Robert Salvatore - Mortalis

"Brother Dellman," Abbot Haney remarked, before the man could gain any momentum.

Dellman relented and nodded, understanding that his friend was as pained by all this as he was.

They stood facing each other quietly for a long while.

"I am leaving the abbey," Brother Dellman announced. "I cannot suffer this. Will you give me a soul stone? "

Abbot Haney smiled and turned his stare to the room's only window. He couldn't even see out of it from his angle, for the opening was narrow and the surrounding stone wall thick; and even if he could have seen through it, the view was of nothing but the trees of the hills behind St. Belfour. But Haney didn't actually have to see outside to view the scene in his mind.

"Do not leave the abbey," he said quietly.

"I must," said Dellman, shaking his head slowly and deliberately.

"Ye canno' suffer this," said Haney, "nor can I. Don't ye leave the abbey, for we'll soon throw wide our gates and let the sufferers in."

Dellman's eyes widened with shock, still shaking his head, even more forcefully now at this unexpected and frightening proclamation. "Th-this is something I must do," he stammered, not wanting to drag his brethren down his own chosen path of doom. "I did not mean…"

"Are ye thinkin' that I'm not hearin' their cries? " Haney asked.

"But the other brothers…"

"Will be gettin' a choice," Haney explained. "I'll tell them me plans, and tell them there's no dishonor in takin' a boat I'm charterin' for the south, for the safety o' St.-Mere-Abelle. Let them go who will-they'll be welcomed well enough by Abbot Agronguerre in the big abbey. And for St. Belfour, we'll make her a house o' healin'. Or oftryin', at least." He rose from his seat and came around the desk, nodding his head for every shake that Dellman gave of his. When he got close to the man, Dellman broke down, falling over Haney and wrapping him in a hug of appreciation and relief. For Holan Dellman was truly terrified, and Haney's bold decision had just lent him strength when he most needed it.

"You should not be here, my friend," Prince Midalis said to Andacanavar when the ranger arrived unexpectedly at Pireth Vanguard. "Our fears have come true: the plague is thick about the land. Run north to your home, my friend, to the clean air ofAlpinador."

"Not so clean," Andacanavar said gravely, and Midalis understood.

"I have no answers for you," he replied. "We have recipes for salves and the like that will ease the suffering, so it is said, but they'll not cure the plague."

"Perhaps the winter, then," Andacanavar said. "Perhaps the cold of winter will drive the plague from our lands."

Prince Midalis nodded hopefully and supportively, but he knew the grim truth of the rosy plague, and he suspected that the fierce Alpinadoran weather would only make the plague even more terrible for those suffering from it.

She went at the plague again, and was again overwhelmed. She tried different gemstone combinations-and many of the previous ones-and was again and again overwhelmed. They used the salves and the syrups and their prayers, all to little or no avail. Pony quickly came to realize that she would not save Dainsey, and also strongly suspected that this infection, so brutal and complete, would be the one to get her, that her attempts with Dainsey would spell her doom. And yet she understood that she could not stop trying. Every time she looked at Roger's heartbroken expression, she knew that she had to try.

One evening after her latest miserable attempt, the exhausted Pony rode Greystone out of Dundalis to the north, to the grove and the little hollow she used for Oracle. She was going to Elbryan this night, as much to inform him that she believed she might soon be joining him as to garner any particular insights. She just needed his spirit at that moment, needed to know in her heart that he was close to her.

Such a dark night was coming on by the time she got to the hollow that Pony had to set a candle just outside the opening, using its meager light to give her enough of a view of the mirror to recognize the shadowy images within that other realm. She sat back and half closed her eyes, her focus solely on the mirror, her heart leaping out in a plaintive call to her Elbryan. And then she was comforted, for he was there, in the cave with her.

And then she was confused, for Elbryan's shadowy silhouette faded, replaced by another indistinct image, one that Pony could not make out for a long, long while.

And then it came clearer to her, combining with memories of a long-ago time in a faraway place.

Avelyn's hand.

"She's clear to the stream, and that's where ye should be settin' yer camp," Bradwarden said to Pony.

"And you will look beyond it tonight, while I am at work with Dainsey?" the woman asked.

The centaur gave her a scowl. "Ye get yerself some sleep tonight," he demanded. "Ye been runnin' yerself straight for the five days since we left Dundalis. Ye got Symphony tired, and that's not a thing I've seen done before."

Pony started to argue, but wound up just nodding her head, for his words were true. She had gone straight back to Dundalis after her vision at Oracle, had roused Roger and Dainsey, and then had gone out from the town, sending her thoughts wide and far for Symphony, magnificent Symphony, the only horse in all the world strong enough to get her and Dainsey to the Barbacan and Mount Aida in time to save poor Dainsey.

The horse had come to her almost immediately, as if he had been waiting for this very moment, as if Symphony-with that intelligence that was not human but seemed in so many ways to be beyond human-had known that he and Pony would make this journey.

Perhaps that was exactly it, Pony dared to believe. Symphony had been intimately connected to both Elbryan and Avelyn through the turquoise gemstone. Perhaps those same spirits that had imparted the image to Pony at Oracle had done the same to Symphony through the continuing magic of the turquoise.

Pony had to believe that, for the sake of Dainsey and of herself and of all the world.

They had set out that same night-and wasn't Roger heartbroken when Pony explained without room for debate that he would not be joining them, that Greystone, for all his strength and desire, could not begin to match the pace they needed to set with Symphony. Two days north of Dundalis, Pony had found unexpected assistance when they had come upon Bradwarden; and the centaur, with the strength and stamina of a horse and the intelligence of a human, had agreed to scout the fields and trails ahead of them long into each night, then report back to her on the best and fastest course.

And how swiftly Symphony, though carrying both Pony and Dainsey, had run that course. Pony had aided Symphony's effort with the malachitemagically lightening the load-and with the hematite-spirit-walking and leaching some of the strength from creatures, deer mostly, along the road, then imparting it to the stallion. Now, five days out, they had covered hundreds of miles. The ring of mountains that marked the Barbacan was already in sight.

It was a good thing, too, Pony knew. For though she had spent every night with Dainsey, using the soul stone to try to beat back the edges of the encroaching plague, and though she had coated the woman in salve, Dainsey was nearing her bitter end. She couldn't even reply to Pony anymore, spent her days and nights in delirium. Her eyes rolled open and closed, unseeing; her words, when she said anything, were jumbled and confused. Dainsey could die at any moment, Pony knew; so she could only pray that the woman would live long enough to get to the flattened top of Mount Aida, and that Pony's interpretation of the vision would prove correct.

The thought of going back to Roger with news that Dainsey had died nearly broke her heart.