The Witch's Daughter (3 page)

The lure was simply too great, and the alternative too grim, for Reinheiser to decline. Slowly, painfully, the body rose from the throne and stumbled to the door.

Dozens of yellow talon eyes fixed upon the crawling progress of the Black Warlock, wondering how one so obviously feeble could exude such unspeakable power. But if they needed any reminders to keep them in line as the dual being that was the new Black Warlock inched his pitiful way across the stone floor of Talas-dun, all they had to do was glance through the open doors of the Throne Room.

To the gory puddle that had once been Grok.

F
AR FROM THE
gloom of Kored-dul, winter’s last sunset sparkled across the sylvan boughs of magical Avalon. The forest teemed with life, shaking off the sleepy mantle of the snowy months in a burst of joyful vitality. Songbirds heralded the end of the day, and the animals of the night stirred in their quiet dens.

A chill wind blew down from the Crystal Mountains, a reminder of the season past, but its bite was not so sharp. Spring had come early to the wood this year.

Near the eastern borders of the great forest, in a wide field protected from the north winds by walls of towering evergreens, a young woman watched the darkening sky breathlessly for the first starlight. And when it twinkled into view, she smiled in contentment and broke into her carefree dance, the dance of Rhiannon.

“Be knowing that me eyes are better for seeing such a sight,” said Bellerian, the venerable Ranger Lord. He stood off to the side of the field, under the boughs of a wide pine.

The wizard Ardaz, gray-haired and with a bristling beard, sniffled and wiped the wetness from his eyes, drawing an exchange of smiles between Bellerian and the third person
in the group, a woman of beauty beyond the realm of mortals. “Me brother’s a sentimental sort,” Brielle explained to the Ranger Lord.

“Twenty!” Ardaz cried. “Just a day, I know it was just a day ago that I held the little babe in my arms. Look at her now! A woman! I do dare say!”

“Twenty years might not seem as much to the likes o’ a wizard and witch,” Brielle replied. “Suren the time has brought me girl to womanhood, but it has not touched us at all.”

“Yer fortunes,” Bellerian grumbled lightheartedly, stretching a creak out of his aging back. “Me wish it be that the turnin’ clock’d leave me bones alone.”

“Just a baby,” Ardaz went on, too caught up in his nostalgia to hear the words of his companions.

Brielle winked at Bellerian and moved out to join her daughter. The Ranger Lord started to follow, but Ardaz, understanding what would come next, held him back.

And then the mother, the witch of the wood, joined her daughter in dancing. Their graceful movements, heightened by the mysterious flow of gossamer gowns—white for Brielle, black for Rhiannon—caught the essence of the forest night and translated its beauty into an art that the eyes of those less knowledgeable in the ways of the sylvan world could understand. For watching Brielle and Rhiannon was to watch the dance of the earth in all its glory, an ancient dance, older than the race of man. The dance of life itself.

They twirled and crossed, rising up high into the air and floating to gentle landings that did not even bend the blades of newly sprouting grass under their bare feet. So alike they seemed, in spirit and body, but if Brielle, with her shining golden locks and sparkling green eyes, was the light of day, then Rhiannon was the mystery of night. Black hair rolled across her shoulders as she spun, soft as the moonlight and
impossibly thick. But even if it fell across the porcelain features of her fair face, it could not dim the light in her eyes, the palest blue but with a depth that belied the lightness of color.

Bellerian and Ardaz could only watch silently, entranced as the witch and her daughter continued their dance. The hugest and clumsiest of dragons could have crashed through the forest to stand right behind them and they would not have sensed its presence.

And then, after a long while that seemed too short for the onlookers, Brielle leaped in a twirl and froze in her landing, arms wide and eyes unblinking. Rhiannon spun a full circuit around her, coming to a stop in a similar posture, facing her mother and staring into Brielle’s green eyes, staring into her soul.

Inches apart stood mother and daughter, finding the truest serenity in their bond.

