Mortalis

Chapter 26

"Complain, complain," Roger chided Pony. "You'll see Colleen, and you know that you want that! We start tomorrow."Pony, astride Greystone at the top of the north slopeleading out ofDundalis, just waved him away; and off Roger went, skipping as much as trotting, thrilled that he had finally convinced Pony to go to Caer Tinella with him.

Pony couldn't hide her smile as she watched her friend go. Roger had pestered her all through the summer, but she had steadfastly refused. He wanted her to go all the way to Palmaris with him, and finally, she had relented enough to agree to journey halfway, to Caer Tinella and their friend Colleen.

Looking past Roger, Pony noted the town that had served her so well as a sanctuary. She had been here about a year, and in that time had found some measure of peace. She spent her days working in Fellowship Way beside Belster O'Comely, who was usually too busy chatting with the townsfolkmostly his very best friend, Tomas Gingerwart-to get any real work done. Pony, though, had been happy enough in just keeping to herself, going about her routines, taking solace in the ordinary work of ordinary days.

And now Roger wanted to upset everything, wanted to pull her back to the south, where, she feared, those memories waited for her. He had worn her down, and she had agreed; but now her smile faded as she wondered if she could hold to that agreement!

She gave a sigh and turned away, for she had another appointment to keep that day. She prodded Greystone slowly down the other side of the ridge, the northern descent, and into the wide pine vale thick with white caribou moss. This, too, was a place of memories, but good ones mostly, of her youth with Elbryan in the days before the goblins. Pony rode through the vale and into the forest, trotting her horse easily and stopping occasionally for a break or simply to bask in the solitude. This was her refuge, the place where she could forget the troubles of the wider, civilized world. She didn't fear any large animals, no cats nor bears, nor was she afraid that any remnants of the demon's monstrous minions might still be about. No, Pony's only fear was of a different sort, of memories wrought by the foolishness of men, the reminder of how little she had accomplished, of how futile her dear Elbryan's death had been.

She stopped at the appointed spot, a secluded stream-fed pond not so far from the grove that held Elbryan's grave. Bradwarden wasn't there yet, so she hopped down from Greystone and kicked off her shoes, dropping her feet into the comfortably chilly water.

A long time passed, but Pony hardly cared that the centaur was late. She lay back in the leaf-covered grass, splashing her feet, remembering the good times and putting the bad far, far away.

"I'd throw ye in for the fun of it, if I didn't think the chili'd kill ye," came the centaur's voice, some time later, rousing Pony from a restful sleep.

She looked up at the sky curiously. " Noon? " she asked with sarcasm, for that had been their appointed hour and the sun was now low in the western sky.

"Midday, I said," the centaur corrected. "And since I'm to bed after the turn of midnight, and asleep until late in the morn, this is close enough, by me own guessin'!"

Pony threw a handful of leaves at him, but the autumn wind got them and sent them fluttering in all directions.

"Ye got to learn to look at the world proper, girl." Bradwarden laughed.

"A world I'll be seeing more of soon enough," Pony replied.

"Aye, I saw yer friend Roger and he telled me as much," said Bradwarden. "He finally got to ye, did he? Well, ye know how I'm feelin' about it."

"Indeed," Pony muttered, for Bradwarden had been pestering her to go to the south with Roger almost as much as Roger had.

"Ye can't be hidin' forever, now can ye? "

"Hiding?" Pony snorted. "Can you not understand that I simply prefer this place? "

"Even if ye're speakin' true-and I'm thinkin' that ye're tellin' yerself a bit of a lie-then ye should get out beyond the Timberlands once in a bit and see the wider world."

"If Roger had his way, I would be spending the whole of my winter in Palmaris," Pony remarked.

"Not so bad a thing!" Bradwarden bellowed.

Pony looked at him doubtfully. "Life here is peaceful and enjoyable," she replied after a while. "I've no desire to leave, and do so only as a friend to Roger, who does not wish to travel the road to Caer Tinella alone. I cannot understand his restlessness-he has all that he wants right here." That brought a belly laugh from the centaur. "All that he's wantin'? " he echoed incredulously. "And what're ye thinkin's here for the boy? The sun's shinin', girl. Don't ye feel it in yer bones and in yer heart? "

Pony stared at him for a long moment, then remarked, "In my bones, perhaps."

