before and lived to tell the tale.'
Jonathan stared into that strange face and tried to read the expression. Silvanus seemed so confident. The mage-finder remembered being confident once, secure in his own beliefs, but that was before. He glanced back, eyes searching for Elaine. Her yellow hair glowed in the dying light. She rode behind Elaine, having generously offered her horse to the large, mustached man. Her hair glowed against the white of Blaine's hood, and Elaine seemed to feel his eyes upon her, for she turned to look at him.
Jonathan looked away before their eyes could meet. He didn't want her inside his mind again. The thought made him shudder as if something had slithered over his foot in the dark. She'd had no right to invade him like that. It was evil. Yet, he wanted to mend things between them, but didn't know how.
Short of her magic's disappearing overnight, Jonathan wasn't sure things between them could ever heal. He hadn't anticipated Blaine's taking her side, but should have. He'd been blind not to expect that. But Thordin? That had been a complete surprise. Their cell of the brotherhood had more successes than any other-more monsters slain, evil wizards prosecuted, charlatans unmasked. They were a good team. The fact that Elaine's magic had broken them up was proof enough that her witchcraft was a corrupting influence.
He stared down at the lights. Putting to rest the dead of Cortton would be their last task as a family. He was the head of this family. The leader of all who obeyed the brotherhood in his house. So why could he not find a way out of this moral dilemma? It was like watching a wagon barreling down a narrow path. He knew it was going to go careening off into space to smash to the rocks below, but could not stop it, not by wishing or screaming. It was an accident happening slowly before his eyes, and he could do nothing to stop it.
He could not solve his own problems, but he could help this village. Jonathan would have rather faced a dozen zombies than strife in his own household. Perhaps he might yet defeat both.
'Do you still worry over the girl?' Silvanus asked.
Jonathan wanted to say no, but nodded.
'Averil is often strong willed. We quarrel, but we make up. They never stop being our children, no matter how angry we get.'
'This not a fight over an inappropriate suitor,' Jonathan said. 'She invaded my mind without my permission. She showed that she would abuse her power.'
'She is what. . eighteen of your years? She is young. You are the one with the patience and wisdom of years. It is your task to heal this fight, not hers.'
'Is that the way you deal with Averil?'
'Yes.' That one word sounded tired, as if the good advice was harder to swallow than to dish out.
Jonathan glanced back. Elaine was looking at him. He held her gaze for a moment, then looked away. Did her eyes seek him as his did her? Did she long to mend this quarrel? If so, why had she done it? He could have ignored much, but not this outright invasion. She had to know that. It was almost as if she had done it deliberately.
'I cannot mend this,' he said, at last.
'Will not,' the elf said.
Jonathan nodded. 'Will not.' He kicked the horse forward. It began winding down the path.
'Pride is a cold thing, my friend.'
'It is not pride.'
The elf's voice came close to his ear, like his own conscience. 'Then what is it, if not pride?'
It was fear, but Jonathan didn't know how to explain that to the elf. Silvanus's dead wife had been a witch, a human mage. If the elf could love, bed, and father a child with a magic-user, he would not understand Jonathan's fear.
'Please, Jonathan, you have been so kind to us. I will listen with an open mind. You can use my ear to bounce ideas from, until you find a way to approach Elaine.'
It sounded so reasonable. Jonathan didn't feel in the least reasonable. How to explain his fear to someone who did not share it in the least?
The sun died in a flash of golden blood in the purple clouds. As they rode down the hillside, the light slipped away from them. Konrad rode ahead, his figure growing dimmer, blending with the coming dark. Konrad was the only one of them who wasn't riding double. He and the paladin. The paladin was simply too large to share. Konrad simply hadn't offered.
'My parents were slain by magic.' Jonathan said, at last.
'As was my wife,' Silvanus said.
Jonathan shook his head. How to explain? 'No, they were not just killed. They were degraded, tormented.'
'Tell me, my friend.'
But he did not want to. This grief was too intimate. Even after nearly forty years, the wound was still raw. His mother had been a gypsy like Tereza. Perhaps that was why from the first her dark hair and rich voice had captivated him. Do we not all spend our lives trying to get back to happier days? Of course, if that was all Jonathan had wanted, he wouldn't have joined the brotherhood. He wouldn't have become a mage-finder. He would have taken Tereza and found some quiet corner and hidden away. But he hadn't, perhaps because he believed that the evil would find him. Those who did not seek out evil to slay it, would be sought out by evil. Better to face it, hunt it down, than to be caught unawares.
He had been ten the year the wizard rode into the yard of their homestead. His father was a sheep farmer. His mother, with her delicate hands and rich, contralto voice, was a noted bard. If she had traveled, she might have become a meistersinger, but she was not ambitious. It was a very gypsy trait to have great talent and not worry about whether it was used to best advantage. Happiness was more important.
They had a small inn where travelers could come and stay. Mother sang in the evenings. Father was often away during the day, tending the flocks, but every sheep had to be in by nightfall. The wolves could destroy an entire flock in a single night.
The wizard was a tall, painfully thin man, as if he never got enough to eat, but Jonathan remembered watching him eat great quantities of his mother's food. He never grew fatter, and fascinated Jonathan and his younger brother, Gamail.
The wizard, Timon, stayed for a week. The two boys hadn't even realized he was a wizard until the day the woman rode into the yard. She was small, dainty, with a fall of hair down her back the color of autumn-bronzed leaves. She came looking for an old foe, Timon, and challenged him to a duel.
Jonathan's mother tried to stop it by stepping between them.
The red-haired witch raised her hands to the sky. 'Get out of my way, woman. My quarrel is with him.'
'This is my home. If you must duel, duel elsewhere. That is all I ask.'
'If Timon will go with me, that is acceptable.'
The tall, thin man just shook his head- 'If I am going to be executed, I will not go willingly.'
'Please, Timon,' Mother said, 'go outside the homestead.'
He shook his head again. 'I am about to die, and you complain about your house. A house can be rebuilt.'
'Timon, my lady, please.'
Timon scowled. 'Leave us, woman.' He made a flat gesture with his hand, out from his body.
Mother fell to the ground. Jonathan and Gamail ran toward her.
'No, stay back.' She shouted the words in her wonderful voice. The sound carried into the house. Guests and servants came to the windows and the door, and the cook dashed out and took the two boys by the hands, then pulled them back toward the house.
No one helped Mother. No one helped.
Mother tried to crawl away in the dirt on her hands and knees, but the red-haired witch pointed one hand. A bolt of sizzling green light roared outward, engulfed her. Mother screamed. They could see her through the green light as if through colored glass. Her body began to melt, falling down and down, impossibly small. Her clothes formed an empty puddle on the ground when the light died away.
Jonathan tried to run to her, to help her, but the cook clung to his wrist as if her life depended on it. Her fingernails dug into his skin. From that day on, he would carry a perfect imprint of her fingernails there.
Timon walked forward, carefully, never taking his attention from the red-haired witch. He poked the cloth with his foot. Something small moved under the cloth. Something impossibly small.
