Echoes of the Fourth Magic (36 page)

Ryell visibly trembled with rage. “Your hold over the people of Illuma may not be as strong as you believe,
Arien Silverleaf,” he said, barely able to spit the words through his clenched jaw. “There are many who question your decisions regarding the ancient ones. They question your intentions as well.”

Arien ignored Ryell’s ranting—the elves could ill afford a showdown between their Eldar and his closest adviser at this critical time—and addressed his daughter.

“Go with DelGiudice,” he instructed. “See that he is allowed passage to Clas Braiyelle.”

Del was surprised that the trees did not hinder his entrance into Avalon. Though his stubborn grudge refused to let him consciously admit it, he was comforted that Brielle had not shut him out. He whistled as he trotted along the path, his senses bathed in the countless stimulations of the fully blossomed forest, and he was able to forget for a while the gathering clouds of misery at Mountaingate and his grim purpose in seeking out the fair witch.

Soon, though, as the sun disappeared over the western horizon and the colors of the wood dulled into the grayed blur of twilight, Del realized that he was running short on time.

“Brielle!” he called, but his only reply was the mournful cry of a loon heralding the onset of the secret world that was the forest night.

Stubbornly, Del scrambled on, calling out again for the witch.

Again the loon answered, and this time its wail beckoned to Del like a lost spirit, akin to his misery. Faithful to its cry, Del turned from the path, stumbling blindly through the dark brush and thickets to follow the last lingering notes. And when they died away, he called out again and was answered.

He soon came upon a grove of thick pines, a veritable wall of interlocking, unyielding branches. Undaunted, he fell flat to his belly and crawled beneath their lowest boughs, and when he had finally gotten through, he lifted his head and his breath was stolen away.

Below him, down a short slide of thick grass, was a small glade thick and soft in swaying petals of white clover. And beyond the lea a secluded pond, its smooth surface broken only by occasional reeds or cattails, lay quiet and still, as if in meditation under dark reflections of the prestarlit sky. But Del hardly noticed his mystical surroundings, for atop a knoll rising above the green sea of the glade reclined the gentle Brielle, shadowed in the mysteries of the deepening gloom.

It pained Del to look upon her beauty, though it was she he had sought. He wanted now only to flee this place and this wood and be away from all thoughts of the Emerald Witch. He knew that to be impossible; Avalon had already announced his arrival to its queen.

The never-seen loon gave one final cry.

Immediately, Del rose to his feet and started down the slide. Brielle knew of his presence, no doubt, and he wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of catching him hiding from her in the grass. He conjured memories of the carnage left on the road in the wake of Brielle’s wrath and reminded himself over and over of his sole purpose in coming to Avalon, determinedly entrenching his emotions within a fortress of rage to protect himself from the hinted passions that threatened to sweep him away. His stride stiffened in tense anger as he approached.

But then he was upon her and the ice melted away.

“Hello,” he said softly.

Her reply was a smile.

Consciously, Del rebuilt the frosty facade. “I didn’t come here to bother you,” he said with rough sarcasm.

A dark cloud passed across Brielle’s countenance, for she realized already what Del was leading up to, and knew that she must disappoint him once again.

“I need your help,” Del continued, holding tight to his gruff tone. “A battle is about to begin.”

Brielle looked away. “It is known to me,” she said sadly. “And me heart truly weeps at the misery o’ the morrow’s
morn.” She paused, struggling, as was Del, with a personal conflict of emotions and principles. The rules of her station were clear and unbending; she had lived by them and for them for hundreds of years. When she turned back to Del, her face was resigned and impassive, and she announced with cool finality, “ ’Tis none o’ me affair.”

“How can you say that?” Del scolded. “Hundreds of innocent people are going to die on that field. You don’t think that concerns you?”

“It wounds me, even as it wounds yerself,” Brielle replied, almost apologetically. “But I huv no power for a war o’ man.”

His frustration bordering on rage, Del wanted to scream and cry all at once. “Bullshit!” he yelled. “I saw you, Brielle. I saw what you did to those talons!”

