannot accept any blame for your actions.”
“Ye canno’ understand,” Rhiannon replied. “It takes me, steals me from meself.”
“But it passes,” Bryan reasoned.
“And leaves nothin’ but destruction in its wake.”
“Not true!” Bryan was quick to protest. “You saved my life! And many others, from what you have told me of your work on the field of Rivertown.”
“Suren it is two-faced,” Rhiannon admitted. “But the healin’ side and the seein’ side are at me bidding. This other, this anger ye’ve seen, comes of its own and goes when it’s through with me.”
“Accept it for what it is,” Bryan urged her. “How many lives did you save this night, dear Rhiannon? How many men would have died on the bridges fighting off the talons you dispatched?”
Somehow the answer seemed inadequate to the young witch. “I have scarred the earth,” she said. “I have killed—talon and beast.” The image of her black and white horse on the northern field, lying dead after it had split the earth with its enchanted run, assaulted her thoughts.
“You have done what you were forced to do,” Bryan said stubbornly. “Thanks are owed to the daughter of Brielle. Yet to herself she gives only blame.”
“Ye canno’ understand,” the young witch whispered again, and she dropped her face back into the security of the folds of Bryan’s shirt.
Bryan did not reply; for all of his pretty words, he suspected that Rhiannon was right in her estimation. He had seen the coldness in her eyes as she executed the spells of destruction upon the talon caravan, a simmering wrath so foreign to the young woman’s gentle character. Such emotions exacted a heavy toll, Bryan knew from his own grim experiences. He tried to remember the last time he had flashed a carefree smile, and he wondered if he would ever smile that way again.
“And it must be worse for you,” he whispered, though his voice was so soft that the witch, finding comfort in slumber, did not stir. While his strength came from his skills, he could see that the power that Rhiannon used insinuated itself into her being, possessed her and controlled her.
That image of the young witch, standing coldly beside him as her fires burned away the stain of the talons, stayed with Bryan for the remainder of the night. He wanted to tell her that she would never have to use that destructive power again, that her world would be one of creation and healing. He wanted to help her fight off the insinuating power and be true to her gentle spirit.
But the thought of the armies on the fields beside the Four Bridges washed away Bryan’s hopes. For all of his desire to shield Rhiannon, the awful reality told him the truth of his duties.
Rhiannon had a part to play in all of this, Bryan knew, a voice in the outcome of the war and the very future of Ynis Aielle. Her power was there whether she or he accepted it or not, and with the carnage of war so thick in the air, that power could not be denied.
“I will help you,” Bryan promised when Rhiannon awoke the next morning—the first sunless morning.
Rhiannon considered the gray shroud of Thalasi’s dark magic, now stretching from horizon to horizon, and knew she would need that help.
Chapter 24
Mortality
HAD HE LOOKED back to Kored-dul, to his black fortress of Talas-dun, Morgan Thalasi might have been concerned. In the weeks after he had fou
nd harmony of his twin spirits, before he set out with his talon army, he had reinforced the iron fortress to its previous state of power.
But now, with Thalasi out on the Calvan fields, pulling at the magical plane with all of his power-hungry desperation, some of those old cracks in Talas-dun had reappeared, and when the heavy sea breeze rolled in on the high cliff, the tallest of the black castle’s towers swayed ominously, no longer able to fully defy the force.
The Black Warlock was consumed in the business at hand, with his eyes looking to conquest in the east, not back to those lands he already claimed as his own. He took no note of the strain his dominating will, and the responses of his magic-using adversaries, placed upon that shared magical plane.
Brielle walked slowly through Avalon, taking advantage of the unexpected lull in Thalasi’s attacks to soothe her trees with comforting promises of a brighter time. But while the Emerald Witch held fast to the belief that Morgan Thalasi would once again be defeated and driven back to his black fortress, she honestly wondered whether Ynis Aielle would ever be as it had been.
