Then it happened. The doors to the castle burst wide, and the followers of Mandor fled forth, white and trembling, falling, crawling, vomiting on the stones, clutching their way across those slimed stones like crippled creatures, crabwise slithering away, away from what came behind. I saw Dazzle, and Huld, and a hundred faces I had seen in Mandor’s halls, the High King, and followers of his. They came forth in a flood and saw me, and seeing me they knelt down or fell down before me and cried to me for help. “King,” “Prince,” they cried, bending their knees to me, leaning upon their hands and beating their foreheads upon the stone.
And I told them to be still and wait. Be still, I said, for Mandor comes. As at last he did. No less white than they, no less horrified, and yet with some dignity yet and a pathetic attempt at beguilement. Even now, even now he tried to use Talent upon me and still he wound it about himself. I motioned him to kneel.
I said, “I have shown you your dead, Mandor. I have brought you your dead. The ancient ones you have dishonored. The newly dead you have robbed of life. Some among them have Game to call against you, so they tell me…”
If it were possible for him to grow more pale, he did so. I looked from him to Dazzle. “And there are other dead, Dazzle. Your mother, I think, and others perhaps. Would you have them brought here to join those we have brought from the Caves of Bannerwell?”
She did not answer me. I had not thought she would. She was too busy clutching the power to herself, weaving, weaving as Mandor was. Well, let them weave. The Ghost army crowded out of the castle door, moving toward these pitiful mortals, moving to trample them, take them up, inhabit them, clothe themselves in life again…Dorn within me cautioned me. Before they grew stronger, it was time to send them back…back…
And then, of a sudden, if was as though someone lifted a great heaviness from me. Before me the Ghosts began to waver. They cried softly, once, twice, and were gone. A sound swept through my head like wind in pines and the smell of rain. Dazzle looked up at me, horrid that face. Mandor saw her, screamed, and screamed again as his people looked upon him and scrawled away from him, away and away, clutching at one another like survivors of some great flood, and casting glances backwards at him in horror. Then it was that Mandor and Dazzle flew at one another, clawing, striking with their hands, locked in a battle of ultimate despair.
Behind me someone spoke my name. “Peter. Enough. We have come to Bannerwell as you have asked.”
I turned. It was that lean man, Riddle, the Immutable, the leader of the Immutables, Tossa’s father.
“I have been told what you tried to do,” he said. “For Tossa. I thank you.”
“It was useless,” I wept. “Useless, as this has been. But I tried to …”
“I know,” he touched my arm. Then I saw others behind him, Chance, Yarrel.
“You got there,” I said stupidly. “You got back.”
Yarrel’s eyes were on Mandor and Dazzle, not upon me. His expression was one I dreaded, full of horror and contempt. I knew what he was thinking and did not want him to say it, but he did.
“See there,” he whispered. “This is what Talents do. This is all that they do, and I have had enough of it…”
“Shhh,” said Riddle. “We have agreed; part of the blame is ours. We have allowed it to go on. And we are agreed that it must end…”
“While you are here, they cannot use their Talents,” he spit the word at me. “But when you are gone, Riddle, they will use them once more. And again. And again.”
He turned away and went through the shattered wall, his shoulders heaving. Once he turned to look back and saw my face, saw something there, perhaps, which moved him for a moment. His hand moved as though he would have gestured to me in friendship, but his face hardened in that moment and he turned away. I knew what I could do. I could follow him. Soon we would be away from Riddle’s force or power or Talent and my own would be usable once more. Then I could evoke Trandilar, and Yarrel would love me as once he had done¾more, more. He would adore me. As Mandor’s people had done. Oh, for the moment I wanted that. Yes. For that moment I wanted that. And then I did not want that at all, never, not Yarrel. I miss him. I have not seen him, but I know he is well. Some days I need him greatly, greatly, more than I can say. Perhaps, someday…well. All time is full of somedays.
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