GOD'S YEAR 857

The chilly autumn wind rustled through the carpet of brown leaves, and sent those that were even then dropping from the trees into whirlwind dances all about the two friends. White clouds rushed by overhead, more often than not hiding the sun and casting long shadows that seemed fitting this day.

For Aydrian and Bradwarden stood before a third cairn in the grove outside of Dundalis, one they had just piled. A secret arrangement with Belli'mar Juraviel had afforded Pony the title of ranger, and so this ground had been sanctified by Belli'mar Juraviel himself, Pony's cairn given the same blessings and magical protections as those of Elbryan and Mather beside her.

Aydrian leaned on a long-handled shovel and watched the dance of the leaves, and listened to the sad wind. "She just gave up," he remarked.

"Nay, lad, ye're reading it wrong," the centaur replied. "Yer ma died years ago, she did, not once but twice. She telled me so, and I'm remembering it well enough to know that she was speaking truly. She was kept alive by the strength of yer dead father against wounds that should've killed her, and for one reason only."

"For me," Aydrian whispered.

"She didn't give up, ye fool boy." the centaur went on. "She knew her job was done." Bradwarden managed a bittersweet smile as he looked to the cairn. "Now she's found her reward."

Aydrian leaned even more heavily on the shovel and stared down at the piled stones. For a long while, neither he nor Bradwarden said anything, but the centaur did lift his pipes and begin a tune that seemed both mournful and joyous, a celebration of Pony's life and the remorse at her passing. How much diminished the world suddenly seemed to them both.

Aydrian replayed the last ten years - years of freedom, they seemed. Under his mother's guidance, he had learned so much more than the elves had ever taught him. Not about what it was to be a warrior, or even a ranger, but about what it truly was to be a human being. He learned to love; he learned to see the world as something beyond his solitary existence.

Instead of being the center of his every thought, he came to view himself as part of something much grander and more wonderful. Because of his mother's teaching, he had made many friends in Dundalis, and had earned their respect rather than demanding it.

Darker clouds rushed overhead on the strong winds; a few dead leaves crackled as they swept past.

And then a melodic voice brought the young man from his contemplations.

Aydrian looked up to see Belli'mar Juraviel staring down at him from a low bough. "It is time," the elf said.

Panic flashed over Aydrian, and he looked at the centaur, who stopped his playing and regarded the man. That terror proved a fleeting emotion, though, for Aydrian knew that Juraviel was right, and knew, too, that it was time for him to begin to pay back the world for all the agony he had caused.

"Are you ready, Aydrian Wyndon?" the elf asked directly.

"Have ye no shame then, ye fool elf?" Bradwarden interjected. "The boy's just lost his mother - ye think ye might be givin' him a bit o' time to sort out his own road?"

"His road was determined a decade ago," Juraviel replied.

"His road was forced upon him by yer Lady Dasslerond before he was old enough to even know he was to walk it!" Bradwarden retorted.

"Enough, Bradwarden!" came Aydrian's sudden demand, and both the elf and the centaur turned to regard him.

"Juraviel is right, and it is long past time that I try to atone for all that I have done."

"Then do it, in every action of every day," the centaur argued. "Live a good life now and take yer small steps to atone."

Aydrian was shaking his head with every word, and that made the centaur press on more fervently.

"Ye might be doing good before ye give it all up!" he argued.

"You and I both know the truth of it," Aydrian calmly replied, and the smile on his face was a genuine one.

"Ye're to throw away all that yer mother teached ye?"

"Come, Bradwarden, we both know that my mother did more than teach me,"

Aydrian answered. "She saved me, and through all that I now have come to understand and appreciate about the world, I know that I must do this, that I must repair that which I have ruined, to the best of my abilities." He looked to Juraviel. "I know that I can never undo all that Aydrian Boudabras did. I cannot give back the lives of those who died in my name, or before my selfish march. But I try, as I must."

Aydrian tossed his shovel to the ground and stepped toward Juraviel, holding his arms out before him in a gesture of complete submission.

They didn't return to Dundalis that cold day, but headed west, Juraviel and the enchanted emerald of the Touel'alfar carting them away with great speed. In the mountains, they found Juraviel's kin, the whole of the Touel'alfar and a good number of the Doc'alfar as well. Cold as the winter's day, Juraviel motioned for Aydrian to step out alone into a clearing. The elf followed him out a few moments later and motioned for his wrist. Aydrian looked back at the others, at Bradwarden, who stood stoically. He hiked up the sleeve of his jacket and held his exposed wrist out to Juraviel.

The elf brought forth his sword and gashed that wrist.

Aydrian felt the sting and the warmth as his lifeblood flowed forth. He held his arm up high, as Juraviel had instructed. A crimson mist filled the air before him, leading him on, and Aydrian began what he understood was to be the last walk of his mortal life.

