Hawkmoon recognised the heron mask. It nodded once and Kalan shuffled into the next room and carefully closed the door. The figures stepped forward and Hawkmoon saw with joy that one of them was Yisselda. He hugged her in his arms and kissed her soft cheek.

“Oh, I feared that Kalan would trick us,” she said. “It was Queen Flana who found you, after she had ordered her troops to cease fighting. We were the last alive, Orland Fank and I, and we thought you dead. But Kalan brought you back to life, removed the jewel from your skull and dismantled the machine so that none may ever fear the power of the Black Jewel again.”

“And what business did you interrupt him in, Queen Flana?” Hawkmoon asked. “Why was he so disgruntled?”

“He was about to kill himself,” Flana said flatly. “I threatened to keep him alive forever if he did not do what he did.”

“D’Averc?” Hawkmoon said, puzzled. “Where is D’Averc?”

“Dead,” said the sad queen in the same flat voice. “Slain in the Throne Room by an over-zealous guard.”

Hawkmoon’s joy turned to gloom. “And are they all dead, thenCount Brass, Oladahn, Bowgentle?”

“Aye,” said Orland Fank, “but they died for a great cause and they freed millions from slavery. Until this day Europe has known only strife. Now perhaps people will seek peace, for they can see where strife leads.”

“Count Brass wished for peace in Europe more than anything,” Hawkmoon said. “But I wish he could have lived to see it.”

“Perhaps his grandson will see it,” Yisselda said.

“You need fear nothing from Granbretan as long as I am queen,” Flana told them, “I intend to leave Londra dismantled and meanwhile make my own town of Kanbery the capital. The wealth of Londrawhich is almost certainly greater than all the wealth of the rest of the worldshall be used in rebuilding the towns of Europe, in restocking the farms, of making good, as best we can, the evil we have done.” She drew off her mask, revealing that great, sad, beautiful head. “And, also, I shall abolish the wearing of masks.”

Orland Fank seemed sceptical, but he said nothing. “The power of Granbretan is broken for ever,” he said, “and the Runestaffs work is done.” He patted the bundle under his arm. “I’m taking the Sword of the Dawn, the Red Amulet and the Runestaff itself into safe-keeping, but if there should ever come a time, friend Hawkmoon, when you have a mutual need to rejoin each other, then you shall rejoin each other, I promise.”

“I hope the time does not come, Orland Fank.”

Fank sighed. “The world does not change, Dorian Hawkmoon. There is merely the occasional shift in equi

librium and if that shift goes too far in one direction, then the Runestaff attempts to right it. Perhaps the days of extremes are over for a century or two? I do not know.”