R. Salvatore: The Witch_s Daughter

“Never!” Thalasi hissed, but the words lacked conviction. Even at the height of his power, Morgan Thalasi had never been able to accomplish such complete destruction as the explosion of Grok. The energy that had ripped the unfortunate talon to tiny pieces had flowed through the broken limbs of the battered body of the Black Warlock pure and powerful.

Too powerful.

I know that I was part of the execution, Thalasi thought, surrendering the taxing control of the mouth, a calmness sweeping over him. He had felt the power surge, familiar from the days before he had joined with Reinheiser. But although he had been part of the being that issued the explosive blast, he had been only one part.

And yet, somehow, not a part at all, as if the result of the combination of the two spirits, joined by the threat of the talon, had been a completely new being, something greater than both of them.

Yet I know and admit that it was beyond me, Thalasi continued, asking as much as explaining.

What, then? Reinheiser prompted, equally uncertain.

Unity, Thalasi answered him. Did you feel it? Of course you felt it, and you know the truth. It was neither Reinheiser nor Thalasi that sundered the flesh of Grok.

Both, Reinheiser completed the thought.

They did not have to consciously communicate to know that they continued to entertain similar thoughts and emotions. How good that moment of power had felt! Like freedom. The promise of strength beyond anything either of them would have believed possible hovered about them, a dangling carrot.

If they could only reach out and grab it!

Snap the fingers of the left hand, Thalasi begged Reinheiser. Join me in this action.

Reinheiser willed the hand to move. It rose up in front of the face, trembling through every inch of the ascent. Both spirits ignored the pain, focused solely on the task at hand. Thumb and middle finger moved tentatively, their tips resting together.

They crossed and twisted as the arm bulged in discordant pain. Desperately trying to retrieve that moment of ecstasy, the two wills frantically pulled at the fingers, ordering them to their task. Muscles knotted and tore, a new bruise erupted in the wrist. Still the spirits fought on to accomplish this simplest of tasks. But more stubborn than their willpower was the impossibility of harmony. Despite all their efforts, the fingers trembled uselessly.

The mouth opened again in a silent scream of frustration.

“Blew ’im to little bits, ’e did!” Burgle said to the gathered crowd. “I seen it, I tell ye! Never hopin’ to see it again, neither!”

“Bah, yer words is spit, is all,” said another, a large, burly talon that had served as one of Grok’s lieutenants and had been expecting a position of authority once Grok took care of the feeble human.

“Burgle’s tellin’ ye right!” cried yet another. “I seen the room. Bits an’ blood liken a wars was foughted.”

“Proves nothin’!” yelled the lieutenant.

“Then where’s Grok?” Burgle retorted. He turned toward the tower to accentuate his next point. “An’ why’s the Thalasi still sittin’ at home?”

A dozen misshapen talon heads followed Burgle’s gaze to regard the high black wall of Talas-dun.

There would be no more threats to the Black Warlock this day or any day soon.

No use, Reinheiser thought at length. Too many actions are involved in every motion. We cannot hope to synchronize our thought patterns so completely.

Are we doomed, then? replied Thalasi. Doomed in this living hell?

So it would seem.

“No!” This time Thalasi’s reply came out audibly, as his frustration momentarily wrenched the mouth to his sole possession. Reinheiser recovered quickly, before Thalasi could utter any more words without obstruction.

Get out! Thalasi’s will demanded. The muscles of the torn body heaved to action again, took up their fight.

Reinheiser’s reply caught Thalasi completely out of sorts. Always before, Reinheiser had met the challenge with equal vigor, demanding that Thalasi get out and return the corporeal body to its rightful owner. This time, though, Reinheiser issued no challenges or demands.

Are we to endure the agony of our battle again? Reinheiser asked calmly.

The will of Thalasi relented, and the body slumped back to the stone chair. It felt so good, he lamented.

The power, added Reinheiser. Never have I felt such power!

But how? Thalasi wondered.

Defense, answered Reinheiser. The critical moment, it would seem, incited emotions too powerful for the discord of our wills. The critical moment brought us harmony.

Harmony, Thalasi mused. Yes, and how wonderful it was. A moment later he sent the word back to Reinheiser once again, this time as a question. Harmony?

Reinheiser did not understand, though he sensed from Thalasi’s growing excitement that an idea had suddenly occurred to his counterpart.

Harmony, Thalasi thought again, more insistently. Music.

What do you mean?

Thalasi wasn’t sure if he was grasping at straws, if in his desperation false hopes were floating through his mind. Music, harmony .

Still Reinheiser did not understand.

There is a place in the loft of the central tower, Thalasi explained. A place where emotion overrides conscious thought. Help me, I beg you, to get our broken body there.

Reinheiser shut his thoughts off from Thalasi for a long moment, considering the possibilities of his counterpart’s vague hints. Was this just another one of Morgan Thalasi’s devious tricks? Was there a weapon up in this loft, a magic unknown to him, Reinheiser, that Thalasi could use to drive his will from his own body, to fully possess the mortal form they both now inhabited?

Help me! Thalasi pleaded. We must attain harmony; I must feel that surge of power again.

The lure was simply too great, and the alternative too grim, for Reinheiser to decline. Slowly, painfully, the body rose from the throne and stumbled to the door.

Dozens of yellow talon eyes fixed upon the crawling progress of the Black Warlock, wondering how one so obviously feeble could exude such unspeakable power. But if they needed any reminders to keep them in line as the dual being that was the new Black Warlock inched his pitiful way across the stone floor of Talas-dun, all they had to do was glance through the open doors of the Throne Room.

To the gory puddle that had once been Grok.

FAR FROM THE gloom of Kored-dul, winter’s last sunset sparkled across the sylvan boughs of magical Avalon. The forest teemed with life, shaking off the sleepy mantle of the snowy months in a burst of joyful vitality. Songbirds heralded the end of the day, and the animals of the night stirred in their quiet dens.

A chill wind blew down from the Crystal Mountains, a reminder of the season past, but its bite was not so sharp. Spring had come early to the wood this year.

Near the eastern borders of the great forest, in a wide field protected from the north winds by walls of towering evergreens, a young woman watched the darkening sky breathlessly for the first starlight. And when it twinkled into view, she smiled in contentment and broke into her carefree dance, the dance of Rhiannon.

“Be knowing that me eyes are better for seeing such a sight,” said Bellerian, the venerable Ranger Lord. He stood off to the side of the field, under the boughs of a wide pine.

The wizard Ardaz, gray-haired and with a bristling beard, sniffled and wiped the wetness from his eyes, drawing an exchange of smiles between Bellerian and the third person in the group, a woman of beauty beyond the realm of mortals. “Me brother’s a sentimental sort,” Brielle explained to the Ranger Lord.

“Twenty!” Ardaz cried. “Just a day, I know it was just a day ago that I held the little babe in my arms. Look at her now! A woman! I do dare say!”