He would miss the late-autumn festival that celebrated the crops successfully harvested and sold, preserves canned, meats dried and smoked, grapes pressed and barrelled and firewood stacked for winter. The festival was five days of celebration: hearty food and plenty of local wine. For the past ten seasons he had provided a deer; the farmers working the land north of Estrad Village would expect him to arrive with fresh venison as usual. He wondered if they would miss him, or just the meat.
He would dance late into the night with the farmers’ daughters, stealing an occasional kiss, but more often simply revelling in the company of vibrant, beautiful young women. He had grown up a farmer and a hunter. Becoming a resistance fighter – a patriot – was something he had stumbled into. Now, awaiting a visit from the ghost of the most powerful man in Eldarni history, Garec realised it would likely be many seasons before he saw another harvest festival.
Looking over at Gilmour, Garec could see his lips moving slightly, but he could not hear the words. Garec guessed the old magician was chanting a spell to let Lessek know they had arrived. Now he was nervous, and fully awake. He checked to be sure his bow and quivers were at hand – he didn’t imagine for a moment that he would fire on Lessek’s ghost, but knowing his weapons were ready reassured him. He had known Gilmour for nearly fifty Twinmoons, but now he had to get used to the idea that one of his closest friends was one of the most powerful sorcerers in Eldarn.
As Gilmour continued the incantation, his lips hypnotically marking time through the avens, Garec soon grew tired and, like Steven, drifted off to sleep.
His dreams came: desultory images, confusing and scattered. He watched as the Estrad River dried up, as crops shrivelled and villagers across Rona starved to death. He saw the land his family tilled, its rich soil dried to hardpan and cracked like the skin of a dying man’s face. He observed ghostly wraiths moving silently through the forbidden forest south of Estrad Village, too many to count, an army of disembodied ghouls searching for something lost.
Then he saw Riverend Palace, the way he always imagined it had looked before it was abandoned and left to crumble: a proud and majestic edifice, with the Ronan colours flying above her battlements. Strong Twinmoon breezes blew in from the sea. Prince Markon strode around, supervising installation of the largest stained-glass window Eldarn had ever seen.
His perspective changed again: a young South Coast woman, stripped naked, stood on the cold floor of a palace apartment. He gazed on her features and became aroused at the idea she might be longing for him – until he realised the look in her face was not one of lust, but of fear and foreboding. An intricately woven rug lay nearby, but she was too afraid even to move her bare feet to the relative warmth of the heavy wool carpet.
Soon Garec discovered why. A beast of a man lay on the rug, also stripped bare. The naked monster appeared aroused, but then Garec saw the maniacal creature was not looking at the girl; instead, he was crying out, shouting unintelligibly at the ceiling. He grabbed his genitals and writhed about on the floor. Riveted, Garec watched as palace guards held the man down while the beautiful, almond-eyed woman moved to straddle the drooling, wretched creature. Behind them, Riverend was in flames. Ceiling supports crumbled, tapestries flared. Servants rushed for the safety of the palace grounds.
All the while, the woman ignored the fire and coupled furiously with her terrifying partner.
Chanting in a soft murmur, Gilmour felt his spirit move outside his body. Standing beside his seated form, he gazed into the darkness beyond the firelight and waited for Lessek. Although he knew the winds above Seer’s Peak were strong, he felt nothing as they passed through him and continued into the night. Steven and Garec slept on peacefully near the fire, which slowly burned down to a pile of dimly glowing coals.
He waited nearly an aven before he detected Lessek’s spirit approaching.
‘Here, Fantus,’ Lessek called from inside his consciousness. Gilmour hadn’t heard his given name in a hundred Twinmoons. His spirit self turned to face that of the long-dead sorcerer. Lessek looked as he had when a young man: tall and confident, with a trim beard and a piercing gaze, wearing the style of robes long ago adopted as standard uniform for all Larion Senators. For a moment Gilmour felt as though he were back at Sandcliff Palace.
‘Welcome, my lord,’ he said softly.
‘You look weary,’ the spirit observed, his voice echoing inside Gilmour’s mind.
‘This struggle has gone on for so many Twinmoons, Lessek. I am tired these days.’
‘You are wondering if you can manipulate the spell table?’
‘I am,’ he said. ‘I have studied for nearly a thousand Twinmoons and yet I am still not certain I’m up to the task.’
‘You have found the key?’ Lessek’s ghost scratched absent-mindedly at his beard and Gilmour was momentarily surprised a spirit could feel an itch.
He motioned towards Steven. ‘This one, Steven Taylor, discovered where Nerak had hidden the far portal as well as your key.’ He paused before asking, ‘Will it be enough, Lessek?’
‘There is enough magic, sufficient power, yes. But you will need more courage than even you can imagine if you are to defeat the evil that controls Nerak.’
‘It can be destroyed, then?’
‘Defeated, not destroyed.’
‘I must banish it back to the Fold?’
‘Not all answers lie in the spell table, Fantus. Evil might be defeated there, but Nerak’s weakness lies elsewhere.’ He raised one hand in a show of encouragement and brotherhood and said, ‘Rest now, Fantus and farewell for the moment.’
Gilmour felt his spirit fall back into his body as dawn was breaking over the horizon. He wrapped himself in his riding cloak and allowed sleep to carry him away. Although the old magician required only a fraction of the rest most people needed, he welcomed the respite from his responsibilities, a moment’s grace from the arduous tasks that lay before him.
He rarely dreamed, but this morning a brief vision came to him, a glimpse of Kantu and Nerak. They had travelled together to Larion Isle, off the coast of Malakasia, to practise their spells, to harness heretofore-unknown power and to synthesise knowledge of magic and sorcery for the Larion Senate. It was during this trip they had penned the Windscrolls. Gilmour remembered that particular journey; when he saw Kantu limping beside Nerak, supporting himself with a staff and wearing a makeshift cast on his foot, Gilmour had teased the great scholar that he was brilliant enough to wield Eldarn’s most powerful magic but too clumsy to step from a boat without twisting his ankle.
Gilmour woke with a start. The Windscrolls. Pikan Tettarak had sent him to Lessek’s library to find one as she prepared the spell that eventually took her life at Sandcliff Palace. That was what Lessek meant by Nerak’s weakness being elsewhere. He had to get to Sandcliff and find the Windscrolls; he would need to use their wisdom in concert with Lessek’s spell table if he were to succeed in defeating Nerak and sending evil’s minion back into the Fold.
Rejuvenated, Gilmour sprang to his feet and called, ‘Wake up, my boys. We have much to do.’
The sun was well above the horizon now and their campsite was draped in the bright yellow of morning. The winds had died in the night and Gilmour could feel the temperature rising already. To the north, the Blackstones glowed so intensely it looked as if they had caught fire. The clear morning possessed a sense of renewal that sent Gilmour’s heart racing. Moments such as this, moments of clarity of purpose, were rare. He knew where he would find the power to emerge victorious; now he wanted to get there. He had spent half his life waiting for Lessek’s Key to come back to Eldarn without realising that the key alone would not have been enough: thanks to Lessek, they all had been saved from a potentially deadly mistake.