Bastion of Darkness

Chapter 8
A Party of Two… er, Three… er, Four

AS HE HAD suspected when he first set out, on foot, from Avalon, Belexus found that he could not fly on Calamus for long stretches. The wind was simply too cold whenever the pair moved from behind the shelter of a rock wall, and while the shaggy pegasus, winter coat in full and strong muscles working hard to cut that wind, didn’t complain in any way, the ranger’s fingers and toes grew numb far too quickly. More often than not, each flight ended at the first sighting of a potential campsite.

The stoic Belexus remained undaunted, though, and saw a distinct advantage in having Calamus with him, besides the fine company. The high vantage point on Calamus offered the ranger a better opportunity to plot his walking trails, and to keep a good idea of where, exactly, in the seemingly unending mountains, he was; at times, when the inconsistent weather and mountain walls permitted, he could see for miles, and even when the view was not blocked, the ranger’s progress in five minutes of flying time with Calamus was often greater than Belexus could manage in half a day of hiking along the winding and treacherous trails.

It took Belexus nearly two full days simply to sort out the best searching pattern. The Crystals were wide and tall, wider than the ranger had ever imagined, and he came to feel that his journey would surely have been folly had Calamus not come to him. Even with the pegasus, he feared that he had months of searching ahead of him, feared that he might pass over the dragon’s lair a hundred times and never notice it. Those possibilities would be greatly enhanced, Belexus knew, if he went at the task in a random manner, and so he began sighting out landmarks, odd-shaped peaks or distinctive valleys. He had to be certain where he had been before he could determine where he next should go.

His progress improved, and so did the weather, over the next few days. “We’ll have to go down to the lower valley,” he announced to Calamus soon after waking, the sky just beginning to brighten around them. They had camped in a sheltered nook, almost a cave, along the southern face of a rocky mountain. They weren’t above the tree line, but on this particular summit, a fire or some other disaster had apparently destroyed the foliage, and the earth had washed away before more trees or any sizable scrub could take hold.

“I’m needing food,” he explained, and he didn’t feel the least bit foolish in talking to Calamus, whom he was certain could understand his every word. To illustrate his point, the ranger held up his pack, which was much lighter now. “Got to thicken me skin against the cold wind.”

The pegasus nickered and stamped the ground.

Belexus threw another log on the fire, taking his time, making sure that he was properly fed and warmed before attempting the move. Impatience would be the death of him in the wintry Crystals, he constantly reminded himself, fighting back his eagerness to be through with this part of the adventure, that he might take his revenge on the wraith, that he might truly put his friend Andovar to rest. But this was a place where preparation was needed before every step. Thus, it was midmorning before he had everything packed neatly in the saddlebags and loops of the saddle. Last, he took up his bow and quiver, keeping it handy, as always, when he was up in the air upon his winged steed.

A movement high above, a black speck flitting through the edges of his vision in the empty air, caught his attention just as he was about to mount. In the blink of an eye, he had an arrow set on the bowstring, the heavy bow pulled back to its limit and leveled. He saw the speck again, and then a larger one behind it, way up high but descending rapidly.

The ranger said a prayer to the Colonnae, and to the spirit of the bird, thanking them for bringing bounty to him, perhaps saving him an entire day of foraging through the low valleys.

Down came the specks, up went the bow. The first of the pair, a raven, swerved fast out of sight, but the second, an eagle, continued its direct descent. Belexus thought it curious that the bird of prey had so given up the chase of the smaller bird, and as the eagle drifted lower and lower, moving into range, he wondered just how great a part the Colonnae might be playing in delivering this meal.

Truly Belexus hated to shoot an eagle, that most majestic of hunters. But he could not ignore the growling of his belly or the importance of his quest, and so he took deadly aim, drew back his string, and let fly.

The ensuing squawk, long before the arrow struck home, was not the sound the ranger had expected, nor was the defensive movement, for the eagle, instead of turning fast on wing, broke its stoop and fluttered wildly, and in frenzied movements, its outline became indistinct, wavering, enlarging, shifting shape and color.

The ranger’s fearful cry caught in his throat, for before the arrow had closed half the distance, the creature was no longer an eagle but a man, in blue robes and with a bushy white beard and a tall, pointy hat. The wizard flapped his arms frantically, tried to twist and turn, and cried out, “Oh, I daresay!”

The arrow disappeared into that blue jumble, and Ardaz plummeted down nearly fifty feet, to land with a crunch through the icy snow on the exposed ledge not far from Belexus and Calamus.

“By the Colonnae!” Belexus cried, leaping stone in a desperate charge that sent him skidding down the last slippery expanse to tumble into the snow not far from fallen Ardaz. “Oh, but I’m not for knowing!” he cried, pulling himself upright and reaching to turn the fallen man about.