Brielle understood more clearly now that the source of Del’s anger went far deeper than her rejection of him. “That I wish ye’d no’ seen,” she said softly, lowering her eyes to hide the welling tears from Del. “ ’Tis a side o’ me life and duty I do’no’ enjoy.” She took a deep breath and reminded herself that she had done only what she had to do.

“But Avalon is me domain and me duty, and I am the eyes that protect her,” she asserted. “I do not create the storms, I only show them the harm that is upon the land. Purely evil are the talons, living only to destroy. They grant no mercy and deserve none. Would ye huv me, then, let them bring ruin to me wood?”

Del had no rebuttal against her logic.

“But the morrow’s battle,” Brielle continued, softly again, “is a concern o’ men and elves, and I huv no duties, and being so, no powers for such a war.”

Del slumped down meekly to the clover and sighed. With her innocent confession of necessities, Brielle had taught him a lesson in humility. A lot of things fell into perspective for Del at that moment. He remembered the lecture Billy had given him earlier in the day.

Duty.

Utopia had to be earned.

When he recovered from his embarrassment, Del laughed aloud at his arrogant self-righteousness. Then he looked upon the witch and fell silent, fearing that she would think he mocked her.

Brielle sat quiet, hugging her knees and staring off across the melancholy pond.

Who am I to judge you?
Del asked himself. He owed her an apology, an explanation. So many things he wanted to say to her, and the most pressing one kept repeating over and over in his mind. He crawled across the path of her absent gaze, catching and locking her eyes with his own, and took a chance he had never before in his life been able to take. “I love you.”

Brielle blushed, but did not turn her eyes away. “Me heart speaks the same to me.”

“But you have your woods and your duty, and I have my battle and mine. My Brielle,” Del groaned, and gently stroked her face, “are we never to have any time together?” As he started to turn away, Brielle clasped his shoulders and settled him back on the soft carpet.

She stood up before him, apprehensive, scared even, of this decision she had made. But her heart held little doubt of her love for Del. “The field o’ Mountaingate is but an hour’s walk, and yer battle will no’ begin ere the light o’dawn,” she heard herself saying. “We huv tonight.”

Del said nothing. He stared deeply at Brielle, stunned that something this perfect could be happening between them. Then he looked past her to the skies, where the first stars brightened as each passing moment deepened the blackness of the evening canopy.

“Beautiful, they are,” Brielle agreed with Del’s entranced look. “Behold the first stars o’summer, for this day marked the solstice. Another spring is ended. ’Tis a special night.”

“It is,” Del whispered

Nervously, Brielle undid the laces in the front of her gown. With a slight shrug of her shoulders the gossamer
fell from her and she stood naked before Del. The starlight seemed to emanate from her, enhancing her supple curves, as though she was its source. As if on cue, a slight wave rippled across the pond, carried to the shore by a cool summer breeze.

Brielle trembled, but she knew her heart truly and did not hesitate. She bent to Del and kissed him, and passions she had long ago locked away stirred again within her.

And there, amidst a waving green sea of soft clover, beneath the approving sparkle of countless stars, they consummated their love.

Brielle cried that night. She cried for remembered emotions that had slept for centuries, and she cried at the knowledge that with the morrow’s sobering dawn those emotions must once again be put to sleep. Del held her tenderly, cradling her head against his chest. And though the witch could not see it, he, too, was crying.

S
HORTLY BEFORE THE
dawn, Del left Brielle sleeping in the soft clover to begin his long and disheartened trek back to Mountaingate. A gentle rain had come up during the night and it fell still, tapping rhythmically on the leafy canopy and hissing through the mist that rode in off of the pond. When Del had gained the top of the slope, before he crossed through the pine grove, he looked back to the knoll and the fair witch, and dismay found him, despite his joy in loving her. For though he would carry memories of Brielle into the battle with him this day and forever after, his heart told him that he would never look upon her again. Yet then he left her of his own accord, compelled by a responsibility he did not want but could not escape.

