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.