The Questor, Allen Chance, and the witch Tiffany were standing together before the Throne, and Hawk and Fisher stopped to chat with them. Chance and Tiffany had that special glow that comes from recent bedroom gymnastics, though Fisher had to quietly point this out to Hawk before they got there. He never noticed important things like that. The two couples greeted each other happily, indulged in a few rather obvious double entendres, and did their best to ignore the dog Chappie, who was currently lying on his back at Chance's and Tiffany's feet, all four paws in the air, tongue lolling out and showing everything he'd got.
"A lot's happened while you were gone," said Chance.
"So I see," murmured Hawk, and Tiffany blushed.
"What's happened with the Duke?" asked Fisher. "Where's that cage he usually lurches around in? Where are his guards? And he's smiling, dammit. Who died?"
"He gave up the Candlemass Charm to save Felicity's life," said Chance.
"The Duke did?" Fisher had a hard job keeping her voice down.
"It was very brave of him," Tiffany said firmly. "Once the Charm was gone, I was able to cure him. He's almost been in a good mood since."
"You pinch me," Fisher said to Hawk. "Better yet, slap me round the head. I don't believe I'm hearing this."
"You'd better move on," said Chance. "The Queen's been waiting for you very patiently, but… well, she is the Queen."
"Hell with that," said Hawk. "Sir Robert? Is that you?"
He and Fisher moved over to join Sir Robert Hawke and Ennis Page, standing grinning together, just a little apart from everyone else. Hawk clasped them both by the hand, smiling so hard, his cheeks hurt.
"What the hell happened to you two? You look twenty years younger!"
"The Magus did it," said Sir Robert. "Not exactly out of the goodness of his heart, but… We both feel like ourselves again. Strong and sharp and ready to cause trouble in all directions. You know, Lament and the Seneschal have been telling your recent exploits all over the Castle, and singing your praises in quite embarrassing detail. You two are the heroes of the moment. Pretty much what I expected, really. I always knew you'd save us all."
Hawk gave him a sharp look, and turned to Ennis Page. "You're looking much improved from when I last saw you. Do you remember—"
"I remember everything," said Page. "You were kind and honorable to an old comrade, not that I would have expected anything less from you."
"Hold everything," said Fisher. "What are they doing here?"
Not too far away, in a little space all their own, stood the Shaman and his Creature. The Shaman stood hunched over, looking and smelling as foul as ever, glaring at everyone from behind his mask of woad and clay. As always he was fuming with barely suppressed anger, but surprisingly he wouldn't meet Hawk's or Fisher's eyes. The Creature stuck close to him, crouched on all fours, showing nasty yellow fangs as he snarled at everyone.
"The Queen said she wanted them here, so here they are," said Sir Robert distastefully. "I just know he's got fleas. And God knows what the Creature's got. If you want to know why we're all here, well, a lot's happened in your absence, and the word is the Queen has a lot she wants to say about it all."
"Anyone else expected?" asked Fisher.
"Just the one," said Sir Robert. "And the Seneschal's never been on time for anything in his life. I think he does it on purpose, just to annoy people."
"Yeah," said Fisher. "That sounds like him. Though he has mellowed. I haven't seen him spit at anyone since I got here."
The double doors flew open and the Seneschal bustled in. He nodded briskly to everyone, sneered at the Shaman, and hurried forward to bow before the Throne. He was carrying a long sword in an old scabbard, which rather baffled Fisher. Everyone knew the Seneschal wasn't allowed weapons. Not since the unfortunate incident with the insolent visiting dignitary and the blunt end of a pike. Fisher watched with interest as the Seneschal had a quiet word with the Queen, glanced back at Hawk and Fisher, and then moved over to stand with Lament and the Duke.
"All right," said Hawk. "That is the last straw. We leave you lot alone for ten minutes, and the whole world goes through changes. Has someone been putting something in your coffee? What the hell did happen in our absence that could bring so many disaffected people together in one place without trying to kill one another? Don't tell me sanity's broken out at last."
