Locking the door behind him, Orlando left the house and moved to join Lelanda by the stable. She had already saddled Zephyr, his dappled gray horse.
Without a word, the warrior placed his foot in the stirrup, swung himself onto his mount, and nudged the horse into a trot. Many miles passed before either of the old adventurers spoke a word to the other.
IV
Orlando drew back on Zephyr's reigns. The animal, well trained and eager to please its master, slowed quickly from its trot to a full stop. The enigmatic black equine that Lelanda rode did the same, although Orlando saw no sign of a command from rider to mount. The horse seemed always to know what the enchantress expected of it.
"Aren't we going a bit out of our way?"
"Only slightly," responded the witch. "I thought we might stop at Jolind's estate and tell her what happened. She won't be interested in joining us, of course, but she was one of the Six. She has a right to know."
Orlando was surprised to hear Lelanda speak like that. In their adventuring days, she'd had little use for the individual members of the Six of Swords^ To her, they were bodyguards, scouts, and healers, who enabled her to explore the mysteries of magic, recover rare spell components, and otherwise practice her arcane art. Perhaps time had softened her heart, or perhaps there was more to this detour than she was telling him.
With the aid of Lelanda's magic, the miles passed as fleeting images in the corner of the eye. Even at that rate, however, it was several hours before the lights of Jolind's tower were visible. When they reached the edge of the clearing in which it stood, both riders brought their mounts to a stop.
"She's done a remarkable job here," said Orlando as his head swept back and forth to indicate the lush forest that rose around them. "I remember when we first found this clearing. The soil was so poisonous that nothing less robust than spitweed would grow here."
"I'll go in first," said Lelanda, ignoring his attempt at conversation. "Jolind always valued her privacy, and I'd hate to have a druid angry at me in the heart of her own forest."
She slipped the hood of her cloak over her head, causing the sunset colors of her hair to vanish into a thick darkness. Even as he watched, Orlando found that he could no longer focus clearly on her. Though he knew exactly where she was standing, he was able to see her only as a fleeting image in the corner of his eye. m be back as quickly as I can, said the darkness. Before he could respond, Orlando realized he and the horses were alone by the side of the road. He wanted to chuckle, but the chills that her macabre voice had left running along his spine wouldn't let him.
While he waited for his companion to return, Orlando opened the saddlebags draped over Zephyr and pulled out an apple. He fished around for a few seconds more and brought out a small knife. With a deft flick of his wrist, he split the fruit cleanly in two. After wiping off the blade and slipping it back into the leather pouch, he offered one of the halves to his horse and considered the other for a moment. With an unconscious shrug, he reached over and held it before Lelanda's mount. The ebon animal eyed his offering, but then snorted and turned away. Orlando shrugged again and ate it himself. The first hints of dawn were lighting the horizon, and he had an unhappy feeling that the animal's snobbery was to set the tone for the day ahead. He was right.
Jolind is dead, came the too-familiar voice of the darkness. And the body is warm. The killer must still be nearby.
The inside of the tower stirred Orlando's memories of the time when the Six of Swords had first explored it.
In those days, these lands had been defiled by the black dragon that made its lair here. The entire area had been poisoned by the creature, with pools of acid, swarms of stinging insects, and tangles of slashweed dominating the tortured remnants of the forest. From the moment they entered that fell region, the druid Jolind had become solemn and morose. Such destruction, she swore, could not go unpunished.
When they reached the tower-a ruined structure built by an unknown hand centuries before any of the Six were born-Jolind had led their attack against the dragon. Turning the very elements of nature against the creature, she had been instrumental in its destruction.
Eighteen months later, when the company disbanded, she announced her intention to return to this place and restore the forest to its past glory. She had done an outstanding job.
Jolind had not, however, restored the tower. At least, she hadn't done so in the way that Orlando would have. The interior floors and walls had been stripped out, a great glass dome placed atop the tower, and a bubbling fountain set into the ground at its center. The combination of the fish-eye skylight and the dancing water of the fountain made the climate inside the tower hot and sticky.
Under normal circumstances, this would have made the place unbearable. With the careful hand of Jolind to shape the place, however, it had been transformed into a tropical paradise. Great tresses of ivy climbed gracefully up walls dotted with brilliantly colored flowers. Shafts of morning light, shunted downward by the facets of the glass dome, illuminated a dozen trees and the colorful butterflies that flitted between them.
The horrors of the past had been completely banished by the careful hand of the druid. Sadly, they had been replaced by the horrors of the present. At the heart of all this splendor was a copper-smelling pool of red. And at the center of that scarlet expanse lay the body of the druid Jolind. Her head had been cleanly cut from her neck.
It took all the courage Orlando could muster to approach the body. Jolind had been a friend, a companion, and more. For a time, the warrior and druid had been lovers, seeking escape in each other's arms. Their relationship had lasted less than a year, but in that time, each had learned much about the other's philosophy and profession. For Orlando, that meant a keen appreciation of the ways of nature, the give-and-take of the environment, and an understanding of his place in it. Jolind had not feared death. In her mind, it was nothing more than the end of life. To Orlando, death had always been an enemy to be held at bay. In the end, he knew, death would triumph. For the present, however, he preferred to keep that most final of foes as far away as possible.
"Horrible way to die," he said softly.
The same way Jaybel and Gwynn were killed, said a voice from nowhere. Although the sound still irritated him, Orlando had already adjusted to the macabre intonations that came from empty air. It was amazing to him how quickly the old ways of thinking returned. Indeed, even as that thought crossed his mind, he realized he had subconsciously drawn Talon from its scabbard. Without the slightest thought, he had made ready to defend himself from Jolind's attacker.
"A pretty fierce struggle," said Orlando, examining the disturbed earth around the pool of blood and beneath the decapitated body. "But something doesn't make sense. All of these footprints were made by Jolind's sandals. Whomever she was fighting didn't make the faintest impression as he moved about."