“They will return. They will hear of Paranor’s fall and want to make certain it is so. You will be waiting. You will finish what I have begun. Then you will be as I am.”
“Yes, Master, yes!”
“Stand.”
They did so, rising hastily, eagerly, broken spirits and minds that were his to command. Yet they lacked the strength to do what was required of them and so must be altered. He reached out to them with his magic, wrapped them about with strands as thin as gossamer and as unyielding as iron, and stole away the last of what was human.
Their shrieks echoed through the empty halls as he relentlessly shaped them into something new. Arms and legs nailed. Heads jerked wildly and eyes bulged.
When he was done, they were no longer recognizable. He left them thus, and with the remainder of his minions trailing obediently after, he stole back into the night, abandoning the castle of the Druids to the dying and the dead.
Chapter Seven
Bremen gave his hand to Risca in parting, and the Dwarf clasped it firmly in his own. They stood just outside the grotto in which they had taken shelter upon leaving the Hadeshorn and its ghosts. It was nearing midday now, the rain had dwindled to a fine mist, and the skies were beginning to clear west above the dark peaks of the Dragon’s Teeth.
“It seems we no sooner meet up again and it’s off our separate ways,” Risca grumbled. “I don’t know how we manage to stay friends. I don’t know why we bother.”
“We have no choice,” Tay Trefenwyd offered from one side.
“No one else would have anything to do with us.”
“True enough.” The Dwarf smiled in spite of himself. “Well, this should test the friendship, sure enough. Scattered Eastland to Westland and then some, and who knows when we’ll meet again?” He gave Bremen’s hand a hard squeeze. “You watch out for yourself.”
“And you, my good friend,” the old man replied.
“Tay Trefenwyd!” the Dwarf shouted over his shoulder. He was already striding down the trail. “Don’t forget your promise! Pack up the Elves and bring them east! Stand with us against the Warlock Lord! We’ll be counting on you!”
“Goodbye for now, Risca!” Tay called after him.
The Dwarf waved, hitching up his pack on his broad shoulders, his broadsword swinging at his side. “Luck to you. Elf ears. Keep alert! Watch your backside!”
They bantered back and forth good-naturedly, the Elf and the Dwarf, old friends comfortable with each other’s joshing, accustomed to exchanges that teased and chided and masked emotions that lay just beneath the surface of the words. Kinson Ravenlock stood to one side listening to the verbal byplay and wished there were time to know them better. But that would have to wait. Risca had departed, and Tay would leave them at the mouth of the Kennon, when they turned north toward Paranor and the Elf continued west to Arborlon. The Borderman shook his head. How hard this must be for Bremen. It had been two years since he had seen Risca and Tay. Would it be two more before he saw them again?
When Risca had disappeared from view, Bremen led the three remaining members of the little company down a secondary trail to the base of the cliffs and then west along the north bank of the Mermidon, retracing the steps that had brought them there. They walked until well after sunset, camping finally in the lee of a copse of alder on a cove where the Mermidon branched south and west.
The skies had cleared and were brilliant with stars, the light reflecting in a kaleidoscopic sparkle off the placid surface of the water. The company gathered on the riverbank and ate their dinner staring out into the night. No one said much. Tay cautioned Bremen to be wary at Paranor. If the vision he had been shown had come to pass and the castle of the Druids had fallen, there was reason to believe that the Warlock Lord and his minions might yet be in residence. Or if not, the Elf added, he might have left traps to ensnare any Druids who had escaped and were foolish enough to return. He said it lightly, and Bremen responded with a smile.
Kinson noted that neither bothered to dispute the likelihood of Paranor’s destruction. It must have been a bitter realization for both, but neither showed anything of what they were feeling. They made it a point not to dwell on the past. It was the future that mattered now.
To that end, Bremen talked at some length with Tay about his vision of the Black Elfstone, going over the particulars of what he had been shown, what he had sensed, and what he had deduced.
Kinson listened idly, glancing now and again at Mareth, who was doing the same. He wondered what she was thinking, knowing as she did now that the Druids of Paranor were probably gone. He wondered if she realized how dramatically her role as a member of this company had changed. She had said barely a word since coming out of the Valley of Shale, keeping apart during the exchanges between Bremen, Risca, and Tay, watching and listening. Not unlike himself, Kinson thought. For she, too, was an outsider, still looking to find her place, not a Druid like the others, not yet proven, not entirely accepted as an equal. He studied her, trying to gage her toughness, her resilience. She would need both for what lay ahead.
Later, when she was sleeping, Tay sprawled close to her and Bremen at watch, Kinson rolled out of his cloak and walked over to sit with the old man. Bremen said nothing as he came up, looking out into the darkness. Kinson seated himself, crossed his long legs before him, and wrapped his cloak comfortably about his shoulders. The night was warm, more in keeping with the season than of late, and the air was filled with the smell of spring flowers and new leaves and grasses. A breeze blew down out of the mountains, rustling the limbs of the trees, rippling the waters of the river. The two men sat in silence for a time, listening to the night sounds, lost in their separate thoughts.
“You are taking a great risk in returning,” Kinson said finally.
“A necessary risk,” Bremen amended.
“You feel certain Paranor has fallen, don’t you?”
Bremen did not respond for a moment, as still as stone, then nodded slowly.
“It will be very dangerous for you if that is so,” Kinson pressed.
“Brona hunts you already. He probably knows you have been to Paranor. He will expect you to return.”
The old man’s face turned slightly toward his younger companion, creased and browned by weather and sun, etched by a lifetime of struggle and disappointment. “I know all this, Kinson. And you know that I know, so why are we discussing it?”
“So that you will be reminded,” the Borderman declared firmly.
“So that you will be doubly cautious. Visions are fine, but they are tricky as well. I don’t trust them. You shouldn’t either. Not entirely.”
“You refer to the vision of Paranor, I presume?”
Kinson nodded. “The Keep fallen and the Druids destroyed. All clear enough. But the sensation of something waiting, something dangerous—that’s the tricky part of this matter. If it’s accurate, it won’t come in any form you expect.”
Bremen shrugged. “No, I don’t suppose it will. But it doesn’t matter. I have to make certain that Paranor is truly lost—no matter the strength of my own suspicions—and I have to recover the Eilt Druin. The medallion is to be an integral part of the talisman needed to destroy the Warlock Lord. The vision was clear enough on that. A sword, Kinson, that I must shape, that I must forge, that I must imbue with magic that Brona himself cannot withstand. The Eilt Druin is the only part of that process that I have been shown; the medallion’s image was clearly visible on the sword’s handle. It is a place to begin. I must recover the medallion and determine what is needed from there.”
Kinson studied him a moment in silence. “You have already constructed a plan for this, haven’t you?”
“The beginnings of one.” The old man smiled. “You know me too well, my friend.”