“They have nothing!”
“They possess everything.” The Hound stepped forward, and he was bigger, brighter, more beautiful than anything found in the Far World or the Near. “All things are given to them,” he said, “for I have bestowed power upon them in my name. They are my servants, and though all the weapons of darkness are hurled against them, they will endure. I have placed my love in their hearts, and it overflows from them in love for others. And so they become great even as, in your eyes, they shrink into nothing. Even as you curse them, so shall I bless them.”
“Even Etanun?”
“Yes, even Etanun.”
“After what he did?”
“Even Etanun.”
“He betrayed you! Has he simply to apologize, and all is forgiven?”
“No. This is a mystery both more simple and more complicated than you may yet understand. But my love covers his wrong.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“That is because you do not know my love,” said the Hound. “Your heart has not yet learned that truth. That truth which is pain, which is sorrow, but which is beauty beyond any a loveless life may understand.”
“I am afraid.” Eanrin shuddered as he saw now the deepest secret of his soul. The secret he had kept hidden even from himself all the long ages of his existence. “I don’t want to love. I will be hurt if I do.”
“You were born in fear, Eanrin. But my love casts out fear.”
“How?”
And suddenly the Hound transformed. He was a figure of still greater glory, clothed, but only just, in a man’s shape. Tall and shining with a face bolder than the sun, the Lumil Eliasul, the One Who Names Them, the Giver of Songs.
“Will you take up your burden, Eanrin of Rudiobus?” he said. “Will you become a knight in my service? Will you, the masterless, call me Master this day and forever?”
In the end, Eanrin decided, there was only life or death. He saw now how small he was, another beast among beasts. No better than Hri Sora or Amarok or any creature who made themselves their only standard and their only source of truth. After all he had been through, Eanrin knew he could no longer live that way.
“I will, my Lord,” he whispered.
The Lumil Eliasul smiled. “Rise!” he cried. “Clasp my hand and come, Knight of the Farthest Shore!”
Eanrin put out a trembling hand and found it firmly grasped.
———
He stood alone upon the slopes of Bald Mountain. His wounds were healed, his body whole. Eanrin looked down on his shredded, dirty shirt, at the muscles and limbs beneath. Nothing broken, nothing bleeding. Then he pressed both hands to his heart, and here he discovered a marvel.
He had spoken to the Lumil Eliasul. He had given away his life forever.
For the first time in all the immortal generations of his existence, he realized that he lived.
With a joyful cry, he leapt forward, running on the Faerie Path, up the mountain and down the other side. He found the rushing river, and he rushed as fast or faster still, feeling the surging power of life and love in his limbs. To be bound was to be free! To be free was to be bound! He understood now. Later, doubts would return. Later, he would struggle with his bondage to duty, just as any cat must. But for the moment—and what a moment it was, the brightest and truest in all his long immortal life—for the moment, he understood.
He must find Imraldera! That thought gave his feet wings. He must find her and tell her what had happened, what he had seen and—Lumé love him—what he’d agreed to become! He must tell her everything!
If she lived.
All the joy crashed down in that one moment of pain. What if, after all this, she was gone? What if he had failed her in the end, and the wolf had caught up with her?
“No,” he growled. “No, that cannot be.”
New urgency drove him now along the Path, and he did not smile. He followed the river to where it plunged beneath the earth. Only a few more paces and he would vanish once more into the darkness, searching and searching.
But there was no need.
“Imraldera!” he cried, surging once more to the very heights of joy. For she appeared at the mouth of the tunnel, blinking and dazed, her face streaked with tears. When she saw the poet careening down the slope of the riverbank, however, she smiled. She opened her mouth but had no opportunity to speak, for he reached her in an instant and scooped her up in his arms. Pressing her close and swinging her about, he shouted: “You’ve won! You’ve won! You bested the Wolf Lord, you marvelous creature! I will never doubt you mortals again . . . well, not never. But I will think twice before doubting; I swear on my hand! Oh, you amazing girl!”
Without thinking, he pressed a kiss to her cheek. A hot flush rushed to his face, and he dropped her unceremoniously and quickly put his hands behind his back. “That is . . . I’m glad to see you whole.”