Avalon, the shining light of all the world, had weakened in the weeks of Thalasi’s assaults, and more than the borderlands of the forest had been affected. Even in the heart of the wood, in the fields and groves that Brielle held most dear, the colors of the flora seemed less vibrant and the permeating fragrance of the wildflowers could not hold up against the burning stench of decay and devastation. For Thalasi’s assaults were more than physical manifestations of destructive power. The response demanded by the Black Warlock’s attacks heavily taxed the defending witch, to the core of her magic itself. Brielle had aged more in the past weeks than she had in a dozen centuries, and her growing weariness, she feared, was merely a reflection of the exhaustion of her magical energy.
And it was that same magical energy, drawn upon by the Emerald Witch, that bound the forest of Avalon in its perpetual enchantment of beauty.
“What will we be when the last sounds o’ battle echo o’er the fields?” she asked her forest. The cry of a loon sounded in the unseen distance, its mournful wail seeming a fitting eulogy to the ears of the witch. Brielle shared that lament fully. She reached out to lean on the trunk of a large tree, seeking solace in its enduring strength.
But the boughs of Avalon, wrapped in a silent sadness, could not grant her any measure of hope.
Istaahl also spent those hours of welcome calm surveying the damage and assessing how to effect some measure of repair to his home. The White Mage remained torn by his duties; he felt that he should be in contact with King Benador, his liege, preparing for the inevitable conflict that would erupt any day. But after a quick tour of the White Tower, Istaahl knew that he had no choice in his course of action.
Thalasi’s assaults had both weakened him greatly and had struck devastating blows to his enchanted home. Great cracks lined the structure, running from the very tip of the tower all the way down to its foundations. Istaahl understood that if he did not take prompt action to reinforce the place with spells of strength and warding, it would crumble to dust with the Black Warlock’s next attack.
And like his counterpart in Avalon, the White Mage of Pallendara was beginning to suspect that the scars of this war would be enduring.
“Alas for the wizards of Aielle,” he muttered to himself that gray day. “Our time is passing; the race of mortal men may soon be left to their own resources.”
All of the wizards had known from the beginning that this day would eventually come. But after centuries of serving as the guardians and advisers to the races of Aielle, the sudden apparent change had them perplexed indeed.
Brielle knelt over a pool of clear water. Its glassy surface showed only the dull pall of Thalasi’s gloomy sky, but the witch ignored the dismay the sight brought to her. Waving her hand and casting a simple enchantment, she hoped that Istaahl was not too engaged in yet another battle against the Black Warlock to answer her call.
At that same moment, Istaahl was entertaining similar thoughts of contacting Brielle, and he was near his crystal ball when the Emerald Witch called upon him. He accepted the magical contact eagerly, needing the comfort of a friendly face in this dark hour.
“So the Black Warlock has granted you a period of rest as well?” he asked through a strained smile.
“Me thinkin’s that he needs his own,” Brielle replied. “Suren he’s been putting his magics to their bounds these days—how much more has he got to throw?”
“I fear the answer to that question,” said Istaahl.
“As with meself,” Brielle agreed. “But I faced the dark one on me western borders a few nights hence. He’s not Thalasi as we knew him. Joined with the ancient one, Martin Reinheiser, in spirit and thought.”
“A dual being?” Istaahl asked, hardly able to believe the news. “Is that possible?”
“It would seem,” Brielle replied grimly. “They’ve found harmony—”
“In hatred.”
“Aye, focused in hatred,” said Brielle. “And the result is mighty indeed, as ye’ve no doubt seen.”
“The Black Warlock has wounded me deeply,” Istaahl admitted. His wizened features twisted, searching for the right way to explain the pervasive sense of dread that hung over him. “Not physically, though. My tower has been savaged, indeed, but it was no more than uncut blocks when first I built it.”
“But ye do no’ know if ye can put it aright ever again?” Brielle asked, understanding the fears of the White Mage perfectly.
