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To him she would be as an Oddling as the Hassitti a strange creature with no touch of com-mon
life. He was already gone, back to leave his likeness to stand guard on the way to Yatlan. Already he
must have vanished beyond time.
She fought her battle lying there fought and knew she could not win. Wounds healed, but there were
scars always left behind. When she had been with him she had never truly realized this change in herself.
It was only when he had faltered under the attack of the Dark One, when she believed him gone, that the
truth had come upon her, to be strengthened and rooted deep now as she lay in this craft upon the river.
Well, she was no weakling; Kadiya believed she had proved that. One can live even with painful
memories. Time passed and she was caught again in the flow of time.
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The other Guardians those of the stairway were gathered on two other Uisgu craft which swept
along before the one which carried Kadiya. They made no attempt to speak to her when they camped,
keeping to themselves. She wondered if they were not already half withdrawn back into their timeless
paradise. Nor did she seek out their company, for even eyeing them made her aware of the ever
thickening barrier between them and the peo-ple of the swamp.
Strength returned. Kadiya ate what the healer urged upon her, listened to the Uisgu reports of how their
clans were now hunting stray Skritek back to their own noisome territory. Perhaps the Drown-ers had
suffered such a defeat that they need not be a danger for some time to come. But that did not mean that
scouts and patrols would not prowl along the borders to check on them. That they would always be a
peril, Kadiya accepted.
When their party had to leave the boats she was well able to march cross country. To her inward re-lief
they did not take the road of the Guardians. She never wanted to look again upon Lamaril's likeness
frozen forever into mud-daubed stone.
As they entered Yatlan itself the Vanished Ones lengthened stride to a pace which left the rest of them
well behind. They passed along the edge of the pool quickly, but Kadiya trod determinedly at their heels.
Though she no longer had any touch with them, she felt that she must see the end of the magic she had
been given to work.
They shed their armor on the steps, leaving it in a tangle as if they had kicked it aside, unwilling to ever
see it again. One of the helms rolled and fell to the lowest step near Kadiya's feet. The Vanished Ones
fitted themselves into the same stance from which the trillium pollen had awakened them.
Then the life was gone out of them, snuffed as if a lamp had been blown out. They stood, even as
they had for centuries, though they were nothing but the likeness of those she had seen alive only
moments earlier.
Hassitti scurried about her, swarming in upon the discarded armor, then trotting off again, carrying bits of
it as insects might dismember a dead thing, stripping it to the bones.
Kadiya came forward slowly. On each step she turned left and then right to face the Guardians. She
tried to remember names, but some she had never really heard, those which had kept themselves more
aloof from the Oddlings.
The blank eyes made her shiver, yet she forced herself to look at each. Yes, they were gone all of
them and she was very sure that they would never return. The world ravaged by their mighty war so
long ago was rebuilding itself in another pattern, one which would mean nothing to them. She
re-membered that rich and peaceful land beyond the wall. Ruwenda had been like that once, but there
was no returning, any more than she could again fit herself into the person of a daughter in her father's
vanished court.
What she was now, she must discover. Kadiya thought that that was going to be a long and painful task.
She had almost arrogantly claimed the mires for her own and thus she took on responsibility. Foresee
Salin had that Power, a little. Kadiya shook her head. No, where there was no immediate danger she
would not ask foresight from the wise-woman. Let each day bring what it had to offer and she would
meet it as best she could.
She slipped the sword from its sheath. There was no life in it. The orbs were as sealed shut as if they had
never been open. This part of her life was in-deed finished. The amulet hung like a pretty bauble on her
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breast. She could see the black trillium within but it had no spark of life-fire.
Kadiya took off her own helm, left it on the steps. The mail still clothed her, but the Hassitti would have
other clothing more in keeping for one who was no longer a warrior.
She crossed between the columns and came step by step down to the garden. It was beginning dusk
the spark insects were starting to weave their pat-terns about the flowers whose heady scent thickened
the shadows.
With the sword in both hands Kadiya once more came to that patch of barren soil. She raised the blade
high enough to give force and drove it down. The fact that it lacked a point did not deter its en-trance,
the ground seemed eager to accept it.
She sat back on her heels waiting. There was a glow, faint at first, deepening, concealing blade and hilt.
A flower was being born such a flower as she had seen in another place, another time. No black
trillium this, but one of gold, completely encasing the sword. It moved as if some breeze touched it lightly,
and pollen shook free in a rainbow shower.
Kadiya gasped in awe. And then she stiffened, for there fell a weight on each of her shoulders. Hands
She turned slowly and looked up. He was kneel-ing, too, but his greater height made him loom over her.
"Lamaril!" Her lips, suddenly dry, shaped his name even if she did not utter it aloud.
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