To his ultimate surprise, the wizard hopped to his feet right before him and began frantically straightening his robes.

“Well, that one hurt, of course it did!” Ardaz scolded. “Too old I am, I say, and I am, I am, to be playing in the snow!”

Belexus gawked at him incredulously, hardly believing that the wizard was apparently uninjured, hardly believing that Ardaz was even alive, and hardly believing that he was here, so many miles from his home in Illuma Vale.

Ardaz continued to fumble with his robes, pulling them around his side. There hung the ranger’s arrow, caught in the folds of the voluminous garment right where it covered the wizard’s backside. Ardaz tugged the arrow free and handed it to Belexus, a disgruntled smirk on his bearded face. Then he reached back to display the robes, or more particularly, the two holes now showing in the thick material.

“Of course, when the wind blows, it will tickle my fancy, I do daresay,” the wizard grumbled. “And oh, but where is my hat?” He looked all around, obviously distressed.

Belexus had noted the descent of the tall and pointed cap as well, and he was not happy to inform Ardaz that it had missed the ledge. Given the strong and swirling wind, that could put it anywhere within a mile or two.

Ardaz was fast to the ledge, leaning over so far to peer down that Belexus cautiously moved up to grasp the back of his flapping robes.

“I can fix the robe, oh yes,” Ardaz rambled, turning to face the ranger and slapping Belexus’ hand away-and when Belexus did let go, the overbalanced Ardaz nearly tumbled from the ledge. “I’m good at that sort of thing, you know, and have had more than my share of practice, I do daresay! But that hat! There’s a loss, and I’ve had it for so long. So very, very long!

“And where is Des, that silly puss?” he continued, hopping all around the ledge, glancing up and to the side. “Magical hat, you know,” he offered to Belexus, and then to the wide wind, he shook his fist, then called out, “Desdemona!”

“I thinked ye were-” the ranger began.

“Oh, yes,” Ardaz interrupted, snapping his fingers, and he seemed not even aware that Belexus was trying to speak. “Enchanted hat to keep my head warm. Not much plumage up there when I’m an eagle, after all! But no matter; I’ll catch my death of cold and wake every talon in the Crystals with my sneezing, no doubt, and then you shall have to kill every one-every one, I say!-in penance for your foolishness.”

“Ye weren’t… I’m not for…” Belexus tried again, futilely.

“Of course, I’ve got a head full now, now don’t I?” Ardaz rambled, grabbing at his thick shock of hair, shining more silver than white in the morning light. “Desdemona!”

Belexus started to speak again, thought the better of it, and clapped his strong hands down hard on the wizard’s shoulders, settling Ardaz’ dangerous movements, and hopefully the wizard’s rambling words, as well. Ardaz looked him right in the eye and blinked repeatedly.

“Take ease, me friend,” the ranger calmly prompted.

“Would’ve, would be, would never have not been, if you hadn’t shot me,” Ardaz replied dryly.

Belexus couldn’t hold back his laughter any longer, erupting in a howl, and drawing a scowl from the old man, but one that fast melted as Ardaz, too, joined in the mirth. “Oh, and a good shot, I do daresay!” the wizard roared, reaching around to the twin holes once more. “Right between the drumsticks!”

His laughter flew away as he thought on that last statement for a moment, his face blanching white. “A bit too good,” he muttered under his breath.

“Suren I’m glad to be seeing ye, me friend,” Belexus said. “But why’re ye here, so far from yer home?”

Ardaz snorted. “Not so far from my home as is Belexus of Avalon,” he shot back. “And coming of my own powers, instead of forcing a poor cold pegasus out here with me, I do daresay!”

Belexus conceded the point with a nod, not even trying to explain that Calamus had come of his own volition.

“So what is it, what could it be, that might bring a ranger from the forest in midwinter?” Ardaz asked bluntly. “Especially a one who has so taken a fancy to my sister-and you and I, oh yes, we shall talk about that later!”

Belexus blushed fiercely, but the mere mention of Brielle brought warmth flowing through his veins. “A quest,” he admitted.

“A quest?” Ardaz echoed, in a somewhat more sober and controlled tone. “Well, well, so the tale gets more interesting. But what quest?” he pressed. “I’m guessing that a hundred hundred could be found in this time of Thalasi, a hundred thousand, I do daresay! Hunting talons, then?”

“I’ve but one true enemy,” Belexus said seriously.

Ardaz snorted again. “One?” he asked skeptically. “I’ll show you a thousand more than one. Fly with me to the Four Bridges… er, to where the Four Bridges used to be four bridges, with King Benador, and I’ll-”

“One enemy,” Belexus said again, his voice so grim that it had a sobering effect even on Ardaz. “And when Mitchell’s wraith is put to rest, only then will I be looking for me next.”