Bradwarden laughed yet again. "Aye, in yer bones alone, and there's a part o' Roger's problem!"

Pony stared at him curiously.

"He's a young man, full o' spirit and full o' wantin'," the centaur pointed out the obvious. "There be only two single women in all the three Timberland towns, and one's still a child and showing no hints of love."

"And the other is me," Pony reasoned. "You don't believe that Roger…" she started to ask, her voice showing her alarm.

"I believe that he'd love ye with all his heart if ye wanted it," Bradwarden remarked. "But, no, girl, ye rest easy, for Roger's not thinkin' on ye in that way. He's too good the friend, for yerself and for yer Nightbird."

Pony rested back in the thick carpet of leaves, considering the words. "Roger's going to Palmaris to find a wife," she stated more than asked.

"A lover, at least, I'd be guessin'," the centaur replied. "And can ye blame him?"

That last question, and the rather sharp tone in which it was delivered, made Pony glance up at Bradwarden curiously.

"Have ye so forgotten what it's feelin' like to be in love? " the centaur asked quietly, compassionately.

"Spoken from you?" Pony asked with more than a little sarcasm, for, as far as she knew, Bradwarden had never been enamored of any other centaurs; as far as Pony knew, there weren't any other centaurs in all the world!

"It's a bit different with me own kind," the centaur explained. "We've ways to…" He paused, obviously embarrassed, and cleared his throat, a great rumbling sound like boulders cascading down a rocky slope. "We go to find our lovin' once a five-year, and no more. A different love each time, or mighten be the same. And when the mare's with young, then she's to rear and raise the little one alone."

"So you never knew your father," Pony reasoned.

"Knew of him, and that's enough," Bradwarden said; and if there was a trace of regret in his voice, Pony couldn't detect it.

"But yer own kind," the centaur went on, "now, there's a different tale to be felled. I been watchin' yer kind for too long to be thinkin' that any of ye might find happiness alone."

Pony eyed him squarely, for that remark had been a clear shot at her, she believed.

"Oh, ye'11 find yerself wantin' again, perhaps, and might that ye won't," the centaur replied to that look. "But ye've known love, girl, as great a love as me own eyes've e'er seen. Ye've known it, and ye can feel it still, warmin' yer heart."

"I feel a great hole in my heart," Pony stated.

"At times," said the centaur with a wry smile. The mere fact that Bradwarden could get away with such a look while speaking of Elbryan confirmed to Pony that there was indeed a measure of truth in his words. "But the warm parts're meltin' that hole closed, by me own guess.

"Still, ye've known that love, as Belster once did, and so ye two have yer memories, and that's a sight more than Roger's got."

Pony started to reply but held the words in check, considering carefully the centaur's reasoning, and deciding that it was indeed sound. Roger was lonely, and was at an age and an emotional place where he needed more than friends. Bradwarden was right: up here in the Timberlands, the choices for a young man were not plentiful.

Pony lay back and put her hands behind her head, staring up at the lateafternoon autumn sky, clear blue and with puffy white clouds drifting by. She did remember well that feeling of being in love. She felt it still, that warmth and closeness, despite the fact that her lover lay cold in the ground. She wondered then, and perhaps for the first time since the tragedy at Chasewind Manor, if she would ever find love again. Even more than that, she wondered if she would ever want to find love again.

She stayed with Bradwarden until late in the night, listening to his piping song. On her way back to Dundalis, she stopped by the grove and the two cairns, and paused there for a long time, remembering.

The next morning-still tired, for she had not returned to her bed until very late indeed-Pony rode Greystone beside Roger, who was riding an older mare he and Bradwarden had taken from Symphony's herd, down the road to the south. An easy week of riding later, the pair trotted into Caer Tinella.

They found Colleen at her house, the woman looking even more feeble and battered than she had when Pony and Belster had stopped in the town on their way to Dundalis. Still, Colleen found the strength to wrap Pony and Roger in a great hug.

