Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Shadowgate 02
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"All right," he said, so low she could hardly hear him. "I'll try."
"Try!" Winter lashed out at him. "'Try' isn't good enough! I didn't 'try' just now—I did hNow it's your turn."
Grey hesitated, and Winter lunged forward and yanked him away from the shining path. His body was cool and unreal in her grasp. He fell against her, gasping a little and laughing at the same time.
"All right," he said. "I owe it. Lords of the Wheel," Grey intoned, and Winter knew he did not speak to her, "I take back the chains of matter willingly, to atone for my pride, according to your good pleasure." His face changed; he looked older, grimmer, as if he faced an ordeal now that she could not comprehend. "Help me, Winter. I can't find the way by myself. Take me with you."
The distant sound had grown louder, and now it was the rhythm of the surf on the rocks below. As she stared up into Grey's face the astral light faded and it began to rain.
There was cold, and wind; the scent of the salt sea and the living earth. Grey's face contorted with pain and he sank to his knees, tearing one hand from her grip and pressing it to his ribs. As Winter watched in fear his clothing shimmered and flowed again, turning to black motorcycle leathers and torn, blood-soaked jeans. She knelt and flung her arms around him, trying to shield him.
The headlights. Oh, God, the cold. Won't somebody come? The echoes of Grey's fear and horror filled her mind. But that was more than a year ago—this was now. In a place where time had no meaning, Hunter Greyson was making the hardest journey of all—into life.
"Don't leave me," Grey gasped. "Stay with me." Winter held him against her, pressing her cheek to his. His skin was cold as rain, and each breath seemed to cost him more effort.
"Never," she said, as her tears began to mingle with the rain and the salt spray from the rocks below. "I'll never leave you, Grey."
EPILOGUE
HOME IS THE HUNTER
For winter's rains and ruins are over, And all the season of snows and sins; The days dividing lover and lover, The light that loses, the night that wins. — ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE
DECEMBER IN SAN FRANCISCO WAS A SEASON OF BLUSTERY winds and soaking rain—and a pervasive dampness that struck through even heavy winter coats with a numbing persistence. Christmas lights and holiday garlands looked oddly out of place in a city where the temperature hovered in the high forties and there wasn't even the possibility of snow.
Winter maneuvered the heavy silver Mercedes expertly over the familiar route, grateful for the weight that lent it stability in the rain and wind. Frodo and Emily had teased her when she'd bought the big luxury car, but Winter had pointed out reasonably that she was going to need the space for the therapy equipment and the twice-weekly trips to PT that were a feature of all the foreseeable future.
Fortunately she'd found someone good close to home, so this was the last time for a while that she was going to have to make the pilgrimage across the bridge from Berkeley to the San Francisco Orthopedic Hospital—or, as its patients called it, Resurrection City.
"I'm so excited. I really don't know how I can ever thank you," Janelle said from the passenger seat.
"Jannie, you've been saying that ever since you got here, and that was six weeks ago!" Winter said indulgently. "What are friends for, if not for this?" The heavy slap-slap of the windshield wipers formed a backbeat to her words.
"But you've done so much. . . ."Janelle said.
"I didn't get you that job with— What is the name of that place up in Seattle?"
"Wizards of the Coast," Janelle said, blushing proudly.
Janelle Baker had walked out on Denny Raymond four months before and into the Bergen County Women's Services shelter. She'd gotten in touch with Winter almost immediately, and the two women had kept in close contact, each rebuilding her life as she did so.
"And Ramsey's flying out for Christmas," Janelle added. "Just think—we'll all be together."
"All of us who are left," Winter said, suddenly somber. Cassie would not be here. She wheeled the Mercedes into the hospital parking lot and found a space near the door. "I won't be long," she said. "Why don't you wait here, Jannie?"
The familiar smells of mingled disinfectants greeted her as the elevator opened onto her floor. After so many visits, Winter could just have walked right past the desk, but today was a special day.
"He'll be right out, Winter," the nurse on duty said. "Happy Holiday."
"Thanks, Rachel. Merry Solstice to you." Winter smiled, breathing deeply to cover her nervousness. She'd waited so long for this moment— she wanted everything to be perfect.
Hunter Greyson walked slowly down the hall toward her, a muscular attendant hovering slightly behind. The clothes she had bought him for this occasion still looked painfully new.
"Hi, sweetheart," he said, smiling his crooked grin. "Want to go dancing?"
Winter came toward him and hugged him gently. Automatically, she glanced at Grey's throat. A small white scar was all now that remained of the tracheostomy that had once let a machine breathe for him.
The effects of a year-long coma could not be instantly shrugged off, but Grey's progress toward health and mobility had been rapid, from the moment at San Gabriel when Winter had seen Grey open his eyes in the hospital bed. She'd had a lot of explaining to do about her presence in the building at that hour—not to mention the fact that Grey's respirator was shut down—but the fact that Grey was alive and conscious counted for a lot. Once he'd been able to make his own health-care decisions, Winter had been able to get Grey moved to Resurrection City and started on the long road to rehabilitation.
"Ready to go? Jannie's waiting in the car outside, and Ramsey's getting in tomorrow," Winter said.
"Hail, hail, the gang's all here." Grey put his arm around her waist.
"The chair will be around in just a minute," Rachel said.
"The hell with that," Grey shot back, grinning. "I'm walking out of here under my own power."
The aides and nurses applauded as he walked to the elevator and stepped inside. He bowed carefully as the doors closed, and Winter steadied him as he straightened.
"Dancing, eh? Not for a few weeks, I'd say."
"Maybe for New Year's," Grey suggested irrepressibly. He smiled fondly at Winter. "Now that my time is my own again—or almost— what shall we do with the rest of our lives?"
"I know what I'd like to do," Winter said. She'd meant to say this later, but somehow she felt the time was right. "I'd like to get married. You did ask me, you know—fourteen years ago."
The joy that filled Grey's face told her the timing had been right. "It's about time," he said, taking her hand. "It took you long enough to say yes."
"But it's never too late," Winter answered, her eyes misty. "Not for a beginning."
And time remembered is grief forgotten, And frosts are slain and flowers begotten, And in green underwood and cover Blossom by blossom the spring begins.
— ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE