The Demon Awakens (26 page)

“There is a pedestal of stone inside on which you must place the mirror,” Juraviel explained, “and a place before it where you might set up your chair. Use the blanket to cover the entry, so that it becomes very dark within.”

Elbryan waited, expecting more instructions. After a long moment, Tuntun nudged him roughly. “Are you afraid even to try?” she chided.

“Try what?” Elbryan demanded, but when he looked to Juraviel for support, he found the elf was pointing to the narrow opening, indicating that the young man should enter.

Elbryan had no idea what they expected, what he should do, beyond the simple instructions Juraviel had offered. With a shrug, he took up his items and moved to the opening. Getting in would be test enough, for the cave was far more suited to one of elven stature. He slipped the chair in first, easing it down as far as he could reach, then closing his eyes and letting go. From the sound of its descent, the floor of the cave was not more than eight feet below the opening, he figured. Next he lay the blanket along the bottom of the shaft, using it to cover uneven jags of roots, that he wouldn’t hook his clothing, get stuck, and look completely stupid in Tuntun’s always-judging eyes. With a final glance at Juraviel, hoping futilely that some further information would come his way, Elbryan closed his eyes and started in, going headfirst and protecting the mirror with his body. As soon as he crossed under the tree, he opened his eyes, now more sensitive to the darkness, and scouted. A bear or a porcupine or even a smelly skunk might have slipped in here, and it was with great relief that Elbryan found the cave apparently empty, and not so large. It was fairly circular, perhaps eight feet in diameter. As promised, a stone pedestal rested near the wall just to Elbryan’s side, and hooking his arm around a root in the ceiling, he turned right side up and swung his feet to the pedestal, then stepped down easily to the cave floor. A bit of water had accumulated in one low spot, but nothing threatening or even inconvenient.

Elbryan quickly set the mirror on the pedestal, leaning it against the back wall of the cave, and opened his chair, placing it before the mirror, as instructed. Then he went about draping the blanket over the cave entrance, darkening the room so that he could barely make out his hand if he held it in front of his face. That done, the young man felt about, found his chair, and slipped into it.

Then he waited, wondering. His eyes gradually adjusted so that he could just barely make out the larger shapes in the room.

The minutes continued to pass him by; all was quiet and dark. Elbryan grew frustrated, wondering what test this might be, wondering what purpose could be found in sitting in the dark, facing a mirror he could hardly see. Was Tuntun right in asserting that this trip was a waste of time?

Finally Juraviel’s melodic voice broke the tension. “This is the Cave of Souls, Elbryan Wyndon,” the elf half spoke and half sang. “The Oracle, where an elf, or a human, might speak with the spirits of those who have passed before them. Seek your answers in the depths of the mirror.”

Elbryan steadied himself with the breathing routine of
bi’nelle dasada
and focused his eyes on the mirror—or at least on the area where he knew the mirror to be, for it was hardly discernible.

He brought out a mental picture of the pedestal and mirror, recalled the image from the few moments before he had draped the blanket. Gradually, the square shape was visible, at least in his mental image, and so he sent his gaze within the frame of that square.

And he sat, as the minutes became an hour, as the sun behind the elven mist and the clouds made its way toward the western horizon. Boredom crept into his concentration, along with the frustration of realizing that Tuntun might be right. Still, no further calls came from beyond the cave, so the two elves, at least, were apparently being patient.

Elbryan dismissed all thought of the elves, and each time one of those distracting notions—or any other thoughts from outside this one room—came back to him, he fought it off.

He lost all sense of the passing of time; soon nothing invaded his focus. The room darkened even more as the sun moved westward, but Elbryan, his eyes long past the gloom, didn’t notice.

There was something in the mirror, just beyond his vision!

He slipped deeper into his meditative state, let go of all the conscious images that cluttered his mind. Something was there, a reflection of a man, perhaps.

Was it his own reflection?

That notion stole away the image, but only for a moment.

