He wanted to reach out and take her hand. His fingers even made the first twitch. But she turned to Granna and Mouse, and the opportunity was gone.
“Fairbird,” Imraldera said to the old woman, “I must go again.”
“I know, sister,” said Granna. “I know you must. But you did come to me once more as you promised. I knew you would.”
“What happened to you?” Imraldera asked. “Since the death of the Wolf Lord and the liberation of our women. What happened to you during all that . . . time?”
“I did as you said,” Granna replied. “I journeyed across the Land, proclaiming our liberation, teaching the women to speak. But there was war. War and bloodshed. Many preferred the slavery of the wolf to the freedom of which I spoke.”
“Oh, Fairbird—”
“Don’t be sad, sister!” Granna insisted with a faded smile that could look back on times past and see the fair amid the foul. “I found a good man, and I had good children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren. We fled to the mountains when the Flame came. We watched the wars give way under her rule, and we saw a power more deadly than the Wolf Lord’s take hold of the Land. I heard the lies she spoke of you, but I never believed them. And up here in the high country the smoke clears, and I could wait for your promised return.”
Tears welled in Imraldera’s eyes, and she looked far younger than she had a moment before. “I did not realize how time was passing,” she said. “I did not feel it in the Between. I never expected to return and find you so . . . so . . .”
“Decrepit?” Granna suggested with a wry grin. “Well, age does have a way of creeping up on us mortals.”
“But not on me,” said Imraldera, bowing her head.
“Who says you’re mortal now?”
Granna took the lady knight in her arms, and they stood holding each other. Mouse, standing near, saw then how alike they were. It was difficult to discern through the extreme age of the one and the agelessness of the other. But as she watched them, Mouse thought she glimpsed the sisters that they were, the one brave and protective, the other trusting and loyal.
“Your hair is like hers,” Granna had told Mouse more than once.
Like Starflower’s. Like her great-great-aunt’s.
It was too much. Mouse turned away and gazed back across the distance, where the Citadel lay in ruins beyond her range of vision. A column of smoke rose as a memorial. The Dragonwitch must be dead. And many more besides. The Speaker, the priestesses, the slaves. Even the Chronicler.
“And Alistair,” she whispered. “Alistair is dead.”
For the moment she could not cry. She merely watched the smoke churning in the sky until she felt Eanrin’s hand upon her shoulder.
“It’s time,” he said. “We must journey back and see what we may find.”
It was difficult to believe there had ever been anything more than this deep, deep blackness on the far side of dreams.
Alistair sat, his mind spinning with too many thoughts. He wasn’t certain he possessed a body, wasn’t certain he even wanted one. After all, the last he’d known, his body was being torn apart. Hardly a thing worth having anymore.
“I wonder,” he said after a long silence, “what will happen if I open my eyes?”
The Prince of the Farthest Shore, sitting beside him, answered, “You’ll see things as they are.”
Alistair shuddered. Since that moment of red mouth and black teeth and pain like ripping fire, he wasn’t convinced he wanted to see things as they were. “Maybe,” he said, “I’d rather sit here in the dark.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” said the Prince, and there was a smile in his voice.
“You’re right,” sighed Alistair. “I wouldn’t. I would like to know. But I’m scared of what I’ll see.”
“If you open your eyes, Alistair Calix-son, you will see me.”
So Alistair turned to that voice. After a struggle, he discovered his own face, felt his own eyelids pressing down, shielding his vision. That moment took more courage than any other in his life so far, more than the climb into goblin-infested Gaheris, more than stepping into the Netherworld, more even than throwing himself at the slavering Black Dog. For once the deed was done, he knew there could be no going back.
But then, really, when all was lost, what had he to fear?
Alistair opened his eyes. And he saw the Lumil Eliasul.
21
THE CHRONICLER SAT ATOP A PILE OF RED STONES, and he could see nothing. The smoke was so thick around him, he thought he probably should have asphyxiated in it long ago. But somehow, though it engulfed him, it seemed to be part of some other world and could not affect him.
So he sat atop the rubble, the sword in his lap, and wondered where he was. When he closed his eyes, he saw in his memory the waters rising through the chamber floor, flooding the room, catching him by the legs. He saw the high priestess, her face filled with hatred and pain, dragged away in the same current.