Water seeped in, drenching my leggings, and I began to wonder if this was a good night to learn to swim. The old man glanced back over his shoulder and chuckled. “Seems like I didn’t use enough pitch,” he said, “but don’t you worry, she won’t sink.”
The island of the castle loomed before us, dark and unwelcoming. The coracle scraped on shingle, and the old man leapt nimbly out, dragging the craft toward the land. I stood and splashed into the shallow water, wading ashore; a cold breeze blew, and I shivered.
“You’ll be grateful for the wet,” said the boatman. “The monks’ll take pity on you and offer you some of their water of life.”
I thanked him and set off up a narrow path that led to the main gates of the castle. There were no sentries on the walls and no sound from within. I bunched my hand into a fist and pounded on the gate. At first nothing happened, but after several attempts and a growing soreness in my hand I heard the bar being lifted. The gate swung open, and a small man with a shaved head came into sight; he was wearing a long gray habit bound with a rope of silken thread.
“What do you want?” he demanded gruffly.
“A little courtesy,” I responded, “and shelter for the night.”
“There’s shelter to be had in the village,” he told me.
“I thought this was a house of God,” I said, my temper rising.
“That does not make it a haven for vagrant ruffians,” he replied.
“I am not a violent man—” I began.
“Good,” he said. “Then do not allow yourself to fall into bad habits. Good night to you.”
Before I could reply, he had stepped back and begun to close the gate. I threw my weight against it—rather too sharply, for the gate crashed into him, hurling him to the ground. I stepped inside. “My apologies,” I told him, reaching out a hand to help him up. He rolled to his knees, ignoring my offer of aid, then heaved himself upright.
“Your nonviolent behavior is not impressive,” he said.
“Neither is your grasp of God’s hospitality,” I responded.
“Owen!” came a familiar voice, and I turned and looked up. Standing by an open doorway, framed in lantern light, stood Jarek Mace.
“Yes, it is me,” I said. “Wulf and Piercollo are waiting for you at the village.”
“You are just the man I wanted to see,” he said. “Come up. There’s something I want to show you.”
The greeting had been cheerful and deeply irritating. Not. “How did you find me, Owen? By God, you must be a skilled magicker.” No guilt over his shameful treatment of me during the winter. No apology for the slap or the slights.
I mounted the stairs, fighting to suppress a growing anger. The room he was in was a mess, littered with scrolls and manuscripts carelessly pulled from their protective leather sheaths. “I think I’ve found it,” he said. “I am not a good reader, but I can make out the name Rabain.”
“What on earth are you looking for?”
“The Bishop of Lowis told me that I was part of a prophecy. Can you imagine that? Someone, thousands of years ago, named me. Me! The whole story. So he said. Well, if that is true, we’ll be able to see the ending.”
“This is ridiculous.”
“You don’t believe in prophecies?”
I shook my head. “How can any of us know the future? It hasn’t happened yet. And every man has a hundred choices to make every day. It was for this that you scared the wits out of Brackban?”
“What’s Brackban got to do with it?”
“You disappeared, Jarek. And without you there is no rebellion.”
“Well, if we find the right ending, I’ll come back with you,” he said, picking up an old scroll and passing it to me. “Read it!”
Sitting down with my back to the lantern, I held up the scroll and unrolled it. The first line explained that it was the eighth copy and gave the name of the monk and the year the copy was made. I passed this on to Jarek, who was singularly unimpressed.
“I don’t care who copied the damn thing! Just read the story.”
I scanned the opening lines. “It is not about Rabain; he is just mentioned in it. The story is of a knight called Ashrael.”
Clearly exasperated, Mace took a deep breath. “Read it aloud!” he hissed.
“These are the exploits, faithfully recorded, of the knight known as Ashrael …” I stopped and glanced up. “If they were faithfully recorded, Jarek, then they have already happened. This is not a prophecy.”
“Then there must be another scroll!” he stormed.
But I was reading on, idly skimming the fine, flowing script. “Wait!” I said. “This is curious.” I began to pick out phrases from the story, reading them aloud. “The lady of the dream told this tale and bade me mark it for future times. The days of the Vampyre kings will come again, and the knight Ashrael will find the sword that was lost … Great shall be the grief within the city … from the depths of the earth Ashrael will rise … mighty will be the king who strides the land … Ashrael will light the torch that guides the ancient hero home … Rabain shall appear at the last battle, his armor gold, his stallion white, his cloak a cloud, his sword lightning.”
“It hasn’t got my name on it,” snapped Mace.
“But is has. Ashrael, the last star to fade as the sun rises. The Morning Star!” I read on. “It is all here, Jarek: the invasion, the coming of the hero known as the Morningstar. Even the burning of the witch and the rescue … and the Vampyre kings reborn, Ashrael coming up from the bowels of the earth. We entered through the sewers. Dear God, it’s uncanny.”
“But how does it end?” he asked.
“Mighty will be the king who strides the land, his hand a hammer, his dreams of blood … Edmund, the hammer of the Highlands. Ravens will gather above the meadow, and from the past Rabain shall appear at the last battle, his armor gold, his—”
“Yes, yes,” stormed Mace. “But what about me?”
