"Uncle Mather?"
Elbryan waited for a long while in the dimly lit cave, the day outside gray and hinting again of snow. He was not physically uncomfortable, for this place he had been using as Oracle, a hole beneath a wide pine, remained surprisingly dry; and, sheltered from the bite of the north wind, the air was not so cold.
The ranger was anxious, and he wanted to converse with the spirit this late afternoon, to tell his uncle Mather of the responsibilities that had befallen him, of the abrupt change that had come into his life, into the lives of all the folk on the borders of the Wilderlands. He realized then that Pony had been his sounding board, his confidant, and that since she had returned to him, he had not often been to Oracle.
But now Pony was gone, on the road with Symphony.
The ranger prayed that his uncle Mather would respond openly this time, would offer him some solid answers, as Pony had done, but that had never before been the way of the Oracle. This time, Elbryan feared, the answers and the strength were not within him, waiting for him to discover them.
He called again, softly, then again nearly half an hour later, when the cave had grown so dark that the keen-eyed ranger could hardly make out the edges of the mirror, let alone any spirit image within the glass.
Elbryan closed his eyes and recounted the events in his mind. The boy from End-o'-the-World, Shawno, had been of little help, but Elbryan remained convinced that it was indeed the Touel'alfar who had rescued that fleeing group from the monstrous hordes.
But where were the elves, then? Surely Belli'mar Juraviel, if he was in the area, would have made some contact with Elbryan.
Surely Tuntun would have to come to him, if for no other reason than to tell him how miserably he had failed in protecting the three towns!
The ranger was startled when he opened his eyes to see the reflection of a small light" a candle, burning softly in the depths of the mirror, its sharp glow dulled by a whitish haze whose source Elbryan could not discern.
No, it was not a reflection, the ranger suddenly realized, but a light within the glass!
A moment later, Elbryan sucked in his breath, for there, at the corner of the glass stood the quiet apparition of, he knew in his heart, his father's brother.
"Uncle Mather," he said softly, "glad I am that you heeded my call this troubled day."
The image stood silently, unblinking.
Where to begin? Elbryan wondered. "The towns have fallen, all three," he blurted, "but many of the folk escaped, including nearly all those from Weedy Meadow and all of Dundalis."
The image hardly moved, but Elbryan sensed the spirit was pleased with Elbryan, if not with the situation.
"And so we are hiding," the ranger went on, "and it is difficult, for winter remains. Now I must get those who cannot fight to safety in the south; that I know and am already seeking to arrange. And the southland will be warned by Pony, my beloved, returned to me and flying fist across the miles upon Symphony. But as for the rest, Uncle Mather, for those who would remain and fight, my course is unclear."
The ranger paused and waited, hoping for some response.
"I would choose to use them against the invaders," Elbryan said at length, when no answer was forthcoming. "I can form them into something devilish, a swift and secret band that strikes our. enemy in the night and flies away before the goblins and powries can retaliate."
Again, the ranger had the feeling that the specter was pleased.
"So much stronger shall we be if my suspicions are correct," Elbryan went on, "if the Touel'alfar are in the area, ready to lend their silverel bows to our cause. Do you know? Are they somewhere close..."
Elbryan's voice trailed off as the image in the mirror shifted, as though the lens that was the mirror was drawing back from that single shielded candle, widening to include many others, little burning huts of snow, they seemed, set in a familiar field.
"Uncle Mather?" Elbryan asked, but the image of the specter was no more, just the field of candles, flickering under the dulling whiteness, dying, gradually dying, until the mirror, until all the small cave, went absolutely dark.
Elbryan sat there for a long while, considering the course before him. The moon had set when he at last crawled out of the hole, and there, waiting for him, fiddling with some stones, was Brother Avelyn. The monk had set a torch in the nook of a low branch of a nearby tree, its orange light casting twisted shadows across the ground.
"Cold night," the monk remarked dryly. "A true friend would have come out much earlier."
"I knew not that you were here waiting," Elbryan replied, and then he paused and looked hard at the man. "I did not know that you even knew of this place."
"Shown to me by the stones," the monk replied, and he held up one of the stones, a coin-sized quartz.
