R. Salvatore - Echoes of the Fourth Magic

Del jumped to his feet, the emotional bonds that held him torn apart by his shock. His mind reeled, blurred by an image of a woman he would keep until the end of his days.

When his thoughts cleared, when he had searched the area and become convinced that the woman was indeed long gone, Del realized that he didn’t know where he was. He had a notion of the general direction of the camp, so he started back, keeping an eye out for landmarks that would jog his memory and lead him true. But whenever he felt that he was making progress, expecting the firelight to come into view with every step, the vision of the woman ebbed back in, muddling his thoughts. Soon he merely wandered aimlessly in the darkness.

Minutes became hours as Del meandered. Luckily, his random path led him in circles, not far away in one direction, and in the deep blue of predawn Belexus and Andovar were upon him.

“DelGiudice!” Andovar cried. “Did ye no’ hear our calls?”

Del looked around reflexively at the sound, but his barely opened eyes did not register the forms of the two men who stood near. He resumed his confused journey, but Belexus sprang in front of him and blocked his path, holding him by the shoulders at arm’s length. Nearly asleep on his feet, and indifferent to what was going on, Del offered no resistance.

“What might be wrong with the man?” Andovar asked.

“I fear an enchantment is upon him,” Belexus replied. He grabbed Del’s chin and tilted his head back so that he could look into his eyes. He waved his hand in front of Del’s face, but the entranced man did not respond. “His eyes are looking somewhere other.

“DelGiudice,” Belexus called softly, and shook Del slightly.

“It’s all right,” Del slurred, “she won’t hurt me.” The startled rangers looked at each other wide-eyed.

“The Lady!” Andovar whispered, barely finding his breath. “Might it be?”

Belexus shrugged uncomfortably and turned back to Del. “DelGiudice!” he shouted as he studied the glazed eyes with new concern, and he shook Del fiercely. The first finger of dawn traced through the trees then, and Del’s eyes popped open, freed of their trance by the light of the morning.

“Belexus,” he said in surprise when he saw the concerned face inches from his own. “Time to go already?”

Andovar rushed to say something, but Belexus stayed him with a wave of his hand.

“Had ye a good sleep?” the ranger asked.

“Wonderful!” Del replied. “Who wouldn’t sleep well in this place?” But then his face crinkled in confusion, some flitting images running on the edge of his consciousness. “I had a strange dream… I think.” More fleeting visions of the dancer flashed about in the recesses of his mind, just out of the straining grasp of his consciousness.

Try as he might, he couldn’t catch them.

“I can’t remember,” he said with a frustrated shrug of his shoulders.

Again the two rangers glanced at each other.

“Where are the others?” Del asked, even more confused as he looked around at the unfamiliar surroundings. “And the horses?”

Belexus pointed in the direction of the camp.

Del decided to look for answers some other time; these minor irregularities hardly seemed important, for right now a more pressing need was upon him. “Then let’s go,” he said, walking away, “I’m starving!”

“By the Colonnae, Belexus, he hus seen her,” Andovar said in a low voice.

“Then suren a blessing light shines on that one,” Belexus replied. “He is indeed a fortunate man.”

The others were awake when the three returned to the camp, Billy and Reinheiser setting up for breakfast while Mitchell sulked against a tree in the distance. Again Del wondered why he hadn’t woken up in the camp. But he didn’t worry much about it, not while his empty stomach called.

They ate a hearty breakfast and were soon back on the trails. Images of the night before skipped in and out of Del’s thoughts, teasingly close but unattainable.

They rode easily across the smooth ground, allowing Mitchell, whose horse still refused to let him ride, to keep up with them. All in all, it seemed a pleasant and quiet morning and they enjoyed the sounds and colors of the wood and the mild breeze of another perfect spring day. Scents of newly bloomed flowers mingled their sweet perfume in a rich collage of natural fragrance in the clean air.

The path wound on and soon the party came to a wide grassy field bordered by thick pines. Instantly Del’s visions returned and the events of the night before began to fall into place. He quick-stepped his mount up between the two rangers.

“This field,” he stammered. “It was in my dream! I came here.” He pointed to the small bluff on the side of the field where he had lain the night before. “Over there. And this beautiful worn-” He paused helplessly, mouth hanging open, eyes wide, as it came clear to him now, all of it. “It wasn’t a dream,” he declared, and he looked at the rangers, searching for some explanation.

“The Lady,” Andovar said with a gleam in his eyes. “Tell me o’ the Lady.”

“Beautiful,” Del answered. “Golden hair and green eyes.” He closed his eyes to focus on the image. “And she had something here.” He put his hand to his forehead. “It shone green in the moonlight.”

“An emerald,” Belexus explained. “Her gem mark, for she is the Emerald Witch.”

“Then it’s true?” Del gasped. “There really is such a person?”

“ ’Tis spoken she can be to every man what most he desires in a woman,” Andovar said. “Ye are o’ the very few to huv seen her.”

“Have you?”

“Not I.”

“Nor I,” Belexus added, “but me father knows her as well as any.”

“Yestereve, I named ye lucky and suren ye are,” Andovar said. “ ’Tis in me heart’n’hopes that I might gaze upon the beauty of the Witch o’ the Wood before me time for leaving this world.”

Del floated in a happy trance the rest of the morning, seeing the wood as many times more beautiful now that the memory of the witch rang clear in his mind. More than once he imagined he saw her slipping behind a tree or dancing in distant shadows. This was her realm, a reflection of her beauty, and her magical presence pervaded its very essence.

But as the morning waned, he sadly realized that they were nearing the end of Avalon. Rocky spurs of the towering Crystals rose up out of the trees just to the south and the east.

Then the mountains were lost from view as the party came upon a thickly packed grove of oaks with a canopy that let in little light. The dimness wasn’t a problem, though, for here the straight road rolled wide and distinct, sloping upward and cutting through impassable walls of oak and elm that formed a green and brown tunnel around it.

A speck of light showed the far end of that tunnel, ever growing as they approached. Even sooner than Del had expected, they came to the abrupt end of Avalon. Beyond the trees lay a grassy field and, in the distance, a mountain wall of gray stone.

Just a few yards from the exit, still under the protective shadow of the trees, Belexus wheeled his horse around. “No farther do we rangers go,” he said. “Yer horses, too, huv reached the end o’ their road.”

“But Bellerian said you would take us to Illuma,” Billy said.

“And so we huv,” Belexus replied, “for beyond the wood, at the northern end o’ the field called Mountaingate, lies the entrance to the Silver Realm. There, by the words of Prince Calae, ye shall find yer destiny.”

Del didn’t want to leave. Since the Halls of the Colonnae, he had followed the road gladly, letting it take him where it would, and looking for adventure around every bend. But now, whatever might lay ahead, the road was taking him from the place he most wanted to be.