Bastion of Darkness (17 page)

Kaggoth instead glanced around at the other talons, noting the tiny nods of support. Perceptive Thalasi saw those movements, too, and he realized that if he set the zombies into motion, the talons would take up Kaggoth’s cause and he would have a major fight right here in the throne room. “Perhaps I will overlook your impudence this one time,” he said. “We are all on edge after what has happened. As to your question, no, I do not fear the wraith. Not while I possess this.” He held up his
black-burnished staff, the Staff of Death. “But I do maintain a healthy respect for a creature as powerful as Hollis Mitchell. Take your soldiers up high, and keep them up high. Too many talons have died already. I see no need to risk any more while I have the command of a zombie army.”

Kaggoth eyed him for a long while, confused, suspicious, then nodded and turned to go.

“And,” Thalasi called abruptly, stopping the talon in its tracks and turning it about to face him, “if you entertain thoughts of allowing the wraith to do battle with me, in the hopes that perhaps Mitchell will destroy me, then know that your hopes are foolhardy at best and surely misguided. I am Morgan Thalasi; do not forget that! And even if, by some wild chance, your hopes came to fruition and Mitchell proved the stronger, then consider what life you might know under the rule of the wraith. Or your unlife, I should say, for Mitchell will not suffer you, any of you, to live, and will surely tear your spirits from the realm of Death and hold you undead under his power. I could do the same, do not doubt.” He flashed that awful staff again. “Yet I am a merciful lord. So go, Kaggoth, and remember your allegiance.”

Kaggoth nodded again, slowly, deliberately, then motioned to two nearby talons, his lieutenants, and exited the room.

Thalasi breathed a sigh of relief and leaned forward in his chair, considering the forthcoming scenario. He did well to keep his talons up high on the walls, so he believed. It was possible that Mitchell would be able to exert considerable control over the undead soldiers; perhaps the wraith would even prove strong enough to wrest their blind allegiance away from Thalasi. But Thalasi and his talons would then hold the high defensible positions, and the loyalty of the talons would be unwavering
when faced with the choice of Thalasi or horrid Mitchell.

But how confusing it had all become! And how pitiful! Only a few short months ago, the Black Warlock had been on the verge of conquering the world, and now he feared losing even Talas-dun, his last bastion, the heart of his power. Mitchell was coming in with many talons in his wake, so it had been reported, and Thalasi did not know if that was a good thing or a bad. Did the presence of talons, a race aptly nicknamed the children of Thalasi, mean that the wraith was returning as an ally? Or did it portend disaster for Thalasi? For if Mitchell turned against him, not only might he be able to wrest away the zombies, but he would have a considerable talon force of his own.

If that was the case, Thalasi wondered if he could hold out against the wraith. He looked to the Staff of Death again, his most powerful of creations, and hoped that its powers had not too greatly diminished, as had the Black Warlock’s own.

Truly she was exhausted after the tremendous expenditure of magical energy, but Brielle would not slow her efforts to breathe warmth back into the cold body of Bryan of Corning. She spent days with him in the heart of Avalon, tending him, warming him, coaxing him back to life, and finally, after nearly a week, the young half-elf opened his weary eyes.

“Rhiannon,” he said at once, a clear note of alarm in his voice.

Brielle, despite her fears for her daughter, quieted him, knowing that he was not yet ready. Patience, she told herself. That would be the only way to get the whole story, and get it correctly.

By that night, Bryan was much stronger, and awake
again. And when he told her, her worst nightmares came true. Bryan feared that Mitchell had caught Rhiannon, and had either killed her or taken her captive, and when Brielle considered the sensations that had come to her that night nearly two weeks before, she knew that the young half-elf was correct. Mitchell had not killed Rhiannon, of that the Emerald Witch was certain. If Rhiannon died, Brielle’s heart would feel it, no matter how many miles separated them. But he had taken her, or was herding her, chasing her, else she would have surely returned to Avalon.

