Author's Note: Because I love you all so much, and to apologize for taking so long to do the final revisions, I am giving you this brief epilogue. Besides, I just couldn't leave loose ends like that poor guy from chapter 6 unresolved!
It really wasn't Mikas' fault. Sure, he might have avoided the collision if he had been paying more attention to his surroundings, but the girl was the one who had been running much too fast for such a crowded street.
"Hey!" Mikas protested. "Watch where you're..."
Then he realized with horror that the fall had knocked off his hat. He grabbed for it, but it was too late. People all up and down the street were stopping to stare at him.
Hat in hand, he looked up at the girl who had knocked him over and his horror grew tenfold. Dainty, high-heeled shoes...frilly, pale gold dress embroidered with what looked like real gold...hands sparkling with rings...tiara... She was a noblewoman!
"I-I'm sorry, miss. I'll go now. Please don't call the guards," he whimpered, his long, grey ears drooping pathetically.
"Are you a chimera?" she asked. The tone of her voice made him look up again in surprise. Like her voice, her face contained no hint of fear or revulsion. She seemed simply curious.
"Um, yes. No! Sort of. I used to be. I guess I still am," Mikas answered confusedly.
"Used to be?" the girl repeated.
"Um, it's a long story. I'll just go now, okay?"
The girl swelled up with all the fury she had not shown at his odd appearance. "Tell me what happened to you!" she ordered.
"Okay!" the quivering man agreed quickly, ears flattened back. "Well, uh, I was once completely human but then a sorcerer turned me into a chimera. A few months ago, I met a guy who turned me human again. But then my ears turned back like this. I came to Seyruun to find a way to stop myself from turning back into a chimera. Um, I think that's everything."
"Who was the evil man who turned you into a chimera?" the girl demanded with blazing eyes. "Anyone who would rob an innocent man of his humanity deserves to be crushed by the full might of justice!"
"Um, his name was Diol," Mikas admitted.
The girl's rage shrank from mountainous to molehillish. "Oh, Diol. I already punished him."
"Um, Could you give me directions to the Sorcerer's Guild or a white magic temple?" the rabbit-eared young man ventured.
"That isn't necessary," the girl said. "I think I can fix it."
She looked Mikas over carefully through eyes narrowed in concentration. Apparently satisfied, she nodded to herself. "It's only the ears that are a problem. The rest of you is human down to the deepest essence," she announced.
She began waving her arms and chanting. Frozen with terror, Mikas stared, mesmerized, at her sparkling hands. One of her rings was set with a heart-shaped ruby surrounded by tiny diamonds. Another was a plain gold band. A third looked like it had been braided from three different coloured metals. A fourth had been carved from some blue-green stone. Many more caught the sunlight as her hands wove in complicated patterns, but his frozen mind refused to take them in.
A strange sensation not quite like tickling and not quite like pain crept over Mikas' ears. It started deep inside his ear canals and swept outward down the length of his ears. He went completely deaf for several seconds and when his hearing returned it was oddly muted. He put a hand to his unresponsive ear. Instead of the familiar furry softness, he felt the rigid curve of a human ear. He quickly put his other hand to his other ear. It was human too!
"Thank you! Thank you, thank you, thank you!" he shouted as the girl finished her chant.
She grinned. "You're welcome. It's always a pleasure to set things right."
"Will they stay human this time?" he asked, already knowing the answer.
"Yes," she said. "You are completely you in every part now. Just stay away from chimera makers." She helped him to his feet. "I really have to get back to United World meeting. I'm already late. Will you be okay?"
"Never better!" Mikas declared.
The beautifully dressed young woman started running up the street again.
When Devon looked out of his temple that morning, he saw a girl standing in front of the statue of Rezo. He leaned his elbows on the windowsill and watched her curiously. She was in her mid teens, if he was any judge. Her hair was an unusual dark, purplish-red and pulled back in a thick braid. Her outfit suggested that she was a novice in one of the city's larger temples. She was talking to the statue. From this distance, Devon couldn't make out what she was saying, but her soft, rich voice sounded sad.
At length, she bent down and placed a bouquet of flowers at the foot of the statue, and started to walk away.
"Is there a story behind those flowers?" Devon asked loudly.
The girl turned to look at him. "Pardon?"
Devon opened and shut his mouth a few times, his mind completely blank. The bronze face of the statue and the living face of the girl were identical. With one looming above the other, the resemblance was unmistakable. Even the way escaped wisps of hair flew out from the sides of the girl's face echoed the hairstyle of the statue. No, there was one vital difference between the two faces, Devon realized as the girl stared at him quizzically. Her eyes were open.