“If my life now found its end, I would surely die a contented soul,” came a voice from the side when the mystical moment began to wane, and out from the boughs walked Arien Silverleaf, the King of the Elves, with a brown-skinned man at his side. They crossed the field to join the witch and her daughter.

“My greetings to you, Mistress of Avalon,” the noble elf greeted Brielle. “Blessed are we to be invited to the beauty of your realm.” He bowed low and sincerely.

Ardaz and Bellerian walked out to join the gathering. “Splendid,” cried the gray-bearded wizard. “Then we are all here. Oh, we are, we are indeed! I do so enjoy a party! I do, I do! What fun would life be without them, after all?”

“And glad I am that ye could come to celebrate me daughter’s birthday,” said Brielle. She paused and smiled when she took note of Billy Shank, the man at Arien’s side, his mouth frozen in a silent whistle, his eyes wide and
glazed as he looked upon Rhiannon, the legacy of his dearest friend, for the first time in almost two decades.

Brielle brushed her hand across her daughter’s forehead, pushing back the thick mane. Rhiannon kept her eyes to the ground—not an impolite posture, but rather, an embarrassed one. So at home among the creatures of the forest, the young woman was not accustomed to human visitors.

“This is Billy Shank,” Brielle said to her. “The others ye know. He was a friend o’ yer father’s, a friend dear and true.”

Rhiannon peeked out of the corner of her eye at Ardaz, her uncle Rudy, and found courage in his assuring smile. Then she looked at Billy, and found only friendship reflecting back at her from his dark eyes. He was passing middle age and a bit round in the belly now, with flecks of silver in his black hair. But the wrinkles that creased the edges of his mouth and eyes all turned up to smile at her, and even Rhiannon’s profound shyness could not dispute such sincere friendship.

“Me thanks to ye,” the daughter of the witch whispered. “To ye all, for coming to me party.” Her voice grew louder as she spoke, gaining confidence in the knowledge that she was among only friends.

Ardaz bounded over to her and kissed her noisily on the cheek. “And our thanks to you, dear girl!” he cried.

“For what?”

The wizard’s laugh erupted and then ended suddenly. “Why, for everything! And for nothing at all, I do dare say!” He lifted her in his arms and spun her around.

And thus the party began.

Arien, Ardaz, and Bellerian had come to the magical forest in great anticipation this night. They had joined in such celebrations before and knew that they would not be disappointed, could never be disappointed, by an evening spent with the fair ladies of Avalon. But for Billy Shank the night
was especially wonderful. He had been to Avalon on several occasions, but this was the first time he truly appreciated the sweetness of the enchanted forest, the primordial magic that marked this place above all others in the world.

An oaken table was brought to the field, and a feast of cakes and fruit, and of water as crystalline as the stars on a clear and moonless night and bringing a tingling chill that invigorated the body yet somehow warmed the soul, was set before them. But if the meal was wondrous, the manner in which it was served stole Billy’s breath altogether.

Birds flew down from the trees, clutching golden plates and chalices in their claws; a great buck emerged from the trees, jugs of drink swinging with its strides from the many points of its majestic antlers; and a huge bear brought the dinner tray.

Laughter erupted from all assembled at the sight of Billy’s shocked expression when the bear set a place before him and then squatted down beside him for its own feast. Only a moment later a gigantic owl swooped down from the trees and landed on Billy’s shoulder. It cocked its head, stared, only an inch from Billy’s wide eyes, and hooted out, “Who?”

And the merriment erupted again, Billy joining in this time. Brielle slapped her daughter playfully on the shoulder. “Ye told the bird to do that,” she scolded.

Rhiannon bit her lip and turned away, sobbing with laughter.

Ardaz heard the comment. He continued to laugh, but secretly pondered the implications of his sister’s words. Rhiannon told the bird? Was she, then, blessed like her mother?

By the time the meal was finished, Billy and the bear had become great friends—though the bear kept sticking its paw into the honey on Billy’s plate—to the continued merriment of them all. Rhiannon, more comfortable with each passing
second, grabbed the hand of Arien. “Dance with me,” she begged, a plea the elf-king had no intention of ignoring.

