Ghostwalker (38 page)

But Walker did not reply. Instead, he tore himself out of the Ethereal. The shades vanished from around him as he emerged into the physical world of torment and agony. Outside the ghost world, he knew he could feel physical pain, and he wore no healing ring to save him after this. This was the end.

Black hides blood. Black shrouds pain.

Gylther’yel’s fire was stripping the flesh from his bones, but slowly, agonizingly, so that he could feel every tiny bit of his death. He had to feel it in order for this to work, though—he had to feel enough pain to push him to the breaking point, then…

Perhaps she would not realize what she was doing until it was too late.

“Hurt me, false mother!” he called through the inferno. “Punish me, burn me, attack me!”

Gylther’yel looked at him and laughed. The fire did not intensify.

“Your entire life has been a lie!” he shouted. “The love you taught me to ignore, the good of humanity … I found it, but you never did. You cannot!”

She turned furious eyes upon him.

“What?” she snapped, her voice as thunder.

“You always tried… to be a mother to me… but you failed,” said Walker. His words were broken with gasps of agony, but he could not succumb. Not yet. Not while this final task had to be done. “I watched my mother die… you could never… understand…love….”

Gylther’yel screamed with laughter.

“Then teach me, ‘Son!’ ” Throwing her hands up, she brought down a column of flame upon his head. “Whether you will it or no!”

As the agony gripped Walker with a viselike hold, he felt cold, terrible power fill his body. Though she had spoken his birth name—Rhyn Greyt—she denied his true name, the name that would take away his powers. Some men are born to a name, some men are given a name, and some men name themselves.

Rhyn Thardeyn was one of the last.

In an instant, his mind flashed back fifteen years to that terrible night when the men had killed him. His eyes saw again that terrible scene as through a red lens, blurred by the blood that had burned like fire. He heard again the taunts that had brought his memory back.

Then he saw, in his mind, something he had never remembered until now.

He was lying on his back, choking but alive, and staring upward when he heard a soft voice, speaking to Greyt from the trees.

“I must have that boy,” said Gylther’yel. “The agreement, Greyt.”

“Damned if you will have this boy!” Greyt shouted. “I deny you!”

A rapier drove through Rhyn’s throat, cutting off his breath.

“Let’s hear you sing now,” Meris whispered.

Rhyn Thardeyn opened his mouth but only a bloody rattle emerged.

The ghost druid smiled. “Whether you will it or no,” she said. Then she turned away.

Awake again, Walker turned burning eyes on Gylther’yel, eyes empty of anger, pain, rage, or love.

Eyes that knew only vengeance.

“I remember you,” he said simply. The shatterspike glowed white hot in his burning hands but he felt no pain. “You were there. You let them kill me. You made them kill me.”

The ghostwalker vanished out of the column of fire. Back in the Ethereal, he ran through the flames, his cold anger ignoring the agony, toward the shadowy storm that was Gylther’yel, the only mother he had ever known.

Walker! came a despairing voice. No!

Farewell, Arya. A smile spread across the ghostwalker’s face. Farewell, my love.

Then he burst through Gylther’yel’s ghostly halo of flame and brought his shatterspike down and through the sun elf’s spectral body. The ghost druid gave a scream that tore the veil between worlds and fire exploded forth.

Spectral hands spread to welcome him, those of Lyetha and Tarm, his true mother and father. Smiling, Rhyn reached out.

All went white.

POSTLUDE

Greengrass, The Year of Lightning Storms

(1374 DR)

When Arya awoke, what could have been days later but was merely nightfall, she could see nothing through the darkness that surrounded her.

She did not need her sight, though, for she keenly remembered that haunting scream and the terrible flash of light that went with it. Gripping the grass in front of her, Arya pulled herself hand over hand, toward where she had seen Gylther’yel fall. She did not have far to go.

The grass receded as she reached a scarred swath of land, and Arya knew that she had found where Gylther’yel had died—died in a great explosion nothing could have survived.

Why, then, was Arya alive? Why had she…

Then Arya felt the surprisingly cool metal around her finger, and she knew.

The wolf’s head ring! The damnable ring had kept her alive! Alive, on the very spot…

Had he known it would end this way? Had he known that one of them would die, and chosen to save her? Had he known, all along?

With a moan, Arya felt around blindly. Long, agonizing moments passed before she realized there was nothing there to find. Walker and Gylther’yel had both vanished.

A wave of love, undying love, washed over her, and Arya wept in agony, great sobs welling up from her aching, torn body. The sound attracted someone else from nearby, who came to her side. Arya felt a momentary swell of hope, that perhaps it was Walker, but even her blurry vision could tell her it was not.

“There, there,” a feminine voice whispered in her ear. Tender arms hugged her. “My name’s Amra Clearwater. You’re safe now.”

“Wh-where is he?” Arya asked in agony, only part of it physical. “Wh-where…?”

“Who?” Amra asked. “There is no one here but you and me. The Ghostly Lady’s gone. There was no one else.”

“He’s gone,” said Arya, her heart sinking. “Gone without me…”

But then there was another sound, cutting her off. Even as Selune ushered in the dawn of spring, rising silver and full, a lonely wolf howled.

“Seek your redemption,” Arya whispered to the wind, tears sliding down her cheeks. “And if—when—you find it, I’ll be waiting.”

Arya smiled as darkness closed around her and she knew no more.

Amra Clearwater smiled sadly, thinking the now-slumbering knight spoke nonsense.

The wolf’s song to the spring moon was at an end.

The Nightingale’s Song

A cold hand touches my cheek, but it is only wind,

the breeze that caressed us as we lay

peaceful and warm among the shadows,

tangled together and guarded by stars.

In love—in a moment.

Now you walk one way and I the other,

but your voice lingers in my mind —

I hear its broken beauty shattering the stillness,

and I know I would throw my memories away

for just one moment more with you.

But all I can lose is your ring from my hand,

a kindness and a curse, and

all I have left of you to touch.

Though I walk lonely into the years,

I won’t let go.

I could not save you, could not find your path.

Were you too lost for salvation?

Perhaps, you would say. But, perhaps

I was the one who lost the way,

And you saved me.

—composed by Lady Arya Venkyr (1375 DR)

Translated from the original Elvish