The Emerald Witch stood silent in a field later on that clear evening, looking up at the starry canopy of Ynis Aielle. She had to regain her strength, after the flight to Bryan and the many hours of magical tending, and then she had to look far and wide, had to call to her animal friends to act as spies, had to search to the ends of the world until her dearest Rhiannon was found.

But in her heart, she already knew.

Brielle understood where the horrid wraith, Thalasi’s pawn, would take so valuable a prisoner, and she knew, too, that that place, the black fortress, was beyond her powers.

So she stood quiet under the stars, her heart breaking, her imagination running wild with her fears for her dear daughter, for innocent Rhiannon who did not deserve any of this.

His approach was without fanfare, without announcement. The wraith stalked the last quarter mile to Talas-dun in the same manner that it had traveled the hundreds of miles before that. In Mitchell’s wake came a thousand talon soldiers, a nervous group indeed, all bloodshot eyes darting to and fro, looking for some signal from the bastion that all was well.

Thalasi watched it all from a tall tower. He first noted the talons’ movements, trying to discern if they had come for war or parlay. Then he focused on the wraith, and then, more particularly, on the body the wraith carried.

It was not Brielle, Thalasi knew, for the Emerald Witch had hair the color of gold, not raven black. But what other woman would Mitchell bother to cart across the miles? Certainly the wraith had no lustful intentions, and certainly Mitchell knew Thalasi well enough to understand that such a gift, if it was a gift, would mean little to the Black Warlock. Curious, but ever cautious, the Black Warlock held his ground, high up.

The wraith stalked up to the great iron front gate. “Throw it wide!” he commanded, and when no reaction seemed forthcoming, Mitchell struck the great doors with his mighty mace. The blow echoed about the courtyard, up in the towers, walls and floors shivering. “Throw it wide!” the wraith bellowed again, and this time, to the Black Warlock’s horror, some of the zombies moved toward the huge locking bar.

Thalasi reached out to them telepathically, sent his will upon them to stop them. He found that Mitchell’s thoughts were already there, and in the struggle that ensued, several of the zombies literally split apart, their rotted forms torn asunder by the war of wills.

At last the wraith backed off, relinquishing control of the zombies, and Thalasi wasn’t sure if he had won the battle or if Mitchell was just conserving strength.

“Am I to be shut out, then?” the wraith called.

“Do you enter as friend or foe?” Thalasi retorted, moving into Mitchell’s view at one of the tower’s narrow and tall windows.

The wraith issued its hideous laugh. “I am a pawn of the Black Warlock,” Mitchell replied unconvincingly. “An unthinking tool.”

“Never that!” the Black Warlock retorted sharply. He thrust forth the Staff of Death, and took some comfort in the fact that Mitchell recoiled before it. Yes, its power was strong, Thalasi decided, and so he sent his will down to the zombies again, and this time allowed them to open the great door.

In came the wraith and the talons, the living creatures stopping fast when they noted that gruesome undead monsters filled the courtyard.

Thalasi nearly chuckled, despite the tension. A tremendous turnaround might now occur, he realized, with Mitchell taking control of the zombies, and Thalasi similarly stealing away the living talons Mitchell had brought in.

Nothing of the sort happened. To Thalasi’s relief, the wraith placed its cargo down on the ground and called up to him. “I have brought a gift,” Mitchell explained.

Thalasi started to reply sharply but thought the better of it, and after a moment’s hesitation, he swept down the tower stairs and out the door, leaving several talons to guard the portal and hold open his escape should battle begin. Even as he approached the wraith and the body, Thalasi felt the unusual sensation. The wizards of Aielle could feel each other, could recognize each other’s aura as a dog could recognize its master’s smell. Thalasi did not know this woman, and yet he did, had felt her presence before, on a field so far away …

All fear of the wraith flew away, and the intrigued Black Warlock rushed to the woman and turned her over, his hollow eyes going wide indeed to see that she carried a wizard’s mark, a diamond set in the middle of her forehead.

