Merwick moved excitedly about her chair, setting up little wooden blocks, then kicking them all over the room.
'Or to talk about the weight of a soul,' Kalas remarked, 'of how it is lighter than the very air about us and so it floats, floats, to heaven.' His voice rose an octave as he spoke the words, sarcastic and derisive.
' Your Majesty? ' the poor sentry asked.
King Danube rolled his eyes.
'No!' Kalas yelled at the sentry. 'Out with him! Out! Send him back to St. Honce and tell him to suffer the rocks and the taunts. Tell them all to suffer, for the good of the world, and when they have finally appointed an abbot, a real abbot, let him come and beg audience with the King.'
The fiery Duke's tirade didn't surprise the others, of course, but the intensity of it this time certainly made Danube and Constance look at each other with concern.
'Better off is Je'howith,' Constance remarked dryly, and even diplomatic King Danube couldn't deny a chuckle at that.
'In the grave and at peace from Duke Kalas,' Danube said.
'Did you wish to speak with the idiot? ' Kalas asked, clutching his heart as if their words had wounded him. ' Likely you did me a favor,' King Danube replied, pulling himself from his chair and walking over to the window.
Below him lay Ursal, quiet, awaiting winter. Every family had at least one victim now, so it was reported; and many houses lay dark and still, full of death, with no one to go in and retrieve the bodies.
Such was King Danube's beloved capital that late autumn of God's Year 829. It should have been among the happiest times of Danube's life. The demon and its minions had been shattered; the Church, always a nagging rival to the Throne, had been pushed into disarray; and his dear Constance had given him two sons: sons whom he was beginning to think of as heirs to his throne-though, of course, he'd have to speak with his brother at length about that possibility.
Yet, here he was, buttoned up within the prison that Castle Ursal had become, a fortress against the misery of the plague, though that most insidious of enemies had found its way even into these fortified halls, forcing the expulsion of two servants and a guard.
So far, though, none of his closest friends had been afflicted; and for that, King Danube mumbled a little prayer of thanks as he stood solemnly at the high window, looking out over his wounded kingdom.
Not much of a blessing, perhaps, but in this dark day, any light at all seemed a good thing.
The snow held off in the northland until after the turn of winter, but when it did come to Dundalis, it did so in fury, with drifts covering the entire sides of houses and burying the fences of the corrals.
Soon after, and still before the turn of God's Year 830, the weather calmed enough for Pony to attempt venturing out. And truly, she needed the time alone, at the grove and Elbryan's cairn, her great retreat from the events of the world.
She saddled Greystone and walked out of Dundalis, up the north slope and along the rim of the vale filled with caribou moss and pines, for the edges of the dale were windblown and nearly clear, while the dell itself was deep in snow. She found the trails within the forest easier going than she had anticipated, though the snow was often halfway up Greystone's legs, and on several occasions, Pony had to dismount and lead the horse along.
She had left early in the morning, and a good thing it was, for it was nearing noon when she at last came to the sheltered grove. The rolling hills and sharp ravines nearby were too deep and too slick, so Pony had dismounted again and tethered the horse in a windblown clearing, walking in the last quarter mile.
Two sets of hoofprints, running the length of the last field and right into the grove, alerted her that she was not alone. At first, she thought that it might be Bradwarden and Symphony-for who else would be out here on such a day-but then she saw a third track, the boots of a rider, beside the line ofhoofprints.
Shadowing the forest line for cover, Pony did a complete circuit of the grove. She spied a lone rider in the distance, sitting quietly along the tree line, bundled under mounds of furs.
Now she fell into her hematite, using its depths to release her spirit from her corporeal body. She went out to the rider first, and determined on her way that he had a companion, who was within the grove-her grove! — and the mere thought of that made her angry.
The rider was a man of about Pony's age, rugged but handsome, with a dark, two-week beard and sparkling, alert eyes. Something about him seemed familiar to Pony, but she could not place it.
Not wanting to linger for fear of being discovered, she turned her spirit and swept into the grove, passing insubstantially among the trees.
She found the other man standing before the twin cairns-grave markers that had been recently cleared of snow. He was a giant of a man, with long, somewhat thinning, flaxen hair, eyes the color of a clear northern sky, and a sword strapped diagonally across his back.
And what a sword-the largest Pony had ever seen! A sword that could cleave through any blocking shield, through any blocking tree, and cut the opponent in half!
The man started, glancing about, suddenly on the alert; and Pony realized that he had somehow sensed her presence. In the span of a single thought, she was back in her body, blinking her eyes, orienting herself to the physical world about her.
She paused, waiting a few moments, and when no call came from the grove and when the giant man didn't emerge, she picked a path that would keep her out of sight of the waiting rider, and slipped across the field, one hand on Defender, the other in her gemstone pouch, rolling both graphite and lodestone between her fingers.
She moved stealthily, perfectly quiet, from shadow to shadow, as Elbryan had taught her. Still, before she was within ten paces of the man, he called out, 'You should not be sneaking up on me so, good woman. It makes me edgy.'
He turned slowly, a wry smile showing on his bearded face. His hands remained at his side, making no movement toward that incredible sword.
'A bit far out of town in such a season as this, are you not?' the man asked.
'What do you know of it? '
'I know that Dundalis is the closest town, and a hard morning's march in this deep snow,' the man answered. 'And I know that Weedy Meadow is another twenty miles from that.'
Pony cocked her head, staring at him curiously. How could he know so much, without her being aware of any such man in the area? And what of Bradwarden? The centaur knew, or claimed to know, of everything that moved in the forest. And yet, Pony had not heard from Bradwarden in many days, and even that had been no more than the piping song carried on a favorable evening breeze.
'What are you doing here?' Pony asked firmly, watching the man closely. If he went for that sword, she intended to lay him low with a lightning stroke.
The big man shrugged. 'Paying my respects,' he said.
'To whom?' Pony's words came out unintentionally sharp. Who was this man to presume that he could walk unannounced to Elbryan's grave?
'To fellow rangers,' the Alpinadoran replied, and Pony's jaw dropped.
'To Nightbird, and to Mather before him,' the ranger went on. 'Word reached me of his demise, and so I owed him this visit, though the road was long and difficult.'
'Who are you?'
'I was thinking of asking you the same thing.'
'Who are you to stand uninvited and unannounced before my husband's grave? ' Pony replied, clarifying much.
The big man nodded and smiled. 'Jilseponie Wyndon, then,' he said. 'Pony to her friends. Companion of Nightbird to the end.' He bowed respectfully. 'I am Andacanavar of Alpinador, elven-trained, as was your husband. The full story of the tragedy in Palmaris came to me by the way of Brother Holan Dellman of the Abellican Church, who now serves at St. Belfour in Vanguard.'
Pony was shaking her head, hardly able to believe the man, but the mention of Brother Dellman, her friend, put her at ease. Too much so, she realized a moment later, when she head a voice behind her.
'And I am Liam O'Blythe,' it said, and Pony spun to see the man who'd been on horseback near her-near enough to have jumped her before she could use her gemstones or draw her sword, and how foolish that made her feel.
But this man, too, bowed politely, respectfully, and made no move against her.
'We did not know that you were again in this area,' Andacanavar went on, 'else we would have sought you
