There was no pain. There was no cold. There was no physical sensation at all. Time and space seemed to have no meaning to her.
It took Pony a long time to recognize that she had entered the spirit realm, the same one in which she walked out of body. No, it was more complete than that, obviously, for she saw no sign of the true physical world about her, and no apparent portal back to that world of substance and color. This was more akin to the place she had gone to battle the spirit of Father Abbot Markwart that long-ago day in Chasewind Manor, the only other time she had ventured so far into the nether realm. That memory of a specific real-world event sparked other thoughts in Pony, but only gradually did the specifics of the fight at Pireth Dancard begin to come back to her. Only after a long while did she remember her desperate flight, and getting shot with the arrow, and then the ocean taking her in its grasp and pulling her back.
Am I dead? She didn't voice the question, for she had no physical voice at that time. Nor, as she continued to glance around at the seemingly endless plain of gray swirling mists, did she require an answer. She was not a part of her corporeal body, she realized, and to her understanding, that could only mean one thing.
It occurred to her then that she might soon become a shadow in an Oracle mirror - in her son's perhaps. Maybe this was the answer; maybe in death, Pony could reach misguided Aydrian in ways that never manifested to her in life.
Is this it? her thoughts cried out again. Am I dead? Elbryan! Go back, came an answer in the woman's thoughts, and though it was not the sound of physical words, it was a "voice" that Pony recognized.
It was Elbryan! She knew that it had to be Elbryan! And then she saw him, or rather, felt his presence, and though there was no physicality to any of this, she knew that he was there, not far from her, standing, or hovering, before her.
Elbryan, her thoughts reached out to him. Oh, my love! I am so weary.
Pony willed her spirit forward, looking to embrace him, soul to soul. But as she approached, he retreated.
Go back! came the plaintive cry in her head. You cannot be here. Not now! You cannot forsake our son when his hour of need approaches! Pony halted her movement, and she knew that if she possessed a physical jaw at that moment, it surely would have been hanging open.
Go back! Elbryan, do not chase me away! Go back! Aydrian is beyond me, beyond all the world. There is nothing - Go back! Elbryan's call seemed even more insistent to her, and every time she tried to counter, to tell him that she was weary, that she had rightly passed and that she was content, that she was ready, he simply answered, Go back! Pony turned herself about to see that region whence she had apparently come. There was just the mist for a long, long while, but gradually, the woman began to make out a circular, darker area, like the entrance to a tunnel.
Go back! Elbryan implored her. Quickly! Time is running out! The woman moved toward the darkness and saw that it was indeed a tunnel, and as soon as she entered, she saw a distant speck of light, a long, long way from her.
Quickly! Oh, fly, my love! came Elbryan's call, and Pony, despite her feelings and her weariness, flew off as fast as she could, trusting in Elbryan above all else. The light grew and grew until it stung her spiritual eyes, and still she flew on toward it. She heard one last, fleeting call as she burst from the darkness of the tunnel altogether, again Elbryan's voice, saying, Two shadows live in Aydrian's mirror! Bradwarden, Prince Midalis, and Captain Al'u'met watched the listing ship slowly turning in the water and gradually dipping lower. The last of the raiders were off her, as well as all the supplies they had time to scavenge. Of the twelve ships moored in the waters off Dancard, eight were still afloat, not counting the one now spinning down to its death.
Even more promising, six of those eight were completely undamaged, and the other two seemed seaworthy and in need of only minor repairs. Midalis and his raiders had lost one to the shore batteries, and a second had been scuttled in the harbor, since there had been too many Ursal soldiers aboard to steal her away easily. During that struggle, several lightning bolts had reached out from shore, lighting fires, dropping combatants to the planking and scorching the deck. A third ship had escaped back toward the shore; but reports said that it, like those in dock, had gone up in flames. Despite the losses, the raiders had gotten away with nine ships, having only thirteen people missing and a few others slightly injured. By any standards, the raid had been a tremendous success.
Except... Where was Pony? She was their greatest ally, the most potent weapon in Midalis' arsenal, and the symbol of hope that bound them all. She had not come out from Pireth Dancard that dark night. Al'u'met had kept the signal fires burning on all the ships throughout the night, but she had not returned to them, amber in hand.
"She might be imprisoned in that tower," Prince Midalis muttered, turning from the spectacle of the sinking ship, its long mast leaning out at nearly a forty-five-degree angle, to the distant speck of Pireth Dancard on the northeastern horizon. "And I'd not trade her for all the Ursal fleet. Not for my kingdom complete!"
Bradwarden patted the prince on the shoulder. "Might be time to sail back to the island and get our girl back, then," he reasoned, and that brought a hopeful smile to Midalis' face.
"And in so doing, destroy the integrity of Jilseponie's death, if dead she is," came a voice from behind, and the trio turned to see huge Andacanavar approaching. "You've got a score of Alpinadoran longboats, this fine boat here, and eight Ursal warships; but every one of them is carrying only a skeleton crew, and few warriors armed to do battle ashore. If we go charging in, we're to lose a few boats to the catapults, and then we'll find a pitched battle on the docks. Are you so willing to risk everything for one heroic woman? Because if you lose here, my friend, you've nothing left with which to oppose Aydrian."
