The White Wolf's Son (44 page)

“It’s done,” said St. Odhran. “For now, it’s done.”

“Who is he?” I whispered. “What is he?”

“Merely another fragment of the whole.” St. Odhran sighed heavily as he knelt, cradling the dead man in his arms. “He’s served
his turn. As most of us have.” He looked down at the dead man. “Eh, Hawkmoon, old comrade?” And then, to my further amazement,
the white man began to fade until St. Odhran’s arms were empty. I felt I would never understand fully what had gone on here.
The Balance pulsed, alive, it seemed to me, with the souls of those who had died in its restoration.

St. Odhran stood up and went over to Jack. The look in his eyes seemed to be one of pity.

Turning her eyes from the Balance, Oona led me over to Jack and St. Odhran. We were all exhausted, and I was aching horribly.
She took St. Odhran’s hand.

He bowed and kissed her fingers. “Madame.” They seemed to share a secret moment.

“What’s this about?” I said. I suppose I was showing my “usual impatience,” as Mum and Dad call it, with other people’s intimate
moments.

“I’m sorry, little mademoiselle, if I appeared to disappoint you.” St. Odhran drew a deep breath and smiled with all his old,
sunny charm. “We told you, I think, that
each and every one of us had a specific part to play if we were to succeed in restoring the Balance and defeat those who’d
use it for evil.

“I elected to deceive our opponents by pretending to make a forgery of Elric’s sword, because a sword had to be introduced
into their equation. But the black sword I brought here was Mournblade, the twin of Stormbringer. The other, the white blade,
was the forgery. We had to make them think they were winning, or those four would never have gathered in this place for their
ceremony. We might never have been able to forestall ‘em as we did. It was a dangerous chance, of course, but we had to take
it. Everything was done according to careful calculations, considering all the risks. I couldn’t let
you
know the risk, or you would not have responded in the genuine way needed. There’s been nothing that’s happened, nothing that’s
been avoided, that wasn’t planned either by their side or ours. Our only grief was that while we tried to protect you at all
times, we gambled with the lives of our children. A very hard decision.

“We are engaged in a momentous war, and this has been the subtlest part of our strategy. We needed to make them become self-assured
and unguarded, to believe the real power was all theirs, before we could strike in unison. Hawkmoon’s advance, Colonel Bastable’s
aerial voyage, your capture, our arriving in time—everything was planned. Everything but that final scene. Those men—”

But I didn’t want him to tell me any more. I just couldn’t take it.

“I told them I wasn’t Jack’s twin,” I said lamely. I wasn’t entirely happy to hear I’d been used as a cat’s-paw.

“That’s right, you’re not,” said my grandmother. “I am. But those fools never did discover the true nature of time. They would
have done irreparable damage. Of course, I am not your mother’s mother, as you doubtless know. Your mother is one of our
adopted
children. Your grandfather and I wanted to lead normal lives as ordinary people. But I’m almost immortal, and your grandfather
was not. He was, however, the most courageous man I ever knew, and the sanest. And I’m proud of your father. We never planned
to have our own children, because we hoped to lift the family curse.”

“And did you?”

“Not really,” she said. With the same grieving air, she reached towards Jack and embraced him. “You’re my brother, Jack, as
you know. A near-immortal like our own mother and father. In time it will be impossible to tell us apart by our ages. Whatever
curves we followed in the moonbeam roads brought us out at a time a shade different from our original birthplace at the edge
of the Grey Fees.”

I saw then that Jack’s blind eyes were full of tears. I was so touched for him that I didn’t realize myself that I was beginning
to fall in love.

“Now Gaynor’s soul is trapped in the Black Sword,” said St. Odhran, “and the sword is more powerful, ready for the task it
is to perform in Elric’s world. The rest of Gaynor’s physical substance is scattered and transformed. Yet it must be recognized
that another Gaynor will come eventually, and another, to be first an idealist, a champion fighting for our great cause, and
then a renegade, prepared to commit any savagery, any cruelty, any treachery, to win power over that which he once served.
But for the moment our business is done. Now only Elric
lives on in his own world, to call upon his sword for that one final time, when he will bear it against the overwhelming forces
of Chaos and seek, with the Horn of Fate, to herald in the dawn of another age.”

