'Eriale, I did it to save you!'
The girl shuddered in horror. 'Don't say that!'
Aeron threw up his arms in exasperation. 'We don't have time for this, Eriale. Phoros will just throw you in prison again!'
She turned her back on him. 'You'd better go.'
'Eriale, I did what I had to do!' Aeron looked past her, at the horsemen coming after him. He reached forward to catch her sleeve, but she twisted away from him, tears streaming down her cheeks. Aeron cursed and retreated, watching the soldiers gallop toward them. 'I'll set this right somehow, Eriale.' He bolted, hurdling a stone fence and sprinting for the cover of the trees. Behind him, Eriale turned and started walking toward the count's men.
Aeron crashed into the underbrush by the forest's edge, his heart hammering in his chest. He almost ran right past Fineghal, but at the last moment, the tall elf caught him by the arm and spun him around. The look on the elven mage's face was merciless. 'What have you done, Aeron?' he barked. 'When did you learn that spell?'
Aeron stumbled to one knee. 'Miroch was going to hurt Eriale. I had to do something!'
'So you shaped the Weave into a torrent of flame and burned him alive. Where was the justice in that?'
A spark of defiance guttered up in Aeron's heart. He glared into the elf's inscrutable face. 'You were right here! If you didn't want me to defend myself, to defend the people I love, you should have acted yourself!' He surged to his feet, his anger building. 'You weren't waiting for me, Fineghal. You were hiding!'
The elven mage fell silent. His eyes flicked past Aeron to the soldiers rushing into the forest, beating the brush with their sword blades. 'This discussion is not over yet. Now, come! We must get away from this place.' He wheeled and sprinted into the dark verdancy of the forest, vanishing almost faster than Aeron could see.
Fineghal did not speak to Aeron for days after they fled into the forest. They avoided the torch-lit manhunt with a few simple tricks of woodcraft and magic, but the wizard's features blazed with fury when Aeron tried to break the silence. Cold judgment mantled the ageless elven lord, an impenetrable barrier that Aeron dared not breach. Bitterly Fineghal moved deep into the Maerchwood, seeking the shelter of Caerhuan. Aeron trailed helplessly in his wake.
The cold white walls of the elven tower brought no relief. Fineghal spent long hours each day in the forest, speaking no word to Aeron when he came or went. Two days passed as Aeron waited for the wizard to berate or punish him. He tried to distract himself with his studies, but he had no desire to grapple with unknown magics or press the foreign shapes of spells into his mind. He was dreadfully worried for Eriale, although he hoped that his flight had won her some measure of safety. But the fearsome image that banned rest from his heart was the memory of roaring flame and the screams of Miroch as he withered and died like a moth caught in a candle.
After days of staring out over the endless torrent and the chaotic waters of the Winding River, Aeron came to a decision. He rose, returned to the tower, and carried his pouch of glyphwoods to the rocky bluff. He pulled the carving for the fire spell from his collection and weighed it in his hand, looking out over the gorge. With an anguished cry, he hurled the slender rod of wood end over end into the foaming waters.
He felt Fineghal's presence behind him as the elven lord watched the spell wood vanish in the foam. 'Does that ease your heart?' he asked quietly.
'No,' said Aeron. 'I didn't want to kill him, Fineghal. But when I think about it, I would do it again, to keep him from hurting Eriale. Or me. What does that make me?'
'Killing is a hard thing. When you kill, you murder a small part of your own spirit. Fear the day when it does not trouble you to take a life,' Fineghal said. 'Taking that which you have not earned is an offense to the spirit, too.'
'If I hadn't known how to cast fire hand, Miroch might have raped or killed her,' Aeron rasped.
'Better that you hadn't set foot in Maerchlin. Miroch would have had no cause to trouble Eriale, no reason to fire your neighbor's house. And you would have had no reason to kill him, Aeron.'
'That's easy for you to say. You don't have kinfolk in Phoros Raedel's dungeons.'
