“Come,” Willard called when they reached the window, “Come out, for we are friends.”
It was broken open from within and several people appeared where it had been.
“Friends, you still live!” Willard said in excitement. “I had feared you went down with your land.”
“My lord,” Alfonzo bowed lowly to his king, “My lord, it is no one’s land but God. I am glad you have returned, though, your majesty.”
“No, today you show deference to no one, Alfonzo of Melborough; for the honor of victory is yours. I know royal blood, but I know better a royal heart!”
“Yet I see no victory,” Alfonzo crossed the extended plank to the ship, the last of those inside.
“Father!” Ivona cried, throwing herself into his arms. “Father, forgive me!”
“What words are these?” his limbs threw themselves about wildly. “Forgive you? You were right, my lovely daughter and I a foolish, bitter old man. Yet now, I see!”
She kissed his cheeks gently, “You are healed, father?”
“Where is your faith?” he laughed. “I am healed in body and in heart.”
Her eyes opened and her beauty poured out. “Then you believe?”
“Yes; a thousand times over, I believe!”
“God is good.”
As she spoke, Willard turned and their eyes could not be kept apart.
“God is good,” she whispered, “And I will dwell with him forever.”
De Garcia met his brother as he came forward and knelt before him, sobbing. But then, when he opened his eyes to look, he found his brother kneeling before him as well, sobbing all the same. They exchanged a look of grief and wonder.
“Do you ask me for forgiveness?” de Garcia asked, “When I am the one who has sinned against you? I deserted the cause of freedom and betrayed my comrades for lies. I am disgraced. And yet you kneel before me ?”
“You are disgraced, my brother? Then I am doubly so, for I did not desert to Gylain; I served him by default. Our breach is my fault, do not blame yourself.”
As they spoke, the Fardy brothers gathered around them.
“What is this, my brothers?” the blond Fardy asked. “I am a patient man, and you my better in that family virtue.”
“Do not disdain yourself,” the black Fardy began.
“Let me finish,” and he struck his brother’s head. “De Garcia and de Garmia, I have known you both. I have fought alongside you both. Here even my great patience is taxed liked French tailors, that you do not arise and embrace. There is nothing else to be done.”
“My most-patient brother is right in this,” the brown Fardy added, “Arise and embrace.”
They did.
“You are right, friends,” de Garcia said, “We are brothers, de Garmia and I.”
“Amen,” the other answered.
“Come below with me, then,” de Garcia said. “We have been apart so long I have forgotten how you fight. We had best return to practicing, lest we become unable to serve our king.”
“You speak truth,” de Garmia replied. “Willard will need our swords before this mess is cleared.”
The two turned and disappeared into the hold. Meanwhile, Alfonzo and Celestine were joined together once more. This time they were not to be separated again.
“We have finished the fight,” Alfonzo said. “Our fears and hopes mingle, but what is left will not be done by us. We are left only to love.”
She held him and they kissed beneath the falling dew of heaven.
Cybele stood beside them, flourishing a smile like a sword. “How can you rejoice when our father is missing?”
“The Admiral!” Alfonzo cried.
He looked out upon the deep, where once was Atilta. All that remained was forest canopy. Even that would not live long. The ship had been sailing north and was nearing the forest west of what was once Thunder Bay. Two figures danced wildly to gain their attention. When they were spied, The Barber came alongside the upper Treeway, upon which they stood. It was built on the very tops of the canopy: the lower platforms were already below the waves.
“Come aboard, there,” Alfonzo called out as the boarding plank was extended.
It was Lorenzo and Meredith, wheezing in exertion as they came aboard.
“Our reunion is that much merrier,” Alfonzo laughed, “For our friends survive.”
“Yes, we live,” Meredith panted. “But – by Beelzebub and the ten princes of the air – we cannot celebrate yet, my friends.”
“No, for the war is not complete!” Lorenzo added. He pointed to a distant clump of trees, to which the upper Treeway extended. Two figures could be seen through the distance, locked in a deadly combat. “William and Gylain yet live!”
Chapter 95
“William, what fate is this?” Gylain smiled through the dark forest air. The ground was flooded and spouts of rain came down from the canopy. Behind him stood Montague and his soldiers.
“The fate we have made,” William Stuart returned. Meredith and Lorenzo stood behind him with the rangers. “I thought to find you in the wasteland, Gylain.”
“And here I am, in the flesh and of it. Now the battle can be accomplished.”
“Was it not for freedom and oppression? For strength and possession?”
“Was it? You know yourself what it was for. There are kings and there are queens; but though the queen is powerful, she is not the end. For that we hold the king before the light.”
“Yet who is the king? Not you nor I.”
“Why not? Do we not at least represent the players?”
“Perhaps; but you are evil, as am I. The shadow from there is an aberration.”
“The shadow is but that which casts it; there can be no aberration. If one player is light and the other dark, both are evil and for themselves.”
“And we are no different?”
“Answer it yourself.”
“It needs no answer; our acts cannot be refuted. But if I am as Godless as you, those who follow me are not as those who follow you.”
“Fools, the one and the other: fanatics of fantasy. In this game, there can be no winner.”
“And thus no loser.”
“None,” Gylain said.
“And yet, we fight.”
“Has any war been won? I say no, for the players remain and will fight. If we make peace, they will replace us.”
“Ever the fool, Gylain, ever the ambitious. You brought her down. For that alone I fight.”
“She followed, William, and you pushed. But could it have been stopped? It was foretold long ago, and the sword cannot rebuke the hand that wields it.”
“I wield my own sword.”
“Blindly: it has no effect. If we lift them, we cannot say what will be hit. The players have decided, and it will come to pass. In this way it is predestined: I can choose the cause, but the effect is not my own. For the action is earthly and of piece, the result is divine and of player. Look about us, William, and will we lift our swords or drop them? Either way, we die. For Atilta sinks.”
“And so we fight, to add our own face to the demise which is given us. I would rather fight with you than against; but as you say, the fight is not our own.” He drew his sword.
“It is fate’s fight. We are as much spectators as the gods. But know this: if God did not draw my sword against himself, I would draw it on my own. May God decide the victor,” and Gylain drew his sword, lunging at William.
The Admiral did not dodge, but caught Gylain’s blade with his own and forced it upward. Then, with a strong forward swing, he forced his enemy back. Gylain gathered himself and resisted the Admiral’s charge with a leftward parry: circling the other’s blade, diverting it to the left, and thrusting through the resulting opening into his stomach. The Admiral fell back and whipped his sword across his chest, stopping the blow and pushing Gylain back. Before William could regain control of his sword, however, Gylain pushed forward again, giving him a weak blow to the stomach.
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