I was still wary of St. Odhran. I’m not one to bear a grudge, but I do have a strong sense of justice when someone’s done
me a wrong. “You pushed me,” I said. “Twice.”

He shook his head and straightened himself. “God love us, mademoiselle, but I’d relied upon you staying put. So then I had
to come searching for you in the hope I’d find you before someone else did. Then, when I did discover you near one of the
old elevator shafts which acts these days to ventilate this place, I had all those troops around me and was watched from afar
by Taragorm as well. All I could do was push you into that shaft, knowing that at least I’d know where to find you. I was
trying to buy time. I had not thought you’d escape the city, certainly not that you’d get across the river which runs overhead
now. You showed more resilience and courage, the pair o’ you, than anything I credited you with. And that was a fair bit.”

“It’s true,” said Oona. She smiled, but she was still sad. Perhaps she missed her father. “We were in league. That, of course,
was how I was able to rescue Jack and come and go from Countess Flana’s apartments.”

“Why was Flana involved with Klosterheim and the others?”

“In her case, a certain ambition to be queen, but mainly nothing more than boredom. She found solace in intrigue, since she
never found it in human company. She paid a high price for her distractions. Don’t grieve for her, young lady. She’d never
known love and had seen twelve
husbands come and go. Some of them went painfully and reluctantly. She would never have known what love was, I’m sure.” Oona
looked up, shrugging. “She might well have welcomed her death as another adventure.”

It sounded a bit morbid to me. I had liked poor Countess Flana in spite of her part in my imprisonment.

From out of the shadows came a familiar and welcome figure. Lord Renyard looked flustered but highly delighted. His dandy
pole clutched under one arm, he put his paws around me in an awkward, strong, and entirely affectionate embrace. His expression
changed, however, as he addressed the others. His tone became urgent.

“We must leave here,” he said. “We have only a few hours at best.”

“But Londra’s defeated,” I said. “Isn’t it?”

Lord Renyard shook his shaggy head. “Far from defeated. The diversion we created here allowed Londra’s troops to remarshal
against their enemy. Seeking you proved a useful distraction, which is another reason I didn’t want you to be found. The death
of this lot and of King Huon allowed the soldiers to rally under fresh leadership. Lobkowitz and Fromental are gone, vanished
from a world they helped create. We can only hope they’re safe. Hawkmoon’s dead, and his dimension-shifting crystal lost.
A badly wounded Count Brass has fallen back across the Silver Bridge.

“The Dark Empire controls the city again and will defeat us if we cannot give the Balance time to restore itself. Huon may
be dead, but Meliadus has merely disappeared. Some believe he’ll return and make himself king. Count Brass is content to leave
the Empire confined within her island home and reach an armistice. Like most old soldiers, he wants as little bloodshed as
possible. He
was always given to seeing the Empire as a bringer of order and justice to disparate nations.”

“But that’s a mistake,” I said.

“That’s what Colonel Bastable thinks,” declared Lord Renyard with a frown.

“He still means to bomb the city?” St. Odhran demanded urgently.

“I believe so, sir. That’s why he let me and the Kakatanawa off the ship. So we could tell you and help you get away if necessary.
A mighty infernal machine, I gather.”

“Oh, mighty indeed,” said Oona, suddenly alert again. “He’s going to drop an atom bomb on Londra.”

“There has to be a way of stopping him,” I said reasonably as my mind reeled. Sorcery and atom bombs? How were they able to
accept all this at the same time? “Can’t you get an ornithopter up there to signal to Colonel Bastable?”

“It would take too long,” said Oona. “Besides, they’ll be at a far greater altitude than any ornithopter could reach.” She
frowned. “That’s what he was building in Mirenburg. In case our other plans failed. As Count Brass retreats, he believes we
face defeat. We can’t contact that airship …”

“The HMAS
Victoria,”
said St. Odhran softly to himself, and shook his head.

“A nuclear blast will stop them forever,” I murmured, overawed.

