Chapter Two, continued

As Fosco spun, high above the cliffs, his hold on the rope began to weaken.  Icy rainwater trickled down the rope and stung his hands.  Every so often a sharp jolt would shake the rope, sending him spinning ever more out of control, his back slamming into the stone face of the tower.  The shrieks of the undead hounds pierced his ears, and the wind seared his face.
        He saw clearly that his situation was hopeless.  He could not make it all the way down, and he was too weak to climb back up, even had the nakrim not been waiting for him.
        As he dangled, spinning and knocking around, a deep fury began to well up within him, an anger whose source he did not know.  He began to swear at the rope, at the rain, at Eryk, at the biting cold.  Long buried emotions began to surface.  He cursed the father he never knew for abandoning him to this fate.  And as his anger grew, so too did his strength.  He cared no more for the pain in his hands, nor did he fear the deadly drop to the ground below.  In fact, he relished in it, daring the night to throw more pain at him.
        He stared up into the pounding rain and yelled.  "More!  Is that all you've got to give?"  He roared and bellowed, and went hand over hand down the rope, heedless of his raw and bleeding palms.  His hair was drenched, and the thick rain poured into his eyes so that all was a blur.  And as he descended he took hard steps, stamping and kicking at the Eludoi tower beneath his feet.
        "You were the watchers!" he yelled, almost bouncing down the tower now.  "Where have you gone!"  He climbed down some more.  "I'm a watcher too, and where has it gotten me?  Stuck in this tower, translating your observations about the world, about the universe!  I'm sick of it!  I'm sick of this rain, and this winter, and I'm sick of being weak and soft!"  He grunted and kicked at the tower.  "I'm sick of this life apart!" 
        The wailing howls of the nakrim and the incessant pounding of the rain drove him further and further into his fury.  He let the pain and anger cleanse and strip away all his fears and anxieties.  All the petty concerns that had bothered him only a few hours ago washed away, eroded like soil deposits on the banks of a raging river.  He felt more alive than he had felt in years.
        And then he was down.  He let go of the rope and fell on his back on the muddy slope at the foot of the tower.  The rain splashed onto his face and mingled with his thick tears.  He rolled over in the mud and began to sob, his entire body shaking with fear.
        So it was that Moonbeam found him, face down in the mud.  The great owl settled down gracefully on a large rock nearby and throated a low hoot.
        Fosco slowly lifted his mud-streaked face.  "You!" he yelled.  "What do you want of me?  You started all of this, bringing me to this island all those years ago."  Fosco stopped, realizing what he had just said.  He pushed himself up out of the mud. 
        "It was you," he whispered, astonished.  "I remember."
        He wiped the mud from his face and blinked under smeared spectacles.  "Or was that a dream I had?"  Water streamed from his hair.  "No," he continued,   "you carried me here those long years ago, just as you carried that bundle earlier this evening."  The rage seeped out of his body as he considered this new discovery.
        Moonbeam stared at Fosco, blinking.
        "Who are you?" Fosco asked.  "And who am I?  I feel like I have been seeing life as through a fog, and now suddenly the fog is lifting.  But I do not know this world."  He walked up to the owl.  "Moonbeam, who am I?  What does all this mean?"
        The owl pumped its wings and launched into the air, heading east.
"Come back!  Where are you going?"  Moonbeam flew into the night.  The east tower loomed like a giant in the moonlight.  And then Fosco remembered Eryk's words--that Milly was in that tower.  He ran after the owl.
        Behind him a dark, silent shape detached itself from the side of the tower's base and began to follow.

The Seeing Room was smeared with blood, and Eryk stood alone in the center.  Sweat dripped from freely from his long black hair, and he could see his breath in the chill air.  The keeper lay in a massive heap before the door, motionless.  Even its bony hide had proven no match for Ösbrand.  There were, perhaps, only six swords in all of Wyndham Eld that could pierce the hide of a nakrim master, and an even fewer number of men that could wield them.  That Eryk was one of them did not mean much to him.
        But as he looked at the overturned tables, the ruined manuscripts, the broken bodies, he was satisfied.  He had not fought that hard in many a year, and though it had been difficult, it had also been satisfying to him to know that he had not lost his skill over the past years.  He raised his sword to stars.  Aaren, I hope you saw this tonight.  This was a battle worthy of our best times together.
        He went to the window and looked down.  No sign of Fosco.  He hoped that was good news.  The little fellow had certainly seemed scared.  But Eryk had seen Aaren's strength in him, and had little doubt that he had made it down safely.  He grabbed the bundle from the table and ran down the tower stairs.

