Hawkmoon laughed. “But you shouldyou are omniscient.”

Fank smiled. “Not I, my friend, but that which I servethe Runestaff.”

“Your sonJehemiah Cohnahlias…”

“Ah, there’s the mystery even the Runestaff will not answer.” Fank rubbed his long nose and looked at them, over it. “Well, I’ll say farewell, what’s left of you. You fought well and you fought for justice.”

“Justice?” Hawkmoon called after him as he left the room. “Is there such a thing?”

“It can be manufactured in small quantities,” Fank told him. “But we have to work hard, fight well and use great wisdom to produce just a tiny amount.”

“Aye,” Hawkmoon nodded. “Perhaps you are right.”

Fank laughed. “I know I am right.” And then he was gone. And his voice came back to Hawkmoon with just one last observation. “Justice is not The Law, it is not Order, as human beings normally speak of it; it is Equilibrium, the Correction of the Balance. Remember that, Sir Champion Eternal!”

Hawkmoon put his arm around Yisselda’s shoulders. “Aye, I will,” he murmured. “And now we return to Castle Brass, to make the springs flow again, to bring back the reeds and the lagoons, to bring back the bulls and the horses and the flamingoes. To make it our Kamarg once more.”

“And the power of the Dark Empire will never threaten it again.” Queen Flana smiled.

Hawkmoon nodded. “I am sure of that. But if some other evil should come to Castle Brass, I shall be ready for it, no matter how powerful it shall be, or in what form it will come. The world is still wild. The justice Fank spoke of has hardly been manufactured at all. We

must try to see that we can make a little more. Farewell, Flana.” Flana watched them leave and she was weeping.

THE END

of the High History of the

Runestaff