The Lady's Man (34 page)

Chapter Twenty Two.

Many hours later, long after the dark wizard had gone, Myral pulled himself back from the shadow realm and returned to the world everyone knew.

It wasn't easy. It had been many years since he had last travelled the echo realms; centuries in fact. It was a difficult and dangerous thing to do. And it had been made much harder as the dark wizard had hurt him badly before he'd managed to slip across the barrier of reality that separated one world from another. He'd been greatly weakened. But still he'd made it across and been safe there – for a while. In the end though he had to return since the other realms, the shadows and echoes of the one true world, were not capable of supporting life. Not mortal life anyway. It took magic and concentration to exist in them. A lot of both.

So he'd stayed there as long as he could, pushing himself to the very edge of his strength. If he had stayed any longer, he would have perished; dissolved into the fabric of their strange reality. As it was he'd had to expend a considerable amount of strength just holding himself together there while the dead wizard remained in the real world searching for him, and all that while he was injured.

Fortunately the dead wizard had some weaknesses, and one it seemed was being unable to see through the shadow realms. He'd presumably guessed that Myral still lived as he'd seen him vanish, but he couldn't work out where he'd gone and so hadn't guessed that he would have to return. And so in time he'd left. Just in time.

When Myral returned to the Wind Dragon Falls however, he became acutely aware of the extent of his injuries. The pain suddenly ripped through him and he fell to his knees, barely stopping himself from screaming. Every fibre and sinew of his body burned. The wizard had very nearly killed him as his magic had somehow managed to take his flesh apart, grain by grain. Had he finished the job, had Myral stayed there even another heartbeat, he had no doubt he would have simply collapsed into a puddle of mush where he stood. As it was he didn't feel that much stronger.

Happily he was a wild mage, trained for centuries in the ways of life, and even as he wanted to collapse completely he called upon the magic of life, and started flooding every nook and cranny of his ancient body with it. That was one of the things about being so old, the magic came so easily. Unfortunately the knowledge wasn't with it.

Everything about the dark wizard, Mayfall, was still unclear to him. He was powerful for sure, a wizard absolutely, and surely dead according to everything he knew of him. But he was something far more than that. Something dark and terrible, something perhaps even older than time. Something that even Darryndell didn't understand. He wasn't even sure the dragon could see him. He'd seen his works, but not the wizard himself.

“Lady.”

Myral called to his most ancient friend and she came as always, a smile on her unseen face, and he welcomed that smile.

“Old friend.”

She greeted him as always, happy to see him again. Whatever the nature of her being, dryad prophetess or elemental – and in truth he'd always imagined it was the latter – she was mortal in what truly counted; her heart. That in the end was why the paladins followed her, why the Order had been formed in her wake, and why he like all the others, loved her.

“You saw that thing that walked as a man?”

In truth he wasn't sure. His bond with the Mother had been cut away like everyone else's when the dark wizard had arrived, and he had no idea whether that cut both ways. All he did know was that he'd been forced to rely completely on his own magic when Mayfall had been around, something that had caught him by surprise. He was a wizard but normally he used the Mother's magic as well as his own. Not however, in front of Mayfall.

“I saw. But only from a very great distance. Yorik saw it far closer, and I have learned more from him.”

“He still lives?” Myral was shocked by that. After seeing how terribly he had been smashed into the wall, he wouldn't have expected anyone to survive. In fact until he'd spoken, challenging Mayfall while he lay crushed against the stone wall, he'd thought he was already dead.

“Yes. Sore and frightened, badly injured, but his strength will return. Yorik is one of my most powerful paladins, and a very dear child. He will need your help though, to continue his journey, and you from the look of things will need his.”

“And he will have it.” But he thought better of his words as he felt the aches and pains of his flesh and knew he was in no good shape to start chasing down errant paladins. He had to do some serious healing. “In the morning.”

“He will be well until then. I will keep him safe.”

She meant it too. He could feel her love for the broken paladin like a tidal wave of emotion. In a very real way she was a mother looking out for her children and Yorik was a very broken child.

“And the others?”

“Alive for the most part, safe and coping. When you sent out your call for aid, I answered it. They are good children, one and all, and I could not let them be harmed by that thing. Even though they do not follow me, do not count me as family, they are children.”

“Thing?” It was probably out of everything that had been said, the only thing that really mattered.

“The thane.”

“Thane?” It was the word he hadn't wanted to hear let alone speak. A word he didn't want to even consider. But he knew the instant she said it that she was right. Mayfall was a thane. A monster of legend and lore; ancient lore. It was the only thing that made any sense. And it explained so much of why Yorik had been completely helpless. But just as it explained so much, it also left larger questions to be answered, and one beyond all others.

How did they destroy such a creature? And even as he let his questions run along that trail he knew the answer. The only answer. And it wasn't really that. Only a step in a journey.

“So I guess we know now why Darryndell couldn't help.”

