R. Salvatore: The Witch_s Daughter

“But enough,” the wizard said, rising straight in his saddle and pulling out a long oaken staff. “I’ve business in the east, of course-and no tricks by you!” he added quickly before the flustered Andovar could put his thoughts in. Ardaz mumbled some arcane chants into his horse’s ear, and the beast perked up, snorting anxiously to be off at a gallop.

“Good-bye and farewell!” Ardaz said to the three. “A busy summer sits before me.” He stopped and snapped his fingers as if he suddenly remembered something, then reached under his robes.

“Grrr,” came a muffled reply to his intrusion.

“Oh, silly puss,” Ardaz huffed, rubbing the newest of many scratches on his hand. He reached back into his robe more forcefully and pulled Desdemona from her catnapping slumbers. “Go now!” he demanded, and to the astonishment of his companions, he threw the cat high into the air.

Desdemona shrieked in protest, but her cry was transformed into the excited caw of a raven as the cat shifted into her avian state and flew off ahead of the wizard.

“Got to light a fire under them sometimes,” the wizard explained to the others.

“She likes her sleep,” Rhiannon agreed.

“But she likes the adventures more,” Ardaz replied. “You just have to remind her of that sometimes.”

High overhead, Desdemona squawked out a complaint at the wizard’s delay.

“Well, good-bye again,” Ardaz said to them. “And have a fine summer. I will return to the north before winter. Or maybe I won’t. One can never tell about such things. But I will return, I do dare say.”

“With new tales to tell?” Rhiannon asked hopefully.

The wizard put his arms out wide. “One never knows when one might walk into a tale,” he said, and he kicked his horse off into a blinding run that seemed impossibly swift.

In the springtime sunshine on the peaceful Calvan plain, none of the group, or the wizard himself, could have guessed how prophetic those final words would prove to be.

THEIR ROAD TOOK no definitive course, meandering east away from the river, then north or south to whatever community they could find, only to return eventually to the riverbank. Gradually they moved farther south, but spring was still in the air and they had no need to hurry. At Rhiannon’s request, they spent an entire week in one village, just talking to the farm folk and learning their ways. With her knowledge of nature, Rhiannon had more than a few bits of good advice for them.

And then they went on to the next town, and the next after that, truly an easy-paced holiday. Belexus approved of the comfortable pace; he saw Rhiannon reveling in the many meetings and budding friendships, and he saw something deeper, something wonderful, growing between the witch’s daughter and his ranger friend.

Surely Andovar cared not where they were or where they were going. All that came to matter to him was that Rhiannon was by his side, sharing his adventures and widening his smiles.

And Rhiannon, Belexus was observant enough to know, felt the same way.

They rolled down from the rocks of the Kored-dul like the black clouds of a thunderstorm. Ten thousand strong and hungry for blood came the army of Morgan Thalasi. The master himself led the march, borne in a pillowy litter by four of his largest talon soldiers.

Rain greeted the army as it came down from the mountains onto the dreary beaches of the western shore of Aielle. Unbothered, the single-minded force trudged onward. They would leave the beaches soon enough and turn inland, where their feast awaited.

The master had promised.

But as the group prepared to camp that first night down from their rocky homes, they were met by something more tangible than a gloomy weather front. Facing them, fanning out to encircle the front half of the vast camp, loomed a second army of talons, larger than the force that had accompanied Morgan Thalasi.

Rhiannon continued to become more and more comfortable with each village the threesome crossed, and now she was fully at ease with the strangers they met on their way. The little troupe had been out of Avalon for the better of two months, riding that meandering, though generally southern, course along the edge of the great shining river. As summer came in, though, their excursions to the east grew less frequent, for Belexus had some definite goals in mind for this journey-and he had promised Brielle that he would return Rhiannon to Avalon soon after the summer’s wane. So he set the pace a bit quicker and kept the course straight along the line of the River Ne’er Ending.

Fully pleased in her dealings with other people, even in large numbers, Rhiannon wanted to press right on to Pallendara, the greatest city in all the world. But Belexus held fast to his plan that Pallendara would serve as their final stopover as the season turned to autumn before they turned back toward home. The ranger wanted to cross over the famous Four Bridges and view the western fields, lands he had never journeyed to before.

The green fields of the season’s crop waved in warm breezes over the tilled soil of the wide Calvan farms. Herds of cattle and sheep grazed lazily, for not even the onset of summer could shake the beasts from their perpetual lethargy. Farmers and shepherds greeted the northerners at every stop with friendly smiles and invitations to dinner.

The region had known peace for many years, no monsters threatened the borders, and strangers were a welcome sight. Indeed, the small company could have dined as guests of one farmer or another for every night since they had crossed into the more populated farmlands. But they politely declined more often than they accepted. Their friendship was newly formed, fresh and exciting, and ultimately private. While they enjoyed the company and stories of the Calvans, they enjoyed each other and each other’s stories-a supply still far from exhausted-all the more.

“We’ll be finding more of the same across the water,” Belexus explained to Rhiannon. “The towns’re bigger near the Four Bridges, and scattering out wide far, far to the west.”

“And how far to the west will ye be taking me?”

“Corning,” the ranger explained. “Fair-sized and the second city of Calva.”

“Seven thousand strong,” Andovar added. “But o’ the same flavor as the smaller towns. We’ll make the bridges this very morn, and Corning in two days.”

“How much farther could we go?” Rhiannon asked. “The land’s seeming so wide.”

“Another week of hard riding’d bring us to the western-most borders of Calva,” Belexus replied. “Hardy towns of hardy folk. To go beyond them’d be folly.”

Rhiannon seemed not to understand.

“The dark lands,” the ranger continued. “Home to talons and lizards and beasts darker still. Not for the wise.”

His grave tone passed beyond the young woman. Growing up among the flowers of Avalon, Rhiannon could not understand such evil notions as talons.

Not yet.

“We’ll be wandering about Corning for a week or more,” said Belexus, and he cast a wry glance at the innocent witch’s daughter. “And then ye’ll be seeing Pallendara.”

“Caer Tuatha,” Rhiannon said, using the elven name for the great city. “Istaahl and Uncle Ardaz have told me such grand tales of the place. Suren she’ll be a fine sight if only half their spoutings run to truth.”

“More liken that Pallendara will outweigh the most wonderful o’ their tales,” said Andovar. He had been to the white city only twice since his childhood, but the image had stuck in his head vividly. Pallendara was the only true city of Ynis Aielle, a place of towers and markets, and minstrels-a thousand minstrels! It rested at the tip of a narrow harbor, and the sails of a hundred boats rose up along the sea wall like the bare, jutting tops of a wintry forest.