Godslayer

EPILOGUE

A shadow passed through the Defile, disturbing the shroud of webbing that hung from the Weavers’ Gulch in tattered veils. The little grey weavers chittered in dismay, scuttling furiously, setting about their endless work of rebuilding and repair.

No one else noticed.

Ushahin-who-walks-between-dusk-and-dawn rode the pathways between one thing and another; between waking and dreaming, between life and death, between the races of Lesser Shapers, between a dying Age and one being born.

He rode a blood-bay stallion, its coat the hue of drying gore, its mane and tail as black as the spaces between the stars. Lashed to his saddle was a leather case that contained a broken Helm, its empty eye-sockets gazing onto darkness.

And at his belt he bore a dagger wrought from a single Shard of the Souma, the Eye in the Brow of Uru-Alat. It was red, pulsing with its own inner light, and it would have betrayed his presence had he not wrapped it in shadow, in a cloak of the vague ambiguities that lay between victory and defeat, between pride and humility, between right and wrong.

Between all things.

He kept his thoughts shrouded as he rode, and no one challenged him as he passed beyond the Vale of Gorgantum.

Beyond him, the plains of Curonan stretched toward the east. He set out upon them, picking his way among the dead.

Overhead, there was a sound.

Glancing up, Ushahin-who-walks-between saw the raven circling and understood that it saw him in turn. He paused, waiting. It descended to land on his left shoulder, talons pricking. He sensed its sadness and looked into its thoughts as the Grey Dam of the Were had taught him long ago.

He saw death and knew he was the last of the Three.

The raven made a keening sound in its throat. He stroked its head, its errant tuft of feathers, with one crooked finger.

Soothed, the raven settled.

Ushahin-who-walks-between resumed his journey. He was pleased to have the raven’s company. Later, he would give thought to vengeance, to the new pattern taking shape in the world, to the role that had befallen him, to the promise he had made to Lord Satoris, to the memory of the nameless child he had once been, before a rock in a stranger’s fist had shattered his world.

Today, there was comfort in the simple communion of shared sorrow.

There would be time for the rest.

With his back to Darkhaven, Ushahin rode toward the Delta, where Calanthrag the Eldest awaited him.

In the Sundered World of Urulat, the sun set on an Age.

Tomorrow, a new one would dawn.