See Prologue (A) for Disclaimers

Chapter Eight

The BeastMaster flinched back, preparing to duck the attack, but the magick dissipated before it reached him.  But not before he felt its heat.

Dar straightened and stared at his friend, his eyes wide with surprise.  Sharak's lips twisted into a smile.  "I could have killed you if I had wished.  I used that power to do just that once, in a duel with another Sorcerer.  Could you truly have been my friend, young one, knowing that I once wielded such power?"

Dar swallowed, pushing down the fear that bubbled up at that show of power.  "Is that why you were cursed?  As punishment for killing the Sorcerer?"

Sharak laughed.  It was a bitter, broken sound.  "No.  Killing one another is allowed by the Laws of the Sorcerers.  No, BeastMaster, I was not cursed for hate.  I was cursed because I fell in love."

Dar frowned, confused.  "What?"

Sharak laughed again, softer this time, and turned away.  "You remember what Tao said once?  That Sorcerers are concerned only with knowledge and power, and the acquisition of the two?"  Dar nodded.  "He was correct.  It has been that way from the beginning.  Those with some power of their own become sorcerers and gradually increase their natural abilities.  My father knew I had some power of my own, and he wanted the power that would come with having a Sorcerer for a son.  So I went to study with the spirit who was the patron and teacher of Sorcerers."  He looked at Dar and continued softly, "The Ancient One."

Dar stared at him.   "The . . . the creature who took Kyra."

"Who stole her from the Sorceress, yes."  Sharak looked away again, unable to face the pain in his friend's eyes.  "The Ancient One was pleased to have a shapeshifter as a student.  He didn't even mind that I befriended his other students, two women practically raised by the Ancient One, who before my arrival had known nothing but competition for his knowledge and praise."  Dar could see only his profile, but even that seemed to soften slightly as Sharak spoke.  "Amerys and Ricenne."

"Your friend -- the Witch."  Dar looked truly surprised.

Sharak nodded.  "She was not . . . like that, then."  He sighed.  "Amerys and I were attracted to one another from the start.  Physically, intellectually. . .  She had great power, greater than Ricenne's or my own, and she was the favorite of the Ancient One.  But more than that.  She was beautiful and clever, and a mystery to me . . .  By the time I realized I was falling in love with her, it was too late."

"Too late?"

"Amerys had fallen in love with me as well."  Sharak gave him that bitter smile.  "Love is forbidden to Sorcerers.  You see, with love comes a whole range of other emotions, all of which are detrimental to the pursuits of either power or knowledge.  Jealousy, fear, hate.  But worst of all of those: compassion.  You see, when one feels compassion, one hesitates to do certain . . . things . . . in the quest for knowledge."

He shook his head, sighing.  "We were careful, wary of what the Ancient One might do if he found out.  Amerys saw him as a father, she thought he would understand and that the rule might be just a guideline, not a true Law.  Ricenne thought the same thing.  And though neither Amerys nor I knew it . . . she had discovered love as well.  For me."

"Ricenne had fallen in love with you?"

Sharak nodded.  "I've often wondered what they would have done, had their situations been reversed.  If Amerys had been the one to have to love without it being returned.  She was never as patient as Ricenne or as understanding . . .  Ricenne felt the pain of love while we felt the joy, and it confused her, tore her apart.  She didn't understand how she had come to feel this way, how she had been as unable to stop it as Amerys and I were."

"Love cannot be chosen," Dar said softly.  "It just is, or is not."

Sharak smiled.  "And if that is so, then how can it be forbidden?  That was Ricenne's question.  And in her innocence, she went to the only person she had ever known to ask such things of.  The only person in whom she felt absolute trust."

Dar's eyes widened in understanding.  "The Ancient One."

"The details of that meeting I discovered only centuries later, from . . . a friend.  Ricenne told the Ancient One how she felt, how it hurt, and wondered if the pain would be as bad if I simply didn't love her, rather than that I loved someone else.  The Ancient One went into a rage and demanded to know whom I loved, who loved me back.  Ricenne realized her mistake and tried to keep Amerys' name from him, but he ripped it from her mind."  Sharak's hands clenched on the railing of the bridge, his knuckles turning white from the intensity of his grip.  "He went to Amerys and told her that everything would be all right if she simply agreed to forget.  He didn't tell her what he had planned for me.  So she said yes."

Dar frowned.  "What do you mean?  How did she forget?"

Sharak smiled coldly at the water below them.  "The Ancient One took her memories.  Of me, of love, of friendship.  Everything.  Wiped clean, as if they never happened."  This time it was Dar who had to look away from the pain he saw.  It was bad enough being separated from Kyra . . . how would it feel to know that she did not even know who he was, let alone what they had shared?  But Sharak was not yet done.

