'It might be that them monks found a way to magically come and get the damn things,' the centaur said unconvincingly, for both he and Roger knew well that if there was such a manner of retrieval, Father Abbot Markwart would surely have discovered it and used it to get the cache of stones back a long time ago.
'I don't even know what to tell Pony,' Roger admitted.
'Has she asked for them? '
'No.'
'Is she even knowin' that ye got the damn things? '
'I don't think so.'
'Then tell her not a thing until she's askin',' Bradwarden advised. 'I'm thinkin' that the girl's got enough weighin' down her heart at this time.'
'More than you know,' Roger replied. 'I was talking with Belster earlier and he told me all that Pony walked away from in Palmaris. They offered her everything, the barony, the abbey. Everything. And she just walked away.'
Bradwarden eyed the man and marked well his tone. 'And ye're thinkin' she chose wrong? '
'After all we went through?' Roger replied, his frustration creeping into his voice. 'After all the fighting and all the dying? After Elbryan gave his very life for a better world? And we could have that world, we-Pony could make it all worthwhile.'
'I'm seein' a new side o' ye, to be sure,' the centaur remarked, and that set Roger back on his heels a bit.
'I fought alongside everyone else,' the man protested when he got his bearings back.
'Never said ye didn't,' Bradwarden replied. 'But by me own thinkin', ye was fightin' more for Roger than for any paradise in yer thoughts.'
Again, the man had to pause for a bit to consider any response he might give, for Roger understood that the centaur spoke honestly and accurately. All through the early days of the war, Roger had indeed been a selfish warrior, considering every action based mostly on what fame it might bring to him. Elbryan had shown him the error of his ways, as hadJuraviel, with typical elven bluntness. Only now, however, with Bradwarden so clearly pointing it out, did Roger begin to understand the depth of the change that had come over him. Only now did he consciously recognize that Elbryan had died for a reason, for something bigger than his own life and bigger than Pony's life. And, to Roger's complete surprise, he found himself frustrated and disappointed that Pony had chosen to run away when all the city was being offered up to her, when, with a few words and a few actions, she could have made a profound change upon Palmaris, a change for the better, a change that would give meaning to their sacrifices made in battling first the demon and its minions and then the demons that had infected the Abellican Church.
And she had run away!
'But aren't ye being tough on the poor girl? ' Bradwarden remarked.
'She should not be here,' Roger replied. 'Or at least, she should not be planning to stay. There is too much to do, and time will work against us if we do not act.'
'Against us?' the centaur echoed doubtfully. 'I'm not seem' Roger Lockless doin' much work in Palmaris. I'm not seein' Roger Lockless doin' much work at all!' He ended with a laugh, a great belly laugh; but Roger, too perplexed by these revelations concerning his feelings, didn't join in.
'Ah, but ye're bein' too hard on her,' Bradwarden explained.
'The opportunity-'
'And what good might she be doin' if her heart's not in it? ' Bradwarden promptly interrupted, and his voice grew more grim then, and more serious. 'Ye lost a friend, and so ye're stingin', and wantin' to put a meanin' to it,' the centaur explained. 'And so ye should be, and so should we all. But Pony's lost more than a friend.'
'I loved Elbryan,' Roger started to protest, but Bradwarden was laughing at the absurdity of the statement, and Roger couldn't honestly disagree. Comparing his relationship with Elbryan to the one the ranger shared with Pony was indeed absurd.
'She's needin' time to heal,' the centaur said after a bit. 'She's needin' time for rememberin' who she is and why she is, and for findin' a reason to keep on fightin'.'
'How long?' Roger asked. 'It's been a year.'
'A torn heart can take a sight longer than a year,' Bradwarden said quietly, solemnly, his voice filled with obvious sympathy for his dear friend Pony. 'Ye give her the time, and it might be that she'll go back and begin the fight anew.'
'Might be?'
'And might not be,' the centaur said plainly. 'Ye can't be tellin' someone else what fights they're wantin' to pick, and ye can't be arguin' the worth o' fightin' to one who's not seein' it.' 'And if she chooses not to continue?' Roger asked. 'What value, then, of Elbryan's death?'
'Ask yerself,' the centaur replied. 'Ye're so quick to be makin' it Pony's fight, and easy enough for ye, sittin' up here in the Timberlands. Where's Roger, then? I'm askin'. He's lettin' his friend go cold in the ground, and not doin' a thing to bring a value to Elbryan's death.'
'I was not offered the barony or the abbey.'
'Ye weren't lookin' for the offer,' Bradwarden said. 'Ye could've ridden the last fight to some power, if ye so chose.'
'I came north with you,' Roger protested, 'to bury Elbryan.'
'And ye could've been back in Palmaris before the summer was half finished,' Bradwarden scolded. 'Are ye mad at Pony, boy? Are ye really? Or is it yerself that's botherin' yerself?'
Roger started to answer, but stopped short and stood staring out at the forest, wondering, wondering.
'Pony's needin' a friend now, and needin' us to let her do all that she's needin' to do without our judgin' her,' Bradwarden remarked sternly. 'Ye think ye can do that? '
Roger looked him right in the eye, considered the question carefully and honestly, then nodded.
A chill wind came up that evening, and Pony honestly wasn't sure if it was a natural thing or a consequence of this cold place. In either case, how fitting it seemed to her as she stood before the two cairns in the grove north of Dundalis, a place that would have left her cold on the hottest of bright summer days.
She only glanced at the older of the graves, the resting place of Mather Wyndon, Elbryan's uncle and the first Wyndon ranger. She couldn't help but picture the body under those stones, disturbed first by Elbryan on that dark night when he had earned Tempest, the elven sword, and then again more recently by Bradwarden and Roger, when they reinterred the weapon beside its original owner.
And Pony couldn't help but picture Elbryan, and the mere thought of her love lying cold in the ground nearly buckled her knees. He was there, under those rocks, with Hawkwing, the magnificent bow Belli'mar Juraviel's father, Joycenevial, had crafted for him during his years of training with the Touel'alfar. He was there, with eyes unseeing and a mouth that could not draw breath. He, who had so often warmed her in his gentle but strong embrace, was there, alone and cold, and there was nothing, nothing that she could do about it.
All of her young life had been marred by loss. First her family and friends-all of them save Elbryan-had been murdered by goblins and giants. Then her companions at Pireth Tuime-men and women she hadn't considered friends but with whom she had forged a working relationshiphad been slaughtered by the attacking powries. Then the Chilichunks, who had shown her only love, had perished in the dungeons of St.-Mere-Abelle.
Then Paulson, Cric, and Chipmunk and Tuntun and Avelyn, dear Avelyn, all lost on the road to Mount Aida. And her child, torn from her womb by the demon Markwart. And finally-in an act that had saved her life, surely-she had lost Elbryan, her lover, her best friend, the man she had intended to grow old beside.
It didn't get easier, these confrontations with death. Far from hardening her heart to future losses, each death seemed to amplify those that came before.
She pictured them now, all of them, from Elbryan to Avelyn to her father, walking past her as if in a dream, moving close in front of her but never seeing her or hearing her plaintive calls. Walking, walking away from her forever.
She reached out and tried to grab Elbryan, but he was an insubstantial thing, a formed mist and nothing more, and her hand passed right through him. He was an image, a memory, something lost.
Pony blinked open her eyes and didn't even try to hold back the tears that rolled down her cheeks.
