Shadow People (2013)

Among the ruins, with her dying breath, the lady Scale called down a doom upon him for what he had done to her brother, and-she being now dowered, as she had desired, with the half of Garcia's skills, and in particular that half which concerned the binding, rather than the releasing, of elementals-Quarrel ceased his flight to the sky, and perforced joined her, and Roiga, and Runch, buried forever beneath that stack of masonry.

"Where let him rest," the traveler said contentedly, having viewed all this from the vantage of the same sward where he had conversed with the Shebya.

"And Buldebrime, and Tradesman Humblenode," a quiet voice confirmed alongside him. He had not expected to be alone at a moment like this; he did not look around. "And many more!"

"And many less guilty, Highness," he appended. "Yet none of them entirely innocent. Willing, at least, to serve a lord whose power was drawn from chaos, when it was apparent to any commonsensical mind that no mortal force could make this barren land so wealthy. Equally, prepared to apprentice children to masters who starved and beat them, for the sake of having them learn a profitable trade...."

He shrugged, both hands clasping his staff. "No matter, though," he concluded. "Has it not all come to a very tidy end?"

There was a silence. Also it was dark here. But it was the regular honest dark of a spring night around moonset: nothing worse.

"At end," the quiet voice said meditatively. "Yes, perhaps it is an end. It might as well be.... You know, my friend, there's something very curious!"

"Tell me," the traveler invited, who now knew in any case the most important thing that had guided his existence. Still, there were degrees of importance, and even a triviality might provoke interest.

"Of all the qualities I endowed you with," the voice said, "the most potent has proved to be a certain witty elegance. A-a neatness, a sense of practical economy!"

"I've fostered it," the traveler agreed. "Having but one nature, I must needs make the most of what I owned." He gestured with his staff at the barely-seen view. "Besides, was it not that practical mode of thinking which reduced the opportunities of access for the ancient ones to these few should-be-barren acres?"

"Yes, it was."

"And was not that the designated purpose of my being?"

There was no answer. After a while the traveler said, "I'm sorry. You must be feeling grievous loss."

"I?" Beside him the One Who had assigned him to his task, come to witness this last confrontation in the guise of a tall pale and extraordinarily thin girl, shook back long locks under a wide-brimmed hat. "Loss of the other natures that were mine? Why, not at all! Is it not the goal and purpose of the universe that all things shall ultimately have a single nature? I know that to be true, for I decreed it."

This was what they had not realized at Cleftor Heights: that Tuprid and Caschalanva, Quorril and Lry, and moreover Wolpec and Yorbeth and Farchgrind and Fegrim and Laprivan of the Yellow Eyes, and all the countless rest of those elementals, were the fellow-natures of the One Who had conceived an age in which no creature should possess more than one nature-and had created a personage with many names as earnest of that eventual occurrence.

Accordingly, the last remaining nature of that One spoke with the traveler and sounded weary.

"So here I stand, my friend, to link with you like the fingers of a pair of hands, interlocked. What remains to me is what you never had; what remains to you is what I never had. It is a question of complimentarity. But after all these eons you understand that."

The traveler nodded, and she heaved a sigh.

"Hah, yes, old friend, my page is past-past like that unnatural night which will nevermore be seen in Cleftor's vales! Eternity at last has found its end, because the powers of chaos have been tamed. And with what little fetters! The wish of a child to help her mother; the distaste of apprentices for then: master; the annoyance of a pedlar-man; and the love of a sister for her stupid brother!"

"Then my time is past too," the traveler said, ignoring her recital of his tricks-to-triumph-which was just, because all he had was in her gift. "And... And I'm not at all sorry. I was almost coming to miss the enemies I matched against in other ages. You could have undermined me by that weakness."

"I could." The answer was predictable. She could- everything. Now, however, it was a question not of "could" but "would," and the time for willing chaos had gone by.

More silence intervened, and then the traveler stretched and yawned.

"I long for rest," he said. "But-one more thing. Who is to come after us?"

"Let him decide who he is," said the pale girl, and took him by the hand which lacked the staff. Turning,

they went together into absence.

The End