The Education of Brother Thaddius and other tales of DemonWars (The DemonWars Saga) by R.A. Salvatore Page B

was the woman, the bard, who had come in beside De’Unnero and Aydrian. Indeed, for some reason Bishop Braumin had not yet discerned, De’Unnero himself had killed the woman in the last fleeting moments of his own life.
    And the demon was gone, expelled from this young man it had taken as host. The light had returned to the shining eyes of young Ardrian Wyndon, but with it, too, had come the sorrow of great regret. Bishop Braumin glanced over at the broken young man, sitting in the shadow of the wall with the centaur, Bradwarden, and Belli-mar Juraviel of the Touel’alfar.
    “A centaur,” Braumin whispered. “And an elf, with wings, fighting for St.-Mere-Abelle.” He shook his head.
    What a day it had been!
    What might brothers reading the accounts of this battle a century hence think of the tale, he wondered? Would the reclusive elves, the Touel’alfar and the Doc’alfar, certain to return to their hidden lands and magical shadows, be forgotten again in the lands of men by that time? Would the rare centaurs be no more, again, than fireside tales?
    And would the lessons of the travesty of Aydrian Boudabras be forgotten, only to be painfully realized once more in the land of Honce?
    With that dark thought in mind, Bishop Braumin moved a bit closer to eavesdrop on the two most important people in Honce, Prince Midalis who would soon be King, and Pony, perhaps the most powerful person in the world (and if not her, then surely her son Aydrian, who was under her control once more, it seemed).
    “I have so much to do, so much to repair,” he heard Midalis admit to Pony, and it was hard to dispute the remark, for not far from where they stood, many of Midalis’s soldiers piled the dead beside a hole that would become a common grave.
    So many dead.
    “You have pardoned Duke Kalas?” Pony asked him.
    “It will be done,” the soon-to-be King replied. “In time. I want him to consider long and hard all that he has done. But yes, I will pardon him. I will invite him into my Court, to serve me as he served my brother. He was deceived by Aydrian…”
    Braumin held his breath as Pony’s eyes flashed, but Midalis calmed her with a warm smile
    “He was deceived by the same demon that stole from you your son,” he corrected, and Pony nodded.
    “A wise choice,” Pony replied. “Vengeance breeds resentment.”
    How true, Bishop Braumin silently noted, for that lesson would be something that he would need to keep in mind in the coming days, he knew, and he feared. He would have to rise above his very human emotions.
    “Jilseponie would serve me well,” he heard Midalis say, drawing him from his contemplation.
    Pony smiled and managed a little laugh. Braumin held his breath, knowing what was coming. “Jilseponie is dead,” she said, and though it was a joke, Braumin couldn’t miss the fact that her expression became more serious suddenly, as if she noted some definite truth in her own words, an epiphany she would not escape.
    And how it pained the gentle monk to hear such talk from this woman!
    “Twice I have personally cheated death,” Pony went on. “In the Moorlands and on the beach of Pireth Dancard. I should have died, but Elbryan would not let me.”
    “Then credit Elbryan with saving the kingdom,” Midalis was quick to say.
    “But that was not his purpose,” Pony explained. “He saved me to save my son, and so I shall. And then I will join him. As I rightfully should have already joined him.”
    Midalis stammered for a response, and Braumin surely understood that shock, given the woman’s startling remarks. This woman, Pony, the most powerful gemstone user in the world, trained and skilled in the elven sword dance, a woman who was younger by perhaps a decade than Braumin Herde, had just claimed that she would not live much longer!
    “You will leave us now?” Braumin heard Midalis ask when he turned his focus back to the conversation, and the monk held his breath. He did not want her to go.
    “My time