Part 42 (2/2)

As though it were bleeding into a vacuum, the air turned thin. Crawling to her hands and knees, Alouzon looked around frantically, saw, a short distance away, her companions lying sprawled on the ground, unmoving.

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Marrget was closest, her face serene and tranquil, delicate and lovely . . . s.h.i.+mmering, beginning to turn transparent.

”Marrget!” She scrambled toward her. But the transparency was even more p.r.o.nounced when she drew near and bent over the captain, afraid to touch, afraid to move.

. . . should your successor be found ...

The sky was an empty darkness steadily lightening toward white. The ground began to ripple. Marrget was fading, and Wykla, and Relys, and all the rest. Deprived of a Guardian, Gryylth was ending.

”Please . . .”she whispered. ”Someone . . . ?”

Out beyond the broken and scattered remains of the Circle, a golden light flickered into being, grew. For a moment, she saw the Grail. It held within it everything that she wanted, everything that could rea.s.semble her life from the fragments into which it had fallen. It held life, and wholeness, and an end to yearnings and pain.

And, as she watched, it, too, s.h.i.+mmered, faded.

”No ... No, don't . . .”

The light went out. The sky was a blank piece of paper.

She was alone, bereft of friends, world, Grail, hope. The choice was inescapable. It was, in fact, no choice at all, and with the toppled monoliths of the Circle beginning themselves to waver, she sat back and screamed at what was left of the heavens: ”All right, you b.a.s.t.a.r.ds! I'll take it!”

She clamped her eyes shut, fell on her side. ”I'll do it. I'm crazy, but I'll do it. Just . . . bring it back. Put it back together again. I'll do it . . . please ...”

She did not know whom she so entreated. Perhaps it was the Grail, perhaps the nameless G.o.ds in whom Mer-nyl had put such trust. But the gra.s.s was soft and fragrant, and the breeze that sprang up was fresh and clear, smelling of wheat and forests and the sea. Suddenly and incongruously, she remembered the yellow flowers she had seen at the Circle: b.u.t.tercups and dandelions.

Alouzon sobbed, her hands clutched tight over her face. Marrget and Wykla found her that way, and together they 376.

held her, as they themselves had each been held, while the Dragonmaster dealt with her own racking, blinding grief.

Mernyl was dead. So was Tireas. The Tree and the Circle were both utterly destroyed.

In his last moments of life, the Gryylthan sorcerer had apparently done his best to focus the blast he knew was coming. Using the remaining trilithons as reflectors, he had sent much of the detonation out along the Avenue, directly into the ma.s.sed ranks of the Corrinian phalanxes that had been gathered together by Vorya's diversionary attack. A swath of earth fifty yards wide and nearly three quarters of a mile long had been fused into green gla.s.s, and only an occasional charred remnant of weaponry or armor was left from those who had encountered the terrible heat.

There were a few survivors. Much of Vorya's party had been clear of the blast, warned by Dythragor to flee the moment the Dragon began to descend. Twenty or thirty Corrinians had also escaped, but they were in no mood to continue a fight that had exterminated most of the young men of their land.

Age and loss of blood had brought Vorya down shortly after Dythragor had left, and Tarwach had perished in the blast. Cvinthil and Darham were the rulers now. The councilor of Gryylth had wept bitterly when informed that his king was no more, and Darham, summoned back from his journey to Benardis by the incredible light and explosion, had come to him bearing his own grief, for he had lost a brother.

Neither man was any more interested in continuing the war than were his soldiers and warriors, and after they had together raised a single mound over both their kings, they swore peace to one another, offering friends.h.i.+p and what aid was theirs to give.

Alouzon stood by, watching and listening as Cvinthil and Darham made their oaths and promises. The scribes would come later, and parchments would be written on, sealed, and signed with the monograms of the new kings, .

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but here in Gryylth, one's word alone was binding. The war that had raged since the beginning of the world was over.

Her arms around Marrget and Santhe, she wept and turned away. The war might have been over, but other matters were just beginning. Gryylth was her land now.

The captains led her to her blankets, and she slept for twelve hours, bathed wearily in a nearby stream, and slept again. When she awakened, the sun was bright on the tumbled and blackened remains of the Circle, and it sparkled on the river of gla.s.s that stretched out along the Avenue, but she still felt a numb weariness, and her hands still felt the tackiness of blood.

Clad in fresh garments, she sat in the shade of a makes.h.i.+ft canopy and watched the survivors of both armies making ready to leave for their homes. Marrget was beside her, once again wearing an oversized robe. The captain looked tired, and the lean hauntedness that had left her eyes in the thick of battle had returned.

”Dragonmaster,” she said, ”I do not know whether to thank you or not.''

”Marrget?”

Marrget looked away to the activity on the slope before them-men and women gathering and bundling belongings, calling horses, Corrinians and Gryylthans making tentative shows of camaraderie and trust-but did not seem to see any of it. ”When we entered the Circle, I was looking for death. An honorable death, to be sure, but death nonetheless. I had hoped that the destruction of the Tree and the Circle would be so all-consuming that we would all die.”

Alouzon hung her head. Were it not for her choice, Marrget would have gotten her wish.

”Instead,” continued the captain, ”I am alive, and . . . unchanged.” She regarded the soft roundings of her body, sighed. ”I cannot say that I am grateful. Forgive me.”

”Your place is among the honored of Gryylth.”

”I am a woman. My place, in the opinion of my peo- 378.

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pie, is over the cooking pots, and with the children,” She grimaced, snorted defiantly.

”I take it you're not inclined to follow custom.”

She lifted her head, and her voice was even. ”We are the women of the First Wartroop. We have fought before. We will continue to fight.''

A deeper voice came to them. ”Is there need for more fighting, my lady?” A tall Corrinian stood before them. ”Forgive my interrupting. I am Karthin, from Rutupia ... on the eastern coast.” He was a big man, his hair gold and his eyes clear and blue, but he blushed suddenly like a schoolboy.

”Marrget of Crownhark,” said the captain. ”And Alouzon Dragonmaster beside me.” She peered at him, shading her eyes against the sun. ”What do you wish, sir?”

”King Darham has ordered me to a.s.sist with the sharing of food between our two peoples. I will be accompanying King Cvinthil back to his seat.”

' 'You do us honor, sir,'' said Marrget.

Karthin fidgeted, still blus.h.i.+ng furiously. He held something behind his back.

”Is there something more?”

”Forgive me, lady,” he said. ”I fear you will think me ill-advised and hasty.”

”Nay, sir, pray continue.”

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