Lords of the Seventh Swarm

Chapter 51

A few days after the wedding, once the travelers had landed on Cuzzim and made their way through the world gates to Fale, when Tallea and Maggie were alone feeding the babe while the men were off introducing Hera and Athena to civilization, Tallea asked Maggie about her part in the wedding.

“You had my Scriptures for those three days,” Tallea accused. “And now those verses on marriage are permanently stained.”

Maggie didn’t deny it. “It doesn’t take much for a Lord of Technicians to figure out how to train a Bible to open to certain pages. Simply crack the spine and add a line of liquid at the base of each page, so the paper thickens. If you want to highlight some verses, a little acid will bleach the paper enough so that some words stand out more than others. I did nothing wrong.”

“But Orick thinks it’s a miracle!” Tallea said, her heart sore. She loved being married to Orick, but she couldn’t rid herself of the feeling that she’d done something sneaky.

Maggie merely shrugged. “Orick wanted God to tell him to get married. He could have figured it out earlier, if he trusted the Tome completely, but he wanted to see it in the Bible. All I did was show him the verses in the Bible where God already commanded him to get married.”

“What if he finds out that we tricked him?” Tallea asked.

“Did I?” Maggie asked. “God is the one who made you go into heat. Orick believes that God is the one who put those words in the Bible in the first place, and I won’t argue the point.”

So it was that Tallea accepted Maggie’s maneuver, and the next day, Maggie, Gallen, their son, Tallea, and Orick took their leave of Hera, Athena, and Maggie’s Uncle Thomas, none of them ever to meet again.

In that last meeting, more than a few tears were shed, and Hera surprised everyone by making a present to Orick. “There is something more you deserve,” she said, producing a small crystal vial from behind her back.

“What’s this?” Orick asked.

Hera undid the stopper. “A children’s toy: we called it the Wind of Dreams. A scent to make you feel like a hero, a conqueror. Zeus and Herm used to make bets with one another for the right to take a whiff of it.”

Hera undid the stopper, and the sweet scent of gardenias filled the air, but it was more than that, more than all the flowers in the world. It was a feeling that filled the air, a sensation that made Orick feel he could stride across the clouds, a feeling that he owned the universe, and the universe felt unbounded gratitude to be in his possession. A feeling that the day had been long, but the labors all well worth it. A feeling of love and acceptance.

It was a sensation heroic … an emotion a god would feel, resting in heaven.

“You deserve this, Orick,” Hera said, “for all you’ve been through.”

Orick looked at it in surprise. “I’m not sure anyone deserves that.”

“But take it anyway,” Hera asked. “To remember me by”

Gallen smiled broadly at Orick. “Take it, Orick,” he said. “I swear: first Everynne, then Tallea, now Athena. I don’t see why a hairy brute like you should appeal to women.”

“Och, it’s only because you’re half-blind. Anyone ought to be able to see my charm.” He gently licked Hera’s cheek, kissing her goodbye.

When Maggie said goodbye to her Uncle Thomas, the last thing in the world she would have expected was a tearful farewell. He’d never been much of an uncle; had never offered a strong arm to lean on when she needed it.

But when she’d wakened after her battle with the Lords of the Seventh Swarm on Ruin, Thomas had been the one at her bedside, and he’d not left her night or day for the first three days.

She’d never expected the kind of gentle attention he’d shown her after that battle, and, frankly, she’d grown to be the kind of woman who no longer had much use for it.

Except for his songs. For he sang to her during those first dark and painful days, sang songs that were soft and sensitive and full of pain. Songs he’d composed himself.

She learned from Thomas that he’d been captured by Lord Karthenor, knew that the Aberlain had wrung information from Thomas, information that had led to Maggie’s own capture. But she never did find out exactly what Thomas had to endure.

Maggie only knew, by the look in his eyes, that the old Thomas was gone, dead. Something had died behind his laughing eyes, a fire had sputtered and extinguished.

The evening before she said goodbye to him forever, Thomas came to her room on Fale with a mandolin and played for baby Orick in his crib. Lately, the lad could hardly be put to rest without Thomas’s lullabies. So Thomas had told Gallen and Maggie to go for a walk by the starlit river outside Toohkansay while he cared for the child. Yet even after Gallen and Maggie returned, Thomas sang for long hours to the sleeping babe, as if hoping this gift of song would fill the boy’s sleeping head, last the child a lifetime.