"I been thinkin' o' goin' to Dundalis," she explained, pushing Pony back to arm's length and staring admiringly at her, "soon as I'm feeling the better, I mean."

"Well, we saved you the journey," Pony offered, trying to look cheerful.

Colleen put on a sly look. "Ye paid him back good, didn't ye? Seano Bellick, I mean."

Roger looked curiously at Pony. "He came at us in the night," she explained. "I tried to convince him to leave."

"Oh, ye convinced him, I'd say," Colleen said with a chuckle, and she turned to Roger and explained. "Cut off his axe hand, she did, and put an arrow into his friend's eye! Seano come through here the next day, howlin' in pain and howlin' mad. The fool run right through, and all the way to Palmaris-though I beared he got killed on the road."

"Not much of a loss to the world, then," Pony remarked.

"Can't know for sure," Colleen explained, and she had to pause for a long while, coughing and coughing. "We've not been gettin' much word from the south of late-farmers gettin' in their crops and all."

"Do you know if Brother Braumin remains as abbot of St. Precious?" Pony asked.

"Aye, and he's all the stronger because Duke Kalas ran off last winter, back to Ursal," Colleen replied. "Me cousin Shamus sent word to me. He's back in the city, workin' with the man who's holding court as baron. They're lovin' Abbot Braumin in Palmaris."

"It will be good to see him again," Roger remarked.

"Ye're passin' through, then?" Colleen asked.

"Roger is, but I came to see you," Pony replied.

"Good timin' for ye," Colleen said to Roger. "There's a caravan goin' out for Palmaris tomorrow."

"I had hoped to visit longer than that," said Roger.

"But they're sayin' a storm's comin' fast," Colleen answered. "Ye might want to get on with that caravan ifye're lookin' for a safe road to Palmaris."

Roger looked to Pony, and she shrugged. They had known from the beginning that this moment would soon be upon them, where they parted ways, and perhaps, by Roger's own words, for a long, long time.

"Ye go and see Janine o' the Lake," Colleen instructed. "She'll get ye fixed up with the drivers."

They chatted a while longer, and Colleen set out some biscuits and some steaming stew. Then Roger hustled away, following Colleen's directions to the house of Janine of the Lake.

"Why are you still ill? " Pony asked bluntly, as soon as Colleen closed the door behind Roger.

Colleen looked at her as if she had just been slapped. "Well, ain't that a fine way to be saying hello," she replied.

"An honest way," Pony retorted. "When I left you here before, you were ill, but it seemed easily explained, with the recent fight against Seano Bellick and with all that you have endured these last years. But now… Colleen, it has been a year. Have you been sick all this time? "

Colleen's frown withered under the genuine concern. "I had a fine summer," she assured Pony. "I don't know what's come over me of late, but it's nothing to fret about."

"I would be a liar, and no friend, if I told you that you looked strong and healthy," Pony said.

"And I'd be a liar if I telled ye I felt that way," Colleen agreed. "But it'll pass," she insisted.

Pony nodded, trying to seem confident, but she rolled her hematite Through her fingers as she did, thinking that she might find need of the soul stone before she left Caer Tinella.

Roger left with the caravan the next day, for it was the last scheduled caravan of the season and many of the farmers were predicting early snows. The young man tried again to convince Pony to go with him, to no avail, and then he fretted about her getting caught here in Caer Tinella by early winter weather.

But Pony told him that she wasn't overconcerned, that she and Greystone could get home whenever they decided it was time to go. And then, remembering well Bradwarden's words to her about why Roger had needed to leave, she bade the young man to be on his way and made him promise to give her fond greetings to all of her friends back in Palmaris.

Truly, Pony had no intention of leaving anytime soon. Her original plan was to accompany Roger here and spend a couple of days, and then return to Dundalis; but with Colleen looking so fragile-even worse, Pony believed, than the previous year-she simply could not walk away.

As predicted, winter did come early to the fields and forests north of Palmaris, but by that time, Roger and the caravan were safely within the walls of the port city on the Masur Delaval.

He went straight to St. Precious when he arrived in the city, though the hour was late; and it was good indeed to be back beside Abbot Braumin and Brothers Viscenti and Castinagis. They laughed and told exaggerated tales of old times. They caught each other up-to-date on the present, and spoke in quiet tones their hopes for the future.