When Fosco passed through the main gate into Mossdown's courtyard he had the strange sensation that he was seeing it for the first time.  The manor house looked wrong somehow, still tall and formal, but more remote.  And the stables stared suspiciously at him. 
        He did not belong here.  He had made Mossdown his retreat, his castle, but he saw now that it was not his home.  He had done nothing to earn it.  Fosco was a tenant, but the price he paid to live here was to ask no questions, to seek no answers.  The price was to stay aloof and apart from the world, though he was only now realizing it.
        And yet he was grateful for his uncle's generous gift, mysterious though it was.  Mossdown had always welcomed him, had always protected him and his family.  But it was not his home. 
        As he stood there in the muddy courtyard he suddenly saw that, just as Mossdown belonged to someone else, his whole childhood had not been his, that he had borrowed someone else's life and someone else's family--Milly's family.
        Her mother and father had raised him, but he had known from the beginning that he could never fit in there.  The Brandystouts were farmers, and so attuned to the land that an outsider like he could never be connected to it in the same way.  Farming was as foreign to him as Eludoi languages were to most other people.  He began to realize that nothing in his life was his--that he had only borrowed everything.
        Except Milly.  And the children.
        They were his only true roots, the only foundation that mattered.  Fosco realized--despite whatever Eryk had to tell him about his real father--that only Milly and the children were important, were his connection to life and love.
        These were his thoughts as he stood in the freezing rain, looking at the manor house as if for the first time.  He was cold and wet, and his palms were raw and bleeding.
        Suddenly the door to the east tower flew open and Derry ran out.  "Fosco, thank heaven!  Come quickly, I've been sent to find you.  Hurry!"
        "What is it?"
        But Derry shouted, "Watch out behind you!" 
        Fosco spun and ducked.  A blow glanced off his back and he tripped.  Suddenly there was Moonbeam, diving down from the deep night.  The owl raked Fosco's assailant across the back, sending him to the ground.
        Derry was there in an instant, smothering the attacker against the mud.  He sat on him and turned him over.
        "Maggis!"
        The man was small and bald and resembled something like an old burlap bag with eyes. 
        Fosco picked himself up and stood over the Iyston drunk, Maggis Loamdigger.  Maggis was panting heavily, and his eyes were wild.
        "Give it to me!" he yelled, "Give me the Eye!  I found it, I did--I should get to take it to him."
        Derry sat harder on him.  "Who?  What is this Eye you speak of?  Tell us!"  He grabbed Maggis' shirt roughly.
        Maggis looked at Moonbeam.  "He knows, he does.  I should have guessed," he spat, looking over at Fosco now.  "Greymantles was always owl friends.  You're the heir aren't you?  I should have guessed.  All this time I thought you was just some lucky sod what had found the stone.  The Dark One will want to hear of this."  Then he collapsed in the mud of the courtyard, silent.  Derry stood up, looking at Fosco.
        Suddenly Maggis lunged for Fosco, clawing at his neck, and at the stone hidden beneath.  Fosco brought his hands up to ward off the madman, but then Eryk was there, wielding Ösbrand.  He struck Maggis on the head with the hilt and the crazy man crumpled to the ground like a sack of flour.
        "You're good at this, aren't you?" said Fosco.
        Eryk smiled, for the first time in a good long while.  "I get by."
        Derry raised an eyebrow at Eryk then turned to Fosco.  "You've got to get up to the top, Fosco--Milly is calling for you."
        "Milly?"  Fosco said nothing more but ran into the tower, leaving Eryk and Derry with Maggis.

Elias was waiting for him at the top of the stairs, and at his side was a beautiful silver-black hound.  The tower was so quiet that the hound's panting echoed against the cold stone walls.  Elias looked old, older than Fosco could bear. 
        "Where is Milly?" Fosco asked, disturbed by Elias' silence.  "Where are the boys?"
        "I am sorry to have brought this upon you," said Elias.  He leaned heavily on his staff.
        "Where are my wife and children!"
        There was a scuffling in the next room and suddenly Willem and Nib were there, hugging his legs, crying.  Fosco struggled to bend down and gather them into his arms.  "It's all right," he said, squeezing them tighter.
        "But she screamed so much," said Willem through his sobs.  "We couldn't do anything to help her."  Fosco closed his eyes and buried his face on Willem's shoulder.  "Where is she?" he whispered.
        Willem tugged at his finger.  Fosco picked Nib up in one arm and followed Willem into the high chamber of the east tower.
        She was lying on a small pallet at the rear of the chamber.  A dark blanket shrouded her body, but her face lay bathed in the red firelight.  Fosco put Nib down and scooted him off to the other side of the room with Willem.  Slowly he made his way to Milly's side, tears forming at the corners of his eyes.  He was having trouble breathing.
        As he knelt by her side he was startled by a tiny movement under the blanket.  Something was stirring at Milly's breast.  Milly slowly turned her head and opened her eyes.  She smiled and said, "Behold your daughter."
        The wave of relief that washed over him was too much, and again he wept.  Wiping the tears from his cheeks, he picked his new daughter up gently.  He wrapped the blankets more tightly around her and hugged her tightly under his chin.
        "I was afraid I would never see you again," said Milly.
        Fosco tried to speak, but all he could manage was a choked whisper.  "Are you all right?"
        Milly nodded.  "Derry was here, and Elias helped with the boys.  You escaped those--creatures?"
        Fosco did not know where to begin.  He simply nodded and placed a hand on Milly's shoulder.
        "You've lost your spectacles," she said.
        "Have I?"  He felt around his eyes.  "It's strange," he continued.  "I've never seen so clearly before in my life."  And it was true.  He looked around the room and everything was in focus--Milly, the baby, Willem, Nib--the world showed itself to Fosco with greater clarity than ever before.  "The world is changing," he said.

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