“The daughter of Brielle,” Mitchell explained.

Thalasi looked up at him.

“Rhiannon by name.”

The Black Warlock hardly remembered to draw breath. This was too beautiful, too unexpected. “Why have you returned to me?” he asked bluntly, for, with his hopes suddenly soaring, he needed to have things properly sorted and clarified.

“The war is not yet over,” the wraith replied, just the answer Morgan Thalasi had hoped for. “We have been thrown back, but not down; wounded, but not killed.”

“And wounded, too, were our enemies,” Thalasi was quick to put in. “The wizards will be of little consequence when next the battle ensues.”

“Perhaps the time of wizards is past,” the wraith dared to say, drawing itself up to its full, imposing height; and there it was, spoken openly and plainly.

A threat if Morgan Thalasi had ever heard one.

“DELGIUDICE?” THE SPIRIT
asked repeatedly, pondering the name, its former name, and all the memories the mere sound of the word inspired. “DelGiudice.” All through the cold night—though the spirit had no sensation of the wintry mountain chill, unless he willfully experienced it—the spirit had sat vigilant guard over his new companions. Belexus sat propped against a tree, but fast asleep, confident in this new manifestation of Jeffrey DelGiudice as a sentry. Ardaz lay wrapped in many blankets, dangerously close to the fire, snoring contentedly. Calamus stood nearby, wings folded, head down, dark eyes closed. Only Desdemona remained awake, watching DelGiudice. The cat, above all the others, had not taken well to the ghost. She remained apprehensive, and every time Del so much as glanced Desdemona’s way, she arched her back and spat at him.

And though he couldn’t touch living flesh, Del found cat spittle a bit uncomfortable.

The spirit did not need to sleep, couldn’t even comprehend such a notion, and so he agreed to keep the watch, and while he did, he remembered. He kept repeating key words, particularly names, over and over, changing the inflection until the ring became familiar, thus tapping another memory or name, like a growing chain. By the end of the first night, Del had rebuilt his memory to include
his time aboard the
Unicorn
, the advanced submarine that had brought Del and some others, including Mitchell and Reinheiser, to this new world. Before the dawn, before the others awoke, he recalled his adventures crossing Ynis Aielle; his first meeting with Calae, prince of the Colonnae; his unexpected rescue by Belexus in Blackemara, the ancient swamp; his meeting with the other rangers, Bellerian and Andovar; and his stay in the most marvelous Emerald Room that served as throne chamber to Bellerian. And of course—and, to his thinking even now, most important of all—Del remembered his first glimpse of, and all his subsequent meetings with, Brielle of Avalon.

Brielle. That name rang most familiar of all, sent a warmth through the spirit, the fondest of memories. How he had loved her, though their time together had been so painfully short. It was, at the end, Brielle’s rejection of Del that had caused him to wander to Shaithdun O’Illume, the shelf of the moon, that fateful night, when Calae had come to him and bade him to travel the stars. So had ended Del’s life on earth; so had begun his journey with the Colonnae.

He was deep in thought, deep in memory, both sad and glad, when the sun broke the eastern rim and Belexus stirred, rising and stretching, then coming to the spirit quietly.

“A fine watch ye keep,” the ranger teased, for Del apparently did not notice his approach. “Or are ye looking out and not in?” he added, nodding to the camp’s perimeter.

“Looking in,” DelGiudice said, meaning something completely different. “Looking back.”

Belexus nodded, then motioned to Desdemona, who was all too happy to go over and wake Ardaz.

“DelGiudice,” the spirit announced, the name at
last coming easily to his insubstantial lips. “Jeffrey DelGiudice.”

The ranger nodded again. “And Del, ye were called by yer friends,” he explained. “Ye’re remembering?”

“Much of it,” the spirit replied. “The ship that got me here, the journey across Aielle. Our first meeting—you saved me from some altogether nasty creature.”

“A whip-dragon,” Belexus replied.