by Ryk E. Spoor
The Bear looked up and spoke in its mechanical, jerky, high-pitched voice. “He saw as well as a mortal may, Iris Mirabilis, and read in the gaze of the All-Seeing that which it was desired he should read.”
Iris narrowed his gaze. “Desired by whom?” he said, clearly determined to leave no assumption untested this time.
“By the All-Seeing.”
Iris hesitated, then sighed. “Then it is as you say. But do you understand what you imply, Erik Medon?”
“I think I do. We’ve had a long time to grow, Iris. Humanity’s got a lot of problems, but we’re not children any more, and I don’t think…I don’t think it’s good for us that we are separated any more.” I took Polychrome’s hand, felt the warm accord between us. “We were meant to be together, and I don’t think the Above meant this separation to be for all time.”
“And when,” he said after a moment, looking to Nimbus, “will you be going?”
“Soon,” I said simply. “The time advantage here has helped — I’ve only been gone a few months from the mortal viewpoint. But it would be too easy for me to stay, lose track of time, and suddenly run out of it.”
“Run out?”
“I left instructions when I left that would keep things going for a year, but once that’s over, I’d have nothing left and I’d have to start from scratch — which isn’t easy in the modern world. I’ll have a hard time explaining everything even with all my resources still intact.” I grinned. “Believe me, you’ve never had to fill out the forms I have.”
I went back to looking serious. “And yes, I could also run out of time myself. Both you and Ozma admit that you haven’t any idea what I am now, or whether I’m going to break apart in the next ten minutes or live as long as a Faerie. So I can’t afford to waste time.”
“That is true,” Ozma admitted. “The few times something such as you and I have done had been attempted… well, the mortal did not survive. Perhaps you are still a True Mortal — that we could, I suppose, test. But even such a test would not prove that there are no other effects, merely that you have not entirely changed. Yes, your soul could be deeply damaged and on the verge of dissolution, or you could be something far more than either Faerie or Mortal. None can say, nor shall we be able to unless and until something happens to give us that insight.”
Iris closed his eyes and his shoulders slumped for a moment. “Nimbus?”
“I have little to add, Majesty. If we accept the words of Lord Erik and the Pink Bear, there is no choice for it but that we must turn back towards the Mortal world, prepare for a change in both realms such as has not been seen since we both were far younger, since Polychrome herself was a child in truth.” He hesitated, then turned to the rest of us. “You should understand, Lord Erik, and the rest of you, as well, for of all of you only Ruggedo was full-grown in those days, and he absented himself from most of the proceedings.”
The old Nome King gave a snort. “Indeed, for I cared not at all for mortals then. Grasping, scurrying ephemeral rats, I used to call them. What fools we all were in youth, even we of Faerie.”
“At least you have come to this knowledge while still able to appreciate it, Ruggedo,” Nimbus said with a wry smile. “But to explain: much of the weight of the Separation fell upon Iris Mirabilis, for he is the master of the Rainbow that bridges the worlds. To bring them together will, also, fall upon him, and such a burden is a hard thing to bear.”
Polychrome nodded. “I remember that Father was often gone, and when he was not, he was…tired, distracted, for a long time.”
“Meaning that once this task is begun, Iris will be able to do little else for us,” I finished slowly. “It will be up to the rest of us.” I thought for a moment. “Ugu?” He nodded. “While I think your basic responsibility remains unchanged, I’d amend the manner of carrying it out. Ozma will need a strong right hand who will act, who is respected by both the people of Oz and by forces much darker, able to both converse and combat those he confronts. She also needs insight from one who has seen the consequences of her policies, and who understands what it is to rule. I can think of no better choice than you.”
Ugu stared at me, and then almost fearfully at Ozma, an expression startling on that almost imperturbable face. “Majesty?” he said finally, as she returned his stare with an unreadable look on her flower-perfect features.
She was silent for a moment. “Erik Medon, you truly ask me to accept as a trusted advisor the one who bound my country, myself, who unleashed Amanita Verdant upon the world, who planned and led the revolution that nearly destroyed all of Faerie?”
I looked back steadily. “I do indeed, Ozma. In this, I can point only to your own beliefs. This man has repented of his acts, and wishes to make amends for his evil. You forgave one who acted against you out of selfishness before, and he has become one of the most beloved and celebrated men of Oz. Can you do so again? Will you give him that chance, as you gave the Wizard?”
Then she smiled, with a smile so wide and bright that it lit the room. “And I see that truly you understand what I sought to be, and I cannot argue with myself. All deserve that chance at redemption if they truly seek it. Ugu the Unbowed — for indeed that is your name, and shall remain your name, for though beaten you have kept a pride that is not bravado — you shall come with me as advisor, and…troubleshooter, as I think Erik Medon would say. And so, too, if he wishes, will Cirrus Dawnglory, for I have seen that he finds too much pain here to be truly happy.”
I saw a shadow pass over Nimbus’ face, and Poly gripped my hand a little tighter, but Nimbus nodded, and Ugu bowed. “I accept with gratitude, Princess Ozma.”
Zenga stepped forward. “I’d like to come too.”
“You don’t want to return to Pingaree?” Ozma looked surprised.