Fineghal looked away, a flicker of unreadable emotion crossing his face. Emboldened, Aeron pursued him and spoke to his back. 'I'm human, Fineghal. I have a heart! You may find it noble to stand watch, never interfering, but I can't do that. Not when people I care for are in danger. If that means that you've failed to teach me patience, then so be it. I wasn't meant to learn it.'
'You can't deny your heritage, Aeron. You are of the Tel'Quessir.' The elven lord wrapped his cloak around his shoulders against the wind and spray, his face white with anger. He measured Aeron for a long moment, and imperceptibly his gaze softened. 'And yet you are human, too. Maybe you are right, Aeron. I might have found a better course for you if I had intervened. Your failure is my failure.' Stretching out one arm, he breathed a few soft words and beckoned. From the white, booming rapids, a small length of wood flew, tumbling into his hand. 'Take your glyphwood. The spell has been cast, and the fault does not lie here.'
'I'm never casting that spell again.'
'You may have need of it someday, Aeron. It is foolish to forget what you have learned.' Fineghal passed one hand over the duarran and dried it with a simple magic. Then he handed it to Aeron.
Aeron looked at the glyphwood for a long time before returning it to his pouch. 'I'm going to go back. I can't let Phoros Raedel terrorize Eriale and Kestrel any longer.'
'Aeron, you can't defeat Raedel.'
'You could, Fineghal,' Aeron said bitterly.
'Whether or not that is true, I will not attempt it. It would be reckless and irresponsible of me.'
'So you'd unseat a bandit lord in Villon, but the one in Maerchlin is beneath your notice?'
Fineghal's eyes flashed. 'I live to serve Calmaercor, Aeron. Baerskos of Villon pillaged the old places of my people, and so I acted. But I refuse to endanger the land I guard by setting my hand against Phoros Raedel, his master in Oslin, and behind him, the Overking of Akanax.'
'Then I'm on my own,' Aeron snorted.
'I beg you: Do not throw away your life in an attempt to end Phoros Raedel's.'
The young forester shook his head. 'Whatever it takes, I mean to get Kestrel out of Raedel's dungeons. If Kestrel escapes, Eriale and he can leave Maerchlin. They've no other kin there. Would you be willing to find a place for them, maybe in Saden or Rodanar? Or is that interfering?'
Fineghal's voice was frigid. 'Yes. I would help them, Aeron. But be warned that I will no longer teach you if you wield your magic against Raedel. I did not share my knowledge with you so that you could spite your enemies. You have it within your grasp to do much more than that.' He wheeled and strode away, raising his hand for Baillegh. The hound shot one mournful look at Aeron and then trotted after her master.
Aeron watched Fineghal leave, shaking with suppressed emotion from the confrontation. To his surprise, the elven lord halted and glanced at him one more time. 'I must tend to the eastern meadows for a few days,' he called. 'Stay here and study what you will. I am not accustomed to being castigated by half-human striplings, but I will overlook the words you spoke in anger if you, too, put it in the past. Or, if that does not suit you, then go to Maerchlin and do what you think you must. But if I return and find that you are not here, Aeron, you will not be welcome in Caerhuan again.'
Five
Aeron remained on the bluff, deep in thought, until the sun sank into the west, staining the cold waters below with a thousand brilliant colors. Fineghal's parting words troubled him greatly. The elf lord was not given to exaggeration. Never to study magic again. . Aeron couldn't bear the thought. He'd been changed by the year he'd spent under Fineghal's tutelage. He was not the simple woodcutter's lad he'd once been. Magic engaged his mind, his heart, on a level so intimate and demanding that it had become part of him. And he'd come to understand that he was only scratching the surface of what he might someday learn.
But on the other horn of his dilemma, Aeron could not stand by and let Phoros Raedel exact his vengeance by striking at Kestrel and Eriale. As far as he was concerned, Aeron had given Regos and Phoros exactly what they deserved when he wounded them last summer, and even Miroch's death had been nothing more than self-defense. But as long as Phoros Raedel was the lord of the land, the young tyrant was free to do anything he liked in order to
