Brother Avelyn was not overly concerned when he returned to his room to find that Jill was not about. The woman had mentioned her plans to walk to the valley beyond the north slope, and the monk was confident that Jill could take care of herself. In their weeks together, it seemed to Avelyn that Jill looked after him more than he protected her.
So the monk, exhausted from fighting and then curing the stranger's magical poisoning, his mind heavy with drink, plopped down on his bed and was soon snoring loudly. His dreams were not content, though, not with the prospects of a magic-wielding assassin nearby. Likely, the man was in no way connected to Avelyn, but still the fugitive monk remained concerned.
He awoke late the next morning, to find himself alone in the room. Again, he was not concerned, figuring that Jill had come in after he had fallen asleep, and was long up and about, probably down in the common room having her breakfast.
"Or lunch," the monk remarked aloud with a self-deprecating chuckle. "Ho, ho, what!"
When he got downstairs, though, Avelyn saw no sign of Jill; indeed, Belster O'Comely informed him that he had not seen the woman all night. "Perhaps she found better company to keep," the innkeeper said snidely, leaning on the broom he was using to sweep up the remnants of the previous night's activities.
"Indeed would Jill be better off away from one as mad as I," Avelyn replied, wincing with every word, for his head was pounding. The monk had long ago noted, with complete frustration, that the hematite, powerful as it was, could do little to relieve a hangover.
Avelyn ate a light meal, then shuffled outside and promptly regurgitated it. He felt better after. The day was cool and gray, the sky spitting light snow every so often. "Oh, where are you, girl?" Avelyn asked loudly, more frustrated than afraid. The question would have to wait, though, for the monk made his weary way back to his room and went back to bed.
He didn't wake up again until the next morning, to discover, once more, that Jill was nowhere to be found. Now Avelyn was indeed growing fearful; it wasn't like Jill to disappear for so long without forewarning him or without finding some way to contact him. That, combined with the presence of this magic- wielding assassin, surely concerned the monk. Perhaps the incident in the common room was no accident. Perhaps the monastery was on his trail. Had they caught him at last, up here in the most remote corner of Honce-the-Bear? And had Jill paid dearly for Avelyn's crimes?
He went to speak with Belster again, and, after hearing from the innkeeper that Jill still had not been seen, Avelyn begged the innkeeper to tell him how he might locate the stranger who had shuffled him out of the fight.
"The ranger?" Belster asked incredulously, and from his tone, it was obvious to Avelyn that few inquired as to this man's whereabouts.
"If that is what he calls himself," Avelyn replied.
"He calls himself Elbryan," Belster explained, "to me, at least, though to others he carries another title. And he's one of the rangers, do not doubt." He saw that the term held no meaning for Avelyn. "Some say they're elf trained, others that they're merely misfits who find some comfort in thinking themselves better than anyone else, walking their vigilant patrols, protecting all the land -- not that there's any need for protection, of course."
"Of course," Avelyn politely echoed. He found that he was beginning to like this man called Elbryan more and more with every word. "Where might I find this ranger, then?" the monk pressed.
Belster's shrug was surely sincere. "Here and there," he replied. "Walks the woods from here to End-o'-the-World, from what I'm told."
Avelyn's expression soured and he looked down at the bar. "What of the other stranger?" he asked. "The small mysterious man who fought so well?"
Belster's face screwed up. "There are many strangers in Dundalis this season," he answered. "And all of them fight well, else the forest would have taken them by now!"
"The small and agile man," Avelyn tried to clarify, "the one who battled Elbryan so fiercely."
Belster nodded his recognition. "He was in here again last night," the innkeeper explained. "No fighting this time."
Avelyn took a deep breath and cursed himself for sleeping the afternoon and all the night through while a potential clue to Jill's whereabouts was right below him.
"Direct me, then," the monk said at last. "Point me in the most likely direction where I might find Elbryan."
Again Belster shrugged, then he considered the fact that every time he had seen Elbryan enter Dundalis, it was down the north road. He pointed to the north. "That way," he declared, "up and over the slope, through the vale, and turn west."