"My curse was to be placed in my other form and made immortal, so that my feet would never touch the ground and I would never see my beloved again.  Ricenne . . .  The Ancient One tried to convince me that she had betrayed us out of jealousy and spite.  And it almost worked.  But when he tried to bespell me, she cast a counter-spell to protect me.  It was the most power she had ever shown.  She bought me time to escape, and told me to get Amerys and go.  And gods help me, I did."

His voice hardened.  "In mid-flight, I banked slightly and I saw the Ancient One, more furious than I had ever seen him.  He threw a wave of pure energy at Ricenne that threw her halfway across the courtyard.  It might have killed her if he didn't have other plans.  When I turned back and tried to help her, he cast the spell that locked me in my form."

Dar took a deep breath, dreading the answer he suspected.  "And Ricenne's curse . . . it was this madness?"

To his surprise, Sharak shook his head.  "No," he answered.  "Ricenne's punishment was to have all of the power and knowledge, all she had gained in nearly a century of life, simply wiped out in the same way that the Ancient One took Amerys' memories.  She was made immortal and sent to the top of the world, a land of pure ice, while I was sent to the jungles.  Separated by distance and by any ability to communicate even if we met again.  She spent ten thousand years believing that I blamed her for my fate."

Dar understood the agony that must have come from that, as well.  Still, he frowned.  "But the madness. . .?"

Sharak looked at him and shook his head.  "The madness has nothing to do with either time or the Ancient One's curse.  But it is magick-induced.  I don't know how.  But when I find the person who did this to her. . . "  His eyes became like ice.  Instinctively, Dar took a step back.  Sharak's voice was a low hiss.  "I will kill him with my bare hands and feed his still-beating heart to the creatures of the nether-planes."

"Her," a voice corrected him.  It floated on the air around them, everywhere and nowhere at once, tingling with the essence of wind-chimes, warm spring breezes, and the comfort of a mother's kiss.  "But I would hope, Prince Sharak, that you would at least have enough patience to hear me out before attempting to inflict a penalty as painful -- and difficult to achieve -- as that."

A glimmer of pale light appeared at the far end of the bridge and took the form of a woman.  She was tall and gently curved, her face beautiful and serene, framed by a soft fall of blonde hair and showing amusement by the sparkle of her brown eyes and the lifted corners of her mouth.  She appeared to be in her forties, but the soft glow that still surrounded her informed them that to attempt to place any age on her at all would be a waste of time.

Dar was completely at a loss, but Sharak seemed only slightly surprised.  "Pelagia."  His tone was a bit uncertain as she approached them, making the greeting almost a question.

The woman smiled and nodded, then looked at Dar as the young man gasped.  "Pelagia," he repeated.  "Goddess of mothers and of healing."  He looked confused for a moment, as he tried to decide how best to greet the deity.  He settled for a short, slightly awkward bow.  "My people, the Sula, knew your name well."

Pelagia nodded as she stopped close to them.  "And I knew the name of the Sula well.  Your people respected my laws, and those of my daughter, Curupira.  Your mother and aunt, and their apprentices, were always a source of pride to me."  Her eyes showed sadness as she approached them.  "I was sorrowed by their deaths, but there are times I am forbidden to interfere, and some things I have no power to prevent."

Dar swallowed hard, his soul resonating to her presence, his grief over his people threatening to overcome the barriers he had put up.  "I . . . thank you for your sympathy."

Pelagia tilted her head slightly as she regarded him.  "It is not sympathy.  It is grief, much like your own."  She raised a hand and touched his face lightly, as a mother would.  "We will talk of the Sula, my child's BeastMaster, but that must be left for later.  For now, I must ask your leave to speak with this one."  She looked at Sharak.

Dar looked from the goddess to his friend.  Slowly, he nodded.  "Of course."  His eyes met Sharak's briefly, his expression making it clear that  this little conversation he had better not keep to himself.  Then he turned and made his way back to Ordan and Rhianna's home.

Pelagia watched him go, then chuckled.  "I do believe my daughter may have met her match with that one."

Sharak smiled, but refused to follow that train of small talk.  Instead, he asked bluntly, "What do you know of Ricenne's madness?"

Pelagia looked at him and smiled sadly.  "I know it was a choice made willingly and with full knowledge of the cost."  She sighed and turned, walking to the side of the bridge where she had first appeared.

