Hellorin, Lord of the Phaerie, discovers the presence of the Staff of Earth in his realm, and with Aurian’s mother, goes to Anvar’s rescue. The Moldan is destroyed, and Hellorin sends Anvar Between the Worlds to the Timeless Lake, to seek the Harp of Winds. Anvar evades the traps set by the Cailleach, guardian of the Harp, and claims the Artifact for his own. He returns to Aerillia and finds Aurian, and at last they affirm their love. Using the Artifacts to break the deadly power of Eliseth’s winter, they bring spring back to the world.
1
The Miracle of Spring
Parric would never forget that sunrise—that momentous dawn when winter’s evil grip had been loosed at last, and glorious spring had spread her gentle wings across the world. The cavalrymaster had been standing through the long hours of darkness on the high parapet of Incondor’s Tower, chilled to the bone despite his cloak and an extra blanket thrown loosely around his shoulders. The unaccustomed burdens of leadership had chased away all hope of sleep, so be had volunteered to stand watch while the others rested, and had climbed up here to be alone with his thoughts.
Parric had much to plan concerning his journey back to the Xandim lands, and the cavalrymaster from Nexis, who had risen so high as to become Herdlord of the Xandim, had an additional responsibility now in Aurian’s strange new companions from the south. But Parric found it hard to concentrate on mundane details this morning. Instead, he found his gaze turning repeatedly to the northwest, toward the towering mountain peaks beyond which lay lofty Aerillia, the Skyfolk citadel. Aurian, the headstrong young Mage that the cavalrymaster had followed halfway across the world, had gone there in haste the previous day, borne aloft by winged warriors. She had left Parric again, with barely a word of explanation, though he had traveled through so many perils in search of her and had only just found her.
The cavalrymaster’s thoughts had been dark with dismay as he stood looking out across the bleak expanse of snowfields that were slowly emerging beneath a sky growing pale behind its gloomy overcast, as the wan light of another shrouded sunrise seeped reluctantly across the stark landscape. What the blazes was Aurian up to now? What was so important that she had left her newborn son behind at the Tower of Incondor? Parric knew only that she had gone to find Anvar, the servant who had fled with her from Nexis on the night of Forral’s death. Parric frowned. What was Anvar to her, that she had gone rushing off in such frantic haste? True, she’d always been fond of the lad, but… “Oh, don’t be bloody stupid, Parric,” he told himself. It was a waste of time to worry about Aurian. She’d had little time to tell him much about her adventures, but from the fragments he had managed to glean, it was obvious that the Mage was capable of coping with far more than a bunch of flying freaks such as the Skyfolk of Aerillia.
Somewhat cheered, Parric decided to go in search of something to drink that would take the chill from his bones. But as he turned away from the parapet, he was startled by a movement above him, on the very edge of his vision. His warrior’s reflexes had him crouched in a defensive corner of the parapet, sword in hand, before he even realized what was happening. When his thoughts had time to catch up with his instincts, the cavalrymaster emerged somewhat sheepishly from his refuge, sheathing his sword with a rueful curse. It was a good thing no one had been about to see him, he thought. A right fool he’d have looked!
Parric scowled up at the changing sky. Clouds. Nothing but bloody clouds, that’s what had alarmed him. “I must be getting old,” he muttered to himself—then suddenly he stopped and looked again, his eyes narrowing as they squinted up into the growing brightness. Something unnatural was happening. The clouds were moving faster and faster: racing, hurtling across the sky toward the north. Towering banks of dark vapor rolled ponderously across the heavens, disintegrating—even as Parric looked on in awe—into smoking, streaming shreds, as though they were being ripped apart by the jaws of some mighty wind. Yet on the ground, where the cavalrymaster stood, not even the breath of a breeze was stirring. Patches of high, clear sky began to appear as the cloud cover thinned and was whisked away. Parric looked up into a breathtaking blueness such as he had not seen for a long and dismal age. He let out a low whistle of surprise, and lingered to watch the clearing sky. The unexpected beauty of the sight lifted his spirits far higher than any liquor could have done.
As the last of the vanquished clouds fled the eastern horizon, the sun burst forth in all its glory, spreading a blaze of golden warmth like a benison across the world. Before Parric’s disbelieving eyes, the snow that had locked the land in chains for so long began to melt, dissolving and shrinking away with uncanny speed. On the walls of the tower, icicles formed and dripped, and the nearby thicket was filled with the patter of falling droplets as boughs and twigs shed their coating of snow. Within minutes, it seemed, the chill white blanket that had covered the mountains for so long had vanished completely, leaving great pools and lakes of standing water that were already beginning to seep away—and a familiar sound that the cavalrymaster had not heard in many months: the joyous, rippling song of rushing water as the icebound streams were freed at last.
This miracle had to be Aurian’s work! The untried young woman who had fled the northern city of Nexis so many months ago was older and wiser now, and hardened by sorrow and struggle. And somehow—Parric felt the certainty deep within his bones, and shuddered in awe—she had managed to find the power to break the paralyzing spell of winter that the evil Weather-Mage Eliseth had cast across the world. At long last Aurian had started to turn the tide of evil wrought by the foes who were her own kin and blood, and soon would be bringing the battle home to those who had slain her beloved Forral and enslaved the free Mortals of Nexis.
Parric was about to rush down into the tower to share the good news, but there was more to come. Spreading like a verdant tide across the brown, frost-blasted hillsides came a haze of varied green as the earth awakened and the plant life, dormant for so long in corm and seed, began to stir and stretch. Heather and juniper, grass and moss and fern, put forth foliage and fronds in an explosion of new life. In the thicket below the tower new leaves began to sprout, like tiny banners of celebration, while snowdrops dotted the ground between the outspread roots. The air was moist and fragrant, and tingling with new life. Spring had come to the mountains in a single bound, erasing every trace of winter as though it had never been. Somewhere in the depths of the thicket, a single bird—one tiny, valiant survivor of the iron cold—began to sing.
Parric’s joyful shout aroused the sleepers in the tower. One by one, they stumbled out through the narrow doorway, rubbing sleepy eyes, then stopping to stare and gape in astonishment as they registered the changes that had taken place while they had slumbered. Out came the swarthy Khazalim soldiers from the far south, leaderless now that their Prince, the misguided and treacherous Harihn, had been slain. Out came Parric’s own troops, the little band of Xandim warriors that he had brought with him to help in the rescue of Aurian. In their midst were the two Xandim exiles, Schiannath and his sister, Iscalda, who had befriended Aurian during her imprisonment in the tower. They had been redeemed now and reunited with their people, and such joy shone in their faces that Parric found himself smiling in response to their happiness.