grace descended. For Paul Schafer spoke again, and he said, “Not so. It is allowed. I am deep enough to let this come to pass.”
Arthur opened his eyes and looked, incredulous, at Paul. Who nodded, quietly sure. “It is allowed,” he said again.
So there was joy, after all. The Warrior turned again to look upon his Queen, the light and sorrow of his days, and for the first time in so very long they saw him smile. And she too smiled, for the first time in so very long, and said, asking only now, now that it was vouchsafed them, “Will you take me with you where you go? Is there a place for me among the summer stars?” Through her tears Kim saw Arthur Pendragon walk forward, then, and she saw him take the hand of Guinevere in his own, and she watched the two of them go aboard that craft, floating on the waters that had risen over Andarien. It was almost too much for her, too rich. She could scarcely breathe. She felt as if her soul were an arrow loosed to fly, silver in the moonlight, never falling back.
Then there was even more: the very last gift, the one that sealed and shaped the whole. Beneath the shining of Dana’s moon she saw Arthur and Guinevere turn back to look at Lancelot.
And she heard Paul say again, with so deep a power woven into his voice, “It is allowed if you will it so. All of the price has been paid.”
With a cry of joy wrung from his great heart, Arthur instantly stretched forth his hand. “Oh, Lance, come!” he cried. “Oh, come!”
For a moment Lancelot did not move. Then something long held back, so long denied, blazed in his eyes brighter than any star. He stepped forward. He took Arthur’s hand, and then Guinevere’s, and they drew him aboard. And so the three of them stood there together, the grief of the long tale healed and made whole at last.
Flidais laughed aloud for gladness and swiftly drew upon the line that lifted the white sail. There came a wind from the east. Then, just before the boat began to draw away, Kim saw Paul finally move. He knelt down beside a grey shape that had materialized at his side.
For one moment he buried his face deep in the torn fur of the dog that had saved him on the Tree-saved him, that the wheel of time might turn and find this moment waiting in Andarien.
“Farewell, great heart,” Kim heard him say. “I will never forget.”
It was his own voice this time, no thunder in it, only a rich sadness and a very great depth of joy. Which were within her too, exactly those two things, as Cavall leaped in one great bound to land at Arthur’s feet even as the boat turned to the west.
And thus did it come to pass, what Arthur had said in Cader Sedat to the dog that had been his companion in so many wars: that there might come a day when they need not part.
It had come. Under the silver shining of the moon, that long slender craft caught the rising of the wind and it carried them away, Arthur and Lancelot and Guinevere. Past the promontory it sailed, and from that solitary height Shahar raised one hand in farewell, and all three of them saluted him. Then it seemed to those that watched from the plain that that ship began to rise into the night, not following the curving of the earth but tracking a different path.
Farther and farther it went, rising all the while upon waters of a sea that belonged to no world and to all of them. For as long as she possibly could, Kim strained her eyes to make out Guinevere’s fair hair—Jennifer’s hair—shining in the bright moonlight. Then that was lost in the far darkness, and the last thing they saw was the gleaming of Arthur’s spear, like a new star in the sky.
PART V:
Flowerfire
Chapter 16
No man living could remember a harvest like the one that came to the High Kingdom at the end of that summer. In Cathal, as well, the granaries were full, and the gardens of Larai Rigal grew more extravagantly beautiful—drenched in perfume, riotous with color—each passing day. On the Plain the eltor swifts ran over the rich green grass, and the hunting was easy and joyous under the wide sky. But nowhere did the grass grow so deep