"You sought me out, then."
"We have much work before us, my friend," said Avelyn.
Elbryan didn't disagree.
"This is no simple raid, not even a simple invasion," said Avelyn.
"A simple invasion?" echoed Elbryan, for surely the words sounded curious when put together. "Can an invasion be simple?"
"If it is without greater purpose," replied the monk. "Powries have oft come to Honce-the-Bear's coastline, striking hard and charging inland until their thirst for blood and pillage is sated. Then their ranks break apart from their constant infighting, they go away, and the land heals. It has been that way for all of time, I believe."
"But this time is different," reasoned the ranger.
"That is my fear," said Avelyn.
"Yet it would seem as if this monstrous force of creatures so hateful and so different from one another would be more likely to turn on itself," Elbryan said.
"So they would," muttered Avelyn. "So they would, were it not for a guiding hand of the greatest strength."
Elbryan leaned back against the wide tree, having nothing to offer on that point. He remembered the murmuring of the elves soon before his departure, the whispers of a dactyl demon awakened in the north. "And if you are right?" he asked finally.
Avelyn's face turned grave. "Then I see my destiny," the monk remarked. "Then I understand what prophetic, divine being guided my hand when I filled my pouch with the stones of St.-Mere-Abelle. Even the choice of which stones to take was made for me, then, by something above --"
"I envy you your faith," said the ranger. "For myself, I feel that our destiny is our own to choose, our mistakes our own to make, our choices wrought of freedom."
Avelyn thought for a moment, then nodded. "A different way of looking at the same thing," he decided. "My choice that day was based on all that had transpired previously in my life, was the culmination of a course that had begun long before I entered the Abellican Order. I feel that I am right with my God, ranger, and if my suspicions as to the nature of the beast are true, then I see my course before me. That is all. I thought I should let it be known to you."
"Because you are leaving."
"Not yet," Avelyn replied quickly, "and know that I am with you, at your command. I will use the stones and all my talents, and all my body in whatever course you set. For now."
Elbryan nodded, satisfied that the monk would be of great help -- as he had already been. The ranger didn't underestimate Avelyn in the least; without the man and his magic, many more would have fallen at Weedy Meadow. And by Elbryan's measure, Avelyn's bravery in all that he had done -- in taking the stones and fleeing St.-Mere-Abelle, in facing Brother Justice, and in aiding against the monsters-was above question.
"Do you believe in visions?" the ranger asked suddenly. "In prophecy?"
Avelyn looked at him hard. "Did I not just say as much?" he returned.
"And how is one to know if a vision is true or a deception?" the ranger asked.
"Ho, ho, what!" Avelyn boomed. "You've seen something this night in your hole!"
Elbryan smiled. "But how am I to know its source and its outcome?"
Avelyn laughed all the harder. "The responsibility weighs on you heavily," the monk replied. "You consider the vision more closely because so many people depend upon you now, because any course you take will draw many others in your wake. Ho, ho, what! Relieve your mind of the burden, then decide, my friend. What would be your course had you seen this vision without the responsibilities that have been placed on your strong shoulders?"
Elbryan paused for a long while, studying this man, thinking Avelyn as wise as any of the elves who had been so instrumental in the making of Elbryan the Nightbird.
Then he knew what he must do. And with only a few hours of darkness left before him, and without Symphony to take him swiftly, he knew that he must make haste.
"Your pardon, my friend," he said.
"A vision calls?"
Elbryan nodded.
"Would you need my company, then?" Avelyn asked.
Elbryan looked at him again and was glad of the man's offer. He felt that he might indeed need help this night, but he understood, too, that the vision, whatever it foretold, was for him alone. He walked to Avelyn and patted the huge man on the shoulder. "I need you to help Bradwarden," he explained, "to keep the people on the right course."
Avelyn didn't look over his shoulder to watch the ranger disappear into the night.
The diamond-shaped grove was eerily quiet, with no rustle of wind nor the call of any animal, of any night bird, to stir the still air. Elbryan wished that he had gotten here before moonset, when he could better see the rolling fields of snow surrounding the dark grove. He considered the sack he had retrieved before coming out to this place, bulging with candles, and he wondered if he should first light the area.
