L Modesitt - Empress of Eternity

"…and the cost of saving the universe was the destruction of their own civilization?"

"Essentially."

"So our little effort was nothing compared to that?" Duhyle didn?t conceal the sarcasm in his voice.

Helkyria shook her head. "No. The way Thora and Baeldura had repeater Hammer stations across Earth, it would have been far worse. They might have even created such seismic upheavals as to wipe out all life entirely…except on the microscopic level."

"I know I?ve asked this before…and you?ve explained…but how could they?"

"Because they believed that their truth was the only truth, and that beside it, nothing else mattered. Hasn?t that always been so with true believers?"

"So we stopped yet another group of true believers who believed that their "truth? was so precious that the failure of us unenlightened types to perceive that merited the destruction of all Earth and the universe?"

"According to the keeper, we did more than that. The strain of the first conflict and ours reverberated or resonated through the event-points, or as we term it, through time. Those reverberations created images that receptive minds, dreaming minds, pick up on all event-points, even in those we?d call the distant past. Those minds only catch the images and sometimes the terms…and they become part of myths, of poetry at times, even cultural images." Helkyria laughed softly, ironically. "That?s why so many myths are so illogical, and yet grip people, because there?s a ring of verity behind them, but the people who catch the images don?t know the context and fill it in with their own interpretations. I don?t suppose we?ll ever know…" She shook her head.

"And the canal, the Bridge is…what? The artifice of eternity?" he asked. "Or is that a phrase like the myths, one that resonates from the deep past to the future?"

Helkyria smiled. "Let?s just say it resonates, and the resonance worked for us."

Duhyle almost snorted before asking, "And what of the keeper, the ruler of eternity?

What resonates there?"

"Who can say? She doesn?t rule so much as keep eternity…for us…at least for her reign, perhaps longer."

"Ruler…keeper…did you get anything of value from her?"

"Besides saving the universe?" Helkyria smiled, and her hair glowed warm gold. "Let?s say that I have a few equations and a few ideas for us to work on."

"Oh?"

"They should allow us better ways to rebuild Asgard and Vaena…well enough that we can appreciate what lies, if you will, beyond the rainbow."

Duhyle did smile at that, even as he wondered why.

Fire burned along his left arm, and his lower legs were ice, and hot pokers stabbed into his body in too many places…Maertyn tried to turn, but found he could not move. Then he dropped back into a hot darkness…only to half-wake sometime later mouthing a name…

It was a beloved name, so beloved…and so much a part of him, but he could not remember it before another wave of darkness took him…and so it went, endlessly, dozing, fire, pain, darkness and light, and names and words coming from his mouth, none of which he recognized…until an even deeper and cooler darkness claimed him.

Then…he was awake

Slowly he opened his eyes, but he was alone in a small chamber-a hospital room, or a reasonable substitute for one. Equipment hummed, and some of it was centered on him, if only for the reason that he was the only one in the room. He was restrained in a bed, with regen pads clamped everywhere, it seemed, but only below the neck.

He was alive…but he was still tired…and his entire body ached…particularly places in his thighs and abdomen.

He tried not to think about what might come next.

An angular woman in the pale greens of healing walked into the chamber. "You?re awake at last, Lord Maertyn. You?re much better today."

"Could…I have…"

His mouth was so dry he could not continue, and she stepped over to the bed and offered a tube from a beaker. The liquid helped.

Finally, he completed the sentence. "Could I have been worse…still survived, Doctor?"

Maertyn assumed she was a doctor because of the competence and the lack of badges and credentials affixed to her greens.

"Some have," she replied with a smile. "Not many. You have a visitor. He can only stay a few minutes, but he insists that it?s important. Since the Executive Administrator of the Unity sent him, we had to agree to a few minutes. But if your vitals get disrupted, we?ll be back to escort him out. Immediately."

Maertyn almost smiled at that, but he worried. Exactly who was the EA these days, and how long had he been recovering? Before he could ask, the doctor had stepped out.

The figure who stepped into the room and closed the door was not unfamiliar.

"Ashauer…I can?t say as…I?m exactly surprised to see you."

"How could I not pay my respects to the hero of the Unity?" asked the older lord politely.

That certainly wasn?t what Maertyn expected. He swallowed, then tried to gather his thoughts. Finally, he said, "My memory is a little hazy. Perhaps you had better refresh it."

Ashauer smiled warmly. "After all you?ve done and been through, that?s scarcely surprising. I can?t tell you everything, because your efforts to protect Tauzn from the assassins within his own bodyguards damaged several of the security scanners. The records we did recover implicated Aembit, not to mention Smaert…"

Maertyn had never heard of Smaert, but just nodded.

"…Caellins, the head of the Gaerda, turned a stunner on his brain before he could be taken into custody. It?s amazing what you uncovered, Maertyn."

"I just did what was necessary…"

"EA D?Onfrio has already made a public statement that your actions prove that Caelaarn still has heroes…"

Maertyn was beginning to get a very uneasy feeling.

"There are some matters unresolved. No one can enter the research station…and your wife is missing…"

Maarlyna…was she as lost to him as if she had died? Or he had? His eyes burned, and he shook his head, then swallowed.

"Another casualty of the renegade black-shirts?" asked Ashauer gently. "I do know how much you loved her."

Maertyn just nodded.

"I hesitate to ask…but the station?"

"Something happened…after everything. It?s sealed. I don?t know how, only that nothing I know how to do will open it."

"…and then there?s the matter of the rainbow." Ashauer looked at Maertyn.

"The rainbow?" asked Maertyn.

"While you were fighting off the assassins, a brilliant rainbow arched across Caelaarn, its tip touching the Ministry of Protective Services." The older lord shook his head. "It couldn?t have been orchestrated more dramatically."

"I?m afraid I?m both tune-and tone-deaf," Maertyn managed, "and certainly no composer or orchestrator."

"All who know you agree to that. It?s also what makes your efforts so much more heroic, Maertyn." Ashauer smiled once more, not quite ironically. "We also found records about all the attempts on your life. What the various media found most interesting was how you avoided so many without ever having to kill those who were trying to kill you."

"You made…all that public?"

"There wasn?t any choice, Maertyn. If we hadn?t…"

Although Ashauer hadn?t completed the sentence, Maertyn knew exactly what he meant. One of Tauzn?s remaining subordinates would have taken over where Tauzn had left off.

"D?Onfrio will endorse you, if you choose to seek his position."

"Me? I?ve never sought anything like that…"

"Precisely…and he will make that quite clear. He?ll actually request that you seek the office of Executive Administrator because it is obvious that you have always put Caelaarn and others ahead of personal gain and power…and that you have lost so much in doing so."