Epilogue
"You really should appoint a new custodian of dead souls."
"I suppose that this is your business as well."
"Indeed. We always had intercepting provinces. People dream of my
duties and wake in terror."
"And your duties send some to their worse nightmares, I've heard it
before. About your presence here, I had thought you were almost done."
"When the stars are right. The walls are already weak and they'll come
down."
"You WANT the walls to fall? It will be the shapeless war all over
again."
"I thought you liked nonexistence."
"In others, perhaps. The old ones as far beyond us as we are beyond the
mortals you shepard back to the Source and the Waste."
The Vagabond smiled
"You gave your word," Xalan insisted.
"As soon as I finish MY quest," Xina corrected smuggly.
"I am not playing word games this time."
"Sorry, not going to do it."
"Is this likely to take a long time?" Amethyst asked quietly.
"Well one's a control freak and the other's a brat, what do yo--" a large
rock flew into the dragon's head, causing him to topple backwards.
"I heard you!"
"Oh! Val-Kun!" Xina winced as Tinuviel rushed to the fallen dragon's
side. Jolrael and Xina glared at Val and Tinuviel respectively, the elf girl
blissfully unaware.
"I'm fine," Val spat, springing to his feet and away from Tinuviel before
fatigued tempers could flare further.
~Wait, if go visit Mom first, I could get V..err..away from her.~
~Hmm, if we escort Tinu back home, maybe I can get Val and Tinuviel
together.~
~They're both looking at me, this isn't good.~
~If Val takes them to their forest, it gets Tinuviel away from him.~
~Why is it so quiet all of a sudden?~
~ValkunissocutewhyisthatgirlsomeantohimohmythisiscertainlyaninterstingplantIwo
nderwhatitisblackpetalscrushingthemreleasessomesortofchemicalthatitchesthatsen
sationcamequicklyhowdoestouchworkanyway~
"Okay, okay, you win I'll go back home, but then I'm going back on the
road."
"Good, but first we should help escort Tinuviel back to her home."
"Don't worry about us, I can get her back home fine."
"And besides it would be much faster if Val were to just fly us back home
rather than walking."
"We can't just leave them here alone."
"Val-Kun don't go!"
"Amethyst and Jol can take care of themselves AND Tinuviel."
"I think I missed something." Amethyst sighed.
"I feel sick."
~You mean you still feel sick.~
"Whatever, I don't like this." If the sword had had eyes, they would
have been rolling. She stood up and started walking forward, tripping on a
rock and tumbling forward. "Ouch!" she gripped her knee and her hand came
away with a little blood where her knee had been scraped.
~Oh dear, it seems that spell purged you.~
"What? You mean I'm human again?"
~Apparently so.~
"This is great!"
~Excuse me~
"I'm NOT stuck in this adolescent body forever now! This wonderful,
great..." she jumped, landed and fell on her rear clutching her knee.
"...and painful." Then there was this loud growling noise. "What was that?"
~I believe it was your stomach.~
"Okay, what does that mean?"
~You were human once, not me.~
"I haven't been human in over six hundred years!!"
"Don't worry, dear," Martina whispered. "We'll make them pay, and then
we'll take the staff." Zangulus opened his eyes a crack, enough to see
Martina's green framed face hanging over him.
"I failed you," he whispered.
"It was my failure," she told him, biting down on the rage she felt.
"One which Zomalgustar has given me the power to correct." She lifted the
cauterized stump of his arm to her face and kissed it. He watched her smile
at him sweetly, just before she plunged a dagger into his chest. His eyes
widened in shock and then he fell limp. He became aware of lifting away from
his body, rising weightless into the sky shortly before a wave black power
clutched at his body and soul. Suddenly he was seeing out of his body again,
through slit pupiled-eyes. He pushed himself up, with two hands and looked
at the smuggly satisfied Martina.
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