Maggie had listened, and when at long last Thomas fell silent and sat gazing out the window to the starlight shining on the river, Maggie said, “Your singing is more beautiful now than ever. How is that?”

“Och, I used to sing for myself,” Thomas confided, “so that I could hear the praise of other folk. Now, I sing for the babies, and the children, and the young lovers in the back corners of the room, and for the old folks ambling off toward forever.”

“Thank you,” Maggie said.

“For what?” Thomas asked, leaning over with a grunt to put his mandolin in its case.

“For your songs. Maybe Orick won’t remember, but I shall. And when he’s old, I’ll try to sing some of them for him.”

Thomas’s eyes misted at those words, and he gazed up at Maggie, then sat back in the deep rocking chair. “You’re a good girl, Maggie. It’s proud I am to be having you as a Flynn.”

“Thank you,” Maggie said.

“You were your mother’s favorite, you know,” Thomas said. “Three strapping boys she had, and when you were born, I told her she ought to toss you in the river-a worthless, skinny little girl, you know.

“But you were your mother’s favorite. She said you were her reward for living a good life. The jewel in her heaven.”

“I laughed at the notion,” Thomas recalled, “but now, now I think maybe she had pegged it right. You would have made her proud. You’ve made me proud.”

It was perhaps the only sincere compliment Thomas had ever given her, the only one she was likely to ever receive. “Thank you,” was all Maggie could manage to say.

“Maggie,” Thomas said. “I know I’ve never been much of an uncle to you, but I’ve been thinking: I’d like to go to Tremonthin with you. That babe of yours, he might need some kin to look after him, sometimes.”

“I thought you liked it here on Fale,” Maggie said. “I thought you had a woman to see.”

“Oh, there are plenty of women in the galaxy, I’m starting to learn,” Thomas said. “And Fale is a fine place, if you’re after singing for yourself. But it doesn’t matter where I am. Songs are needed everywhere. And I think that wherever I go, my songs will outlast me.”

Maggie went and hugged him then, for she knew how much the offer had cost him. “There may be other women in the galaxy, Thomas,” she said, “but I think there’s one here on Fale that has a special hold on you. You were right all along. You’ve got your own road to follow, and I’ll not have you dogging my steps just because I’m kin.”

When she let Thomas go, he sighed; and though Maggie didn’t doubt that he’d follow her to Tremonthin if she asked, she was happy to hear him sigh in relief, to see a bit of that mischievous gleam shining in the back of his eyes.

When Gallen, Maggie, their son, and Orick and Tallea took the final world gate to Tremonthin, they came to the land in high summer, when the fields lay ripe and golden. Because technology was outlawed over most of the world, Gallen and Maggie first went to the City of Life, where Maggie turned over her mantle of technology to the lords there, and Gallen laid his weapons aside for safekeeping.

They then took a brief journey to the Vale of the Bock, where they visited the Tharrin, Ceravanne, and told her of their plans to settle on her world, in the wild southlands, near Battic.

Ceravanne seemed surprised. “Are you certain you can do this, Gallen? My beloved Belorian, from whom you are cloned, could never have settled like this. He was forever seeking after adventure.”

They were sitting on the lawn, beneath the shade of a portico up above the hot springs where the Bock wintered. It was a sunny day, and Gallen reached over absently, stroked the cheek of his son, Orick.

“I am more than just the clone of Belorian,” Gallen answered her. “I won’t repeat his mistakes. I think that loving a woman and raising a child are adventure enough for me, these days.”

Ceravanne’s eyes grew wide. “Why, Gallen, the way that you say that, I think perhaps you’ve found a peace that Belorian never knew.”

Orick could tell that she wanted to say more. She merely stepped close, touched Gallen’s chest shyly. “I wish you well. I only wish your father could have done so well, that I could have made him so happy.”

And not for the last time, Orick wondered how a woman could love so deeply that even four hundred years after her husband’s death, she could yearn for the man the way that Ceravanne yearned for Belorian now. It was so un-bearlike.

Ceravanne wished them joy, and then they left, taking a slow journey by land through the ripening fields.

