“She looks ’appy, eh?”
“Yes, she does.”
Grunthor looked down at his friend. “ ’Ow you ’oldin’ up?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well,” said the Bolg, “Oi always got the impression you had a soft spot for ’er, if you take my point.”
Achmed took another drink, saying nothing.
“Course, it’s none o’ my bizness, sir, but what are you gonna do about it? Oi mean, why did you just let ’er go?”
Achmed smiled as the waltz ended and Rhapsody made a deep bow to her partner, who looked startled for a moment, then joined her in merry laughter. Edwyn Griffyth swept Gwydion aside jokingly and took her into his arms for the next dance as the orchestra shifted into the Lirin pennafar, a traditional dance of celebration. “Who said I am going to just let her go?”
Grunthor’s brow wrinkled as he looked down at the Firbolg king. “Oi think you might be a li’le late, don’t you?”
“No, actually, I’m early.”
“How you figger?”
Achmed leaned against the tree they were standing under. “All this is temporary. Ashe is a dragon, and of Cymrian blood, so he is very long-lived, but he is not immortal like the three of us. And as his longevity stems from his dragon blood, sooner or later he will confront the same problem Llauron did. He will grow more and more wyrmlike, until he eventually turns his back on his humanity, including his beloved wife, and goes off to commune with the elements.”
Understanding was beginning to dawn on Grunthor. “And then she’s yours?”
Achmed glanced up at him. “What none of you understand is that, in a very important way, she is already. She’s the only other one who knows it.”
“She does?”
“Yes.” He drained the last of his brandy. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I believe it’s my turn to dance with the bride.”
Grunthor shook his head as Achmed made his way down the hill. He was standing beside Rhapsody just as the dance ended, and the Sergeant watched in amusement as she looked up at the Firbolg king and smiled broadly, nodding in delight and taking his hand. He wasn’t sure what was more amusing: the sight of Achmed dancing the mazurka, or the look on Gwydion’s face as Achmed nimbly swept his bride out from in front of him and danced her away.
As the first star appeared it was greeted by a chorus of Lirinsong, then by a tempest of fireworks lighting the heavens around it. Gwydion watched the display from the top of a hilly rise beneath a willow tree, his beautiful, finally official wife leaning on his shoulder and watching the sky with him.
She sighed deeply and looked up at him, her eyes gleaming with the memory of another starry night, another willow tree.
“You know, I’ve decided something, m’lady,” he said as he leaned over and kissed her.
“Yes, m’lord?”
“The only way I intend to watch the stars from now on is by seeing their reflection in your eyes.” He kissed her again as a new shower of sparks went up, lighting her face and gleaming in her hair.
“As you wish.” The clamor from down the hill grew; the wedding guests were growing impatient, waiting for the next round of toasting and music. Rhapsody sighed again. “How much longer is this supposed to go on? We’ve been celebrating all day.”
Gwydion stood and pulled her up with him. “The nice thing about being in charge is that you get to say when you can leave,” he said, smiling down at her and remembering the rose-petal-strewn bed waiting for them in the room behind the waterfall. “Let’s go drink to our collective happiness, and then depart to start experiencing some of our own. Does that sound good to you?”
“Very good.”
Above them a golden shower of sparks ignited, brightening the darkness, to fall a moment later, slowly, drifting to earth on the warm wind. Rhapsody put out her hands with childlike delight and tried to catch some as they fell; tiny star-like embers coming to rest in her palms, gleaming between her fingers, like the dream she had had so long ago, on the other side of the world, and of Time. The light sparkled brilliantly on the diamonds of her wedding ring. The significance of the moment was lost on all but one, the one who had been with her there, under those stars, half a world away, who waited with her now, smiling, as the tiny lights gleamed brightly in her hands before burning out.
She turned to him and saw the last few floating sparks reflected in the deep chasms of the vertical pupils of his eyes, then reached up and kissed him, setting off a roar of applause from the bottom of the hill. “Ryle hira,” she whispered to him. Life is what it is.
“Nol hira viendrax,” he answered, smiling. And I am grateful for what it is.
They hurried down the hill, hand in hand in the starry darkness, running excitedly to begin the rest of their lives.
Epilogue
Meridion stopped the frame. The image on the Time Editor’s screen froze, hovering fuzzily in the air and dusty light projected onto the curved, clear wall of the observatory. He leaned forward over the instrument panel, resting his chin on his hands, gazing thoughtfully at the picture of his parents, captured eternally in a moment of true happiness, frozen in Time, laughing as they ran through the starry night. His timing, however inadvertent, was fortuitous.
Meridion rose from the Editor. His aurelay, which he had formed into a chairlike seat while he worked, dissolved and reabsorbed into his translucent body as he stepped away from the machine. He walked slowly over to the glass wall and came to a stop in front of the blurry image of his mother; the projection undulated as he moved, causing the lines and shadows to stretch and wave as if dancing on an unnoticed breeze.
How happy you look, he thought, crossing his arms in front of him as he stared at the projection from the lorestrand. I am glad. Even if this is the end for me now, even if the new tapestry of Time that has just been woven turns out no better than the first, at least there is this moment of happiness for you. Far better than what had gone before, for certain. I am glad.
His eyes wandered over the picture of his father, a man he had seen but never met, utterly unrecognizable in the vigor of youth and health. By this time in the old life you had sunk irretrievably into madness, broken in both body and mind, Meridion thought, watching the way the currents of air within his glass globe observatory made the image look as if Gwydion were running even now, caught forever in jubilant motion. Again, I am glad for you.
How strange it was, he mused as he returned to the machine, to feel such sentiment, such a connection, to people he had never met.
Time thudded heavy around his ears. Meridion finally worked up the courage to look out through the glass panes of the observatory at the world below. He inhaled slowly, letting his breath out in increments.
The fire had receded, disappeared in fact from the surface of the distant Earth; now clouds gathered over the blue-green seas, swirling on the wind, racing around the mountain ranges, obscuring his view. As it should be, he thought, fighting off the melancholy that was surging within his heart. No man should have so clear a view of the world if he is going to live in it.
He bent down on the floor next to the Time Editor and carefully gathered the scorched scraps of timefilm, shredded into burnt confetti and stripped ribbons at his feet. Meticulously he searched until he came upon a fragment that he had seen fall not long before, as the new history replaced the old, like a rerouted riverbed, or a tapestry rewoven from the same silken threads into different patterns. The brittle scraps were growing dim, dissolving on the floor, gone now from Time, from history. Soon they would disappear altogether, leaving nothing, not even memory, for in reality they were now only the remains of a Past that never was.