Erasmus Wordweaver's Arc

Chapter 4 of 4

The dry pen lay on the table. Aldric held the world's power now, but he had no ink to use it. Aelindor lifted his satchel. "The tree gives the ink," he said. "Come. Both of you." Erasmus rose on stiff legs. He was only an old man now. He followed the immortal out the cottage door, into the shadow of the great tree. The tree stood higher than any mountain Erasmus had ever written. Runes glowed along its trunk. Relics hung from its branches like fruit. A face slept in the bark, wide and calm. Aelindor pressed his palm to the root. A slow drop of amber sap swelled from the wood. "Hold the pen under it," he told Aldric. Aldric obeyed. The sap ran down the pen and vanished inside it. The dry husk changed. Gold and silver spread across the barrel. Old symbols burned bright along its side. The ink would never run out now. Aldric turned the pen in the light and watched it fill. Erasmus watched too, and his chest ached. He had spent his life at this work. Now the boy held it all, and Erasmus held nothing. Aldric looked at him. The gold eyes read straight through. "You wanted to teach me," the boy said. "How to use it well. I already see what you feel. I see what everyone feels. I don't need lessons in caution." He said it plainly, not cruel. It was simply true. There was nothing left for an ordinary man to teach him. Erasmus opened his mouth to argue, then closed it. The boy was right. His guidance was empty. He looked down at his old hands and felt small. But Aldric was not finished. He set the pen to a leaf of parchment from the satchel. He wrote fast, sure of every stroke. Erasmus leaned close to read. The boy wrote him young. He wrote Erasmus back into an ageless man, immortal, strong enough to walk the roads for a thousand years. He wrote him free to wander with friends. The words took hold. Heat washed through Erasmus's body. His spine straightened. The ache left his hands. His fingers filled out, firm and quick again. He touched his own face and found smooth skin. "Why?" Erasmus asked. His voice came out clear and young. "You gave me everything," Aldric said. "I saw that too. This is what I do with the gift. My first choice." He capped the pen. "You can't teach me now. So travel with me instead. Show me the world you made." Aelindor smiled at last. "He learns by walking," the old elf said. "As I did." Erasmus stood in the tree's shadow, young and whole. He was no longer the teacher. He was the student now, and the companion. The power was gone from him, but the road ahead was long, and he would walk it awake.