Avelyn automatically looked that way, though of course, all he could see was the north wall of the Howling Sheila. He nodded as he considered the words, glad for them. Traveling north, he might find Elbryan, it would seem, and he would also be able to search for signs of his dear Jill.
He set off after a quick meal, huffing and puffing up the forested slope, then, after a long pause spent staring down at the stark pines and white ground, he started down the back side of the ridge, into the valley, angling northwest.
There were no signs to be found -- Brother Justice had made certain of that -- and oblivious Avelyn passed by within thirty feet of the concealed entrance to the cave that now served as Jill's prison.
She had not been treated badly . . . until Brother Justice had returned, the night before last, in a foul mood and visibly bruised, to find that she had nearly escaped her tight bonds. Then the monk had beaten her severely and had subsequently tied her up so tightly that her hands and feet were now completely numb.
When she wouldn't -- couldn't -- tell him anything about the staff- wielding stranger who had intervened in the inn, the ferocious monk had beaten her again, and now one of her eyes was swollen closed.
Brother Justice had spent all that next day with her; talking mostly to himself about how he might get word to the fat monk that he held her captive. Then the assassin had gone out; Jill knew that his plan still was not fully clear and that he was simply searching for more information. Now, with a gray morning fast turning to midday outside, Brother Justice had not returned.
Jill hoped that Avelyn had killed him; Jill, who could not possibly get out of the bindings and gag that the monk had put on her this time, hoped that Avelyn had first forced the man to disclose her whereabouts!
To Avelyn, who had lived all of his life in the more populous and defined central region of Honce-the-Bear, and who had lately. traveled the breadth of the land along well-defined roads, with clear landmarks and signposts, the prospects of finding the ranger had not initially seemed dismal. It wasn't until Avelyn got deep into the wide forest, where the view varied little from direction to direction, where the landmarks were so much more subtle, that he understood the true scope of his hunt. The distance from Youmaneff to St.-Mere- Abelle was over two hundred miles, the distance from Dundalis to End-o'-the- World but two score, yet, given the winding trails' and the areas where there were no trails at all, Avelyn soon realized that he would have had a better chance of finding the ranger had he been pursuing the man in the miles from his home to the abbey.
He wandered in circle, taking care to note the direction of the sun as it slipped behind the gray canopy, looking for some sign. Of course Elbryan, trained by, the elves, left, little or no trail at all, and Avelyn's frustration steadily mounted. He wasn't even sure, after all, that Elbryan had left Dundalis in this direction.
Thus, by midday, the monk was ready to give up the hunt. He would return to Dundalis -- and perhaps Jill would be there waiting for him -- and then take the more conventional road through Weedy Meadow to End-o'-the-World. There was simply no possibility, he now understood, that he would find the ranger in this forest.
But Avelyn was no ranger, and this was not his domain, and while he had no chance of locating Elbryan, the ranger had little trouble finding him.
The monk was huffing and puffing along a flat trail, arching around the base of a hillock, when he first heard the hooves. He scrambled for some brush, thinking to hide, and then, when that seemed futile, he fumbled about his magical stones, trying to sort out some defensive measures.
A moment later, Avelyn relaxed as a powerful black stallion thundered by.
"No rider," the monk said aloud, mocking his own worries. "Ho, ho, what!"
"But a beautiful horse nonetheless," came a remark from right behind and above him. "Would you not agree?"
Avelyn froze in place, a lump rising in his throat. He turned slowly to see the ranger crouched in the brush along the side of the hillock, just a few feet back. "H-how did you --" the monk stammered. "I mean, you were there all along?"
Elbryan shook his head and smiled.
"But how?"
"You were busy listening to the horse," the ranger explained.
Avelyn glanced back the other way to see the stallion standing tall and pawing the ground, looking at him and Elbryan with eyes that seemed too intelligent for such a creature.
"His name is Symphony,"' Elbryan explained.
"I am not well acquainted with horses," Avelyn admitted, "but he seems a wonder."
Elbryan uttered a soft clicking sound, and Symphony responded by lifting his ears and nickering. The stallion pawed the ground once more, then thundered away back along the trail.
