Rising tide - Mel Odom [74]
"Come kiss me, fool," she said. She lifted her arms out to him.
More than anything, Pacys wanted to go to her, but he didn't. He'd traveled with Ardynn for two years, learning the craft of the bard first, then learning of love, from her. At the end of two years, she'd left him. Ardynn had never been one to be tied down or responsible for too long. For Pacys, there'd been other teachers, other lovers, as he knew there had been with her. His heart, however, refused to feel the pull of any other as much as it did Ardynn.
The bard steeled himself, gathering his wits. The clamor of battle still echoed around him, but it sounded far away, in another place. It was hard to think, and somewhere in the back of his mind he knew there was a reason for that. "Where-" His voice locked up on him. "Do you love me?" He knew that hadn't been the question he'd meant to ask.
She laughed at him and the sound reminded him of sunlit waters trembling through a pebble bed on a distant and early morn. "Of course I love you," she answered. "I could love no other. If you won't come to me, I'll come to you." She walked toward him.
He felt the staff in his hands, but his hands were curiously numb, the familiar grain of the wood hard to touch. He concentrated against the thickness in his mind as the roaring wind pushed against him.
"Where-where was the last place you saw me?"
"Tell me," she entreated.
"It was in Thar," Pacys said. "We'd both heard through our respective sources of the archeological dig going on there by Fannt Golsway. He'd been hired by Thusk Tharmuil to investigate stories of the ogre empire that had been there before Beldoran killed the creatures out a hundred years before."
"I remember," Ardynn said.
"In those days, Golsway was at his apex," Pacys went on, warming to the bones of the story. "He actively pursued knowledge and legend, finding out where the two met and where they parted."
"Yes." Her hand was only inches from his face.
"We both went there, hoping for a song or a tale, thriving on the same adventure that drove Golsway. He was a tight-mouthed man, but when he was ready to tell you of things, he held nothing back and had much to give. I've got a dozen and more songs and tales that I've woven from his experiences."
"I remember." She smiled more broadly.
"Golsway found his legend to be half true," Pacys said. "I got the song of his discoveries, and you, dear sweet Ardynn, you died."
He knocked her hand away with the staff, certain that he'd just saved his own life. The thing that called itself Ardynn drew back, her eyes narrowing in hatred and anger.
Pacys marshaled his strength against the thickness trying to fill his mind. Gradually, he pushed it away, allowing him to remember other things. He found the spell he sought and got himself ready to use it.
"You died when we were attacked by an ore horde drawn by Golsway's success, as were we. I tried to save you, but I couldn't. I prepared your grave myself, carrying you to the top of the coldest mountain I could find… where predators wouldn't find you, and I buried you."
"It was a bad dream," Ardynn said.
"No, you're only a memory, stolen from my mind," Pacys said in a harsh voice. "I buried the real Ardynn high on that mountain with my own hands. It took me eight days to leave her side, to find the strength inside myself to go. I'd been three days without water. It was winter and all the streams at the top of the mountain were frozen and snow-covered. I was the only one to come down from that mountain."
Ardynn lashed at him with her arm.
Pacys blocked with the staff and unleashed the magical energy pent up inside him. Over the years, he'd developed an ability toward things magical in nature and had added to his cache of skills.
Ardynn's image melted away, leaving the bulk of an aboleth. Twenty feet long and resembling an overfed trout with its bulbous head and fluked tail, the creature was blue-green with gray splotches. Four ten foot tentacles grew from its head. One of them was coiled up