Then suddenly he was screaming without knowing how or why, “Enough! Enough!”
The Darkling abruptly ceased its song, and Willow’s mother collapsed on the forest earth. The River Master dropped the bottle, rushed to where she lay, lifted her gently in his arms, and cringed as he saw the ravaged look on her face. She was no longer the vision he remembered; she was like some beaten thing.
He whirled on the Darkling. “You said a love song, demon!”
The Darkling skittered to the discarded bottle and perched there. “I sang the love song that was in your heart, master!” it whispered.
The River Master froze. He knew it was the truth. It was his song the Darkling had sung, a song born of selfishness and disregard, a song that lacked any semblance of real love. His impassive face tried to twist in on itself as he felt the pain well up from within. He turned to hide what he was feeling.
Willow’s mother stirred in his arms, her eyes fluttered and opened, and the fear returned to them instantly. “Hush,” he said quickly. “There will be no more harm done to you. You will be allowed to go.”
He hesitated, then impulsively he hugged her close. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
His need for her in that moment was so great that he could barely bring himself to speak the words that would free her, but his horror at what he had done compelled him to. He saw the fear lessen perceptibly and the tears come again to her eyes. He stroked her gently, waited while her strength returned, then helped her to her feet. She stood there momentarily looking at him, glanced past him once in anguish at the creature who crouched upon the bottle’s lip, then whirled and fled into the forest like a frightened deer.
The River Master stared after her, seeing only the trees and the shadows, feeling the emptiness of the night all about him. He had lost her forever this time, he sensed.
He turned. “Back into the bottle,” he said softly to the demon.
The Darkling climbed obediently from view, and the River Master replaced the stopper. He stood there momentarily staring at the bottle and found that he was shaking. He jammed the bottle into the sack and stalked from the clearing back through the forest to the city. The sounds of the music and the dancing grew distinct again as he approached, but the feeling of joy they had given him earlier was completely gone.
He crossed torch lit bridges and wound down paths and garden walks, feeling the weight of the sack and its contents as if it were the burden of his guilt. Finally, he re-entered the park.
The shadow wight crouched where he had left it on the grass, dead eyes fixed on nothing. It rose at the approach of the River Master, impatience apparent in its movements. Poor soul, the River Master thought and suddenly wondered how much of his pity was meant for the wight.
He came up to the shadow wight and stood there for a moment, studying the creature. Then he handed back the sack with the bottle. “I cannot help you,” he said softly. “I cannot use this magic.”
“Cannot?”
“It is too dangerous—for me, for anyone.”
“Lord River Master, please…” the wight wailed.
“Listen to me,” the River Master interrupted gently. “Take this sack and drop it into the deepest pit of mire in the marshland you can find. Lose it where it can never be found. When you have done that, come back to me, and I will do what I can for you, using the healing powers of the lake country people.”
The shadow wight flinched. “But can you make me what I was?” it cried out sharply. “Can you do that with your powers?”
The River Master shook his head. “I think not. Not completely. I think no one can.”
The shadow wight shrieked as if bitten, snatched the sack with the bottle from his hands, and fled wordlessly into the night.
The River Master thought momentarily to pursue it, then changed his mind. As much as he disliked risking the possibility that the bottle might fall into other, less wise hands, he hadn’t the right to interfere. After all, the shadow wight had come to him freely; it must be let go the same way. There was nowhere for it to run in any case, if not to him. There was no one else who would wish to help it. Other creatures would be terrified of it. And it couldn’t use the magic of the bottle itself, so the bottle was useless to it. It would probably think the matter through and do as he had suggested. It would drop the bottle and its demon into the mire.