And when the Harvester woke, Ceravanne hungered for a private conference with her sister. So they sat close together and held one another and cried. Gallen sat listening to the women talk.
“I’ve killed with my own hands,” the Harvester whispered, almost a wail. “I need cleansing. Can you feel it?”
“Five hundred years will not suffice, “Ceravanne agreed, not concealing the worry in her voice. “I would come with you, aid you if I could. But one of us must stay here. The Swallow must return as promised, and bring peace with her.”
“I know that you still hurt for the Rodim,” the Harvester said. “Your healing is not complete. How can we bring peace, when we feel none ourselves?”
Ceravanne opened her mouth, but spoke no answer for a moment. “We are our bodies,” she whispered at last. “Neither of us can escape our guilt. And both of us must seek to establish peace in our turns. You go to Northland, to the Vale of the Bock.” Ceravanne went to her pack, fumbled out a small seed. She held the unborn Bock up with evident care, as if it were a great treasure. “Plant this in the Vale. And there you can find peace for both of us.”
The Harvester took the seed, held it up in wonder, then grabbed Ceravanne, hugged her fiercely, and whispered, “Thank you. Thank you. Look for me again in summer, in some distant year, when both our hearts are lighter. A Bock will come with me.”
They held each other, crying softly for a moment, and Gallen petted Orick’s head, stroking it softly. There were cries in the land again, the sound of Tekkar awakening, and Gallen was looking off into the distance, into the shadows of the corner of the room. He did not mention Maggie’s name, though his heart was heavy for her.
Then the main door to the throne room squeaked on its hinges, and Gallen glanced over, expecting to see some Tekkar.
Maggie poked her head into the room.
“Maggie!” Orick shouted, bounding toward her. “I thought you got killed.” Orick reached her, sat on all fours and licked her hands, wanting to jump up and hug her, but knowing she would fall over if he did. She bent forward and kissed his forehead. “Very nearly, but the AI ejected me before the car blew.”
She stood looking at Gallen across the room, and neither one of them spoke or moved for several long seconds.
“I was afraid for you,” Gallen said at last.
“I love you, too,” Maggie said, her lower lip trembling, and they rushed into each other’s arms.
He was surprised how, even now, her touch could be electric. He kissed her, looked deep into her face, and was surprised at what he saw. There was a peace in her eyes that had never been a part of Maggie Flynn before, a new clarity and softness.
The hallways leading to the Harvester’s chamber had begun to fill with people, and Gallen could hear them talking reverently, saying, “The Swallow, yes, she’s in here.” They stood outside the doors, afraid to come in, until Ceravanne rose to greet them.
They slept that night under the bright stars of Tremonthin, with the Tekkar camped around them. The people knew the Swallow from ancient memories downloaded into their skulls, and they showed her great reverence. The Tekkar vied for the honor to become her protectors, and chefs brought her their finest meals.
Maggie looked about, and it was hard to miss the adulation shining in the eyes of the people. But all of it was for Ceravanne. Gallen, Maggie, and Orick were all but strangers in the city, people who were obvious friends to the Swallow, nothing more.
The Harvester had dressed in black robes and a hood to hide her face, and she went out into the darkness beside the river, and for long she stood alone in the moonlight.
And so at last when Maggie and Gallen staggered off to sleep in a thicket, Maggie listened to the sounds of the night, and for the first time on this world, she slept unafraid.
In the morning, they had a short funeral where they buried the Bock beside a small river. And because the Swallow herself came to the funeral, everyone from the city of Moree turned out.
Ceravanne spoke his eulogies, praising the Bock so that everyone within listening range felt as if they’d lost something important without ever knowing exactly what it was.
An engraver carved a large stone from the river’s bank for the Bock, showing a treelike figure with his hands raised toward the suns, and they left it over the gravesite, beside the road, where folks would reckon it a significant landmark in the city for a thousand years.
Ceravanne offered to send Gallen and Maggie back to Northland in a flyer, but after a brief conference, they all decided that they were in no hurry. The dronon would be hunting for Gallen and Maggie across the worlds, and Tremonthin seemed as good a place to hide as any.
Orick voiced the suspicion that both Maggie and Gallen were loath to leave because they shared so many memories of this land, and Maggie thought back through the lives she’d lived here, and did not deny it.
And so Ceravanne gave them a fine cart and a pair of horses, and Gallen, Maggie, and Orick prepared to head to Northland with the Harvester.
They were in no hurry, but Maggie found that there was a great weight upon her. She needed to go north, to the City of Life, to petition the Immortals in Tallea’s behalf, seeking her rebirth.
Ceravanne came to give her final farewell to them before they departed. She thanked them profusely for their help, and wished them good fortune. She gave them many gifts from the hands of the people of the city-warm blankets for their journey, good food and clothes, a bag of coins.
She wept as she hugged them goodbye, and then she was hustled off into the city by her Tekkar guardians, all dressed in their black robes, their faces hooded from sunlight.
They walked away in a tight knot, almost as if Ceravanne were a prisoner rather than a dignitary, and something about it gave Maggie the chills.
And in the afternoon sunlight, Maggie watched them heading back to the dark catacombs of Moree, leaving Maggie, Gallen, Orick, and the Harvester to make their own way back across the seas to Northland, and whatever destinations might lie beyond.
In the bright sunlight, Maggie watched Ceravanne waving goodbye from up a slope, a streak of lightning in her blue dress, with her platinum hair, all against the dark lines of the hills of Moree, and Maggie felt a profound sense of distress. Though Ceravanne’s mantle had perhaps tamed the hosts of the Inhuman, Ceravanne herself was staying among the Tekkar, men who by their very nature were little more than monsters.
Maggie looked up at Gallen in frustration. “Why is she staying with them?” she asked in dismay. “That’s no proper reward for her labor.”
“She is staying with them because she must dismantle the armaments in Moree, tear down the starports,” the Harvester said softly. “She is going back with them, because governing them will be her greatest challenge. And if she is to rule this land in peace, she must first get them under her sway.”
“But … but Maggie’s right,” Orick grumbled. “She’s lost! A lifetime of work is all she has before her. What kind of reward is that?”
“Perhaps by your human perspective she has lost,” the Harvester whispered from beneath her dark hood, so that her soft words seemed to hang in the cool air about her face. “But Ceravanne is not human. She desires to serve, and now she has won that opportunity.”
And you have lost yours, Maggie realized, studying the hooded woman.
Now Maggie saw what was really troubling her. Ceravanne had won only a new kind of captivity, just as Maggie and Gallen had. By defeating the Lords of the Swarm, she and Gallen had sought to win freedom, but all they had won was a responsibility that was too great to bear. She looked into Gallen’s face, and by his troubled look, she knew he was thinking the same.