Oh, Cataplas, how great an evil you unleashed upon the world! And it was an evil of the most vile kind—men, women, and children turned into Vampyres against their will, becoming creatures of vileness themselves. Men talk of the judgment of God. What did you say, Cataplas, when—if—you faced that inquisition? “It was not my fault? I didn’t know?” Will that be considered a defense? I think not. What evil is greater than to force others to walk the path of darkness?
Of the six hundred survivors, some seventeen died within the next three days, some because they were malnourished, others because they were old and frail. But most, I think, merely gave up, having nothing to live for.
Brackban organized teams of helpers, and people from the surrounding areas moved into the city, taking over shops and stores, taverns and houses. I could not stay there. Neither could the Morningstar, and we walked together back into the forest.
But not before we had once more dealt with the skulls. Brackban took the first and hid it somewhere in the city. Wulf took the second, and I the third. I buried mine beneath the roots of a huge oak. What Wulf did with his I never asked.
Jarek Mace said little as we walked on that first day. His wounds were troubling him, but there was more on his mind than merely pain.
We built a fire in a shallow cave and boiled some oats in a makeshift bowl of bark. I sat and watched the flames licking at the wood yet unable to burn through because the water within the bowl was absorbing the heat. We shared the porridge and then placed the empty bowl back on the fire. It was consumed almost instantly, as if the blaze were exacting its revenge for being thwarted.
“He died well then, Corlan?” asked Mace, breaking the long silence.
“Yes. He charged them all fearlessly.”
He shook his head. “Who would have thought it? Is he in heaven, do you think?”
I shrugged. “I have never believed in paradise. But we have seen hell, Jarek. So who knows?”
“I like to think he might be. But then, how would they weigh the balances? He was a robber and a killer. Did this one act of courage eclipse the rest of his deeds?” He sighed and forced a smile. “Listen to me! Jarek Mace talking of paradise.”
“I think you are talking of redemption, and yes, I believe no man is so evil that he cannot redeem himself. He saved my life. No question of that. He acted with great heroism—as did you.”
“Nonsense! I went there because the bastard was hunting me. I was looking out for myself.”
“There is no one else here, Jarek,” I said wearily. “Just you and I. So let us drop the pretense. You are the Morningstar. It is your destiny. You know it, and I know it. And you journeyed to the heart of the evil because you had to, because that is what being the Morningstar is all about. You are no longer Jarek Mace the outlaw, the man of bitterness. You are the lord of the forest, and the people worship you. In a thousand years they will speak of you. You have changed, my friend. Why not admit it?”
“Still the romantic, Owen? I have not changed.”
“You are wrong. You once told me that friendship was merely a word used to describe one man needing some service from another. You said it did not exist in the form bards use. But Corlan died for you and the people of this land. You know that is true. And when you were ready to tackle Golgoleth alone, you did not expect anyone to accompany you. But we did. And something else—though you will not admit it—if I or Wulf had been in your place and set off alone to the Vampyre city, you would have accompanied us even if Golgoleth had never heard your name.”
“Pah! Dream on, bard! You do not know me at all, and I will not have you force your heroic images onto me. I like you, Owen. I like Wulf, and yes, I would risk much for you both. That much I have learned. But I will always look after my own interest first. Always! And I will give my life for no man.”
His face was flushed and angry, his eyes bright with a kind of fear. I was about to speak, but I saw in him then a secret terror, and I knew with great certainty that he understood the inevitability of his destiny. I felt cold suddenly, and into my mind came the image of the garlanded bull being led through the streets, with the people cheering and throwing flowers beneath its feet. But at the top of the hill, in the bright sunshine, waited the priest with the curved knife and the altar upon which the blood would run.
Our eyes held, and I knew that similar thoughts were filling the mind of Jarek Mace. He licked his lips and tried to smile, and I knew what he would say, what, indeed, he had to say, the words like a charm to ward off the evil of that final day in the sun.
