What he was going to say caught sharply in his throat as the memory of his dying friend flashed through his mind and the pain of his loss returned, sharp and poignant. He thought momentarily that there might be tears, but there weren’t. Perhaps he had cried them all out.
Padishar reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. “Highlander, you must keep your promise. You owe him that. When it’s finished, come back. The Valeman and I will be waiting, and we’ll all begin again.”
Morgan nodded, still unable to speak. He tasted the rain on his lips and licked it away.
Padishar’s strong face bent close, blocking out everything else for just an instant. “We do what we must in this struggle, Morgan Leah. All of us. We are free-born as the rally cry says—Men, Dwarves, Trolls, all of us. There is no separate war to fight; it’s a war that we all share. So you go to Culhaven and help those who need it there, and I’ll go to Tyrsis and do the same. But we won’t forget about each other, will we?”
Morgan shook his head. “No, we won’t, Padishar.”
The big man stepped back. “Well, then. Take this.” He handed Morgan his ring with the hawk emblem. “When you need to find me again, show this to Matty Roh at the Whistledown in Varfleet. I’ll see to it that she knows the way to where I’ll be. Don’t worry. It served the purpose once; it will serve it twice. Now, be on your way. And good luck to you.”
He extended his hand and Morgan took it with a firm grasp. “Luck to you as well, Padishar.”
Padishar Creel laughed. “Always, lad. Always.”
He walked back across the bluff to a grove of towering fir where the outlaws and Trolls waited. Everyone who could came to their feet. Words of parting were spoken, distant and faint through the rain. Chandos was hugging Padishar, others were clapping him on the back, a few from their stretchers lifted their hands for him to take.
Even after all that’s happened, he’s still the only leader they want, Morgan thought in admiration.
He watched the Trolls begin to move north into the rocks, the huge, lumbering figures quickly becoming indistinguishable from the landscape through which they passed.
Padishar was looking at him now. He lifted his arm and waved in farewell.
He turned east into the foothills. The rain lashed at him, and he kept his head bent low to protect his face. His eyes focused on the path before him. When he thought to look back again, to see those he had fought beside and traveled with one final time, they had disappeared.
It occurred to him then that he had said nothing to Padishar about the magic that still lingered in the broken Sword of Leah, the magic that had saved both their lives. He had never told the other how he had defeated Teel, how it was that he had managed to overcome the Shadowen. There had been no time to talk of it. He supposed that there had been no real reason. It was something he didn’t yet fully understand. Why there was still magic in the blade, he didn’t know. Why he had been able to summon it, he wasn’t certain. He had thought it all used up before. Was it all used up now? Or was there enough left to save him one more time if the need should arise?
He found himself wondering how long it would be before he had to find out.
Moving cautiously down the mountainside, he faded away into the rain.
Par Ohmsford drifted.
He did not sleep, for in sleeping he would dream and his dreams haunted him. Nor did he wake, for in waking he would find the reality that he was so desperate to escape.
He simply drifted, half in and half out of any recognizable existence, tucked somewhere back in the gray in between of what is and what isn’t, where his mind could not focus and his memories remained scattered, where he was warm and secure from the past and future both, curled up deep inside. There was a madness upon him, he knew. But the madness was welcome, and he let it claim him without a struggle. It made him disoriented and distorted his perceptions and his thoughts. It gave him shelter. It cloaked him in a shroud of nonbeing that kept everything walled away—and that was what he needed.
Yet even walls have chinks and cracks that let through the light, and so it was with his madness. He sensed things—whispers of life from the world he was trying so hard to hide from. He felt the blankets that wrapped him and the bed on which he lay. He saw candles burning softly through a liquid haze, pinpricks of yellow brightness like islands on a dark sea. Strange beasts looked down at him from cabinets, shelves, boxes, and dressers, and their faces were formed of cloth and fur with button eyes and sewn noses, with ears that drooped and tipped, and with studied, watchful poses that never changed. He listened as words were spoken, floating through the air as if they were motes of dust on streamers from the sun.
“He’s very sick, lovely Damson,” he heard one voice say.
And the other replied, “He’s protecting himself, Mole.”
Damson and Mole. He knew who they were, although he couldn’t quite place them. He knew as well that they were talking about him. He didn’t mind. What they were saying didn’t make any difference.
Sometimes he saw their faces through the chinks and cracks.
The Mole was a creature with round, furry features and large, questioning eyes who stood above him, looking thoughtful. Sometimes he brought the strange beasts to sit close by. He looked very much the same as the beasts, Par thought. He called them by name. He spoke with them. But the beasts never answered back.
The girl fed him sometimes. Damson. She spooned soup into his mouth and made him drink, and he did so without argument. There was something perplexing about her, something that fascinated him, and he tried talking to her once or twice before giving up. Whatever it was he wished to say refused to show itself. The words ran away and hid. His thoughts faded. He watched her face fade with them.
She kept coming back, though. She sat beside him and held his hand. He could feel it from where he hid inside himself. She spoke softly, touched his face with her fingers, let him feel her presence even when she was doing nothing. It was her presence more than anything that kept him from drifting away altogether. He would have liked it better if she had let him go. He thought that it would happen that way eventually, that he would drift far enough that everything would disappear. But she prevented that, and, while it frustrated and even angered him at times, it also interested him. Why was she doing this? Was she anxious to keep him with her, or did she simply want to be taken along?
He began to listen more intently when she spoke. Her words seemed to grow clearer.
“It wasn’t your fault,” was what she told him most often. She told him that over and over, and for the longest time he didn’t know why.
“That creature was no longer Coll.” She told him that, too. “You had to destroy it.”
She said these things, and once in a while he thought he almost understood. But fierce, dark shadows cloaked his understanding, and he was quick to hide from them.
But one day she spoke the words and he understood immediately. The drifting stopped, the walls broke apart, and everything rushed in with the cold fury of a winter ice storm. He began screaming, and he could not seem to stop. The memories returned, sweeping aside everything he had so carefully constructed to keep them out, and his rage and anguish were boundless. He screamed, and the Mole shrank from him, the strange beasts tumbled from his bedside, he could see the candles flickering through the tears he cried, and the shadows danced with glee.
It was the girl who saved him. She fought past the rage and anguish, ignored the screams, and held him to her. She held him as if the drifting might begin anew, as if he were in danger of being swept away completely, and she refused to let go. When his screams finally stopped, he found that he was holding her back.
He slept then, a deep and dreamless sleep that submerged him completely and let him rest. The madness was gone when he awoke, the drifting ended, and the gray half-sleep washed away. He knew himself again; he knew his surroundings and the faces of Damson Rhee and the Mole as they passed beside him. They bathed him and gave him fresh clothes, fed him and let him sleep some more. They did not speak to him. Perhaps they understood that he could not yet respond.