"Well, to start with, we put down a rebellion against the Queen," said Chance as he and Tiffany and a reluctant Chappie came over to join them. "The Duke started it, but was in turn betrayed, and risked his life to save the Queen, so everything's all sweetness and light in that department now. Supposedly. Anyway, the Duke and his armies are no longer a threat to the Kingdom."
Fisher sniffed dubiously. "I'll believe that when I see it. The Starlight Duke never gave a damn for anyone but himself and his own ambitions."
"No, really," said Tiffany, radiating sincerity as only she could. "I've offered to set up some conciliation meetings, where they could discuss abandonment issues and the like, and they almost said they'd think about it."
"Yeah," growled Chappie, scratching his ear fiercely as though determined to dig something interesting out of it. "There's so much harmony and good will in the air these days I may puke. It's not natural. Still, at least these two idiots finally got it together. I was beginning to think I'd have to draw pictures. They're inseparable now, of course, so I've had to adopt her as well as him. I always wanted to raise some puppies."
"We don't plan on having any children just yet," Tiffany protested, blushing again.
"You were trying hard enough last night," said the dog. "Though if you do want children, one of those things you were doing won't—"
"Shut up, Chappie," interrupted Chance. The dog sniggered and started licking his balls. Everyone looked away quickly. Chance fixed his gaze on Hawk. "Lament's been saying the returned Cathedral is no longer a threat to anyone. Is that right?"
"I would like to hear the answer to that one personally," Queen Felicity said loudly. "If you could spare the time, Captains Hawk and Fisher…"
Hawk and Fisher approached the Throne, and nodded briefly to everyone there. They didn't bow to Felicity, but no one said anything. "The Cathedral is back to normal," said Hawk. "Back to what it was always intended to be, a beacon of light in a dark world. That's the good news. The bad news is that magic is going out of the world. Permanently. It won't happen overnight, the Magus said it could take centuries. But it does mean the Rift is fundamentally unstable. So make the most of it while you've got it."
"You mean we could be cut off from the south again?" asked Felicity, taking a large gulp from her glass. "Sweet Jesus, that's all we need. There'd be riots. I think I'd join them. I couldn't live without my morning coffee anymore."
"As magic goes out of the world, the Deadlands will settle down, too," said Hawk. "If I were you, I'd start planning trade routes and new territory acquisitions."
The Queen thought about that, and then smiled suddenly. "If the Deadlands were to become habitable again, we could be on the verge of the biggest land rush in history. And if we could grab and control most of it, we wouldn't need the Rift anymore!"
"Don't get too excited," said Fisher. "The Magus said there was so much magic seeped into the warp and weft of the world that it would take ages to disappear completely."
"You're sure the Magus is gone?" asked the Queen.
"Quite sure," said Hawk.
"Good," said the Queen. "He always disturbed the hell out of me."
"Has anyone got around to telling Lightfoot Moonfleet that the Magus is dead?" asked Fisher. "They always seemed very close."
"We were," said the tiny winged faerie, appearing suddenly in their midst before the Throne. She grew quickly to human size and looked coldly about her. She was wearing a long black dress for mourning, and her face was scrubbed clean of all makeup. She looked somehow less human without it, more alien, otherworldly. Her delicate wings shone with a pale pearlescent light. "I
always loved him," she said flatly. "Even though I knew he wasn't Real, and that one day he'd have to go where I couldn't follow.
"Now it's time for me to go. He was the only reason I stayed in the mortal world anyway. All my faerie kith and kin are long gone, walked sideways from the sun. I am the last faerie, and there's no place for me in a world without magic. I go to join the rest of my kind, in the place where shadows fall. Good-bye, everyone. It's been fun."
She blew Hawk a kiss and winked at Chance, and then shrank down to nothing and was gone.
"It's started," said Lament. "The world is changing."
"Everything's going to change," Hawk pointed out. "Nothing will ever be the same again."
"Sometimes that's a good thing," said Lament. "I'm going through changes myself. I am no longer the Walking Man; just a man now, as any other. No faster or stronger, and certainly not invulnerable anymore."
"Don't I know it," said the Queen. "He stubbed his toe earlier, and you'd have thought he was dying."