"Pony should have come with me," Roger decided. "It would do her heart good to witness the turn in the Abellican Church, to learn that Avelyn's name will no longer be blasphemed."

"We do not know that," Master Viscenti warned.

"The brothers inquisitor will arrive soon to question us concerning the disposition of Avelyn and the miracle at Mount Aida," Abbot Braumin explained. "Their investigation will determine the fate of Avelyn's legacy within the Church."

"Can there be any doubt? " Roger asked. "I was there at Aida beside you. As pure a miracle as the world has ever known!"

"Hold fast that thought," Brother Castinagis piped in. "I am sure that the brothers inquisitor will find your voice in time."

They talked easily all that first night until they drifted off, one by one, to sleep. And then they spent the better part of the next day together, reminiscing, planning, and again long into the night, until Abbot Braumin was called to a meeting with Brother Talumus and some others.

Roger went out alone into Palmaris' night.

He made his way to a familiar area and found, to his delight, that a new tavern had been erected on the site of the old Fellowship Way, the inn of Graevis and Pettibwa Chilichunk, Pony's deceased adoptive parents.

The place had been renamed The Giant's Bones, and when he entered, Roger understood why, for lining the walls as macabre support beams were the whitened bones of several giants. Huge skulls adorned the walls, including the biggest of all set on a shelf right behind the bar. The lighting, too, reflected the name: a chandelier constructed of a giant's rib cage.

Roger wandered through, studying the creative decorations and the unfamiliar faces wearing all too familiar expressions. The tavern, this place, The Giant's Bones, was very different from Fellowship Way, he thought, and yet very much the same. Roger listened in on a few conversations as he made his way to the bar, words he had heard before, in a different time.

They seemed happy enough, these folk, though Roger heard a few of the typical, predictable complaints about taxes and tithes, and he heard low and ominous murmurs at one table about some plague.

But, in truth, the more he listened and the more he looked, the more Roger felt comfortable in the tavern, the more it felt like home.

"What're ye drinking, friend?" came a gravelly voice behind him.

"Honey mead," Roger replied, without turning.

He heard the clank of a bottle and glass, then came the same voice. "Well, what're ye looking at, girl, and why ain't ye working? "

Roger glanced back then, to see the grizzly-bearded innkeeper pouring his drink and to see, more pointedly, a familiar face indeed, staring back at him from behind the bar.

"Roger Lockless," Dainsey Aucomb said happily. "But I wondered if I'd ever see ye in here again."

"Dainsey!" Roger replied, reaching forward to share a little hug and kiss over the bar.

"Ye spill it, ye pay for it," the gruff innkeeper said, and Roger leaned back.

"Oh, ye're such a brute, ye are, Bigelow Brown!" Dainsey said with a laugh, and she swatted the man with her dishrag. "Ye'd be showin' more manners, ye would, if ye knew who ye was shoutin' at!"

That made Bigelow Brown look at Roger more carefully, but before he could begin to ask, Dainsey hustled about the bar and took the slender man by the arm, escorting him across the room. She shooed a couple of men from a table and gave it to Roger, then went back and retrieved his honey mead.

"I'll come by whenever I can find the time," Dainsey said. "I'm wantin' to hear all about Pony and Belster and Dundalis."

Roger smiled at her and nodded, and he was glad indeed that he had come back to Palmaris.

True to her word, Dainsey Aucomb visited Roger often, and often with refills of his honey mead, drinks that she insisted were gifts from Bigelow Brown, though Roger doubted that the tavern keeper even knew he was being so generous. They chatted and they laughed, catching each other up on the last year's events; and before he realized the hour, Roger found that he was among the tavern's last patrons.

"I'll be done me work soon," Dainsey explained, delivering one last glass of honey mead.

"A walk?" Roger asked, pointing to her and to himself.

"I'd like that, Roger Lockless," Dainsey answered with a little smile, and she went back to the bar to finish her work.

It was a fine night for a late walk. A bit cold, perhaps, but the storm that had hit farther north had barely clipped Palmaris, and now the stars were out bright and crisp.