It didn't matter, the ranger decided boldly, and went to work. He moved slowly and carefully about the field, building domes of snow the size of his two cupped hands. Then he carefully hollowed each out and placed a single candle within. When he was finished with his task, when he had but one candle remaining, the ranger put flint to steel and lit it, then went steadily about the field, lighting each candle in turn, until all the area was glowing softly from two score muffled lights, points in the darkness.
Elbryan knew not how long the candles would last, how long it would take their heat to melt the snow domes above them, the droplets falling to extinguish the flames. He stood for a long time and the domes burned -- too long, it seemed to him, and he suspected then that something beyond the ordinary was happening here, that some other force was at work in keeping those candles burning.
He heard his name called softly. Turning to the dark row of stately pines, the ranger instinctively understood the source. He moved inside the grove, across the covering of snow to the secret cairn.
Something was terribly wrong, Elbryan realized, terribly out of sorts, as if the very harmony of this place had somehow been stolen away. Suddenly this holy place, this place he had presumed prepared by the Touel'alfar themselves, seemed to him no sanctuary at all.
Elbryan leaned heavily on Hawkwing, staring at the cairn, and it took him some time to realize that he could see the stones far too distinctly, that there was simply too much light here.
Its source was the cairn itself, glowing green!
Elbryan could hardly draw breath as he noticed one of the top stones shift. He wanted to turn and flee; every survival instinct within the ranger told him to run away.
But he could not flee, held in place by something he did not understand, by something beyond the power of his own will.
The cairn blew outward, weirdly, slowly and not violently, all the rocks rolling up atop one another to form walls on either side of the grave; the light intensified so that Elbryan could see clearly the remains within, rotted and withered, a hollow shell of the man they had once been.
His staff was up in front of him now, defensively, as if ready for whatever would come next, but the alert ranger nearly swooned when that corpse opened its eyes, showing two red dots of light when it sat up suddenly, its back too stiff and straight, that posture alone showing that it was far from natural.
"Be gone, demon," the ranger whispered ineffectively.
As if some wire were attached to its back, the zombie stood suddenly, moving straight up without use of its hands, without bending its legs.
Elbryan fell back a step-again came that urge to flee, his mind telling him that this monster was too great for him -- but he planted Hawkwing firmly and used it to support his position, holding steady before the undead thing.
"Who are you?" Elbryan demanded. "What manner of creature? Of what weal, good or evil?"
That last question echoed in Elbryan's mind, sounding ridiculous, for what manner of goodly force could so torture a body at rest? Still, the ranger' did not dismiss his knowledge that this was a blessed place, that this body, and the soul that had inhabited it in life, had been elf-friend, at least.
The creature's arms came up, reaching straight out toward the ranger, in a posture that might be threatening or pleading.
But then the undead thing was there, right before him, propelled by something other than its legs -- was there, barely a foot away, its bony fingers clasped about the ranger's throat!
Elbryan grabbed at the arm and tried futilely to break the impossibly strong hold. He tried to yell out in protest, but had no breath. How he wished that Avelyn were there! That the monk would step in and blast this wicked thing with the magical stones!
But no, the ranger remembered. The vision was for him alone; this fight was for him alone. Clearing his panic, Elbryan brought Hawkwing up between the zombie's arms, grabbed the staff at both ends and twisted it, using its leverage to break the hold.
For a moment, he thought the twist would break his own neck instead, but finally, he wriggled free, jumped back a step, and smashed his staff hard against the side of the creature's head.
He might have hit it with a blow of his breath, he realized, as the monster didn't flinch in the least, just came on steadily, those straight arms reaching again for his throat.
Elbryan went into a sidelong dive, meaning to put some distance between himself and the monster, thinking that. he should string his bow and let fly some stinging arrows.
But when he came up from the roll, the zombie was there, suddenly, magically. The ranger got his staff and his arm up to block, but the creature's backhand sweep was too heavy, sending Elbryan tumbling back the other way.
He came up in a run and ducked low to avoid another blow -- for again, the zombie had somehow beaten him to the spot -- and scrambled through the thick pine branches, cutting this way and that, trying to keep away from any predictable course.