Lament looked at her fondly. "And to celebrate my newly restored humanity, I have chosen of my own free will to marry the woman I have loved for so many years. Felicity has agreed to be my wife. Which to my mind says more about my courage than my common sense, but I never could resist a challenge."
"Oh, I'll make you suffer for that later," said Felicity, smiling.
"Hold everything," said Fisher. "You mean you're going to be King of the Forest?"
She looked quickly at Hawk, who was staring thoughtfully at Lament, but for the moment he had nothing to say.
"I will be King to Felicity's Queen," Lament answered carefully, "but we're both really only Regents for Stephen, until he comes of age and takes the Throne for himself. And then the Forest and Hillsdown will join together, peacefully, uniting two long-sundered Lands into one, as they were originally. No more wars, no more border skirmishes, no more young men going off to die too soon." Lament smiled. "I spent far too much time dreaming of heaven. I'm going to spend what's left of my life trying to make some here on earth, for everyone."
"This all seems rather sudden," Fisher said.
"We've waited a long time for this," said Queen Felicity. "God knows, if we hadn't both been so damned stubborn we'd have done this long ago. Do you have any objections, Captain Hawk?"
"Not my place to make any," Hawk said mildly. "I think you'll make a good King, Jericho. You always did care more about other people than yourself. Just try to remember you're not the Wrath of God anymore."
"With magic leaving, the world will, I hope, become a quieter, saner place," said Lament. "A world that will no longer need a Walking Man."
And then everyone turned sharply as there was a loud growl to one side, but it was already too late to tell whether it had come from the Shaman or the Creature. The Shaman was glaring fiercely at Felicity and Lament, and hugging himself tightly, as though to keep from flying apart. His eyes were fierce and piercing behind the clay skull mask, but his lips were pressed tightly together. Disturbed by the Shaman's anger, the Creature stirred restlessly at his side, showing his fangs and flexing his claws. His slow cunning eyes moved restlessly back and forth, searching for an enemy he could attack. But the Shaman said nothing, so everyone turned back again.
"You've done very well, Captains Hawk and Fisher," said the Queen, finishing the last of her drink and tapping ash from the end of her cigarette. "You've saved the Forest Kingdom from another Blue Moon and changed the lives of everyone you've met. A shame you couldn't find my late husband's killer, but—"
"Oh, but we did," said Hawk, and it suddenly went very quiet as everyone looked at him. "It really wasn't that difficult to work out once we'd got all the distractions out of the way. There was only one person it could have been. Only one person with the means, the motive, and the opportunity. Only one man who could do such a terrible thing." He turned to look at the Shaman. "Isn't that right… King John?"
He held out his left hand, and there in his palm was a small polished ruby, like a drop of blood. The Crimson Pursuant, glowing brightly in the presence of Forest Royalty. Everyone in the Court gasped a little as Hawk advanced on the Shaman, and the ruby glowed more and more fiercely. Hawk stopped right before the Shaman and closed his hand abruptly, cutting off the bloody glow.
"You look very different now," said Hawk. "And your voice is very changed. But there were always clues. The Creature is your old friend the Astrologer, transfigured by the Demon Prince. He would never have accepted anyone else as a friend. Then there was your dedication to the people, added to a complete disregard for the new established authorities. Of course you weren't impressed by any of the new faces at Court. You'd been a King here. And of course, the Shaman comes and goes, and no one knows how. Everyone said that, but they put it down to magic.
"As King John, you knew all the hidden entrances and secret passageways in the Castle. Including some that only the Royal Family knew, for reasons of security. It was easy for you to get past Harald's guards and into his private quarters. You knew all the ways in. After all, they'd been your quarters when you were King. And finally the Magus' protective wards couldn't keep you out because they'd been set up to allow Forest Royalty to come and go as they pleased. That should have been safe enough. Everyone thought the Royal line now consisted only of Harald and Felicity and Stephen. Rupert was long gone, and everyone knew King John was dead. How did you become the Shaman, Your Majesty?"
There was a long pause as everyone watched breathlessly, and then the Shaman slowly unfolded his arms, straightened up, and stood like a whole new person. There was authority, even aggression, in his stance now, and when he spoke, his voice was still rough and hoarse, but nowhere near as bad as it had been before.
