It was not an uneventful parting.
The one who most fervently objected to their departure – and uncertain return – was the King, who worried that, should the remaining Scavengers decide to unite and strike again, the absence of ‘the greatest heroes in the history of Feerien’ (as he extravagantly put it, in a desperate attempt to dissuade them) might render the attack fatal. The Queen was of a different opinion; her beloved son had just been restored to her, and she couldn’t risk losing him in a second Disaster – the threat of which made Fazen finally yield and accept the necessity of this quest, incomprensible to him but nonetheless essential to the survival of the realm itself. After all, he, too, had just witnessed things equally strange and formidable as the much-dreaded rising of the Seventh Moon.
To further reassure the fearful monarch and the people of the Castle, who were also loath to see their saviours leave so soon, Yodren effected an ingenious plan: he had everyone gather at the Palace steps in an orderly fashion along with their pigs, cattle, sheep, horses and fowl, and one by one to come forward so that Royen – seated atop a miniature throne from one of Prince Fantyr’s several dollhouses and giggling at the hilarity of his powers – might lay his hands on the animals. And no sooner did Yonfi’s paws touch the beasts that (to the crowd’s wild cheering) their abdomens swelled with offspring, their udders with milk and their skinny, malnourished frames with firm muscle and fat.
And after the Merry Eternal had thus singlehandedly ensured the rebirth of the Farmlands and that no Feere should go hungry again, the Seers – whom people still ran ahead of to strew lily petals at their feet, startling them to no end – made sure that the Castle itself would also live on in security. To this purpose, Yodren had the blacksmith and his son carry their heavy anvil and place it next to the Castle wall. Then Gallan and Raddia removed their gloves, and each lay one hand on the sturdy wrought iron of the anvil and the other on the stone wall. By the time their miracle was done, and they stood, panting and spent and awash in the crowd’s renewed cheers, a yard or more of powerful iron alloy, its thickness invulnerable to any and all man-made weapons, surrounded the Castle, forming a shield not even a second Disaster could put a dent in.
However, the hardest part of this ceremony of farewells was the parting of Yern from his two sons, which, as soon as the downgazing father, with visible reluctance and heartbreak, announced his decision to remain in Feerien, was met with Yodren’s angry protests and Yonfi’s furious denial. Oblivious to his own greatness and the importance it held for the mission, the little boy, who had been so abruptly deprived of his mother and sister, clung to Yern’s legs, sobbing and wailing and stomping his feet.
But for all the sorrow it caused him to see his boys so miserable, Yern was firm in his refusal, which he explained by saying that, unlike every other member of the team, he had no special ability to offer to the quest, and would only be a burden.
It was Raddia who ultimately managed to soothe Yonfi, and none too soon, for his fit of temper had given birth to a sudden wind of rapidly growing strength.
Listen to me, my sweet, she said, and the boy stopped crying almost at once, turning to the sole female presence like a light-starved flower towards the sun. And promise me you won’t speak a word of what I’m about to say, because not even your brother knows. Remember Lurien, the blissful, peaceful realm I hail from? Well, your father is going there to meet your mother and sister as soon as we leave, so that he, too, may be utterly safe till we return. But this has to remain a secret, for if word got out, the people of Feerien would flock to my world, which sadly isn’t big enough to accommodate quite so great a crowd. So you may trust your father, and know that he and the womenfolk will be waiting for you and Yodren with open arms!
Yonfi, who’d been listening with round and trusting eyes, wiped his little nose on the back of his hand and nodded, convinced if not entirely happy.
Right then a group of men appeared, carrying the flying machine, and Yonfi’s attention was instantly grasped by the fascinating contraption.
“Can I go play with it?” he said, raising a rapt, pleading face at Wixelor. “I swear I won’t break anything!” To which the kind giant gladly agreed, though first he scooped Yonfi off the ground and bounced him up and down in the hollow of his enormous hand, teasingly asking how come such a great hero couldn’t fly on his own.
It was all Yern could do not to succumb to his shattering grief – for in his heart of hearts he knew that this might be the last time he’d ever hear his son’s heartwarming laughter. He’d known this as soon as Wixelor’s narrative was over: Yodren and Yonfi would never come back. He had tried telling himself that it was for their own good and for the good of every living creature, that he should be immensely proud of them – which he was – and that, for all his misery, he was lucky to have been the father of such glorious progeny. Yet deep down he was already resigned to a life of quiet mourning.
But then, while he’d been standing at the Palace stairs, hardly believing what he saw, he had briefly entertained the fantasy which he had sternly warned himself against: seeing in his mind’s eye Yonfi crawling down the burrow and moments later emerging in the company of his mother and sister, disoriented yet bursting with life. It wouldn’t take more than a couple of days on horseback, would it? Of course the thought of making his poor boy confront the charred remains of Yenka and Yofana, when he believed them to be alive and well, was selfish and atrocious – unthinkable. And yet Yern held out hope, till that old woman stepped forward, cradling in her gnarled hands an old wooden box containing the bones of her only son, dead for more than twenty years. And to Yonfi’s consternation, (short-lived, for a guard presently came and shooed the woman away) his touch had no effect on the bones other than a faint, fleeting glow that faded as quickly as it appeared. For though he might be able to banish the Shy Death, the other, crueller Death would not be fooled and – sadly but certainly – could never be escaped.
So now Yern knew how he would spent the remainder – hopefully not too long – of his days. He would take a few animals, a horse and a cart (gifts they surely wouldn’t deny to the father of Royen the Eternal), return to his ravaged home, and resume the life of a Farmer, albeit a lonesome one. And each day he would go to the burrow, which he would fill in and adorn with a bush of blue roses (favoured by mother and daughter alike, and much better than any grim tombstone) and talk to them, relating Yodren and Yonfi’s great adventures in worlds beyond this one, worlds which might even include a place where the dead lived again, happy and serene, listening and awaiting.