Ardaz nodded and understood. Of course, Mitchell’s wraith, the slayer of Andovar. “I beg your pardon if stupid I prove, but are you not going in the wrong direction?” the wizard said, as politely as he could manage. “The wraith, if it even pulled itself from the river, would be far south of here, and likely to the west. Do you mean to circle the world-and it is round, you know-” he added with a wink, “and catch up with the beastie from behind?”

The absurdity of the question might have drawn anger from serious Belexus, except for the subtle reminder that Ardaz had stood beside him in his last encounter with the wraith, had stood shoulder to shoulder on the northernmost of the Four Bridges and, in fact, had sundered the bridge, thus putting Mitchell in the river.

“I seek a weapon,” Belexus admitted. “One Brielle has shown to me, the one in all the world, perhaps, that can truly harm the undead demon the Black Warlock has set upon us.”

“No settlements up here,” the mage reasoned. “Not a person to be found. A few talons, perhaps, but hardly any possessing such a weapon, I do daresay!”

“Not a settlement,” Belexus clarified. “A lair.”

“Oo, but I hate that word!” Ardaz replied, shaking his hands and his head vigorously. “A lair. A lair,” he said repeatedly, rolling the words off his tongue in a different manner each time, but shuddering with each pronouncement. “Conjures images of dragons and the like. Oo, a lair.”

“So it does,” the ranger replied evenly.

Ardaz stopped his babbling and stared long and hard at Belexus. “A dragon?” he managed to ask after a long pause, holding his arms outstretched, his hands waving under the edges of his great sleeves, making them appear as ominous wings.

“So says the witch,” Belexus answered without hesitation.

“You are going after a sword that rests in a dragon’s lair?”

“I seek the one weapon with which I might be paying back me enemy,” Belexus answered resolutely, his tone telling the wizard in no uncertain terms that any obstacles standing between him and the sword were unimportant.

“Whip-dragon?” Ardaz asked hopefully, for Belexus had defeated many of those.

“True dragon,” the ranger answered.

“Little dragon?” the wizard asked, again with the hopeful grin and tone.

Belexus crossed his arms over his muscled chest and shook his head slowly, side to side.

“Sleeping dragon?”

The ranger shrugged, again as if that were not important.

“Oh, well, let us hope,” Ardaz said suddenly, excitedly.

“Us?”

“You and me, of course,” the wizard bellowed. “Us. Though you would probably call us ‘weselves’ or some other such silly thing, what with that silly accent me-my-sister gave to your father and he to you.”

“I canno’-” Belexus began.

“See?” Ardaz accused, pointing a finger at the ranger’s mouth. “Canno? Canno what? Canno beans?”

“Stop yer babbling,” Belexus scolded, understanding that Ardaz might just be trying to confuse the serious issue-and worrying that the wizard might just be being the wizard! “I canno’ think to-”

“Stop me. Right,” Ardaz finished. “Of course, you canno’. I make my own path, you know. One of the agreements with the Colonnae when they made me a wizard, and quite beyond anything you might say or do.”

“I’m not asking-”

“Nor am I, nor am I,” Ardaz was quick to reply.

The ranger just gave a great sigh and held up his hands hopelessly.

“I will go, I think, and so I will,” Ardaz said with finality. “But, oh, first I must, I must, I must, find my hat. What with the hole in the backside, after all. Oh, the draft does tickle! Where, oh where, might it have gone off to?”

Belexus again started to formulate a more reasonable protest against the wizard’s intentions, but seeing Ardaz already hopping about the ledge again, searching frantically for his lost hat, the ranger realized that he might as well scream at the mountain wall. “It flew over the ledge,” he explained. “Caught in the wind, is me guess, and long from here.”

“Would’ve had it if you hadn’t shot me,” Ardaz remarked quietly.

“Would’no’ve shot ye if ye came in announced, or asked for,” Belexus replied in the same dry manner.

Ardaz shrugged and began looking once more.

“Come,” Belexus bade him, motioning for the wizard to follow him to Calamus. “I need go to the valleys below in any case. Might be that we’ll find it along the way.”

Down the pair went on the back of the magnificent steed, Calamus seeming to hardly notice the added burden of skinny Ardaz. The wizard complained continually about the wind whistling through the holes against his backside, but his grumbling fell away soon enough, when they spotted a patch of blue on a ledge halfway down the sheer cliff. It proved a tricky maneuver, but one worth making-or, Belexus realized, he’d have to listen to Ardaz complaining forevermore. The ranger brought the pegasus in as close as possible to the ledge and Ardaz, holding Belexus’ bow, leaned out to the side, hooked the brim of the hat, and slipped it free of its perch.

