Empress of Eternity
Page 34
“Something happened…after everything. It’s sealed. I don’t know how, only that nothing I know how to do will open it.”
“…and then there’s the matter of the rainbow.” Ashauer looked at Maertyn.
“The rainbow?” asked Maertyn.
“While you were fighting off the assassins, a brilliant rainbow arched across Caelaarn, its tip touching the Ministry of Protective Services.” The older lord shook his head. “It couldn’t have been orchestrated more dramatically.”
“I’m afraid I’m both tune-and tone-deaf,” Maertyn managed, “and certainly no composer or orchestrator.”
“All who know you agree to that. It’s also what makes your efforts so much more heroic, Maertyn.” Ashauer smiled once more, not quite ironically. “We also found records about all the attempts on your life. What the various media found most interesting was how you avoided so many without ever having to kill those who were trying to kill you.”
“You made…all that public?”
“There wasn’t any choice, Maertyn. If we hadn’t…”
Although Ashauer hadn’t completed the sentence, Maertyn knew exactly what he meant. One of Tauzn’s remaining subordinates would have taken over where Tauzn had left off.
“D’Onfrio will endorse you, if you choose to seek his position.”
“Me? I’ve never sought anything like that…”
“Precisely…and he will make that quite clear. He’ll actually request that you seek the office of Executive Administrator because it is obvious that you have always put Caelaarn and others ahead of personal gain and power…and that you have lost so much in doing so.”
“Ashauer…you—”
“Lord Maertyn,” interrupted the older lord quickly, “I know that you are suffering great losses, but so is the Unity.”
The formality of Ashauer’s words stopped Maertyn’s objections. He took a deep breath. “I see.”
“I believe so.”
“Still…a lord…there hasn’t been an EA who was a lord since…” Maertyn started to shake his head, but the instant stab of pain down his neck stopped that abortive motion cold.
“Since Lestaat…and that was a bloody experience. But the people have seen that you were willing to brave the cold and storms trying to find a way to help them, that it is evident you lost your wife to the assassins, and that you avoided bloodshed as long as you could. The media are calling you a throwback…the last honorable lord…”
“I never…”
“No…but there are times when only one man can lead…and you are that man.”
Thanks to Ashauer and D’Onfrio, Maertyn realized.
He also doubted he’d ever know all that had happened while he’d been recovering. Knowing Ashauer, no one else would, either.
“I can’t stay long, the doctors say, but I did want you to know, as soon as possible.” Ashauer inclined his head. “We all appreciate everything you did and look forward to your complete recovery.” With a last smile, he turned and left the room.
Maertyn stared blankly after him.
Epilogue
The white dirigible hovered over the blue-gray stone of the canal, just to the east of the station and the dilapidated light house, while a figure in a white cold-weather jacket followed two guards, also in white jackets, down a heavy rope ladder onto the stone. Two more guards followed the older man. Then, the five walked away from the airship, and the dirigible lifted fifty yards skyward, holding its position, hovering into the wind.
The man in white walked toward the station, motioning for the guards to remain behind.
He stopped short of where the south entrance was, or had been, waiting.
A silver haze appeared before him, a haze he knew would appear as mist or fog to the guards.
“I came back,” he said quietly.
“In time,” she replied.
“It would have been too painful, earlier.” He offered a warm but crooked smile. “I couldn’t have returned to you, not and have things except like this, could I?”
She shook her head, sadly. “I hoped you’d see that. Once you left the station…”
“You held the rainbow for me, didn’t you?”
“I did. It took all that the Bridge could muster.”
“Thank you, dearest. That may have saved Caelaarn.”
“You saved it. I might have helped.”
“More than you know.” He paused, then went on. “You saw more than you’ve ever told me, didn’t you? Well before it all began?”
The hazy silver figure in the red singlesuit nodded. “Then…I didn’t know what it all meant. Even while I was recovering in Caelaarn, I’d seen the station. I saw us standing as we are now, except I didn’t recognize me. I wondered who that striking woman you were talking to happened to be and why she was so ghostly.” Her thin lips offered a smile both warm and rueful.
“You were always striking,” he said.
“I owe you everything. You coddled and protected and saved me.”
“…and loved you,” he added. “You were…you are…my empress.”
“You did, and I still love you. Yet I belonged to you. That was my choice as well. But…I chose to do something that allows me to belong to me. Something…purposeful, with meaning. As you have found.”
“Will you be lonely?”
“At times…but whenever you were not around, I was lonely…and without meaning. The Bridge, from it and what you…and the others…did, showed me that without meaning…there is no life…Even the universe will die if meaning departs.”
“Will you see me if I come again?”
“Always…dearest…always…”
He stood there for a time, caressed by the silver mist, by his empress of eternity, before he turned.