Zenga shrugged. “I wasn’t just sent out to fight the Usurpers. The idea was political alliance. Well, the first one seems not to have quite worked out,” she threw a grin and a wink at me, “but that doesn’t mean there aren’t other…possibilities.” Her gaze flicked boldly from Nimbus to Ugu, both of whom looked suddenly taken aback, and then to Ruggedo, who coughed and was suddenly red as his name, and even to Iris, who tried and failed to conceal a look of combined amusement and minor affront. “I’m in no hurry, though, and I’m not planning to marry just for the advantage.” I could tell that last phrase was there for me, and I smiled at her. “So helping out in Oz, in the Rainbow Kingdom, the Nome Kingdom — traveling like the Penitent, even — sounds to me like the right thing to do.”
“You may have an alliance with Oz without need for such…drastic measures,” Ozma said, with a smile of her own, “but you have shown how formidable you are — in more ways than one, it would seem — and surely you are welcome in Oz to help us in these troubled times.”
Iris turned back to us. “And so you shall leave us…soon?”
“Tomorrow, in fact. Honestly, it’s also a tradition.”
The Lord of the Rainbow blinked. “A tradition?”
“Sure. Where I come from, when people get married, they often go to some faraway exotic location for a honeymoon.” I smiled at my wife — wife! What an alien…yet wonderful…word! — as I continued, “well, the Mortal World’s really faraway and exotic for Polychrome, and for me…it’s been a long time since I went home.”
The immense Lord of the Rainbow gazed down, and slowly a smile spread across his face, and suddenly he threw back his head and laughed. “So be it, Erik Medon. And indeed, it is fitting. The Faerie and Mortal worlds are to be joined again, and in the moment of that decision, a Mortal and a Faerie have been joined with the blessings of the Above, after together saving the realms of Faerie; now, together, they will go to his world, and perhaps for the same reason.
“So rest well, my son, my daughter, for tomorrow my Rainbow shall span the length of the Heavens, and you shall walk on the soil of the mortal world once more.”
Epilogue.
Carl Palmer looked around the kitchen again. It�
�s all neat, the heat’s working, checked the vents, the contractor will be here tomorrow for the repairs…
He shook his head, catching sight of his own narrow face with hazel eyes in the stainless-steel surface of the refrigerator. It just seems so futile. Sometimes I wonder if they’re right.
Coming to the little house by himself had been a mistake, he decided. Usually he brought someone else — his wife Katrina, one of his other friends like Joe or Rob — but this weekend everyone else had been busy, and Carl felt he’d put off the prep of the house as long as he could. Freezing weather was starting, and it had to be ready.
But ready for what?
He’d left the note on the table where Erik had left it when…whatever happened had happened. The police had looked at the note of course, there’d been a lot of running around and questions the first couple of weeks, but eventually things had settled down; the note was hastily written, with Erik’s usual sloppy handwriting, but it was clearly his, written with the phrasing his friends would expect. Aside from the fact that he had disappeared, there wasn’t anything to indicate that his friend had lost his mind or been the victim of foul play.
He found himself picking the note up again and reading it, as though reading it again would somehow give him a clue as to what had happened and why.
To whoever finds this note (probably Carl, I bet):
If you’re reading this, I’ve had to go away very suddenly. You might say I’ve been…called away. I’m not going into details on this, I don’t have time.
This is a legal document; if I don’t return within one year, you should treat me as dead and execute my will as will be found in my safety deposit box at Key Bank. For that year, however, I want everything maintained here for my return. Carl Palmer, of 3 Rowland Court, Delmar, is hereby given a full power of attorney to use the resources of my current estate to maintain my home, car (the latter you will probably find empty on Route 4), and other possessions. This includes paying all heating, power, telephone, and other bills of normal operation, and any maintenance or repair as may be needed. My brother David is named as a secondary power of attorney and oversight on the use of these resources.
Please forgive any failures of proper legal procedure; I have no time to consult a lawyer or rewrite this exactly. Basically, make sure things are ready for me to return anytime in the next year; after that, I’m dead.
Hope we will meet again.
Erik L. Medon
The note was both signed and had a blue blotch which turned out to be an improvised fingerprint; as near as the police could tell, Erik had rubbed a ballpoint pen quickly over the surface of his thumb and pressed it down, creating a readable fingerprint that verified his presence when writing the note.
Unfortunately, reading it again hadn’t added any more enlightenment. Try as he might, Carl simply couldn’t imagine what could possibly have gotten his best friend to up and disappear at something like four in the morning, with no warning, no build-up, no hints of what was happening or why.
“He was comfortable,” Carl heard himself say. Which was, really, the problem. Erik might not have been perfectly happy — he had regrets, of course, and Carl knew about most of them, but overall he was a pretty relaxed, cheerful, and — if you were being honest — slightly lazy geek who was satisfied to play RPG campaigns on most weekends, read books, write fanfic and stories for his own amusement, play videogames, and pretty much not expend much physical effort.
Dashing off in the middle of the night to an unnamed mysterious location for some unknown purpose? That was just about the opposite of Erik Medon’s usual behavior. Normally you couldn’t wake him up before nine even on a workday.