“It doesn’t say. It just concludes that Rabain will appear and join the attack and that Ashrael’s name will live on for as long as men revere heroes.”
“Well, that’s no damn good!” He slumped down in a chair and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “You were right. There’s no prophecy!”
“No, I was wrong, I never had a chance to talk of Megan’s last words and who she was. Now listen to me.” And I told him most of what Megan had said, word for word. His interest quickened when I came to describe her parting from Rabain and his golden armor and white cloak. “That’s the answer she was waiting for, Jarek. She wanted to see Rabain one more time. She wanted to know why he had to ride to some battle in the future that should have meant nothing to him. He is coming! Just as the legends always promised. When the need is great, Rabain will live again! Think of it! The Morningstar and Rabain on the same battlefield. How can we lose?”
“Hold on, bard! Megan … Horga … said he came back. That doesn’t mean we are going to win, does it? I’m not going to face up to Edmund just in the hope of seeing a hero from the past and maybe watch him get cut to pieces.”
“What will you do, then?”
“I don’t know, but I’ll tell you this: I wish I had never met you. I would have been far happier, I know that.”
“Knowing what you know, would you really change anything?” I asked him. “If you could go back to that day in the forest, would you walk past my fire?”
He sighed, then grinned. “Maybe not. I had my parades, Owen. In Kapulis and Porthside they threw flowers before me. And women? I could have had them form a line. But there’s a price to be paid for those few months of pleasure, and it’s not a price I can afford … even with the prospect of meeting Rabain. Can three thousand men defeat ten thousand in an open battle? Against the finest warlord I have ever seen?”
“There’s only one way to find out, my friend. And no one lives forever. Face it, Jarek, would you want to grow old and toothless, with women looking on you with disdain?”
“I am twenty-fou
r years old. That’s a little early to consider losing my teeth! And I expect to mature like fine wine.”
I smiled dutifully and then let the silence grow. “I don’t want to go back, Owen,” he said at last. “It has the wrong … feel. I cannot see us winning the battle. And I couldn’t watch as men who believed in me were cut down, their dreams destroyed. I couldn’t!”
“No one will force you to, Jarek. No one. Tomorrow I will go back to Wulf and Piercollo. I will not tell them I have seen you. We will wait until noon and then make our way back to Ziraccu.”
“Do you think me a coward?” he asked.
“After all that you have done? How could I? Whatever else, you stood your ground and fought the Vampyre kings. You gave the people hope. And because of you they found their courage again, and their pride. I shall tell Brackban that you were murdered by agents of the king. That way the legend will live on. But you must leave this land and never return.”
“I understand that. Thank you, Owen. Will you make up a song about me?”
“If I survive the battle, I shall. And about Wulf and Piercollo. And Ilka, Corlan, and Megan. I think it will be a good song.”
He stood then and extended his hand.
I took it … and left the monastery castle.
At the lakeside I found the old man still waiting.
“Did you see your friend?” he asked.
“No,” I told him. “The Morningstar was not there.”
“What are we waiting for?” demanded Wulf as I sat quietly in the sunshine, my eyes drawn to the castle on the island. It was more than an hour past noon, and I stood.
“Nothing at all,” I asked. “Let’s be on our way.”
“Where to?” he asked. “Still northwest?”
“No. Let’s go back to Ziraccu.”
“I thought we were looking for Mace,” he said. “What in the devil’s name is going on, Owen?”
“It was a fool’s errand, and I am tired of it,” I lied. Wulf swore, and Piercollo stared at me, his one dark eye watching my face. But he said nothing until we were well on our way and Wulf was scouting ahead.
“He was there, friend Owen. Why did you lie?”
“I gave him the chance to join us, and he did not take it. There was no more to be said. Let the world think he died; it is better that way.”
“It is hard to be adored by so many.”
“You speak as if you have knowledge of it.”
“I do. In my country the voice is considered the greatest of musical instruments. We are singers. Every year there is a competition, a great gathering of voices. I won that competition six times. People would travel hundreds of leagues to hear me perform. It began to bear me down. Every day I would practice until the joy was gone. That is why I took the offer to come to the land of the Ikenas. I ran away, Owen. Fame did not agree with me. Perhaps it is the same for Mace.”
“I think he is just afraid of dying,” I said.
He shook his head. “I do not think you are right. I think he was more afraid of winning.”
I stopped and turned to him. “Winning? But then he would achieve all his dreams: riches, power, women.”
“No, my friend. That would be the end of his dreams. What is there after a war but rebuilding, reorganizing? Endless days of petitions and laws and all the petty day-to-day running of a state. It is no different from having a shop or a store. Bills to pay, stock to order, workers to instruct. It would be dull, Owen. What need would the people have for a Morningstar?”
His words shook me, for I could feel the ring of truth in them. Mace was in an impossible situation. Defeat would mean death, and victory an end to a life he enjoyed.
“I think,” said Piercollo softly, “that it is easier to build a legend than to be one.”
“Why do you stay?” I asked him. “This is not your land or your war. And the man who blinded you is dead. There is no need for you to stand at the last battle.”
