"I've become used to my own," he said with a smile. They shared a long silence, gazing up at the clear stars that glittered above the rustling trees. "You've done well," he said after a time.
"I didn't know I needed your approval," Eriale laughed. "But thank you. I think so." She reached out and pinched his arm. "Do you have any thoughts of settling down?"
Aeron frowned. "I am settled down."
"All you ever do is study, locked up in that tower. What are you going to do when you finish your studies? What's the point of it all?"
"I can't finish, Eriale. That's the nature of magic, of being a mage." He thought for a moment, seeking the words to express what he'd come to recognize over the last few years under Fineghal's tutelage. "I'm not an apprentice, learning a craft to earn my keep for the rest of my days. Magic isn't what I do; it's what I am, and what I'll always be." He laughed quietly. "You might as well ask me what I'll do with myself once I learn how to be human."
"No one's meant to be alone, Aeron," Eriale said. "What did you do to deserve such a lonely existence?"
"Even if I lived in a house in the middle of Maerchlin, I'd still be on the outside," he replied. "People fear what they don't understand."
Eriale shook her head and looked away. "Do you ever wonder how things would have turned out if you hadn't met Phoros, Regos, and Miroch on the path that day? What you'd be doing now, what your life would be like?"
Aeron glanced at her. "It never occurred to me."
"Not once? With a mind as sharp as yours?"
He closed his eyes and tried to picture it. He'd have stayed in Maerchlin, working Kestrel's land on the outskirts of the village. Maybe he would have finally escaped Phoros Raedel's notice when the young nobleman inherited his father's seat. He thought of the girls he remembered from Maerchlin, but he couldn't imagine being married to any of them. "I don't think I was ever meant to be anything but a wizard," he said at last.
* * * * *
Fineghal and Baillegh were not at the Storm Tower when he returned, so Aeron returned to his studies. He was engaged in devising a new spell, and it quickly absorbed his full attention, so that he didn't notice for three more weeks that Fineghal had still not returned. This wasn't unusual; over the years he spent more and more time pursuing his own studies, while the elven wizard went his own way, but as each day passed, a vague unease settled over him.
Finally, a month after his visit with Kestrel and Eriale, Aeron set out to some of the places he knew Fineghal often lingered. At first he followed a methodical pattern, moving from place to place to cover the most ground, but within a day, he felt he was being guided to one particular spot. At sunset of the second day of his search, he found himself standing on the ancient hilltop of Forest's Stonemantle, the same place where he'd withstood Fineghal's test seven years before. Patiently he settled down to wait.
His intuition did not disappoint him. As the dusk deepened and the stars emerged, Fineghal appeared, leaping gracefully from stone to stone as he ran up the path in his effortless stride. Baillegh bounded behind him, dancing with delight. "Greetings, Aeron. I see you received my summons," he called.
Aeron scrambled to his feet just in time to meet Baillegh's playful rush. He scratched the hound's ears while she rubbed her head against him. "I didn't realize you wanted me," he said. "I'm afraid I delayed a day or two."
"No matter." Fineghal settled himself on a boulder, a smile flickering across his face. He almost seemed to shine with the starlight, radiant under the night sky. The night was warm, with a steady breeze out of the east that carried the sounds and scents of the woods up to the rocky heights. The elf lord's gaze settled on Aeron. "Tell me, Aeron, are you content in this existence?"
"Content?" Aeron blinked. "Magic challenges me in a way that I never could have imagined. It's a dark and silent path we walk, but I had no choice but to follow it."
"What would you have done differently?" Fineghal asked. "Would you have stayed in Maerchlin to face Count Raedel's justice for wounding his son? Would you have allowed Kestrel to die in Raedel's dungeons, or remained in Saden instead of going to the college?"
Aeron weighed Fineghal's words. "No," he said. "I don't think I would have made any of those decisions differently."
"Then what does it matter if you had any choices or not? You would not have availed yourself of them. You would not be the man you are today if your life had followed a different road, so why waste time on regrets?"
With a rueful smile, Aeron shook his head and sat down by the edge of the precipice. "I guess that in a thousand years you learn to accept the decisions you made in the past. If you had to bear the weight of every mistake you'd made over such a long time, you'd be useless."
Fineghal laughed in the dusk. "If anyone ever asks you, Aeron, that's the secret to happiness. Forgive yourself and learn from your mistakes." He turned his head into the breeze, inhaling deeply. It occurred to Aeron that he'd never seen Fineghal so lighthearted. The elf's mantle of dignity was softened by a childlike delight in his surroundings, despite the gravity of their conversation. After a time, he returned his attention to Aeron. "You said that you wondered if you'd ever made any choices in your life. I have another decision to offer you."
A faint apprehension narrowed Aeron's eyes. "You called me here. What is it?"
"I have lived in this land for a thousand years. For the past three centuries, I have lived here mostly alone, the keeper of this land of golden glens and emerald groves. I have guarded its borders against dragon and man. But I weary of this burden, Aeron. The time has come to set it down."
Aeron was speechless. He started to protest but fell silent. Instead, he waited for Fineghal to continue.
The elf lord fixed his bright gaze on Aeron's face. "I want you to take up my watch, Aeron. You know this land nearly as well as I, and you have a wisdom far beyond your years. The Maerchwood needs a guardian."
"I don't know what to say," Aeron stammered. "What are you going to do?"
"I want to rejoin my kinfolk. To wander, free of care. To know that, should I be slain tomorrow, someone else stands over this land and guards it."
"Fineghal, I don't know how I can replace you." Aeron stood and paced away, dusting off his pants. "You taught me the elven magic when I first began my studies, but my sorcery is something different now. It's . . . darker, tainted by the forces you've fought against all your life."
"That is the human conflict, Aeron. To be Tel'Quessir is to be immortal and unchanging, one with the land, one with yourself. Humans must struggle every day to lead the life we live of our own accord." Fineghal closed his eyes, picking his words. "I sometimes believe the elves cannot know virtue, since we do not have to fight for it. Perhaps this is why it is so easy for the elves to misjudge men.
"Aeron, the world has grown old since my youth. The Tel'Quessir are long gone from Calmaercor. The time has come for a human heart to love and guard it."
"Fineghal, I don't know what to say," Aeron replied.
"You need a purpose, Aeron. And the forest needs a guardian. Think on it." Fineghal watched him for a moment, and then retreated from the cliff top, leaving Aeron to consider the question in solitude.
Aeron stared out over the dark blanket of trees that lay spread out below, broken here and there by gleaming streams of water or the gray, shaggy stone hilltops. On the Forest's Stonemantle, he could feel the living forest all around him, from the bright stands of cedar facing east toward Unther to the low, mist-cloaked marshes in the southern reaches of the woodland. It was his anchor, the one place in which he had no pretensions, no delusions, no fears.