Sharak followed.  "You came to me once, long ago, after the Ancient One placed his curse.  You showed me the truth of what happened that day, that Ricenne did not betray me, or Amerys.  And Ricenne told me that it was you who saved her from the ice at the top of the world.  You helped her then -- why could you not help her this time?"

"I did," Pelagia said simply.

"How?!  You let her become mad!"

"She did not  become mad," the goddess told him, her voice as steady as her eyes, demanding his own patience.  "She chose madness.  Or rather, she chose to place the stability of her mind elsewhere."  She regarded him steadily and asked, "What has your sorcerer's sight told you about the enchantments on this Wood?"

Sharak frowned, taken aback by the question.  "I . . .  They are complex, more intricate a weaving than anything I have ever seen -- or even heard of.  No lone sorcerer could accomplish something like this."  He paused, thinking back on the other impression his Sight had given him.  "And the energy . . . the power holding it together . . . it has her signature.  Another thing I have never seen: an enchantment so clearly the work of the individual.  It's as if . . . as if it was tied to her.  Not just her power.   Her."

Pelagia nodded, something like approval in her eyes.  "Your sight is as clear in this form as in your other," she said, smiling softly.  "You see the tie between Ricenne and the magick because it is there in truth."  Sharak stared at her, startled.  Pelagia nodded slowly.  "Ricenne maintains the enchantments with every breath she takes.  They are keyed to her living energy, to her heart, her soul . . . her mind."

Sharak shook his head and backed away as the implications hit him.  "The stability of the magick --"

"Comes from the stability of Ricenne herself," Pelagia completed.  "Her energy could not maintain both the coherence of her mind and the coherence of the enchantment -- it would be too much of a strain, the spells would come apart as quickly as they were set in place, even with the aid of a goddess.  It was an even trade."

Sharak stared at her.  Slowly, words came to him past his shock.  "You . . . you did this to her?"

Pelagia sighed, the weariness of time itself in her eyes, sorrow making her eyes darken as she nodded.  "I had aid from my father, but the majority of the power came from me, yes."  Her eyes met his.  "But the idea was Ricenne's.  As was the final choice."

She touched his arm, but Sharak shook off her hand as if it was fire -- or something vile.  "No!  The final choice was yours.  You said yourself that her energy wouldn't have been enough.  You could have spared her this -- this living death!"

Pelagia's eyes hardened.  "And  you said yourself that no lone sorcerer could have done this," she countered, her voice harsh.  "And Ricenne has not been a sorcerer for millennia.  She gained power over the years granted by her curse, yes.  She is a powerful Witch on her own, yes.  But to do this, to even attempt it -- that drain of power would not only have destroyed the magick but her along with it.  And then what would have happened?  What protector would the forest and its denizens, present and future, have had then?"

Sharak swallowed and forced himself to reply.  The tears were cold in his eyes, formed a hard knot in his throat, but he knew the answer and he had to say it.  "None."

Pelagia nodded.  "None," she confirmed.  "Ricenne knew that.  It was the card she played when I refused to help create an enchantment with such a heavy price."  Her expression softened, sadness clear again, but also mixed with pride.  "My brother told Ricenne once that she was weak.  That the reason he did not trick her into forgetting love, as he did his protégé, was that she was not worth saving.  But he was wrong.  His pretty favorite -- forgive me for saying it, Sharak -- could never have the strength to do what Ricenne has done here."

Sharak took a deep breath, then said, quietly, "Show me.  Please."

Pelagia looked at him for a long moment, then finally nodded.  The shapeshifter would never forgive himself for failing Ricenne -- or Pelagia for casting this spell -- until he saw the truth of his friend's choice.  Pelagia reached out and cradled his face in her hands, her touch gentle.  Her power swept forward like the gentle rush of waves, washing through the door Sharak opened in his mind, and showed him the past.

Ricenne's eyes never wavered, nor did the determination Pelagia could sense in her mind.  She had watched this girl for over ten thousand years.  She considered her a friend, a student, and almost a daughter.  Pelagia swallowed against unexpected tears and whispered, "You may not even know me, after."

Ricenne's eyes flooded with answering tears.  "I would always know you, my dear friend."

Pelagia reached out and pulled the smaller woman into a hug.  "How can I do this to you?" she whispered into her hair.

Ricenne hugged her back and whispered, "Because you know it must be done."

Pelagia nodded, then pulled back and looked deep into the other woman's eyes.  "Tonight," she said after a moment, her voice still rough with tears.  "I must gather my power."

Ricenne nodded and took a step back.  "And I must gather my spells."

Pelagia stared at her for a long moment, then nodded again and vanished.

(continued)

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