Robert Salvatore - Mortalis

Besides, she didn't disagree with him. There were indeed fates worse than death.

She helped Bradwarden to get Dainsey in place on his strong back, and then she climbed up behind her.

"All this time, you have helped, but from a safe distance," Pony observed. "Why now? "

"Because I trust ye, girl," the centaur admitted. "And if ye're thinkin' that ye can heal the plague at the arm, and if ye're hearin' that from Avelyn and Nightbird themselves, then who might I be to be arguin'?"

Pony considered the words and merely shrugged.

"I'll keep it as smooth as I can," the centaur promised.

"She is feeling nothing," Pony replied. "Speed is more urgent than comfort. Fly on!"

And Bradwarden did just that, pounding along trails that he knew all too well. He came down the side of the Barbacan ring, onto the expanse leading to Mount Aida, fields growing thick with new grasses after the devastation of Avelyn's fight against Bestesbulzibar. Then up, up, went Bradwarden, running along familiar trails.

"I'll be coming up on the south face," he explained. "It's a quicker run to the plateau, but I'll not be able to get up the last climb to the place with ye." "I may need you there," Pony remarked.

"And I'll join ye as soon as I can get meself to the other side," Bradwarden promised.

On they went. They came to places where Pony had to dismount and run along beside, and one cliff where Pony found the strength to use the malachite, levitating both Bradwarden and Dainsey up behind her and saving many hundreds of yards of winding trail.

"Off ye go," the centaur announced, skidding to a stop when they arrived at the last expanse. Pony brought Dainsey around, and Bradwarden hoisted her seemingly lifeless form up over the short rise, laying her atop the flat plateau, then helping Pony up beside her.

"I will get you up with malachite," the woman started to say, but Bradwarden waved the notion away.

"I'll be joinin' ye soon enough," he explained. "Ye save yer strength for Dainsey's last fight." And he turned and thundered away, along the trails that would bring him to the other side of the plateau and an easier route to the top.

Pony turned and stared at the mummified arm ofAvelyn Desbris, standing strong out of the very rock of the blasted mountain. In the final explosion that had destroyed the mountaintop and the physical form of Bestesbulzibar, Avelyn had thrust that arm skyward, holding Tempest and the bag of gemstones for his friends to find. For some reason that Pony did not understand, that arm had not rotted, nor had the continual wind worn it away. It appeared just as she had found it those years before, without the sword or the stones, and she couldn't deny the comfort she felt in merely viewing it.

She gathered up Dainsey in her arms and walked over to the arm, laying the woman on the ground gently before it.

Now what?

Pony knelt before the arm and began to pray, to Avelyn, to Elbryan, to anyone who would give her the answers. Before her, Dainsey continued to squirm uncomfortably, fighting against the seemingly inevitable end.

Pony prayed harder. She took out her soul stone and fell into its magic, then soared boldly into the rot that was Dainsey Aucomb. Might she find better results here, in this sacred place?

Pony attacked.

And was beaten back.

"No!" she cried when she came out of the gemstone trance, sitting on the ground helplessly before Dainsey, who was now writhing in the very last moments of her life. "No! It cannot have been a lie!"

"This is my covenant with you," came a voice behind her, and Pony whirled about-to see a young monk, Romeo Mullahy, standing behind her.

But he was dead! Had died in this very place, throwing himself from the rocks rather than accept capture at the hands of Father Abbot Markwart.

Pony stammered a few incomprehensible syllables. "Whosoever tastes the blood of my palm shall know no fear from the rosy plague," Mullahy said.

Pony reached for the man-and her hand went right through him! It was Romeo Mullahy, his ghost at least, and he was far less than corporeal!

Pony played back his words desperately.

"But ye're dead!" came a cry from farther back, Bradwarden climbing onto the plateau.

Pony looked at Mullahy's insubstantial hands for the blood.

"I spoke for Avelyn," he explained. "This is the covenant ofAvelyn."

Pony snapped her gaze back to the mummified hand, to see, to her surprise and her delight, that there was indeed a reddish liquid upon the palm.

Dainsey cried out then, as Death reached for her. Pony reacted faster, reaching down and lifting her face to Avelyn's hand, pressing Dainsey's lips against the palm.

The effect was immediate and stunning, for Dainsey went limp but not in death. No, far from that, Pony knew; Dainsey was-so suddenly-more comfortable than she had been in many days!

Pony laid her down gently before the arm, then she, too, leaned in and kissed the bloody palm-and that blood seemed not to diminish in the least.

She felt the warmth all through her body, and knew then for certain that she had contracted the plague from her work with Dainsey, that it was within her, beginning to gather strength.

But no longer. Pony felt that implicitly.

Whosoever tastes the blood of my palm shall know no fear from the rosy plague.

Pony looked down at Dainsey, who was resting and breathing easily. She glanced back to Romeo Mullahy, but the ghost was already gone, its message delivered.

Bradwarden came up to her.

"Ye got blood on yer lips," he remarked.

"Avelyn's," Pony tried to explain, shaking her head. "The taste of his blood grants freedom from the plague, so said-"

"The ghost of Mullahy," the centaur finished. "I seen him jump meself, back then when Markwart and King Danube came to catch us. Hit them rocks hard."

"How can it be?" Pony asked.

Bradwarden laughed aloud, shaking his head with every rolling bellow. "I'm not for disbelievin' anythin' comin' out o' that arm," he said, and then he paused for a moment, staring from Pony to the still-bloody hand. "Are ye goin' to take some with ye, then? "

Pony, too, looked at the hand. "I cannot," she explained, and indeed, in her heart, she knew. She understood all of it now. " It is the blood and it is this place." "What're ye thinkin'?" Bradwarden asked suspiciously. "We're a long way from yer homeland."

Pony just turned a determined look his way.

"That Mullahy ghost tell ye that? "

"No," Pony answered with perfect calm. "The spirit of Avelyn did, just now."

Bradwarden and Pony stared at each other for a long while, then the centaur came in low and kissed the bloody hand.

Symphony ran as never before, bearing Pony straight to the souti thundering down the roads to Dundalis. Bradwarden carried Dainse now, who was recovering with each passing minute, but the cental couldn't begin to pace Symphony and Pony. Even when Symphony ha been carrying both women on the trip to the Barbacan, Bradwarden had t run on much longer each night to keep up.

But Pony couldn't wait for her two friends. Now that she knew Dainsey t be out of danger and was confident that no goblins would surprise the cur ning centaur, her purpose shifted to the wider world, to all the plague vie tims who had to know the truth ofAvelyn's arm. A thousand variables rollei about in Pony's head. Would her newfound immunity against the plagui allow her to begin a general healing process throughout the southland:

Would plague sufferers begin to make the pilgrimage to the wild Barbacan! How would Pony protect them from monsters and animals, from th‹ weather as the season turned to winter? And what of food? Would she offei blind hope to thousands only to have them starve on the road to the north?