Dainsey led the way, walking slowly and talking easily. They went around the side of the tavern and down an alley, where, to Roger's surprise, they found a ladder set into the tavern wall, leading up to the only flat section of roof on the whole structure.

"I made 'em build it like that," Dainsey explained, taking hold of one of the rungs and starting up. "I wanted it to be the same way it was when Pony was workin' here."

Roger followed her up to the flat roof; she was sitting comfortably with her back against the warm chimney by the time he pulled himself over the roof's edge.

"This was Pony's special place," Dainsey explained, and Roger nodded, for Pony had told him about her nights on the roof of Fellowship Way. "Where she'd come to hide from the troubles and to steal a peek at all the wide world."

Roger looked all about, at the quiet of the Palmaris night, up at the twinkling stars, and over at the soft glow by the river, where the docks, despite the late hour, remained very much active and alive. He surely understood Dainsey's description, "to steal a peek at all the wide world," for it seemed to him as if he could watch all the city from up here, as if he were some otherworldly spy, looking in on-but very much separated from-the quiet hours of the folk of Palmaris.

He heard a couple on the street below, whispering and giggling, and he gave a wry smile as he caught some of their private conversation, words that they had meant for no other ears.

He could see how Pony so loved this place.

"Is she well?" Dainsey asked, drawing him from his trance.

Roger looked at her. "Pony?" he asked.

"Well, who else might I be talkin' about?" the woman asked with a chuckle.

"She is better," Roger explained. "I left her in Caer Tinella with Colleen Kilronney."

"Her cousin's back in Palmaris, working beside the new baron now that Kalas' run off," Dainsey put in.

Roger walked over and sat down beside her, close enough to share the warmth of the chimney.

"She should've stayed," Dainsey remarked, "or I should've gone with her."

"There's not much up there," Roger told her honestly. "That's what Pony needed for now, but you would have found life… tedious."

"But I do miss her," Dainsey said. She looked over at Roger, and he could see that there was hint of a tear in her eye. "She could've stayed and ruled the world. Oh, she's such a pretty one."

Roger stared at her earnestly, looked deep into her delicate eyes in a manner in which he never had thought to look before. "No prettier than Dainsey Aucomb," he said before he could think, for if he had considered the words, he never would have found the courage to spout them!

Dainsey blushed and started to look away, but Roger, bolstered by hearing his own forward declaration, grabbed her chin in his small hand and forced her to look back at him. " 'Tis true," he said.

Dainsey stared at him doubtfully. "I gived ye too much o' the honey mead," she said with a chuckle.

"It has nothing to do with the drink," Roger declared flatly and firmly.

Dainsey tried to turn away again, and started to laugh, but Roger held her with his hand, and stifled her chuckles with a sober and serious look.

"Ye never said so before," she said quietly.

Roger shook his head, having no real answer to that. "I do not know that I ever looked closely enough before," he said. "But 'tis true, Dainsey Aucomb."

She started to say something, then started to chuckle, but Roger came forward and kissed her gently.

Dainsey pushed him back to arm's length. "What're ye about, then? " she asked.

Now it was Roger's turn to blush. "I–I-I do not know," he blurted, and started to turn away.

But Dainsey Aucomb gave a great laugh and grabbed him hard, pulling him in for another kiss, a deeper and more urgent kiss.

The early snow didn't stay for long, and soon after, the road to Dundalis was open again. But Pony couldn't leave, because Colleen had not improved. Far from it; the woman was looking more drawn and weary with each passing day. Pony had offered to try to help her with the soul stone several times, but Colleen had refused, insisting that it was just an early season chill and that she'd be rid of it soon enough.

But then one morning when she went in to check on Colleen-an oddity, since the woman, despite her sickness, was always up before Pony and preparing her breakfast-Pony found her drenched in sweat in bed, too weak to even begin to stand.

Pony pulled down the heavy blankets to try to cool the woman down. And then she saw them, on Colleen's bare arm, round red splotches about the size of a gol'bear coin and ringed in white.

"What?" Pony asked, lifting the arm to better see the strange rings. Colleen couldn't answer; Pony wondered if she'd even heard the question. The rosy plague had come to the northland.