"I only wanted to be a hermit," he said slowly. "After all that had happened in the Demon War, I knew I wasn't fit to be King anymore, so I walked away from it all. Leaving the Throne for someone wiser than I. There were a lot of people living rough in the Forest in those days, finding food and shelter where they could. People broken by the horrors of the long night, physically or mentally, and often both. No one noticed one more hermit. And then I found the Creature that used to be my friend. I first learned magic trying to find a way to cure him, to turn him back into his old self. It wasn't difficult to learn magic in those days; there were a lot of magical hot spots in the darker parts of the woods, left behind by the Blue Moon's passing. Power, just waiting for someone to come along and pick it up. And I had lots of time to learn how to control and use it. But nothing I found or learned was enough to undo the Demon Prince's curse. My old friend remained a Creature. I like to think he knows who I am somewhere deep within him.
"But even after all I've learned, I would still have been happy to remain nothing more than a hermit. A man apart, free at last from duty and responsibilities. But over and over again the peasants came to me, seeking help and advice, because everyone knows hermits and magic-users are always wise men. They told me of the changes in the Court and in the Land, and how King Harald was throwing away everything we'd fought for through his own stupid intransigence. So I put on my mask of woad and clay, changed my voice and my stance, and came back to Forest Castle. And no one knew me. No one recognized the man who was once King. I was almost disappointed. I came back to try and make a difference, to save the Land one more time, as the Shaman." He smiled coldly at Hawk. "I always knew that if anyone was going to see through my disguise, it would be you. I always knew you'd be the greatest threat to my plans."
The Creature reacted to the rising anger in the Shaman's voice, roared once, and then surged forward, heading straight for Hawk. On some level the transformed Astrologer still knew his old enemy. The Shaman cried out for him to stop, but the Creature threw himself at Hawk's throat, his terrible claws reaching out before him. And Hawk spun expertly on one foot, his sword already in his hand, and he cut the Creature out of midair, the heavy blade smashing through the Creature's ribs and deep into his side. The Creature crashed to the f
loor, screaming and kicking, still trying to get to Hawk as blood gushed from his side and sprayed from his snarling mouth. Hawk jerked his sword free and stabbed the Creature through the heart, the blade sinking half its length into the heaving malformed body. The Shaman and the Creature cried out together, and then the Creature convulsed and died. The Shaman stumbled forward as Hawk pulled his sword free and looked coldly down at his kill.
"Payment for an old debt," he said, almost viciously. "For all the harm and evil you did, Sir Astrologer."
The Creature's shape shuddered and twisted, shrinking in on itself, bones creaking and joints snapping as he resumed his old human shape again. His curse had finally been broken in the only way it could be, by his death. The Shaman stood over him, and no one could see his face behind the woad and the clay.
"You never knew him in his young days," he said finally. "He was good and true then. He could have been a sorcerer, and a great man in his own right, but he gave it up to be my man because I needed him. Any of you would have been proud to know him then. He just lost his way, that's all. It can happen to the best of us." He shook his head slowly, weighed down by a great tiredness of the body and of the heart. "No tears. I ran out of tears a long time ago."
"Why did you kill Harald?" asked Hawk. "Why did you kill your own son?"
The Shaman looked at him. "You ask that, standing there with my old friend's blood dripping from your sword? I killed Harald for the same reason you did this. Because it was necessary." He looked across at Felicity, sitting stiffly on her Throne, numbed by shock and an answer she'd never expected. "He wasn't worthy, Felicity. He couldn't, or wouldn't, see the world was changing; and he wouldn't, or couldn't, change with it. He was determined to be an absolute monarch, even when it was clear the time for such things was over. He was prepared to see the whole country plunged into civil war and worse, just so he could be King. He had to be right, whatever the cost." The Shaman sighed wearily. "The last thing I ever expected from Harald. He always understood politics so much better than I ever did. But in the end the power seduced and corrupted him just as it did me. You start to believe you're the only one who can see the big picture, that you're the only one who understands what needs to be done. You're the King, so you must be right.