And they danced and sang, all of them, and the animals and the forest itself joined in their song. They called to the stars and were answered; they whispered to an unseen loon and heard its long, mournful cry in response.

And when the night had passed its midpoint, a bright light, colored as a rainbow, appeared in the middle of the field, near the table. Ardaz and the others looked at Brielle, but the witch had no answers for them.

The light spun and swirled and took on a vaguely humanoid shape. Then it was gone, and where it had been stood a white-bearded man, his face wizened with age, his old bent body bedecked in a flowing white robe and the pointed cap of a mage.

“Istaahl!” Brielle and Ardaz cried in unison.

“I see that I am late,” the White Mage of Pallendara, the great human settlement far to the south, said with a bow. “My many apologies.”

“But ye said ye could not be attendin’,” Brielle replied.

“Yes, for it is the celebration of the equinox in Pallendara, you know.” He winked at the others. “But mortal men simply do not know how to throw a proper party. Most of them are already snoring comfortably in their beds.

“Or in someone else’s bed,” he whispered and winked as if he had revealed some great secret.

Rhiannon blushed and looked away, and Ardaz snickered in amusement.

“But the night is only half through,” Brielle said, casting him a stern glance that reminded him to keep his bawdy remarks to himself in the presence of her innocent daughter.

“Yes, well,” stammered Istaahl. “Their merrymaking nears its end; I will not be missed.”

“And how are your old bones?” Ardaz asked the
new-comer. “Mine will creak and groan in the morning, I do dare say!”

“Truly you are old beyond your centuries, Silver Mage,” Istaahl teased. “But I have the vigor of springtime yet in my step.”

“And truly you wag your tongue, White One. That you do, that you do,” Ardaz countered. “Idle boasts from idle bodies, I always say.” He jumped up from his seat, a magically enhanced leap that sent him soaring into the air, only to land softly on the other side of the oaken table. “My feet might fly on moonbeams, White One, while yours plod through the mud.”

“Rudy,” Brielle teased her brother, using his original name, the name from the other world before he became Ardaz. “Are me ears hearin’ a challenge?”

“Then back to the dance!” demanded Ardaz and Istaahl, the two oldest of friends, together.

The celebration took on a new depth for Rhiannon with the arrival of Istaahl. He was the wizard of the court of King Benador in Pallendara, the greatest city in all the world, set on the southern shores of Ynis Aielle, and whenever he happened by the forest of Avalon, he filled Rhiannon’s ears with tales of the world beyond, with tales of the rolling plains of Calva and the ways of the good King Benador and his people. The young woman danced with the White Mage often, prompting him continually for songs of the wide world.

Brielle watched her daughter with growing concern.

“You protect her too closely,” Ardaz whispered into his sister’s ear, seeing her scowl. “She is a young woman now, and wants to learn of things beyond the borders of your domain.

“Blessed as it may be,” he added quickly, seeing Brielle’s glare.

“Never I do!” Brielle countered. “I let ye all in whenever ye might want to be in. Ye’re all me guests right now!”

“All?” chuckled Ardaz, glancing around at the five others who made up the celebration. “Where are the rest of Arien’s people, the half-thousand merry elves of Illuma Vale barely two miles from your front door?”

“Too much trouble for a simple party,” Brielle replied. “I’d’ve not bothered them so.”

“Bothered them?” Ardaz’s laughter mocked the witch. “They would have jumped, dear sister, at any invitation the fair Brielle might have extended to them. You know it, too. Yes you do, yes you do! And the rangers! Bellerian’s rangers. Walking the boughs of Avalon, back and again, back and again, back and again …” He got lost in the web of his own words for just a moment, then snapped his fingers as he got his train of thought back on its rails. “Just looking for a peek at you, they are, or your enchanting little girl! No no, Jenny, it’s not for the bother you keep them away. It’s for Rhiannon. Or more for yourself, I do dare say!”