Then Elbryan saw it more clearly: a man, older than he, with a face creased by the sun and wind, a light beard trimmed low to follow the line of his jaw. He looked like Elbryan, or at least as Elbryan might look in a score of years. He looked like Olwan, and yet it was not, the young man somehow knew. It was . . .

“Uncle Mather?”

The image nodded; Elbryan fought for a gulp of air.

“You are the ranger,” Elbryan said quietly, barely finding his voice. “You are the ranger who went before me, who was trained by these very same elves.”

The image made no move to reply.

“You are the standard to which I am held,” Elbryan said. “I fear that you stand too tall!”

Something seemed to soften in the visage of the spirit, and Elbryan got the distinct feeling that, in Mather’s eyes at least, his fear was misplaced.

“They speak of responsibility,” the young man went on, “of duty, and the road that lies before me. Yet I fear I am not all that Belli’mar Juraviel believes me to be. I wonder why I was chosen in this—why was Elbryan saved that day in Dundalis? Why not Olwan, my father, your brother, so solid and strong, so knowing in the ways of battle and the world?”

Elbryan tried to pause and collect his thoughts, but he found the words kept coming out as if compelled by the spirit, by this place, and by his own state of mind. Even if this was his uncle Mather, he realized he was speaking to the spirit of a man he had never known! But that fear couldn’t hold against the river of his own soul, pouring forth in great release.

“What height must I attain to satisfy the judgment of Tuntun and the many other elves of like mind? I fear that they ask of me the strength of a fomorian giant, the speed of a frightened deer, the wariness of a ground squirrel, and the calm and wisdom of a centuries-old elf. What man could measure such?

“Ah, but you did, Uncle Mather. By all that they say of you, even by the look in Tuntun’s eyes—one of sincere admiration—I know that you were no disappointment to the fairy folk of Caer’alfar. How will they judge me twenty years hence, a mere day by an elf’s measure? And what of this world I will soon know?”

Terrifying images, mostly of other humans, flitted across Elbryan’s vision, as if they were flying across the face of the mirror.

“I am afraid, Uncle Mather,” he admitted. “I do not know what it is that I fear, whether it is the judgment of the elves, the dangers of the wilderness, or the company of other people! More than a quarter of my life has passed since I have seen another who stands as a human, who sees the world as a human.

“But then,” he continued, his voice dropping low, “I fear most that I no longer see the world as a human, nor can I truly view it as an elf might, but as something in between. I love Caer’alfar, and all of this valley, but here I do not belong. This I know in my heart, and I fear that out there, among my own kind, I will not be among my own kind.

“Kin and kind,” Elbryan decided, “do not always go together. What is left of me, then? What creature am I that is neither elf nor human?”

Still the image did not answer, did not move at all. But Elbryan felt that soft feeling—that sympathy, that empathy—and he knew then that he was not alone. He knew then his answer.

“I am Elbryan the Ranger,” he asserted, and all the implications of that title seemed to fall over him, their weight not bowing but bolstering his broad shoulders.

Elbryan realized that he was bathed in a cold sweat. Only then did he notice the room had darkened almost to the point of absolute blackness. “Uncle Mather?” he called in the direction of the mirror, but the image of the specter and even of the mirror itself was no more.

Juraviel was waiting for the young man when he crawled out of the hole. The elf looked as if he meant to ask some question, but he stared instead at Elbryan’s face, and apparently found his answer. They said nothing all the way back to Caer’alfar.

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CHAPTER 21

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Ever Vigilant, Ever Watchful

Jill looked out past the towering rocks to the dark waters of the wide Mirianic, great swells rolling lazily, then breaking fast against the rocks two hundred feet below her. The rhythm continued, through the minutes, through the hours, through the days, the weeks, the years. Through all eternity, Jill supposed. If she were to return to this place in a thousand years, the waves would remain, rolling gently and then crashing against the base of this same rocky rise.