In the months that followed, they sailed over calm seas to reach their new home, then Gallen felled trees and let them cure for the winter, while they took apartments in the underground chambers of Battic.

By winter’s end, Gallen’s son could nearly stand on his own, and the child was delighted when Tallea delivered twin cubs.

That summer, Gallen and Orick built two fine houses in a wooded glen near Battic. They chose a peaceful valley filled with maple trees, where a clear river rushed through the rocks and formed small pools. It would be a good place for children and cubs to play and climb and learn to fish.

Both families lived side by side in that glen for many years. In time, neighbors began to move in, and a small village sprang up around them.

The village was a study in cultural diversity, there were over two thousand subspecies of humans about on the continent, and a full quarter of those subspecies built homes in the region. No one ever seemed to question Orick’s and Tallea’s origins, to wonder at talking bears. Nor did they worry about the origins of Gallen and Maggie, two seemingly normal humans in this land that had long been a stronghold for those who sported various genetic upgrades.

Gallen settled down to a life of farming, calling himself by the name of Farmer Day.

More children followed to Gallen and Maggie-two more boys, and two daughters, all of whom grew to be bright and strong. In time Maggie added enough room to her log home so that it could function as an inn, where travelers passing through brought news of distant lands. Gallen often teased her for this. As a girl she’d hated working at Mahoney’s Inn-hated it so much that she’d rejected her home world. Now she seemed to love it, rising at dawn, falling down in a weary stupor at night.

The Day House, as it was called, became a favorite stopping point, known for its hospitality, and though Gallen and Maggie were considered close friends by all their neighbors, none ever heard the story of how Gallen O’Day became a Lord Protector and helped stave off the Lords of the Seven Swarms.

Indeed, though Gallen never talked of being a Lord Protector, in his bedroom he kept his mantle near his spirit mask. He seldom ever donned the mantle, and then only in great need. Many a petty thief made off with a local chicken and suffered no harm from Gallen, but once in a while, every few years, some new warlord would struggle to take control of a town, or some Derrit chieftain would bring his henchmen out of the mountains to feed on small children-only to find themselves impaled on the sword of a Lord Protector whose face shone like starlight, until a local legend arose of a just and deadly spirit, called “The Shining One.”

On such occasions, Maggie hardly missed Gallen. A trip of a fortnight or two.

But at other times, Gallen would disappear for a month or more on “personal business,” and when the boy Orick grew old enough, Gallen would take his son with him, for the child had a knack for battle that surprised even Gallen.

On such occasions, Maggie would know that the Tharrin had sent their messages through Gallen’s mantle, calling him to far worlds. But such occasions were exceedingly rare, and afterward Gallen did not speak of them, as if the killing he was forced to do shamed him.

And then one night, Gallen and the young man Orick came to Maggie, and her son wore the mantle and carried a packed bag. She knew immediately that he was going off alone. That he would never return.

“There’s trouble, Mother,” her son said.

Maggie nodded dumbly, knowing that the Tharrin would not have called him into service unless they had a great need. Somehow she felt relieved to find that the mantle would no longer weigh on her husband’s shoulders, but she could not help worrying about her child.

When her son left that night, he walked off into the darkness, and Maggie cried until dawn. For months and months afterward, she could hardly ever speak his name.

But seven years later, he suddenly reappeared and brought a young woman with him, a ravishing thing with raven hair. A Tharrin woman. The two were married by Orick the bear, and they left days later.

From time to time, Maggie got off world messages from them, but she never saw her son again.

Neither Gallen nor Maggie ever went back to the City of Life to have their memories downloaded. One life was all they desired.

One life lived well, together.

As for Orick, he gained a reputation as something of a wandering minister, preaching to small congregations. He somehow managed to wander far and wide, while never neglecting his wife and children at home. Indeed, his knack for showing up in the right place at the right time proved to be so uncanny, that Gallen finally forced Orick to admit that he, too, had drunk from the Waters of Strength in Teeawah.

When Gallen was an old man, in his sixties, he asked Orick to tell him about it. “What is it like, my friend? To conquer space and time, nature and self-to be a god?”

