R. Salvatore - Echoes of the Fourth Magic

“Yes, Mommy,” Del mumbled under his breath.

Brielle eyed him sharply. “Must I tell ye again that in me woods yer words reach me ears?” But her wrath was feigned and Del recognized the smile behind her scowl. This time he did laugh out loud, and Brielle joined him.

She led him to a small hillside of soft grass and scattered flowers, topped by a thick row of lilac bushes. She bid him to wait and skipped away under the shadows of the trees.

Del lay back on the slope, letting the sun warm him as he tried to sort out the jumble of emotions playing through him. In truth, he didn’t know what he was feeling, recognizing only that when he looked at Brielle he was both calmed and excited. It amazed him how comfortable he felt with her, at how quickly the first-meeting jitters had faded away-for both of them, it seemed. And yet when he looked at her, he consciously had to remember to breathe and his voice threatened to crack with every syllable. Above the confusion, Del understood one thing for certain: He was happy. Just looking at the Emerald Witch of Avalon thrilled him like never before.

Brielle soon returned to the hillock bearing a small wooden bowl filled with a muddy paste, pungently sweet, like the essences of all the aromas of springtime blended together. She explained to Del that it would cleanse his wound and help it to heal, and his arm felt better as soon as she put it on.

The two sat in silence on the grass, letting the sounds and workings of the awakening wood drift by them like the lazy clouds overhead. The witch seemed content and at ease, the serenity and natural order of this land was her strength and her magic. After a few minutes, though, Del began to grow edgy, his eyes drawn more and more toward Brielle. He became self-conscious of the silence, wondering if Brielle expected him to start a conversation. Though he wanted to say something, everything he could think of, like mentioning the beautiful weather, seemed a ridiculous cliche.

Brielle looked at him then, and caught his gaze with her own. Still she sat smiling, relaxed and at peace, while all thoughts of comfort had flown from Del. He could hear his heart racing and was certain against reason that Brielle could as well; though she could have guessed it easily anyway by the flush in his face. To further Del’s horror, he felt the sweat beading on his forehead.

Finally he had to turn away. He glanced all around nervously, feeling more like a fool with every passing second and praying for some distraction to bail him out of this awkward fit. “How about some lunch?” he blurted on a sudden impulse when he noticed that the sun was directly overhead. He lunged for his pack, after some time finally managing to fumble out one of the biscuits, and offered it to Brielle. She accepted it with curiosity, if not enthusiasm, and after one small bite handed it back to him.

“ ’Tis food for the hungry,” she said. “Pray wait for me here and I’ll bring to ye food for the happy!” She tossed her mane and laughed and disappeared into the trees.

Del had barely realized her abrupt departure when she returned bearing a large tray laden with the offerings of Avalon: berries plump with sweetness and piles of fruits oozing juice. Del took one look at the approaching feast and dropped his biscuits to the ground.

“Rabbit food.”

Then Del tasted of the magic of Avalon, wholesome and delicious beyond comparison; he could feel the health and rejuvenation surging through him even as he ate. When he had finished, Brielle brought a flask filled with water like he had never tasted before-crystalline clear and icy cold from the mountain melt, it tingled all the way down.

He felt totally refreshed after the meal, as if all of the aches and soreness had been cleansed from his body. The paste on his arm had dried to a dust, and on a hunch, contrary to all reason, he brushed it away. Sure enough, the wound had completely healed, the only sign of it a thin white line of scar.

“Unbelievable,” Del muttered. He looked up at Brielle. “This whole thing is just unbelievable.”

She stared back at him with no answers other than her smile.

My God, Del thought, she’s beautiful, his very image of beauty personified. Even as he contemplated his good fortune in finding her, in being here beside her, though, he remembered Andovar’s words about the witch’s enchantment over men, and fear swept the smile from his face.

He began cautiously, afraid to ask, yet realizing that he had to know the truth. “Someone once told me that you can be to every man what he most desires in a woman.” The witch started in surprise, caught completely off guard.

“Is it true?” Del pressed.

Brielle put her head down defensively and admitted, “There is such a spell.”

It flooded through Del as the worst pain he had ever experienced, a sudden emptiness beyond anything he could imagine. He had hoped to believe that he had found that elusive love of his fantasies, the romance he had doubted even existed when he had accepted his engagement to Debby in that world so far away. Now he realized the trap. Lured by the magic of Ynis Aielle, and of this forest in particular, he had allowed his defenses to drop and had dared to dream.

“Then all this,” he stammered, barely able to speak, “all this is an illusion, a game you play! How could you deceive me? Why-”

“No!” Brielle insisted, and the flash in her eyes stopped Del short. Again she lowered her eyes, she, too, feeling the pangs of loneliness. The ranger had spoken truly; often men had viewed her from afar only to see their most heartfelt desires, but that was merely a consequence of the honesty and purity of the wood. Perhaps an illusion, but more a glimpse of their own innate longing to live under such an innocent and naturally ordered existence. In her symbiosis with Avalon, Brielle became an extension of the wood, as it was extension of her. And that was her trap, an unforeseen pitfall of being such an image to the world outside her domain. For now she had met a man she might truly care for, and she wanted to be more to him than a fleeting vision in the starlight. Yet how could he trust her? How could he believe in the substance behind the image?

“I’ve no’ deceived ye,” she said softly, her voice shaky and nervous, showing that she, too, considered this a critical juncture. “Ye huv me word, I am as I appear to ye.”

Far above any doubts he could have, Del knew that there was no lie in the mist in her eyes, for he had truly hurt her with his accusation. His smile returned tenfold.

“Can ye no’ understand?” she pleaded, apparently unable to interpret his expression. “Ye alone see me as truly I be. Even were I to spin the spell ye speak of this very moment, I would appear no different to ye, for I promise ye that ye’re under no enchantment.”

But Brielle was wrong. Del was indeed under her spell, and it grew with every word she spoke and every smile she showed him. It deepened each time she tossed her golden mane carelessly about her shoulders, or lifted her face to catch the warmth of the sun, or twirled about in the free air of the unblemished wood. He was held by the only magic that had remained in his world before Aielle, the only magic that had survived under the smothering blanket of exact sciences and precise technology. Del was in love, and the ten days he spent in Avalon with Brielle were the best he had ever known.

During the hours of daylight, Brielle showed Del a new way of looking at the world. She awakened his senses and heightened the interaction between them, intensifying those mysterious emotions he had been experiencing since that morning on the raft of his first Aiellian sunrise. Brielle helped Del to refine those feelings and understand them, to bring his awareness to new heights of enjoyment. Now, a mere fragrance on the wind could direct Del’s eyes to a solitary wildflower, hidden amidst a nest of mossy gray stones. His trained vision translated the flower’s texture to his sense of touch, showing him every groove and bend, the softness of the petals and the thorny stem. And what wonderful music the wind played across such an intricate surface! Inaudible to the human ear, of course, but Del, in his melding with the flower, felt every vibration keenly. And thus it went, so that what once would have been just a pleasant forest smell had become to Del a complete experience.