The young woman looked back over her shoulder at the small fortress that she called home, Pireth Tulme. In a thousand years, the scene would be the same, she decided, except that this structure, with its single low tower, would not remain, would be taken by time, by the wind and the storms that swept into Horseshoe Bay with disturbing regularity.

She had only been here for four months and she had witnessed a dozen such storms, including three in one week, that had left her and her forty companions, all members of the elite corps known as the Coastpoint Guards, soggy and sullen.

Yes, those were the words, Jill decided. “Soggy and sullen,” she said aloud, and nodded, thinking that a fitting description of all her life.

She had been given her chance, the one opportunity that most people, particularly women in the patriarchal kingdom of Honce-the-Bear, never had. Jill closed her eyes and let the ocean sounds take her back to another shore, a gentler shore on the banks of the Masur Delaval, to the city of Palmaris, the only home she remembered. How fared Graevis and Pettibwa? she wondered. And what of Grady? Had her disaster with Connor Bildeborough destroyed the man’s attempts at entry into the high society?

Jill laughed and hoped that it had. That would be the one good thing to come of the tragedy. Nearly two years had passed since her “wedding night,” but the pain remained vivid indeed.

She looked around again, then up at the sky and noticed that many of the stars had disappeared. A moment later, a light rain began to fall. “Soggy,” she said again, shaking her head. No matter how many times she witnessed it, Jill could hardly believe how quickly the rain came on in Pireth Tulme.

Like the rain that came into her life, first in that frontier village, when the goblins came, then in Palmaris. She could hardly remember that first incident, but she knew that her life had gradually grown wonderful. And then, in the snap of fingers, in the space of a single kiss, it was all gone, all taken away.

How much more could she have hoped for above the wedding in Palmaris? She had been married in St. Precious, considered by many to be the most beautiful chapel in all of Corona. And Dobrinion Calislas, Abbot of St. Precious and thus the third-ranking priest in the entire Abellican Church, had performed the ceremony himself! What young woman would not swoon at the mere thought of such a day? And then the night, spent in the mansion of Baron Bildeborough!

A shiver traced Jill’s spine as she remembered—the grand room, the change that had come over Connor, and then the look on his face, first feral and then, with the side of his nose and one cheek burned and blistering, even worse. His expression had softened only a bit the next morning when he and Jill had gone again before Abbot Dobrinion. Of course, since it had not been consummated, the marriage had been annulled immediately.

A snap of old Dobrinion’s fingers.

There was still the matter of Jill’s crime, though. Her assault on a nobleman, one that might well have left the handsome young man permanently scarred, was no minor matter in Palmaris. By right, Connor could have demanded her execution. Short of that, there was the very real possibility that Abbot Dobrinion would bind Jill into indenture to Connor, perhaps for the remainder of her life.

But Connor had been merciful, and ever was Abbot Dobrinion long on forgiveness. “I have heard of the incident with three rogues on the back roof of Fellowship Way,” the old priest had explained, a warm smile coming to his face. “One with your skills should not be wasted serving at tables. There is a place for a woman of your talent and ferocity, a place where such wild anger is assuaged, even applauded.” Thus the old abbot ad bound her over into the service of the King of Honce-the-Bear, as a foot soldier in the Kingsmen, the army. That moment remained very clear to Jill: Dobrinion’s words spoken sympathetically, while she looked back over her shoulder at Pettibwa and Graevis. There was no anger showing on the faces of her adopted parents, no hint that Jill and her irrational actions of the previous night had cost them, too, so much—just a most profound sadness. Pettibwa had nearly burst apart at Abbot Dobrinion’s decree, at the notion that her Jilly would be taken from her. There was little joy that night at the Way, where Jill said her good-byes.

