I paused again where the false White Rose had watched the battle. She was there still, very dead at a very young age. Her wizard friends had made her death harder by trying to save her from the Howlers disease.

So much for that. I looked back at the Tower, at the comet. She had won....

Or had she? What had she accomplished, really? The destruction of the Rebel? But he had become the instrument of her husband, an even greater evil. It had been he defeated here, if only he, she, and I knew that. The greater wickedness had been forestalled. Moreover, the Rebel ideal had passed through a cleansing, tempering flame. A generation hence....

I am not religious. I cannot conceive of gods who would give a damn about humanitys frothy carryings-on. I mean, logically, beings of that order just wouldnt. But maybe there is a force for greater good, created by our unconscious minds conjoined, that becomes an independent power greater than the sum of its parts. Maybe, being a mind-thing, it is not time-bound. Maybe it can see everywhere and everywhen and move pawns so that what seems to be todays victory becomes the cornerstone of tomorrows defeat.

Maybe weariness did things to my mind. For a few seconds I believed I saw the landscape of tomorrow, saw the Ladys triumph turning like a serpent and generating her destruction during the next passage of the comet. I saw a true White Rose carrying her standard to the Tower, saw she and her champions as clearly as if I were there that day myself....

I swayed atop that beast of Feathers, stricken and terrified. For if it were a true vision, I would be there. If it were a true vision, I knew the White Rose. Had known her for a year. She was my friend. And I had discounted her because of a handicap....

I urged the horses toward camp. By the time a sentinel challenged me I had regained enough cynicism to have discounted the vision. Id just been through too much in one day. Characters like me dont become prophets. Especially not from the wrong side.

Elmos was the first familiar face I saw. God, you look awful, He said. You hurt?

I could do nothing but shake my head. He dragged me off the horse and put me away somewhere and that was the last I knew for hours. Except that my dreams were as disjointed and time-loose as the vision, and I did not like them at all. And I could not escape them.

The mind is resilient, though. I managed to forget the dreams within moments of awakening.

Chapter Seven: ROSE

Chapter Seven: ROSE