Chapter 20-486: Epilogue I: The King Returns (1/2)
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We are now into the Epilogues of The Human Race.
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He came home by Waterjumping, unsurprisingly, for that was how his Lived-Line tied in. He and his lady came up out of the surf, black and white together, and set foot on the sandy shore near Limerick, a mere small strip of sand and pebbles upon the River Shannon.
Two hundred yards in that direction his parents and little sister could smile in rest... or perhaps they’d been whisked away with the Shroud, and the Lady Traveler was fighting to one day free them.
Or mayhap they were truly and wholly one with the Land.
One day, when his obligations here was done, aye, he’d follow Lady Traveler, for there were plenty of Irish in that cloud, and bastards or angels, they’d not deserved to be caught in it, either.
He set his foot on the shore, and knew something had changed instantly.
“Ye know I’m home,” he said softly, as if greeting an old friend, and paid no mind to the flowers and vines that sprouted about his feet as he moved on. Amaretta followed silently, both awed and amused at the simple show of the Land’s favor upon her man. She could almost feel the Mantle coming down upon them.
His steps were unerring as he came up the hill off the river, turned down the road, and walked towards the ruins there in the distance. Flowers lined his wake, even on the old road, as Amaretta glided as silently as a ghost after him.
“We did it, old girl. We broke that Shroud over our knee and chased it off. All the world knows who the Blood of the Irish are now.” He spread his arms and looked at the midnight sky and stars with the cottony clouds, letting the moonlight shine down upon his face. “Aye, I know ye don’t remember, but it’s been nigh eighty trips around the sun since ye last woke. The world has changed, as ye can tell.
“Dinnae worry, old girl, I’ll tell ye all about it, and the things what come to pass.
“A moment, if ye will. Let me breathe yer air, and feel the moon. It’s been too long since I could enjoy ye like this. The rest o’ the kids will be back soon enough, the Blood of the Irish true, come back to take care of ye.”
The Morningsuns and Mr. Burble were arranging that trip along Sleipner’s Lived-Line, although they’d be returning to Limerick proper, not here.
He felt the shift as the Teleportation Ritual went off, and following the Unicorn Motorcycle’s travels, the entirety of the thousands of the Irish who had managed to muster together over the course of an exhausted day and night and day returned late to the sweet green of the Emerald Isle.
There was a rousing cheer as they materialized in the field set aside for them, hundreds of thousands of Irish come to greet them in whatever manner they could from the countryside, even with none of the cars working anymore.
With the Powered and lightfoot, they’d all be home quick enough to see their own.
His steps took him into that private land, the overgrown clearing, and the gravestones that had already grown over with vines... and flowers, planted there some time ago by his own hand, to give whatever was left of his family something to keep them happy under the moon.
It was a cold and should have been a wet March day, but this day and the last had been warm and mild, as if the whole world was preparing to rebalance what the Shroud had done to the weather.
There were storms of many kinds in the near future, he was sure.
“Mamai, Auld Man, Little Scamp,” he sighed, kneeling down to them. “I did it. I went with the crazy Jesus girl and we did save the world. The Land, She’s awake now, and looking at all the world in wonder and interest, and seeing what’s to be seen.
“She heard and She felt, and She saw, the Land did, and She’s made Her choice.
“Ye watch now. Watch yer fool of a boy, gone off to play noble hero, be a bigger fool yet. Ye always told me that nobles are fools, and kings, why, kings are the greatest of fools.
“I’ll not disappoint ye, Auld Man. I’ma be a great fool, indeed, just you watch.”
He sighed deep, and breathed in the white roses that had bloomed out of season, a soft and delicate tribute in this place of death.
At last he straightened, but he did not turn around or away, but the demeanor of a son come to pay his respects lifted, and something far stronger came down.
From within his vest, he drew out a plaque of plain grey granite, and held it forth as a simple stand of stone Shaped itself up out of the soil to receive it, and he set it thereon, before the graves of his family. Fine words were scrawled across it with impeccable craftmanship.
“I hae nay great Constitution like the folk across the pond. Mayhap the Irish will be able to write such a grand thing someday, but for now, I have only my promises to ye, the Land, and to yer people. I leave them here for ye to see and remind me of if I stray, before those I loved most of yer soil.”
White roses rose from the soil, twined about the stand, and grew up to the stone plaque glowing there, shining in the faint light.
Acknowledgement by the Land.
“I be needing to speak to the people of the Land, born of yer soil,” he said to nobody, and something thrummed in the sky and the earth. He looked up at the stars of the early evening, saw the magical Lights in the distance that at least could hold back the night from the people.
It was a return to the old ways, but the old ways had naught of magic. The old ways would become a different set of new ways soon enough.
“This is Mickal Geoffery McCallister, whom most call The Mick.”
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Startled heads turned as the quiet, serious voice spoke into every ear upon the Emerald Isle, waking up sleepers, stopping conversations, turning heads trying to find the speaker.
A hush fell as they recognized the voice from many videos and recordings, and some truly artful curses.
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“I be speaking now to every child born of Ireland and standing upon Her Land now. If they be not born of Her soil, they cannae hear me without being under Oath to me. If they be not in Ireland, they cannae hear me, either.
“The Land bids me to speak to you as Her King. I be Proven in Power, Anointed by the Divine, and Acknowledged by the Land. Me name has passed your lips, and the Land sees I have the Acclaim, and so She has Named me Her King.
“That does not mean She knows that you are part of my Kingdom.
“Ye are Irish, and to take a knee is no small thing, but I’ll ask it of ye now. If ye be Irish, and ye love the Land upon which ye stand, and ye recognize Her choice as King, then I ask ye to kneel now and be recognized by Her as part of the Kingdom of Ireland.
“Or ye can stand or sit there, and the Land will know ye reject Her and the King She has chosen. Kneel to Her, as I kneel to Her.”
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And across the Emerald Isle, they felt his pride and his power, power he’d shown many times in blood and will, and they felt him kneel.
When his knee touched the ground, the whole of Ireland seemed to tremble.
Slowly, with cautious glances at one another, a feeling of tension in the air, and somehow, certain knowledge that the Land beneath their feet was watching each and every one of them very closely, knees began to touch down.
“Aye, King Mick, I acknowledge ye and the Land.”
“Right enough, King Mick, Corwin O’Reilly is not a fool.”
“Ha, ye bastard, I’ll kneel to ye, right enough!”
And so it went, as knees old and younger hit the ground, some requiring help, but all feeling something at that moment as they did that.
They felt the Banner of a King.