And that was the pain of it all. He'd summoned the dragon spirit because he'd hoped he could help. That he could at least tell them if the Dark One was breaking loose. Or if not who else was pretending he was. But he hadn't been able to. Though he had watched the world and seen the damage being done to it the ancient dragon could see no further into the cause of the terrible happenings than they could.

“He is as blind to the presence of the thane as we are. And yet ...”

The Lady's voice trailed off in his thoughts for moment as she considered what she was going to say.

“I suspect you always guessed he would be. You simply used him to draw our enemy out. Didn't you?”

The Lady said it as if it was some sort of accusation, and perhaps it was. She sounded upset Myral thought, and maybe she had reason. People had been hurt, and her precious paladin among them.

“Yes. Not only for that reason but yes. We hoped that Darryndell's presence would be enough to provoke a response from our enemy.”

“We?”

If she'd been there in the world with him again as she had been so long ago, she would have been tapping her foot impatiently as she waited for her answer, and Myral knew better than to let her become impatient.

“Annalisse and me.”

“That fool woman!”

When the Lady called her that it almost sounded like an insult to Myral. But he knew it wasn't. It was a statement of what she thought was fact. The Lady did not waste her breath on insults.

“Annalisse is no fool.”

“She has the gift of prophecy and yet she plays with it as though it is a child's toy. Could there be any more obvious sign of the fool?”

“We discovered who our enemy is.” Myral thought he'd better defend their actions. The Lady was not tolerant when it came to those she cared for being hurt. And at least they did have something to show for their daring.

“People were hurt. Children were nearly killed. My poor paladin lies in the forest below, badly injured and believing he failed once more. And you aren't looking that much better. When will you learn? You have to stop taking these chances.”

It was a conversation they'd had before – many times, and Myral knew he wasn't going to win it. He never had and he never would. In the end the Lady was a mother, and she could not abide the thought of her children being hurt.

“I took all the precautions I could. That temple was ringed with magical wards. But there was never any way I could have expected our enemy to be a thane.”

Which was of course both the truth and his own confession of failure. He had guessed that their enemy wasn't the Dark One. Many had had the same thought. But he had never expected that it could be something so much more terrible. But then even when he'd first walked the world as a man before spending five hundred years as a tree, the last thane had been seen centuries before. Its arrival had been the stuff of legends, but there had been little actual knowledge of it. Most of the writings of that time had been lost. And those that remained were with the sylph. Those it had killed had numbered in the millions. And those who had lost their homes and their cities were many times more.

“Humph!”

The Lady made a noise that perhaps expressed her thoughts on his excuses better than any words she could utter. And Myral gathered she wasn't going to accept any of them. So he decided to return to what really mattered before she started telling him off.

“You know that means we'll have to ask for help.”

She did of course. And she knew who they'd have to ask as well, which was the true worry. They would be unlikely to get any help.

She sighed. “I know old friend. It will be a long and difficult journey and you and Yorik will have to travel it together. You as a wizard and Yorik as my representative. And then when you reach the sylph, together you will have to persuade them to help.”

“They will not want to. The sylph have ever been a stubborn, prideful and selfish people.” He could have said worse of them. Many did.

“And that has not changed in the centuries while you slept. But what has changed is that they no longer walk the world as they once did. They are seen far less, heard of far less often. Though I believe their individual power is as great as it once was, I fear their numbers are far fewer. They may not be able to fight as they once could even if they chose to.”

“What happened?”

She shrugged in answer. He could not see her since she was not there in any real way. But he still knew she shrugged.

“Five hundred years happened. Five hundred years when they have no doubt fought amongst themselves. Five hundred years during which they have failed to have families and raise children. Five hundred years during which they have also failed to rebuild their realm. Instead for all that time they have sickened and aged. Squabbled like children and denied the simple truth. Their magic like their spirit is neither of life nor love. And it was never strong enough to defeat the thane.”

And that was the truth of the matter. Five hundred years before when he had walked the world, he had known a few sylph. He had admired their power and their knowledge but liked none of them. They were wizards, elemental wizards, and their mastery of the craft was impressive. But their nature was less so. They were an arrogant and cold people, dismissive of others, condescending when they weren't mocking. Their tempers were short while their ability to remember a grudge was long. They acknowledged no gratitude to anyone for anything. And perhaps worst of all they had no humility. Every sylph was in his own mind beyond criticism.

Myral did not like them as a people. But he respected their knowledge.

“So the Land of the Sky?”

“Is still a ruin. None of the cities have ever been rebuilt. Not even now. Their people have not returned to the world in numbers. And while they may claim that the destruction of the dozen cities by the thane was the reason, it is not. They are the reason.”

That Myral believed. There was something wrong with the sylph. Something he didn't understand. But he understood enough of it to know that there were not the sort of people who came together and raised families and built cities. They had slowly let that knowledge pass from them millennia before. Even before the thane had struck, their cities had been old and poorly maintained. None of them would demean themselves far enough to repair anything.