“Thank you,” Maggie said.
“You were your mother’s favorite, you know,” Thomas said. “Three strapping boys she had, and when you were born, I told her she ought to toss you in the river-a worthless, skinny little girl, you know.
“But you were your mother’s favorite. She said you were her reward for living a good life. The jewel in her heaven.”
“I laughed at the notion,” Thomas recalled, “but now, now I think maybe she had pegged it right. You would have made her proud. You’ve made me proud.”
It was perhaps the only sincere compliment Thomas had ever given her, the only one she was likely to ever receive. “Thank you,” was all Maggie could manage to say.
“Maggie,” Thomas said. “I know I’ve never been much of an uncle to you, but I’ve been thinking: I’d like to go to Tremonthin with you. That babe of yours, he might need some kin to look after him, sometimes.”
“I thought you liked it here on Fale,” Maggie said. “I thought you had a woman to see.”
“Oh, there are plenty of women in the galaxy, I’m starting to learn,” Thomas said. “And Fale is a fine place, if you’re after singing for yourself. But it doesn’t matter where I am. Songs are needed everywhere. And I think that wherever I go, my songs will outlast me.”
Maggie went and hugged him then, for she knew how much the offer had cost him. “There may be other women in the galaxy, Thomas,” she said, “but I think there’s one here on Fale that has a special hold on you. You were right all along. You’ve got your own road to follow, and I’ll not have you dogging my steps just because I’m kin.”
When she let Thomas go, he sighed; and though Maggie didn’t doubt that he’d follow her to Tremonthin if she asked, she was happy to hear him sigh in relief, to see a bit of that mischievous gleam shining in the back of his eyes.
When Gallen, Maggie, their son, and Orick and Tallea took the final world gate to Tremonthin, they came to the land in high summer, when the fields lay ripe and golden. Because technology was outlawed over most of the world, Gallen and Maggie first went to the City of Life, where Maggie turned over her mantle of technology to the lords there, and Gallen laid his weapons aside for safekeeping.
They then took a brief journey to the Vale of the Bock, where they visited the Tharrin, Ceravanne, and told her of their plans to settle on her world, in the wild southlands, near Battic.
Ceravanne seemed surprised. “Are you certain you can do this, Gallen? My beloved Belorian, from whom you are cloned, could never have settled like this. He was forever seeking after adventure.”
They were sitting on the lawn, beneath the shade of a portico up above the hot springs where the Bock wintered. It was a sunny day, and Gallen reached over absently, stroked the cheek of his son, Orick.
“I am more than just the clone of Belorian,” Gallen answered her. “I won’t repeat his mistakes. I think that loving a woman and raising a child are adventure enough for me, these days.”
Ceravanne’s eyes grew wide. “Why, Gallen, the way that you say that, I think perhaps you’ve found a peace that Belorian never knew.”
Orick could tell that she wanted to say more. She merely stepped close, touched Gallen’s chest shyly. “I wish you well. I only wish your father could have done so well, that I could have made him so happy.”
And not for the last time, Orick wondered how a woman could love so deeply that even four hundred years after her husband’s death, she could yearn for the man the way that Ceravanne yearned for Belorian now. It was so un-bearlike.
Ceravanne wished them joy, and then they left, taking a slow journey by land through the ripening fields.
In the months that followed, they sailed over calm seas to reach their new home, then Gallen felled trees and let them cure for the winter, while they took apartments in the underground chambers of Battic.
By winter’s end, Gallen’s son could nearly stand on his own, and the child was delighted when Tallea delivered twin cubs.
That summer, Gallen and Orick built two fine houses in a wooded glen near Battic. They chose a peaceful valley filled with maple trees, where a clear river rushed through the rocks and formed small pools. It would be a good place for children and cubs to play and climb and learn to fish.
Both families lived side by side in that glen for many years. In time, neighbors began to move in, and a small village sprang up around them.
The village was a study in cultural diversity, there were over two thousand subspecies of humans about on the continent, and a full quarter of those subspecies built homes in the region. No one ever seemed to question Orick’s and Tallea’s origins, to wonder at talking bears. Nor did they worry about the origins of Gallen and Maggie, two seemingly normal humans in this land that had long been a stronghold for those who sported various genetic upgrades.
Gallen settled down to a life of farming, calling himself by the name of Farmer Day.
More children followed to Gallen and Maggie-two more boys, and two daughters, all of whom grew to be bright and strong. In time Maggie added enough room to her log home so that it could function as an inn, where travelers passing through brought news of distant lands. Gallen often teased her for this. As a girl she’d hated working at Mahoney’s Inn-hated it so much that she’d rejected her home world. Now she seemed to love it, rising at dawn, falling down in a weary stupor at night.
The Day House, as it was called, became a favorite stopping point, known for its hospitality, and though Gallen and Maggie were considered close friends by all their neighbors, none ever heard the story of how Gallen O’Day became a Lord Protector and helped stave off the Lords of the Seven Swarms.
Indeed, though Gallen never talked of being a Lord Protector, in his bedroom he kept his mantle near his spirit mask. He seldom ever donned the mantle, and then only in great need. Many a petty thief made off with a local chicken and suffered no harm from Gallen, but once in a while, every few years, some new warlord would struggle to take control of a town, or some Derrit chieftain would bring his henchmen out of the mountains to feed on small children-only to find themselves impaled on the sword of a Lord Protector whose face shone like starlight, until a local legend arose of a just and deadly spirit, called “The Shining One.”
On such occasions, Maggie hardly missed Gallen. A trip of a fortnight or two.
But at other times, Gallen would disappear for a month or more on “personal business,” and when the boy Orick grew old enough, Gallen would take his son with him, for the child had a knack for battle that surprised even Gallen.
On such occasions, Maggie would know that the Tharrin had sent their messages through Gallen’s mantle, calling him to far worlds. But such occasions were exceedingly rare, and afterward Gallen did not speak of them, as if the killing he was forced to do shamed him.
And then one night, Gallen and the young man Orick came to Maggie, and her son wore the mantle and carried a packed bag. She knew immediately that he was going off alone. That he would never return.
“There’s trouble, Mother,” her son said.
Maggie nodded dumbly, knowing that the Tharrin would not have called him into service unless they had a great need. Somehow she felt relieved to find that the mantle would no longer weigh on her husband’s shoulders, but she could not help worrying about her child.
When her son left that night, he walked off into the darkness, and Maggie cried until dawn. For months and months afterward, she could hardly ever speak his name.
But seven years later, he suddenly reappeared and brought a young woman with him, a ravishing thing with raven hair. A Tharrin woman. The two were married by Orick the bear, and they left days later.
From time to time, Maggie got off world messages from them, but she never saw her son again.
Neither Gallen nor Maggie ever went back to the City of Life to have their memories downloaded. One life was all they desired.