Twice he fumed corners to see the monster waiting for him. One time he ducked the attack, skidding to his knees but coming right back up agilely to run on. The second time, the ranger got grabbed painfully by the shoulder but somehow squirmed free before the monster could crush him in a hug.
Soon Elbryan was at the edge of the grove, standing before the candled field.
The monster was across the way, off to the side.
Elbryan's jaw slackened at the familiar sight, at the exact image he had last seen in the minor, except that the zombie now stood where the specter of his uncle Mather had stood before. All was too quiet, too serene.
"Uncle Mather?" he asked the thing.
Then it was before him, so suddenly, clubbing him with those rock-stiff arms, sending him tumbling back into the pines.
Elbryan felt warm blood rolling from one ear and had to shake his head repeatedly to force the dizziness away. The creature, whatever it was, could hit like a giant!
He turned a corner within a triangle of tight pines, expecting correctly that the zombie would be there. Up came Hawkwing in a blurring defensive circle, Elbryan working brilliantly to parry and dodge the deceptively quick strikes of the stiff-limbed monster, then even countering once, twice, thrice with a deft stab, a sudden club to the side of the monster's head, and a third stab, this one nailing the zombie right between the eyes.
The vicious blows seemed not to affect the creature at all.
Across came its clubbing arm, and Elbryan, confused, dove away from the blow, taking the hit but not hard as he fell. He rolled through several branches, coming to his feet again in full flight, wondering what he might do against the likes of this monster, fearing that the dactyl itself had come against him, had lured him to this spot that he might be destroyed once and for all.
He crashed through a tangle of branches to find the zombie standing before him. Not surprised,
the ranger continued on, bringing his staff down hard, right into the creature's face.
It didn't flinch, except to smack Elbryan across the shoulder with one arm, stealing his forward momentum and launching him sideways instead.
"I have to get a sword," the ranger lamented, glad that the branches had softened his tumbling fall. Then he was up and running, hoping to put some distance between himself and the creature, that he might devise some strategy. He wondered if he should flee the area, into the deeper forest where he was more at home.
Elbryan dismissed that thought; however futile his efforts seemed, he had played a part in bringing this creature to the world, and he must see to its destruction.
He ran on instead through the winding ways of the grove, cutting down every side path, trying to keep his movements unpredictable so that the monster could not appear before him. All the while, he was circling in toward the heart of the grove, moving determinedly toward the ruined cairn.
He came through the last line of trees into the green light. The opened grave loomed before him, and the zombie monster appeared right behind him! The creature pounded him hard between the shoulder blades, launching him into a forward roll that ended abruptly when he crashed against some of the cairn rocks.
Dazed, bleeding, Elbryan pulled himself up to his elbows, looking over the edge of the cairn. He knew that he must get up and run, knew that the monster was stalking in from behind.
The ranger froze in place, staring wide-eyed into the open pit. There, positioned as if it. were the very heart of the grave, lay a sword -- and not just any common sword but a work of art, a beautiful, gleaming treasure. If the tip of its blade was set upon the ground, the end of its balled hilt would not have reached Elbryan's waist, and the width of the blade was no more than the distance between the knuckle and first joint of Elbryan's smallest finger, but there was an unmistakable solidity and strength to the weapon, an aura of power.
The ranger reached in to the limit of his arm, to find that the sword was just out of range.
He heard the zombie right behind him.
Then, somehow, the sword was in his hand, and Elbryan spun and swept the weapon in a furious arc. Bluish-white light trailed the length of its path, stealing the green hue, and the zombie fell back and growled.
Elbryan scrambled to his feet, trying to inspect the blade without losing sight of his dangerous opponent. The sword was incredibly, light; a blood trough ran down the center of the blade -- and that blade was forged of silverel, the ranger suddenly recognized! The crosspiece, which curved back toward the tip of the blade, was similarly forged of the precious elven metal and tipped in gold; the hilt was wrapped in blue leather, tied tight by unmistakable silverel strands. Most wondrous of all, though, was the ball anchoring the hilt, a balance to the blade, for it, too, was of silverel, but was hollowed and set with such a gemstone as Elbryan had never seen -- blue and with patches of gray and white like storm clouds crossing an autumn sky. And there was a power in that gem, the ranger knew, magic such as the magic of Avelyn's stones.
