R. Salvatore - Bastion of Darkness

But she found no channel, no access at all.

“A small trick I learned,” the deep voice of the wretched wraith came. With great difficulty, Rhiannon managed to turn her head enough to regard the ugly creature.

“I find many valuable assets with this form that my old friend gave to me,” Mitchell said, and it seemed to the witch as if he was trying to smile, and that only made him seem all the more grotesque.

“No friend’d ever…” Rhiannon began, but her words were lost before they ever gained momentum, as the wraith walked, glided, over to stand beside her, his smirk more unnerving than any howl of anger, than any growled threat. For in that misshapen smirk, Rhiannon recognized true confidence. The wraith had taken a full measure of her in their battle, and he knew now, beyond any doubt, that he was the stronger.

He continued to look down upon her, to smirk at her, to belittle her. “Who are you?” he demanded at last.

The young witch mustered up all the defiance she could find, wrenched against the sticky black filaments, and looked away.

Almost immediately those black filaments tightened about her, choking her, crushing her, squeezing every part of her body so tightly that she was sure they were halting the blood flow! Rhiannon looked back at the wraith and saw the monster standing there, eyes closed, fist clenching-and that fist, Rhiannon knew, was clenching the bonds, as if they were some half-substantial extension of the wraith’s fury.

No, the witch realized, not half-substantial, for surely they were squeezing the very life out of her.

“Rhiannon,” she gasped, and the wraith’s hand relaxed, and so did the bonds.

“I have little patience, young fool,” Mitchell said in that awful resonant voice. “There are greater foes than you yet to be murdered.”

Rhiannon set her jaw firmly and determined to die bravely-she held little doubt that the wraith would kill her, but this evil thing would get no important information from her. She told herself resolutely that it would kill her whatever she did, whatever she said, and so the less she said, the better for those friends she left behind.

“It is obvious that you are of Avalon,” Mitchell reasoned. “Your magic, at least, holds the same flavor as that of another I know, though yours is not nearly as powerful.” His cackling laughter belittled her even more, though Rhiannon wasn’t certain of the truth of that last statement. She could only suppose that this monster had previously battled with her mother, before her duel with Thalasi, before Thalasi had reached too far and weakened the very realm of magic.

“I had thought you Brielle’s sister, perhaps,” the wraith went on. “A cousin, at the least, for there is indeed a resemblance.” He snorted derisively, his black breath seeming a tangible cloud before his ugly, pallid face. “In foul temperament as well as in appearance!

“But you did call out to Brielle, you see,” the wraith teased. “In the last moments before I caught you, when you were but a feeble bird. You called out for your mother, and so you are the witch’s daughter, Avalon’s daughter! Of that I have little doubt, and that, my dear Rhiannon, makes the kill all the sweeter! Wretched offspring of wretched witch.”

“And if I be that?” Rhiannon said defiantly, not disagreeing, for she understood that the wraith was not probing for confirmation to its suspicions, but was telling her what it knew to be the truth. The not-stupid creature had figured out her lineage, and she would never find the heart, or the wherewithal, to change its thoughts.

“Brielle’s child,” the wraith answered, “and in killing you, I am destroying Brielle’s heart.”

“Might that I am, and might that I’m not,” she said coolly, though inside, the young witch was surely terrified.

“Might?” the wraith echoed skeptically, and again came that demeaning chortle. “You are, Rhiannon…” Mitchell paused as he uttered that name, for he knew that name, from somewhere.

“Rhiannon,” the wraith said again, rolling out the syllables. Yes, Mitchell knew that name, from another time, another place, another world.

Rhiannon… an old song about a witch.

“Rhiannon,” the wraith said again, eying the bound woman directly. “And do you ring like a bell through the night?”

The young witch returned a perplexed look, and the wraith bellowed hysterically.

“Daughter of Brielle and of what sire?” the cunning wraith asked. “Or do you even know, so likely it is that your mother has bedded half the northern folk.”

The insult would have been lost on the innocent young woman had it not been for Mitchell’s biting tone. Rhiannon narrowed her eyes and tried again to reach into the realm of magic, but that only caused the smoky bonds to tighten further, squeezing the thoughts from her mind.

“I had a companion when I first came to Ynis Aielle,” the wraith went on, clarifying his own reasoning as he spoke. “Another of the ancient ones, for yes,” he added quickly, seeing the spark of recognition in Rhiannon’s blue eyes, “I was of that select group. My old friend, this companion, Jeffrey DelGiudice by name, was quite fond of your mother, and she of him, I believe.”

“No friend o’ yers!” Rhiannon blurted, and surely she tried to take back the words as soon as she spat them.

There it was. Mitchell knew without any doubt, from the vehemence of her protest, if nothing else. She appeared to be the right age, since the Battle of Mountaingate had occurred about a score of years before. And she bore a name that came straight out of that other world, that world before Ynis Aielle, the world that Jeffrey DelGiudice knew. Rhiannon was Brielle’s daughter, as she was the daughter of Jeffrey DelGiudice! Until that moment, the wraith had thought that its worst enemy in all the world was the ranger Belexus; until that very moment, Hollis Mitchell had almost forgotten about his former companion, the man who had throttled his plans for glory on the field of Mountaingate, the man whom the wraith hated above all others, whom he had hated in life, and so, too, now in death. He almost lashed out then, with his undead touch, with his deadly mace, to utterly destroy this offspring of that man.

But Mitchell calmed, and quickly. There was too much yet to be done, too many enemies yet to face. DelGiudice had not shown himself in the last war; the Black Warlock, as much Martin Reinheiser as Morgan Thalasi, had not mentioned the man at all, yet surely, if DelGiudice were still alive, the Black Warlock would have seen him as a prime threat. Too many questions flitted about the wraith’s thoughts, and Mitchell was cunning enough to find a bit of patience. He scooped Rhiannon up under one arm, and how she thrashed! And Mitchell allowed her that, even more, by loosening up the filaments, so that he could enjoy the tangible proof of her complete terror. Of course, her writhing did nothing to weaken the powerful wraith’s grip, and baggage in tow, Mitchell started away, thoughts swirling, trying to formulate some plan of action.

Most of all, the wraith understood that he had to move quickly. Rhiannon was Brielle’s daughter, and they were too close to Avalon for comfort. And so, with his most valuable prisoner in tow, the wraith made a straight run to the west, toward the Kored-dul Mountains, toward the bastion of blackness known as Talas-dun.

The sharp edge of a broken stone brought him back to his senses. He tried to move away from the stabbing pain, but found instead a hundred hurts along every part of his body. As far as he remembered, he had been hit only once, and that a glancing blow, but apparently he had landed in a bad way. Worse yet, there loomed a coldness within him, colder than the winter, a creeping chill that he suspected was eating away at his very life force. Wicked indeed was the bone mace of the wraith.