"And if I am willing to take that chance?" Prince Midalis replied. "Will Andacanavar and Bruinhelde and his warriors stand beside me?"
"I'm not for saying," replied the ranger. "But I'd not expect it.
Bruinhelde will ask my advice, and that advice will be to sail back to Pireth Vanguard."
Al'u'met seemed quite surprised, and Midalis openly angry, but Bradwarden nodded and tightened his grip on the prince's shoulder. The centaur understood Andacanavar, and his motives and thinking. Andacanavar was a ranger, as Elbryan had been, as they both considered Pony to be. Rangers understood the ultimate sacrifice.
Rangers also understood that it was insulting to one who had so sacrificed himself - or herself, in this case - then to choose a course that minimized the victory brought about by that sacrifice.
"I'll not throw away all the gains made here last night," the ranger explained.
"Or do you fear to lose Alpinadorans for the sake of a Honce-the-Bear woman?" Prince Midalis accused.
Andacanavar's expression was locked somewhere between pity and disillusionment. "I accept your words as the frustrated cries of a man wounded," he said. "But they are not the words of a man who would be king. I advise both Bruinhelde and you to refrain from a foolish attack, for the sake of my kinsmen, yes, but also for the sake of Prince Midalis and his hopes for his kingdom. They have Abellican monks ashore and your best counter to the gemstone magic is missing. Take your fleet beside Bruinhelde's and sail fast back to Vanguard, before a winter storm catches you and scuttles every ship."
"You would just leave her?" Midalis asked.
"I would not, nor, do I suppose, would Bradwarden or good Captain Al'u'met here," the ranger answered. "You go, and if Captain Al'u'met agrees, then let Saudi Jacintha patrol the area near to Pireth Dancard to try to find out what happened to our lost friend. With her sails full of wind, Captain Al'u'met's fine ship will outrun anything you have at your disposal. Let us all hope that we beat you back to Pireth Vanguard, and with Pony aboard beside us!"
That had the other three looking at each other, and gradually coming to agreeing nods.
"And if she is a prisoner?" Prince Midalis asked.
"Then me and the ranger here'U go ashore and tear down that tower and everyone in it," Bradwarden proclaimed, and so cold and even was his voice that no one even began to question his proclamation.
Prince Midalis stepped past the others, moving back to the rail, and cast a forlorn glance at the distant island. "It pains me to leave her."
"It's what you must do," Andacanavar said. "For Pony's sake, most of all - especially if she is imprisoned or..."
Prince Midalis swung about to stare at him, the look in the man's eyes stealing the barbarian's words.
"We will find her," Andacanavar said.
A bright morning sun forced Pony to open her eyes.
She lay on her back in the cold sand, staring up at the bluest of skies, and only a single grayish cloud began to creep into her field of view.
No, it wasn't a cloud, she suddenly understood, and with great effort, she managed to turn her head a bit to the side. And then she remembered.
She realized then that she was lying on a seaweed-strewn beach on Pireth Dancard, her feet just above the roiling tide line. To her right ran a rocky jetty, far out into the sea, and beyond that rose a light gray smoke - the dying fires from the three burning ships, she assumed.
Startled and suddenly afraid, Pony moved to sit up - or tried to, for a pain more ferocious than anything she had ever known assailed her, sending waves of agony, burning and nauseating, rolling through her prone form. The woman gasped, unable to catch her breath, unable to lift her chest to draw in any air. She started to move her left arm, and hit resistance, and desperately looked down.
Pony saw the tail end of the arrow protruding from her ribs, and in looking at how little was showing, she realized just how much had sunk into her. With sudden panic, she felt the sting across the way, where the arrowhead had ended against the inside of an opposite rib! She knew at once that she should be dead, and knew at once that she soon enough would be. Instinctively, she started to move her right hand, and only then did she realize that she held a pair of gemstones in it.
Without even bringing the hand up to ensure that she held the right stone, Pony fell into the waiting magic. She sensed the amber, and reasoned that even in her semiconscious state, she must have used it to keep herself above the tide. Then she felt the powers of the hematite, and went into it with all of her meager remaining strength.
She gasped in some air, then a second breath, and the moment of panic abated just a bit. But how could she hope actually to defeat this terrible wound? she wondered. She could keep herself functioning only through the gemstone, but her energy here was not limitless.
She told herself that she had to push the arrow through and so she stubbornly angled her right arm, placing her palm against the base of the shaft. She closed her eyes, fell into the soul stone more deeply, and steeled her resolve. She sucked in as deep a breath as she could manage, and started to push.
The wave of agony ended that, stealing all of her strength before she could budge the arrow at all.
Pony fell back in dismay. There was no way she could remove the arrow, no way she could possibly muster the strength needed to break it through.
She fell into the soul stone yet again, and took another deep breath, and, somehow, managed to sit up.
In looking at the beach before her, the woman could hardly believe that she had not been smashed to bits on the multitude of sharp, barnacle- covered rocks. Every incoming wave buffeted them, sending a high spray of white foam into the air.
