The White Mage of Pallendara accepted the intrusion readily; he had been sitting before his crystal ball awaiting Brielle’s call.
“You have held out against the insinuations of Thalasi,” Istaahl said to her. “His attacks against my tower were lesser yesterday, and have come not at all since. I feared that he had sent the whole of his wrath against you.”
“Nay, his attacks against me wood came weaker, too,” Brielle replied. “And not a rumble this day. It seems that the dark one has his limitations.”
“And a good thing he does,” said Istaahl, straining to show a smile. “I have not worked so hard in many, many years. I do not know how I would have fared if Thalasi had come on again with the same fury as his first attack.
“But I do not trust his show of weakening,” Istaahl went on. “I fear that the Black Warlock may recover quickly, and that only the magic I have set in my tower walls will hold the strength to keep him back. In my heart, my place is on the battlefield beside my king, yet I fear to leave the White Tower lest neither it nor myself could stand alone against the Black Warlock.”
Brielle, with her daughter somewhere down on the ravaged plain, understood Istaahl’s torment, for she, too, wished but feared to leave her domain. Again risen from an apparent grave, this new embodiment of Thalasi was too much of an unknown factor; Brielle couldn’t risk separation from the forest that gave her strength. “Have ye noticed something strange in his attacks?” she asked. “Shifts in the power and the like?”
“I have,” Istaahl was quick to agree. “As if his attacks were guided alternately by different hands.”
“Mighten be a waver as he shifts his concentration back from yer tower to me wood,” Brielle reasoned logically. But she suspected something different-though she had no idea of what. “Suren a dark day on the world when that one came out o’ his hole.”
“And a dark way ahead,” Istaahl added. “The Black Warlock will not be one so easily put back into his hole. Have you located Ardaz yet?”
“Nay, that one’s off on a hunt and not to be looking back this way for many weeks. I’ve spies about, and suren he’s soon to feel the rumble o’ the magic war.”
“Still,” said Istaahl, “the sooner the Silver Mage returns, the better off we all shall be. Thalasi holds us even, though he has not, at least to my knowledge, flexed his magical muscles in many years. I fear that he may gain a bit of an edge with practice.”
“Not to worry,” Brielle replied. “Ever has me brother been the last to arrive, but ne’er once has he been too late for the game.
“I’m for going now to me rest,” Brielle went on. “The onset o’ the night might bring a new trick or two from the dark one, and already the sun’s sittin’ low in the west.”
“Agreed,” said Istaahl. “And if an attack does come to you with renewed fury, call on me for aid. I am weary, but I’ll fight for beautiful Avalon to the last of my breath!”
“Me thanks,” said Brielle. “But fear not. Morgan Thalasi’ll have to be showin’ much more than he has thus far to truly bring harm to me wood.”
Istaahl, of course, knew the truth of the witch’s words. If the Black Warlock managed to conquer all of Calva, and all of the world surrounding Avalon, the enchanted forest would still stand untainted. And the effort Thalasi would need to conquer that last shining island would be tenfold his exertions in bringing the rest of the world under his dark fold. For in her domain, in the forest that was the extension of the purity of her magic, Brielle was the mightiest of the four wizards.
“Farewell, then,” the White Mage said as his image faded from Brielle’s divining pool. “And fight well.”
“And to yerself,” Brielle replied, and then she moved away from the small clearing, seeking a hillock that would show her the sunset beyond the western plains.
Rhiannon labored all through the afternoon tending to those freshly wounded in the day’s skirmishes and those still healing from the days before. With each soothing charm the young witch grew more at ease with the magical energy flowing through her body. Its course ran smooth and straight, hardly disrupting the normal rhythms of Rhiannon’s own life force.
But whenever Rhiannon’s thoughts turned dark, to the gorge she had carved into the plain or to the bloody battles on the bridges, the magic fluctuated and burned, threatening to overwhelm her in a pit of possession so very deep that she doubted she could ever climb out.
Around her there remained enough blatant, brutal suffering for Rhiannon to ignore those dark urges, though, and concentrate on her healing.
More than a hundred miles to the north, Brielle sent her perceptions into the untainted soil of Avalon and sensed the subtle vibrations of her daughter’s work. She feared for Rhiannon, though she trusted implicitly in the young woman’s good sense and resourcefulness.
Brielle hoped that only she, so attuned to the emanations of Rhiannon, could feel the budding power in the young witch; certainly Thalasi would be quick to strike if he learned that yet another magic-user was growing to power against him.
The vibrations from Rhiannon’s magic rang stronger to Brielle this day, clearer and purer, and the Emerald Witch was pleased that Rhiannon would soon come into her full strength. But the elder witch knew, too, the pain that inevitably accompanied the acquisition of such power. She wanted to fly out right then to the south and scoop Rhiannon up in her protective arms, but she had to trust her daughter, now a young woman and no more a girl. If Rhiannon wanted, or needed, to come home, she would. And if she did not return to Avalon, Brielle had to assume that some more important duty kept her away.
Then a wicked jolt rocked Brielle back on her heels, a discordant twanging in the song of the earth that brutally reminded her of her own duties. Only Morgan Thalasi could disrupt the earth song so wickedly, and either the Black Warlock’s power had grown exponentially during the course of the day…
… or he was very close.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are!” the Black Warlock hissed, a taunt from a child’s game of another world. He stood now, confident and arrogant, on the western border of Avalon. Seeing no answer to his call forthcoming, he sent another searing line of fire into the thick boughs, and the flames leaped higher into the evening sky.
“Oh, do come out and play, Brielle!” he shouted, his tone a mocking whine. “I do so hate to play all by myse-”
A blast of wind exploded out of the forest, smothering the Black Warlock’s flames in the blink of an eye and slamming into Thalasi’s skinny frame with the force of a hurricane. His cloak whipped out behind him, the folds in his shirt and pants buffeted and tore. But the Black Warlock only smiled and casually held his ground.
And then Brielle appeared on the edge of her domain, surrealistically limned by the first twinklings of the evening’s starlight. Even Thalasi had to pause and gape in the face of the stark power of the Emerald Witch, so beautiful and terrible all at once.
“Get ye gone!” Brielle commanded, and Thalasi almost obeyed in spite of himself.
“Pitiful,” he snorted instead, masking his initial awe. “I have come to visit; is this how you welcome guests?”
The curious dual tone of the Black Warlock’s voice surprised Brielle. “Ye gave up yer right to be calling yerself me guest many centuries ago, Morgan Thalasi,” she retorted. She looked curiously at her enemy, wearing the body of Martin Reinheiser. “If that’s who ye truly be. And now ye come to me, wrapped in a new coil but smellin’ no less foul.”
“Morgan Thalasi,” the Black Warlock echoed, dipping into a low bow. “That is indeed who we be.”
“Then ye’ve possessed yer lackey,” Brielle laughed. “And have ye let Martin Reinheiser remain within, or have ye kicked him out?”
Sudden rage sent a tremble through the Black Warlock’s face, as Brielle had suspected: the two spirits were not as completely aligned as Thalasi would have hoped.