‘Will what, my Lord?’ she replied.

‘Marry me, naturally.’

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘that. Of course I will, my Lord.’

‘See?’ I said. ‘Now that wasn’t so difficult, was it?’

There had been cries of outraged anguish from those girls who’d been waiting to meet the Crown Prince and then had been summarily dismissed, and Kamion and I were besieged by equally outraged fathers vehemently protesting – not so much the disappointment of their daughters as the evaporation of their own opportunities for social prestige and access to the throne. But Kamion and I were able to smooth all the ruffled feathers with mysterious references to ‘fate’, ‘destiny’, and ‘preordination’. Our arguments were a bit specious, I’ll admit, but convincing lies are the very soul of diplomatic discourse.

Arell quite nearly outdid herself with Larana’s wedding gown, a lacy fantasy in palest blue. Larana and I really hit it off when she confided to me that blue was her favorite color. I wholeheartedly approved of the girl’s good taste.

The wedding took place about noon on a sunny spring day, and the Hall of the Rivan King, suitably decorated for the happy occasion, was flooded with bright sunlight.

I’m not entirely sure who arranged that. I know that I didn’t.

There was the usual banquet after the wedding, but I’d visited the brewery before dawn and made some modifications in the favorite beverage of every Alorn who’s ever lived. The beer tasted like beer, and it looked and smelled exactly like beer, but it didn’t produce the usual results. The wedding guests, as wedding guests always do, drank to excess, but nothing happened. There were no arguments, no fights, no falling down, no snoring in corners, and no throwing up. There were some monumental headaches the following morning, however. I was certainly not cruel enough to take all the fun out of drinking too much.

After the ceremony had taken place, I spent most of the rest of the day with my brother-in-law. Riva Iron-grip’s hair was almost snow-white by now, and he seemed to be in failing health. ‘It’s almost all finished now, isn’t it, Pol?’ he said a bit sadly.

‘I didn’t exactly follow that, Riva.’

‘My work’s almost all done, and I’m very tired. As soon as Larana produces an heir, I’ll be able to rest. Would you do me a favor?’

‘Of course.’

‘Have some workmen build a new crypt for Beldaran and me. I think we should sleep beside each other.’

The natural response to such a request would be to scoff with such idiocies as, ‘You aren’t going to need a burial place for a long time,’ and the like, but I loved and respected Iron-grip too much to insult him that way. ‘I’ll see to it,’ I promised.

‘Thank you, Pol,’ he said. ‘Now, if you don’t mind, I think I’ll go to bed. It’s been a hectic day, and I’m very, very tired.’ Then he rose and with stooped shoulders, he quietly left the banquet hall.

Things went along smoothly on the Isle for several years after the wedding. There was a certain concern about the fact that Larana didn’t immediately blossom into motherhood, but I calmed everyone as best I could. ‘These things take time,’ I said.

I said it so often that I got sick of hearing it myself.

Then, in 2044 by the Alorn calendar, Cherek Bear-shoulders died, plunging all of Aloria into mourning. Cherek had been a titan, and his death left a huge vacancy.

That winter, Larana quietly advised us that she was with child, and we were all moderately thrilled by the news. Her son was born the following summer, and Daran named him Cherek, in honor of his deceased paternal grandfather. After the ceremony when the infant’s hand was placed on the Orb and it responded in the usual way, we took him to Riva’s quarters to allow the king to see his grandson.

‘It’s all right, isn’t it, father?’ Daran asked, ‘naming him after your father, I mean?’

‘Father would be pleased,’ Riva said, his voice sounding very weary. He reached out, and I handed his grandson to him. He held the baby for quite some time with a gentle smile on his aged face. Then he drifted off to sleep.

He never woke up.

The funeral was solemn, but not really marred by excessive grief. Riva’s seclusion had removed him from public view, and many on the Isle were probably a bit surprised to discover that he’d still been alive.

After the funeral, I did some thinking. Daran and Kamion had things well in hand, and there was no real reason for me to remain.

And so, in the spring of 2046, I packed up all my things in preparation for my return to the Vale.

Part Three:
Vo Wacune

Chapter 12

As luck had it – although luck probably had nothing to do with it – Anrak stopped by the Isle on one of those pointless voyages of his just as I was making my preparations to leave, and he volunteered to take me as far as Camaar. I’d never really understood Anrak. About half the time he didn’t even have a cargo when he put out to sea. His arrival gave me a perfect excuse to cut short the tedious business of farewells. Why do people always drag that out so much? After you’ve said ‘goodbye’ a couple of times, you’ve said it, haven’t you?

The weather was partially cloudy when Anrak’s sailors slipped the hawsers and raised the sails, and I stood on the aft deck watching the Isle of the Winds slowly receding behind us. I’d matured on the Isle. There’d been happy times and times filled with almost unbearable grief and pain, but that’s the nature of life, isn’t it?

The rocky island was still low on the horizon astern when a peculiar certainty came over me. I’d not only said farewell to friends and relatives when I’d boarded Anrak’s ship, but I’d also said goodbye to what most people would call a normal life. I was forty-six years old now, and if the lives of my father and my uncles were any indication of what lay ahead of me, I was entering unexplored country. I would come to know and love people and then watch them drop away one by one while I went on. There was a dreadful kind of loneliness implicit in that realization. Others would leave, but I would continue on down through all the uncertain, endless years stretching out before me.

‘Why so sad, Pol?’ Anrak, who was standing at the tiller not far away, asked me.

‘No particular reason.’

‘We’ll hit open water soon,’ he assured me. ‘That should make you feel better.’ He looked out at shafts of sunlight moving majestically across the water.