"Ho, the camp!"
Instantly the barbarian located the source of the voice in the gathering gloom and located his weapons, sword and bow and warhammer. But too, he recognized the voice, a familiar one.
"Ho, Sunbright! May I enter your camp?"
Cursing inwardly, the barbarian kept his mouth shut. Although it was the worst of wilderness manners not to invite someone to his campfire, he bit his tongue. Perhaps the speaker, if ignored, would go away.
No such luck. The voice called, "I'm coming in! Don't shoot!"
From the dark shuffled a figure in a plain shepherd's smock, with a blanket cloak folded around his shoulders and head. The man squatted and duck-walked under Sunbright's sodden blanket. The hood was pulled back, revealing a shiny bald head. Candlemas eased to his knees and warmed his stubby hands by the fire.
Without speaking, Sunbright studied the mage. He looked older, his eyes more sunken and pouchy, his beard speckled with white. The barbarian had thought mages didn't age, or aged only slowly, but Candlemas looked like a grandfather after only a year. Some great strain must be pressing down on him, but the warrior felt no sympathy.
Rubbing his craggy hands, hissing as if from arthritis, the mage said, "I know you probably don't want to talk, but we should."
"Why?" The word was jerked from Sunbright, who hadn't talked to anyone in days. "Do you have more dirty work no sane man would tackle, so an innocent must be tricked?"
"I used you; I admit it." Candlemas didn't look at Sunbright, but at the tiny fire. "I can spark your fire higher, if you like."
"Leave it be. I'm done with magic."
"I always intended to reward you, you know." Candlemas ignored the barbarian's rudeness.
"Likely," Sunbright snorted. For something to do, he skinned his rabbits, which didn't take long. "I was nothing but a tool. If I didn't meet your expectations, you were willing to see me destroyed readily enough, and look elsewhere."
A casual shrug made the warrior grab the war-hammer, so Candlemas sat still. The patter of rain in the oak forest and the constant drip of runoff from the blankets was a small music around them. "But you did live up to my expectations, them and more. You have the most amazing ability to survive I've ever seen or heard of."
Another snort. "A horse can climb a mountain if whipped hard enough. That means nothing."
"No, it's true. You survived where a dozen men would have died. And you bested your foes in a remarkable fashion: a dragon, a lich lord, fiends. I can't think it was luck or mere brawn or even fighting savvy. I think you possess something that even you don't suspect."
Despite his effort at disinterest, Sunbright paused in slicing the rabbit. The mage's words were an echo of his own bleak thoughts of only moments ago. If his brawn couldn't find Greenwillow, perhaps it was time to try something else.
"Anyway, I always pay my debts," Candlemas droned on. "I would see you properly rewarded."
"What could you possibly give me? I need nothing."
Well, one thing he needed.
"Not true. I can give you, well, more than you can imagine. Training in magic, for one. I cannot make you the equal of a Netherese archmage; I haven't made that rank myself, yet. And I doubt you'd ever make much of a surface mage. Somehow I don't picture you scrying secrets for kings or fashioning magic jewelry boxes, or overseeing farms and orchards as I do. But I can point the way to some magics you'd find interesting. Magical devices and scrolls and potions that would make you the equal of any groundling wizard in your own field of study: the ways of animals and plants and rivers and trees and stone. I know these things matter to you, else why would you be here in a rainy, cold forest when you could be elsewhere in comfort?"
Sunbright didn't tell the wizard that, in contrast to living on the snow of the tundra, this rainy forest was paradise. Rather, he fought down the desire that swelled in his bosom, the desire to know natural things in the real sense, not just on the surface but down to their very core. His father Sevenhaunt had had that ability. That had been the source of his name, for he'd been haunted the seven days around by questions without answers. And Sunbright was his only son and, according to his mother's words, heir to that power-or curse.
"You're quiet." Candlemas cut into his thoughts.
"It's late. I'm tired," quipped the warrior; But his hands hung idle while his mind raced.
The podgy mage hunkered close, one hand balled to a fist to contain his excitement. "Come with me, Sunbright. Work for me-with no more games, I promise. I'll make it worth your while. Every day you're with me, helping me find what I need, you'll learn more about yourself and how to get what you-"
"Can you bring back Greenwillow?"
A cloud crossed the worried face, and he shook his head. "No."
"Can Lady Polaris, or any of the high mages?"
Another denial.
Sunbright shook his own head, rejecting everything Candlemas had said. "Then what good is magic? I can't bear to think of her, trapped in that place because of me!"
"You've been trying to get back there." Candlemas didn't need to make it a question, for he already knew the answer. "The High Neth worked day and night for months to find and seal all Sysquemalyn's leaks from the Nine Hells. Things are largely back to normal. I knew you'd been searching for a way in. Did you ever find one?"
Sunbright debated whether to tell this man-who might be an enemy or might be a friend-the truth, then answered, "No. I came close a few times, got into depths that blistered my eyebrows and got me jumped by monsters from… But no, I never got close to the Nine Hells."
"Do you really think she'd want you to?" Candlemas saw the barbarian's eyes snap, but he didn't quail. "Greenwillow gave her life to save yours. As Sysquemalyn said, you mustn't throw away that gift, her sacrifice. You're meant for greater things. You need to find what they are."
Sunbright rejected talk of himself to cling to the memory of Greenwillow. Talking of her lessened the ache within him. "Tell me something useful. Is there any way she can be saved?"
Candlemas blew out his breath, made the tiny blaze dance. "If she died there, as she must have, then no magic I know, or even suspect, can resurrect her to this plane. But her spirit may linger, trapped. With work, it might-might, I say-be set free."
"So." Sunbright picked up a stick and prodded the fire. "If I work for you, will we try to find a way?"
"I'll do what I can, if you will. That much I promise." If Candlemas felt any thrill at getting his way, he didn't show it. Mostly he sounded tired. "What I can't promise is results."
"No one can," replied the barbarian.
The two were quiet a long time. They listened to the drip of rain in the forest, the soft rustle of leaves overhead. Far off, a strange bird gave a plaintive cry like the ring of a cowbell. Sunbright didn't know that birdcall, but he'd learn it.
Abruptly he scooched onto his heels and caught the corner of the sodden blanket, tied off with a length of line. With nimble but cold fingers, the barbarian loosed the line and channeled the trapped water to splash on the fire and extinguish it.
Without the meager light, the forest loomed dark all around them. Candlemas, Sunbright knew, would be spooked by its damp, silent depths. But to the barbarian, it was an inviting home. And soon he'd know it even better, deeper. Truer.
And he'd show it to Greenwillow, somehow.
In the encroaching darkness, Sunbright's voice was as clear as that birdcall. "If you'll try, I'll go with you."