The Executive Administrator of the Unity of Caelaarn walked southward toward the dirigible that would convey him to Daelmar and the special tube-train that waited for him.
Behind him, once the dirigible lifted and carried him eastward, a brilliant rainbow arched across the northern sky.
Tor Books by L. E. Modesitt, Jr.
Note: Within series, books are best read in listed order.
-----
THE IMAGER PORTFOLIO
The continent of Solidar—once Lydar—is home to a strange and rare breed of magic user. Imagers can bring into being almost anything they can imagine…but their power is dangerous to themselves as well as to others, and their life expectancy is short. Because they are both feared and vulnerable, Imagers must live separately from the rest of society. Some are exploited by ordinary people with political and economic power…while others are wise enough to build a future when their powers may put to the service of the common good.
Imager
Imager’s Challenge
Imager’s Intrigue
Scholar
Princeps
Imager’s Battalion
Antiagon Fire
Rex Regis
Madness in Solidar (forthcoming)
THE COREAN CHRONICLES
Corus today is a world of contending countries, of struggling humans, strange animals, and elusive supernatural creatures. It is still a place of magical powers, but only a few people are Talented enough to use them. Alucius is one of those people. With Corus changing again, Alucius and his Talent will have a central role to play.
Legacies
Darknesses
Scepters
Alector’s Choice
Cadmian’s Choice
Soarer’s Choice
The Lord-Protector’s Daughter
Lady-Protector
THE SAGA OF RECLUCE
L. E. Modesitt, Jr.'s bestselling fantasy novels set in the magical world of Recluce are among the most popular in contemporary fantasy. Each tells an independent story that nevertheless reverberates though all the other Recluce novels to deepen and enrich the reading experience.
The Magic of Recluce
The Towers of the Sunset
The M
agic Engineer
The Order War
The Death of Chaos
Fall of Angels
The Chaos Balance
The White Order
Colors of Chaos
Magi’i of Cyador
Scion of Cyador
Wellspring of Chaos
Ordermaster
Natural Ordermage
Mage-Guard of Hamor
Arms-Commander
Cyador’s Heirs
Heritage of Cyador (forthcoming)
THE SPELLSONG CYCLE
When Anna Marshall is transported from her boring and frustrating life in Ames, Iowa, to the very different world of Erde, she finds out that for the first time in her life she’s uniquely powerful. In Iowa Anna was a music instructor and small-time opera singer, but on Erde her musical ability makes her a big-time sorceress.
The Soprano Sorceress
The Spellsong War
Darksong Rising
The Shadow Sorceress
Shadowsinger
THE ECOLITAN MATTER
Follow the conflict between the corrupt interstellar Empire and the Ecolitan Institute of the planet Accord. The Institute must fight—first for their independence, and then to prevent the worst disaster in human history.
Empire & Ecolitan (comprising The Ecolitan Operation and The Ecologic Secession)
Ecolitan Prime (comprising The Ecologic Envoy and The Ecolitan Engine)
THE FOREVER HERO TRILOGY
Modesitt’s first major work. In the future, Earth is a desolate ruin, until its degenerate human outcasts kidnap a boy of immense native intelligence and determination—who grows up to become the force behind a plan to make Earth flower again.
The Forever Hero (comprising Dawn for a Distant Earth, The Silent Warrior, and In Endless Twilight)
THE GHOST BOOKS
In this alternate history world, the United States never came into existence, Russia is still ruled by the Romanovs, and ghosts are not mere superstition but have a literal physical reality—and political implications. Your crimes can haunt you, and the ghosts of your crimes are visible to others.
Of Tangible Ghosts
The Ghost of the Revelator
Ghost of the White Nights
Ghosts of Columbia (comprising Of Tangible Ghosts and The Ghost of the Revelator)
OTHER NOVELS
The Hammer of Darkness
The Parafaith War
Adiamante
Gravity Dreams
The Octagonal Raven
Archform: Beauty
The Ethos Effect
Flash
The Eternity Artifact
The Elysium Commission
Viewpoints Critical
Haze
Empress of Eternity
Timegods’ World (comprising Timediver’s Dawn and The Timegod)
The One-Eyed Man
-----
Sign up for author updates at: tor-forge.com/author/lemodesitt
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
EMPRESS OF ETERNITY
Copyright © 2010 by L. E. Modesitt, Jr.
All rights reserved.
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Modesitt, L. E.
Empress of eternity / L.E. Modesitt, Jr.—1st ed.
p. cm.
“A Tom Doherty Associates book.”
ISBN: 978-0-765-32664-5
1. Technology and civilization—Fiction. 2. Canals—Fiction. 3. Climatic changes—Fiction. 4. Revolutions—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3563.O264E47 2010
813'.54—dc22
2010032572