Soon after, with Palmaris behind her, Jill had come to see the wisdom of the abbot’s decision. Indeed she had thrived, initially, at least, in the military. She started as a common foot soldier, “fodder walkers” they were called, but soon enough worked her way into the more elite cavalry group. There were no real enemies to battle: Honce-the-Bear had been at peace for longer than anyone could remember. But in the weekly sparring contests, Jill released enough enemies from her memories to carry her through with a ferocity that had astonished her superiors. One by one, her sparring partners had been dispatched, usually painfully, until not a man or woman in the unit desired to go against her. Her notoriety had made her more than a few real enemies, though, and so she had been moved about, from one fortress to another, serving a variety of functions, from castle guard to cavalry patrol.

All in all, it had been a boring year; castle guards were no more than showpieces, and the worst incident Jill had seen in four months with the cavalry patrol was a fight between two peasant brothers, when one had bitten the other’s ear off. And so it was with great expectations and hopes that Jill had received the news of her appointment into the second most elite unit, behind only the Allheart Brigade, in all of Honce-the-Bear: the famed Coastpoint Guards. These were the legendary fighters who had in ages past turned away a powrie invasion, the fearsome warriors who had tamed the region known as the Broken Coast, thus widening the domain of Honce-the-Bear’s King.

She didn’t get what she expected when she arrived at the small fortress of Pireth Tulme, overlooking Horseshoe Bay and the wide Mirianic. Pireth Tulme was but one in a series of keeps dotting Honce-the-Bear’s coastline. Like all of its sister fortresses, Pireth Tulme was secluded, far from any large settlements, but strategically located to watch the waters for invasion. Pireth Tulme guarded the southern passes of the Gulf of Corona, while Pireth Dancard held post on the five small islands centering the gulf, and Pireth Vanguard watched the northern way.

To Jill, their mission seemed paramount, a stoic existence protecting the welfare of all the kingdom. It didn’t take her long to realize that she was alone in her convictions.

Pireth Tulme, and apparently all the other Coastpoint fortresses, were far from the stoic bastions of their reputation. The partying had hardly slowed in all the four months Jill had been there. Even now, later into the night as she walked her watch along the low walls, she could hear the revelry—the clink of glasses lifted high in one toast after another, the bawdy laughter, the squeals of women pursued or pursuing.

The guards were forty in number, with only seven of them female. Jill, whose only experience with a man had been so very disastrous, did not like the odds. She shook her head distastefully as she walked her watch this night, as she did every night.

A short while later one haggard-looking soldier—a man of forty years by the name of Gofflaw, who had spent more than half his wretched life in the Kingsmen, including a dozen years in the Coastpoint Guards shuffling from one lonely outpost to another—came staggering out to the wall, making his way toward Jill.

She gave a sigh, resigned to the reality about her. She wasn’t particularly afraid; she didn’t think the drunken slob would even get to her before he fell off the narrow walkway, dropping the eight feet to the fortress’s small courtyard. Somehow, bouncing against the blocks of the outer wall with each step, he got near the woman.

“Ah, me Jilly,” Gofflaw slurred. “Walkin’ again in the rain.”

Jill shook her head and looked away.

“Why don’t ye go inside and warm yer bones then, girl?” the man asked. “Quite a row this night. Go on with ye. I’ll take yer watch.”

Jill knew better. If she accepted his outwardly gracious offer and went inside, Gofflaw would soon follow, leaving the walls empty. Even worse, for him to be out here fetching her, there was likely a conspiracy inside. The long, low main house of Pireth Tulme was not large, only three medium-sized common rooms, each surrounded by a dozen anterooms, each barely large enough for the pair of cots and two footlockers it held. Most of the structure was underground, the main house being three identical levels but appearing as only one story from the courtyard. If Jill ventured into that tight place, if this man was out here to lure her in, she would likely find herself in grabby quarters indeed.

“I will keep my own watch, thank you,” she replied politely and started away.

“And just what’re ye watching for?” the soldier demanded, his tone suddenly sharp.

Jill spun on him, her blue eyes narrow and glaring. She knew the routine and even agreed that it seemed very unlikely that any enemies, or anyone at all, would approach the fortress or sail past it on their way into the Gulf of Corona. But that wasn’t the point, not in Jill’s estimation. If one invasion came every five hundred years, the Coastpoint Guards, the elite of the elite, must be prepared for it!

