The shadow is gone except when the Shadowbell rings, far away in the north, where the Shadow Tower stands. Almost all of the turnips have returned there with the Gardener. Big-blue and Molly-my-dear live in my garden. They still swing upon my sash ends and play wicked tricks and laugh uproariously at them, but I can no longer understand what they say. Their children bid fair to become impish reminders of times past. I can imagine ten thousand fireside stories beginning, “Long and long ago, when there were no turnips to swing upon our pant legs, the people of this world had strange powers. . . .”
Forests are green again, and the roads are being repaired, some by us and the runners, some spontaneously. Eesties run those roads. The Dervishes are their apprentices. Evidently the skill of Dervishes was like the art of the wize, a thing they learned for themselves, for they have it still. I have not seen Bartelmy of the Ban. Perhaps someday I shall. The world is so changed, I do not know what I can say to her. She will be so changed, perhaps we will have nothing to say.
Mavin lies asleep in her crystal coffin beside the pool in the Tower. The lamp glows ever more brightly upon its pedestal. The book is back where it belongs, and the Shadowpeople sing from it every day. The pool has begun to fill once more with the milk from which crystals grow. There are no crystals in it yet, but perhaps there will be, in time. Surely, Lom will have messages for its people once more. Surely, after what we have been through, we have learned to be people of Lom, people who will listen.
When Peter and I make love, he always asks if it is the same as when he was Shifter. I always say yes. It is not the same, but that doesn’t matter. Himaggery said to me once that being loved by a Shifter spoiled one for any other lover. I can see how that would happen, but it is Peter I loved and summoned with nutpie and Lovers Come Calling, not merely a Shifter, so I do not dwell on that. I will admit to certain dreams from which I wake trembling, but I do not speak of those to him.
He asks me sometimes about bao, and I explain that it is something some creatures have and others do not, and that no race of creatures always has it in every individual and that no shape guarantees it. “And when one does not have it, Peter, then it is pure evil to punish that creature for its lack. It must be destroyed, quickly, without causing it fear or pain, for it lacks the quality all things must have to live together, and lacking that, has no reason to live.”
And he thinks about that. Though he would be quick enough to destroy a rogue waterox, one that preyed upon its fellows, still I am not sure he understands bao or the lack of it in humans. Mavin would have understood it, I’m sure of that.
“We must not pretend to ourselves that something has bao because it shares our shape or our seed,” I tell him, trying to explain. “To do so prolongs cruelty needlessly.”
“But the old gods didn’t destroy the shadow.”
“The shadow is part of the bao of Lom.”
“Or the Oracles . . .”
“The Oracles were part of the bao of the Eesties. The Oracle was Ganver’s own child. Ganver had to take the final step—merciful destruction. Each of us must take responsibility for our own. No one else can do it for us, for that way lies the death of all that is good.”
At the end, of course, Ganver had done it, though I have no doubt the Eesty grieves for it still.
There is a new, strange song the Shadowpeople sing. They sing that when the sleep of Mavin is over, a thousand years more or less, Lom will repent once more and restore the Talents of man. Though I no longer have the Talent of tongues, I can learn. Proom is teaching me his language, and this is how I know what they are singing. I have asked Proom whether the song is true. He says all the songs the Shadowpeople sing are true.
Sometimes I hope the Talents will return. Sometimes not. Life is better for most, now, without Gaming. But I think of Mavin and wonder if she will want to wake into a world in which she must remain one shape always, in which she cannot Shift, become whatever she wills to become. I think of her being forced to remain only herself and believe she might rather sleep.
And, sometimes, I think of myself, having a Shifter lover. Well. Mothwings Go Spinning. End and Beginning.
And I say, as Murzy has taught me, “Time does as time wills. Live today. Tomorrow is its own mystery.”
We will be having our own children, Peter and I, starting rather sooner than I might have planned, it seems. I will have midwives at the birth, for the Talent of midwives to seek bao in the newly born was the single Talent that Lom left to man. It was merciful of Lom to do so, though we may not think so now.
I must put the pen and paper away and get some sleep. Tomorrow will be busy. We are expecting visitors from the north, Peter’s old friend Yarrell, whom he has not seen in years, with his wife and child.
It is full dark, and Ganver is standing upon the far hill, a great, star-shaped form silhouetted against the moon, keeping watch on us. Sometimes the old Eesty does that, and I send my love toward. And my promise to do what is right, as Ganver did, at long last, what was right.
And this book I began upon the Wastes of Bleer is ended. I can put it away until the children are old enough to read from it. Perhaps they will not care enough about the way things were to bother. In which case Peter and I will read it to one another when we are old.
I pray we may live a thousand years, Peter and I.
I pray the midwives will find bao in all our children.
Table of Contents
Jinian Footseer 5
The End of the Game Page 65