Elbryan let Hawkwing fall to the ground -- he wondered if he would ever again need to use the bow as a staff -- and brought the sword out before him, weaving it slowly, feeling its balance.
He tossed it easily from hand to hand, moving it in the sword-dance, then thrusting the sword out to keep the zombie at bay, swinging it wide to entice the monster in.
But the zombie showed the man new respect and stayed back, growling, the red dots of light that were its eyes glowing furiously.
"Come on, then," Elbryan said quietly. "You would have me dead, so come along and play."
The zombie fell back into the branch tangle; Elbryan rushed to follow.
But the creature was gone, out of sight, and the ranger realized that he, too, had to keep moving, that the fight had become even more a game of cat and mouse, for this time, both he and the zombie were the cats.
He stayed on the narrow trails mostly, using his speed, hoping to spot the monster before it was right beside him. He decided to angle his way back to the candlelit field and was not surprised when he arrived there to find the zombie waiting for him. The ranger understood then that this was how it was supposed to be, that this challenge on this field had been predetermined. He stalked toward the monster, and it came to him slowly at first, then in a furious rush, its arms flailing wildly.
Elbryan earned and struck, fell back on his heels, tumbled sidelong in a roll, and came right back in a ferocious charge, that magnificent sword leading. Now his hit did indeed sting the zombie, the sword tearing a deep gash in the rotted flesh, smacking hard against a rib.
The zombie came across with a sweeping backhand that caught ducking Elbryan hard across the shoulder. But the ranger stubbornly held his position and stood straight, stabbing at the ribs again and then sweeping the blade in an arc for the monster's neck.
Up came a zombie arm to block; the sword's gemstone flared with sudden power and the blade crackled with energy, as if it had caught a bolt of white lightning and held it fast.
The sword severed that blocking arm cleanly, right above the elbow and slashed across the face of the ducking monster.
Blinded, the zombie fell back and howled in agony, but Elbryan was upon it in an instant, the mighty sword diving through the monster's chest in a quick thrust, then coming out and sweeping down diagonally, shearing through the collarbone, down and across, deep into the rotted chest.
The zombie went hard to the ground and burst apart with a bright green flash that sent Elbryan stumbling backward, that sent all the world spinning in the ranger's eyes.
Elbryan awakened sometime later, the eastern sky just brightening with dawn, his head cradled in his arms atop the bottom stones of the intact cairn.
"Whole again?" he asked skeptically, or perhaps, he realized, it had been whole all along.
The ranger started to rise but found that every bone in his body ached, and only then did he realize how cold he was. He put his head back down, wondering if he would die out here, alone, and cold, wondering what had brought such a nightmare.
Then a curious thought hit him, and he looked up, truly puzzled, staring hard at the cairn.
"Uncle Mather?" he asked breathlessly, and he knew that it was true, that this was the grave of his uncle Mather, the ranger.
But, he wondered, had it all been a dream, then? The monster? The sword?
Too intrigued to feel his pain, the ranger struggled to his feet, and as he came up above the stones, he saw, on the ground at the head of the cairn, a familiar, beautiful sword.
Elbryan stiffly reached out his hand and started around to retrieve the weapon, but the sword came to him, floating to his grasp!
He held it up before his admiring gaze, studying the craftsmanship, the gleaming silverel, the magnificent gemstone pommel, the blue, the storm clouds.
"Tempest," he whispered, suddenly realizing the significance of that unique gemstone. This was Tempest, Mather's sword, one of the six ranger swords forged by the elves in a time long past.
"Indeed," came a melodic voice from behind and above.
Elbryan spun to see Belli'mar Juraviel sitting calmly on a low branch, smiling at him.
"Mather's sword," Elbryan said:
"No more," replied Juraviel. "Elbryan's sword, earned in the dark of night."
The ranger could hardly draw breath.
"My old friend," Elbryan said at length, "all the world has gone mad, I fear."
Juraviel only nodded, unable to disagree.