by Mark Anthony
She did.
“I want to stay with you, Father!” she said, throwing her small arms around Travis’s neck. “And with Father!”
Travis hugged her tight. “I know, sweetheart. I wish you could stay with us, too. But your place is with your mother.”
“I do not believe that is so.”
Travis looked up, too stunned to speak. Nim turned around, tears staining her cheeks, her eyes wide.
“Mother?”
Vani knelt before her. “My brave daughter.” She brushed a dark curl from Nim’s face. “I love you. You must never forget that.”
“I won’t,” Nim said.
Vani bent, kissed Nim’s brow, and stood.
“I took her from you once,” she said, gazing at Travis, then at Beltan. “I cannot do so a second time.”
“You’re serious,” Travis said, finally managing to speak.
Vani nodded. “T’gol do not customarily have children. So in Nim, I have known a joy I never believed I would know in my life. Nothing will ever change that. However, I belong in Morindu. It is my heritage, and my fate. I would . . . I would go with Hadrian Farr.”
She gave the former Seeker a glance that was suddenly tentative, almost shy. Farr gave her an astonished look in return. Then the hint of a smile touched his lips.
Beltan stepped forward. “Vani, you’ll never see Nim again.”
“I know.” The T’gol moved to the dais, standing next to Farr and Larad. “But it must be so. Perhaps someday Morindu will be a living city again, but that day is long off. Right now it is still dead. And a dead city, however full of wonders, is no place for a living child.” A tear slid down her cheek. “Love her, Beltan. Give her every joy you possibly can.”
Beltan nodded, laying his big hands on Nim’s small shoulders. She turned and buried her small face against his legs.
Bittersweet joy filled Travis. He would not have to say good-bye to Nim. Only there was another farewell he dreaded, and there was no putting it off.
“Your Majesty,” Larad called out. “You must hurry.”
Travis moved to Grace. He opened his mouth, but how could he put into words what he was feeling? Beltan was his partner, his soul mate, but Grace was his best friend. More than that. She was part of him.
“I’m going to . . . I’m going to miss your voice,” he said, and didn’t even try not to weep.
Grace brushed a tear from his cheek. “Don’t be silly,” she said. “That’s what telephones are for.”
He could only stare at her.
“I’m staying on Earth,” she said.
Beltan let out a great laugh. Even Nim turned around and clapped her hands together.
“But what about . . . ?” He glanced at Hadrian Farr.
“I’m not his case subject to watch anymore. And I think Fate has something else in mind for him. For both of us.” She glanced at Vani, then she looked at Travis again and smiled. “By the way, you still haven’t said if it’s okay if I stay here.”
It was too much. Joy and sorrow and love all melded into a single, shining emotion inside Travis, igniting like a new sun.
“Yeah,” he said gruffly. “It’s okay.”
Grace turned and waved at the figures on the dais. “Give my love to Melia and Falken and everyone. And remember what I said about holding an election, Master Larad. Tell them it was my last order. And tell them I cast my vote for you!”
Larad held up his hand in a gesture of farewell. Vani’s gaze was locked on Nim. Farr opened his mouth to say something.
There was one final flicker, and the three of them disappeared. As if a door had been shut, the image of the throne room in Morindu vanished. The nexus was gone.
“Good-bye,” Travis whispered.
He felt Grace’s hand slip inside his. He gripped it tight.
Beltan picked Nim up, holding her in his arms. “Are you going to be all right?” he said, his expression solemn.
The girl seemed to think about it, then nodded. “I’ll be sad some. A lot at first. But that’s okay, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” he said, holding her tight. “It is.”
She rested her head on his shoulder.
Travis took a step forward, toward the place where Deirdre had vanished. He would never look into her smoky jade eyes again, would never hear the soft tones of her mandolin.
“I wish I’d gotten to say good-bye to her,” he said. “I wish I could have told her how much I cared about her.”
“She knew,” Grace said behind him. “I was with her, in that final moment. She knew everything, Travis. She sent it to me over the last strands of the Weirding. I wish . . . I wish I could describe what it was she saw.”