"You will have a hard time catching that one again!" Avelyn blurted, trying to ease his own tension. He looked back at Elbryan. "Ho, ho, what!"
Elbryan didn't blink and the ranger's lack of interest stole the bubbly grin from Avelyn's face.
"Well, yes," the monk began uncomfortably. "Why am I here, then, you would like to know. Of course, of course."
Elbryan squatted perfectly still, arms across his bent legs, fingers locked together, his gaze fixed upon the man.
"Well . . . to find you, yes, yes," Avelyn finally explained, finding his wits against that uncompromising stare. "Of course, yes, I came into the forest looking for the one they call the ranger."
Elbryan gave a slight nod, prompting Avelyn to continue.
"Well, it is about the fight, of course," he said. "About the man, actually, the one who tried for me but poisoned you."
Elbryan nodded; this visit wasn't totally unexpected, since the stealthy fighter from the Howling Sheila was still in the region, as was. this monk whom Elbryan believed the assassin's target. Elbryan suspected that the mad friar would need help, and suspected, too, that he would find little among the folk of Dundalis.
"He attacked you again?" the ranger asked.
"No -- no," Avelyn stammered. "Well, yes, actually, or he might have. I cannot be sure."
Elbryan sighed wearily.
"It is my companion, of course," the nervous monk went on. "Beautiful young woman, and a fighter, too. But she is gone, nowhere to be found, and I am afraid --"
"You should be afraid," Elbryan replied. "That was no ordinary brawler in the common room the other night."
"The magical poison," Avelyn reasoned.
"The way he moved," Elbryan corrected. "He was a warrior, a true warrior, long trained in the art of battle."
Avelyn nodded enthusiastically, but the ranger's words only heightened his fear that this was indeed no coincidental attack, that the fighting monks of the Abellican Church were after him.
"You must tell me of this man," Elbryan said, "everything you know."
"I do not know anything," Avelyn replied in exasperation.
"Then tell me everything that you suspect," the ranger demanded. "If he has your friend, then you need my help -- help I willingly give, but only if you remain forthright with me."
Avelyn nodded again, glad for the words. Elbryan rose and moved down to the trail, Avelyn following close behind.
"I do not even know your name," the monk-remarked, though he remembered the name that Belster had given to this man.
"I am El --" the ranger began reflexively, but he caught himself and looked hard at the monk, the first man who had actively sought out his help since he had left Andur'Blough Inninness, the first man who would admit that he needed the ranger's assistance. "I am Nightbird," Elbryan said evenly.
Avelyn cocked an eyebrow at that curious title, not the response he had expected. Whatever the man's reasons for offering a different title were not important, Avelyn decided, and so he accepted the name without further question. The pair walked back toward Dundalis then, Avelyn telling Elbryan his suspicions about the pursuit from the church. Of course, the conversation grew uncomfortable for Avelyn when the ranger asked why St.-Mere-Abelle might be after the monk, and Avelyn had not the time nor the inclination to explain all the events that had led to his fateful decision. How does one justify murder and theft, after all? Elbryan didn't press the point, however; at that time, all that truly seemed relevant was that Avelyn's companion was missing, possibly kidnapped by a man the ranger knew to be dangerous.
And Avelyn's description of his companion, added to the fact that the monk hinted that they had come to Dundalis for her benefit, gave the ranger much to think about.
The hunt began soon after, Elbryan searching hard to find some trail leading out of Dundalis, while Avelyn inquired of Belster and some other patrons in the Howling Sheila whether the stranger had returned to the inn today.
Their answers came near dusk, when Avelyn returned to his room to find a note pinned to his bedding. It was short and to the point, confirming the monk's worst fears. If Avelyn wanted to save his companion, he was to travel to the slope overlooking the pine valley, alone, and wait at an appointed spot.
He showed the note to Elbryan down in the Howling Sheila's common room, the pair ignoring the many derisive remarks aimed at them by the early customers there.
"Go, then," the ranger bade the monk.
"And you will be there?"
Elbryan nodded.
"But it says that I have to go alone," the monk protested.
"To our enemy, you will seem alone," Elbryan assured him, and, after considering this man beside him, after recalling the fact that this one called Nightbird had moved to within five feet of him without his ever knowing it, Avelyn nodded his agreement, took back the note, and started out of town.
All the way, the monk fumbled with his pack of gemstones, then, on sudden intuition, he stored all but three -- graphite, hematite, and protective malachite -- in the nook of a tree. If his suspicions were correct, this man had come for him, but even more for the stones. If Avelyn carried them with him, and the dangerous warrior managed to wrest them away, then the monk would have no bargaining power with which to save himself and even more important, to save his dear Jill.
At the appointed place, a bare spot on the side of an otherwise full- branched pine tree some twenty feet below the ridge, Avelyn did not have to wait for long.
"I see that you decided to follow my instructions, Brother Avelyn," came an all-too-familiar voice. "Very good."
Quintall! It was Quintall, Avelyn knew at once, and the monk felt as if the very ground were about to. rush up and swallow him -- and he almost hoped that it would. The monastery, the Order, was after him, and there would be no corner of the world far enough away, no shadows dark enough to hide him.
"I had little faith that a thief and murderer would be so honorable as to come to the aid of a friend," the voice went on.
Avelyn glanced all about nervously, wondering where Nightbird might be, wondering if the ranger was close enough to hear those words, and if he was, how he might now feel about this man he had chosen to help.
"I have her," the voice teased. "Come to me."
The reminder of Jill's predicament bolstered the monk's failing courage. Perhaps his Abellican brothers would get him, Avelyn decided, but they would not harm Jill. Slipping the graphite all about the fingers of one anxious hand, the monk followed the direction of the voice, soon discerning the dark rim of a cave opening and the shadowy form of a man inside. He went in as the form retreated, to find a fairly substantial cave, this one chamber -- and it seemed plausible to Avelyn that the place had more than one chamber larger than his room at the Howling Sheila.
Quintall stood at the back of the dimly lit cave, leaning easily against the wall, flicking flint against steel until a light caught on the torch he had propped there.
When the light flickered to life, when it fully illuminated the face of the man Avelyn had known all those years, the man who had traveled to Pimaninicuit beside Avelyn and knew the truth of the stones, Avelyn was nearly overcome with grief. All that he had lost his home, his companions, and most important, his faith assaulted Avelyn; all the memories of the good times at St.-Mere-Abelle, his instruction with Master Jojonah, the revelations about the sacred stones, the studying of the charts, the revealed mysteries of the magic, came rushing back to him.
And then they were buried beneath the subsequent memories: the death of Thagraine, of the boy who had foolishly gone onto Pimaninicuit, of all the crew of the Windrunner, of Dansally, of Siherton.
"Quintall," Avelyn muttered.
"No more," the other monk replied.
"Why have you come?" Avelyn asked, hoping against reason that this man, too, had deserted the Order and was as much a renegade as he:
Quintall's cackle rocked him. "I am Brother Justice," the man replied harshly, "seat to retrieve what was stolen." Quintall snorted. "I hardly recognized you, fat Avelyn. You have lost all, so it seems, and have more than doubled your size. Always you took your physical training lightly!"
Avelyn steeled himself against the insults. It was true, he had taken on more than a few bad habits, drinking too much and eating too much, and the only exercise or martial training he now performed was in the fights he inspired.
"Did you not believe that we would discover your treachery?" Brother Justice went on. "Did you think that you could murder a master of St.-Mere- Abelle and steal such a treasure, and then walk free for the rest of your days?"
"There is more --"
"There is no more!" Quintall shouted. "You fell my former brother. All that remains for you is the pit of hell. I shall have the stones!"
"And my life," Avelyn reasoned, making no move.
"And your life," cold Brother Justice confirmed. "You forfeited that when Master Siherton went over the wall."
"I forfeited that when I refused to accept the perversion of the Order!" Avelyn shot back, drawing some courage with words of conviction. "As Brother Pellimar --"
"Silence!" Brother Justice ordered. "Your life is forfeit, I assure you, and no explanation is worth the time to utter. I will have the stones, as well, but if you hand them to me without battle and accept the fate you deserve, then I will let the woman go free. On my word."