The ensuing shriek startled both wizard and ranger as a curled black cat fell out of the hat, plummeting down the cliff. Desdemona was a quick one, though, fast sprouting wings, fur going to feather, and then drifting down lazily, cawing in protest.

“Oh, silly puss,” the wizard muttered, and he said it again when they found Desdemona on the valley floor, comfortably curled yet again in the nook of a pine tree root.

The cat didn’t even bother to open an eye.

Their hunting took the better part of the day, but Belexus finally brought down a white-tailed deer, and he and Ardaz had a fine meal as they sat around a blazing fire that evening, Calamus standing stoically nearby, Desdemona curled comfortably on the wizard’s warm lap.

“I canno’ ask ye to come along,” the ranger remarked unexpectedly, in all seriousness. “’Tis me own fight, I say, one I’ll be making for me friend.”

“Didn’t we already have this argument?” Ardaz asked, seeming somewhat confused. He began reciting the words of their previous debate, but got hung up on “canno’” again, and shifted his line of muttering to the recitation of many other funny-sounding ranger speech patterns.

“We had the fight,” Belexus finally interrupted after about fifteen minutes of the rambling. “But by me own thinking, we did’no’ finish it.”

Ardaz sobered and stared him right in the eye. “That the son of Bellerian could be such a fool,” the wizard answered with a derisive snort. “And Andovar was Belexus’ friend alone, then?”

“I’m not for saying-”

“But you are!” Ardaz retorted, waggling a long and pointy finger the ranger’s way. “You are saying that very thing, I do daresay! And putting the wraith out as your enemy alone, though in truth, all the living world should hate the thing. And you’ll not find a dragon-a true dragon and not one of those silly whipping things of the swamp-so easy a foe! But easier the dragon will be, I say, if stubborn Belexus has a friend beside him. And a friend with a trick or two, ha, ha! And one who’s good at dodging arrows, to boot!

“Or to butt, I suppose,” the wizard ended dryly.

“How can I be asking?”

“Who said you should?” Ardaz replied with a derisive snort. “Oh, I’m going, and don’t you think you can stop me.” He stared at the fire for a moment, then looked up at the crisp night sky. “A dragon,” he muttered, suddenly talking more to himself than to Belexus. “Fancy that! Oh, but I’d dearly love to meet one! Wouldn’t we, Des?”

Desdemona yawned and stretched, and then, as if the wizard’s words had only then registered, opened wide her mouth in a vicious hiss and smacked the wizard across the face, only his thick beard preventing him from showing three bloody lines from fully extended claws.

“Beastly loyal,” Ardaz mumbled.

“I’d not be so loyal, meself, if me friend was leading me to the likes of a dragon’s lair,” Belexus put in.

“Oh, but you would!” Ardaz countered with hardly a thought. “And you shall, and if you live, you shall thank me for the company, ha, ha!”

The ranger started to reply, but found that he had no sincere argument. Of course, if the situation had been reversed, he would go along with the wizard, and, thus, he had to allow Ardaz a similar show of loyalty. That, above anything else, settled the argument in the ranger’s mind, and in his heart. He could not deny Ardaz the opportunity to join him in this quest, whose ultimate implications for the good of all Ynis Aielle went far beyond avenging the death of Andovar. “Yer friendship is truly a blessing of the Colonnae,” he said in all seriousness.

Ardaz beamed. “Together then!” he said happily. “A party of two.”

Desdemona opened a sleepy eye and looked up at him, as if to ask if she had to hiss and swipe again.

“Er, three,” the wizard promptly corrected.

Across the way, Calamus snorted and stamped a hoof.

“Four,” both ranger and wizard said together, sharing a laugh.

Belexus slept better that night than on any of the previous since he had left Avalon. Ardaz, though, lay awake a long, long while. There weren’t many dragons in Ynis Aielle-fortunately! The few about had been created by evil Morgan Thalasi centuries before, but fortunately, they were not an overly fruitful lot, more concerned with making a meal of each other and stealing treasure than propagating the line. On those rare occasions that a meeting of dragons did produce an offspring-when the female won the inevitable fight after mating-that young dragon would quickly go out into the world in search of its own treasure hoard, and either meet its end at the claws of another dragon, at the end of a wizard’s lightning bolt-Brielle was particularly adept at putting an end to the unnatural things-or, in one notable case, at the end of a warrior’s sword. Belexus was perhaps the only mortal man alive who had ever seen a dragon and survived; certainly he was the only one who had ever killed a dragon.

But that had been a young one, barely larger than the pegasus the ranger now rode. If Brielle’s magic had located the sword in the lair of a dragon deep in the great Crystals, then likely it was an ancient wyrm, one of the originals Thalasi had created as a scourge to the world. And given the weakening of magic, a full-grown dragon might well prove to be the most powerful creature in all of Ynis Aielle.

Ardaz did not sleep so well.