In the Halls of Light, they spoke to him of the work ahead.

They stood in pillars of crystal, pale lavender or mottled silver. They themselves appeared as shafts of light, glinting inside their crystal towers. He himself was but a glimmer of light, a beam of sun, perhaps, glinting on a stream, flickering, uncertain. Yet he heard them.

“They have all been born,” they said in a thousand voices that were yet one voice, “those twisted souls you once failed, they who are called changelings. They have left behind the world of images, and they must learn now to live in the world of flesh, as children of the Westfolk, Children of Air. It is your task to help them learn. Will you remember?”

In the Halls of Light there are no lies.

“I will try to remember,” he said. “I will strive to remember.”

“You will be helped to remember. Aderyn, your name was once. You will learn to fly again.”

In the midst of the light a lack of light appeared, a shapeless thing, not a true darkness, for there can be no darkness in the Halls of Light, but still, it opened. He stepped to its edge. Among the crystal pillars a tiny flame of gold burned, quivering. He could hear its cry of pain.

“You’ll follow me, Evandar,” he said. “In due time you will follow me, and I shall father you a body. Dallandra’s child will be your mother, and she will cherish you. They have promised.”

“So we have,” they said. “Farewell and remember!”

He took one more step and fell, soaring, spiraling down and down through indigo light until he floated above a pair of golden auras that marked elven bodies. He recognized Valandario even in his disembodied state, because once she’d been his pupil in the dweomer. Deep within her body he perceived a dark knot of unensouled flesh, his body to come. For a moment he hesitated, remembering the freedoms of the Halls of Light. Courage! he told himself.

With a wrench of will he surrendered to the pull of the flesh. He sank down into the dark prison and slept.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

AUTHOR’S NOTE

I UNDERSTAND THAT SOME FEW things will vex readers if I leave them untold. Once Avain had flown free to her true home, Laz moved into her old tower, his refuge for the rest of his days as he unwound the evil wyrd his life as Alastyr had given him. Kov and Mara married and had the children the island demanded of them. And, speaking of offspring, during his meditations in the tower at Dragon Meadow, Salamander did remember that Hwilli had once been his mother and Rhodorix his father, all those long years before.

As for Angmar and Rhodry, they lived peaceably on their island for some years more, then died within a few days of each other. Kov and Marnmara laid them in each other’s arms on the same funeral pyre, so that their spirits could rise free of the dead flesh together. No doubt they were reborn at some time and place, but I for one know naught of what happened next, so you’d best not be asking me.