A knock at the door startled her. She could not remember having shut it. She looked up to find Ra’an standing in the opening, leaning against the frame. He was haggard, long unshaven. His dark clothes were grayed with dust. He moved across the room like a sleepwalker without waiting for her greeting and sat heavily on her bed.
“A martyr,” he muttered. “He had to make a goddam martyr of himself.”
Jude held herself still, hiding her relief and joy while she assayed his mood. She willed her hands to continue brushing calmly. “At least it worked,” she said neutrally, as if she had seen him just yesterday. “That’s more than most martyrs can say for their efforts.”
“It worked,” he echoed sadly and lay back on the pillow and closed his eyes.
“It was the only way,” she offered, knowing that there was no possible solace for the loss he felt.
“He made it the only way. There could have been others, before…”
She brushed a while, then said, “The Council were wondering if you’d come back. They seem to understand that they’ll be needing your help.”
“They certainly will.” He made a sound that was both a yawn and a profound sigh. “If they knew me as well as James, they wouldn’t have wondered. What have you been telling them?”
“I told them to give you time,” she lied. She’d had little hope for his reappearance.
“You’re lying, but that’s all right. I haven’t given you much reason to have faith in me.”
“On the contrary. You resist people’s belief in you, but you come through at the last moment. That’s what James knew that the rest of them didn’t.”
He stirred, ran a grimy hand across his mouth. “And you?”
There would be time for that later. For now, she merely said, “I suspended judgment.”
“Very wise,” he said dryly and yawned again. He rested his hand palm up across his eyes. “James left me with a lot of work to do.”
Jude ceased brushing. “Funny. That’s just about what Bill Clennan said. Another guy who came through at the last moment.”
“Stupid bastard,” Ra’an growled softly. “If he’d blown up the corridor a day earlier, James wouldn’t have had to die.”
She laid her brush down carefully. “You don’t really believe that, I hope. Even James knew his disease was terminal. Had it been otherwise, perhaps not even he would have had the courage to use it as he did.”
“Which was…?”
“To force you to be born.” She rose to her knees as the elegance of James Andreas’ strategy urged her toward eloquence. “He called you the amalgam, the first of the new breed that will become the norm in the new Arkoi, the Koi-Terran amalgam. The new world needs a new leader to suit its changed nature, it needs you, but would you be here now if James hadn’t used his death to shake you from your cocoon? Would you have discovered the phenomenal halm power that you possess? Or would you still be walled up in Ruvala wasting your energies in hate like some bitter old man?”
Ra’an coughed gently, tiredly. “And this is what you’ve been telling the Council?”
“Of course!” she exclaimed.
His chuckle was a dry rustling in his chest. “James thought of everything. He even programmed an apostle to prepare the way for me.”
Stung, Jude fell silent. She toyed with the stiff bristles of the brush. Then she said softly, “You are Arkoi’s future, Ra’an. James gave his life to make that possible, knowing you would not be born without his help. Don’t let his gift be wasted.”
Ra’an turned his head on the pillow. “Ah. Not an apostle. A conscience.”
Jude set her jaw against disappointment. Why did I think he’d be different, softer? Well, so be it. This will be his strength, this stubbornness. He will need it to make them see the path they must follow. “The Council is meeting in the Ring tonight,” she said.
“Tonight? No. I’m not ready to be born, not yet… just want to sleep.”
“They would want you to be there.”
“Tomorrow,” he insisted. “I need to be here tonight.” His hand slipped back from his closed eyes. “After all, you are the amalgam too,” he murmured as he relaxed into sleep. “Or hadn’t you thought of that?”
Oh yes, I have. I have indeed.
Jude continued brushing Theis until her coat shone.
M. BRADLEY KELLOGG was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She currently lives in New York City and designs scenery for the theater. A RUMOR OF ANGELS is her first novel.
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