I'll Be With You Again (A Ranger's Apprentice Fanfiction)

Ch. 1

Chapter 1

George knocked on the narrow door of the cabin.

"Come in," called Will's weak voice.

George walked in warily, not sure of what he will find. He knew that Will was sick, but he wasn't sure how badly he had deteriorated from the last time he had visited. He gasped as he saw it. Will was in bed, with blood on the quilt. George rushed forward, scared that his friend, his childhood friend whom he had known for over fifty years, was about to go into one of his spewing fits. It wasn't far in coming. After a seemingly never-ending bout of coughing, blood started pouring out of Will's mouth. George reeled back in alarm, before rushing to get a towel and a bucket. But George knew that that was the best he could do. The healers had found nothing wrong with Will. But they knew that if this happened too many times, Will would die. Horace and Cassandra had been around a few times, but Will had always waved their offers of moving into Castle Araluen away. He was raised in Redmont, and he would die in Redmont. He wasn't afraid of dying. Halt and Lady Pauline had also visited. These were one of the rare times when Halt would reveal his emotions. He would just sit on a chair, the tears freely rolling down his face. He wouldn't talk to Will. He didn't even glance at him. He knew what he would find, and he didn't want to be reminded of the fact that Will was dying. Yes, he thought, it's true. Will is dying. The thought sent even more tears flowing. Will was dying, and there was nothing that Halt, the famous Ranger who helped rebuild the Ranger Corps, and who battled against Morgarath and won, could do about it.

***

Will stared at the small river pebble in his hands. It was small, black and glossy, and reminded him of two people whom he sorely missed. It reminded him of Malcolm, a devious healer who had helped him not once, but twice. He was far away, in the shire of Macindaw, found in the distant fief of Norgate. He had given Will the small stone and had convinced him that it was 'Stellatite', a star stone. He had explained that it would help protect against mind control. The second person it reminded Will of was Alyss, his life long friend, and, in more recent years, his wife. But she had died saving a peasant girl in a burning inn. The stone had been given to her to protect her from Keren, a renegade knight who had planned on handing Macindaw over to the Scotti. He had had a blue gemstone which had unexplained mind controlling properties, and had used it on Alyss to make her reveal her secrets. Alyss herself had killed the renegade knight, and Will had kept the stone as a memory of the events in Norgate. Now, he slowly turned it in the receding light, trying to remember those times and events which had taken place over thirty years ago. But the only memory he had of that time was the look on Alyss's face when she had been woken up from her trance, holding a sword over her head and about to swing it down on Will. He could remember her scream, and the way her sobs were torn from her. He tried to think about the time Horace arrived, the time he found the Skandians stranded on the coast of Araluen, about the battle, or the way he had climbed up the tower late at night to try and save Alyss from Sir Keren, but those events were too far away from his mind. All he could remember was Alyss, and how, very soon, he would be with her.