“I am not the Morningstar, Owen. I am not.”
But we both knew. He was watching my face intently. “Well, say something, Owen, even if it is to disagree.”
I looked away. “I don’t know what the future holds,” I said, “but we are friends, and I will stand beside you.”
“That may not be a safe place to be,” he whispered.
“I would have it no other way.”
The village was almost unrecognizable from the sleepy hamlet where I had first seen Ilka and Megan, where I had learned to cure meats and had filled my days with the splitting of logs and the playing of the harp. There were canvas tents pitched all along the lakeside, makeshift shelters erected close to the trees. Hundreds of people had moved down from the mountains as word of the fall of Ziraccu had spread through the forest.
Even as Mace and I emerged from the woods we could see a line of wagons on the far hills, wending its way down to the settlement.
People were milling around in the town center, and such was the crush that Mace passed unrecognized within it until we reached the calm of Megan’s cabin.
The old woman was lying on her back, apparently asleep, an elderly man sitting beside her. It was the same man who had tended her in the village of Ocrey when she had been burned by Cataplas’ spell.
“How is she, Osian?” I asked him. He looked up, his pale blue eyes cold and unwelcoming.
“She is preparing for the journey,” he said, the words harsh, his bitterness plain.
Megan opened her eyes, her head tilting on the pillow. “The conquering heroes return.” she whispered.
The room smelled of stale sweat and the sickly sweet aroma of rotting flesh. Her face was gray, the skin beneath the eyes and beside the mouth tinged with blue. I swallowed hard, trying to compose my features so that the shock of her condition would not register. It was futile. My face was an open window, and the clouds of my sorrow were plain for her to see. “I am dying, Owen,” she said. “Come, sit beside me.”
Osian rose, his old joints creaking, and slowly made his way out into the sunlight. I sat on the bed and took hold of Megan’s hand. The skin was hot and dry, and absence of flesh making talons of her fingers.
“I am so sorry,” I said.
“Carleth’s assassin had poison upon his blade,” she told me. “Help me upright!”
Mace fetched a second pillow, and I lifted her into position. She weighed next to nothing, and her head sagged back on a neck too thin to support it. “I should be dead by now,” she said, “but my talent keeps my soul caged in this rotting shell.” She smiled weakly at Mace. “Go out into the sun, Morningstar,” she ordered him. He backed away swiftly, gratefully, without a word, and Megan and I were alone. “Like many strong men he cannot stand the sight of sickness,” she said. Her head rolled on the pillow, and her gaze fastened to mine. “Such heartache you have suffered, Owen. Such pain.”
I nodded but did not speak. “She was a good girl, bonny and brave,” she continued.
“Don’t say any more,” I pleaded, for I could feel myself losing control. I took a deep breath. “Let us talk of other things.”
“Do not let your grief make you push her away,” she warned me, “for then she would be truly dead.”
“I think of her all the time, Megan. I just cannot speak of her.”
“You won, poet. You destroyed the evil; you made the land safe. But it is not over.”
“The Vamp
yre kings will not return,” I told her. “They are gone, and we have the skulls.”
“And yet Mace will face Golgoleth again,” she whispered. I shivered and drew back.
“What do you mean?”
“Exactly what I say. With sword in hand he must cross the walls of the castle and challenge the lord of the Vampyres. And next time he will not have you to send a shining shaft to his rescue. But he will have me.”
Her eyes were distant, unfocused, and I could see that she was becoming delirious. I held to her hand, stroking the dry skin. “He will be gone from you, but he will return. I waited so long. So long … The circle of time spins … spins.” She was silent for a little while, staring at some point in the past, some ancient memory that brought a smile to her face.
“Megan!” I called. But she did not hear me.
“I love you,” she told the ghost of her memory. “Why did you leave me?”
Unconsciously her power flared, bathing her face with youth and beauty. “How could you leave me?” she asked.
