Robert Salvatore: Mortalis

He was a beast now as often as a man, consumed by the power of the tiger's paw gemstone that had somehow become a part of his very being. He understood it now to be a curse, and surely no blessing, for no longer could he control the urges of the hunting and hungry cat. He survived by killing, pure and simple. Deer, rabbits, and, when he could find no alternative, feasting on the flesh and blood of humans.

He knew that he was sinking, that the creature was consuming him, mind and soul.

But not in body. Nay, it seemed as if another gemstone, the hematite ring he had taken from a merchant in Palmaris, had also found its way to De'Unnero's wretched being. He should have died from the wounds he had received on that day when he had been chased out of Palmaris, for several of the arrows had struck him in vital areas. He had spent days pulling out the arrowheads, the extraction on several occasions followed by a gush of blood that had left him weak and even unconscious.

But every time, he had reawakened, his wounds healed. The soul stone would not let him die!

And truly, at that time, all that Marcalo De'Unnero wanted was to die, to be released from the bonds of the weretiger, to be freed of this hellish prison his own body had become for him.

He had even considered going to the shrine of Avelyn. He didn't fear the plague-nay, he knew somehow that it could not affect him-but he wondered if this covenant he had been hearing repeated excitedly by every person going to or from the Barbacan, this gift of Avelyn, might extend to the curing of his present condition.

In fact, De'Unnero had even started toward the Barbacan on one occasion, but had become sidetracked, for a woman in the caravan on the road north of him had strayed out from the revealing light of the campfire one calm and quiet night.

After his gory feast, De'Unnero understood that he could not continue, that there would be no salvation for him from the likes of saintly Avelyn Desbris.

So he melted back into the forest, back to the west and the wilder lands, where deer were more plentiful and human flesh harder to find.

It went on through the seasons and the years, until the spring of God's Year 834. The previous spring had brought only thin lines of pilgrims-so few, in fact, that Abbot Braumin had returned to his duties at St. Precious and many of the monks along the northern road had been dismissed back to their respective abbeys-and by all the reports coming out of the southland, fewer still would make the journey this year.

The plague had been beaten, it seemed, and so, with mixed emotions, Jilseponie and Bradwarden left their post at Mount Aida and returned to the lands they knew so well, the Timberlands and Dundalis.

Jilseponie lingered a long time at Elbryan's cairn before going into the town. She went to Oracle there, and found that Elbryan's spirit was with her. For the first time in years, she was not Jilseponie but Pony. Just Pony: the girl who had grown up in the region beside Elbryan, who had taken such a strange and roundabout journey to get to this place in her life.

She stayed with the spirit of her lost husband for a long, long time, and it was late into the evening when she at last emerged. Bradwarden was nowhere about, but she could hear his piping distantly on the evening breeze.

So reminiscent of those long-ago days.

She found Dundalis larger than when she had left it, with many of the pilgrims deciding to remain there rather than march all the way back to their southern homes. The other towns of the region-and all along the south road to and including Palmaris-also boasted of many, many newcomers, so many, in fact, that Palmaris' population was now estimated as larger than it had been before the plague had begun to claim victims there.

Fellowship Way in Dundalis was a bustling place now, always full of patrons; and the cheers that greeted Pony when she walked through the door that spring night resounded as loudly as any she had heard at the previous Fellowship Way, one of Palmaris' busiest taverns.

She found Belster behind the bar along with Roger. Dainsey was working tables-whenever her toddler son was asleep enough for her to slip out to the front of the establishment and do some work.

"Can you take a break from the work?" Pony asked the trio after the greeting and tearful hugs.

Belster nodded to a couple of patrons, who quickly stepped into place serving the customers, and Pony led the three into the back room.

"Good to have ye back," Belster remarked.

"For a short while only," Pony replied, and she let her gaze drift from person to person. "I am going to Palmaris," she announced, "to accept King Danube's offer."

"Baroness Pony? " Dainsey said with a great and joyful laugh.

"Baroness Jilseponie," she corrected.

"What about yer Church friends?" Belster asked. "They're busy makin' Avelyn a saint now-should be done this very year-and are hopin' to open a new chapel in Caer Tinella. I'm thinkin' that Braumin's wantin' ye to head that chapel, girl, or at least to join with him in his Church."

Pony shook her head throughout the speech. "They will understand," she insisted. "I can do more good for the teachings of Avelyn as a secular leader than if I went into the Church, where I would have to fight every day for my survival in any position of power merely because I am a woman."

She looked to Roger mostly, for support, because he, above all others except for Bradwarden, knew her the best. And he was nodding and smiling.

This was the right course for her.

"I will have a place at Chasewind Manor for Belster," Pony promised, "and for Roger and Dainsey."

"And Bryan," Dainsey put in with an impish grin.

"Bryan?" Pony started to ask, and then, given the expressions worn by both Roger and Dainsey, she understood. Again came the hugs; and then Dainsey, leading Pony by the hand to the back room where little Bryan slept peacefully, detailed every moment of the child's birth and life thus far.

Jilseponie Wyndon left Dundalis a month later, after having sent word ahead to Palmaris requesting that King Danube honor his word and give the city to her as baroness. By the time she arrived in the city, Duke Tetrafel had long-and gladly-vacated Chasewind Manor.

Brynn Dharielle thought she had him beaten, a clever twist-thrustdisengage-and-thrust-again movement that seemed as if it had young Aydrian caught off balance.

But the disengage cut both ways, and as Brynn's slender blade knifed in for a low strike, Aydrian's slapped down atop it, driving the point to the ground. A twist of the wrist had the boy's sword tip at Brynn's throat.

"Finally," Aydrian said, for this was his first victory over the older ranger-in-training, a warrior the Touel'alfar regarded very highly. "Remarkable progress," Lady Dasslerond said to Belli'mar Juraviel, the two of them standing in the brush off to the side, unseen by the combatants. "His work is even more promising than that of young Brynn."

Juraviel nodded, finding it hard to disagree, given what had just happened on the field before them. He didn't know much of Aydrian, hadn't spent time with the boy, but from what he had heard, the child was possessed of an enormous amount of pride, and more than a bit of a temper. Those factors seemed to bother Lady Dasslerond not at all, though, for whenever Juraviel had mentioned them to her, or anything at all negative about the youngest ranger, she had merely labeled it "passion," and had gone about her business.

"It is time to begin the other side of his training," Lady Dasslerond remarked then, catching Juraviel off his guard.

"The gemstones?" he asked hesitantly.

Dasslerond nodded. "With the inclusion of magical prowess, he will become the most complete warrior the world has ever known," she said. "Greater than his father, greater than the original Aydrian, and greater even than Terranen Dinoniel."