Avelyn snorted at that. "Is your word as solid a thing as the word of the masters you serve?" he asked. "Is your gold but an illusion, meant to coax a ship into waters where it might be destroyed?"
Quintall's expression showed that he neither understood nor cared about what Avelyn was saying, showed Avelyn beyond any doubts that the man was single- minded and would not be swayed That left the fat monk two choices: to surrender the stones and his life and hope that Quintall was speaking truthfully, or to fight.
He didn't trust the man, not at all. Quintall would kill him after he got the stones, without doubt; then he would kill Jill, that there would be no witnesses. Avelyn believed that in his heart. He took his hand, and the graphite, out of his pocket, pointing it in Quintall's direction.
"You would forfeit the life of a friend?" Brother Justice asked and then he laughed again.
"I would spare your own life," Avelyn replied, "in exchange for the woman."
The man's laughter continued and it gave Avelyn pause. Quintall above all others understood Avelyn's proficiency with the magic stones. Quintall should have understood that Avelyn could loose a bolt of.' lightning with that piece of graphite that would fry the man where he stood. And yet Quintall, this man who called himself Brother Justice, this extension of St.-Mere-Abelle's vicious order, was not afraid.
Avelyn turned his thoughts away from the man, to the chamber Quintall had chosen for this encounter. He felt the emanations, the subtle pulse of magic, and when he looked then into the stone he held, when he realized that the powers of the graphite seemed far, far away, he understood.
"Sunstone," Quintall confirmed, seeing the expression. "There will be little magic used in this cave, foolish Brother Avelyn."
Avelyn chewed his lip, looking for an out. Back in St.-Mere-Abelle, he had seen Master Siherton create a magical dead zone while he and several others had tried to discern the powers of the giant amethyst crystal. Only the most powerful magics could function within such an area, and even then, their powers were greatly diminished.
Avelyn might be able to effect a lightning stroke within this chamber, but he doubted that it would do much more than anger Quintall even more.
Quintall held out his hand. "The stones," he said calmly, "for the woman's life."
"The woman is no part of this," Elbryan declared, slipping into the cave to stand beside Avelyn. "I know not of Brother Avelyn's crimes, but you have offered no charge against the woman."
Quintall's expression grew suddenly grave at the sight of the imposing ranger. "Treachery again!" he growled at Avelyn. "I should have expected as much from the likes of Avelyn Desbris."
"No treachery," Elbryan insisted, "but justice."
"What do you know of it?" Brother Justice insisted. "What do you know of this stranger, this mad friar, who has come into your midst, begging aid? Did he tell you that he was a murderer?"
"And is the woman a murderer?" Elbryan asked calmly.
"No," Avelyn answered when the other monk hesitated.
"A thief ?" asked Elbryan.
"No!" Avelyn said determinedly. "She has committed no crimes. As for my own, I will speak of them, openly and honestly; and when all the account is told, let someone other than a monk of St.-Mere-Abelle serve as judge."
Brother Justice narrowed his eyes and glared at the monk. Of course, he had no intention of allowing any court. He was judge, jury, and executioner, assigned by the Father Abbot. "You were a fool to follow Avelyn to this place," he said to Elbryan, "for now your life is forfeit, as is Avelyn's, as is the woman's."
"More justice?" Elbryan started to ask, but his question was lost as Brother Justice spun about, pulling aside some hanging vines that blocked the entrance to another chamber. A flick of the monk's wrist sent a silver item flying and from within the deeper chamber came a gurgled groan.
"Go to her!" Elbryan cried to Avelyn, and the ranger leaped forward to meet the monk, Hawkwing spinning to a ready position.
"Not by surprise this time," Brother Justice sneered, setting himself in a crouch. He tried to keep near the door, to prevent Avelyn from getting to the woman, but Elbryan's attack was too fierce, too straightforward. The ranger came rushing in, accepting a punishing blow to the chest but managing to duck his shoulder low against the monk and drive the man back a step. Brother Justice dug in, locking himself in place until Avelyn came roaring in at Elbryan's back, the monk's three-hundred-pound frame blasting the two combatants away.