I remained silent, for my voice could no longer reach her. But as I gazed on the glory of what was, I found myself echoing her thoughts. How could any man leave such a woman?
“You had it all,” she said, bright tears forming and flowing to her cheeks. “You were the king. Everything you ever wanted!”
I called to her again, but there was no response. And in that moment I knew. From the first day, when she had known my name and we had sat talking about magick and life, I had yearned to know the mystery of Megan. Now it was all clear. Here she lay, weak and dying, yet even delirious she could still cast one of the seven great spells. My mouth was dry, my heartbeat irregular with the shock.
And I called her name—her true name. “Horga!”
The word was a whisper, but it flowed through her delirium. The spell of beauty faded, and she blinked and returned to me.
“I’m sorry, Owen. Was I drifting?”
“Yes.”
“How did you know what to call me?”
I shrugged and smiled. “I also have talent, lady. When first I created the image of Horga, I used the beauty that you showed me from your youth. It seemed right. And I have always known there was something special about you—from that first day. And when Cataplas admitted you were his teacher, I knew you must have powers I could not even guess at. How have you lived so long? And why have you waited here, in this forest? Why? Did you know Golgoleth would come again?”
She nodded. “You will have all your answers, my boy. But not all of them now. I will set you a riddle, Owen. When did you first meet me?”
“It was here by this lakeside in winter.”
“Indeed it was, but I first met you in the springtime, and you warned me not to read your mind, for there were memories there that were not for me.”
“You have lost me, lady. We had no such conversation.”
“Oh, Owen, that conversation is yet to be, and this meeting now is the memory from which you will protect me. The circle of time …” She fell silent again, and I could only guess at the effort of will that kept her alive. I felt her fingers press against mine. “I wanted … needed to live for just a little while longer,” she said. “One question has kept me alive. And the answer is but a few months away. Now I will never know.”
“Who was the man you loved?” I asked her as her tears began to flow again.
“Who do you think?”
“Rabain.”
“Very good, Owen. Yes, it was Rabain. He was a great king, loved, perhaps even adored. He slew the Vampyre lords and created an order of knights pledged to combat evil. And he loved me. I know that he loved me! But he left me, Owen … he mounted his horse and rode from me. I have never forgotten that day. How could I? His armor was golden, and a white cloak was draped across his shoulders. He had no shield or helm. The horse was a stallion—huge, maybe eighteen hands, white as a summer cloud. And that was my last sight of him. I had begged him to stay. I offered him immortality. Such was my power then that I thought I could keep us both young forever. I even fell to my knees before him. Can you imagine that? I could have cast a spell to stop him, of course. I considered it, Owen. I could have made him love me more; I know I could. But that would not have been real. And it would have eaten away at me, as this poison is doing now. So I let him go.”
“Why did he leave?” I asked her.
She tried to smile. “An old man whom he loved came to him. A poet. He told him the future. Such a kind old man. But I think he was closer to Rabain that I could ever have been. And because Rabain needed him, I journeyed to fetch him. It needed mighty spells and great concentration. I wish now that I had refused.”
“What did he tell him?”
“I don’t know, Owen. That’s what I have waited all these years to find out. All these years … lonely years.”
“And you found no other lovers?”
A sound came from her then, a dry chuckle, and her eyes glinted. “Hundreds,” she said. “As the centuries passed, I whiled away many a year with handsome men. Some gave me real pleasure, some even happiness. But none was Rabain … none was Rabain.”
“What happened to him?”
“I don’t know. That’s what was … is … so painful. He knew he was riding into great danger, as did I. But neither of us spoke of death. He told me he would come back, and I said I believed him. And I dressed him in his armor, fastening every hook, greasing the shoulder plates. Every hook. And at last I stood before him, and he leaned down and kissed me. And the armor was cold, so cold.”
“How long were you together?”
