He opened his eyes some time later-he knew not how long he had lain in the snow.
“The whole of the season?” he asked aloud, for the air was warm around him, and the scent of flowers filled the air.
His knees did not hurt. His abdomen had repaired. His breath came strong and clear.
Confused, Wulfgar pulled himself up to his knees, and before he lifted his eyes, he heard a voice from long, long ago.
“Well met, old friend,” it said, he said, Regis of Lonelywood said.
Wulfgar froze in place, then jumped to his feet in shock as he saw that it was indeed Regis before him, standing on a path that wound between beds of tended flowers, a small and still pond off to the side. Light snow coated the flora, but it was hardly wintry.
Wulfgar stood tall, taller than he had in decades, and felt strong again, full of energy and without pain in joints that had known the sting of age for so many years.
He wanted to ask a thousand questions, but none came forth, and he wound up just shaking his head in stunned disbelief.
Then he nearly fell over, for across the small pond, she appeared.
Catti-brie. The woman he had loved in his long-ago youth, and she appeared exactly as she had looked those decades before, a teenage girl, or early twenties, perhaps.
“Impossible,” the barbarian whispered, and he found himself moving her way as if compelled by magic. His strides increased as the woman, singing still, spun away and melted into the forest. As soon as she was out of his sight, Wulfgar started to run, splashing along the edge of the pond.
“Wulfgar!” Regis yelled, so uncharacteristically forcefully that the barbarian stopped and spun back around.
Almost back around, for as he turned, he caught his own reflection, and there he stopped and stared until the water calmed, until he saw himself more clearly, his thick and long blond hair, his light and thin beard.
Blond hair, not white. Thick hair, not thinned by the passage of a century. The hair of a young man.
Panic hit him and he glanced all around.
For he was dead. He had to be dead.
But these were not the halls of Tempus.