Elbryan took three quick punches -- two to the chest and then one to the face that nearly sent him down -- before he managed to break the clench and get away from the dangerous monk.
Facing the man squarely, the ranger wasn't quite sure what to make of him. Brother Justice turned sidelong and lifted his leading foot, drawing it slowly up his balanced leg, arms lifting as well, as certain snakes might rise before the strike.
It was a dagger, small but nasty, and thrown perfectly to hit the gagged and bound woman right in the throat, just under her jawbone. Her main artery severed, blood was pumping wildly from the wound, already forming a puddle around her slumped form.
"Jill, Jill! Oh, my Jill!" Avelyn wailed, rushing to her. He pulled the dagger free, his hands going to the wound, trying futilely to stem the flow. She had little time left, he knew. Her skin felt cold.
Avelyn pulled out his hematite, then remembered the anti-magic shield that Quintall had constructed. He thought to carry Jill from this place; but realized immediately that she would be dead before he ever got her outside.
He clutched his hematite in both hands, putting them to the wound, putting his lips against his hands, praying with all his will, with all his heart. If there was a God above, if these stones were indeed sacred, then the hematite must work!
The monk's fighting prowess was indeed remarkable, his movements quick and fluid, his frame always in perfect balance. He was too fast for most humans, dizzying them with winding, sweeping feints before the lightning strike killed them.
But Quintall, for all his training, was no faster than Tuntun or Belli'mar Juraviel, or any of the elves that had trained Elbryan, and when he snapped a strike from that snakelike pose, thinking to tear out Elbryan's throat and move on to finish his business with Avelyn, the monk's expression showed he was surprised to find his extended fingers hit only air, while Elbryan's staff gave him a wicked smack on the elbow. With incredible flexibility, both physical and mental, the monk adjusted, rolling his pained arm down across the staff to open a hole in Elbryan's defenses, then snapping off a quick blow with his other hand, followed by a kick that caught the ranger inside the knee and nearly buckled his leg. Elbryan countered by letting go of his staff with his top hand, rolling it under the blocking arm, then grabbing it and sweeping low for the monk's supporting leg.
Brother Justice hopped over the swing, but was forced back.
The monk circled, a confident expression mounting.
Two running steps launched Brother Justice into a double kick. Elbryan jammed one end of Hawkwing into the dirt and swept the staff powerfully across in front of him, left to right, deflecting the blow. He stepped ahead with his left foot then, continuing to turn as Brother Justice landed on his feet and pivoted the other way. Elbryan dragged Hawkwing up and around, slapping a backhand with the staff that connected squarely on the monk's lower back at the same time Brother Justice let fly an elbow to the back of Elbryan's head.
The ranger reacted well, diving forward as the elbow connected, leaping and tumbling over his staff as if it were a tree branch. He came back to his feet and turned as Brother Justice spun around, the two men circling once more.
"I give you one more chance to leave," the monk offered, drawing a smile from his adversary. That smug look by the ranger spurred the proud Quintall into a charge. He skidded to a stop right before Elbryan, throwing a vicious overhead chop.
Up came Hawkwing in a solid horizontal block. Anticipating the following moves, Elbryan snapped his left hand down, taking the power from a right cross, then stepped in closer, putting his right leg inside the monk's left, defeating an attempted kick. Brother Justice wriggled his left arm about the staff, reaching for Elbryan's face, but the ranger pulled the staff and the arm out wide, moving even closer to the monk, then drove his forehead hard into the monk's face.
Brother Justice grabbed hard onto the staff with both hands, as much to support himself as to prevent any attacks. Elbryan let go with his left hand at that same moment and snapped off a series of short, heavy jabs into Brother Justice's face.
The monk was dazed; Elbryan seized the moment. He grabbed the staff again, hard, and tugged it in close, pushed it away to the end of his reach, then pulled it in again. Brother Justice should have let go, but he was fighting to clear his thoughts. Following the tug, he came rushing in close to Elbryan, and his face met the ranger's forehead again.
