He found her at the foot of a crystalline waterfall, in a small pavilion that seemed to be spun from golden threads. She was taller than he, dressed in a shimmering robe that looked like a translucent rainbow. She granted him an audience as muscular servants brought a simple meal of cheese and dried apples. The provender seemed insufficient for such opulent surroundings, but Feldon said nothing and accepted the sorceress's hospitality.
She asked him his quest, and he told her: He sought to regain a love that had been lost. She nodded, and a tight smile appeared on her face.
"Such matters have a price," she said.
Feldon bowed his head and asked her to name the price.
"Stories," she said. "You must tell me the stories of Loran, so I may better grant your wish."
Slowly, Feldon began to tell the tale. He recounted what he knew of Loran from her own tales, and her journals-of her life in the far east, in the distant land of Argive, of her early life with the brothers, and how she eventually rejected their war to seek another path. He spoke of how she came to Terisia City and joined a band of scholars looking for that path-scholars that included Feldon.
He stumbled a few times, but the sorceress said nothing. He told of how the two met, how they studied together, and how they had fallen in love. He explained how they had separated when Mishra attacked their city and what had happened to Loran at Ashnod's hands. She seemed to heal slowly in their time together before spiraling downward into her eventual death.
As he spoke, he halted fewer times, and his mind was alive with her memory. He recalled her black hair, her lithe figure, her touch, and her smile-always that knowing smile.
He spoke of how she had died, and what he had done afterward. He recounted his construction of the automaton and his trip to the hermit and now his visit to her.
As he spoke, he forgot the sorceress was there. Loran was alive for him.
At last he came to the end of the tale and looked at the enchantress. Her face was impassive, but a single tear trickled down her cheek.
"I rule in the sea and sky," she said, "much as you rule in the mountains, and the hermit the growing vegetation. You have paid my price with a story. Now let me see what I can do."
She shut her eyes, and for a moment, it seemed that outside the golden pavilion the sun passed behind a cloud. Then it brightened again, and Loran stood before Feldon.
She was young again, and whole, her black hair shimmering like a dark waterfall. She smiled that knowing, secretive smile she always had for him. Feldon rose and reached out to embrace her.
His hands passed through her like smoke.
The relief in his heart was replaced with fire, and he turned toward the sorceress. She had risen from her divan now and held up her hands as if to ward off a blow.
"She isn't real," cried Feldon, spitting out the words.
"I rule in the blue," said the sorceress, "and blue is the stuff of air and water, of mind and imagination. I cannot bring back that which is gone, only create its image. If you want her truly back, you must seek another."
"Who is this other?" asked Feldon, and the sorceress hesitated.
Again, Feldon asked, "Who is this other?"
The sorceress looked at him with cold crystalline eyes.
"There is a swamp farther north. He who lives there rules in the black. He can bring back what you seek. But be warned"-and here her voice softened-"his price is higher than mine."
And another tear appeared on the sorceress's cheek.
Feldon bowed, and the enchantress offered him her hand, which the old man kissed. While the sorceress's flesh appeared young and supple, to Feldon's lips it felt leathery and ancient. He reboarded his wagon and continued.
A short distance beyond the golden pavilion, he dismounted on the pristine white beach and felt the ground. It looked like pure white sand but felt like rocks covered with gray moss.
Feldon gave an understanding grunt and set out for the swamp.
Here along the northern border of Ronom Lake there had been a village, but the land of the village had settled, or the lake had risen, so that it was nothing more than a collection of buildings rotting in a ruined swamp. Great dark birds hovered through the arch-rooted trees. No, Feldon corrected himself. Bats. They were bats, which no longer feared the light in this land of eternal gloom.
The village had a rough, rotting palisade, little more than a collection of sharpened logs driven into the muck. The guards at the gate were sallow, hollow-eyed men dressed in tattered armor. They threatened Feldon with capture, but he summoned fire in a great wall between him and them. After the guards stepped back from the flames, and after a quick consultation with each other, they chose to escort Feldon to their master.
Their master was an aged spider of a man who received his visitors on a throne carved from a gigantic skull. Feldon thought briefly of the great wurm that the green hermit had summoned, and wondered if the flesh-less skull before him was of the same type. The ruler of the swamp was short, pot-bellied, and bald, and slouched in a corner of the throne as Feldon explained his quest. He had lost someone dear, said Feldon, and was told that the master could find a way to return her.
The man gave a watery, choking laugh. "I am the master of black magics, redling," he said. "I know the powers of life and death. Are you willing to pay my price?"
"And your price is?" asked Feldon.
The master stroked his hairless chin. "I want your walking stick."
Feldon gripped his silver cane tightly. "I cannot part with it. I pulled it from a glacier many years ago. It is like a part of me."
"Ah," said the master, "and your love is such a pale, insubstantial thing that you cannot part with a hunk of metal for it."
Feldon looked at the twisted spider of a man, and then at his rune-carved cane. He held it out. "Your price is met."
"Excellent," hissed the master of the swamp, taking the cane. "Let us begin."
For three days and three nights Feldon studied at the feet of the master. He memorized the marshes around the village, and felt the thick, viscous pull of the land in his mind. It was very different than the cold, clear mountains that he normally used. It left him feeling soiled and unclean.
At the end of the third day the hollow-eyed guards escorted Feldon to a small, windowless hut at the edge of the village, just within the walls of the palisade. Here Feldon worked the spell that the master of the swamp gave him.
In the light of a single tallow candle, Feldon cleared his mind and meditated. Normally he would think of the mountains, but now he thought of the bogs around him. He felt their watery pull, sucking him down, embracing him with their power. He spoke the words of the spell and called forth Loran.
The candle flickered for a moment, scattering Feldon's shadow behind him on the wall. Far above him, the wind coursed through the mangrove branches and sounded as if the lake itself had built a great wave to swallow the village. Everything grew quiet.
There was the sound of footsteps outside.
They moved slowly and ploddingly, the thick mud pulling at heavy feet as the sound approached. It was the sound of a figure staggering and sloshing through the muck. For a moment Feldon's heart leaped. Had he succeeded?
Something heavy and wet thumped against the door, sounding like a bag of wet earth. Slowly Feldon pulled himself to his feet (he no longer had his cane) and shuffled to the door.
The door gave another sloshing thud and then another, as Feldon reached it and grasped the knob. The stench hit him. It was a moldering, heavy smell, of rotted flesh and damp earth. It was the smell of death.