“Ten years. The merest fraction of my lifetime. I bore him a son, a fine boy who became a good man. He in turn had many sons and the line grew. I tried to keep them all in my mind, but it was not possible, save for one line that held true: the Arkneys. They are the blood of Rabain. When the Angostins first invaded the north, the Earl of Arkney married a Highland princess and the line continued. That was what pleased me so much when Raul Raubert stood tall alongside the Morningstar. He is the last of that line, and the blood is still true.”
Once more she fell silent, then she smiled again, her eyes sorrowful. “But the line also produced Gilbaud Azrek.” She sighed. “I have lived too long and seen too much.”
Her voice faded away, and I called her name. Her eyes flickered, and her voice whispered into my mind.
“You will see me again, Owen, but I will not know you.”
And she died there, slipping away without pain.
I held her hand for a little while. Then I covered her face and left the cabin.
I found Mace sitting by the lakeside, skimming flat pebbles across the surface of the water. I sat beside him, but he did not look at me.
“Bastard life!” he said, hurling yet another stone, which bounced six times before disappearing below the water.
“You liked the old woman, didn’t you?”
“Don’t try to climb inside my head!” he stormed.
“I do not wish to be intrusive. But she is gone, Jarek; she passed away without pain.”
He said nothing but turned his face from me.
“How did you meet her?” I asked him.
He shrugged. “I was sitting by a camp fire, when she just walked from the trees. She sat down as if I was an old friend and began to talk. You know? The weather, the crops, the fishing. Just talk. I shared my meal with her. It was cold, and around dusk she stood and said she had a spare bed in her cabin. So I went with her.”
“Have you known her long?”
“No, maybe a month before I saw you in the forest. But she was good to talk to. She didn’t ask for anything. And she liked me, Owen … for myself. You understand? Just for me—Jarek Mace.”
“Like a mother?”
“I told you not to get inside my head! She was just an old woman. But I was comfortable with her. I didn’t have to think about bedding her; I didn’t have to woo her. You can have no idea how good that is sometimes. Jus
t to talk to a woman and to listen. No seductive voice, no easy charm. And she was a good woman, Owen. Back there when she faced the burning, I did want to help. I wanted … ah, what does it matter? Everything dies. Gods, you should know that by now.”
It was as if he had slapped me, for Ilka’s face flashed into my mind and I felt the weight of grief.
“I’m sorry, Owen,” he said swiftly, reaching out and gripping my arm. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. She was a good girl; she deserved more.”
“Well,” I said, unable to keep the bitterness from my voice, “she was bedded by the Morningstar, so her life wasn’t a complete waste.”
“Don’t say that!”
“What would you have me say? She was barely eighteen, and she’s dead. I made love to her nine times; we had merely days.”
“That’s all any of us has, Owen. Just days. A few moments in the sun. Yours were shorter than most, but you had them. My mother gave me very little, but she offered one piece of advice I have long treasured. She used to say, ‘What you have can be taken from you, but no one can take what you have already enjoyed.’ You understand?”
“I wish I had never met her,” I said, and at that moment I meant it. The sharpness of my sorrow seemed immensely more powerful than the love we had experienced.
“No, you don’t,” he assured me. “Not even close. You said it yourself: Her life was one of tragedy. But you supplied something pure, something joyful. You gave her a reason for being. Be proud of that!”
I looked at him with new eyes. “Is this the Jarek Mace who led a woman to suicide? Is this the robber who cares only for gold?”
He struck me then, a sharp blow with the back of his hand that made my head spin, and pushed himself to his feet. “Wallow in self-pity if you must,” he said coldly. “I have more important matters to attend to.”
We buried Megan in a meadow beneath the branches of a willow, an open spot overlooked by the mountains, with a stream close by. We made no headstone and did not even mark the spot. Such was the way of death in the forest at that time.
No prayers were spoken by any, but when the grave diggers had moved away and I stood alone by the small mound of earth, I said my farewells, allowing the wind to carry my words wherever it traveled.