Still dazed, still hanging on, the monk felt the change in his adversary's angle as Elbryan fell back to the floor, pulling hard, taking the monk right over him. Both his feet planted squarely in Brother Justice's belly, the ranger heaved him right over, sent him flying, to land heavily at the base of the chamber's hard wall.
Pure rage drove the monk on, forced the pain away. He rolled and came up fast but not fast enough. His defenses were not in place when Elbryan grabbed his staff down low with both hands and swept it across mightily, smashing in the side of Brother Justice's face. The monk went with the blow, turning to a dead run that launched him out the cave's outer opening, into the daylight.
Elbryan was quick to follow, but by the time he got out, the monk was many strides ahead, in a full run. Hardly thinking of the motion, knowing only that he could not lose this advantage against so deadly an adversary, Elbryan popped the feathered tip onto his Weapon and bent it low, quickly setting the bowstring. He ran ahead a dozen strides, seeking an angle to best view the top of the ridge, where the monk was fleeing.
Brother Justice came into view for only a split second, darting between two trees. Elbryan's arrow caught him in the calf, right below the knee, and with a howl of pain the monk tumbled sidelong, gaining momentum as he rolled along the steep slope.
Elbryan scrambled to get to the spot, saw the monk land heavily atop one rocky outcropping and then tumble right over it, a fifteen-foot plummet to bard stone.
Elbryan groaned sympathetically, running to get in view of the man once more. He spotted the monk from a distance, lying among the boulders, one leg bent back up under him, one arm across his chest, the other out straight, then turned back under, obviously broken. The man, gasping for breath, reached inside the fold's of his clothing and produced something that Elbryan could not discern from this distance.
The ranger halted as the monk suddenly glowed, limned in blackish flames. Elbryan's mouth dropped open as the monk's features twisted, twisted, as his face blurred and seemed to double, and as that second face stretched grotesquely and pulled free of the man's corporeal form, his visible spirit ripping out of that flesh and blood coil, down to the object he clutched in his hand.
There came a bright flash and then the monk lay still, low flames licking his lifeless body.
"'Nightbird!" came a cry from the cave, and Elbryan, thoroughly shaken, scampered back within.
He was careening, flying fast above the forest, across the lakes, over the lands where the snow had already settled deep -- too fast for his senses, too fast for the man to understand. The pain was gone, that much he knew. Then he came upon the mountains, whipping through passes, over peaks, to a plateau he had seen before above a vast encampment between the black arms of a smoking mountain. Then came the dizzying ride through tight tunnels, cutting left, right, down and down again to a stone wall creased by a single crack, through that crack, the stone rushing past him so close that his mind screamed out in terror.
Then he was in the room between the columns before the obsidian throne.
Quintall stood on semitransparent legs, caught halfway between the mortal and spirit worlds. He stood on the legs of a wraith facing the dactyl demon.
It was the end, the end of hope, of any pretense of godliness. It was the truth, the dark-shining truth, the reality of what he had become, the only honest end of the road upon which his Abellican masters had set him. It was the dactyl demon, Bestesbulzibar -- he knew its name! -- in all its horrible beauty, in all its magnificence.
Quintall, Brother Justice, fell to his wraith knees before the dactyl, bowed his head, and spoke.
"Master."
Elbryan took the torch with him as he pushed aside the vines and entered the inner chamber. Avelyn squatted on the floor, cradling the woman. Her wound was closed and she was very much alive, though thoroughly exhausted, as was Avelyn, who had gone into the hematite, who had, by sheer willpower and faith, fought past the sunstone barrier, fought his way into the healing magic.
The monk asked about Quintall, but Elbryan didn't hear him. Avelyn shifted on the floor and tried to rise, nearly toppling for the effort, but Elbryan didn't notice. All that the ranger saw was the woman, all that he heard was her breathing. His eyes roamed over her -- the thick mop of blond hair, the blue eyes, shining in the dim light, despite her weary condition, and her lips, those thick and wonderful lips, those so soft lips.
He could hardly breathe, could hardly keep the strength to stand, all his thoughts, all his energy, tied up in a single word, a name he had not spoken for so very long. "Pony."
