help those who need it there, and I’ll go to Tyrsis and do the
same. But we won’t forget about each other, will we?”
Morgan shook his head. “No, we won’t, Padishar.”
The big man stepped back. “Well, then. Take this.” He
handed Morgan his ring with the hawk emblem. “When you
need to find me again, show this to Matty Roh at the Whistle-
down in Varfleet. I’ll see to it that she knows the way to where
I’ll be. Don’t worry. It served the purpose once; it will serve it
twice. Now, be on your way. And good luck to you.”
He extended his hand and Morgan took it with a firm grasp.
“Luck to you as well, Padishar.”
Padishar Creel laughed. “Always, lad. Always.”
He walked back across the bluff to a grove of towering fir
where the outlaws and Trolls waited. Everyone who could came
to their feet. Words of parting were spoken, distant and faint
through the rain. Chandos was hugging Padishar, others were
clapping him on the back, a few from their stretchers lifted their
hands for him to take.
Even after all that’s happened, he’s still the only leader they
want, Morgan thought in admiration. –
He watched the Trolls begin to move north into the rocks, the
huge, lumbering figures quickly becoming indistinguishable
from the landscape through which they passed.
Padishar was looking at him now. He lifted his arm and waved
in farewell.
He turned east into the foothills. The rain lashed at him, and
he kept his head bent low to protect his face. His eyes focused
on the path before him. When he thought to look back again, to
see those he had fought beside and traveled with one final time,
they had disappeared.
It occurred to him then that he said nothing to Padishar about
the magic that still lingered in the broken Sword of Leah, the
magic that had saved both their lives. He had never told the ornei
how he had defeated Teel, how it was that he had managed to
overcome the Shadowen. There had been no time to talk of it
He supposed that there had been no real reason. It was some-
thing he didn’t yet fully understand. Why there was still magic
in the blade, he didn’t know. Why he had been able to summon
it, he wasn’t certain. He had thought it all used up before. Was
it all used up now? Or was there enough left to save him one
more time if the need should arise?
He found himself wondering how long it would be before he
had to find out.
Moving cautiously down the mountainside, he faded away
into the rain.
Par Ohmsford drifted.
He did not sleep, for in sleeping he would dream and the
dreams haunted him. Nor did he wake, for in waking he would
find the reality that he was so desperate to escape.
He simply drifted, half in and half out of any recognizable
existence, tucked somewhere back in the gray in-between
what is and what isn’t, where his mind could not focus and hi
memories remained scattered, where he was warm and secure
from the past and future both, curled up deep inside. There was
a madness upon him, he knew. But the madness was welcome,
and he let it claim him without a struggle. It made him disori-
ented and distorted his perceptions and his thoughts. It gave him
shelter. It cloaked him in a shroud of nonbeing that kept every-
thing walled away-and that was what he needed.
Yet even walls have chinks and cracks that let through the
light, and so it was with his madness. He sensed things-
whispers of life from the world he was trying so hard to hide
from. He felt the blankets that wrapped him and the bed on
which he lay. He saw candles burning softly through a liquid
haze, pinpricks of yellow brightness like islands on a dark sea.
Strange beasts looked down at him from cabinets, shelves,
boxes, and dressers, and their faces were formed of cloth and
fur with button eyes and sewn noses, with ears that drooped and
tipped, and with studied, watchful poses that never changed. He