“Evil has no nationality,” he answered. “And Piercollo will stand beside his friends. It is all he knows.”
We walked on. Wulf killed a pheasant, and we shared the meat by a dusk fire. The hunchback was in a surly mood, argumentative and short-tempered, and well before midnight he had wrapped himself in his blanket and was asleep.
Piercollo was in no mood to talk, and he, too, dozed with his back to a broad tree. My mind was too full for sleep, and I sat by the fire, lost in thought.
Around midnight I thought I heard faint music and strained to locate the source of the sound, but it danced at the edge of hearing, softer than the whisper of a breeze through leaves. Adding twigs to the fire, I leaned back against a boulder and wished I had brought my harp with me. I had a need for music, for the release it brings.
Piercollo stirred and stretched. He saw me sitting there and smiled. “You need to sleep, my friend.”
“Not yet.” Idly he drew his dagger and began to whittle at a length of wood, cutting shavings for a future fire. Suddenly his knife snapped at the hilt.
“It was poor iron,” he said, hurling the broken weapon aside.
“You should have taken one of the enchanted blades,” I told him, drawing my own black dagger and tossing it to him. He continued to whittle in silence. “Will you go back to Tuscania?” I asked him.
“I hope so, Owen.”
“And will you try your luck at the competition again?”
He shook his head. “I think not. The music is gone from me; they burned it out with my eye.”
“That must not prove to be true, for then evil will have conquered you. A small victory, perhaps, but one that should not be accepted lightly. As long as the rest of us are deprived of your voice, then Lykos will have won. But when you sing again, you will know joy, as will all who hear you. And then Lykos will be but a bad memory.”
“Maybe one day,” he said, “but not yet.”
I did not press him.
The fire was dying down, and a strange silence settled on the campsite. I glanced up. No breeze stirred the leaves, no movement. All was utterly still.
“What is happening?” whispered Piercollo. I focused my eyes on the clouds in the moonlit sky. They, too, had stopped, frozen, like a great painting.
A soft light shone between us, growing and swelling, becoming a doorway of gold. And through it stepped Megan, young and dazzling in her beauty, a gown of golden thread shimmering about her slender frame …
She saw me and swung her head. “Where is he?” she asked.
“Who, lady?”
“The wielder of the black sword,” she answered.
My shock at seeing her was immeasurable. I had watched this woman die from the poison inflicted by an assassin’s blade. Yet here she was, in the prime of youth, with no illusion, no magick spell to enhance her beauty.
“Do you know me, lady?” I asked softly.
“No, sir. And my need to find the wielder is pressing. Where is he?”
I rose and bowed. “You seek the Morningstar, but he is not here. We are his friends. How can we help you?”
“You cannot help me,” she said dismissively, her gaze raking the trees around us. “You have no idea how far I have traveled or how great the drain on my energy.”
“I think I have have, Horga. You have traveled across the centuries, and the spell was mighty.”
“How is it that you know my name?” she asked.
“I am also a … magicker. And we have already met—in my past and your future. Let us leave it at that. Why do you seek the wielder?”
Piercollo was sitting frozen with shock, while Wulf had awoken but had not moved, his dark eyes drinking in the sight of the legendary sorceress. Horga stepped around the fire and approached me, reaching out her hand to touch my head. My fingers closed firmly around her wrist. “Trust me, lady, and do not read my mind.”
She withdrew her hand, and her face became pensive. “I do trust you. I would know if you were false.” She sighed and sat. Wulf rose and brought her a water sack, pou
ring a drink for her; she sipped the liquid from his copper cup and smiled her thanks.
“Tell me about Golgoleth,” I said. Her face darkened, her eyes gleaming.
“He thinks he has won, but I will not have it so. He stole the weapons crafted to destroy him and hid them with spells even I could not pierce. Until now!”
“You sent a search spell into the future,” I said, amazed. “By God’s holy grace, that is power indeed!”
“And I found them. Even his spells cannot linger indefinitely. The weapons were hidden, as I suspected, in the depths of his own castle. The big man fell through the floor—I saw it—and I saw the wielder leap down and claim his blade. And then I knew what must be done. But it has taken me time … precious time … to cast the magick and travel the roads of future days.” Her gaze turned to me, the power of her eyes upon me. “But you have not told me how you know me.”
“I knew you, lady. In my life we had already met before today. We were friends. In yours we have yet to become friends. My name is Owen Odell.”
She nodded. “I shall remember it. But tell me, Owen Odell. You must know whether I won or lost.”
“I know. You must not.”
She laughed then, a light rippling sound full of gaiety. “The complexity of time. I shall play the game, Owen. But where is the wielder?”
“He is coming. It is his destiny. I know that now.”
“What is his name?”
“He is known as Ashrael, the Morningstar.”
Her gaze flickered beyond me, and I turned to see Mace standing at the edge of the trees, longbow in hand, the black sword belted at his waist.
“By God, Owen,” he said, “that is your best illusion yet!”
“It is no illusion,” I told him, rising. He stepped forward, disbelieving, and reached out to stab a finger at the golden-robed woman. Her hand slapped his aside, and Mace leapt back in shock.
“But … it is Horga! You created the image!”