Travis turned around. “Try.”
He could see Grace struggle for words. “She sensed . . . Deirdre sensed how happy they were—the Sleeping Ones and the Imsari. They wanted to come together. They wanted to balance one another out. It was their whole purpose. But the Seven had known they needed the right catalyst for the union to work. The Imsari and the morndari had both been changed by their history on Eldh. Alcendifar the dwarf changed the Great Stones with his craft, and the thirteen morndari were changed by their union with Orú. Those imperfections would have kept their union from being complete without a catalyst.”
Travis looked back at Beltan and Nim. “Why Nim? Why was she the catalyst?”
“Vani was descended from Orú,” Grace said. “And there was fairy blood in Beltan. Northern and southern magic were melded together in Nim. I think it was that blending that helped the Seven and the Imsari to come in contact, to unite despite the way they’d been changed.”
“What about Travis then?” Beltan said. “Couldn’t he have been a catalyst?”
Grace rubbed her chin. “Both rune magic and sorcery are in him—were in him. But he wasn’t born with them inside him. Nim was. I think that made her a more perfect catalyst.”
Beltan tossed Nim into the air. She let out a shriek of laughter, and he caught her. “She’s perfect, all right.”
“The Little People must have known,” Travis said, looking at Beltan and Nim.
The sound of distant sirens drifted through the door. The earthquakes brought on by perihelion would have caused some damage. Travis hoped it hadn’t been severe.
Grace touched his arm. “Are you all right?”
He looked down at his hands. Again he felt the hole inside him. But it was all right. He had spent most of his life not being magic. He didn’t think it would be too hard to get used to being normal again. Who knew? He might actually kind of like it.
“Nim really was the Last Rune,” he said. “There are no more runes. Magic’s gone.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Grace said. “Only . . .” She cocked her head, as if listening to a distant sound.
“What is it?” Beltan said, giving her a sharp look. “Do you feel something?”
Grace smiled and shook her head.
“Just hope,” she said.
49.
On another world, in a castle with seven towers, Aryn rested a hand on her full stomach and felt a strong kick deep within.
Teravian turned away from the window of their bedchamber, wonder on his face. “I can see stars, Aryn. All the stars.”
She tried to reach out with the Touch, to sense the small life inside her, but there was nothing to grasp, no trace of the Weirding. It was gone. Completely gone. But it didn’t matter. Aryn didn’t need magic to know the baby was whole and healthy; she knew it with her heart.
“Do you want to feel your daughter kick?” she asked.
Teravian grinned. “You mean my son.”
And the young king knelt before his queen, laying his hands atop hers as new life stirred beneath.
EPILOGUE
CASTLE CITY
The shiny green pickup truck blew into town with the first evening gale of October.
It pulled off the highway on a bare patch of gravel, not far from a peeling billboard, just down the
road from the burnt ruin of a clapboard building. Doors opened, and four people got out. There was a man with red-brown hair, and another man, tall and rangy, who walked with a lanky stride. After them came a woman who was beautiful and regal, even dressed in jeans and a baggy sweater. With her came a girl who looked to be five or six, with hair as dark as shadows dancing on the wind.
The four joined hands, and together they walked toward a flat patch of ground where, once upon a time, a parti-colored circus tent had stood. It had taken them longer than they had expected to come to this place. But then, at first, they hadn’t even known this was where they were going.
London—and much of the world—had been in something of a state of chaos for a few weeks as damage from the earthquakes, hurricanes, and typhoons was repaired. However, none of the disasters had been as bad as they might have been, as bad as some experts had feared they were going to get; the tremors in London had been localized to the area in and around Brixton. And, as suddenly as they had begun, the storms and eruptions ceased. People had been so relieved that they hadn’t even noticed at first that something else had gone as well: the rifts in the sky.
Astronomers and physicists were still speculating about what the rifts were. No doubt studying the data various telescopes had collected would keep the scientists occupied for years to come. However, most people forgot about the rifts soon enough, as people tended to do when something strange departed and the normalcy of everyday life resumed. The Mouthers took off their white sheets and put down their signs. People were ready to go on with their lives. They were ready to hope again.