"Did you say something?" the girl asked again.
Devon pulled his wits together. "I was just asking why you're leaving flowers at the foot of the Red Priest."
The girl smiled shyly. "I do this every year on the anniversary of his death."
"That's today?" The girl nodded. "How long have you been doing it?"
"This is the first time, actually," the girl admitted. "He's been dead for three years but I only found out about it a few months ago."
"He's dead? He died only three years ago?" Devon was not sure whether he was more surprised by his patron sage's mortality or his longevity.
"Yes." The girl looked down at her feet with a combination of sorrow and shyness.
"What's your connection to him?" The resemblance was too strong to be a coincidence.
"I'm his great-granddaughter."
"Really? I didn't know he even had children."
"Not many people do." She smiled at him with that same combination of sorrow and shyness. "Um, I have to go now. I'm meeting my brother Zel for lunch."
He didn't think anything of the fact that she headed in the direction of the palace.
Alceste found the young man sitting at the other end of the library table rather disturbing. He wasn't sure exactly why. The young man wasn't doing anything extraordinary. He was simply copying a passage from an old tome into a notebook.
Perhaps it was something about the young man's concentration. He was focused on his task with an intensity that shouted of impatience kept in check by careful attention to accuracy. He was much too disciplined for a student working on an assignment or a junior mage doing research for a senior mage. Alceste was certain that whatever the young man was doing, he was doing entirely by his own desire.
There was something fierce about this young man, and fierce men were rare in the Atlas City Sorcerer's Guild. The Guild was full of clever, scheming men and intelligent, impractical men, but this young man looked like neither. There was something terribly straightforward and practical about him. He made Alceste think of swords.
Alceste shook off his fancies. He was letting his imagination run away with him again. His instincts about people were usually surprisingly accurate - a talent that had helped him to survive long enough to become the heir-apparent of the current guildmaster - but it was foolish to read so much into a simple frown of concentration. Despite the late Guildmaster Halcyform's extensive testing, Alceste had never shown any talent for telepathy.
His attention crept back to the young man at the far end of the table. What was it that made the youth seem so out of place? He was dressed appropriately in a grey-blue sorcerer's robe of a simple but traditional cut, perfectly proper clothing for a guild member. However, he had left the robe unfastened. Under the guise of getting another book from the shelf, Alceste surreptitiously found an angle from which he could see the rest of the young man's outfit. The open robe revealed a purple shirt, beige pants, a sword belt without a sword, and well-worn boots.
That solved the mystery. The man was a mercenary looking up information for his next job. He must be several steps above the average mercenary sorcerer both in power and in training if he had managed to pass the Sorcerer's Guild's demanding tests. And a swordsman as well. Interesting.
"What are you looking up?" Alceste asked casually, reseating himself at the table.
"Atalan," the young man replied without looking up.
"The lost island? The one that sank into the sea a thousand years ago, taking the secrets of the Ancients with it?" Perhaps Alceste had misjudged the boy if he was the type to chase foolish legends.
"It didn't sink," the youth replied coolly. "The Mazoku Barrier formed right on top of it. All the inhabitants must have died instantly but the buildings were preserved in perfect condition until the Barrier came down two years ago. I doubt it holds all the 'Lost Secrets of the Ancients', but it is a nearly intact Mazoku War era city. It should hold at least a few ancient secrets of value."
"How do you know all this about it?"
"I came across it when I was searching for...something different. It did not hold what I was looking for so I did not stay long. Now that I...have found what I was looking for, I plan to go back and take a better look."
"Do you think someone else may have plundered it by now?" Alceste asked in a tone of friendly concern.
The young man smiled grimly. "I doubt it. I walked for three days across burning desert and flew over the sea for another half day in order to reach it. That's counting from the morning I left the northernmost town south of the Barrier."
It took Alceste awhile to find a response to that. "If you already know where it is, what do you need from the book?" he said at last.
"This is the account of a man who visited the city when it was still alive," the adventurer explained. "It gives directions to the most important buildings. I would hate to spend a week digging in what I thought was the head temple only to discover that it was a bank containing only obsolete financial documents."
"And money."
"I'm more interested in magic than money. I find that coins are rarely valuable enough to be worth carrying over long distances." He put down his pen and whispered a spell over the page to dry the ink.
"The wandering life sounds fascinating," Alceste replied politely.
"Mm." The young man stared at the older one measuringly for a long moment before turning to go.
"Let me know what you find," Alceste called after him jovially.
The mercenary just waved good bye without looking back.