“I doubt it,” said St. Odhran, “but by Bastable’s logic it will give Europa time to recover thoroughly and ensure the Dark
Empire does not threaten others for many centuries to come. You’ll recall what brought about the
Tragic Millennium? And it was after that the Empire emerged …”

“Come, my dear friends. Colonel Bastable was adamant. We have to leave at once.” Lord Renyard’s yap was shrill with anxiety.
“He insists we couldn’t possibly survive such a blast. If nothing else happened to us, the river would flood in and drown
us. Hurry, my friends. Hurry!”

“What about the Balance?” I asked. “Who’s going to look after it?”

“The Balance has gathered all its elements together,” said Oona. “And they are, anyway, primarily symbolic. The blast will
only facilitate its restorative powers. He’s right, young lady; we’d better get moving.”

“But it
hasn’t
got all its elements,” I pointed out. “They never had the right twins, and there’s still the Runestaff! Am I the only one
to see that? What about our blood? Taragorm and Bous-Junge would have won if they’d had everything properly sorted.”

“I doubt that, dear.” Oona sighed and reached out her hand to me. “The Runestaff doesn’t exist, you see. It’s a myth, that’s
all. A myth common to many of the worlds where the Dark Empire has had an influence. Just another image and a word to describe
the Grail, which takes many forms. We were hoping to delay them a little further by letting them think they needed it, but
my guess is, they knew instinctively they could go ahead without it.” She smiled at me. “You were in even greater danger than
you ever knew! Most of us were.”

“Look,” murmured St. Odhran. “Will you look?”

There, growing before our eyes, hung the Cosmic Balance, the sword embedded in the great emerald, the cups suspended from
the sword’s wide crosspieces, an aura of
pale blue-green fire flickering around it. A sight so profound, so awesome, I almost felt I should kneel in front of it, the
way you do in a church.

Oona interrupted this reverie. “Quickly,” she said, “I promise you the Balance is now beyond harm. We have done our work.
Come.”

Then, with Jack’s help, Oona led us back the way she and Elric had come: a series of winding tunnels, below Londra. But we
didn’t go back into Londra. Eventually we entered another system of caverns, untouched by the artistry of the Dark Empire,
where the walls were entirely illuminated by moss and slender streams of phosphorescent water running between high banks.
Jack had an instinct for the best places to ford, listening carefully and then leading us forward. Patches of pastel moss
glowed here and there in the distant roof, giving the impression of ancient stars.

Soon we had left that awful amphitheater far, far behind. I, for one, was relieved it was going to be destroyed.

“This is beginning to look familiar,” I said as we stopped to rest and eat. Oona nodded. “You
have
been in Mu-Ooria before, haven’t you? We’ve reached the borders of their land. They are not the only folk who live underground,
but for the most part they exist in peace with the other inhabitants. Peace, they find, ensures their longevity. Generally
speaking, it seems fair to argue that those who live by the sword generally do die by it as well.” And she sighed. She seemed
to be recollecting her earlier sorrow.

Lord Renyard hadn’t noticed any change in her expression. He came and stood beside us, looking out over the eerie planes of
that extraordinarily beautiful nightscape. “I will lead you from here,” he said. He
pointed with his pole. “That way lies Mirenburg, drowned beneath a lake of mercury, where once I studied the French.” He pointed
in another direction. “There lies the road I took when I was a cub, seeking a route to Paris, where I might discourse with
my heroes. And this way”—again he pointed in a new direction—“lies Ingleton.”

So I
was
going home. At last! I could hardly believe it. In fact I would not
completely
believe it for a while!

As I babbled my thanks to Lord Renyard and to Jack, Anayanka, one of the Kakatanawa, stepped forward and spoke to Oona. It
was clear they had decided to leave us. “They know the way home from here,” she told us. After a dignified and affectionate
leave-taking, they made their way across a glowing field of moss and disappeared into darkness.

A little later we saw a herd of white buffalo being stalked by a pack of equally white panthers. I thought I caught Oona casting
a wistful glance towards the panthers. What had happened to her own companion? Had she been left behind? I asked.

“No.” Oona smiled. “She’s perfectly safe.”

Led by Lord Renyard and Jack, who was well adapted for the World Below, we traveled on foot for at least a couple of days,
when suddenly the big cavern we were in shook with a long tremor which I feared must be another earthquake. Was I really never
going to reach Ingleton?