True, there was the occasional story of someone who had claimed to have seen green forests in the desert and mountains in the middle of the ocean just before the rifts vanished, but those stories were relegated to the tabloids, and were soon replaced by the usual celebrity scandals and UFO sightings.
Once London was back to normal, and a decision to go west was reached—or rather, maybe, a call was heard—there were still arrangements to be made. The flat in Mayfair was sold. Calls were made across the sea, and new accommodations procured with the help of old friends Mitchell and Davis Burke-Favor. Then the day arrived. They flew toward the sunset, then picked up the new truck they had bought (for some reason, it had to be green) and let the mountains call them upward.
Now the wind swirled, kicking up a dust devil right where the main pole of the big top would have stood.
“What do you think happened to them?” Grace said, glad for her thick sweater. Clouds scudded past the tops of the mountains. “To Cy and Mirrim and Samanda, I mean?”
“I think they went back to Eldh when the rune of sky was broken,” Travis said, his breath ghosting on the air. “I think they returned to the Twilight Realm with the other Old Gods.”
Grace nodded. She believed the same. “I’m glad we stopped here. I just wanted to say thanks to Cy, and to the others. We never would have gone to Eldh without them.”
Travis glanced at Beltan. “A lot of things wouldn’t have happened without them.”
Beltan gave him a solemn look. Then, suddenly, the blond man grinned.
“Can we head into Castle City now? I want to see the new house. And I’m getting hungry.” He picked up the girl. “How about you, Nim? Are you hungry?”
“Yes!” she said, clapping her hands.
“That’s my daughter. Get in the truck, then.”
Beltan urged her on with a gentle push. She ran toward the pickup. Beltan gave Travis a quick kiss, then hurried after the girl. Grace sighed, watching the two run, the girl taking three strides for every one of the blond man’s.
“He’s a wonderful father,” she said. “Nim is lucky.”
“So am I,” Travis said. “I love him so much sometimes I almost can’t believe it’s possible.”
She smiled at him. “But it is.”
His gray eyes were thoughtful. “What about you, Grace? Will you ever find someone to love?”
Grace breathed in the cold air. On the journey through the desert, she had discovered she didn’t love Hadrian Farr. But in learning that, she had learned she could love. And she did. She looked at Travis, then let her gaze follow Beltan and Nim. Despite the chill, a warmth filled her.
“I already have found someone,” she murmured. “Some-ones.”
Travis watched her a moment, then he nodded. “So you have,” he said. “So you have.”
They walked back to the pickup, following Beltan and Nim. It was only after a moment that Grace realized Travis was singing in a low voice.
“We live our lives a circle,
And wander where we can.
Then after fire and wonder
We end where we began. . . .”
A chill gust caught the words, carrying them away. The four of them reached the truck. Grace climbed in and Nim scrambled onto her lap. Beltan slid behind the wheel, and Travis closed the passenger door. In the valley below, a collection of lights twinkled in the deepening dusk.
“All right, Beltan,” Travis said. “Take us home.”
The pickup pulled onto the highway, and the wind rattled through the witchgrass, blowing away across the mountains to places unknown.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
MARK ANTHONY learned to love both books and mountains during childhood summers spent in a Colorado ghost town. Later he was trained as a paleoanthropologist but along the way grew interested in a different sort of human evolution—the symbolic progress reflected in myth and the literature of the fantastic. He undertook this project to explore the idea that reason and wonder need not exist in conflict. Fans of The Last Rune can visit the website at http://www.thelastrune.com.
ALSO BY MARK ANTHONY
Beyond the Pale
The Keep of Fire
The Dark Remains
Blood of Mystery
Gates of Winter
THE FIRST STONE
A Bantam Spectra Book / August 2004
Published by
Bantam Dell
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York
All rights reserved
Copyright © 2004 by Mark Anthony
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eISBN: 978-0-307-41847-0
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