“Yes!” said Istaahl, relieved that she saw his meaning so clearly. Though when he took a moment to think about it, Istaahl realized that Brielle’s understanding foretold a greater tragedy.
“Ye look tired,” Brielle remarked.
“Weary is the better word,” Istaahl replied. “I do not understand it, my dear friend.” Again he struggled for the proper words. “I feel mortal. For the first time in my days as a wizard, I see my magic as a finite pool, not an unending source of power.”
“Me heart tells me the same,” said Brielle. “We’ve pushed on it too hard is me fear, bent the line o’ power to where it will not come back to straight.”
“Yes,” Istaahl agreed. “No matter what the outcome of this war, I have come to the conclusion that Ynis Aielle will never be the same.”
“The passing of an age,” Brielle remarked.
“Perhaps not,” Istaahl replied with a trace of hope. “Your brother has not yet entered the fray, nor has Brisen-ballas, his Silver Tower—” The words stuck in Istaahl’s throat. With all that had been happening in Avalon and Pallendara, neither of them had given any thought to the fate of Ardaz’s tower on the cliff wall above Illuma Vale. Had Thalasi struck out against the home of the Silver Mage in his absence? Istaahl wondered and Brielle read his thoughts from the expression of horror on his face.
“No!” the witch insisted. “He has not. The elves passed through me wood just a few days ago, and they spoke nothin’ of any attacks. The power of Lochsilinilume is strong, me friend, and the Black Warlock has taken the absence o’ me brother as a blessin’; he’d no’ attack Brisen-ballas, for fear that his strike would alert Rudy to the war.”
“But how much damage could Thalasi cause to Brisen-ballas in your brother’s absence?” reasoned Istaahl. “Could he crush the Silver Tower and steal much of Ardaz’s strength before he ever arrived to defend his home?”
“At what cost?” Brielle asked. “I’ve fought him meself, and I can tell ye with all o’ me heart that he is strong, but not foolish. If Thalasi goes against me brother’s home, I’ll be layin’ in wait. The Black Warlock’ll know he’s outdone himself when me magic catches him from behind, and when me brother hears the rumblin’s in his tower and rushes back to defend it!”
“Then Thalasi will fight against three,” said Istaahl, his spirits bolstered by the determination of the witch. “And what of your brother? Is there any word at all?”
“Not a one,” Brielle replied, “Rudy’s a one-
minded sort, I fear. He’s off to explorin’ and not likely to turn his eyes back our way. I’d’ve looked for him meself, but I fear to leave me wood.”
“As I fear to leave my tower,” agreed Istaahl. “But surely he will return to us soon—even your one-minded brother will not miss the implications of Thalasi’s darkened sky.”
“That is me guess,” agreed Brielle. “But also me fear. Thalasi understands the same; he would not’ve put out the sun without plans for dealing with Rudy’s return. I fear that the moment of the battle is nearen upon us.”
“Then fear not,” Istaahl said, knowing it was his turn to lend some strength. “For when Thalasi moves, he will find three wizards standing against him.”
Brielle nodded her agreement, leaving her hopes of her daughter’s ascent into power unspoken.
“Farewell, then, my dear Brielle,” Istaahl said. “And fight well. Glad am I that we have talked this night, though I fear that our shared belief in the passing of an age is well founded.”
“And glad am I,” Brielle replied. “And take heart, Istaahl of Pallendara. When the smoke has blown from the field and the screams o’ the pained and dying are no more, we will remain.”
The images faded from the crystal ball and the clear pool, and both wizard and witch slumped back, considering what they had learned this night. Both felt Brielle’s parting words were the truth, but both questioned the implications. The godlike powers of the four wizards had dominated Aielle for centuries; what strength would rise to fill the gap when those powers waned?
Chapter 25
The Calm
“YOU GO SEE what it’s all about,” Ardaz purred to Desdemona, the black cat comfortably draped over his shoulders. Desdemona just rolled her back against the wizard’s neck and pretended not to hear him.