Destiny was fulfilled.
Future
They walked the ancient pathways, making their way to their final destination. None showed fear; all were happy and content.
They passed other souls who drifted along aimlessly; they passed angry souls, happy souls, contented souls; they passed ancestors long dead, friends not yet deceased.
As they approached each other, past lives converged and their futures diverged.
Isabella and Peter Neville acknowledged the others and continued on their way, their journey far from over.
James Trevayne and Allan Barncroft regarded one another warily, and then embraced like long lost brothers.
Gloria watched, astounded to see James and Allan merge into one, leaving only James standing before her. He offered his hand, telling her everything was finally all right, and with a relieved smile Gloria finally understood that James and Allan really were one spirit, split in half, now reunited.
She embraced him, and they continued along the ancient pathways arm in arm, making their way to their ultimate destination. Neither of them showed any fear. Both were happy and content, two souls deeply in love, reunited by death, their destiny fulfilled.
End Note
I have always been fascinated with historical documentation that shows how place names and family names occur and change with the passage of time, which is one of the things I have attempted to show in Master of the Scrolls.
Character names are always important, and in writing this novel, from first draft to final published version, many characters underwent numerous name changes, most notably Thaumaturgia Anathemas and Sawyl Gwilym. The latter is the Welsh equivalent for Samuel William (hence Samuel Wylams), while the former is a cognation of the words thaumaturge (a performer of miracles; C18) and anathema (a detested person or thing; C16).
As I love wordplay and word association, several future novels that follow similar themes of supernatural and history will also follow the same path when it comes to character and place names.
In attempting to signify different speech patterns for the two main time-periods, I have forced the abolition of contractions in the Sixteenth Century characters and moved the order of words around slightly, and with Sawyl and Thaumaturgia being from completely different periods, I have used several archaic variants. No doubt, much of this is inaccurate, but since it suited my purpose in the novel, I used artistic licence in this instance. There are also probably historical inaccuracies within the body of the novel, but again, I decry ‘artistic licence’. It is a work of fiction, after all.
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