Elbryan had been with her, she understood, for there was no other explanation. Elbryan's spirit had come to her in her moment of desperation, had helped guide her to this spot, had helped to keep her focused, even in her semiconscious state, on utilizing the soul stone to get through the night. There was no other explanation. Pony had been touched, literally, by a guardian spirit! She should be dead. For the second time.
That thought alone nearly dropped her back to the sand; but she remembered, too, what Elbryan's spirit had told her in her visit to the nether realm. She was not done here, and could not surrender to her wounds. Somehow, beyond her own understanding, she walked into the ocean, not only keeping the soul stone working enough so that her body did not succumb to the grievous wound, but activating the amber, as well.
She moved out from the beach, out into the open ocean. Soon after she cleared the jetty, she heard cries behind her- - from the wharves, she realized.
Pony didn't look back. She just kept walking away from the island, hop- ing that she would get out of the range of archer and catapult alike before those cries were relayed back to the artillerymen.
The roll of the waves beneath her feet only made her even more nauseous, but the woman stubbornly put one foot ahead of the other and trudged on.
A couple of times, she lost her focus on the soul stone, and found herself gasping for breath. A couple of times, she lost her focus on the amber, and went down into the cold sea.
Shivering, her skin blue, her energy fast failing, Pony soon enough lost all sense of where she was, and even of what she was doing. But there was someone else there, with her, guiding her, helping her to keep the gemstones in her hand, as if Elbryan was walking beside her, his hand cupped over hers, holding it closed.
The sun beat down on her, but it offered her no warmth.
Somehow, she continued. Her eyes were closed, she had no idea of where she was going, but she continued.
So lost was Pony, so devastated and disoriented, that she never saw the sails of Saudi Jacintha, nor heard the shouts of Bradwarden and the others when they spotted her walking on the swelling azure sea. The swift ship came right beside her in short order, but the wounded woman only kept walking, oblivious to it, and oblivious to the gasps of those who loved her at the rail, all of them shaken to their core by the sight of her devastated form.
Pony felt herself lifted from the surface of the sea, and that physical contact broke her from the trance. Andacanavar laid her down gently on Saudi Jacintha's deck, his strong hands going to the arrow embedded so deeply in her side.
Pony heard him say, "I know not how she is even still alive!"
"Ah, me Pony," she heard Bradwarden say from far, far away. "Oh, ye poor stubborn lass. Don't ye know when time's come to let go?"
Pony opened her eyes to see both the ranger and the centaur hovering over her, with Al'u'met down at her feet, taking a blanket from a crewman and then gently covering her. She wanted to answer the centaur, but she had not the strength to speak aloud.
"What can you do?" Captain Al'u'met asked. "Do something!"
"I can't pull the damned thing out or it'll take half her insides with it!" the ranger cried. "And she'd not survive me pushing it through!"
"How'd she survive this long, is what I'm asking?" remarked Bradwarden.
"Suren them wounds're mortal, and should've killed her long ago."
"Gemstones," remarked Al'u'met, who had moved up to Pony's side to tuck her hands under the blanket.
Pony felt him lift her arm and gently loosen her fingers enough to show the amber and gray stones she held.
"Don't ye take that gray one away!" Bradwarden cried. "Ah, but that's the key. She's using the stone's healing powers to keep herself livin', though I've no idea where the woman's findin' the strength in her condition." The centaur clenched her hand tightly, moving it to his breast. Then he bent down very low, and whispered into Pony's ear. "Hey now, me good lass, ye reach inside o' me with yer soul stone. Ye take me strength - I know ye can."
Pony heard the words, and she felt the connection with the amber go away - Bradwarden had interrupted it, she somehow understood. He was making her focus on the one; he was inviting her to leach his great strength.
Hardly aware of anything through the haze of numbing cold and sharp agony, the woman did go deeper into that stone, establishing a connection to the centaur, feeling the solidity of the creature, the unbelievable health and strength.
Bradwarden, her thoughts cried out.
Ye take me strength, me lass, his spirit answered. Ye take all ye're needing! Pony hesitated. Her wound was mortal - and would be so even to one of Bradwarden's great equine constitution.
"Ye take it!" he shouted, and imparted telepathically, as well.
Despite herself, Pony's instincts made her reach out; Elbryan's plea to her, that she could not yet die, made her reach out. She felt a sudden surge of energy injected into her battered form.
She fell into that warmth, that strength, leaching at the mighty centaur.
And then sheets of fire erupted within her, and she heard herself cry out, screaming more loudly than she had ever before, for the pain was more acute than anything the woman had ever imagined.
"Fight on, lass!" Bradwarden shouted at her between her screams. "Find me heart and take it as yer own!"
Pony knew that she should not, knew that to do so would kill her friend! She would take his life energy, all of it, for nothing less would suffice! But the pain commanded her to grab on more tightly; she could not deny the call of that fiery agony.
She heard a snap from somewhere far away, and then felt a sudden sliding sensation across her inner chest, as if her life force were sliding out of her corporeal form.
She fell back in the fog, hoping that Elbryan would meet her in death once again.