   Soon after, Brielle awoke from a vivid nightmare. A cold sweat beaded on her forehead as she recalled with frightening clarity an image of Del dying on a charred and bloody field, the head of a cruel spear buried deep in his chest. “This cannot be!” she cried out desperately and helplessly to the heavens. As if in answer, a vision appeared unto her: a small black staff, iron-shod on both ends, twirling about in the air. The sheer wrongness of the thing assaulted Brielle’s every sense, a perversion against nature itself. It terrified her and pained her, but she composed
herself in angry determination and knew she had found a link to the day’s events.

   Dawn came as a dulled blur of pink behind the unbroken cover of dreary gray clouds. Fitting weather, Del noted, for such a day as this. The rain had stopped, but the air hung oppressively thick with moisture.

Del found the elven camp astir in the north, though no signs of the Calvan force were yet apparent in the south. Slowly, head down, he walked across the field, indulging himself as he went with one final fantasy of the way he wished things could be.

The clear note of the watchman’s horn announcing his arrival brought the weight of reality back upon his shoulders.

Two horsemen trotted out toward him from the chaos of the bustling camp. Billy Shank rode in the lead, outfitted in chain-link mail and a shining shield and sword, but the other rider, so marvelous, dominated Del’s vision. Arien Silverleaf, unmistakably the elf-lord of all Illuma, paced his steed easily. He wore a forest-green cloak pulled back from his shoulders and a light green tunic woven of some fine material. Under the sleeveless edges of the shirt, Del saw closely meshed links of shining mail, much finer than the heavy rings of Billy’s armor. Arien wore no helm, but a silver gem-studded crown with a golden inset of a quarter moon, the symbol of Lochsilinilume. Strapped to his left arm was a polished shield bearing the same emblem, and sheathed on his hip in a gem-encrusted scabbard hung a broadsword unequaled in workmanship by even the crafted weapon Calae had given to Del. Its hilt gleamed all of silver, and intricate carvings resembling the head of a dragon adorned the pommel, inlaid in gold all down the neck to the crosspiece of the weapon.

“I didn’t realize that your people kept such weapons,” Del remarked.

“Gifts from Ardaz, mostly,” Arien explained, tightening
his heels to calm his spirited steed, a great muscled stallion, its coal-black coat glistening from the wetness of the morning mist and from the sweat of its own tense anticipation. “And some of our own making.” He smiled at Del’s unyielding sarcasm. “The mountains are wild and dangerous even now, friend DelGiudice. Would that we could hang these devices above a mantle and use them only to enhance fanciful tales!”

The Eldar’s face turned serious again as he grasped the hilt of his sword. “This is Fahwayn,” he told Del. “The Silver Death.” He drew the sword from its scabbard slowly, reverently, and raised it high above him. It gleamed brightly and sharply, in spite of the dim light. “It was forged with great care many years ago when Aielle was young,” he said, and he lowered the sword and ran his hand along its polished blade, absorbing the sensations of unrivaled craftsmanship and magic, that they might invoke images of the past and allow him to wander back to the security of his memories of the early days of Illuma.

With sudden and frightening speed, Arien thrust the sword above him. It shimmered with power, and extension, the focal point of the strength that was Arien Silverleaf. The great stallion, caught up in the ire of the elf-lord, reared, and Arien cried aloud,
“Bayr imine eyberg ai’l anais I Sylv Fate-aval!”
He looked at the startled men and cried again with equal fervor, “By their own wickedness do they bring the Silver Death upon them!”

His burst of energy satisfied by the proclamation, Arien flashed a calming smile to the astonished gawks of Billy and Del and dropped Fahwayn to his side, swinging the blade in a slow arc. “At times when talons were abroad, her cut was smooth and sure,” he remarked. “But now she sits awkwardly in my hand. I have no thirst for the blood Fahwayn shall spill this morn.” He sheathed the sword with a sigh and turned his steed back to the encampment.