Caroline Spector - Worlds Without End

By the time we parted at Orly, we knew that what- ever had been there was best left in the past.

"Where will you go now?" he asked again.

"I think I shall travel for a bit," I said. "No place too interesting. I think I've had enough interesting things in my life for a while. I know that one day the Enemy will come again, but now that Ysrthgrathe is gone, I feel… safer.

"Maybe they were right. Maybe it was my prob- lem. Perhaps I've been wrong."

Caimbeul shrugged. He'd become very Gaelic during our visit.

"I've always thought your instincts were pretty good," he said. He reached out and pulled me to him. The kiss he gave me was long, and hot, and bittersweet.

It was some six months later that I made it back to Arran.

It was spring.

The land had turned green again. The wind blew from the south, bringing the delicate odor of grass, peat, and heather to me.

I opened the house up, flinging wide the windows to drive out the inevitable mustiness. Caimbeul had stayed here at some point while I was gone. I saw a few things were out of place. How like him, I thought.

I tapped the print bar on my telecom, and material began 1,0 spew out.

Since I'd put a hold on the dailies and the maga- zines, I wondered what this glut could be.

Frowning, I picked up the first sheet. It was an ar- ticle about Aztechnology. There were numerous articles about Aztechnology. They came from main- line papers as well as obscure, paranoid, end-of- the-world publications. Shaking my head, I read another and another and another.

There were articles about many unrelated events. They were scattered across the globe, and these arti- cles were in Chinese, French, German, Swahili, Jap- anese, and many other languages.

Mostly, they were about random occurrences of mania. A woman goes crazy and kills her children. There is no explanation and she doesn't remember the event even happening. Later, she takes her own life, scrawling images of obscene monsters in her own blood on the prison walls.

A shaman loses control of a spell. Ten people are killed, including the shaman. A witness says it looked as if the shaman had changed into something else the moment before the spell went out of control.

There were more.

Each told a similar tale.

I read them all, letting each slip to the floor until I stood there empty-handed. But there was still one more. I pulled it out. A letter from Dunkelzahn.

Aina,

In light of our last conversation, I thought these might be of interest to you. By the way, I've been keeping track of these things, and on the night you told me about, there was a spike at Crater Lake.

Dunkelzahn

I stayed there, staring off into space for a long time. Then suddenly I couldn't bear to stay inside any longer.

The sun was going down as I left the house. There was a bit of a nip in the air. Winter had not yet com- pletely let go. But I didn't feel the cold.

I felt numb. As though encased in amber. Fossil- ized.

Oh, what a fool I'd been. Thinking to protect them all from the Enemy. To warn them. What ego. What hubris.

For I knew now that I had done the very thing I'd warned them against.

I had used the power wantonly. Wastefully. And in so doing I'd made it easier for the Enemy to come across.

I realized now that Ysrthgrathe had sacrificed himself. His defeat was too easy. He'd played me. Played my emotions, manipulated me all along until I couldn't resist. It was his revenge. For he knew that nothing would bring me greater pain than to live with the knowledge that I'd had the means to stop them, and had let anger and fear and foolishness rule me instead.

My chest felt tight. There was nothing for me to do now but prepare. Prepare for that day which was as inevitable as death.

I stared up at the sky. The sun had set, yet a pale radiance still lingered. Then it began to rain. Black drops coming from a clear twilight sky.

I'stayed there for a long time, letting the rain wash over me.