Darkwell - Douglas Niles [26]
You, too, could have been a force of primordial power, Tristan. Your mark could have been as vast as the ocean! Your power, with me at your side, would have run as deep, your legacy have been as eternal, as the sea itself!
Then she took up the parchment that told of the secrets of stone. She read of the land's rising, bleak and lifeless yet solid and firm, from the bosom of the sea. Thus were the Realms born, and their earth made the foundation for all that would follow. Stone was the flesh of the world, and in this secret – and the mastery of stone promised by the scroll – she began to sense a hope for her fellow druids.
You were my foundation, my rock! You were the firmament upon which I rested my hopes, not just for us and ours, but for the land and peoples of the isles! You could have been the unshakable base for generations of growth and peace and progress!
The following scroll told the story of fire. Fire, hot to the touch, killing and cleansing in its heat. Fire was the forge of the world, the spark from which emerged all the multitude of life that came to live upon the isles.
And the heat of passion that burns within that life. How could that fire consume you so easily? How could you be so weak?
And last she read the tale of wind, the breath that gave life to the world. Vitality came to all things through the wind, she learned. Even the plants breathed, and air was the vessel that brought health to life and carried waste and corruption away. Wind, so tenuous and untouchable yet so pervasive and strong. Without the air that was its medium, nothing could live.
Was our love so tenuous, so weak? Could you be so frail that the touch of a strange woman's hand was enough to draw you from me? Is holding you like holding the air: You are here when I breathe, but gone as the breath leaves my body?
As dawn colored the eastern sky, her grief dimmed, only to be replaced by the cold fire of anger. She confronted the reality of Tristan's betrayal, and she found she could not forgive him.
She did not see the aura that shimmered around her as she stood. Her body thrummed with power. The enchantment of the scrolls possessed her soul. Her flesh became the earth, her blood the water.
The fire of anger burned brightly in her soul as she stood before the window, looking eastward toward distant Myrloch Vale. There, awaiting their rescue, stood her druids. She no longer needed the help of a sword at her side, especially one held by so fickle a hand as that of her king. The power burned within her, and she stepped through the window, high above the courtyard, to go to the rescue of her clan.
With a puff of air, she was gone, her body disappearing even before it began to fall. A gust burst from Caer Corwell, racing eastward toward the vale as Robyn, druid of Gwynneth, became the wind.
* * * * *
Once again the vulture rose above Caer Corwell, this time soaring away from the sea. The bird's bright eyes searched eastward, for the darkness upon the land that was its destination. For two days the bird flew, never tiring, until it passed above the reaches of desolation and blackness that marked its goal.
Genna, the druid – but also Kazgoroth, the minion of Bhaal – arrived at her master's lair in the Darkwell. Her body shifted easily back to that of the druid, and she quietly informed her master that her task was done.
* * * * *
Tristan stormed back to his room. Robyn had not acknowledged his knock, and now all his shame, all his frustration, became anger directed at the woman who, he felt, had brought this upon him. He crashed through his door, ready to strike her or kick her. He would drive her from his castle!
But she was already gone.
He sat numbly upon his bed. The haze of drink