For three days, he followed the lead of his spewing blood, along the mountain passes. Delirious, hardly seeing the ground before him, he trudged on. He fell often, but picked himself up without complaint, and staggered ahead, compelled by magic and by remorse. In the dark of night, Aydrian led the troupe over the crest of one mountain ridge, and for the first time in more than a decade, the Touel'alfar looked again on their ancient homeland.

Aydrian had led them home.

But the young man's work was not done, for in the absence of the elves, the rot of the demon dactyl had spread. They found the primary source of that stain, a dead tree in a field of blackened grass.

Aydrian, barely conscious, looked to Juraviel for guidance, and the elf, without a trace of mercy showing in his golden eyes, motioned for the man to go and fulfill his destiny. Aydrian walked to the base of the rotting tree. He sat down and he hugged the trunk, and then he gave himself to the earth about him, and to the tree.

Moonlight and starlight bathed him as he sat there. Around the edges of that field of stain, the Touel'alfar took up their evening song, accompanied by the haunting piping of Bradwarden the centaur.

Aydrian fell into a dark, dark place, accepting the realm of death as it rose up to engulf him.

But he found that he was not alone.

His mother was there beside him, coaxing him. His father was there, standing beside Pony. And Andacanavar was there, and another spirit that Aydrian somehow recognized to be Mather Wyndon, his great-uncle.

All the rangers who had passed before him were there, supporting him, bidding him to press on, to offer his life that Andur'Blough Inninness might live.

And the young man, accepting his penance, didn't hesitate, throwing all that he had left to give into the tree, giving of himself so that it might live, so that the rot of the demon dactyl might be at last defeated.

A long, long time later, Aydrian Wyndon opened his eyes.

The elves were all about him, dancing and singing, and reaching up to touch the lowest boughs of the tree, which had blossomed to life.

Weary beyond anything he had ever known, Aydrian fell back and closed his eyes once more.

When he awoke, he was still by the tree, with Belli'mar Juraviel standing beside him, along with a Doc'alfar female and a child elf of about ten years. The young sprite, a boy, had the coloration of the Doc'alfar, with beautifully porcelain skin, bright blue eyes, and raven hair. But Aydrian understood the truth of him so clearly, for unlike the Doc'alfar, this child sported wings.

"Juraviel," Aydrian whispered to the elf.

"Meet my son," the elf replied. "Wyndon Juraviel."

The name startled Aydrian, until he considered all that name had come to mean to the Touel'alfar over the last few decades.

"You said I would not live through the ordeal," Aydrian remarked a moment later.

"I believed you would not, and could not," Juraviel replied. "Little did I know that you would find so many allies in your struggle."

"The rangers."

"Indeed. They lent their strength to you, and in saving you, they bound you, Aydrian Wyndon. I had thought this cleansing of the demon stain to be your last task in life, but I was wrong." He stepped back, revealing Bradwarden, who stood with Tempest in one hand, Hawkwing in the other.

"They are yours now, Tai'Maqwilloq," Belli'mar Juraviel told him. "You cannot repay the world for the misery you have caused, perhaps, but for your own sake, you must try." Aydrian rose and solemnly took the bow and sword.

"And this," the centaur added, tossing him Pony's pouch of gemstones.

After a moment, and with a crooked smile, Bradwarden repeated, "And this," and handed him the turquoise Symphony had once carried embedded in his breast. "Symphony had a son, ye know," the centaur explained with a wink.

With all of the elves watching and singing, Bradwarden and the ranger Aydrian walked out of Andur'Blough Inninness the next morning.

"The world's wide before ye, boy," the centaur remarked soon after they were away from the elf-song. "Yer own for the takin'."

"Take care your words, good centaur," Aydrian replied with a grin. "For at one time, I would have taken you literally."

Bradwarden roared with laughter. "Come along then. Let us find ye a proper horse."

"And then where will I go?" Aydrian wondered.

"To Ursal?" Bradwarden asked him. "If ye go in with care, King Midalis might be welcoming ye. He'll be wanting to hear o' yer mother's last years."

"Ursal maybe," Aydrian replied.

"Or farther still?" Bradwarden pressed. "Ye got a kin o' sorts south o' the mountains, ye know. If ye can forgive the lass for puttin' her sword through yer chest, I mean."

Aydrian could only snicker in response to the irreverent centaur. He recognized that Bradwarden was right in his assessment, though. All the world was there before Aydrian.

For the enjoying, and not for the taking.

Behind them, Andur'Blough Inninness was alive once more; before them, the kingdom of Honce-the-Bear was at peace.

So was defeated the rot of the dactyl.

So ended the DemonWar.