“Nim really was the Last Rune,” he said. “There are no more runes. Magic’s gone.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Grace said. “Only . . .” She cocked her head, as if listening to a distant sound.

“What is it?” Beltan said, giving her a sharp look. “Do you feel something?”

Grace smiled and shook her head.

“Just hope,” she said.

49.

On another world, in a castle with seven towers, Aryn rested a hand on her full stomach and felt a strong kick deep within.

Teravian turned away from the window of their bedchamber, wonder on his face. “I can see stars, Aryn. All the stars.”

She tried to reach out with the Touch, to sense the small life inside her, but there was nothing to grasp, no trace of the Weirding. It was gone. Completely gone. But it didn’t matter. Aryn didn’t need magic to know the baby was whole and healthy; she knew it with her heart.

“Do you want to feel your daughter kick?” she asked.

Teravian grinned. “You mean my son.”

And the young king knelt before his queen, laying his hands atop hers as new life stirred beneath.

EPILOGUE

CASTLE CITY

The shiny green pickup truck blew into town with the first evening gale of October.

It pulled off the highway on a bare patch of gravel, not far from a peeling billboard, just down the road from the burnt ruin of a clapboard building. Doors opened, and four people got out. There was a man with red-brown hair, and another man, tall and rangy, who walked with a lanky stride. After them came a woman who was beautiful and regal, even dressed in jeans and a baggy sweater. With her came a girl who looked to be five or six, with hair as dark as shadows dancing on the wind.

The four joined hands, and together they walked toward a flat patch of ground where, once upon a time, a parti-colored circus tent had stood. It had taken them longer than they had expected to come to this place. But then, at first, they hadn’t even known this was where they were going.

London—and much of the world—had been in something of a state of chaos for a few weeks as damage from the earthquakes, hurricanes, and typhoons was repaired. However, none of the disasters had been as bad as they might have been, as bad as some experts had feared they were going to get; the tremors in London had been localized to the area in and around Brixton. And, as suddenly as they had begun, the storms and eruptions ceased. People had been so relieved that they hadn’t even noticed at first that something else had gone as well: the rifts in the sky.

Astronomers and physicists were still speculating about what the rifts were. No doubt studying the data various telescopes had collected would keep the scientists occupied for years to come. However, most people forgot about the rifts soon enough, as people tended to do when something strange departed and the normalcy of everyday life resumed. The Mouthers took off their white sheets and put down their signs. People were ready to go on with their lives. They were ready to hope again.

True, there was the occasional story of someone who had claimed to have seen green forests in the desert and mountains in the middle of the ocean just before the rifts vanished, but those stories were relegated to the tabloids, and were soon replaced by the usual celebrity scandals and UFO sightings.

Once London was back to normal, and a decision to go west was reached—or rather, maybe, a call was heard—there were still arrangements to be made. The flat in Mayfair was sold. Calls were made across the sea, and new accommodations procured with the help of old friends Mitchell and Davis Burke-Favor. Then the day arrived. They flew toward the sunset, then picked up the new truck they had bought (for some reason, it had to be green) and let the mountains call them upward.

Now the wind swirled, kicking up a dust devil right where the main pole of the big top would have stood.

“What do you think happened to them?” Grace said, glad for her thick sweater. Clouds scudded past the tops of the mountains. “To Cy and Mirrim and Samanda, I mean?”

“I think they went back to Eldh when the rune of sky was broken,” Travis said, his breath ghosting on the air. “I think they returned to the Twilight Realm with the other Old Gods.”

Grace nodded. She believed the same. “I’m glad we stopped here. I just wanted to say thanks to Cy, and to the others. We never would have gone to Eldh without them.”

Travis glanced at Beltan. “A lot of things wouldn’t have happened without them.”

Beltan gave him a solemn look. Then, suddenly, the blond man grinned.

“Can we head into Castle City now? I want to see the new house. And I’m getting hungry.” He picked up the girl. “How about you, Nim? Are you hungry?”

“Yes!” she said, clapping her hands.

“That’s my daughter. Get in the truck, then.”

Beltan urged her on with a gentle push. She ran toward the pickup. Beltan gave Travis a quick kiss, then hurried after the girl. Grace sighed, watching the two run, the girl taking three strides for every one of the blond man’s.

“He’s a wonderful father,” she said. “Nim is lucky.”

“So am I,” Travis said. “I love him so much sometimes I almost can’t believe it’s possible.”

She smiled at him. “But it is.”

His gray eyes were thoughtful. “What about you, Grace? Will you ever find someone to love?”

Grace breathed in the cold air. On the journey through the desert, she had discovered she didn’t love Hadrian Farr. But in learning that, she had learned she couldlove. And she did. She looked at Travis, then let her gaze follow Beltan and Nim. Despite the chill, a warmth filled her.

“I already have found someone,” she murmured. “Some-ones.”

Travis watched her a moment, then he nodded. “So you have,” he said. “So you have.”

They walked back to the pickup, following Beltan and Nim. It was only after a moment that Grace realized Travis was singing in a low voice.

“We live our lives a circle,

And wander where we can.

Then after fire and wonder

We end where we began. . . .”

A chill gust caught the words, carrying them away. The four of them reached the truck. Grace climbed in and Nim scrambled onto her lap. Beltan slid behind the wheel, and Travis closed the passenger door. In the valley below, a collection of lights twinkled in the deepening dusk.

“All right, Beltan,” Travis said. “Take us home.”

The pickup pulled onto the highway, and the wind rattled through the witchgrass, blowing away across the mountains to places unknown.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

MARK ANTHONY learned to love both books and mountains during childhood summers spent in a Colorado ghost town. Later he was trained as a paleoanthropologist but along the way grew interested in a different sort of human evolution—the symbolic progress reflected in myth and the literature of the fantastic. He undertook this project to explore the idea that reason and wonder need not exist in conflict. Fans of The Last Runecan visit the website at http://www.thelastrune.com.

ALSO BY MARK ANTHONY

Beyond the Pale

The Keep of Fire

The Dark Remains

Blood of Mystery

Gates of Winter

THE FIRST STONE

A Bantam Spectra Book / August 2004

Published by

Bantam Dell

A Division of Random House, Inc.

New York, New York