Orick stared at Gallen for a long time after the question was asked. They were sitting beside a deep pond, its surface unrippled by the wind, on a summer morning. Gallen had caught several nice trout for breakfast, and Orick could hardly wait to go eat them. By this time, both Orick and Tallea had lived far beyond the years that bears are supposed to. The first generation of their children had mostly passed away, and the second was growing old. Orick could not very well deny what he and Tallea had become.

“It’s not what you think,” Orick said. “The Qualeewoohs’ ancestors judged me, and they let me live, but I’m not a god. I’m no smarter than I was, no wiser. I’m just more powerful than before.”

Gallen was smoking a pipe, the fumes of it curling through his grizzled beard. His face was deeply seamed, weather-beaten. But there were crinkling lines of joy around his eyes.

“I’ve often wondered,” Gallen said, “if you’ve conquered time, why you didn’t go back in time, give me the Waters before I ever battled the dronon.”

“It doesn’t work that way,” Orick said. “The Qualeewoohs defeated time by learning how to live forever. They defeated eternity one day at a time. We can’t reverse time-just plod along with the rest of you. I reached the Waters too late.”

“But you will live forever?” Gallen asked.

“I won’t keep this body,” Orick said. “There’s too much to explore, out there …” he gestured with his muzzle toward the open blue sky. “Tallea and I talked about it. We’ll stay until you and Maggie pass on, then we’ll leave, too. I can lay down my life. I can take it up again.”

“If you ask me, that makes you a god,” Gallen said, somehow awed by his humble friend.

Orick shook his head. “Sometimes, lately, I’ve learned to leave my body in my dreams. Learned to control my powers better. I’ve seen real gods out there. I’ve seen-I can’t even begin to tell you.”

“You can’t?” Gallen asked. “Or won’t?”

“Can’t,” Orick said. “Can’t, for now. Can’t describe it. But when you die, I’ll be the one to come to you. I’ll take you out there, and show you. We can explore new trails together, just like we used to.”

Gallen reached out and patted Orick’s muzzle. Such a good friend, for so Iong.

“I don’t know,” Gallen said. “Are you sure I’ll even be there?”

“Och, what do you mean?” Orick asked.

“Are you sure I even have a spirit? I am just a clone of a clone.”

“Oh, you’ve got a spirit all right,” Orick comforted him.

“I hope so,” Gallen said. “But since I was killed by the Lord of the Seventh Swarm, I’ve never been the same. Knowing that I was a clone, knowing that I was supposed to live up to someone else’s vision of what I should be-I’ve fought against it. In a way, perhaps it is the knowledge of what I am that’s made me happy. But I’ve always wondered, did I get this way just because I wanted to change, or did someone change me?”

“No one changed you,” Orick said. “Not that I know of, anyway. I think you wanted to change.”

“I used to tell myself that it was pure stubbornness, Gallen said. “I always wanted to save the universe, but I figured that the most I could do was give my life for others. Once I did that, I felt … free.”

“Do you ever talk about this with Maggie?” Orick asked.

“About us getting killed?” Gallen said. “Never. I’ve wanted to talk about it. I think she knows what happened. But … it doesn’t seem to worry her, like it does me.”

Just then, Gallen’s granddaughter, Rebecca, called from down in the valley, telling him that he was to come home for breakfast. He and Orick disappeared up over a hill, through the pines.

That winter, when Gallen went outside to bring the milk cow to the barn during a storm, a tree fell on Gallen’s chest, crushing him so badly that none of Maggie’s prayers or ministrations could save him.

On that night, Orick kept his promise.

As Gallen lay on his bed, dying, holding Maggie’s hand, he kept breathing harder and harder, the liquid so filling his lungs that soon he could breathe no more.

He heard Maggie weeping, calling out for him, but his hands went icy cold, and he couldn’t feel her touch.

He thought he felt some coolness on his forehead, as her lips kissed him one last time, and he smelled her clean breath, her skin, her hair.

Then he saw a bright pulsing light, hidden within a fog, and felt a warmth in his chest as the light drew him near. He felt his body fall away, an unwanted husk, and he rushed to the light, thinking, I’m not leaving you, Maggie, my sweet. I’m only going before you, to prepare a place for us both.

And as he drifted up through the fog, into the light, Galen met Orick, the old black bear waiting patiently.

Together they took one final journey.