“You go to your party,” she said evenly, her jaw clenched. “I choose to walk to honor the uniform I wear.”

Gofflaw snorted and wiped a greasy hand down the front of his own red jacket. “The better of it, ye’ll learn,” he said. “Just ye wait until the days become a year, and then two and three and four and—”

“I believe that she understands your reasoning, Gofflaw,” came a solid, unwavering voice. Jill looked past the drunk, who turned as well, to see Warder Constantine Presso, the commander of Pireth Tulme, approaching along the wall. By all appearances, the man was impressive—tall and straight, mustache and goatee neatly trimmed, his red-trimmed blue overcoat tailored straight and proper, black leather baldric crossing right shoulder to left hip and sporting an impressive sword, a family heirloom. He was in his late twenties and had earned his position by defeating three bandits who had slipped into the house of a nobleman one evening. When she had first arrived at Pireth Tulme and had met the warder, Jill’s hopes had soared with a sense of greater responsibility.

She had soon learned, though, that the ready appearance of the fortress, on that day when the Kingsmen’s regional commander had taken her out to the isolated outpost, had been no more than a temporary show, and that Warder Presso, for all of his regal appearance, had long ago fallen into the same trap as the rest of her companions.

Presso eyed Jill directly—he was often doing that. “And I believe that she declines,” the warder said.

“I do,” Jill agreed.

Gofflaw muttered something under his breath and started past Presso, but the man stuck out his arm, blocking the way.

“But it grows late,” Presso said to Jill, “or should I say early? Your watch surely is ended.”

“I take the night.”

“What part of the night?”

“The night,” Jill snapped. “No one else will come up here. They view the setting of the sun as the end of their duties, what little duties they do bother to perform during the day.”

“Calm, lass,” Presso said, patting his hand in the air. Perhaps he was trying to be the levelheaded commander, but to Jill, it came off as condescending.

“I am well read in our rules of conduct and operation,” Jill continued. “Our watch does not end with the setting sun. ‘Ever vigilant, ever watchful,’ ” she finished, the motto of the once proud Coastpoint Guards.

“And for what are you watching?” Presso asked calmly.

Jill’s face screwed up incredulously.

“Would you see a powrie ship, or even a raft full of goblins, if it glided past us into the gulf, barely a hundred yards from our shore?”

“I would hear them,” Jill insisted.

Presso’s snort fast became a full-blown chuckle. “Dawn is not so far away,” he said. “Pray you go inside now and get the rain out of your bones.”

Jill started to protest, but the warder cut her short. He set Gofflaw up as sentry, then took Jill by the arm and pulled her in front of him, pushing her gently toward the tower door.

They went in together, and in truth, Jill was glad to be out of the rain. At the bottom of the tower stairs, through the small hallway that led into the main house, the pair passed a partly opened door. From the sounds emanating from within, it was quite obvious what was going on in there.

Jill hurried down the hallway and entered the common room of the upper level. A dozen men were in there, along with two women, all nearly falling-down drunk. One man was up on the tables, dancing, or trying to, and removing his clothing to the jeers of his male friends and the hoots of the women.

Jill looked straight ahead as she made for the door to the stairwell that would get her down to her room. Warder Presso caught her just as she reached that door, grabbing her by the shoulder.

“Stay with us and enjoy the rest of the night,” he said.

“Are you commanding me to do so?”

“Of course not,” replied Presso, who was really a decent sort. “I am merely asking you to stay. Your watch is ended.”

“Ever watchful,” Jill replied through gritted teeth.

Presso gave a great sigh. “How many months of boredom can you tolerate?” he asked. “We are out here alone, all alone, with nothing but time ahead of us. This is our life, and each of us must choose whether it will be pleasant or wretched.”

“Perhaps we have different views of what is pleasant,” Jill said, subconsciously glancing back across the room to the hallway and the partly open door.