Carl sighed again. I’m getting depressed again. Damn him anyway!
The late afternoon sunlight streaming through the windows suddenly…shifted, and Carl looked up in confusion. It wasn’t the usual golden-pink color of the sunset, and it wasn’t the change in light of a cloud passing by. It hadn’t faded; it was brightening, and not with just one color, but many; the walls and floor danced with color, red, yellow, green, blue, as though rippling, flowing torrents of spotlights of all hues were cascading down in front of the house.
Carl got to one of the windows, looked out — and gasped.
A tremendous Rainbow stretched down from the heavens, reaching out of the nearly cloudless sky from some unguessable height to rest — or so it seemed — on the far side of the house, near the front door. There was not the slightest trace of rain, the grass was dry, the leaves tumbled in a faint breeze, yet that luminescent vision remained, illuminating everything with colors so strong and pure that they almost brought tears to Carl’s eyes.
Even as he registered this, really grasped that a rainbow had come to Earth in some impossible fashion, the Rainbow lifted, fading at this end as though picked up by some inconceivably mighty hand, dwindling away into a final flare of prismatic radiance in the heavens.
Carl sank back into one of the nearby chairs, staring out at the now perfectly ordinary fall afternoon. Did I really see that? What the heck was it? And with more than a bit of self-annoyance, and why the hell didn’t I snap a picture of it with my cell?
The front door rattled.
He jumped out of the chair and strode towards the door. I’m not expecting anyone else, so I wonder if someone’s trying to break into the vacant house. Bad timing for them, if so. His car was parked off to the side, so it wasn’t immediately obvious to a potential thief that he was present.
Just before he reached the door, it opened.
Two people stood on the doorstep. The one in front, opening the door, was a tall young man wearing what looked like some incredible cosplay outfit, a sort of crystal-armor thing, right down to the Ludicrously Oversized Sword. Then he looked up from the doorknob, from which he was withdrawing a key.
“Carl?!”
Carl knew, vaguely, that his jaw had dropped, that he was staring like an idiot, but he simply couldn’t help it. It was Erik Medon in front of him — but it wasn’t. Or rather, it was an Erik Medon who couldn’t have existed for the last twenty years. The lines of the face had faded, the wrinkles about the eyes smoothed — the hair that had been in full retreat had returned. And under that ridiculous yet impressive armor, there were muscles that his friend had never had except in his most active imagination, muscles that couldn’t possibly have developed in two or three months.
“Carl! So you did get my message! Thank God, I had a terrible vision of everything being seized and sold off, coming home to a vacant lot or something.”
“Erik?” he managed finally. “Erik? What the hell happened? Where have you — how did you — what are you wearing that — arrgh!” He shook his head furiously to clear it, since all the questions were crashing into each other and making a total mess of things.
Erik laughed, but not unkindly. “I’m sorry, Carl. I really am, but I just didn’t have a chance to tell anyone.” He turned slightly. “Poly, this is Carl Palmer, my best friend for, oh, twenty years or more. Carl, this is Polychrome…my wife.”
For the first time, Carl really looked at the second person, who now stepped forward, and for the second time found his jaw dropping. That’s impossible. No girl really looks like that. Not in real life.
But the impossible vision was taking his hand and shaking it. “I’m very pleased to meet you, Carl,” she said.
Carl forced his mouth closed, then gave the automatic response, “And I’m glad to meet you too. Um… excuse me for a moment.” He turned back to Erik. “WIFE?”
“Yeah.” For a moment his friend looked toward Polychrome (that’s a weird name, too…sounds almost familiar, Carl thought) and he looked almost awestruck, as though he still couldn’t believe it himself. “Yes, we’re married.”
Then Erik snapped himself back to the present. “Look, let’s go to the kitchen. I think we’d better order some delivery. This is going to take a little while.”
“That is an understatement,” Carl said,
still trying to take in the changes. It’s Erik, no doubt about it. But he’s so changed. Yet… not changed, in a way. Almost as though he was… more himself than ever. He shook his head and grinned as he picked up the phone. “Okay, Erik, but I warn you — you got some ’splainin’ ta do!”
And Polychrome looked absolutely confused as her husband burst out laughing.
FIN.
The Prophecy of the Bear
[The italicized verses are the ones that Iris Mirabilis withheld from Erik and Polychrome]
Two paths before, and the way never clear.
One brings you joy, the other filled with fear.
All will hinge on the choice of one;
A choice only made before it has begun.
The one a Hero, True-Mortal born
Whose heart awaits call of Faerie horn.
Unbirthed as yet, and you must wait
Until the day decreed by fate.
Where three cloud-castles stand and face the sun
There the Rainbow Princess ends her run;
Cloud-wall ahead, dark storms behind
At last the fated place you’ll find.
Down the Rainbow all is changed, there is no familiar ground;
Only when your name is spoken shall you turn yourself around
And when you see the speaker know your hero has been found.
To the Rainbow’s Daughter a beauty will be shown
Might and mortal glory as she has never known
Set her feet to dancing, until they’ve skyward flown
Through the skies and homeward to stand before the Throne.